Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Up to 5 minutes?

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the resolution before us, which really ought to be titled the ``Kleptocrat Relief Act.'' My Republican colleagues today are trying to repeal a critical bipartisan rule initiated by Senator Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, and Senator Cardin, a Democrat from Maryland. It is a critical bipartisan rule to prevent corruption. This transparency rule is part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law. It is one of the best anti-corruption tools that President Trump now has to keep his promise to, in his words, ``drain the swamp'' in Washington and around the world. But now, in just week 2 of his Presidency, Republicans are racing to use an obscure law called the Congressional Review Act to wipe it out. The CRA was not intended to hand a new President the power to roll back regulations that protect workers, protect the environment, protect investors, and protect consumers. In this case, Republicans are using the CRA to target rules that have gone through extensive years-long administrative and public review, including on issues that agencies were specifically ordered by this Congress to study and address. Republicans' unprecedented use of the CRA is not about Congress performing due diligence or agency oversight, it is a gross abuse of power to make their big corporate allies happy. I heard my friend from Idaho talk about the Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute. That is just a start. The rule they are trying to repeal protects U.S. citizens and investors from having millions of their dollars vanish into the pockets of corrupt foreign oligarchs. It does that by requiring all oil, gas, and mineral companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges to disclose the royalties and the bonuses and the fees and the taxes and other payments they make to foreign governments. This kind of transparency is essential to combating waste, fraud, corruption, and mismanagement, as Senator Isakson talked about the poverty he sees in these resource-rich countries. Yet Rex Tillerson, whom this body just, I believe yesterday, confirmed with a pretty much partisan vote--Rex Tillerson and congressional Republicans want to strip it away. Rex Tillerson, in his years as CEO of ExxonMobil--and we will talk about that in a moment-- strongly opposed this rule, almost by himself, with ExxonMobil as the head of that company. At Mr. Tillerson's confirmation hearing, Senator Kaine from Virginia introduced into the record a 2008 report by Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff. That report was the basis--Republican staff, I assume at the behest of Senator Lugar and others--that report was the basis for what eventually became section 1504 of Dodd-Frank, known as the bipartisan Cardin-Lugar amendment to fight corruption in mineral- rich developing countries. That report concluded that many resource- rich countries are poor because their vast mineral resources often breed corruption. That corruption lines the pockets of the kleptocrats--read ``thieves''--increases poverty, increases hunger, and increases instability. As Senator Lugar said: Paradoxically, history shows that rather than a blessing, energy reserves can be a bane for many poor countries, leading to fraud, corruption, wasteful spending, military adventurism and instability. Too often, oil money that should go to a nation's poor ends up in the pockets of the rich or is squandered on the trappings of power and massive showcase projects instead of being invested productively and equitably. That is called the resource curse. It prevails all over the world today. For example, oil-rich Venezuela is running out of food and medicine. Resource-rich Nigeria is in an economic mess wracked by terrorism and poverty. Armed groups have fought for years over mineral wealth in the Congo and elsewhere in Africa. Resource-rich countries in Asia have similar problems. The natural resource sector in so many countries is famously corrupt--the world's single most corrupt industry, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. But oil companies can no longer hide behind the excuse of confidentiality. Increasingly, companies are expected to disclose what they pay in taxes and other payments to governments whose natural resources they extract. That is what this language from Senator Lugar, Senator Cardin, and Senator Leahy did. That is what the rule does. That is what we should do. This Congress wants to undo that. This is now required under the laws of the United States and 30 other countries, as well as international initiatives. In other words, what we did here was followed by 30 other countries, and a number of more responsible energy companies, I would say, passed this language and began to implement these laws. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative is a global standard that aims to put information about government revenues from natural resource deals into the public domain in 51 countries, including ours. This includes telling us what taxes the companies pay, which is key to ensuring citizens know what benefits they get--from Venezuela or Nigeria or Congo--from their own natural resources. Let me offer some concrete examples of the kind of corruption we are talking about. This just turns your stomach. In Equatorial Guinea, according to anti-corruption groups, oil companies, including Exxon, have had a long history of problems on this front. The regime of President-for-life Obiang, who executed his brutal uncle to gain power almost 40 years ago, has been tarnished with allegations of corruption, cronyism, brutal political repression, routine human rights violations, and drug trafficking for years and years. Years ago, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report and held a public hearing which revealed that a number of oil companies--again, ExxonMobil; they keep coming up in this--were making direct payments into an account in the name of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea located at Riggs Bank in Washington, DC. Virtually all of the money in the account, tens of millions of dollars, consisted of royalties and other payments from oil companies, primarily--surprise--ExxonMobil, to the country of Equatorial Guinea for the right to explore and produce oil in that country. But instead of paying the money to the government or the national treasury of Equatorial Guinea, the companies sent the money to the account at Riggs Bank. That account was controlled by