Bob Casey

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, beginning with Russia's interference in our 2016 national elections, to the recent withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, President Trump has made multiple statements and decisions that serve only to benefit Vladimir Putin's agenda to undermine democracy and expand Russia's influence around the world. Taken together, these actions aren't just a threat to U.S. national security, but they also undercut and diminish some of the core tenets and values of American democracy and global leadership. The U.S. Senate, as part of a coequal branch of government, must recognize this threat and act as a body to ensure our institutions at home and interests abroad are protected. Thus far, we have not lived up to this solemn responsibility. Let me start with a seminal news article from the Washington Post, just recently. White House reporter Anne Gearan, in her October 15, 2019, article, catalogs how the Trump administration has allowed Russia to assert dominance globally. The headline reads: ``Trump's moves in Ukraine and Syria have a common denominator: Both help Russia.'' Anne Gearan writes as follows, and I will quote in pertinent part. . . . President Trump has taken action that has had the effect of helping the authoritarian leader of Russia. . . . [The President's] actions in Syria and Ukraine add to the list of policy moves and public statements that have boosted Russia during his presidency, whether that was their central purpose or not, confounding critics who have warned that he has taken too soft a stance toward a nation led by a strongman hostile to the United States. Anne Gearan goes on to discuss how President Trump's withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria has allowed Russia to assert a more dominant role in the region. She also discusses how the President's intimidation of Ukraine's recently elected President Zelensky has become the subject of a domestic impeachment inquiry and distracted from actual engagement and support to Ukraine as it continues to grapple with Russian aggression. Anne Gearan also notes: [President] Trump has publicly questioned the usefulness of NATO--the post-World War II military alliance established as a bulwark against first the Soviet Union and now Russia--as well as the utility of the European Union, a political and economic alliance Putin would love to weaken. This is all written by Anne Gearan. These actions have led to a growing consensus among the national security community that the President is not serving the national interest. Let me move to a second part of this. Sadly, President Trump's recent actions with regard to Syria and Ukraine are, unfortunately, not isolated. President Trump has been consistent in taking actions that favor Russia. As early as April of 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump vowed to pursue closer ties to Russia if elected to the Presidency. Even before he took office, by way of Twitter and other platforms he was signaling to Vladimir Putin his deference to a Putin-driven U.S.-Russia dynamic. From there, the American people have only learned more about the Trump campaign's ties to Russia and Russia's interference in the 2016 Presidential election. The intelligence community's unclassified report concluded: We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. The interference with our election process by a hostile government was an attack on our democracy and a threat to our national security carried out by Russian operatives at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself. Since Special Counsel Robert Mueller's appointment as special counsel to investigate Russia's attack, 34 indictments have been returned in connection with the investigation, including indictments against Russian individuals and Russian companies, as well as former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and deputy campaign manager Rick Gates, who were charged with ``conspiracy against the United States.'' Special Counsel Mueller also secured guilty pleas from other campaign advisers, including George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn. Despite this ample evidence of wrongdoing, the President attempted to impede the Russia probe at every step of the way. The U.S. intelligence community, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Robert Mueller and his team of investigators have done a great service to our Nation in investigating the Trump campaign's ties to Russia and Russian interference in our election. The findings further confirm that President Trump not only benefitted from Russian interference but, as Anne Gearan wrote in the October 15 Washington Post story, President Trump ``has also disputed, at times, the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to boost his candidacy, and he only reluctantly signed a bill imposing sanctions on Russia for the transgression after weeks of resisting the measure, which he called, `seriously flawed.''' Anne Gearan is referencing the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, known by the acronym CAATSA, or C-A-A-T-S-A. That is legislation that I supported, and it passed both Houses of Congress with bipartisan support to impose sanctions on U.S. adversaries, including Russia, for its incursions into Ukraine and Syria and interference in our elections. I believe it is likely that if CAATSA did not clearly prohibit it, President Trump would have removed preexisting Russia sanctions by now. So the evidence is clear. By interfering in our national elections and elevating Donald Trump's prospects for success as a candidate, Vladimir Putin was assuring that a personal ally would be installed in the White House and that that particular ally would clear the way for Putin to advance his foreign policy goals around the world. Let me move to a second--or, I should say, a third--part of this. If it isn't bad enough that the President is himself undermining our intelligence community's findings, he has deployed Attorney General William Barr to try and discredit those findings--those findings by our intelligence community with regard to interactions with allies. William Barr has been traveling the world chasing conspiracy theories and investigating President Trump's complaints about the origins of the government's investigation into Russian election interference. Specifically, the Attorney General is examining whether U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies acted properly when they examined possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, which ultimately led to Special Counsel Mueller's investigation. We have learned that this probe is now a criminal investigation, suggesting that it is focused on the unfounded allegations pushed by the President's allies about how the Russia probe was started. Considering that Special Counsel Mueller, the intelligence community, and the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee all confirmed in great detail that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, it is entirely unclear what legal or factual predicate Attorney General Barr is even relying on to justify this criminal investigation into the origins of the government's investigation into Russia's election interference. Attorney General Barr is pursuing these efforts, despite the fact that Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte stated that Italy's intelligence services played no role in the Russian investigation. It appears that Attorney General Barr is using the Justice Department to chase unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that could benefit the President politically and also undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The Attorney General has also demonstrated eagerness to prejudge his own investigation by already telling lawmakers in April that he believed that ``spying did occur'' by the FBI on the Trump campaign. So the President has dispatched a top U.S. law enforcement official around the world to pursue a biased investigation into an effort to undermine our intelligence agencies and to undermine the work of a special counsel who was appointed by the very same Justice Department that Attorney General Barr leads, with the primary goal--the primary goal-- being to clear Vladimir Putin's government of wrongdoing. It is hard to comprehend or adequately articulate how disturbing that is. Let me move to another part of the evidence with regard to how the President deals with President Putin and his government--the Helsinki summit. President Trump's dangerous deference to Vladimir Putin was most evident at the July 2018 summit in Helsinki. Putin and President Trump had a 2-hour one-on-one meeting, followed by an unprecedented press conference. President Trump appears to overwhelmingly favor one-on-one, closed- door, direct communications with Putin on a regular basis. I have to ask at least two questions, among many we could ask. Question No. 1 is, What is he hiding? No. 2 is, Why not have experienced U.S. personnel present at such bilateral meetings? Even more disturbing were the President's statements following the Trump-Putin meeting. Here is a brief summary of what happened at that meeting: President Trump praised Putin and his leadership. No. 2, he repeatedly sided with Putin over our intelligence community, asserting that Russia did not, in fact, interfere in the 2016 elections. The President repeatedly siding with Putin over our intelligence community was a grave offense by the President that made our Nation less safe--in my judgment, for sure less safe. It was one of the worst moments in any American Presidency. No. 3 in my brief summary of that public meeting in Helsinki is that Mr. Putin was silent the whole time when this was happening. President Trump's rambling comments over several minutes reflect not only the President's disturbing desire to flatter and to show support for Putin but also his complete failure--in that instance, his complete failure--to advance U.S. interests. Let me move to the impeachment that is underway regarding Ukraine. The transcript of the now-infamous July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that is the subject of the current impeachment inquiry also reflects the President's failure to prioritize U.S. national security interests when it comes to Russia. Going back to Anne Gearan and the Washington Post story of October 15 of this year, she wrote: ``During that call, Trump did not mention longstanding U.S. policy goals for Ukraine, including standing up to Russian pressure, and he may have tarred and weakened Zelensky and his winning anti-corruption platform by dragging him into domestic U.S. politics.'' Such major omissions send a clear signal to Putin that he could expand his aggression in Ukraine beyond Crimea and to the Ukrainian people and also the message to the Ukrainian people that Zelensky is not going to be the strong leader with U.S. backing that Ukraine needs at this time. We have already seen the impact of President Trump's abandonment of Ukraine amid this impeachment scandal. In early October, President Zelensky was effectively backed into a corner to sign Ukraine on to the so-called Steinmeier Formula, which sets the path toward elections in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine and eventual negotiations with Russia over the future of Russian-occupied territories. He did this without achieving previously imposed preconditions of Russian troop withdrawal and security for the elections. Zelensky was effectively shamed into pursuing this Steinmeier Formula after President Trump urged him to negotiate with Putin--with Putin-- several times on camera during the United Nations General Assembly meetings in September. As Anne Gearan puts it, ``The result: A country that was looking for strong U.S. backing, amid worries that Russia could seek to move its aggression beyond the annexation of Crimea, has been left to wonder about the Trump administration's commitment to its national interests.'' Let me move to Syria. President Trump's latest moves in Syria only further amplify the alarm over this President's affinity for Vladimir Putin. In early October, President Trump announced the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, clearing the way for Turkey to pursue a military operation against Kurdish allies of the United States in northern Syria. Following an initial U.S.