John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it seems like we have a lot of Texans leaving Congress, and one of those is Kenny Marchant. Kenny is a genuine statesman, quiet but serious and effective, and he has devoted almost his entire career to public service. He started out on the Carrolton City Council and then became mayor and then spent nine terms as a State representative, and, finally, eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. And he proudly represents North Texans and has for the last four decades. As a Member of the Ways and Means Committee, he has played an integral role in the effort to keep taxes down, including passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2018, which was part of the spur of our great economic growth leading up to the pandemic. He has been a staunch supporter of efforts to reduce government waste and ensure that Congress is a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars. He has fought for our servicemembers, veterans, and for strong national defense. As the top Republican on the House Ethics Committee, Kenny helped to strengthen transparency and public confidence in our government, and there couldn't be a more important time for such a lofty goal. I know Kenny is eager to spend more time at home with his wife Donna, their kids, and a growing gaggle of grandkids. Most of their children are grown now, but the number of grandkids seems to be increasing in pace. I want to thank him for his incredible contributions to our State and wish him the best in the next chapter.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the House will lose a true class act and the epitome of a self-made success with the retirement of Congressman Bill Flores. At just 9 years old, Congressman Flores began tending to cattle with his dad in the Texas Panhandle, and he hasn't quit working since. He is a ninth generation Texan, representing Waco, College Station, and parts of North Austin and Pflugerville. You would be hard-pressed to find a more deeply divided district than Texas 17, and I don't mean divided in terms of politics or geography. You have the Aggies, the Bears, and the Longhorns--three of Texas's proudest fan bases--squeezed into one congressional district. Ever the diplomat, Bill considers himself tripartisan. Although he is an Aggie himself, he would gladly throw up the ``Hook `em Horns'' or the ``Sic `em Bears.'' Throughout his time in Congress, I have been proud to work with Bill on a number of shared priorities. We teamed up on legislation to designate the Waco Mammoth site as a national monument. We worked together to rename the Waco Veterans Affairs Medical Center after World War II Hero Petty Officer Doris Miller. We both had the pleasure of attending the long overdue Purple Heart ceremony honoring the victims of the Fort Hood attack after a long fight here in Congress to give these heroes the recognition and the benefits they deserve. Bill has been a reliable advocate for our veterans and servicemembers, as well as our energy industry and our free enterprise system, in general. I want to thank him for his service to our State and to our Nation and wish him and Gina the best in the next chapter of their lives.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, finally, I would say last, but certainly not least, is my friend, my former chief of staff, and proud Representative of Texas 22, Pete Olson. As the old saying goes, Pete wasn't born in Texas, but he got there as fast as he could. His family moved from Washington State to Texas when Pete was only 10 years old. He grew up in Seabrook. He went to Rice for his undergraduate degree and UT for law school and hardly left the Lone Star State until he enlisted in the Navy. As a Navy pilot, he flew missions all over the world, and he was eventually brought to the U.S. Senate as a naval liaison. I had the good fortune of meeting Pete because he worked for Phil Gramm, my predecessor, and he had a stellar reputation, likely due to his Navy days of making the ships run on time. Pete served as my first chief of staff for several years and made it back home to Texas before making his own run for congressional office. His district is literally one of the most ethnically diverse in the State and one of the most diverse in the country. Pete has consistently prioritized connecting with folks of different backgrounds and cultures to learn about the challenges they are facing and to figure out how to lead positive changes in Congress. Pete has been a reliable helping hand during some of our toughest times. Following the Deepwater Horizon accident, Pete and I flew several hours into the Gulf of Mexico to a drilling rig rooted in 9,000 feet of water to learn more about the rigors of working on offshore rigs. After Hurricane Harvey, Pete and I joined Team Rubicon's veteran volunteers to muck out some of the flooded homes in the Houston area. We fought alongside one another to secure the funding from Congress to recover and rebuild after Hurricane Harvey. It was common then to see Pete around Capitol Hill with a Houston Astros jersey over his dress shirt to draw attention--by any means, whatsoever--to the need for additional funding for the folks in his district and folks in that region. It is safe to say that Pete Olson's presence has been a constant throughout my time here in the Senate, and I will miss having him just across the dome. Like the others I have mentioned, I know Pete is eager to spend more time at home in Sugar Land with his wife Nancy and his extended family, but I hope he knows how much we will miss him in Congress. If it isn't already obvious, the Texas delegation is losing some truly outstanding Members, and our new additions will have some big boots to fill. But I just want to tell you how much I appreciate the opportunity to express my gratitude to each of these six outstanding Congressmen for their friendship and service to our State and wish them and their families well as they take on new challenges ahead. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, much of the area that is sandwiched between Mac and Will's two districts is represented by another retired Member of our delegation, Mike Conaway. Before finding his way into public service, Mike served our country in the Army and was stationed at Fort Hood. But he quickly made his way to the Permian Basin and built a successful career in the private sector before getting involved with politics. During his 16 years in Congress, he has represented the folks of Texas 11 and burned the candle at both ends in the process of doing so. Mike is a man of faith, believes in the right to life, and is an advocate for a strong defense and has been a champion for our Nation's veterans. His background as a CPA--we could use a few more of those, maybe less lawyers. But his background as a CPA has helped drive debates on our Nation's spending habits, and I know his expertise in this area will be deeply missed. I believe Mike would agree that at the top of his mountain of achievements are those for our farmers and ranchers. He authored the 2018 farm bill, which provides the support, certainty, and stability for our farmers that they need in order to operate in a modern economy. This legislation strengthened crop insurance, created seed cotton eligibility for the farm bill safety net, and helped counter cattle tick fever and other animal risks. It would have been tough for Texas farmers and ranchers and producers to make it through these times but for Mike as the lead agriculture policymaker in Congress. The halls of Congress will not be the same without him, but Mike's contributions, his leadership, and devoted service will never be forgotten. I know he and his wife Suzanne are eager to spend more time at home with their extended family, and I wish them a happy and well-deserved retirement.