President-for-life Obiang and two of his relatives. The account signatories were the President-for-life, his son, and his nephew. Imagine that. Instead of paying the national treasury, the oil companies made payments into this account in another country, controlled by a dictator and his relatives. I can't believe we in this body support that. How could the citizens of Equatorial Guinea know how much royalty money was coming in for their oil in their country and where it was going when it was in a secret account controlled by a dictator? The answer, obviously, is they couldn't. The report from the PSI--the committee that investigated--documented that some of the funds from that account were used to make suspicious transactions. The United States then investigated the President-for- life's family finances. Prosecutors noted that President-for-life Obiang's son ``received an official government salary of less than $100,000 a year but used his position and influence as a government minister to amass more than $300 million worth of assets through corruption and money laundering.'' He paid himself $100,000 but found a way to amass $300 million more--all in violation of the laws of his country and our country both. In 2014, the son settled a case brought by Federal prosecutors. He agreed to sell his $30 million mansion in Malibu, his Ferrari, and various items of Michael Jackson memorabilia he had collected. The New York Times reported earlier this month that he is still working to delay his trial on corruption charges in France, where prosecutors say he amassed a personal fortune of $115 million, which he used to indulge his tastes. When he served as Agriculture Minister of Equatorial Guinea, prosecutors say he used his influence over the timber industry--next to oil, the most important export industry in the country--to line his pockets. Last November, prosecutors in Switzerland seized luxury cars belonging to him, and last month, at the request of the Swiss, the Dutch authorities seized his 250-foot, $100 million yacht named the ``Ebony Shine'' as it was about to sail to Equatorial Guinea. He said the yacht belonged to his country's government. All the while, his people are starving. You can't make this stuff up. If the bill before us were adopted, the Obiang family would be celebrating. They would be celebrating in Washington, in California, and in Equatorial Guinea. In Nigeria, again according to Global Witness, a major oil deal struck by--surprise--ExxonMobil with the Nigerian Government is being investigated by Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, a law enforcement agency that investigates high-level corruption. The probe centers on a protracted and controversial deal agreed to by ExxonMobil and the Nigerian Government in 2009 to renew three lucrative oil licenses, which at the time accounted for around a quarter of Nigeria's entire oil production. ExxonMobil agreed to pay $600 million to renew the licenses and construct a powerplant at a cost of $900 million to the company, making a total contribution of $1.5 billion. Yet documents suggest that the Nigerian Government may have valued the licenses at $2.5 billion and that the Chinese oil company CNOOC offered to pay $3.7 billion for the same licenses--over six times the amount reportedly paid by ExxonMobil. Other incredible and notorious examples abound. It would be reason enough for us to act to try to help the millions of people around the world who are victims of this corporate collusion, but in today's world, the resource curse doesn't just impact far-off countries; it affects Americans every day. It has empowered anti-American dictators in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, situations which cost American lives and American taxpayer dollars. It worsens global poverty, which can be a seedbed and a fertile growing ground for terrorism against us and our allies. It leads to the instability that threatens global oil supplies. It raises gas prices at home. That is why we need this rule--all of the above--to protect American national security interests by combating the corruption and secrecy, with all these oil companies at the table with them. That has caused conflict, instability, and violent extremist movements in Africa and the Middle East. As ISIS has demonstrated, nonstate actors benefit from trading natural resources in order to finance their terrorist operations. Despite all this, the Republican-led House of Representatives, as Senator Crapo said, voted yesterday to repeal this bipartisan initiative--an initiative that holds Big Oil accountable and protects the American people. Today, the Senate Republican leadership is following suit. It is a little ironic in light of the fact that Candidate Trump, at almost every rally in my State, almost every rally in State after State after State where he was campaigning, talked about draining the swamp. Since the rule's creation, ExxonMobil, led by Mr. Tillerson--now the Secretary of State--and Big Oil allies, such as the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Heritage Foundation, have fought to kill it. Who else opposes this rule besides Senate Republicans, House Republicans, and President Trump? There are the autocrats in Russia. We know about the connections between Russia and the Secretary of State. We don't know quite enough about the connections between our President and President Putin because we can't get the President's tax returns. We know something is going on. Everybody knows it. Nobody knows quite what. Who else opposes it? Autocrats in Iran, where Advisor Flynn made some interesting and provocative comments today, autocrats in Venezuela, autocrats in Africa with oil wells, gasfields, or copper mines who want to keep their payments a secret. It is working for them. It is working for the autocrats. It is working for Exxon. Apparently it is working for Republicans in the House and Senate too. I am not sure exactly how, but I know it is working. More than 30 countries--mostly the United States, Canada, and European nations--have adopted similar anti-corruption standards. Senator Lugar, Senator Leahy, and Senator Cardin's law passed as part of Dodd-Frank, and the SEC is adopting this rule. More than 30 other countries in the world followed our lead, and some of the more responsible oil companies were prepared to comply. So to be clear, with Europe and Canada in the same disclosure system, the playing field is now level. It is working. Many companies already report such payments under European rules and are doing just fine, so this is hardly causing them undue