-brokered ceasefire, Turkish and Russian authorities have agreed to a more permanent status, sharing control of Syria's northern border. Turkish and Russian forces are not only occupying Kurdish-held areas but also further expanding Russia's role in Syria and committing war crimes against Kurdish civilians, according to the United Nations. Russia has already occupied U.S. military camps in the region, and Turkish President Erdogan's deepening relationship with Vladimir Putin--as evidenced by Turkey's purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system--only undercuts U.S. influence in Syria, all but guaranteeing that U.S. interests will not be represented in a future Syrian political settlement. President Trump's decision serves to benefit Vladimir Putin. Prior to withdrawal, the United States was Russia's only military equal in Syria, but Russia is now the primary and, according to some analysts, the sole power broker in Syria. In the vacuum left by the United States, Putin will be able to return control of the country to Bashar al-Assad, exercise increased control over Turkey--a NATO ally--and return to Russia's Cold War-era dominance in the Middle East. As Georgetown University Russia specialist Andrew Bennett put it, ``[W]hat is clear is that Russia and the [Bashar al-] Assad regime that it backs have been the big winners in Trump's abrupt retreat. . . . Now, suddenly Putin is back in the driver's seat in Syria, with leverage over all sides.'' Mr. President, it is even worse than that. Let me recount some recent news with regard to actions by Vladimir Putin. President Trump's transgression goes beyond simply allowing Russia to fill a vacuum. On October 13, just 2 days before Anne Gearan's Washington Post story, the New York Times reported that ``the Russian Air Force has repeatedly bombed hospitals in Syria in order to crush the last pockets of resistance to President Bashar al-Assad.'' The Times published evidence in that story that the Russians bombed four Syrian hospitals in a 12-hour period in May of this year. During the assault, the Kafr Nabl Surgical Hospital in Idlib Province was struck four times in 30 minutes. Let me say that again. A hospital was struck four times in 30 minutes. Dozens of hospitals and clinics in Idlib Province have been struck since, and Syrian medical workers live in constant fear of the next strike. Russia continues to act with impunity. Not only did it bomb another hospital in Idlib last week, Russia is using its sway at the United Nations Security Council--where U.S. leadership has diminished significantly under this administration--to limit the scope and the impact of a U.N. inquiry into these bombings. Such atrocities go beyond the pale of violating the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war; they demonstrate just how ruthless Putin and his regime are and the lengths they are willing to go to assert Russia's influence in the Middle East. The tragedy is, this administration is allowing it to happen. Under this administration, we have seen U.S. leadership erode and multilateral institutions deteriorate to the point where the U.N. is powerless to hold Russia accountable for these atrocities. I cannot emphasize enough that this administration is not only failing the American people with regard to our relationship with Russia and national security interests, but it is also making us less safe by allowing unspeakable atrocities to occur against innocent civilians-- all on our watch.

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to urge immediate passage of the bipartisan FUTURE Act, which is H.R. 2486, to restore critical funding for historically Black colleges and universities, known by the acronym here in Washington as HBCUs, as well as minority-serving institutions, so-called MSIs. The $255 million in funding that HBCUs and MSIs rely on lapsed on September 30 of this year. Both the historically Black colleges and universities and the minority-serving institutions are underresourced and don't have the flexibility to operate in the red in the hopes of potential reimbursement later on. Campuses are already feeling this impact. Just 2 weeks after this program expired, some campuses notified employees that their positions and programs may be terminated. We are talking about real people losing their jobs and programs being cut that play a critical role in graduating and retaining students in the STEM field--science, technology, engineering, and math fields. All of this is impacting students across the country. Presidents of some of these institutions have told us that planning has ``all but stopped.'' This funding lapse is urgent, and it must be addressed now. From the perspective of my home State of Pennsylvania, we have two of the oldest historically Black colleges and universities--two of the oldest in the whole country--Cheyney University, as well as Lincoln University, and, in addition to that, a growing Hispanic-serving institution, in this case, the Reading Area Community College. We know that the investment made by the FUTURE Act will support college completion and academic opportunities at these and all historically Black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions across the country. The FUTURE Act is fully paid for. It would not add to the deficit. It has strong bipartisan support in both Chambers. My colleagues in the majority are holding this funding hostage in an effort to pass what I would argue is a partisan bill. That is not just my argument or my opinion; some of my Republican colleagues have said this is the reason they are holding up this critical legislation. Instead of passing a bipartisan comprehensive reauthorization of our future higher education law, which my colleague Senator Murray is pushing for, some Republicans want to force Democrats to support a partisan bill. Instead of working in a bipartisan fashion to fix our current system so it works better for students, families, and teachers, they want us to support a so-called micropackage, the Student Aid Improvement Act. This act, in my judgment and the judgment of others, fails to address a number of critical areas, including improved campus safety and access to higher education affordability and accountability. Because of that, it maintains the status quo. Make no mistake, the Student Aid Improvement Act is a partisan bill. The bill fails to address the challenges students are facing in obtaining a college degree--including childcare, housing, food and mental health, among others--nor does it address the needs of first- generation students, students of color, and students with disabilities. Let's debate these issues. Let's come to the table to negotiate on a bipartisan overhaul, but let's not hold historically Black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions hostage in the meantime. We can get something done in the short run that would be beneficial to these institutions. We need to ensure that colleges and universities have the resources to provide support to all students they serve, including students with disabilities. A couple of examples of some of my bills--the Higher Education Mental Health Act, which is supported by over 250 college and university presidents, including 15 of the historically Black colleges and universities--would help institutions of higher education identify the resources and services needed to support their students with mental health needs. A second bill of mine, the RISE Act, would make it easier for colleges to provide support to students with disabilities by accepting student assessments from high school and smoothing the transition to higher education. A third bill, my Expanding Disability Access to Higher Education Act, would increase the funding for TRIO Programs that serve first- generation students with disabilities and make higher education more accessible. These bills would provide the resources needed for students to be successful as they pursue higher education, but without a comprehensive bill, the needs of these students will continue to go unmet. Rather than blocking vital resources from flowing to our Nation's historically Black colleges and universities, we should immediately pass the FUTURE Act. This would restore funding, while providing us time to work on a comprehensive reauthorization that addresses the needs of all students. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that as in legislative session, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 212, H.R. 2486. I ask unanimous consent that the Murray 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. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I just want to make a couple of comments by way of response. I really want to go back to what we said earlier. There is no reason we can't at least get this piece of legislation done. I will say it again: These institutions are underresourced. They don't have the flexibility to operate in the red in the hopes of potential reimbursement later on. We are also told by the institutions themselves that planning has ``all but stopped.'' Campuses are feeling this impact already. Just 2 weeks after this program expired, some campuses informed employees that their positions and programs may be terminated. So I would argue that the present circumstance is not acceptable. I realize the chairman wants to proceed to other issues, and I respect that, but when you consider what he is proposing, there are some changes that should be pointed out. First of all, when considering the proposal he has, in comparing what it would do, for example, on the Second Chance Pell proposal, that only contains a limited repeal of the ban rather than a full repeal of the ban. Any reference to the JOBS Act making short-term programs eligible for Pell grants--a bipartisan bill that was introduced--excludes for- profit colleges. In this micropackage that the chairman is proposing, the for-profit colleges are added back in. No. 3, just by way of some examples, in the Grassley-Smith bill on financial aid award letters, some changes were made to that on financial aid award letters that weren't contemplated by the bill's original authors. Our legislation is fully paid for. It reinvests up to $55 million in recovery programs. For several reasons, by way of contrast but also by way of what is happening right now with regard to these institutions-- for those and other reasons, I object.

Mr. CASEY. Just a couple of points on where we are: There is no question that, in my judgment, if you have more time to consider these issues for a full reauthorization, we could address some of the shortcomings that have been proposed already. I mentioned earlier issues that are not addressed, such as childcare, housing, food and mental health, the needs of first-generation students, needs of students of color, and students with disabilities. We can do that if we can get through this short-term period. We are asking for help only for a very limited timeframe so that we can work through these other issues. The second point I would make is, I can't stand in the shoes of the leaders of these institutions, but when they tell us that they are in a difficult circumstance in the short run, I will take their word for it. The word of the Department of Education--just from my point of view-- doesn't compare to what these institutions are telling us. So I think we should rely upon the representations by the leaders of the institutions and act in a short-term fashion, all the while committing ourselves to have a longer process to fully explore and try to reach consensus on a range of issues that come under the broad purview of reauthorization.