John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a brief moment?

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I appreciate the leadership of the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and I agree with his proposed outcome on this vote. That is not to diminish the importance of the issues raised by the Senator from Utah and the Senator from Vermont, but I do agree with him that it is the preferred, careful, cautious way of dealing with competing interests in a complex world. I just ask the Senator further to that point whether he can confirm my understanding that actually using this unique process--is it his understanding, as it is mine--that there would actually be a vote- arama; that is, we would end up voting on multiple different proposals, not just this one proposal, and create perhaps some confusion and some more chaos in what is admittedly a complex and sensitive foreign relations and national security matter?

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this week we are discussing, among other topics, the sad fact of sex trafficking online. The reason is because yesterday we voted to advance a piece of legislation called SESTA, or the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act. The purpose of this legislation is crystal clear. We want to put an end to this abominable practice, and we want to stop shielding or protecting those web platforms that promote it. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation. Over the past year, like many of my colleagues, I met with law enforcement and victims' rights groups across the country who talk about this as a continuing problem. I met with technology providers who want to end the practice but want to make sure they maintain their independence from Federal regulation writ large. I have been in regular contact with my colleagues over at the House to make sure this bill is considered and passed in a timely fashion. I think it is fair to characterize the negotiations as delicate. A small group of Senators, including our colleague John McCain, the senior Senator from Arizona, wanted to make sure that everyone understood what this bill does and what it does not do. What it does do is to protect our children. It provides justice to victims, and it makes sure that Federal laws don't protect those who profit from sex trafficking online. What it does not do is somehow to stymie free speech. It does not restrict web platforms from publishing objectionable content. For example, under the Communications Decency Act, now websites have to screen for child pornography. That is one of the explicit exceptions to the Communications Decency Act, which basically provides immunity to these web platforms from liability. What we are doing is adding to that human trafficking, and it is appropriate that we do so. This does not discourage websites that are already taking steps to proactively remove improper conduct and police their own networks. I would say to those who do: Keep up the good work. Today the internet and other forms of technology have made certain forms of predatory behavior easier to engage in. This bill addresses this development head-on. It would allow sex trafficking victims to have their day in court by eliminating Federal liability protections for technology providers who knowingly facilitate online sex trafficking. It would allow State and local law enforcement to investigate and prosecute providers that violate Federal sex trafficking laws. This bill was introduced last summer after a 2-year inquiry by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which produced a report. That report found that not only had sex trafficking run rampant in certain online spaces but also that some websites had tried to cover it up. Well, no longer. Last fall, the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously approved SESTA, the bill on the floor that the House passed last month. Now it is our turn. Senator Portman, the junior Senator from Ohio, has been this bill's greatest champion since its inception. I believe he was one of the members of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which produced the report I mentioned. He has been involved in this issue for a long time. He has been informing us time and again of the ways in which sex trafficking has morphed from the street corner to the smartphone. In the committee's investigation, one website in particular came up time and again, and the name is no stranger to the Senate or the Congress. It is backpage, a notorious publication now online that is responsible for three-quarters of all child trafficking reports. It eventually became clear that even though that site was actually helping to sell young women for sex, and even the victims and their families were suing backpage, none of the lawsuits were successful because of what some people are coming to believe is an outdated immunity protection for technology providers under the Communications Decency Act, which I mentioned a moment ago. The original law was intended to protect free speech online, which is important. I am a firm believer in the First Amendment, as I know we all are, but free speech is no license to engage in criminal activity. At last count, 67 Senators have joined our effort as cosponsors. We are joined in support of SESTA by anti-human-trafficking advocates, law enforcement, State attorneys general, the civil rights community, faith-based groups, and tech companies like Facebook and Oracle. Our colleague from Oregon has introduced two amendments, which I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose. The first would appropriate new money for the Attorney General to investigate and prosecute website operators that criminally facilitate sex trafficking. The problem is that this would violate the blue slip rule and subject the bill to a point of order. In other words, there are constitutional issues raised about where that sort of legislation would originate. It has to originate in the House. It would almost certainly guarantee the demise of this legislation. In other words, it is a poison pill. It is not that we will not support funding to prosecute traffickers. In fact, we will provide ample funding through the Department of Justice later this week. It is that those funds should be appropriated through the usual process and then handed over to State and local officials who can use them effectively. The second amendment that will be offered is the ``Bad Samaritan'' amendment. This would prevent websites from being held accountable for any efforts to moderate content, even when those efforts are taken in bad faith or obviously intended to miss their mark and instead protect sex traffickers. In some States courts have found that websites like backpage might be held liable when they selectively edit sex trafficking ads to make them more difficult to be identified by law enforcement. The ``Bad Samaritan'' amendment could protect platforms like backpage.com from liability for bad-faith editing practices, leaving victims with even less of a recourse than they have today. Simply put, it could eviscerate the steps we are taking in SESTA. I am confident that our colleague does not intend this result, but that would be the consequence of adopting either one of those amendments. So I hope my colleagues will join me in voting in favor of SESTA this week and opposing these two amendments. That is the best way we can ensure that these websites and online platforms can be held accountable for facilitating sex trafficking. Mr. President, later today the Senate will be voting on a privileged resolution that I spoke on yesterday, offered by three of our colleagues. Simply put, it would direct the President to cut off all U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Now, some people may be looking at a world map to figure out where Yemen is and what the import of this conflict may be, but suffice it to say that this is another proxy war being conducted against the United States and its allies by Iran, now in Yemen, just to the south of Saudi Arabia, our ally. So as to the motion to table, I was interested to hear my friends from Connecticut and Vermont suggesting that the motion to table would stop debate. Well, that is not exactly true. What it will do is to facilitate full debate and full consideration of the merits of the underlying resolution, starting with the Foreign Relations Committee. It is very unusual for resolutions like this to come immediately to the floor, where 100 Senators vote on it, because, frankly, not all of us are as up to speed on the details of this or what the unintended impact might be as the Foreign Relations Committee that is set up for the purpose of examining legislation with regard to our international relationships in matters like this. This is an important and timely matter, as high-level Saudi officials are in Washington this week. The Crown Prince is scheduled to meet with President Trump today. I met with him this morning, along with other members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Saudi Arabia is an important partner in our counterterrorism operations and as a counterpoint to Iran. In Yemen, we see both terrorist operations--that is, ISIS and al-Qaida--and Iran actively deploying missiles and using Yemen as a launching pad to shoot missiles into Saudi Arabia. I mentioned that this support for our Saudi coalition is narrowly circumscribed. It takes the form of intelligence sharing, military advice, and logistical support, including air-to-air refueling. This is part of a plan that started under the Obama administration and now has continued under the Trump administration not to put American troops on the ground--boots on the ground, as we frequently refer to it--but rather to facilitate for our allies by working by, with, and through