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, let me start by thanking Chairman Grassley for his leadership on this. This has been a bipartisan endeavor, and we look forward to working with Senator Menendez, the Senator from New Jersey, who says that he supports the spirit of what we are trying to do. I will let him speak for himself in describing it, but let me just tell you what brings me to this issue. It is an experience we had in 2016 when we tried to pass the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. This provided a carve-out in the doctrine of sovereign immunity that would allow Americans to sue foreign governments for financing terrorist attacks on American soil. If that sounds familiar, it is exactly what they believe happened on 9/ 11--that a foreign government financed a terrorist attack, taking the lives of their loved ones on 9/11. When we tried to pass the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, I got called by a former colleague here in the Senate who happened to be representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They were doing everything they could to prevent the passage of the bill. I know they were working the phones, trying to get anybody else they could get to object to the ultimate unanimous passage of the bill and the overriding of President Obama's veto. Next, we were met with not only lobbying but veterans who were enticed to come to Washington, DC, and stay at a local, pricey hotel to try to lobby Congress to make the argument that somehow this was hurtful to our veterans who had served in the military. It didn't make any sense to me then, and it doesn't make any sense to me now. What I am suggesting is that our rivals around the world will use a number of creative ways to try to influence us by lobbying. That is why the Foreign Agents Registration Act that we are talking about here is so important. We have even seen a recent report of a Chinese intelligence officer trying to influence a Member of the U.S. Congress. Fortunately, according to public reports, he got a defensive briefing, as you should under those circumstances, and was able to break off that relationship, according to published reports. We know that the Communist Party of China is investing in things like the Confucius Institutes around our institutions of higher learning to try to influence the education of our next generation of leaders. In other words, the Communist Party of China and other countries will stop at nothing to try to influence the policies that come out of this body and out of Congress and out of Washington, DC, and bend them in their favor. So I am an enthusiastic supporter of what the Senator from Iowa is trying to do. I look forward to working for maybe even something better than what we are proposing right now, and I understand the Senator from New Jersey is committed to doing that. This is a serious problem, and I will bet you there are a number of ways that foreign governments--not just China but other countries around the world--try to influence policies here in America, and we don't even know they are doing it. Reforming the Foreign Agents Registration Act and the Lobbying Disclosure Act is so important to make sure that people have to file for full transparency when representing a foreign government. I appreciate the leadership of my friend, the Senator from Iowa, and I look forward to working with our colleagues across the aisle to try to get this done.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I look forward to working with the Senator from New Jersey and the Senator from Iowa. As I said, this is a very serious problem for the U.S. Government, and, thus, for the American people. One of our greatest assets is also one of our greatest vulnerabilities. We are an open society. Our adversaries are not, and, thus, they use things like the internet for information warfare, whereas we see it as a valuable tool to do business, to stay in touch with our families, and to communicate with one another. Our adversaries are determined, and they are relentless, so I hope that just this little colloquy today will help alert more of our colleagues about the importance of our working together to address this. I look forward to being part of that process. Nothing happens very quickly around this place. Sometimes you have to work on things for years to get them done.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, yesterday evening, President Trump shared the news that Attorney General Bill Barr will be leaving the administration in the coming days, and I want to take a moment to publicly thank the Attorney General for his service to our country. Under two different Presidents and at two very different times in our country's history, Bill Barr gladly answered the call to service. His steadfast leadership has enabled the Department of Justice to continue its mission at a pivotal moment in our Nation's history. I particularly appreciate Attorney General Barr's attempt to get to the bottom of some of the abuse of power by the FBI and the Department of Justice during the latter part of the Obama administration and early in the Trump administration. During his time as Attorney General, Bill Barr has consistently fought to improve the safety of our communities across the country by attacking violent crime and aggressively countering transnational criminal organizations. He has been a champion of Project Safe Neighborhoods, which has strengthened community partnerships and helped to reduce crime rates across our country. He has taken aim at the threats that exist beyond our borders, from drug cartels in Mexico to economic exploitation and outright theft by China. Through it all, he has been as dogged in preventing injustice as in pursuing wrongdoing. So I want to thank the Attorney General once again for not only answering the call to serve a second time but also for once again serving with distinction and integrity.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as we all know by now, late Friday evening, the world received the news that we have been waiting, hoping, and praying for since March. The first COVID-19 vaccine was approved here in the United States. The vaccine was developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNtech and was found to be 95 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 during clinical trials--extensive clinical trials. The leaders of Operation Warp Speed immediately mobilized the distribution plan, and the first doses of the vaccine are arriving at healthcare facilities across the country today. Texas's initial shipment of nearly 225,000 doses will be administered to our healthcare workers this week by our healthcare workers, and we will provide these heroes with the protection they need to continue their fight on our behalf on the frontlines. This is a turning point in our war against COVID, and the significance of this victory in such an expedited timeframe cannot be overstated. I want to thank the brilliant men and women who made this feat possible. There are the researchers and scientists who developed the lifesaving vaccine, as well as the volunteers who participated in clinical trials. There are the manufacturers that are rapidly producing millions of doses and distributors who are getting those doses to sites across the country as quickly as possible. Of course, there are the hospitals, pharmacies, and our incredible healthcare workers who will lead the vaccine effort. The race to a COVID vaccine will be remembered as one of the greatest human achievements of our generation, and these brave and brilliant individuals helped make it possible. I want to remind all of us that while this is a huge milestone and one that should absolutely be celebrated, we are not out of the dark yet. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger and brighter, but we still have a ways to go, and each of us has our own part to play in getting us there. For the American people, that means stopping the spread through the same habits that we learned all year--washing your hands, wearing a mask, practicing social distancing, and taking extra care to protect our most vulnerable friends and neighbors. Of course, this holiday season is not a time to forget the habits we built over the last several months but to double down on them. While this is a development to be celebrated and a day we have been looking for for a long time, Congress has not yet done its job. For months on end, the American people have asked for additional financial support to weather this storm, and so far we have not seen any progress. Our Democratic colleagues blocked bill after bill, saying more of the words of Speaker Pelosi: Nothing is better than something. Well, our Democratic colleagues stood in the way of investing more in vaccine distribution, extending unemployment insurance benefits, helping our small businesses keep their workers on payroll, and giving our schools the resources they need in order to provide education to our students safely. Our Democratic colleagues didn't block these bills because they disagree with the content of the bills; they simply refuse to engage if we do not concede to their controversial and outrageous demands. At first, Democrats refused to back off the completely absurd bill passed in the House called the Heroes Act, which includes things like diversity studies for the marijuana industry and tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. While they eventually realized how unrealistic their position was, they now stand firm in providing a bailout for cities and States that have been--some of which have been grossly mismanaged for decades. Over the last several months, our Democratic colleagues have repeatedly blocked legislation that would have poured half a trillion dollars more into our fight against COVID-19 because it didn't include their far-fetched, partisan priorities. Our Democratic colleagues have wasted a lot of time in playing games with this pandemic relief, and the clock on this Congress is quickly running out. Congress needs to pass another bill this week, and I encourage our Democratic colleagues to start compromising and quit the grandstanding. They have shown us time and again, when you sit down at the negotiating table with an all- or-nothing attitude, the result is always nothing, and that is all they have to show for their obstruction over the last months since we passed the CARES Act.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, since last fall, right after the new year, our country, like the rest of the planet, became embroiled in a pandemic, sending fear, shock, illness, and fatalities. As we tried to respond, we were forced to make hard decisions--I am talking about a collective ``we''--in terms of economic activity, children going to school, businesses staying open. And many businesses simply could not, and many of the workers who worked at those locations simply were out of luck. You can imagine the anxiety and the fear of many Americans who, through no fault of their own, found themselves fearful of the virus and the consequences associated with it, fearful for the possibility that their loved ones-- let's say, a parent or grandparent who is especially vulnerable because of their age or somebody because of their underlying chronic health conditions--were more likely to be a fatality, to lose their life, if they were infected with the virus. This is something we haven't experienced perhaps in the last 100 years, since the great flu pandemic at the turn of the last century. Congress responded the best we could. We knew we had to act quickly, and we knew we had to act in a big way. I am proud of the fact that, in the face of this pandemic, Congress came together, setting aside partisan agendas, and we passed four pieces of legislation to address, first of all, the public health crisis but, secondly, the economic fallout associated with mitigation efforts. In other words, we did what Americans always do in a time of crisis: We pulled together. I am proud of what we were able to accomplish. But at the end of March of this year, when we passed the last CARES Act legislation, we didn't have any idea how long this was going to last. We had no idea that we would be here now in December of 2020 and still grappling with how to contain this virus and dealing with the economic fallout associated with it. Thank goodness we made a priority of providing resources to our medical scientists and the pharmaceutical industry that have now come up with therapies and treatments which are saving more lives. Fewer people who get the virus are actually dying, thanks to the expertise of our healthcare providers and the therapeutics that they are able to administer--saving many, many lives. But the golden bullet in all of this is the vaccine. I am hopeful that we in America--that the Food and Drug Administration will promptly, and I expect they will, approve the use of some of the vaccines that have been developed, once it is determined they are safe and effective. So I think this is like the cavalry arriving, and the cavalry is nearby and will soon be here. Then we will prioritize the people in the country who will get the vaccine, as we should. I think the folks who have been on the frontlines, the so-called essential workers--I tend to think of all work as being essential, but certainly the healthcare providers, the people who had to show up. They couldn't hunker down at home. They had to show up for work because we needed them to do that in order to protect the rest of us. But then we ought to go through the elderly, people with underlying health diseases, schoolteachers, and others to help us get our children back to school. The list goes on and on. But what I am not proud of is the embarrassing insensitivity of our Democratic colleagues, starting with the Senator from New York, the Democratic leader, when it comes to people's fear about the consequences associated with the pandemic that relate to the liability that may ultimately be imposed upon them because they didn't guess it right the first time. I am talking about lawsuits by people who will sue, claiming--I am sure many with some merit--that they have suffered as a result of this virus and attempt to pin the responsibility on some business, some school, some church, some synagogue, some mosque, anywhere where they might have gotten the virus. Anybody with a liability insurance policy, I am sure, will be fair game by the trial lawyers. And I am not here to disparage members of the legal profession. I happen to be one. But I do know that we ought to be focused on what is the greatest good for the greatest number, and we shouldn't let the tail wag the dog when it comes to providing commonsense liability protection, which is what brings me to the floor this afternoon. I heard the Senator from New York give a fevered speech about what he called corporate immunity, as if our desire to provide some predictability and some fairness in the context of civil liability was somehow a desire to protect nameless, faceless corporations. That is wrong, and that is why I came to the floor--to say it is wrong and to explain why it is wrong. The minority leader tries to frame this as a green light for big, bad businesses to ignore public health guidelines and to put every person who walks through their door in danger of contracting COVID-19. That is a false narrative. That is not true. For starters, what we have proposed is not blanket immunity. No one wants to give--let's say somebody is running a meatpacking plant and one of the workers shows up and says: Boss, I don't feel very good today; I think I may have something. And he says: You shut up; go to work. And they end up having the virus and infect all their peers and fellow employees. That is reckless and intentional misconduct, and we do not limit lawsuits based on reckless and intentional misconduct at all. So this is not a ``get out of jail free'' card or whatever you want to call it. This will not protect the people who recklessly put other people in danger of this virus. In cases of gross negligence or willful misconduct, where the applicable public health guidance is not followed, the person who suffered a harm has every right to sue and be made whole, and no one-- no one--wants to change that. But what we do need to acknowledge is that we are all living through what I hope is a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe for everybody involved, so I don't think we should be creating an opportunity for people who want to profit off of this pandemic to do so, particularly when a handful of people will presumably benefit from what the Democratic leader is