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to recount the life of a colleague who recently passed away, Senator Kay Hagan from the State of North Carolina. I wish I didn't have to stand here to talk about her in the past tense. So many people who have served in the Senate with Kay Hagan, so many staff people across the Senate--and, in the context of both Members and staff, I would say both parties--recall serving with her fondly and also were very saddened by her passing. It is very difficult to encapsulate someone's personality or their life in a few short remarks, but you could not have met Kay Hagan even for a short period of time or worked with her even for a short period of time without being captivated by her spirit, her energy, and her optimism, not only about her life but about work. You could also be captivated by her ability to connect with people and to demonstrate the kind of uncommon decency that we don't see enough of in politics and even public service. We are going to miss that energy, that optimism, and that decency. We are also going to miss her commitment to public service, even when she was not an elected public official. My remarks today will not in any way encapsulate her whole life or her life of service, but I will try to provide some reflections. One thing you knew about Kay Hagan when she got to the Senate was that she was very clear about the people she represented in the State from which she came. If you were in a short conversation with her or a long conversation--even a 30-second conversation--you were likely to hear the two words, ``North Carolina,'' if not once in a short conversation, several times. She was so proud of her State and so proud of the opportunities she had to represent the people of North Carolina. She, of course, understood her work and was faithful to the basic obligation to represent the Nation as well. She was fiercely loyal to and always concerned about the people of North Carolina. She was a fierce advocate for working people in North Carolina and around the country. She also happened to serve at a time when the Senate was considering and then, ultimately, took a vote on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. At that time, it was a long debate and a lot of contention, obviously, and there still is on healthcare. But Kay Hagan was very clear about where she stood. We happened to serve as members of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, known by the acronym HELP--one of the two committees in the Senate that considered healthcare. Both the HELP Committee and the Finance Committee had fierce debate about and then, ultimately, votes on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Here is what Senator Kay Hagan said when the HELP Committee approved similar or, I should say, related legislation, which at that time was called the Affordable Health Choices Act. That was the original healthcare bill that went through that committee, the HELP Committee. It ultimately changed when it was considered by the Finance Committee and then by the whole Senate, and the changes were made in negotiation and deliberation with the House. But here is what she said. I guess this would have been sometime in 2009. She talked about this one particular healthcare bill as it stood at that moment. She said: Our bill also ensures that a pre-existing condition will not prevent you from getting coverage. This compromise package focuses on prevention and wellness, which will keep our nation healthier and save taxpayers' money in the long run. I will continue working with my colleagues to get reform legislation to the President that stabilizes costs, expands coverage and improves the quality of care for all Americans. That is what Senator Kay Hagan said at the time. Of course, we are still wrestling with a lot of those issues. She was predicting, in a sense, some of our future debates. Kay Hagan wanted to get things done for the people she represented and really for the American people. One of the areas where she demonstrated that commitment to leadership and that commitment to getting things done was in the area of children's issues. In that same committee, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, she was the chair of the Subcommittee on Children and Families. Later, I was able to follow in her footsteps. That was so emblematic of Kay Hagan's service not to be concerned just about what is right in front of us--the issue of the day or the issue of the moment, as important as those issues are--but always thinking about what comes next, always focusing on the future, thinking about the future, and not just in a compassionate way, as it relates to children, but in a very strategic way. Kay Hagan knew that investing in our children was essential for building the economy of the future and having the kind of country we say we want to have. So Kay Hagan was ahead of her time in that regard, focusing on America's future, which meant focusing on America's children--whether it was financial literacy and the curriculum for middle and high school students or whether it was from her earliest days in the Senate--to improve the lives of children in any way that she could. When I think about Kay Hagan, I think of not just a Senator, not just a colleague and a friend, but a public servant, someone who cared very deeply about service. I have often quoted the inscription on a building in which I worked in the State capital of Pennsylvania--Harrisburg. It is called the Finance Building, and I served in that building for 10 years and worked in that building for 10 years. The inscription on that building about public service is very simple. It says: ``All public service is a trust given in faith and accepted in honor.'' That is what it says in that inscription. It is a great summation of what public service must be about and what an election must be about, that public service is a trust that is given to one person, given to a group of people, and that trust must be honored by the service that you render. Here is another way of saying it by a predecessor of Kay Hagan, in a sense, because she was a Member of the Senate and, at the time, a real pioneer for women in the Senate. Margaret Chase Smith once said: Public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation. That is what Senator Margaret Chase Smith once said, and I think Kay Hagan's service was totally consistent with that sentiment, that public service is more than just doing a job honestly and efficiently, as Senator Smith said at the time. It must be a complete dedication to the people in the Nation. Kay Hagan demonstrated that in her life and in her work. I have joined so many Members of the Senate in expressing condolence and also commendation for the good work that she did. I express condolence, of course, to her family. I speak on behalf of my wife Terese and many people here in the Senate who served with Kay to offer condolence to Kay's husband Chip and to her three children--Jeanette, Tilden, and Carrie--and Kay's five grandchildren. We are thinking of them today and all these days since her passing, and we pray that she will rest in peace. I express again how much we will miss Kay Hagan not only in the Senate but also because of the person she was. God bless you, Kay. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the impeachment inquiry currently underway in the House. First, I want to recognize the courageous public servants who have testified in the House in recent weeks in defense of U.S. national security and in defense of the rule of law and our democratic institutions. I will cite just four: Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, Ambassador Yovanovitch, Ambassador Taylor, and Ambassador McKinley. Despite the two decades of military service by Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and the Purple Heart he earned for his sacrifice for our country in Iraq, his character has faced brutal attacks from cable news and from some current and former Members of Congress. As former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul put it in a Washington Post column last week, ``Such smear tactics are revolting and un-American. [Lt. Col.] Vindman has served our country with honor and distinction, both on and off the battlefield. . . . And he is a patriot--as you would expect from someone with his outstanding resume.'' So said former Ambassador McFaul, and I agree with him. I think most Americans would agree with him. Lieutenant Colonel Vindman is just one of the many brave patriots who have testified as part of this impeachment inquiry. Ambassador Yovanovitch has dedicated over 30 years to U.S. foreign service. She has rightfully earned the respect and credibility that she has within the U.S. national security community for her anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine and for her unwavering commitment to U.S. national security interests. Ambassador McKinley has served this country as Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State and Ambassador to Brazil, Afghanistan, Colombia, and Peru. He has demonstrated fierce loyalty to his colleagues in the State Department and to the United States itself. Ambassador Taylor's life has been marked by his service to our Nation, from West Point to the 101st Airborne in Vietnam, to his work as Ambassador to Ukraine and other significant foreign policy roles. We should all be inspired by these and countless other public servants who work to protect and serve the United States every day. When I reflect upon their service to our country and their integrity, I am reminded of one of the lines from ``America the Beautiful": ``Oh, beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years.'' That is what these patriots are doing--trying to understand and deliberate about what their actions should be now that will help America over time, to see beyond the years. That is part of the dream of a patriot, and these individuals have demonstrated that. They have a care and a concern about our institutions, our government, our democracy, our Constitution, and, of course, a concern about what their actions mean for the future. Over the past week, the House committees leading the impeachment inquiry regarding President Trump's, in my judgment, abuse of power have publicly released the first full transcripts from several of their interviews with State officials and diplomats. The transcripts explain in rich detail how the President employed Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney, to manage a shadow diplomacy agenda focused on personal vendettas and unfounded--and that is an understatement--conspiracy theories in Ukraine. Ambassador Yovanovitch testified that there was a ``concerted campaign'' to have her removed as Ambassador to Ukraine and repeatedly discussed the threatening and bullying behavior of the President and Mr. Giuliani because of her disagreements with Mr. Giuliani. The Ambassador explained that a senior Ukrainian official expressed significant concerns regarding Mr. Giuliani's behavior and told the Ambassador that she ``really needed to watch her back.'' When asked whether she felt threatened after President Trump told the Ukrainian President that she was ``going to go through some things,'' Ambassador Yovanovitch responded unequivocally ``yes,'' meaning yes, she felt threatened. And she indicated some of her friends were ``very concerned'' about her personal safety. Just imagine that. Imagine that. A U.S. Ambassador concerned about what would happen to her next. Even those around her were concerned about her personal safety because of what a President was saying and doing--and those around him. Later in her testimony, Ambassador Yovanovitch discussed the influence of Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine. When asked whether anyone at the State Department tried to stop Giuliani's efforts, she explained as follows: I don't think so. I don't think they felt they could. Now, let's turn to Ambassador Taylor. He described similar concerns about Mr. Giuliani. Referencing the investigations President Trump wanted Ukraine to pursue into his political opponent--in this case, former Vice President Joe Biden--Ambassador Taylor described that the ``irregular channel'' of Ukraine policy directed by Mr. Giuliani was focused on ``one or two specific cases, irrespective of whether it helped solve the corruption problem'' in Ukraine. Ambassador Taylor further explained that it was his ``clear understanding'' that ``security assistance money'' for Ukraine would not be delivered until President Zelensky ``committed to pursue the investigation.'' Ambassador McKinley, a former senior adviser to Secretary of State Pompeo, confirmed that he resigned because of his concerns about the President's shadow diplomacy efforts with Mr. Giuliani. When the chairman asked Mr. McKinley whether he resigned in part because of efforts to use the State Department to dig up dirt on a political opponent, Mr. McKinley responded: That is fair. And if I can underscore, in 37 years in the Foreign Service and different parts of the globe and