burdens in the regulatory framework that my colleagues like to talk about. That is why many in industry support the rule, despite the actions of Exxon, the bad actor here, and the CEO of Exxon--now, amazingly, our Secretary of State. BP and Shell--two major, large oil companies--have publicly endorsed payment reporting and lining up U.S. rules with those in other markets. Foreign and state-owned oil companies from China and Brazil, including CNOOC, PetroChina, Sinopec, and Brazil's Petrobras, are required to disclose under U.S. rules, leveling the playing field for U.S. companies. Gazprom, Rosneft, BP, and Shell already report under UK rules. The largest mining companies in the world, including Newmont Mining, BHP Billiton, and Rio Tinto, have supported similar reporting. Oil, gas, and mining workers unions, such as United Steelworkers, back the rule. Notice who doesn't back the rule: Exxon, the American Petroleum Institute, and autocrats in Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. Investors also support it--including investor groups with $10 trillion under management--so they can better understand and manage the reputational, expropriation, sanction, and other risks facing firms in which they invest. It is supported by the American Catholic bishops, the Presbyterian Church--all kinds of religious groups. Who is against it? Republicans in the House, Republicans in the Senate, the President of the United States, ExxonMobil, the Secretary of State, who used to be CEO of ExxonMobil, and autocrats in Iran and Venezuela. We get the picture. All these groups who care about justice, who care about fair play, who care about doing business with predictable and fair rules, like BP and Shell, all of them support it--Global Witness, the ONE Campaign, Oxfam, and Publish What You Pay. We need to be clear on one other thing my friend from Idaho said: This rule won't cost a single American job. Everything oil companies can legally do today is still allowed under the anti-corruption rule. They only have to do one more thing: They have to report their numbers to the Securities and Exchange Commission. How can that cost millions of dollars? The Cardin-Lugar rule makes Big Business and government more transparent, fights corruption, and does it all without hurting taxpayers. It is a creative approach to global problems that our leaders did embrace until we had a President who wants to ``drain the swamp,'' he says--should be embracing, not rejecting at the behest of just a few actors. Again, who is lobbying to overturn this rule? It is autocrats around the world. It is Exxon. It is the American Petroleum Institute. It is a very small number of companies, when so many people are on the other side. If we repeal this measure today, shareholders, investors, and poor communities around the world will continue to see their money and natural resources stolen by crooked oligarchs. We will be undoing the moral leadership. This is in so many ways a moral question that Senator Cardin, Senator Lugar, and Senator Leahy brought to us bipartisanly, with broad support by both parties. We will be turning a blind eye to corruption, we will be betraying our principles, and we will be undercutting our allies in Europe and Canada who followed our lead and crafted their own rules based on ours. Under the terms of the Congressional Review Act, any future ``substantially similar'' rule will be forever prohibited from being written by the SEC. That makes no sense. I hope this effort fails. I know my Republican colleagues understand this because enough of my colleagues recognize the merits of this anti- corruption measure and they refuse to kowtow to the dinosaur wing of Big Oil. It is not even all of Big Oil; it is the dinosaur wing of Big oil. It is the autocrats. It is the American Petroleum Institute. It is the Chamber of Commerce. It is ExxonMobil. I thank Senator Cardin and Senator Leahy for their work, and I thank former Senator Lugar from Indiana for the important work he did on this measure.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of my friend from Alaska--also from Cleveland--and those of my friend from Cincinnati, Senator Portman, about opioids. I appreciate his leadership in my State, the work he has done, and the work we have done together on opioid addiction. It is a tragedy, and I don't go much of anywhere in the State without finding someone who is affected, someone who is addicted in a family, or a close friend who has died. As Senator Portman said, Ohio has more opioid deaths than any State in the country. We are the seventh largest State, but the State with the most deaths. It is troubling, and clearly we are not dealing with it as well as we should. Mr. President, I rise to close the debate on this motion today on the Congressional Review Act to wipe out the SEC rule. I rise in opposition to the bill, as a number of colleagues on my side of the aisle have very strong feelings on it. With the exception of my friend from Idaho, the chairman of the Banking Committee, there weren't many Republicans who wanted to come to the floor for this, in part because I think it is just the supporters they have on their side don't make you want to rush to the floor and support them. Some called this the Kleptocrat Relief Act. I will give you a real quick history before I wrap up. There is a provision in Dodd-Frank to deal with giving the President and others the best anticorruption tools we could have around the world, where countries that have lots of natural resources have been countries with all the wealth from natural resources. They are some of the most corrupt governments with some of the worst poverty anywhere on Earth. This legislation in Dodd-Frank, and the rule that came out of it from the SEC, was going a long way to preventing corruption. What we saw was the support. Thirty countries in the world followed suit from our country. The companies that were affected, with a few very notable exceptions, were beginning to do what they knew they needed to do and should have done and that the rule called for. As a result, we were going in the right direction until this new administration, this new Congress. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record relevant letters from investors.