those allies to address the threat not only to them but ultimately to the United States and to peace in the region. The role we play in Yemen is clearly a noncombat support role, and it is meant to minimize civilian casualties by improving the processes and procedures and increasing compliance with the international law of armed conflict. In other words, we are trying to help them target the terrorists and the Iranian-backed rebels and not innocent civilians, something they are not able to do as well without our assistance. Contrary to the resolution's sponsors' claims, the United States is not engaged in hostilities in Yemen, as it has been traditionally understood, since it is not in direct conflict with the Houthi rebels. We are not fighting the Houthi rebels. U.S. soldiers are not fighting the Houthi rebels directly. We are providing support. Proponents of this legislation rightly point out that there is a humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Unfortunately, what they sometimes leave out is that the humanitarian crisis only started when the Iranian- backed rebels overthrew the existing government. Our military assistance is helping the Saudis with their targeting to help prevent civilian casualties, to restore law and order, and to create conditions necessary to provide aid. Let's remember, too, that it was President Obama who first implemented the refueling and logistical support policy. This is not a political matter. There is no real difference in the way that the Obama administration and the Trump administration provide this support by, with, and through our allies the Saudis and the Emiratis. It is clear why this has been the policy of the last two administrations. Yemen is a place of great geopolitical concern. When I visited Bahrain recently with our colleagues--the U.S. Fifth Fleet is housed in Bahrain--we heard concerns about a chokepoint near an area called the Bab el Mandeb. I probably butchered that pronunciation, but we have all heard more frequently about the Straits of Hormuz, through which a lot of the world's commerce and oil flow. Bab el Mandeb is off to the west of Yemen, only 18 miles at its narrowest point, connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. That is one of the reasons why it is so important geopolitically--because 3.8 million barrels of oil pass through it each day, many of them in route to the Suez Canal and beyond. Bab el Mandeb shows the geopolitical importance of Yemen in the surrounding region. When rebels attempt to shut down shipping in this passage, the impact is global, including on the United States, and our Nation has every right to be concerned. I fear the resolution I mention deals with our shared concerns in the wrong way. We all want to avoid civilian casualties. Most everyone is aware that Yemen has been suffering from a severe humanitarian crisis for years, including a terrible cholera outbreak. But if we were to remove U.S. involvement and logistical support for the Saudi coalition, the humanitarian crisis would likely get even worse. The Department of Defense has critiqued the resolution on which we will be voting on the grounds that it would undermine our ability to foster long-term relationships with allies in the Gulf region. We also benefit from increased interoperability, burden-sharing, and strong security architectures throughout the world. In other words, the alliances we have in the Middle East fight the common enemy of ISIS and al-Qaida and try to contain Iran, which has been at war with the United States since 1979 in the Iranian Revolution in one form or another. All of these are on the table and all of these should be matters of our concern, but they are best considered, at least initially, in the context of the Foreign Relations Committee. They can then make a recommendation to us, and we can have the sort of fulsome debate that people have come to expect in the Senate, I hope, on matters of global importance. So all of the reasons I have mentioned here suggest that the need for our auxiliary and limited role in Yemen remains important. Secretary Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, has said that a withdrawal of our noncombatant support could embolden Iranian-backed rebels in the area, enable further missile strikes on Saudi Arabia, our ally, and threaten the shipping lanes in the Red Sea, like the one at Bab el Mandeb. All this combined could stoke the embers of an even greater regional conflict in the Middle East. So I hope our colleagues will vote for a tabling of this resolution, which does not cut off debate but just moves that debate, at least initially, to the Foreign Relations Committee, where, under the able leadership of Chairman Corker and Ranking Member Menendez, I have every confidence that they will explore every nook and cranny of this issue and come out with a reasoned and reasonable recommendation to the Senate and the Congress on how the U.S. Government should conduct itself. I believe in a strong congressional role when it comes to wars and military conflict. This has been a fight, though, that has been going on for a long time between the executive branch and the legislative branch. We have the ultimate tool. We can cut off money, but that is a rather blunt instrument. I think this administration, like previous administrations, needs to recognize that the Congress is a partner in making these decisions, not an adversary. It is important that we each play our respective role, and I am confident that we will play that role responsibly, which is really what this is all about. If the Senate takes this vote and passes this resolution, we lose the chance for that kind of careful, deliberate, informed consideration that starts in our standing committees. We lose the chance to have the Senate Foreign Relations Committee issue a thoroughly researched recommendation. So I hope our colleagues will vote to table the resolution and not to close off debate but to insist that this debate take place, at least initially, where it belongs, in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and that this debate then continue among all 100 Members of the Senate. We will be better informed, we will be better prepared, and we will be better able to prevent unintended consequences from taking a rash action like voting for the resolution today. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am pleased to learn that Senator Cory Booker, our colleague from New Jersey, is the 73rd cosponsor of the Fix NICS bill, which I have introduced and which I hope will be passed out of the Senate soon. This bill is designed to fix the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which, if it had been working the way it was designed to, would have caught the shooter at Sutherland Springs, perhaps saving the lives of 26 people who lost their lives in that little Baptist church outside of San Antonio; 20 more were shot and will suffer those wounds the rest of their lives. Today the news brought us the fact that apparently there had been a recommendation by mental health professionals that Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in Parkland, FL, be committed for involuntary treatment, but apparently that never materialized. That was the recommendation, but it never actually happened. If that had happened, under the current law, his name would have been included in the Florida upload of background check information, and that would have prevented him from legally buying a firearm. So we are starting to see the different data points that begin to paint a picture of the sorts of things that we could do here in Washington, DC, to save lives in these future mass shooting events. We know the President has said to the Department of Justice that he wants bump stocks banned. Of course, that was the instrument used to kill dozens of people in Las Vegas and injure 851 more. So by addressing things like the background check system, improving the mental health response, eliminating the bump stock--which takes a semiautomatic weapon and makes it operate essentially like an automatic weapon--and by providing assistance to our schools so that they can harden themselves against potential attacks, we can begin to see a picture of the sorts of things we ought to be doing to prevent future mass shootings like the one we saw most recently in Parkland, FL. It is simply our responsibility to make sure we do everything we humanly can. I know that after these horrific events, people throw up their hands and say: We need to do something. Well, we need to do something that matters and that will save lives in the future. I think we now begin to have a picture of the sorts of things we can do, starting with the passage of the Fix NICS background check system. It is the only piece of legislation I know of that now has 73 cosponsors, with Senator Booker of New Jersey being added as the 73rd today. It is the only bill I know of that has that kind of broad, widespread support and that will actually, if implemented, save lives. Mr. President, this week we will be discussing another important subject--one that perhaps people do not want to hear about; rather, they would prefer that it not exist at all because it is a manifestation of evil. The subject is online sex trafficking. Unfortunately, it happens in the shadows of our society. Today, the internet and other forms of technology have made certain forms of predatory, perverted behavior easier to engage in without getting caught. The legislation we are voting on this week aims to protect our children, provide justice to victims of human trafficking, and to make sure Federal laws do not protect profiteering web domains where sex trafficking occurs. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or SESTA, would allow sex trafficking victims to have their day in court by eliminating Federal liability protections for technology providers that knowingly-- knowingly--facilitate online sex trafficking. It would allow State and local law enforcement to investigate and prosecute providers that violate Federal sex trafficking laws. I am proud to be one of the original cosponsors of this legislation and to have been working on it with my colleagues to get it to this point today. The bill was introduced last summer after a 2-year inquiry by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which culminated in a report. The report found not only that sex trafficking has run rampant in certain online spaces but also that websites have tried to cover it up. Well, no longer. Last fall, the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously approved SESTA, and the House passed it last month. This week, it is our turn. Senator Portman, the junior Senator from Ohio, has been this bill's greatest champion since its inception. He has been informing us time and again of the ways in which sex trafficking has moved--as he likes to say it--from the street corner to the smartphone. He spoke on the floor earlier this year and reminded us that even as technology develops and gives us new opportunities to learn, to innovate, and to connect with one another, it is not an unalloyed good. In the wrong hands, by the wrong people, it can be misused. As Senator Portman urged us, we need to shine a light onto the ``dark side of the internet,'' an area he called a ``stain on our national character.'' He is absolutely right, of course. The buying and selling of young people for sex is a moral scourge, and how we respond is a measure of our national conscience. In the committee's investigation, one website in particular came up over and over and over again; that is, backpage.com, which is responsible for perhaps three-quarters of all child trafficking reports--three-quarters. It eventually became clear that even though that site was actively helping to sell young women for sex and even though the victims and their families were suing backpage.com in response, none of the lawsuits were successful because of what some people are coming to believe is an outdated immunity for technology providers under a Federal law known as the Communications Decency Act. Courts have repeatedly emphasized that the broad reach of one section of that statute protects websites that help to buy and sell underage girls for sex. Judges across the country have said it is up to Congress to change the law, and now it is our time to do just that. The original law was intended to protect free speech, which, of course, is important. I, of course, like all of our colleagues, am a firm believer in the First Amendment, but free speech is no license to engage in illegal activity. Free speech can't be used as an excuse to offer young people into sexual servitude. And the internet cannot be a safe place for terrorists and child sex traffickers. At last count, 67 Senators have joined this effort as cosponsors. We are joined by anti-human trafficking advocates, law enforcement organizations, State attorneys general, the civil rights community, faith-based groups, and tech companies like Facebook and Oracle. We have all made clear that we stand behind SESTA. I hope our colleagues will join me in voting for this important legislation this week and ensure that websites and online platforms can be held accountable for facilitating sex trafficking. Yemen Resolution On another matter, Mr. President, this week, the Senate may vote on a privileged resolution offered by three of our colleagues--the junior Senators from Utah, Vermont, and Connecticut--which would direct the President to cut off financial support and other support for the Saudi- led coalition in Yemen. This, of course, is a proxy war, in many ways, between Iran, which has intervened in the civil war in Yemen, and--not only to allow the Saudis the means to defend themselves against incursions and attacks by the Houthis, Iranian-backed rebels, but also to facilitate our relationship with the Saudis and the Emirates, which is very important in terms of our anti-ISIS and anti-al-Qaida effort, with cells of these organizations located in Yemen too. Our support, of course, is already narrowly circumscribed--our support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. General Mattis, our Secretary of Defense, has described this as our alternative to putting American boots on the ground. We operate by, with, and through our allies by providing logistical support, intelligence, and some technical advice. Currently, in Yemen it takes the forms intelligence- sharing, military advice, and logistical support, such as air-to-air refueling. This is very clearly noncombatant support, at least as traditionally defined and historically known, and it is meant to improve processes and procedures and increase compliance with the international law of armed conflict. The very support we are providing aids in mitigating civilian casualties and the deteriorating humanitarian crisis brought on by the Iranian-backed Houthis. I know the Presiding Officer has been leading the charge on addressing the humanitarian crisis there, which is mind- boggling, to be sure. Contrary to the resolution's sponsors' claims, though, the U.S. military is not engaged in hostilities in Yemen, as that term has historically been understood and applied, since it is not in direct conflict or exchanging fire with Houthi forces. Of course, we all share a concern with what is at stake in Yemen and in Saudi Arabia and in the gulf region but also civilian casualties, which this resolution creates problems with. Almost everyone is aware that Yemen has been suffering from a severe humanitarian crisis for years. Were we to remove U.S. targeting and logistical support from the Saudi coalition, then the humanitarian situation could get even worse than it has been. Both political parties recognize the important role the United States plays in support of our partners' efforts to push back against the malign forces that have been coalescing in Yemen. In fact, President Obama was the one who first implemented the refueling and logistical support policy that remains in effect today. In 2016, Senator Menendez--now the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--criticized the international community's failure to address the Iranian-fueled conflicts that included support to a Houthi insurgency that helped topple the internationally recognized Government of Yemen. Senator Menendez went on to say: ``I have a sense we are creating a permissive environment.'' I agree with Senator Menendez that we should not abandon our partners and leave a ``permissive environment''--a vacuum, a void--for bad actors to fill. If there is one lesson that I thought we learned after 9/11, when 3,000 Americans were killed when two planes were hijacked--actually, four were hijacked; two went into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and one landed in Pennsylvania because passengers on the plane overwhelmed the hijackers--what we learned is that what happens in the Middle East does not stay in the Middle East. What happened in Afghanistan is that the Taliban provided a safe haven for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, and they used that safe haven to train and export their terrorist attacks against countries around the world but primarily against the United States. That is what happened on 9/11/ 2001. That is why we can't allow a safe haven, a void, in Yemen, not to mention the fact that Iran continues to use proxies in places like Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, among others, to try to fight the United States in a low-grade war that has been going on literally since 1979. I should mention Iraq as one of those countries as well. It is precisely because of the delicate and desperate situation in Yemen that I am making the argument that any consideration to withdraw U.S. troops from fulfilling their limited auxiliary role in this conflict would have broad impacts on our global partnerships and counterterrorism efforts. It is not a decision to be made in haste or a decision to be made lightly; therefore, I believe the idea deserves the careful consideration of the committee of jurisdiction, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If the Senate takes this vote without adequate preparation and deliberation and passes this resolution, we lose that chance for careful consideration. We lose the chance to have the Senate Foreign Relations Committee issue a thoroughly researched and deliberated recommendation to the entire Senate. Even more troubling is the prospect that this resolution could set a precedent--one in which a few Members' preferred policies are prioritized over the normal Senate procedures and more thoughtful committee deliberation, with unintended global impacts. Yemen is not the only place where we are addressing challenges to peace and to our country by, with, and through allies, without Americans engaging in direct hostilities. So this would have unintended global impact. Secretary of Defense James Mattis has voiced his concerns over this resolution. In a letter to congressional leadership, he said that new restrictions on the U.S. military could increase civilian casualties and jeopardize our partners' cooperation on counterterrorism efforts. On top of that list would be the Saudis and the Emirates, among others, and other people are watching as well. And it will reduce our influence in the key region. He warned that a withdrawal of our noncombat support in Yemen could embolden rebels in the area, enable further missile strikes on Saudi Arabia, and threaten shipping lanes in the Red Sea--one of the key chokepoints for international commerce--right there on the western border of Yemen. All this combined could stoke the embers of an even greater regional conflict in the Middle East with unknown consequences. More importantly, it would damage U.S. credibility and strengthen Iran's position in Yemen and throughout the Middle East more broadly. I hope our colleagues will think soberly and thoughtfully about this resolution and insist that a fulsome debate take place where it belongs, initially, and that is within the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I have talked to Senator Corker, the chairman of that committee. He will speak for himself, but I think he certainly believes that the committee can help the Senate make a good decision after giving the committee an opportunity to have hearings and to consider all the intended and unintended consequences of this resolution. I know our colleagues who have offered the resolution mean well and their intentions are good, but sometimes--particularly in the area of international conflict and global interactions with different countries--our actions beget an unintended consequence. I think it is good to be safe in the first place and to take this matter through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where I have every confidence that Senator Corker, as the chairman, and Ranking Member Menendez can guide the members of that committee through a process that will help us in the end to make a better decision. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, 2 days ago, the President of the United States announced his decision to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo. I respect and admire both of these men immensely. I just want to take a moment to talk about Secretary Tillerson's public service. I know his entering government after his long and illustrious career in the private sector was quite a transition, but he provided able leadership to the Department of State during a period of transition from one Presidency to the next and a period of diplomatic turbulence. He worked hard to strengthen and, in some cases, repair our global alliances. I have known Secretary Tillerson for a long time. He is a man of character who has led the Boy Scouts, which continues to be one of his abiding passions--developing young men as persons of character, and I respect that. At the same time, he advanced his own career as the head of one of the largest businesses in the world at the pinnacle of success, as we count success. I wish him the best, and I hope his statesmanship, professionalism, and deep and abiding friendships spanning the globe are remembered and maintained after he is gone from public life. Nomination of Mike Pompeo Mr. President, I also want to say a few good words about my friend Mike Pompeo. After graduating first in his class at West Point and then graduating from Harvard Law School, he had a successful career in law and business before transitioning into public service. As a Member of the House of Representatives, he represented Kansas's Fourth Congressional District and served on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Then he was named by President Trump, as we know, to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. Director Pompeo is a terrific guy, smart and well respected by all. He has a keen sense of the delicate nature of global diplomacy and the crucial role America and American intelligence agencies have to play. I know he has a great rapport with the President, and I think he will make an excellent Secretary of State. Nomination of Gina Haspel Mr. President, finally, I want to state my utmost confidence in Gina Haspel, Director Pompeo's Deputy, who has been nominated to take over after he leaves as Director of the CIA. As a career intelligence professional, she is tough, she is direct, but she is collegial, too, and much beloved by the people who work out at the Central Intelligence Agency. As my colleague, the senior Senator from California, has previously stated, Ms. Haspel has great experience acting as Deputy Director, and she has the confidence of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is no small feat. I support Ms. Haspel's nomination and look forward to working hard to ensure her confirmation. Of course, there will be groups who will waste no time trying to tarnish her reputation over efforts she made doing her part to keep our Nation safe after the terrible tragedy of 9/11, but I think it is more telling that those who know her best commend her in the strongest of terms. Take, for example, President Obama's former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who has called her tremendous, and President Obama's CIA Director Leon Panetta has expressed his support and said he is glad the nominee is Ms. Haspel because she knows the CIA inside out. So in the days ahead, we will be discussing Ms. Haspel, but let's not just buy into the phony narratives that other people will give about her public service. The views of those who doubt her qualifications and who question her experience will continue to attack and denigrate Ms. Haspel, no doubt, in the open debate. Ultimately, their arguments, if believed and accepted, would make the country less safe and less secure. We have to remember that right after the terrible events of 9/11, we didn't have the luxury of hindsight. Our leaders were worried about follow-on attacks following the terrible tragedy in New York and the plane crashing into the Pentagon. Public fears regarding another attack were at an alltime high, and tough calls had to be made. That is what leadership is all about. So I look forward to continuing to make the case for why Ms. Haspel is the person the country needs to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. Fix NICS Bill Mr. President, I admit to sounding like a broken record. I am here again to talk about the Fix NICS bill, a bill I introduced with the junior Senator from Connecticut. Just as a refresher, Fix NICS is about fixing the broken background check system that is used when somebody purchases a firearm, but in the case of my constituents in Sutherland Springs, TX, because of the failures of the Federal Government-- notably, in this case, the U.S. Air Force--to upload felony convictions and convictions for domestic violence into the background check system, no derogatory information was reported, and ultimately the gunman in Sutherland Springs took the life of 26 innocent people and shot 20 more. The reason I keep talking about this legislation is, it is just too important to let up on. We cannot, and we never should, just move on after another tragedy like that which occurred in Parkland, FL, and Sutherland Springs, TX, or what happened in Las Vegas, NV, where 58 people were killed and 851 others injured by a gunman using a bump stock, which essentially turned a semiautomatic weapon into an automatic weapon. We can't just move on when lives hang in the balance. We have to do our duty and do our part to save lives. We have to fix our criminal background check system so dangerous felons do not lie their way into obtaining firearms to use to slaughter innocent people. To do that, we have to get this bill to the President as soon as possible. The President will sign this legislation once it passes the House and the Senate. I am grateful that today 72 Members of the U.S. Senate have signed on as cosponsors to the bill. It is not just the lawmakers here in Washington who support it; the country is asking for it too. I have a Thursday morning coffee for my constituents from Texas and a number of them--students--came to talk to me about their concerns about gun violence and particularly the feeling that not only parents have, and worry about for their children, but that students have themselves about whether they are going to continue to be safe in their schools. Yesterday, a broad coalition of victims' rights advocates, law enforcement officers, and gun violence prevention groups and prosecutors sent me a letter, along with to the majority and minority leaders, asking them for a clean vote on the Fix NICS legislation before the upcoming Easter recess. They said it would improve key elements of the background check system, particularly domestic violence, criminal history, and protective order records. Let me just pause there. One of the most frequent victims of shootings are domestic violence victims--family disputes, custody disputes, divorces, and the like. One of the purposes of the background check system is to make sure nobody who has been convicted of a domestic violence assault can legally purchase or possess a firearm. These same groups call this bill bipartisan, bicameral, commonsense, and noncontroversial. Again, they made a point to note in their letter that the vote should be clean--in other words, not conditioned on other controversial measures. Well, they are absolutely right, and I would ask the minority leader to listen to the 80 percent of his conference that backed this bill and believe in its promise to help stem the tide of violence and help save lives. I would ask those who are objecting to us considering this legislation on a clean up-or-down vote to reconsider. Many of them say: Well, there are other things we want to vote on. Well, I would be happy to have that happen, but none of these ideas, at this point, have achieved the sort of consensus the Fix NICS bill has. They are waiting for impossible outcomes, insisting on votes on other measures, when we know those votes will fail, but worst of all, conditioning their willingness to vote on Fix NICS for those other votes, which we know will not succeed and will fail. So I implore those standing in the way of a rollcall vote on this consensus piece of legislation to lift their objections and join us. Their current strategy will guarantee failure, and failure on this issue, more than others, we absolutely cannot afford. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I have listened to the remarks of our distinguished colleague from Illinois who is the Democratic whip. I agree with a number of things he says and disagree with some others, but I do think we need to keep this in the appropriate context. We are, in fact, talking about a provision of the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and I hope we would never treat any of those essential guarantees of American rights that precede the creation of our government casually. It is important that we protect all of our rights. The right to worship according to the dictates of our conscience, the right to petition our government for the redress of just grievances, the freedom of association, and the freedom of the press are also part of the Bill of Rights, just like the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. There are a number of things that we can agree on, and I have been talking about one of them for some time now--the so-called Fix NICS bill. It is probably not very well-labeled or branded because ``NICS'' is short for the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Basically, what it does is fix the broken background check system to make sure that convicted felons, people who have been dishonorably discharged from the military, people who have been adjudicated mentally ill, people who have committed acts of domestic violence--and a number of other categories--cannot legally purchase firearms. Why? Because current law prohibits it. We have already passed those laws, but as we saw in Sutherland Springs, TX, one Sunday morning not long ago, 26 people lost their lives and 20 additional lives were forever changed when they were shot by a gunman who had lied and obtained firearms when he was disqualified under the law from purchasing them. The FBI maintains the background check system, and it wasn't their fault because the background check system is only as good as the information that is uploaded into the background check system. When somebody goes into a store and tries to purchase a firearm and lies, the background check system catches them and they are denied that purchase. That is how it is supposed to work. Recently, the attitude among some here in Washington seems to be that this bill somehow doesn't go far enough. There are other ideas I am more than willing to debate and vote on, some of which I actually agree with, but none have the bipartisan consensus and support that this particular Fix NICS bill has. I was just told that now we are up to 70 bipartisan cosponsors. In other words, 70 out of 100 Senators, on a bipartisan basis, support this fix to our broken background check system because they know that if it had been working the way Congress had intended, 26 people would still be alive in Sutherland Springs, TX, and 20 more who were shot and wounded would not have had to suffer those grievous injuries and the painful recovery. For example, as the Democratic leader--as well as some others--has said: ``If we only pass Fix NICS, we'll be right back here after the next shooting, in nearly the same place.'' He said that ``we won't have done our job.'' Well, as I said, if there are other things that enjoy broad bipartisan consensus, let's get them done. But if the attitude is that we will not even vote on what we agree on because we want to do more, we will never get anything done around here. Why not vote on what we have agreed on, what people are supporting, and then, in addition, we can work on other ideas. As I said, at least 36 Senate Democrats have already cosponsored the Fix NICS bill. That is 75 percent of the Democratic caucus, and the numbers have been steadily rising. I hope they will go even higher. I am grateful to the Democratic leader from New York. He, himself, is a cosponsor of the bill, as is the Senate majority leader, Mr. McConnell. I have never seen a piece of legislation involving a controversial subject like gun rights get such broad bipartisan support. It is truly unique. We ought to be grateful we have found a place where we have such broad bipartisan agreement and, more important than that, a provision that will save lives in the future. If the shooter at Sutherland Springs had gone into the gun store to purchase a gun and he lied, had the background check system worked as it was supposed to work, he would not have been able to legally purchase a gun because it would have revealed the fact that he was disqualified from doing so. Each of these tragedies involves different circumstances. The shooters are always different. They obtain firearms in particular ways and use them to perpetrate their crimes according to different plans and in different settings. I have already talked about the shooter in Sutherland Springs, who actually was convicted of a felony after choking and kicking his wife and cracking his stepson's skull. He was discharged dishonorably from the military. He was detained in a mental health facility because he was mentally ill. Yet he was able to lie his way into possession of these firearms, forever changing the world of innumerable families in Sutherland Springs, TX. Under Federal law, he should have been prevented from purchasing these firearms. Were it not for the breakdown in our background check system, he wouldn't have obtained them. He would have been caught lying when trying to buy these firearms and possibly prosecuted, and 26 people would still be living their lives, and the people who were worshipping that Sunday morning at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs would still be doing so in that same location. It has now been turned into a memorial for those who lost their lives that day. This is preventable loss of life. That is more than enough reason to pass Fix NICS. I disagree with those who say that it doesn't do much. If it saves lives, it does plenty. If our system had worked properly-- and ensuring it does in the future is what my bill aims to do-- Annabelle Pomeroy, the 14-year-old daughter of the pastor at First Baptist, would still be here, and Ryland Ward, a 6-year-old boy who survived, would not have been shot five times. It is simply incorrect to characterize this bill as a pittance. It is inaccurate to suggest that it really wouldn't do anything, that it somehow is just window dressing or maybe a political fig leaf. That is demonstrably false. Tell that to the families who lost loved ones that day. They wish our background check system had stopped the gunman. Each of them suffered a terrible trauma because it didn't. It is also not true to say that Washington has been feckless or absent in the wake of not only Sutherland Springs but Las Vegas, Parkland, and all the rest. On the issue of bump stocks, I agree with the Democratic whip, the Senator from Illinois. These attachments to a semiautomatic rifle turned it into an automatic rifle. I have never heard of such a thing before, but if automatic weapons are already illegal, why in the world would we want to allow an appliance attached to a gun to turn a semiautomatic weapon into an automatic weapon? I am glad the President has said that those should be regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and be unavailable. We know that a lot of people lost their lives in Las Vegas; 58 concertgoers in Las Vegas lost their lives because of a man in a hotel room, shooting down into a country music concert. There were 851 people injured. The scope of the carnage was unbelievable. We have also learned that mental health problems are some of the reasons people do these sorts of things. We passed a law, most notably last December, called the 21st Century Cures Act, which provides new authority for families, when their loved ones are becoming a danger to themselves or others, to apply to a court to get assisted outpatient treatment to make sure they follow their doctors' orders and take their medications. Then we train law enforcement on how to save lives in the event of an active shooter incident. We know the problem at Sutherland Springs was that the Federal Government hadn't uploaded the information into the background check system, which would have prevented the purchase of the firearm. But we know the problem is present, as well, in the States. In Ohio, we learned that there have been failures to upload conviction records from at least 90 municipal courts--one that may have allowed those barred from owning weapons to purchase them in violation of the law. Since the shooting in Texas, the Department of Defense has retroactively uploaded 4,000 additional records of those dishonorably discharged from the military into the background check system. Under current law, these are people already prohibited from purchasing firearms, but, of course, if the military didn't upload them, no one would ever know, and they would be able to lie and purchase firearms. One news account stated that since 2015, the number of people barred from owning firearms because they were dishonorably discharged has hovered at around 11,000 people, according to FBI statistics. Now it stands at over 15,000. It is clear evidence that the background check system isn't working the way it is supposed to. We need to make sure that Federal agencies are uploading these records in real time, as they are required to do. We are taking action in other ways. I am also cosponsor of a bipartisan bill called the NICS Denial Notification Act. It is sponsored by a bipartisan pair of Senators--the Senators from Pennsylvania and Delaware. This bill will alert State law enforcement about people who lie and try to buy guns. If people go in and lie, the background check system catches them, and then they are turned away. Under current practice, that is never reported to the law enforcement agencies, but it would be if that legislation were passed. When people