working on many controversial issues, working 10 years back in Washington, I had never seen that. As the Washington Post reported on September 21, the President's behavior related to this Ukraine matter has revealed--in the opinion of this journalist at the Post, a reporter who has covered the President very closely--No. 1, ``a President convinced of his own invincibility-- apparently willing and even eager to wield the vast powers of the United States to taint a political foe and confident that no one could hold him back.'' Let me move to the whistleblower protections. Armed with this sense of invincibility, the President has directed some of his most pointed criticisms at the brave whistleblower who came forward to expose the President's call with the Ukrainian President. On Twitter, the President has demanded to meet the whistleblower face-to-face, despite laws that clearly protect the whistleblower's right to anonymity. Just the other day, the whistleblower's attorney confirmed that his client offered to answer written questions under oath from House Republicans as long as the questions did not compromise the individual's identity. House Republicans immediately denounced the offer, and the President tweeted that ``[w]ritten answers are not acceptable,'' despite the fact that President Trump refused--refused to be interviewed by Special Counsel Mueller's team and only answered written questions during the special counsel's investigation into election interference. Despite his own unwillingness to answer live questioning, the President has persisted in his desire to ``out'' the whistleblower by tweeting that ``we must determine the Whistleblower's identity'' and arguing that the press would be ``doing the public a service'' if it outed the whistleblower. Nothing--nothing the President has done or said in his more than 2\1/ 2\ years as President convinces me that he has any understanding of public service or doing the public a service, depending on how you look at it. President Trump has even demanded to know who provided the information to the whistleblower and suggested that the source was ``a spy'' who would have been executed ``in the old days.'' These comments follow the testimony of Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire--a former Navy SEAL with 36 years of military experience and a Presidential Appointee--before the House of Representatives in September. Mr. Maguire said the following: [W]e must protect those who demonstrate courage to report alleged wrongdoing. . . . The Inspector General is properly protecting the complainant's identity and will not permit the complainant to be subject to any retaliation or adverse consequences for communicating the complaint to the Inspector General. Yesterday, in floor remarks, the junior Senator from Kentucky compared the whistleblower to Edward Snowden and argued that the current concerns about the safety of the whistleblower are nothing more than ``selective outrage.'' To be clear, Edward Snowden broke the law. He abused his security clearance and position of trust to leak classified information to the press. He sought safe haven in Russia, and we are unaware of any other information he may have shared that could further jeopardize national security. The current whistleblower has strictly followed the appropriate channels of reporting, as confirmed by Director Maguire, and the individual deserves the full protection under the law. The Senator from Kentucky referenced Edward Snowden in a conversation about blowing the whistle on President Trump's abuse of power. I hope that anyone would not make a comparison between the two cases. Threatening a witness or retaliating against a whistleblower is illegal. We know that. The President's public attacks on the whistleblower only add to the record of impeachable conduct. His careless and extreme rhetoric not only places the whistleblower's personal safety in jeopardy, it undermines the entire whistleblower program of the intelligence community and across the government. The intelligence community and Congress must continue to do all we can to protect the current whistleblower's identity and personal safety. The current legal protections for whistleblowers are insufficient to fully protect those who are courageous enough to come forward and report wrongdoing. Of course, the reason we need the additional protections is the President's conduct in threatening the whistleblower. No other President has ever done this. Congress must consider more ways to protect whistleblowers, including criminalizing the disclosure of the whistleblower's identity. It should be clear that should be a crime, if the statutes do not provide for it now. We must use this experience to ensure that whistleblowers will be protected from threatening rhetoric and from actions by a President or any other public official meant to intimidate whistleblowers. If you are threatening a whistleblower, if you are trying to ``out'' them, that is always--always wrong. We do not have to worry about whether a specific statutory provision made it a crime. It is always wrong. Until this President, that was well understood by people in both parties, both Houses, and both branches. This inquiry is not simply about President Trump's clear abuse of power. This inquiry is about our democracy and the values our Founders agreed should guide our Nation. We owe the whistleblower, Lt. Col. Vindman, Ambassadors Yovanovitch, Taylor, and McKinley, as well as others, our deepest gratitude and our appreciation for their integrity and commitment to American values. They are real American heroes who, despite the President's bullying and harassment, have stood up in defense of our democratic institutions and the values the Founders fought to guide our Nation. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Thank you, Mr. President. First, I want to briefly recognize this afternoon the brave public servants who have testified in the House in recent weeks in defense of national security, the rule of law, and our democratic institutions-- most recently, LTC Alexander Vindman. Despite Lieutenant Colonel Vindman's two decades of military service and a Purple Heart for his sacrifice to our country in Iraq, his character has faced brutal attacks from cable news and from some current and former Members of Congress. These comments about him are reprehensible attacks with no basis in fact. Verbal abuse of Lieutenant Colonel Vindman not only disrespects his integrity and his service but undermines our institutions and ultimately makes our Nation less safe--less safe. So questioning the character, loyalty, or patriotism of Lieutenant Colonel Vindman is an attack on all veterans and is also an attack on our military. Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul put it this way in a Washington Post column just last week, and I will quote part of the column: Such smear tactics are revolting and un-American. Vindman has served our country with honor and distinction, both on and off the battlefield. . . . And he is a patriot--as you would expect from someone with his outstanding resume. . . . The idea that Vindman might have dual loyalties with another nation is preposterous. Vindman was born in the totalitarian Soviet Union, not ``the Ukraine.'' His family, which is Jewish, fled religious persecution. He is not Soviet or Ukrainian or Ukrainian American: He is simply an American. Using birthplaces or hyphenated adjectives to disparage fellow Americans is always wrong. It is especially so in the case of Lt. Col. Vindman. That is the op-ed from a distinguished Ambassador. When I reflect upon Lieutenant Colonel Vindman's service to our country and his integrity, I am reminded of one of the lines--we could use many--from ``America the Beautiful'': Oh, beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years That is what he was doing when he testified, just like that was what he was doing when he was serving our Nation in Iraq and when he was wounded in Iraq, and what he has done as a member of our national security team as part of the work he has done in this administration--seeing beyond the years. Part of the dream of a patriot is thinking about the impact of your actions on future generations. We need to make sure that we are very clear about where we stand on his character, on his commitment to the country, and on his courage in coming forward.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I am going to turn to another matter of importance for U.S. national security, and that is climate change. Climate change is the most significant challenge our world faces right now, transcending borders and affecting every aspect of our lives. Climate change is a threat to human life. It is caused by human activity, and we must confront it. Our Nation has a moral imperative to protect the Earth, God's creation, and the people living on that Earth, particularly children whose health and well-being will be affected--I would say adversely affected--by climate change in incomprehensible ways. For far too long we have discussed climate change, food insecurity, and political stability in separate silos. However, these issues are inextricably linked, and we must apply an integrated approach to ensuring that global food supply keeps pace with population growth amidst a continuing trend of climate change in a way that promotes stable, transparent democratic societies around the world. The late Senator Dick Lugar from the State of Indiana asked me to work with him to introduce the Global Food Security Act way back in the 2007-2008 time period. At that time, Senator Lugar wanted to try to pass legislation that would authorize USAID's Feed the Future Program. Senator Johnny Isakson was a steadfast partner in actually passing the Global Food Security Act. We passed that legislation years after Senator Lugar and I were starting the work. The Global Food Security Act is empowering the USAID to develop a more integrated, interagency approach to food security across agricultural value chains and expanding farmers' access to local and international markets through the Feed the Future Program. We, as a body, must continue to advocate for the next generation of agricultural policy: Promote sustainable agriculture that will be able to keep pace with growing global demand, population growth, and climate change. As a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, I am increasingly concerned about our ability to keep pace with agricultural production as global population grows. The global population is expected to grow from 7.7 billion to 10 billion by 2050, and with that, demand for meat and dairy could increase between 59 and 98 percent, according to Columbia University's Earth Institute. The impact of climate change on food systems across the globe will be almost incomprehensible, but perhaps nowhere larger than Sub-Saharan Africa. Now, 90 percent of the region's cropland, meaning Sub-Saharan Africa--90 percent of that region's cropland is expected to see yield losses of up to 40 percent--90 percent seeing yield losses of up to 40 percent. We face some of the same challenges here at home, and we are working to help farmers adapt to these pressures while also being part of the solution through climate-friendly agricultural policies. While we have made advances in recent decades, we still have high rates of undernourishment and child stunting around the world. The number of chronically hungry people around the world has increased today to 821 million people, representing one out of every nine people on the planet, many of whom are women and children. I will say that again. The number of chronically hungry people around the world has increased to one in every nine people on the planet. The number of children under 5 affected by stunting has decreased by 10 percent in the past 6 years. That is a little bit of good news, but 149 million children are still stunted. This pace is too slow to meet our United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to cut stunting in half by 2030--just 11 years away. Our own intelligence community has linked global food insecurity to instability, which can lead to a rise in violent extremism and international crime that will affect the United States. In January 2014, the worldwide threat assessment of the U.S. intelligence community reported that ``lack of adequate food will be a destabilizing