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, on one side of this argument, one side of this rule, we see in the end--and this kind of sums it up. We have these 30 countries that followed us and passed the rules and the laws the same as we did. We have on our side, the American Catholic Bishops, the Conference of Bishops, the Presbyterian Church, groups like the One Campaign and Oxfam--public interest groups that made their mission trying to end corruption and deal with the economic and social distress and devastation brought on by some of these companies and some of these kleptomaniacal--for want of a better term--governments. That is on the one side. On the other side, we have my Republican friends in the Senate and House. We have Rex Tillerson, the new Secretary of State, who lobbied vigorously and unceasingly against this rule as president of Exxon. We have Exxon on the other side. We have the Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute. And on that side for this bill--against the rule--we have autocrats in places like Russia, Iran, Venezuela. You can bet on this vote tomorrow morning, if 7 a.m. comes out the way it looks like it will, you can bet there will be celebrations in Russia, in Iran, and Venezuela, in all these countries where these kleptocrats, where these leaders who are so corrupt, where they benefited so much. I think that really sums it up, how important it is that we defeat this bill, how important it is that this President, who came to town and has been in office less than about 2 weeks, his second week in office--his campaign was all about drain the swamp, and one of the first things he did, with his Republican House and Senate Members following along like sheep, they have done this. It is just incredible how they moved so quickly to side with the autocrats, to side with the Russians, to side with Big Oil, to side with ExxonMobil and these autocrats in places like Iran and Russia. It is not a good commentary on this body. I am sorry to see it. I ask my colleagues to vote no. I yield back my time.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to discuss what happened in the Finance Committee today--or what didn't happen in the Finance Committee today. Two newspapers--one, the Columbus Dispatch, one of Ohio's best and most conservative newspapers, and the Wall Street Journal, one of this country's most conservative newspapers--reported that the two nominees in front of the Senate Finance Committee had lied to the committee. Treasury Secretary-Designee Mnuchin had lied when asked if his bank, OneWest, had done robo signings; he said no. The Columbus Dispatch investigative reporters found, in fact, that they had done robo signings, and they found that dozens--probably hundreds, maybe thousands--of Ohioans lost their homes. A woman named Miss Duncan, who had paid her mortgage month after month, was doing everything right. She was foreclosed on--not anything of her doing--and her financial life was turned upside down. The Wall Street Journal reported that Congressman Price, the designee for Health and Human Services, had lied about insider information he had. He had advantages that other investors didn't have in buying health care stocks as he sat on the health care committee in the House, as he voted, as he wrote amendments and bills dealing with health care. These are nominees for agencies--the two most important economic agencies in the Federal Government, probably, at least in the Cabinet-- who have lied about things that affect people's lives. It is hundreds of people--thousands, maybe, in my State. We are not even the largest State on foreclosures caused by OneWest. Thousands, hundreds of thousands--who knows how many around the country, as he will not tell us yet--have lost homes because of his and his bank's actions, making him wealthier, to be sure, but upending people's lives in the cruelest kind of way when their homes are foreclosed on. We are saying to Senator Hatch, the chairman of the Finance Committee: Get some answers here. Find out why these two nominees lied, and find out what they are going to do to fix it. Find out what they have in their backgrounds that they haven't disclosed to this committee. We have no business voting on nominees before we have that kind of information. That is the reason that Democratic Senators of the Finance Committee, led by Ranking Member Wyden, decided not to come to the committee to vote today--because it is the only way we can get Senator Hatch to bring those two forward to give us the information and to give the American public the information they need. I might add that we probably did President Trump a favor today, because if these two nominees had been brought forward--and I assume confirmed, because Republicans are voting for every nominee, it seems, no matter what; I haven't seen a break from that yet--they may have come to the floor and have been confirmed, and there likely would have been a scandal early in the Trump Administration and in the Treasury Department and Health and Human Services Department--two incredibly important agencies. I think that we, perhaps, in some sense, saved President Trump from himself and the damage that his nominees could do. I don't expect appreciation or thanks from the White House on this, but I do think this is an issue that should be taken care of before they head two of the most important and largest--if not largest, two of the most important--Federal agencies. I yield back my time.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the city of Cleveland lost a committed public servant last week, Officer David Fahey. Officer Fahey dedicated his career to protecting our community and was tragically killed in the line of duty in a senseless hit-and-run. A Navy veteran, Officer Fahey followed in the footsteps of his mother and his stepfather, both retired Cleveland police officers, and his brother Chris, an officer who joined the force in 2013. At a memorial last week, his brother said that Officer Fahey ``loved this neighborhood; he loved working for this neighborhood and he loved this city, and he loved working for this city.'' And our city has given his family an outpouring of support. A crowd of some 200 people gathered outside the First District police headquarters for a vigil. Fellow officers from the Cleveland Police Academy's 133rd graduating class came out to honor their classmate's memory. They prayed together, calling him their brother, their friend, and their angel. That spirit of community represents the best in our city that Officer Fahey loved and served. Connie and I extend our deepest sympathies to Officer Fahey's family and fellow officers. We pray that this outpouring of support and comradery brings them comfort during this difficult time. We join our fellow Clevelanders in thanking David Fahey for his service to our community.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. How am I recorded?