do this, their actions may be indicative of criminal behavior. That is why the bill would insist that Federal authorities notify State police within 24 hours if it is determined a person has lied in an attempt to buy a gun. Meanwhile, the Attorney General has announced that U.S. attorneys will be instructed to more aggressively enforce laws that criminalize gun buyers who lie on their background checks. I think all of this will help be a deterrent, and, yes, I do think it will contribute to the saving of lives. The Justice Department will also increase the presence of law enforcement officers at schools and review the way they respond to public tip-offs with regard to safety threats. We know the shooting in Parkland, FL, was a catastrophic failure at almost every level--from the public education system, to local law enforcement, to the FBI, to mental health providers. Looking back at this shooter, local law enforcement actually intervened with him about 40 times. This was a blinking red light. People should have paid attention and done something about it. We are now trying to make sure they have the resources and the training necessary to intervene when people are obviously a danger to themselves and others. One way we are going to do that is with the bill offered by the senior Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch--the STOP School Violence Act. This bill would authorize $50 million annually for safety improvements, including teacher training and training students on how to prevent violence and developing anonymous reporting systems for threats of school violence. It would give schools money for physical improvements, such as metal detectors or bulletproof windows or doors. This is a great step. It is not controversial, and we ought to get it done and get it done now. As the President has said: ``We cannot merely take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference. We must actually make a difference.'' One way we can do that is by passing Fix NICS. Just this afternoon, a diverse community of victims' rights groups, law enforcement officers, gun violence prevention groups, and prosecutors sent a letter to the minority and majority leaders, asking them for a vote on a clean version of Fix NICS before the upcoming Easter recess. They said it would ``improve key elements of the background system, particularly domestic violence criminal history and protective order records.'' That is really an important point because so much of the gun violence we see in America is in the context of domestic violence--people violating protective orders, people assaulting the person they are married to or living with. We need to focus on this and do something about it. This group of victims' rights advocates, law enforcement officers, gun violence prevention groups, and prosecutors call the Fix NICS bill a bipartisan, bicameral, commonsense, and noncontroversial bill. So why can't we pass it? Why can't we do it today? They made a point to note in their letter that the vote should be clean; in other words, not conditioned upon or attached to other controversial measures we can't pass. I think they are absolutely right. I hope all of us will listen to this good advice and get this done. We tried to get an agreement a couple of weeks ago to take up the bill and vote on it. If we did it today, it would pass this afternoon, but there was an objection to doing so, saying, well, there are other things we need to do too. Perhaps that is true, but to condition what can pass--what does enjoy broad bipartisan support and what will save lives--on things that will not pass and that aren't achievable means we have a strategy of either everything or failure. That usually ends up with us going back home emptyhanded, having nothing to show for our efforts. The people we represent deserve better. This institution should step up and listen to those who are calling upon us to do something, and doing something that will save lives, while respecting the rights of all Americans under the Constitution. I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). Mr. DURBIN I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich) is necessarily absent. The PRESDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senator in the Chamber desiring to vote?

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be authorized to sign duly enrolled bills or joint resolutions on Tuesday, March 13, 2018.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, just 2 days ago, the White House announced its plans to reduce gun violence in our Nation's schools. This is an important issue, and the White House's recommendations should be taken seriously. I certainly do. The President's blueprint attempts to address this pervasive problem from multiple angles during what has been a period of heightened tension and discord across the country. Parents and children continue to grapple every day with the aftermath of the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. But, of course, the problem didn't start with that single event and what I think can only be fairly called a catastrophic failure across the board, which resulted in this terrible tragedy. One important piece of the White House plan is to train school staffers. The President strongly supports a bill introduced by the senior Senator from Utah that would authorize funding for school safety improvements. You wouldn't think that would be controversial. Those school safety improvements include training efforts, school threat assessment, and crisis intervention teams. This bill is called the STOP School Violence Act. We ought to pass it, and we ought to pass it today. As Senator Hatch said last week, there has been little disagreement but a lot of discussion and debate and not much legislative progress. He said: ``To break the impasse, we must unite on the issues where we agree.'' I couldn't agree with Senator Hatch more. We must unite on the issues where we can agree. One of those issues relates to a bill that I have introduced with the junior Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Murphy, to improve background checks on gun purchases. NICS is the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. As of earlier today, the bill called Fix NICS now has 69 cosponsors. That is nine votes more than we need in order to pass legislation, so clearly we could and should get it done. The numbers speak for themselves: 32 Republicans and 36 Democrats want to strengthen the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Why? Because we want to save lives. There have been some who have come to the floor and have said in public comments: Well, we want to do more. Well, God bless you. I hope that we will have other ideas presented that could do even more, but we know this has the political support and the critical mass we need to get this done in the Senate and to get it done now. The reason this particular legislation is supported by so many Senators is, essentially, that it enforces current law. In other words, current law states that a felon--a person convicted of a felony in any court in the Nation--cannot buy or possess a firearm. It also says that a person who has committed and been convicted of an act of domestic violence cannot purchase or possess a firearm. If you entered the country illegally, you cannot possess or purchase a firearm, and so on and so forth. There are also provisions that if you have been adjudicated as a person with mental illness, you cannot legally purchase or possess a firearm. The problem is that many States and the Federal Government have done a very poor job of uploading the appropriate information into the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, so there are gaps in the system. The most notable one recently occurred in Sutherland Springs, TX, outside of San Antonio, where 26 people were killed and 20 more were injured by a gunman who purchased the guns illegally. He lied on his background check and, sadly, the Federal Government had failed to discharge its duty to upload the appropriate information, which would have revealed that at the point of sale. I am convinced that those 26 people who are dead would be alive today and the 20 more who were wounded would not have been shot if an appropriate background check system had been in place. We have reached critical mass, and I believe we are at a tipping point. I believe the public is demanding that we do something. That is what we usually hear when these mass shootings occur. People say: Well, do something. My question is, OK, what is it that you want us to do? This is something concrete and specific. It enjoys broad political support and will save lives, so I believe it is worth doing, and it is worth doing today, if possible. Tax Reform Mr. President, the other topic I want to address is the legislation that was signed into law in December called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That is the formal name of the comprehensive overhaul of our Nation's Tax Code. The tax change we made was a change in the law that doubled the standard deduction, meaning that for the first $24,000 a married couple earns, they will pay zero income tax. It doubled the child tax credit. It lowered tax rates across the board, and for the first time in a long time, it made the United States more competitive when it comes to attracting investment and businesses around the globe. (Mr. CRUZ assumed the Chair.) We know that our Tax Code had been a self-inflicted wound. With the highest tax rate in the world, businesses were moving offshore to lower tax jurisdictions--such as Ireland, for example--in order to avoid the highest taxes here in the United States. We changed that by lowering the business tax rate to attract people to bring that money back to the United States rather than leaving it