factor in countries important to [U.S.] national security.'' The ``2010 Quadrennial Defense Review'' marked a turning point in how the United States grappled with the issue of climate change. For the first time, in 2010, climate change was cited as a ``threat multiplier'' by the Department of Defense, noting ``the impacts of climate change may increase the frequency, scale, and complexity of future missions.'' From Syria to Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin, but also in urban upheaval in Sudan, we see the impacts of environmental stress and high food prices on political stability in regions vital to U.S. national security interests. This brings me to political stability. According to the U.S. Global Food Security Strategy, food insecurity exacerbated by climate change will contribute to ``social disruptions and political instability. . . . Projections indicate that more than two-thirds of the world's poor could be living in fragile countries, where state-society relations are already strained, by 2030.'' When societies break down because governments are unable to provide resilient infrastructure against climate events, as well as protect local markets from vulnerabilities due to climate events, trust in institutions erodes and nations are ripe for conflict. If we permit climate change to proceed without aggressive action, investment, and coordination with partners around the world, we are not only allowing millions around the world to suffer extreme hunger resulting from climate-related disasters, but we are also allowing conditions for the rise of extremism and the breakdown of democratic institutions to foment unchecked. For millions of people across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, climate change means more frequent and intense floods, droughts, and storms, accounting each year for up to 90 percent of all natural disasters. These disasters can quickly spiral into full-blown food and nutrition crises. I will wrap up with this: As we look to the hard work of congressional oversight over the Feed the Future Program, I am pleased that USAID has already begun to bridge its emergency humanitarian programming with its longer term development efforts to build resilience for communities affected by conflict and climate change. The United States cannot do this alone. We need to work together on a global scale not only to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also to mitigate economic risk and ensure that agricultural and food supply chains can withstand climate events. This administration's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement was a huge blow to U.S. leadership in climate policy. I and many Members of Congress and individuals throughout the U.S. Government, along with our State and local government partners, as well as leaders in the business community across the United States, will continue to fight for policies that bring the United States in line with its Paris goals, ensuring we are doing our part to address this global threat to human life. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I commend and salute the work of Senator Manchin, the senior Senator from West Virginia, for his work on behalf of American workers generally, but, in particular, his passionate advocacy and his hard work to make sure that we, in this body, the United States Senate, that we do everything we can to keep our promise. I pick up from where he left off. As he has so often said when he came to this floor, as he did today, to talk about the people whose retirement security is on the line, this debate applies to a whole range of workers, but when you consider just coal miners and their families, who have given the country so much, I am reminded of a story from my home area, northeastern Pennsylvania. We produce, in a few counties in northeastern Pennsylvania, the hard coal, anthracite coal. The great novel of Stephen Crane came to that region in the 1890s. He would go on to become famous for writing the novel, ``The Red Badge of Courage.'' But Stephen Crane, when he was a young man--and he never made it to his 30th birthday, so he was an accomplished writer even as a young man--he wrote an essay about a coal mine in Scranton, my hometown in Lackawanna County. In that essay, he described going into a coal mine and what he saw. At one point in the essay, he said that the mine was a place of inscrutable darkness, a soundless place of tangible loneliness. Then he went on to describe what the coal miners did--what really the children were doing, little boys in the mine and men in the mine. Then, at the end of the essay, he listed all the ways a miner could die in those mines in the 1890s. Now, I know we made progress over the generations and over the decades, but even in modern times, coal mining has been very dangerous and very difficult work, work that I can't even begin to imagine. I never had to do it, but my ancestors did. These miners not only worked in those dangerous conditions and not only put their lives on the line to do that work, but they also did it with a sense of keeping their promise. They made a promise to their employer that they would work hard every day, and they kept that promise. They made a promise to their families that they would work hard to provide a living for their families--in some cases, provide a living for several generations of their families--and they kept that promise. Some of them even made a promise to their country to serve in war all the way from World War I and all the way to our most recent conflicts. A lot of them died in Vietnam. A lot of them died in battlefields all over the world, in World War II and other conflicts. They kept their promise to their country. They kept their promise to their family and to their employer. All they have asked of us is to keep our promise. It is not hard to do it either. All you have got to do is put your hand up and say, ``I support that bill,'' or ``I support that amendment.'' It is not hard to do. It doesn't take a lot of floor time either to have these matters considered. Now, what are we facing today? The bankruptcy filing of Murray Energy, which stems largely from competition from cheaper alternatives like natural gas and decline in exports. This could bring the pension and healthcare coverage for our coal miners to the very brink and to result in us not keeping our promise. Failure to act could result in devastating consequences for these coal miners in communities across Pennsylvania and West Virginia. We heard from the senior Senator from Virginia, Senator Warner, and indeed all across the country. Now, there is another bill that deals with pensions more generally, the Butch Lewis Act. Now, the House passed the Butch Lewis Pension Act--I am adding the word ``Pension'' into it. It is called the Butch Lewis Act. The House passed that 3 months ago, and the majority leader, Senator McConnell, has chosen not to have a vote on that bill. I don't understand that. I am not sure that there are many people that do, but I would hope--I would hope--that he would reconsider and have a vote on the Butch Lewis Act. We should also have a vote on the American Miners Act, the legislation that Senator Manchin has worked so hard on. We know that in the House, as well, a bipartisan effort led by Chairman Grijalva and Chairman Scott, we know that the Health Benefits for Miners Act of 2019 and the Miners Pension Protection Act were voted out of the Natural Resources Committee last week by a voice vote. So, in the House, they are doing voice votes to advance legislation to help these workers, to help miners, and here, there is not even a vote--voice vote, rollcall vote, any kind of vote. We are not asking for days of floor time. All we are asking for is a short time for debate, but mostly, we are just asking for a vote. That vote is real simple: Keep your promise. Keep our promise and the promise our country made to these miners and the promise that our employers make to workers every day of the week. There is still a lot of work to do on pensions generally, as outlined by some of these bills, but they have kept their promise over and over again. It is about time we kept our promise. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise tonight to talk about healthcare, which is an issue that obviously commands a lot of attention, but lately, frankly, not enough attention here in the Senate. I will focus, in particular, on one report that we are issuing today that will talk about one aspect of some of the problems we are having in our healthcare system right now that a lot of Americans might not be aware of. They probably will be more aware when they hear more about the report that I have. I think we should start from the basic premise that we have made tremendous progress in the last number of years in access to healthcare, in healthcare coverage. We know, for example, that between the years 2010, the year that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed, and the end of 2016--so, basically, just a matter of 6 years--something on the order of 20-plus million Americans gained health insurance coverage. We went from roughly the number of uninsured in the country being a little more than 47 million in 2010 to a little more than 27 million in 2016. Over the course of just 6 to 7 years, 20 million fewer people were uninsured. That is a great measure of progress on an issue where most people said there was no way you could get 20 million more people insured. Very few Americans thought that was possible until it actually happened. Unfortunately, that progress--the progress being the diminution or the reduction of the uninsured population--is, unfortunately, not just flattening out, but it is actually getting worse. The number of uninsured Americans is actually going up now. That is a giant step backward in a country that not only reduced the uninsured number by 20- plus million but provided, in the same bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The patient protection part of that ushered in all kinds of reforms for those with insurance--those who had insurance before 2010 and those who were paying their premiums but had their lives and their coverage in the hands of insurance companies that had power over their lives, to the extent that an individual with a preexisting condition would not be treated and would not be covered because of that preexisting condition. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act changed that for tens and tens and tens of millions of Americans, in addition to the coverage gains that I just mentioned. Just for a point of reference, I will mention the recent numbers. The Census Bureau, back in just September of this year, said--and I am quoting from a report from Kaiser Health News, by Mr. Phil Galewitz, who is talking about the census report. He said the following: For the first time in a decade, the numbers of Americans without health insurance has risen--by about 2 million people in 2018--according to the annual U.S. Census Bureau report released Tuesday. This ``Tuesday'' means a day in September. The Census found that 8.5 percent of the U.S. population went without medical insurance for all of 2018, up from 7.9 percent in 2017. What he was referring to is that the Census Bureau had said that the number of uninsured went up by 1.9 million people. That didn't happen just by accident. It happened because of some of the steps taken by the administration and by those that support the administration. We have to be focused on reversing that decline, getting the number of uninsured down, getting more Americans covered, and making sure that more Americans have basic protections. What is particularly egregious and disturbing about this trend is that those suffering the most tend to be children. For example, in another analysis by Georgetown University, it says that ``4.3 million kids were uninsured in 2018--a statistically significant increase of 425,000.'' What Georgetown was telling us in that analysis is that that diminution of those who were insured or who have insurance is rising by more than 400,000 among children. So the United States of America made great strides in the mid-1960s, when the Medicaid Program was enacted into law, which helped to reduce the number of children who were uninsured and helped to reduce the number of children who did not have access to quality healthcare and