Mr. BROWN. On behalf of 700,000 Ohioans losing their insurance, I vote no.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Hatch amendment. Because of the Affordable Care Act, more than 2 million children have health insurance today that did not have it prior to the Affordable Care Act. In my State, Governor Kasich, a Republican, who is a friend of mine and of many of us in this Chamber, has said that he has admonished his Republican colleagues to not repeal the Affordable Care Act without an immediate replacement. Governor Kasich expanded Medicaid. As a result, 700,000 Ohioans were provided insurance because he expanded Medicaid. He asked the question: What happens to these 700,000 people in my State--just in Medicaid expansion alone--what happens to them if the Hatch amendment passes or if the Affordable Care Act is repealed? I ask my colleagues to vote no on the amendment. Mr. President, I raise a point of order that the pending amendment is not germane to the underlying resolution. It violates section 305(b)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I call for amendment No. 86.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, thanks to Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, CHIP--two programs made stronger by the Affordable Care Act--95 percent of children in America now have affordable, comprehensive health insurance that covers annual physicals, dental care, and hospital stays. Why would we want to move backward instead of building on that 95 percent? Amendment No. 86 creates a budget point of order against any legislation that would decrease coverage, reduce benefits, or raise costs when it comes to children's health insurance. Rather than ripping away coverage from children, we should be building on that 95 percent number; we should build on that progress; we should work to get 100 percent of our Nation's children covered. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive section 305(b)(2) of that act for purposes of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, skyrocketing drug prices are crippling far too many American families. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly 8 in 10 Americans believe the cost of their prescription drugs is too high and that Congress should work to lower the price of medication that people need. This should be our top health priority for 2017, lowering drug costs for families, not taking health care away from Americans with no plan to replace it. Think about that. This Congress is hell-bent on, instead of attacking one of the major causes of health care inflation--and we have done a good job the last 10 years, by and large, of keeping prices from going much higher than they would have otherwise. Keep that in mind while we hear the generally specious arguments against the Affordable Care Act. Instead of doing that, the majority party has fallen all over itself to try to take away health insurance from 900,000 people in my State; taking away from 1 million seniors the Medicare consumer protections and Medicare services of preventive care, such as osteoporosis screening, diabetes screening, physicals, all that the doctors order; taking away from 100,000 young people the ability to stay on their parents' health care plan; and stripping from virtually all Ohio citizens the consumer protections of denying people coverage because of previous conditions, cutting people off their insurance policy because they happen to get too sick and might have cost the insurance companies too much money. This health care coverage that has saved 24,000 American lives each year since 2014, just think what could happen if we took away their health care coverage. Instead, lowering drug prices should be something we can come together on. Americans of all political parties and Americans who don't even bother voting are all facing skyrocketing pharmacy bills. There are concrete actions we can take right now to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Senator Franken and I led 18 of our colleagues in outlining 5 of them in a letter to the President-elect in December, including putting an end to abusive price gouging, requiring more transparency from drug companies, boosting competition and innovation in the market, and allowing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate better prices for seniors. That is what we do with the Veterans' Administration. The VA, on behalf of 7 million veterans, negotiates directly with the drug companies to get a significantly better price for the cost of drugs--saves taxpayers, saves veterans. Medicare should do the same thing. Senator Klobuchar and I worked with several colleagues to reintroduce the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act. Negotiating better prices for seniors will save significant taxpayer dollars. Instead of focusing on the priorities that the vast majority of Americans agree on, Congress and President-Elect Trump are working to throw 30 million Americans and some 900,000 Ohioans off their health insurance with no plans to replace it. It is reckless and dangerous. It will cause premiums to skyrocket. It will cause costs to go up for everyone. Do you know what it does? It gives a $30 billion tax break to drugs companies and tens of billions of dollars in tax cuts to the richest Americans. On the one hand, Congress will not do anything about drug prices because the pharmaceutical industry, frankly, gave too much money to far too many of my colleagues. On the other hand, this same Congress is going to strip away health care and consumer protections to seniors on Medicare and people of all ages and at the same time give a tax break to the drug companies. We must fight against these attempts to decrease coverage and increase costs for working families. Whether you support the Affordable Care Act or not, we all agree you can't ask people to change horses midstream without giving them a second horse. Last week, I spoke with one of my constituents, Kathy, who wrote to my office last November with the heartbreaking story of her husband Lee. He is fighting stage IV cancer. Before 2010, insurance companies denied Kathy and her family the family coverage she needed because her husband's cancer was a preexisting condition. Thankfully, the Affordable Care Act stopped insurance companies from abusive practices like this. It allowed Kathy's family to buy health insurance through the marketplace, helping them afford the care he needs to fight this devastating disease. Still, like so many Ohio families, Kathy continues to struggle to afford the prescription medicines she and her husband need. She fears what will happen when a family like hers is simply kicked off their insurance. Imagine 900,000 Ohioans with insurance and, like that--because of partisan politics here, because so many of my colleagues ran for President, in some cases, or