proposing--no liability shield--and hundreds of millions of Americans will benefit from it. These are unprecedented times, to be sure, much like we owe the American people more support, and that is part of what is being blocked by the demands of the Democratic leader to eliminate any sort of liability shield. We need to put some safeguards in place to ensure that those who are operating in good faith and following all the relevant public health guidelines cannot be sued out of existence. Imagine if you are a small business, hanging on by a thread. Somehow you have applied for your PPP loan, your paycheck protection loan, and you have been able to hang on to your business and keep your employees on the payroll--somehow, some way. Well, if you face the prospect of limitless liability, opportunistic litigation is going to cost you a lot of money and all of your energy just to defend, even if the claim is meritless. You might think twice-- probably more than twice--about whether you want to stay in business, whether you want to keep those jobs, whether you want to contribute to our economy. We need those people. We need those businesses and those jobs. And I am not talking about the trial lawyers. They will be fine. They are not disadvantaged by having to hunker down, wondering where the next paycheck will come from. They will be fine. But there are a lot of people who are hurting, and it causes me great distress to see us--at least some of us--oblivious to the pain, the anguish, and the desperation of so many Americans. The number of suicides is up dramatically. The number of reports of child sexual abuse is down because kids aren't going to school where their teachers, hopefully, will be trained to help identify those people. People are self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. People are suffering mental health crises. And some folks here in Congress act like, that doesn't affect me; it is not my problem. It is shocking to me that there are some who seem to have that approach. The minority leader knows the facts. When he talks about corporate immunity, he wants to frame it in the most negative light possible, which, of course, is why he said that. What we are proposing will help people. It will help medical workers, doctors, nurses, aides at hospitals--those who have been on the frontlines trying to save lives. They didn't have any choice but to show up. They didn't ask ``Well, are your liability insurance premiums paid up at the hospital?'' or ``Maybe I need to up my limits because I know I am going to get sued after this.'' They didn't ask those kinds of questions; they went and did the job we wanted them to do, and God bless them for it. What we are proposing will help a lot more people, a lot more organizations. And by that, I mean not just businesses; it will help nonprofits, and it will help restaurants that have tried to follow the guidelines and opened at limited capacity, as they have gotten guidance from the local and State and national officials. This will help everybody. First, it will help, as I said, our healthcare heroes, the brave men and women who have led in this battle for months. They have made tremendous physical and mental sacrifices to save lives, but without some liability protection from Congress, they could soon find themselves staring down the barrel of a wave of medical malpractice lawsuits. I hope the minority leader will see why this can't happen. New York State did. His State acted to provide medical liability protection for healthcare workers in his State. We need to make sure that the kinds of things that his State did for healthcare workers in New York are expanded to include others around the country. We need to ensure that our healthcare workers aren't taken to the cleaners for doing everything in their power in good faith to respond to the crisis. Again, the protections his State has provided set a willful misconduct or gross negligence standard for coronavirus medical liability suits to ensure that only legitimate cases are brought against healthcare workers in New York. If that is good enough for New Yorkers, for his constituents, why deny the same protection to my constituents or the Presiding Officer's constituents or everybody else who is on the frontlines of fighting this battle during these unprecedented times? I know the minority leader got a letter this summer from a long list of national medical associations, which represent hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers, calling for these very same types of protections. That letter detailed the challenges these workers were up against and, you can imagine, scarce personal protective equipment. It would be the easiest thing in the world to blame those healthcare workers for not adequately providing personal protective equipment and somehow contributing to the spread of the disease when we know that due to China's actions--hoarding a lot of the PPE that they themselves manufactured--when they didn't tell the rest of the world that the virus was running rampant in China, they were hoarding that PPE, making it less available to local hospitals and doctors for the benefit of their patients. So it would be easy to see, now looking back with the benefit of hindsight, that somebody said: Well, you knew or should have known you didn't have adequate PPE to take care of your patients. As my dad always liked to say--he said: Hindsight is 20/20. That is just one example. These groups who wrote to the Democratic leader said that these physicians and other healthcare professionals are now facing the threat of years of costly litigation due to the extraordinary circumstances. And these are the same institutions, the doctors and the hospitals, that we have sent hundreds of billions of dollars to, and now we want to throw them to the wolves? We can't allow our healthcare heroes to wake up in this pandemic only to find themselves facing a legal nightmare. But as I have said, it is not just healthcare workers who need our help. The list of organizations and institutions that rely on this legislation is a long one. There are, for example, our public schools, our colleges, our universities, which have tried to adapt in trying circumstances and are trying to allow our K-12 students and our young people who attend our colleges and universities an opportunity to continue their education safely, to the best of their ability. A number of national groups representing education leaders, including superintendents, school boards, and other leaders, sent a letter to Senator Schumer and other congressional leaders about the urgent need for these protections. They said: ``We believe any protections should be limited in scope and preserve recourse for those harmed by truly bad actors who engage in egregious misconduct.'' And I agree with that. That is exactly the type of protection we have proposed. I am looking at a letter--it is dated May 28, 2020--from the American Council on Education which I think does a pretty good job of summing of what I just described, the challenges that our educators and our students and our administrators are facing trying to get back to some semblance of normalcy, because we all understand the importance of providing our next generation of leaders with a good education. In this letter from ACE, the American Council on Education, Ted Mitchell, its president, writes: Unfortunately, all colleges and universities, two- and four-year, public and private nonprofit, are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact on the operations and revenues of many institutions has been catastrophic, for some even existential, which has had a terrible ripple effect in communities large and small. The pandemic is also causing massive disruption to students and families. Many are grappling with sudden changes to their financial circumstances. In the wake of prior crises, Congress came together to pass timely and targeted liability protections with strong bipartisan support because lawmakers understood the acute economic threat of lawsuits at moments of maximum economic vulnerability. While Congress has acted to provide some limited COVID-related liability protections for volunteer healthcare providers and some manufacturers of PPE in the CARES Act, much more needs to be done. While some governors and state legislatures have enacted COVID-19 liability limitations, this is a national problem requiring a national solution. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this letter following my remarks The president and executive director of the American Dental Association wrote a letter thanking the Judiciary Committee for reviewing liability protections and asking Congress to pass these reforms. Similar to the other comments that have been made by other organizations, they said: ``While safeguarding their patients, their staff, and themselves from the spread of COVID-19, dental practices must also safeguard their businesses from bad-faith actors pursuing frivolous financial gain for coronavirus injuries.'' We have heard from a long list of groups, and it is not the Fortune 500, like the Democratic leader has proposed. This isn't corporate protection. This is common sense. This is what we have done before--in connection with Y2K, in connection with 9/11, in connection with providing some limited liability protection to pharmaceutical companies that we depend upon to produce vaccines that will save lives. Those are all examples where Congress has come together with a national response to a national crisis. We have heard concerns from everything from the U.S. Youth Soccer worried about their volunteers being sued, the American Heart Association worried about their fundraisers, churches worried about their ability to serve their communities with this cloud hanging over their heads. So who is acting in bad faith here? Not the schools. Not the charities. Not the healthcare providers who are calling for the limited protections this legislation would provide. No, it is the trial bar. It is the trial lawyers who are trying to use this pandemic to make money. I am not here, again, to disparage members of the legal profession. I am just saying, who are we here going to bat for? Are we going to bat for a small group of wealthy lawyers, or are we going to bat for 330 million Americans? That is the choice, it seems to me. And the Democratic leader is carrying water for that wealthy elite minority, the members of the trial bar, by mischaracterizing this effort and blocking relief for his own constituents. Again, Governor Cuomo apparently was able to do this by some form of executive action, was able to provide some liability protections for medical malpractice lawsuits in New York. I wonder if the Democratic leader would come to the floor and call that corporate protection. No. It made sense. Good for Governor Cuomo, and shame on us if we don't do something similar. I want to close on another ironic statement by the Democratic leader this morning. He said: The American people deserve an outcome. I agree with that. But he said: It is not going to happen if the Republican majority insists on getting 100 percent of its partisan demands. Well, we are not insisting on 100 percent, but how about the 80 percent we can agree on? That just makes sense to me. They are the ones who are killing the COVID-19 relief bill by their insistence that no liability protections be included in this bill. It is the Wild Wild West, and they want to keep it just like that. The Democratic leader has been the one who has held up negotiations over the last several months. By my count, our Democratic leaders have blocked at least three, maybe four pieces of COVID-19 relief. That was at a time when they could have worked with us to make the bills better and to provide timely relief to our constituents, but no--they refused to accept anything short of a partisan, multitrillion-dollar bill that passed the House earlier this year, that Nancy Pelosi knew would never have a prayer of passing because it included such unrelated matters as tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires in places like New York and California and included diversity studies on the marijuana industry. What in the heck does that have to do with COVID-19? They claimed that anything less than that $3-trillion white elephant was unworkable, so they gave our efforts the Heisman and allowed the distress from the pandemic to go on for months and months and months while they blocked every attempt to deliver relief to the American people. Liability protections--commonsense liability protections for a limited period of time, which are not designed to take over State tort law on a permanent basis--we can agree on what the timeframe should be, but liability protections will allow our most important and vulnerable institutions and people to recover from this crisis, and I believe the Democratic leader would be wise to acknowledge that and work with us and get a result.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as we all know, the clock is ticking down on coronavirus relief. Both the Senate and the House are set to wrap up the work of the 116th Congress in just a few days, but we don't appear to be much closer to a deal now than we were this summer. Over the last few months, my colleagues and I on this side of the aisle have attempted to reach an agreement that could gain bipartisan support. We have proposed a number of targeted packages which have included funding for the most urgent bipartisan priorities, things like vaccine development, schools, and the Paycheck Protection Program. We have tried to pass individual proposals that have had near unanimous support, like a 1-week extension of unemployment insurance benefits. At every turn in the runup to the election, our Democratic colleagues have simply stood in the way. It is not just Republicans' ideas they have rejected. The administration has repeatedly tried to negotiate with the Speaker, with the latest attempt being earlier this week. Oddly enough, our Democratic colleagues have blasted the offer as being an attempt to obstruct negotiations. This is a parallel universe, where up is down and down is up, apparently, for our Democratic colleagues. Only in the Democrats' alternate realty is more compromise an example of obstruction. Based on everything we have seen so far, it appears they have no real interest in reaching a deal. And I conclude that only because they have stood in the way of every attempt so far to come to an agreement and seem perfectly content to maintain the status quo, which nobody claims to like, even as the American people continue to call for additional support. Almost every Member of Congress has said they want to pass another relief bill before the end of the year, but as we stand here today, we are emptyhanded despite the fact that we agree on a majority of what should be in that package. Republicans and Democrats agree that funding for schools, vaccines, the Paycheck Protection Program, and assistance for the hardest hit Americans is desperately needed. But there appear to be two hangups in the negotiations: liability protections and State and local aid. I think it is safe to say, in all fairness to our Democratic friends, they just don't support liability protections, whether it is for healthcare workers, hospitals, schools, churches, or nonprofits that can be hit with a wave of litigation unless we act. And we know on this side of the aisle Republicans don't support hundreds of billions of dollars of new money to bail out cities and States that have been mismanaged for decades. With neither side willing to budge, Leader McConnell made the only reasonable suggestion I have heard in light of the stalemate. He said that setting these two issues aside seems to make sense so we can do what we can do and include all the things we agree on in the coming days while we hold off those more controversial pieces until the start of the next year. Our friends across the aisle apparently have never heard of the 80-20 rule, and that makes sense, I guess, in this alternate reality where Nancy Pelosi said that ``nothing is better than something.'' I have never heard anyone say that before. It is rather shocking to me. Based on their reception of the long list of proposals so far this year, I am sure it will come as no surprise that they have basically rejected