ushered in a brand-new healthcare program for children and people with disabilities and seniors needing long-term care. That is the Medicaid Program. You could call it the ``Kids, Seniors, and Disability Program for Healthcare.'' The same country, the United States of America, then made greater progress decades later when the Children's Health Insurance Program came into effect. It was voted on here in the 1990s with bipartisan support, sustained over time by bipartisan support, and sustained in many States by Republican and Democratic Governors. But despite the Medicaid Program and the advances for children, despite the Children's Health Insurance Program and the advances for children, and despite the advances brought about by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the advances for children in that, now we are seeing a reversal. Are we going to be satisfied? Are we going to say that we are the country that we want to be and that we claim to be if now we are moving backward on children's health insurance, and 425,000 fewer children have healthcare in 2018, and that that is what we are going to settle for in the United States of America? That is an abomination. That is a stain on our country. Anyone who is not in the business of reversing that and getting that number up-- covering more children and making sure that children have healthcare coverage--shouldn't be involved in any government and shouldn't run for public office if that is what your attitude is. Either you don't care about that or you think that is actually a measure of progress. We have some work to do in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives and in the administration to make sure that when they measure this again later in 2019 or in 2020, that number is coming down, that we are reducing the uninsured, and that we are reducing the number of children who are uninsured. It is going to be difficult to do that and to make progress on that when you consider what the administration, supported by Republicans in the House and the Senate, have done lately. They have done three things that are setting us backward. One is supporting a lawsuit in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which will destroy the Affordable Care Act. It will destroy it. We should be arguing against that lawsuit. It is highly likely, or at least likely, I will say--I don't want to be that pessimistic--that that lawsuit will prevail and the Affordable Care Act will be wiped away and declared unconstitutional by the circuit court or maybe by the Supreme Court down the road if the Supreme Court were to take that case up on appeal. That is not good for America for lots of reasons. All those Americans--more than 130 million--who have a preexisting condition will be out of luck if that lawsuit prevails. The protections for preexisting conditions will be taken away after having been granted for the first time, basically, a decade ago, to tens and tens of millions of Americans. A lot of other adverse consequences come from that lawsuit succeeding, so every Member of the Senate should be against that lawsuit. Now, some say: Well, we have a better idea. Well, come forward with your better idea and figure out a way, if you can, to provide coverage for 20 million people, to provide protections for those who have a preexisting condition--provide the same protections in a different way, if you can, but don't say to the country that we are supporting a lawsuit that will take all those protections away when you don't have anything to replace it with, you have nothing that has been enacted into law or nothing that has been proposed that will be commensurate with the coverage gains and protections of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We can be weeks away from that lawsuit succeeding. That is problem No. 1--threat No. 1, I call it. Threat No. 2 are the proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. The administration proposed cutting the Medicaid program that I just referred to a couple of minutes ago, the children's disability and long-term nursing home care program--that is what Medicaid does, helps people get into nursing homes. It helps a lot of middle-class families afford long-term nursing care. It helps about 40 percent of American children with healthcare and helps a lot of children, especially children with disabilities, have the therapies, treatments, and the protections they need because they have a disability or sometimes more than one disability. That is the Medicaid program. What does the administration want to do? They want to cut it by $1.5 trillion. No one here should support that kind of a cut, but not only do some people here support it by their silence, by their assent, many here are champions of that, strongly advocating for that kind of a cut, so we have to fight against that, too--the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Then there is threat No. 3--No. 1 being the threat of the lawsuit, No. 2 being the threat of the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid--the third threat is the sabotage that has been undertaken from day one of the administration. On the Republican side, I would hope that someone would speak up against this. I haven't heard much. I have been listening. I haven't heard much about those who might claim to not be in favor of sabotage. Here is one example of sabotage in the report I referred to earlier. We just issued this report today: ``HEALTH CARE SABOTAGE ONLINE: A WARNING TO CONSUMERS.'' Here is what we did: We started calling all over Pennsylvania and doing research on what was advertised for these short-term duration healthcare plans known in the vernacular here in Washington by the phrase ``junk plans.'' Why do we say they are junk? Well, we say that because these plans were only allowed to be in place for 3 months, but the administration changed that rule. Now, these plans are available. You can purchase a plan like this for 1 year, and then you can renew it for up to 3 years. What happens? Well, often, people are deceived into signing up for plans that don't have the protections that they thought they would have. They don't have the protections that I think most Americans have come to expect. Here is the first finding in the report: ``When searching online for health insurance plans, it is difficult to differentiate between paid advertisements and search results.'' Now, we just had an example today of a man in Pennsylvania who told us that, when he went online and did some investigation and then was talking to someone on the phone who was selling him insurance, they said: ``It's got all the protections of the Affordable Care Act.'' But, of course, it didn't, and he was deceived. There are a lot of stories of people being deceived by false advertising and by misleading advertising. Even if going to a page after having done a search and on that page it might say ``healthcare.gov,'' which is the right place to go if you want to enroll, but sometimes, healthcare.gov has nothing to do with it. It is advertised as what healthcare.gov offers, but it doesn't offer that. It offers a junk plan, and people are in real trouble when they sign up for the wrong plan. So the first thing folks should do is make sure that they carefully examine these paid advertisements so they don't get into a plan that is going to prevent them from getting the coverage they need. The second finding that we concluded is: ``Paid advertisements for health insurance are often misleading and fail to fully disclose very important information.'' The third and final finding is the following: ``Advertisements often use `HealthCare.Gov' in the website title and descriptions despite having no affiliation with HealthCare.Gov.'' So people see that on the top of the page, and it is not designated in the correct way so that you can actually get to the correct site. You are sent to some other site, and before you know it, you are clicking on to plans that don't give you the coverage you think you are getting. So there is a lot of misinformation. There is a lot of scam artistry or a lot of other ways to describe it because they have more time to do it. They used to only have a 3-month time period. It wasn't really a good business model to try to mislead people into your junk plan if you only have 3 months. Now, they have 1 year or they may have more than 1 year if the individual were to reenroll for a total of 3 years. So instead of having 3 months for this short-term insurance, which was never meant to be permanent, which was only meant to be an interim policy, now these scam artists, these purveyors of fraud in many instances, have a lot more time to rip you off and get you on to a plan that doesn't provide the kind of protection that you and your family need. So what are we going to do about it? We should do a couple of things. We, first and foremost, should remind people that this is the time, starting this Friday, November 1, for open enrollment. Folks will have 6 weeks in that open enrollment period. That is good, and we should make sure people are aware when that open enrollment starts; but while they are searching and making this very consequential decision for themselves or their family, they should be warned about and be educated about what can happen to them if they are on a site that will not provide the care and the coverage that they need. There is an old expression: ``Forewarned is forearmed.'' We want to forewarn people so they are ready and they will be vigilant. Here are a couple of things that we can do. We provide a couple of tips to avoid enrolling in one of these junk plans. No. 1: ``To get help picking the health insurance coverage that fits your needs, visit HealthCare.Gov.'' In fact, when you type in to do a search, you should type www.HealthCare.Gov. That is the best way to get to the right site. So just make sure you are on HealthCare.Gov and not something that looks like HealthCare.Gov. Some will go on a site, and some people don't realize they are not on HealthCare.Gov. They are on healthcare.org. That is an old way of referring to the site. HealthCare.Gov is the correct one. That is tip No. 1. Be careful of that. No. 2: ``Be aware of how the search engine designates advertisements.'' Be aware that something that looks official is just an advertisement. Be careful about that. No. 3: ``Always look at the website address, typically displayed in green font, before clicking on a link.'' So be careful about the website address. No. 4: ``Pay attention to the words used in the website title and description.'' Title and description. For example, the difference between HealthCare.Gov and healthcare.org. So folks can take a look at these tips and be ready to enroll through HealthCare.Gov in a way that will give them the coverage they want when they are making that basic choice. This is what sabotage looks like. When you change a rule from one administration to the other, instead of having a 3-month rule giving these interim plans a chance to operate in a shorter timeframe and you enlarge that to a year, you are sabotaging the system when you do that. You are not providing people a chance for better healthcare, you are making it much more likely that folks will be deceived because those who are trying to make money here saw this opportunity. As soon as they saw that 3 months going to 1 year, they saw a golden opportunity to make money and rip people off, and it is working. A lot of people are becoming victims of it. So that is sabotage. The other sabotage is limiting the enrollment period. I just mentioned that open enrollment period starts on Friday, but it is 6 weeks. It used to be longer than 6 weeks. So you are limiting the time within which someone can avail themselves to get healthcare, the opportunity to change a plan or do anything like that. Another way that sabotage has played out is a limitation on the advertising. Guess what, if you limit the advertising by cutting the advertising budget--at one point, it was cut by 90 percent--guess what, fewer people know about their opportunities to enroll by way of HealthCare.Gov or to have the opportunity not just for coverage but often to have a subsidy that will help you pay for the coverage. So that is another way that the administration is engaged in sabotage, and it is working because, as I mentioned, 1.9 million Americans or fewer Americans are insured today than 2 years