ran for the Senate or ran for the House by saying they are going to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, and they are going to get rid of it and not replace it for a couple of years maybe. Governor Kasich, Republican Governor in my State--also in the Presidential race with my friend in the Presiding Officer's chair--has said to the Senate and House, to Ohio's Republican Members: Don't cancel the Affordable Care Act. Don't throw people off insurance unless you are going to replace it with something right now that will take care of those people; 700,000 people on Medicaid expansion, another 200,000 people, 26-year-olds, on their parents' plan, people on the exchanges, people getting insurance in other ways. When I was talking to Kathy the other day, she was choked up talking about the stress and heartache dealing with a loved one with cancer, how she can't even bear the thought of adding more insurance worries on top of that. I was speaking to a hospital administrator today at one of Ohio's great hospitals. He said he thinks what this Republican Congress is going to do in the Affordable Care Act is morally reprehensible. He said: How do I explain to people right in the middle of their treatment that we can't do it anymore? Because we will not have the resources if the Affordable Care Act is repealed and the insurance is canceled and the Medicaid expansion is gone and hospitals can't take care of everybody like they are pretty much now. How do I explain to somebody right in the middle of cancer treatment, right in the middle of another kind of long-term or short-term illness that their insurance has been cut off? Instead of kicking people off their insurance with no plan to replace it and handing billions of dollars in tax breaks to the drug companies, let us make our first priority lowering drug costs for the people whom we say we are serving. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, 70 years ago United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis, a lifelong Republican, sat down with the Democratic Secretary of the Interior, Julius Krug. They struck a deal to end a national strike. They promised health and pension benefits for miners in exchange for a lifetime of hard work. It is a promise that the Federal Government has kept ever since. For 70 years, no matter the President, no matter the party in control of the Senate, we have kept that promise. That changed, unfortunately, in December. This body left for vacation. It left tens of thousands of mine workers to face an uncertain future, not knowing if the pensions and health care they had earned for themselves--and in many cases for their widows--over a lifetime of hard work would be there for them in the future. This is shameful. Senator Portman, my Republican colleague from Ohio, and I and Senator Manchin and Senator Capito, a Democrat and a Republican from West Virginia, and Senator Casey--a number of us--said: We should not leave Washington to go home to our families until we take care of mine worker families. Congress has the power to stop these cuts and to live up to this pledge. We had a bipartisan solution that would have passed if it had been brought to the floor. But instead, Congress broke its promise to these miners and their families. Congress stole the health care they had earned by passing a continuing resolution that failed to address the pension problem, and it stole the funds that were still left in their health care plan to pay for a 4-month fix--4 months, 4 months. Who can make health care decisions when you don't know if you will have health care coverage 4 months from now? These working people don't deserve to live with this kind of uncertainty. I have heard my colleagues, particularly on the Republican side of the aisle, always talk about predictability. Government should never inject more uncertainty into the lives of individuals, never should inject uncertainty into the lives of business people as they make investment decisions. But that is what we have done with these mine workers. We have made their lives less certain, less predictable, and their health care so unpredictable. This is the health care these workers fought for, the health care they sacrificed raises for. Keep in mind that at the bargaining table, workers will be willing to accept less wages today in exchange for health care and pensions in the future. That is what collective bargaining is often about. That is what is so important. This is health care they sacrificed raises for. It was the health care we promised them. My colleagues know their stories of hard work and sacrifice. We know these stories because over the past year, these miners traveled here by the busload. They rode long distances. They gathered in the heat and in the cold for hours outside this building to make their voices heard. They worked decades in the mines--hard back-breaking work. But that work had dignity. It was dangerous work--work where some of them were killed on the job, work where many of them developed health problems later. Many of them died younger than people who dress like we do and have jobs like this. Their widows have been denied these pensions and health care. They clocked in every day, these workers. They knew the conditions they faced. Many of them now suffer from black lung or other illnesses. They accepted a lifetime of hard labor because they valued their jobs, they valued their work, and they believed that good-paying union jobs were their tickets to the middle class. These miners believed in the covenant we used to have in this country that promised if you work hard your whole life, if you put in the hours, if you save a little and do your part, you will be able to help your children go to college. They believed that would give their kids a chance at a better life perhaps than they had. They believed that if they upheld their end of the deal, if they put in the work to power our country by mining coal used for a generation of electricity, their government would do the same. In December, Congress told them they were wrong. I don't accept that. These workers sacrificed their lungs and their backs to keep our lights on. It is shameful that Congress, despite all intents and purposes, has stolen what they earned. These miners should have spent Christmas with their grandkids, not worrying about whether they could afford their medicine. We aren't giving up. We had a bipartisan solution in December. We will keep fighting until mine workers across Ohio and this country have the full health care and retirement security that we promised them. They kept faith with us and powered our country. It is time to keep faith with the workers in our industrial heartland and to right this wrong. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time during the ensuing quorum call be divided equally between the two sides.