any entreaties that we have made. It is clear to me that they aren't approaching these negotiations by asking what is best for the 330 million people in this country; their concern appears to be what is best for them politically--certainly in the runup to the election, where they denied the American people the benefits of another COVID-19 relief bill--or when it comes to liability protection, the trial lawyers. Now, I am a recovering lawyer myself. I don't hold a grudge against lawyers earning a living. But the fact is, we ought to be concerned about the American people and not lawyers, who, I dare say, are probably doing pretty well relative to those who aren't getting a paycheck or are in lockdowns at home. So our Democratic colleagues have employed the same all-or-nothing approach that has been their hallmark, and, as the American people have learned over and over again, it almost always leads to nothing. I mean, so much of this is so obvious, it seems to me, you almost are embarrassed to say it, but when your attitude is ``all or nothing,'' you usually end up with nothing. And that is where we are today--no unemployment benefit extension, no funding for schools, no money for vaccine distribution, no second draw on the Paycheck Protection Program. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Our Democratic colleagues have proven over and over again that either they don't want to negotiate or they have forgotten how. They aren't interested in compromise, which is the only way you get things done here. It sounds like they are more interested in messaging than they are in actually achieving a result--making a law, something the President will sign after it passes both Houses. So our colleagues need to make a decision, and they need to make it quickly. Are they willing to work with us and send a bill to the President that includes most of what they would like to see in a relief bill, if not all, or are they willing to tank everything--funding for State and local government, vaccines, schools, small businesses, families who are hurting and anxious and in financial distress? Are they willing to throw them under the bus if they can't get everything they want? Again, the choice seems so obvious to me. I am sorry I have to say it, but it has become obvious that, so far, Democratic leadership has no interest in resolving these negotiations in a way that gets them most of what they want without taking the risk that we end up emptyhanded Tribute to Pat Roberts Mr President, this morning, during the remarks by the senior Senator from Kansas, I was stuck in the Judiciary Committee, and so I wasn't able to be here, although I have read and heard reported back to me some of the best moments of his remarks, and I just wanted to come here to the floor and say a few words about our friend Pat Roberts as we prepare to bid him farewell. Pat has represented the people of Kansas for four decades--16 years in the House and 24 years here in the Senate--and I bet it seems like a blink of an eye. During that time, he has established himself as a national leader--in agriculture in particular--a dependable voice for rural Americans, and an unwavering advocate for our Nation's servicemembers, as you would expect a former marine to be. But he has also been a source of great comedic relief in a place where people often take themselves too seriously. A few years ago, during a Senate Finance Committee hearing, we heard Pat's cell phone ringing. Much to everyone's enjoyment, it wasn't a factory-set ring tone; it was the song ``Let It Go'' from the Disney movie ``Frozen.'' When he was asked if he had seen the stage adaptation, he equipped: ``I might even be in it.'' Well, his acting chops are clearly not adequate for Broadway, but there is certainly enough to impress those of us here in this Chamber. He has a great Marlon Brando impression and a knack for injecting quotes from the movie ``On the Waterfront'' at the perfect moment. And we all know that he is a great country music fan, particularly of Ray Price. Pat is happy to entertain just about anyone who will listen to his talent for storytelling, and I know members of my staff have enjoyed learning about his time in the Marine Corps--at least those PG-rated moments. It is fitting that Washington Magazine has given him the title of ``Funniest Senator,'' a number of times even referring to him as the ``Senate's Jay Leno.'' You never know what Pat is going to say, but it is invariably entertaining and always amusing. As much as we are going to miss his frequent jokes and clever one- liners, we are going to miss his steadfast leadership and friendship even more--as I said earlier, especially when it comes to his advocacy on behalf of farmers and ranchers and folks who put the food on our tables and the clothes on our backs. Pat has had his hand and his fingerprints on every Agriculture bill for the last four decades. Those farm bills are tough--trying to marry up the interests of urban folks and food stamps and things like that along with the needs of our production agriculture, our farmers and ranchers. He was the first person to chair the Agriculture Committee in both the House and the Senate, as well as the first to write and pass a farm bill in both Chambers. He has been an unrelenting champion for our Nation's farmers and ranchers and producers, and Texas agriculture has benefited, too, from his work to remove trade barriers and burdensome regulations that have threatened their competitiveness or, in some cases, their survival. While Pat's accomplishments as chairman of the Agriculture Committee are among his most celebrated, his remarkable career in public service has led to a long list of wins for the American people. He has led efforts to help improve access to quality healthcare for all Americans. He has helped keep taxes low and improve economic opportunities for families all across the country. And, of course, he has advocated for our servicemembers and our veterans. Pat even chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee for a time, and he helped to identify systemic problems in the intelligence community and enact critical reforms. Finally, in a great labor of love, which seems like, I am sure, it has taken decades to accomplish, a few months ago, Pat was able to see his decades-long fight come to a satisfying conclusion when the Dwight David Eisenhower Memorial was completed. This incredible monument to our 34th President would not have been possible without Pat Roberts. He has worked on it for the last 20 years, most of it behind the scenes, and it seems like the perfect culmination of his service in Congress. While Pat's sense of humor and devotion to public service are often on public display, members of our Senate community have also come to know of the size of his heart. He has got a big one. When a former member of Pat's staff unexpectedly passed away this last year, he was there to comfort the family and friends and share wonderful stories about Chris in a speech at his memorial service, because when you work for Pat Roberts--or I should say with Pat Roberts--you are not just a cog in a policymaking or legislative machine; you are family. You would be hard-pressed to find a better friend to Kansans, a more devoted ally for our farmers and ranchers, a bigger K-State fan, or a more loved Member of the Senate than our friend Pat Roberts. There is no question we will miss him and the countless laughs he has provided over the years, but I know he is eager to spend more time in greener pastures with his wonderful wife Franki. Pat has earned a well-deserved retirement, and I know he is looking forward to spending more time with his and Franki's children and growing number of grandchildren. Pat, we wish you well.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 1520 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Alexander substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 333, S. 1310.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be withdrawn; that the Wicker- Cardin substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to; and that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the bill, as amended.