overseas. Today, I want to briefly mention one of several portions of the law that is frequently overlooked. They don't steal the headlines, but they actually deserve more recognition. The one I am thinking of is the one sponsored by the junior Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Scott, called the Investing in Opportunity Act. Importantly, this measure helps incentivize long-term private investment in communities that need it most. That is why it is called the Investing in Opportunity Act. It provides a new way for investors across the Nation to pool their resources through newly created opportunity funds established specifically for making investment in economically distressed communities, so designated by State Governors. As any businessperson will tell you, private capital formation is a necessary ingredient for planting the seeds of job creation and opportunity. Our economically distressed communities need this sort of investment, and this provision of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act makes that possible and more likely. That is just one of the provisions we need to keep reminding folks back home about because they get so much disinformation, and, of course, there is so much information coming at us that it easily gets lost in the day-to-day shuffle. These are important provisions, and I think they bear some emphasis. The Presiding Officer and I have the great privilege of representing 28 million Texans. He and I hear from them from time to time on the legislation we pass. On the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, I heard from Pam from Amarillo, TX. She prefers that her last name not be mentioned, and I will certainly respect that. She thought she had made a mistake when she was figuring out her payroll at her company at the end of February. Because the pay increases to employees were just that big, she thought she had made a mistake. She said the differences in withholding were ``significant'' and a real ``boost in salary.'' Similarly, we heard from Glenda from Midland, TX, who wrote to me recently. Glenda has been retired since 2013, which, she reminded me, means that she is living on a fixed income with no possibility of pay increases or year-end bonuses. That doesn't mean she is not grateful for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. She said that the reduction in her income taxes feels like a raise, even though she is retired and living on a fixed income. She took the critics to task for calling her additional income crumbs. She said that maybe to them it is crumbs, but ``every single dollar makes a difference'' to her. She called the effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act an ``absolute blessing.'' I want to express my gratitude to Glenda and Pam for sharing their stories because I think it is really important to make sure that the facts get out. According to what the Bureau of Labor Statistics said last week, Midland--where Glenda lives--had the largest employment increase in the country over the last year. This past January in Midland, the increase was 10.4 percent. In Texas, they also had the lowest unemployment rate of 2.4 percent, a significant decrease from 4 percent at the same time last year. Of course, as the Presiding Officer and I know, Midland is the epicenter of energy production, and they are basically trying to get as many people as are willing to work on the jobs that produce energy to fuel our economy. Glenda is actually a part of a larger story that involves not only the place she calls home but also the entire country. After years of economic stagnation, Americans are finally getting some good economic news. In February, the U.S. economy added 313,000 jobs--313,000 jobs. That is about one-third of a million. The unemployment rate is at a 17-year low, and it would have been even lower but for the fact that the number of people actually in the workforce increased by 806,000 in February alone. Let me say that again. The reason the unemployment rate actually didn't dip statistically lower from 4.1 percent is that 800,000-plus Americans reentered the workforce. To me, that is a remarkable statistic and a reason for hope that our economy will continue to grow and people will continue to find work, provide for their families, and pursue their dreams. Since January of last year, our economy has added nearly 3 million jobs. Consumer confidence is at the highest level since 2000. The good news is that it is happening not because the Federal Government is spending the money but because the people who are actually earning it are getting the money and spending it as they see fit. Glenda and Pam are just two of the examples I have mentioned, but they are proof that spirits are high, people are hopeful, and the economy is gaining force. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I have 8 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: Committee on Armed Services The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 13, 2018, at 9:30 a.m. to conduct a hearing. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 13, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing. Committee on Foreign Relations The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 13, 2018, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``State Fragility, Growth, and Development: Designing Policy Approaches that Work.'' Committee on the Judiciary The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 13, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Freedom of Information Act: Examining the Administration's Progress on Reforms and Looking Ahead.'' Select Committee on Intelligence The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 13, 2018, at 2:30 p.m., to hold a closed hearing. Subcommittee on Cybersecurity The Subcommittee on Cybersecurity of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 13, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing. Subcommittee on Communication, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet The Subcommittee on Communication, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 13, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Rebuilding Infrastructure in America: Investing in Next Generation Broadband.'' Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security The Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, March 13, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Rebuilding Infrastructure in America: Investing in State and local Transportation Needs.''

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, this week, we will complete work on an important bipartisan bill. Thanks to the leadership of the Senator from Idaho, Mr. Crapo, who is chairman of the Banking Committee, they passed it out of the Banking Committee, and now it is time for us to do our job and pass it out of the Senate. Last week, we voted to proceed, and we will vote to pass it out of the Senate in the next few days. Senator Crapo explained why this work is so important. Since the passage of the Dodd-Frank legislation in 2010--as we all recall, after the great recession of 2008, when Wall Street melted down together with our financial institutions, there were reform efforts undertaken known as Dodd-Frank--Senator Dodd and Congressman Frank--which imposed regulatory requirements on banks large and small. The problem is, the small community banks--the ones that are disproportionately harmed by this overregulation--weren't the cause of the great recession, the financial meltdown of 2010 and 2009, but they are the collateral damage. What has happened is, there has been a lot of consolidation. Many small community banks and credit unions have simply had to close or been consolidated with other larger banks and institutions. It has taken a toll on our economy, and it has taken a toll on our communities across the country. What happens is, these community banks have less money to loan because they have had to use the money they would loan to hire more people to help them comply with all the unnecessary redtape because of the Dodd-Frank overregulation. Some have had to basically defer that sort of investment in their communities and others have had to shutter completely because of the financial burden. The second-order effect is, some people don't have access to capital; that is, to loans they need. They can't get credit they need in order to start a small business, grow an existing business, or even get a mortgage to buy their first home. Let's be clear, though, about which financial institutions this bill is tailored toward helping. It is small community banks, midsized regional ones, as well as credit unions. The bill we are considering somehow does not exempt large banks from those regulations, and saying it does, which some have said, doesn't make it so. It is a claim too eagerly peddled by those who want to maintain the status quo, to the detriment of our smaller communities and small businesses. Large banks are still subject to measures designed to protect the stability of the overall economy, like rigorous stress testing. After all, this bill is called the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act. What it actually does is rightsize those regulations. It does this by providing targeted exemptions from risk-weighted capital requirements, for example, and the Volcker rule. It also provides a qualified mortgage safe harbor for small banks and raises the SIFI threshold so community banks are not lumped into the same overall category as giant financial institutions operating on Wall Street. The majority leader recently said: ``In an era of online banking and multinational corporations, smaller institutions remain uniquely able to build community connections,'' and that is important to our civic fabric as well as the economies in rural and