Mr. BROWN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Manchin, Senator Warner, and Senator Casey, who all represent a lot of these mine workers. Some of them are in the Gallery. We attended a rally with some of them the other night. Some of them we see in Zanesville, Cambridge, Southwest Pennsylvania, and Southwest Virginia. I thank Senator McCaskill for her work on this. Let's point out, again, to our colleagues what happened here. Early this year, the Senate majority leader, the Republican leader from Kentucky, said: Before we do this, you have to come up with a bipartisan bill. We came up with a bipartisan bill. We did exactly what he wanted. We had Senator Capito, Senator Portman, Senator Toomey, and a lot of support on both sides, even people who didn't sponsor it. That wasn't enough. Then he moved the goalposts and said: You have to come up with the bill through regular order. We went through regular order in the Finance Committee. Senator Warner, Senator Casey, and I in the Finance Committee called Cecil Roberts, the head of the mine workers, people like Norm Skinner from Ohio, Dave Urtest, Dave Dilly, and others came and talked to us. We had testimony. It was brought to a vote and it passed on a bipartisan vote, 18 to 8. Every Democrat voted for it and a handful of Republicans voted for it. We did that, and then the Republican leader moved the goalposts again and said: That is not good enough. You have to do something more. You have to find a way to pay for it. We found a way to pay for it with money out of the abandoned mine fund to pay for this. This legislation would have permanently taken care of much pensions and health care. It would have meant that mine workers don't have to take valuable time and spend money and come to Washington and lobbyists to talk to us, educate us, and do what they do so well in telling their stories. It would have solved that, but now week after week after week has passed. Before the election, people were talking a good game, now they are not talking such a good game, except for my colleagues with me on the floor today fighting for them. So what happens now? The majority leader in the Senate is pointing fingers down this hall, blaming the Speaker of the House, and the Speaker of the House back there is pointing fingers at the majority leader saying: Well, I want to do a year. No, I want to do a year. Well, the fact is, neither of them has offered anything. They could bring this bill up to pass out of the Finance Committee. Senator McConnell tonight could bring this to the Senate floor. We could pass it. We would get how many votes: 75, 80 votes? We would get at least 70, probably 75 or 80. We would get every single Democrat, and we would get probably close to half of the Republicans. They will not do that. They are too busy pointing fingers back and forth. So I am going to vote no on the continuing resolution because I just don't think that this is the deal we should get. This 4-month deal where the majority leader said he is helping the miners with a 4-month deal--it means that the retired miners and the widows who got a notice in late October, early November that their insurance would run out December 31--if we do this 4-month deal, they are going to get another notice in January or February saying it runs out again. Particularly if you are sick, particularly if you have a sick husband, can you imagine that you are going to get a notice every 3 or 4 months saying your insurance is going to run out? How do you deal with that? How do you make doctor visits? How do you make appointments? How do you do that? It is just cruel and unusual punishment. Instead, the other night, we saw our colleagues coming to the floor, offering resolutions. There was one honoring Pearl Harbor victims. Senator Manchin and I were on the floor. We were objecting to all this. Of course, I have been on the Veterans' Affairs Committee for a decade, and so has Senator Manchin. Of course we are not objecting to honoring Pearl Harbor victims any more than we are objecting to one of the other resolutions that said we feel bad about the people who died in Oakland in that fire; of course we do. But what we were doing and what we will continue to do is fight for those mine workers, both the retirees and the widows. Next year that is what we are going to do. We will get a good vote today in opposition to this because Democrats--people on this side--and a handful of more courageous Republicans will vote no on the continuing resolution. That should send a message to Senator McConnell on how important it is that come January we vote, not on another 4-months and another 4-months, not even voting for a year, but we vote for a permanent fix on pensions and a permanent fix on health care that is paid for out of the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund. That needs to be what we do the first of the year. This place is not going to operate very well if the leadership in this body does not stand up and give us a vote on a bill that protects mine worker retirees, that protects pensioners and health care, that says that we are going to fix this permanently. They should not have to come here month after month after month to lobby us. This is something we should do. It has been an obligation since Harry Truman. Senator McCaskill is always talking about Harry. Harry Truman in the 1940s, seven decades ago, made this pledge, made this promise. We all want to live up to the promise. Presidents of both parties, Members of Congress in both parties were living up to that promise decade after decade. Now they don't want to live up to it. It is important that we enforce that come January. I am voting no. I want to send that message. This is just too important to back down from.