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Chair lay before the Senate the message to accompany S. 1342. The Presiding Officer laid before the Senate the following message from the House of Representatives: Resolved, That the bill from the Senate (S. 1342) entitled ``An Act to require the Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere to update periodically the environmental sensitivity index products of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for each coastal area of the Great Lakes, and for other purposes.'', do pass with an amendment. Motion to Concur

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I move to concur in the House amendment, and I ask unanimous consent that the motion be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am glad to be here on the floor of the Senate with my friend Senator Bob Menendez asking that the U.S. Senate advance legislation to establish a National Museum of the American Latino. As a proud Texan, I am fortunate to have grown up in a State steeped in the contributions of Hispanics and Latinos. Approximately 40 percent of our population is composed of Latinos in Texas, but they are not monolithic by any stretch of the imagination, which is why we need a museum to tell their stories. There are the Tejanos, whose roots in the Lone Star State predate our statehood or even Texas independence, as well as those who have emigrated from other States or countries and have chosen to call Texas home more recently. From the brave soldiers who fought in the Texas Revolution to the civil rights activists like Cesar Chavez, cultural icons like Selena, and leaders of all types in our communities, generations of Latino Americans have shaped our country as it is today. But, as I suggested a moment ago, many Americans simply aren't aware of the vast contributions made by these men and women who have come before us, and one critical way we can right this wrong is by providing a home for their stories in the Nation's Capital. I have heard somebody suggest that we don't need a separate museum for different racial groups and ethnic groups or the like, but this is far more important than that because the story of American Latinos is the story of America itself. Many people simply aren't familiar with the vast contributions they have made. This particular effort has been underway for more than 25 years. Nothing happens very quickly, particularly when it comes to establishing a new museum like this, but we are just two steps away, and I hope the Senate can take one big step this afternoon by passing this bipartisan legislation and sending it to the President's desk for his signature. I know there are some of our colleagues who have concerns about the museum's location, and I can assure them that Congress will have a voice in the site of this museum. But before construction can begin, congressional committees will be consulted on site selection as laid out in the bill and I believe the colloquy that will be made a part of this record. The Smithsonian Board of Regents, which will select the site, is chaired by the Supreme Court Chief Justice and comprises multiple Members of Congress, including three sitting Senators and the Vice President. The Congress will also need to appropriate funds to supplement the private fundraising that will help finance this museum. The appropriation requirement will be a de facto ratification or rejection of the site selected by the Smithsonian Board of Regents. So there is going to be a lot of input in that decision. We are not making that decision here today. And I believe there need to be open lines of communication between Members of Congress and the Smithsonian Board of Regents as they undertake this significant project. It has been estimated that if we pass this bill today, the doors to a new museum will not open for at least a decade, so I am eager to get the process moving. The National Museum of the American Latino will honor and preserve the stories of Latinos throughout American history so generations can view a more accurate and more complete history of the contributions made by these great Americans, and I hope the Senate will advance this critical legislation today

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Thank you to the senior Senator from Kansas for his leadership over the years and his attention to this bill. I also thank the chairman for holding a hearing and passing this important bill out of his committee. I know some of our colleagues have concerns about the museum location, and I can assure them, Congress will have a voice in the site of the museum. Before construction can begin, congressional committees will be consulted on site selection, as detailed in the bill. The Smithsonian board of regents, which will select the site, is chaired by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts and comprises multiple members of Congress, including three sitting Senators, as well as the Vice President. Congress will also need to appropriate funds, a de facto ratification or rejection of the site selected by the Smithsonian board of regents. I intend there will be open lines of communication between members of Congress and the Smithsonian board of regents as they undertake this significant project. It has been estimated if we pass this bill today, the doors to a new museum would not open for at least a decade and more likely not until 2034--so I am eager to get the process moving.

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, on another matter, this week, I hope we are able to make more progress on the coronavirus relief negotiations so we can pass another bill before recessing for the holidays. There are a lot of people in this country, all throughout the country, who are hurting, who are anxious, and who are worried about their ability to pay the rent and to meet their other obligations in the face of this pandemic, and I think it would be a dereliction of duty on our part to leave here without addressing those real needs. Earlier this year, we worked in a quick, bipartisan fashion to pass relief bills totaling more than $3 trillion. Thinking back on it, it was pretty remarkable to do as much as we did as fast as we did, but we knew we were up against a common enemy in this virus, and we knew we had to respond quickly, and we did. The funding we provided has gone a long way to support our healthcare and economic response, but as our war against COVID-19 continues to rage on, additional support is needed, and it is needed now. The good news is, as earlier, there are a number of areas that we agree on what the support should look like, including funding for schools, assistance for the hardest hit workers and small businesses, and another investment in the distribution of the vaccine that can't come soon enough, but we remain hung up on a couple of important points, including liability protection for businesses, schools, nonprofits, and others who in good faith did their best to follow guidance from the CDC and other public health authorities but now face the prospect of litigation. It is pretty hard to follow the guidance as knowledge of this virus has evolved. I remember before April, the head of the CDC, including Dr. Fauci and others, said that masks were useless. Then they changed their guidance in April. That is fine. I respect that based on what we have learned about the virus. But we simply can't expose people who have tried their best to muddle along in the face of this pandemic, following the guidance from public health officials, and say: You didn't know then what we know now, so you must have been negligent, and you need to pay compensation in the form of litigation. Well, I don't think that is fair to those entities, those individuals, those businesses, those schools, those churches, mosques, and synagogues. But this is something that is on the minds of a lot of people, from healthcare workers, to teachers, to nonprofits, to small business owners. Those who continue to provide essential services and goods didn't have any choice but to show up and go to work. Now they are worried that by opening their doors to people who really needed their help at the time, they have also now opened themselves up to an endless parade of lawsuits by the trial bar. We all know that lawyers can be very creative and opportunistic. That is part of what lawyering involves. But the litigation we expect against doctors, nurses, colleges, churches, small businesses--anyone and everyone could be blamed for another person's harm. If those lawsuits are feasible, they will follow. And the statute of limitations is a couple years, so even though we are not necessarily seeing it now, we do know that class action litigation could be filed in any favorable jurisdiction anywhere in the country and basically bankrupt many businesses and certainly discourage businesses from safely reopening and following those guidelines. I think there is another reason to reward people who have tried their best to follow those guidelines--because it ensures more compliance. To now play a game of ``gotcha'' with them and say: It wasn't good enough, so now you are going to have to pay or maybe even just defend a lawsuit that you ultimately will win--we all know that will cost a lot of money and will take a lot of time, and I would prefer to see them rebuild their businesses and restore the jobs that were lost as a result of the pandemic So because of my concern about the need for some liability shield, we introduced a bill called the SAFE TO WORK Act that provides commonsense protections for those who acted in good faith to keep their customers and their employees safe, while still preserving the right to sue for those who were victims of gross negligence or intentional misconduct. This is not a blanket liability shield that won't permit the really truly bad actors from facing due consequences. It won't ban coronavirus lawsuits, and it won't give anyone a get-out-of-jail-free card. So we