smalltown America. Based on research, community banks provide more than half of all small business loans. That could translate into small banks getting to know their customers on a personal level and then extending credit to entrepreneurs and families who might not have access otherwise. That is certainly the situation in parts of my State, the State of Texas. I have heard from banks and communities there that are more than ready to finally be freed of the shackles of Dodd-Frank. As the chief executive officer of the Independent Bankers Association of Texas put it, ``Congress holds the key to unchain community banks from the burden pushing them toward consolidation''--in other words, mergers, forcing them to become big banks, which seems to me to be an odd way to deal with this problem, to be sure, or putting them out of business altogether. In the IBAT's view--Independent Bankers Association of Texas--rules meant to curb the abuses of banks deemed too big to fail have instead trickled down to harm their much smaller counterparts. Because of this effect, in essence, community banks have become too small to survive as mergers and acquisitions have occurred all over the map. Independent bankers have reported that since 2009, Texas has lost nearly one-third of its banks--one-third of its banks. They have said that based on Federal data on rural counties, approximately one-third don't have a local credit union or bank at all. This bill addresses that situation. It enjoys wide bipartisan support, and I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting passage before the end of the week. Fix NICS Bill Madam President, on another matter, I want to emphasize another point and talk about a new milestone reached and announce some good news. We have now reached 64 total cosponsors for a bill I have introduced with the junior Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Murphy, called the Fix NICS, which is the background check reform bill we cosponsored together. In an institution like this, during polarized times, it is pretty remarkable that you have 64 Senators--32 Democrats and 32 Republicans-- coming together and saying: Yes, we have a problem, and, yes, we want to work together to fix it. This is the kind of legislation the Nation has been waiting for, as people continue to be frustrated, frightened, and depressed by random acts of violence that have broken out in and around some of our churches, our cities, and our schools. I am talking about shootings like those that occurred at Sutherland Springs, TX, outside of San Antonio, in Las Vegas, and, of course, Parkland, FL. With Fix NICS, we are saying the status quo is not acceptable. I am happy to hear my friend the Democratic leader, Senator Schumer, say there are other things he and his colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like to do. I would just quote to him some ancient wisdom; that ``the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.'' We ought to take that first step and do what we can do today and do what is achievable in order to make our communities safer. I have talked about it before, but if the background check system had been working the way Congress intended, the shooter who murdered 26 people as they worshiped on Sunday morning in Sutherland Springs, outside of San Antonio, and injured 20 more would not have been able to legally purchase firearms because the background check system would have reflected the fact that he was a convicted felon, he had been convicted of domestic violence, and he had been in a mental institution. All three of those things are disqualifiers from being able to legally purchase firearms under current law, but if the background system isn't uploaded with the appropriate information for the FBI to maintain, then those convictions will never be discovered, and someone can merely lie their way into purchasing firearms and committing atrocities like we saw in Sutherland Springs. Fix NICS is designed to make sure convicted felons can't get access to firearms because, under current law, they are disallowed from doing so. It is designed to make sure people who commit domestic violence can't buy a firearm because they are currently prohibited by law from doing so. It is designed to make sure people who are dishonorably discharged from the military can't legally get a firearm because the current law prohibits them from doing so. Sometimes criminals with domestic abuse convictions, records of mental illness, and violent erratic behavior slip through the cracks and get their hands on guns, despite what the law already prohibits. That is why it is so important for us to pass this legislation now-- again, with 64 cosponsors of the legislation, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. The effectiveness of doing this sort of background check system has been confirmed by academic research. A recent study by RAND Corporation found evidence that dealer background checks may decrease firearm homicides by as much as 20 percent or more. In other words, it saves lives. One specific part of that study further suggested that enforcing background checks for felony records may have a similar diminishing effect. In other words, enforcement matters, and enforcement is what we are trying to ensure. We have learned from Sutherland Springs that the NICS system is not operating as Congress intended and that the military, in this instance, was not uploading certain records, but they are not alone. Recent news reports out of places like Ohio have shown it is often the case at the State level as well. We know, a few years back, the shooter at Virginia Tech, near Washington, DC, had been adjudicated mentally ill by the State of Virginia, but the State had never uploaded that information on the background check system, so he was able to purchase a firearm. This bill will save lives. I know my friend the Democratic leader, the minority leader, has said: Well, it is not enough, but if it saves lives, isn't it a good start? I am grateful to him for cosponsoring the legislation. You couldn't tell he cosponsored the legislation by his comments here, acting like this is somehow not a very important step, but it is because it will save lives. This bill has the backing of the President as well, whom I have spoken to personally, and the minority and majority leaders in the Senate and is supported by gun groups across the spectrum from--yes, the National Rifle Association but also Everytown for Gun Safety. They are at the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum when it comes to the Second Amendment. It is not just them. It is others like the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Sandy Hook Promise, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and the National Sheriffs' Association. It really is remarkable when you have groups with such widely divergent views, when it comes to the Second Amendment, come together and say: Well, this is where we can find common ground. This is where we can actually do something. That is reflected in the 64 bipartisan cosponsors we have for the bill. The bill would do this: First, it would require Federal agencies and States to produce NICS implementation plans, in other words, to fix what is broken, including measures to verify the accuracy of the records. It would hold Federal agencies accountable if they fail to upload the relevant information. I think it is accurate information, but I have heard that after the shooting in Sutherland Springs, the military has now gone back and uploaded 4,000 additional records into the NICS background check system that weren't previously loaded. Those are 4,000 people now in the system who, if they attempted to buy a firearm legally through a gun store or Federal licensed firearm dealer, would not be able to do so because there would be a hit on the FBI background check system. I think if we provided similar incentives to the States, we would see a similar increase in compliance and public safety continue to be enhanced. This bill would reward States that comply with their NICS implementation plan through Federal grants incentives. It would reauthorize and improve law enforcement programs to help State governments share relevant criminal record information. Let's not forget, this is not just a Federal problem. Finally, the bill would provide important technical assistance to Federal agencies and States that are working to comply with NICS record-sharing requirements. We have all the support we need. What we need is a vote. I know that despite the minority leader's comments here today, he does not oppose this bill. He says it is merely not enough, but why can't we pass this bill that we all agree on and then build from there? I am not afraid of having any debate or any vote on any matter related to the Second Amendment. That is why our constituents sent us here, to debate and to vote and to be held accountable for those votes. I know there is pressure from those who want more controversial measures to be added, but frankly they are ones that can't pass the Senate, much less the House, or be signed into the law. I would hope we focus--focus our attention on what is achievable, what is bipartisan, what brings people together at the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum and pass the Fix NICS bill. Again, NICS is the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. It will improve our background check system and in the process save lives. If we did nothing else--and I am not advocating that for a moment, but if we did nothing else in this space other than pass this background check reform system, we would save lives. I don't know why that is not compelling enough to everyone to actually get it done. I hope it is, and I hope we do so without further delay. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.