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I share Senator Shelby's and other colleagues' strong desire to ensure that this small group of Americans who suffered such violence at the hands of FARC is compensated for their ordeal. Earlier this week, at the behest of Senator Nelson and others, I met with some of those former hostages. I heard of their suffering firsthand. I have read about it. I have talked to them. I cannot imagine what they went through. While the victims have already received a portion of the compensation awarded them by Federal courts--around $16 million so far--out of a total of $318 million awarded, they still have a long way to go. The administration, including the Treasury Department, which overseas our efforts to combat the narcotics trafficking that is having such a devastating impact on our country and others around the world, has expressed serious concerns that the CAPTIVE Act would undermine our successful anti-narcotics efforts. I want to help these victims. It is terrible what happened to them. They were trying to serve our country--they were serving our country when this happened. But I have serious concerns about this legislation written in this way, how it would undermine successful anti-narcotics efforts. Since the administration's concerns and the risk to our anti- narcotics efforts have not been addressed--and I think we can address them, I hope early in January once we have coordinated and gotten this information in a way to present it back to Congress in another piece of legislation that preserves these anti-narcotics efforts and at the same time fulfills our commitment to compensation. But because of all of that, I must object.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I appreciate the good work Senator Murkowski does in cooperation with people in this institution. Remembering John Glenn Mr. President, today our country lost an American hero, Col. John Glenn, Senator John Glenn. I will be back on a later date to deliver a more formal tribute with my colleague Senator Portman, but I wish to share some initial thoughts as I, along with my wife Connie and so many Ohioans, mourn for John Glenn and join so many people around the country who loved him and cared for him and respected him. It has been one of the great lessons of my life to get to know John Glenn and for Connie and me to count him and Annie as mentors and friends. We remember just a few short years ago, on the 50th anniversary of his flight into space, the night before, we had dinner with John and Annie, Connie and I and his children, David and Glen, and his daughter-in-law, David's wife, and how interesting and joyous it was to hear him recount his experiences and so much of what he has done. We loved him. We will miss him. We will continue to draw strength and wisdom from the lessons he shared with us over the years. The first time I met John Glenn was in 1969. It was Colonel Glenn then, long before he was elected to the Senate. Colonel Glenn spoke at an Eagle Scout dinner in Mansfield, OH. Only a few short weeks earlier, in my court of honor, I was awarded the Eagle Scout award. I was 16 years old. I got to meet Colonel Glenn. His words inspired us. They stayed with me as I grew up and looked for ways to serve community and country. Thirty years later, John granted me the honor of walking me down this center aisle. When Senators are sworn in, any term they serve, they are often accompanied by a Senator from their State or a former Senator-- whomever that Senator-elect or that Senator who is soon to be sworn in chooses--and I chose to walk down with my friend and former Senator, at that point, John Glenn. John had a humility and a kindness unusual, perhaps, in this business and in, perhaps, somebody of his level of accomplishment. His kindness and intelligence, his courage--we know about that--and his commitment to service set an example that our country needs today more than ever. His legacy will live on not just in the pages of history books, it will live on through the Americans he inspired, whether it was a passion for exploration that led him to join NASA, a dedication to country that called him to the Armed Forces, or a desire to make the world a better place that led him to public service. John will live in the hearts of everyone who knew and loved him, including his beloved wife Annie and his wonderful children, Glen and David. I spoke with Annie and John on their 73rd wedding anniversary, and Annie told me the story that--I knew they knew each other in grade school. They dated beginning--I don't know exactly when. I asked Annie if they wanted to marry in high school, and she said yes, but her parents said they couldn't do that because it wouldn't last. So they waited until after Pearl Harbor, when I believe John was 20 and Annie was 21, and they were married for 73-plus years. Ohio and the United States have lost a great light today, but that pales in comparison to what we gained over his 95 years on Earth. I hope my colleagues will join me in sending out our love and prayers to John's family at this difficult time during the holidays. I heard John Glenn stories even today at the ceremony unveiling the portrait of our Democratic leader Harry Reid, which took place in the Russell Building, and a number of former colleagues of John's came up to me and they had just heard of his death that happened midafternoon today. So I thank them for their memories.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we have heard a lot of talk during the election, since the election about communities like my hometown of Mansfield, OH, not far from where the Presiding Officer grew up--communities that have been ignored by their representatives in Washington. A lot of politicians responded during the election, since the election. They pledged to do better. This is our chance to actually show that we mean it--with the work that Senator Manchin has done, and Senator Casey, Senator Warner, Senator Portman in my State, a Republican, and Senator Donnelly of Indiana--simply to take care of these mine workers. Senator Manchin has been on this floor, as I have--but he has been on this floor even more times--talking about taking care of those mine workers, living up to the promise that Harry Truman made, extending their health insurance. Instead, the only offer we have had from the majority leader, the one person--Senator Tillis is not standing in the way. Senator Sullivan is not standing in the way. It is one Senator--the majority leader. For whatever reason he does not like the United Mine Workers union. I don't really care about what he thinks about the union. I support the union. But I care about these workers. What they proposed is a 4-month extension, which means these workers, these widows, these retired workers got a notice back in the last couple of weeks saying they were going to lose their health care. We do 4 months, and they will get another notice--Senator Manchin, right?--in January. We are going to make these retired mine workers, these widows who saw their husbands die from an accident in a mine or died from black lung disease or died from heart diseases every 3 months get another notice and then say: Well, we will extend it for 4 months. No, we have to make sure that we provide them--this is not giving them--the health insurance they have earned. It is the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do. For one Senator, who happens to be from Kentucky, of all places, who happens to also be the majority leader, to stand in the way--Senator Wyden is on my committee and Senator Hatch, Senator Portman, Senator Toomey. We passed 18-to-8 a bipartisan bill to move forward on this and do this right. Senator McConnell asked to go through regular order. We have to do this right. Yet we are going to go home for Christmas. We are going to go home for the holidays. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, we are going home for the holidays. We are going to have fun with our families. These widows, these retired miners, well, it is not so much fun with their families because they don't know when their health insurance is going to run out. Mr. President, we need to do this. We need to do it right. We need to do it today or tomorrow. We have no business going home before that. For these reasons, I object.