need to get that straight up front. In cases of gross negligence or willful misconduct, where the applicable public health guidelines were not followed, the person affected has every right to sue and be made whole in a court of law. No one is asking to change that. What we do need, though, is to put safeguards in place to ensure that those who operated in good faith and were following all the relevant guidelines, even as they evolved over time, cannot be sued out of existence. First and foremost are protections for our incredible healthcare heroes who made tremendous physical and mental sacrifices over the last several months. This legislation sets a willful misconduct or gross negligence standard for coronavirus-related medical liability suits to ensure that only legitimate cases are brought against our healthcare workers who, again, didn't have any choice but to show up for work. In addition to protecting our healthcare heroes, we need to ensure that a fear of lawsuits doesn't prevent schools, nonprofits, churches, small businesses, and a range of other organizations and institutions that are vital to our communities and our economy from opening their doors. This spells out in black and white that these entities will be protected from COVID-19 exposure claims as long as they comply with mandatory public health guidelines. It is true that a number of States have already provided similar protections, including the minority leader's home State of New York, and it is time that we extend these liability limitations to the rest of the country, particularly States like mine where the legislature does not meet on a continual basis. They haven't even been in session during 2020. They will go into session in January, and I presume they will try to fill in any holes they feel like we left when it comes to liability protection. But without a uniform Federal standard, we are going to end up in a dangerous venue shopping situation, and it is only to be expected that the lawyers will find the place most favorable for their lawsuits. They will seek to pursue those claims using class action procedures, and we will be right back at the worst nightmare that I think many folks would have contemplated unless we provide for this Federal liability shield. The goal is not to protect bad actors. What we do need to clearly spell out is for the schools, colleges, nonprofits, churches, and businesses that are asking us to provide them some guidance and some security. Our Democratic colleagues have not expressed a lot of enthusiasm for this legislation, and my Republican colleagues and I have tried to work with them to reach a result that both sides can support. But the nature of compromise, as we all know, is give-and-take, but so far it has been pretty much one-sided. We have offered changes to appease our Democratic colleagues' concerns while still preserving the basic goal of the legislation, but the truth is, they really haven't moved much in any meaningful way. I think the truth is that our country's long-term economic recovery from this virus depends on these liability protections in large part. Businesses doing the best they can during a worldwide emergency should not face bankruptcy because of concerns about the trial bar. I mean, who are we here working for--the American people or for lawyers who-- and this isn't necessarily designed to be a criticism--who are looking out for their own economic interests first and foremost? Our view must be much broader than that, and the greatest good for the greatest number I think should be our guiding principle. Our essential workers and institutions need to know that if they have been operating in good faith and obeying the guidelines that have been promulgated by the public health authorities, they won't be subjected to litigation, and only Congress can provide that certainty. Now, this is not a permanent Federal takeover of State tort law by any means. It really is comparable to what we did after Y2K--or in the run up to Y2K--and also with other national emergencies like 9/11. We have even given some protection to pharmaceutical companies, which we have asked to take risks to come up with world-class vaccines and therapies, to encourage them and to incentivize them to do that because we know it is in the public interest. But across the country, we are already seeing these lawsuits rolling in, and without action from Congress, we are going to emerge from this pandemic only to find ourselves in not another wave of the virus but in a second wave of litigation that will be devastating for many. In order for our country and our economy to recover, these workers and these institutions need to know that they can follow the guidelines and then safely reopen their doors and do their jobs with confidence. They need to know that if they follow these guidelines and act in good faith, they won't be subjected to perhaps business-ending litigation that could tie them up in court and drain their remaining resources dry. As I have said, the way we reach agreements around here is through bipartisan negotiations. It took a little compromise, and neither side achieved 100 percent of what they wanted, but we eventually have gotten there. We have done that four times in the coronavirus response, and I hope we can do it again here. I hope our Democratic colleagues will approach these negotiations with the gravity they deserve. We can't leave people waiting and wondering what their future looks like any longer if there is something we can do to provide them some safety and security and some confidence about what the future may look like. I hope we will all work together to deliver these critical liability protections for folks across the country in all 50 States.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, over the last 4 years, we have seen a series of encouraging developments in the Middle East--a place where there isn't a long trend line of positive developments. We have destroyed the ISIS caliphate. We have brought down dangerous terrorist leaders like al-Baghdadi and, of course, the head of the IRGC, Soleimani, who was personally responsible for American blood on his hands, particularly providing explosives that penetrated our armor in Iraq. Through congressional action and the work of the Trump administration, we strengthened bilateral ties with our closest friends and allies, including Israel and Jordan. This summer, the administration helped forge historic peace deals between Israel and Arab nations in the region. The United Arab Emirates became the third Arab country and first Gulf State to recognize and normalize relations with Israel by the signing of the Abraham Accords Peace Agreement. It was only a matter of days until Bahrain followed suit and announced its agreement with Israel to open formal diplomatic negotiations. These historic breakthroughs represent serious progress in our efforts to fight terrorism and establish lasting peace and stability in the Middle East. While more work obviously remains, it is great to see the mounting pressure against Iran--the region's greatest antagonist and largest state sponsor of terrorism. Last month, the Trump administration announced that it intended to sell arms to our friends in the United Arab Emirates--a move that I support. This will help the UAE work with the United States and our friends to deter and defend these threats from Iran and other hostilities in the region. What it seems to me is that it focused everybody's attention on the recognition that Iran represents the single biggest destabilizing and dangerous influence in the Middle East today, and it is the recognition that they are the common adversary of not only the Arab nations in the region but also the United States and our ally Israel that has, I think, brought them to the negotiating table. As Iran grows increasingly belligerent toward the United States and our allies, these military assets that we will sell to our friends in the UAE will serve as a stabilizing force, a force multiplier, and a source of protection for the United States and our security interests. We have learned a hard lesson that American boots on the ground is something we want to do as a last resort. But if we can work by, with, and through our friends and allies to provide that security and stability against a common enemy, we should do it. The arms sale will allow greater military cooperation between the United States, the UAE, and Israel and strengthen a growing coalition of aligned forces in the region. It will also make sure the United States remains the partner of choice. It is not as if the United States is the only one that has a say. Obviously, if we don't provide them the military equipment they need, they will go looking for other sellers, and that would certainly be less desirable for us and for them because we are their partner of choice in the region. Russia and particularly China have sought to increase their malign influence in the Middle East, and they would be more than happy to fill the void left by any refusal on the part of the United States to make this sale. So blocking this sale would only strengthen the position of China and Russia, while significantly weakening our own. As we continue to make progress in the decades-long quest for peace and stability in the Middle East, I support the administration's strategic decision to sell arms to the UAE. This would provide the UAE with critical national security assets, such as access to the F-35 fifth-generation fighter, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other advanced munitions to act as a deterrent, and if worse comes to worse, it actually gives them a comparative advantage with other countries in the region. The Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, perhaps summed it up best when he said: What keeps me up at night is actually not the proposed F-35 sale to the Emirates. What keeps me up at night is the idea that somebody would return to the nuclear deal with Iran