ago, so it is working, unfortunately. I mention the coverage loss that is hitting children. There is a New York Times story dated October 22, just last week. The headline is: ``Medicaid Covers a Million Fewer Children. Baby Elijah was one of them.'' The subheadline says ``Officials point to rising unemployment, but the uninsured rate is climbing as families run afoul of new paperwork and as fear rises among immigrants.'' So a series of steps taken by the administration has caused the number of children who are uninsured to go up. That is and should be unacceptable to any American. Finally, I want to conclude with one thought about preexisting conditions. When we vote this week, we will have an opportunity to push back against some of the sabotage, to make it less likely that people will be misled, to make it less likely that people will be enrolled in some junk insurance plan. One of the adverse consequences of being in the wrong plan, getting the wrong information, and being misled, being deceived, is a lack of coverage for a preexisting condition. So if you have asthma or diabetes or arthritis or high blood pressure under the old rules, under the old law, you could be discriminated against because you had a preexisting condition. So an insurance company can legally discriminate against you. The law changed in 2010, fortunately, so that discrimination was pushed back against, and we finally had a circumstance for families who didn't have to worry about preexisting conditions--or at least didn't have to worry about coverage for treatment for a preexisting condition. Lo and behold, you find examples in your home States. A couple of months ago, I was with one of my constituents, Rev. Shirley Cornell. She told me about how the Affordable Care Act had completely changed her husband's life. She told me that her husband's $8,000 deductible dropped by about one-third after enrolling in insurance under the Affordable Care Act. She said: ``We were one experience away from chaos and possibly bankruptcy.'' Because of the protections in place for a preexisting condition, Reverend Cornell doesn't have to worry about that. She may have to worry about a lot of other things, but that is one thing she doesn't have to worry about. Unfortunately, if this sabotage keeps marching forward, she may have to worry. A worry that was lifted from so many families just less than a decade ago now may burden them once again. There is no reason why we have to go back to those days when an insurance company could deny a child coverage because that child had a preexisting condition or could deny an adult treatment or coverage because they had a preexisting condition. There is no reason why we have to go back to those days; yet some around here seem to want to go back to those days. The best way to make sure that we don't is to fight against what the administration has been doing, to fight against the lawsuit, to fight against the sabotage, and to fight against the budget cuts. I know some don't want to do that. They seem to want to continue to support what the administration is doing. I hope that folks will take advantage of this opportunity in the next 6 weeks, starting on Friday, November 1, and use the open enrollment period and examine these issues with an eye towards not being deceived, not being brought down a road where you won't get the coverage you need. Maybe we can have some success in putting the junk plan artists out of business so that they can't deceive people into getting insurance that they expect would provide them more coverage. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to talk about the question of impeachment, which, of course, is being debated across the country. Evidence continues to mount regarding actions the President has taken. Of course, this issue is not only worthy of debate but also worthy of inquiry and review and even debate and discussion here in the Senate. From the Mueller report to the recent revelations regarding the President's dealing with Ukraine and its President, evidence indicates that the President is not only willing to take actions which, in my judgment, amount to an abuse of power--in fact, I think the behavior of the President on the phone call with the Ukrainian President was a textbook case of abuse of power. Apparently, he wants to enlist others to defend the indefensible--this behavior--and has said other things that are troubling to so many Americans. I think it is important to provide some historical perspective on impeachment, and I will seek to do some of that today. This is by no means a full review of the history, but I think it is important to talk about some of the questions our Founders were wrestling with. Our Founders grappled with many different questions as they debated the Constitution itself, particularly the nature and the power of the Office of the President of the United States. As our Founders debated how to hold the President accountable during the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Elbridge Gerry said as follows regarding the issue of impeachment: ``A good magistrate will not fear [impeachments]. A bad one ought to be kept in fear of them.'' Consistent with Gerry's remarks, our Constitution provides an impeachment process for ``Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.'' At the time of the drafting, our Founders' understanding of ``high Crimes and Misdemeanors'' was informed by centuries of English legal precedent. We know, as Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 65, impeachment should stem from ``abuse or violation of some public trust.'' I will say it again: ``abuse or violation of some public trust.'' Informed by this history, Congress has consistently interpreted the phrase broadly to mean ``serious violations of the public trust''--that was one understanding--and has explained that ``the phrase refers to misconduct that damages the state and the operations of governmental institutions, and is not limited to criminal misconduct.'' That is an important distinction--``not limited to criminal misconduct.'' There is no requirement for a President to engage in a quid pro quo. Any kind of quid pro quo arrangement is not required for impeachment, although it is certainly an impeachable offense to engage in that kind of conduct. Rather, our Constitution merely requires ``abuse or violation of some public trust,'' as Hamilton spoke to. Since Special Counsel Mueller issued his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and, more recently, as testimony has emerged about President Trump's conduct toward Ukraine, I have attempted to assess how President Trump's actions fit in our historical and current understanding of what ``high Crimes and Misdemeanors'' means. This is an undertaking that must be done in a considered manner and after reviewing all of the relevant information that is available. But I am increasingly convinced that Speaker Pelosi was correct in calling for a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump's conduct. A failure by Congress to pursue impeachment in the face of grave offenses by the President would be insulting to our Constitution and insulting to our values. Let's talk about the Ukraine example for a moment. Over the past several weeks, our Nation has been confronted by credible and detailed press reports, as well as exhaustive testimony, in some cases lasting 8 hours, 9 hours, 10 hours at a time, just for one witness, and this testimony has come from both career diplomats and State Department officials indicating that the President has been employing his personal attorney to manage a shadow diplomacy agenda focused on personal vendettas and unfounded conspiracy theories in Ukraine. In a telephone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine, President Trump--immediately after the Ukrainian President raised the issue of purchasing Javelins to defend his country from Russian aggression-- asked the Ukrainian President to ``do us a favor though'' by working with his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and launching an investigation into a discredited conspiracy theory regarding a DNC server in Ukraine. To say that theory is discredited is an understatement. It has been debunked, so said a former Homeland Security Advisor to President Trump, among others. President Trump also asked President Zelensky ``to look into'' Joe Biden's son and explained that ``a lot of people want to find out'' about Biden--a political rival who, of course, is running for President. After a memorandum of the phone call was released to the public, the House Intelligence Committee released a text message from the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, who indicated that he thought it was ``crazy [for the President] to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.'' Other officials have since come forward, some even resigning because of their serious concerns over the White House's handling of Ukraine policy. Michael McKinley, a former senior adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State, testified that he resigned for two reasons: ``the failure, in my view, of the State Department to offer support to Foreign Service employees caught up in the impeachment inquiry on Ukraine, and, second, by what appears to be the utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance a domestic political objective.'' That is what Mr. McKinley, who just left the State Department, said. Our Founders had the foresight to ensure that the power of the President was not unlimited and that Congress could, if necessary, hold the Executive accountable for abuses of power through the impeachment process. Surely, not every instance of Presidential wrongdoing merits impeachment. Using the vast powers of impeachment in a cavalier fashion would be an insult to our Constitution. This inquiry is not simply about President Trump's abuse of power. This inquiry is about our democracy and the values that the Founders agreed should guide our Nation. Impeachment is not what anyone in this town would prefer. It is what our Constitution demands--demands--when an Executive abuses his or her power in a manner that ``damages the state and the operations of government institutions.'' That is from an earlier impeachment in the 1860s. As Hamilton said so long ago--but so prescient--when there is an ``abuse or violation of some public trust,'' we are summoned-- summoned--by our constitutional duty to act. To fail to act would be a dereliction of that duty, thereby inviting this executive and future executives to abuse that public trust with impunity. We should never do that.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, very briefly, I wanted to highlight a story that was in today's Wall Street Journal, entitled ``As Court Case Imperils Affordable Care Act, Some States Prepare Contingency Plans.'' That is the headline. The subheadline is this: ``Lawmakers explore ways to preserve coverage, benefits if the health law is struck down.'' This is the opening paragraph that I will read--it is not very long, but I want to read it--from the story today: A federal appeals court decision that could strike down the Affordable Care Act as soon as this month has rattled officials in several states who are pursuing legislation to preserve some coverage in the absence of any Trump administration contingency plan. Lawmakers in states including Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico and California have passed bills or are reviewing action aimed at dealing with the fallout if the ACA is overturned. That is from the very beginning of the article. I will not go further, other than to say that this is a grave matter. If a Federal appeals court were to rule in favor of the moving party on appeal--or I should say the moving party at the beginning of the suit--and affirm the district court, what would happen if that were the case? The patient protection in the Affordable Care Act would be wiped out, and it would cause not just chaos but would take away protections from people like those who have protections for a preexisting condition and would also take healthcare coverage away from millions, if not tens of millions. This is a critically important matter, and it deserves and warrants the attention of Members of the Senate and the House as well. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today as well to talk about pensions, as so many of my colleagues have been--and not just talking about but acting to advance legislation with regard to pensions. As we have heard today--and we will keep saying this because it bears repeating--pensions are a promise. They are a promise of a secure retirement. When a worker enters into that promise with a company, when the Federal Government is involved, we have to make sure we keep the promise to workers, just as we did a couple of years ago, after a lot of hard work, to make sure healthcare was there for coal miners who were retired. Pensions are an issue that both Houses of Congress have a responsibility to act on. The House passed the Butch Lewis Act 3 months ago, but like a lot of legislation that has come from the House, it is sitting in the Senate day after day, week after week and in this case 3 months--3 months-- since passage in the House. It is time for the U.S. Senate to have a vote on the Butch Lewis Act. In Pennsylvania, and I know this is true of several other States, we are talking about coal miners, teamsters, bakery and confectionary workers who, through no fault of their own, are seeing their hard- earned pensions threatened. Failure to act could result in devastating economic consequences across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and across our Nation. Just think about it this way, in terms of Pennsylvania: One estimate has it that over 60,000 pensions--60,000--including 11,831 coal miners, 21,460 teamsters as part of that larger number--could be at risk. Despite the challenges ahead, the good news is, we have bipartisan legislation that I mentioned a moment ago, the Butch Lewis Act, which passed the House 3 months ago. Senator Brown of Ohio and others have worked hard to make sure this effort on pensions is in front of the agenda in the Senate. The Butch Lewis Act will create a loan program for troubled pensions. It is a commonsense solution that brings the public sector and the private sector together to address this looming crisis for workers. We must also pass legislation so we can address the coal miners' healthcare and coal miners' pension crises. Senator Manchin from West Virginia has shown great leadership in this process over many years. We also owe thanks to the Members of the U.S. Senate Democratic caucus. Few, if any, have coal miners in their States, but because of a concerted effort in the Democratic caucus, we have made coal miners and their healthcare and retirements and their pensions a priority. Those Democratic Senators stood with Senators like me from States that have a large number of retired coal miners because it is the right thing to do. Those Democratic Senators know it is the right thing to do. Some Republican Senators do as well. It is the right thing to do because, as I started with, pensions are a promise, and we have to make sure we keep our promise to those workers. Thousands of Pennsylvania families are counting on us, and many more thousands of American families across the board outside of Pennsylvania are counting on us to keep our promise on pensions and to make sure we continue to fight until that promise is kept to our workers and to their families. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise this evening to talk about healthcare. I will not have long remarks, but I do want to highlight a report that was just issued last week. The report I am holding is from the Census Bureau. The report is entitled ``Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2018,'' by the U.S. Census Bureau, dated September of 2019. On page 2, this fairly lengthy report, which goes on for about 29 or 30 pages, has the general comparison in healthcare coverage of uninsured numbers--those without insurance in 2017 versus 2018. This is what it says on page 2 of the report under ``Highlights'': In 2018, 8.5 percent of people, or 27.5 million, did not have health insurance at any point during the year. The uninsured rate and number of uninsured increased from 2017 (7.9 percent or 25.6 million). And then it refers to a figure and a table. Basically, what is outlined is a drop in the number of Americans covered. Looking at it another way, there was an increase in the number of uninsured from 25.6 million Americans to 27.5 million Americans--a difference of 1.9 million. Just for general reference, I will round that off to say that roughly 2 million people who had insurance in 2017 were uninsured in 2018. That is deeply troubling because the number of uninsured is up, not just generally from 2017 to 2018 but more broadly. It is a change in the trend lines where we have been for most of the last decade. I think it is pretty clear that the Trump administration's sabotage of health insurance is, indeed, working. It is reversing coverage gains that were made under the Affordable Care Act in the years after enactment and implementation of the Affordable Care Act. We are told, as well, that the number of uninsured children is up, so more children were without insurance from 2017 to 2018. Here is what one observer, whose name is Phil Galewitz, from the Kaiser Health News said: ``For the first time in a decade, the number of Americans without health insurance has risen--by about 2 million people in 2018--according to the annual U.S. Census Bureau report released Tuesday.'' That was Tuesday of last week. He goes on to cite the numbers that I just cited. Here is another comment from Katie Keith from Health Affairs: Coverage losses are expected to continue in 2019. This is due to a number of factors, including repeal of the individual mandate penalty, the expanded availability of non- ACA plans, and the final ``public charge'' rule. She goes on from there. These are people who spend their lives on the issue of healthcare. A third commentator, Joan Alker, from Georgetown University Center for Children and Families said: ``As a result, 4.3 million kids were uninsured in 2018--a statistically significant increase of 425,000.'' Another commentator who follows healthcare, Matt Broaddus, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said: [T]oday's Census data provide the clearest evidence yet that Trump Administration efforts to weaken health coverage under the ACA are taking a toll. They include canceling most federal outreach efforts for the open enrollment period for 2018 marketplace coverage, supporting new state policies that make it harder for people to enroll or stay enrolled in Medicaid, issuing rules to expand short-term and association health plans . . . and creating public confusion about the ACA's future by refusing to defend its constitutionality in a lawsuit by Republican state officials. Then I turn to the last reference by groups that follow this information. I will just hold up this chart. This is a chart by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This chart depicts where we have been over the decade and where we could be at the end of the decade on healthcare. This is a reference to the uninsured rate for nonelderly Americans. That number was over 17 percent in 2009. So 17.2 percent of Americans were uninsured at that time. The chart says it then fell each year, especially after the Affordable Care Act's major coverage provisions took effect in 2014. You see it starting in 2009, and then you see the big drop. Of course, that big drop of uninsured is good news. When that chart depicts the number going down, that is obviously good news. Then you see the Trump administration sabotage has begun eroding this progress. You see it flattening out. Now, instead of a continual diminution or decline in the uninsured number, you see kind of a flattening out of that. Then you factor in the census report, which documents at least for 1 year an increase in the number of uninsured. Then the last part of the chart says: ``If the administration gets the courts to strike down the ACA, the uninsured rate would almost double.'' It goes all the way up to 18.7 in 2019. Of course, the last part of the chart is a projection. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is asserting that if a lawsuit is successful in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which we know was successful at the district court level and is now on appeal--if they are successful, this think tank, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says that in 2019, the number of uninsured could go up to 18.7 percent, surpassing where we were in 2009, when we started to pass and then implement the Affordable Care Act, reducing substantially the number of people who were uninsured. If you look at it this way, roughly over 6 years, the uninsured number went from about 47 million Americans down to about 27 million Americans. Twenty million-plus people gained insurance coverage in about 6 years--not even a decade. The concern I have is that efforts undertaken by the administration, unfortunately, are seen as successful, according to the Census Bureau numbers, because the number of uninsured is going up at a time we want the number to go down. When you add in the lawsuit, which, in my judgment, is more likely to succeed than not--I don't want it to succeed; I want it to fail because I think it is an insult to declare the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, therefore destroying protections for more than 100 million Americans and ripping away coverage from so many Americans that the number of uninsured would skyrocket. Why would we ever go back to the days when the number of uninsured was that high and potentially growing? Why would we ever take any step--whether there is a lawsuit or whether it is sabotage or whatever--to drive up the number of uninsured? Let me conclude with a couple of headlines. The front page of the New York Times, dated September 11, 2019 reads: ``Fewer Insured After Attacks On Health Act.'' If you go to the inside of the paper, on page A15 there is a longer headline that says: ``Fewer Are Insured Amid Administration's Attacks On Health Act.'' The Wall Street Journal--a newspaper, when I last checked, that was not necessarily supportive of the Affordable Care Act, editorially-- dated September 11, page 83, reads: ``Insured Rate Logs First Drop in a Decade.'' That means the number of uninsured is getting larger. I would say in conclusion that we need to sound the alarm about the threat to healthcare, sound the alarm about the threat to a growing number of uninsured Americans. This is not even factoring in the lawsuit, which, as the chart depicts, would make the uninsured number skyrocket. It wouldn't go up by 1.9 million or a percentage point or two; it would go up exponentially higher. I hope that Members of this body in both parties not only would be concerned about these trends and concerned about what would could happen if the lawsuit were successful but also would take action to prevent this dark result from playing out for the American people because the number of uninsured would explode instead of continuing to go down where Americans want it to go. We want the number of uninsured to go down. We certainly want the number of uninsured children to go down. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight to speak about the issue that has been consuming a lot of our time, and appropriately so, not only tonight but for many weeks, since some of the tragedies of this summer, starting in early August and continuing but also an issue that has occupied the time of the American people over the course of not just weeks or months but years and even decades now. I thank our colleague from Connecticut, Senator Murphy, for organizing this time to bring Members of the Senate together. I thank my colleague from Ohio, Senator Brown, the senior Senator, for his words tonight, his passion about this issue, and his commitment to change. That should be a commitment that is shared by everyone here, but we will be talking about what has not happened here tonight as much as what has happened. When I think about this issue, the issue of gun violence, which is an epidemic, it is also uniquely an American problem. No other country has this problem. In fact, America didn't have this problem for all of its history. Depending on where you start the clock, it is years old, if not a lot longer than that. When I think about the issue and think about the debates we are having, sometimes we start with the names of communities, and we, unfortunately, have them memorized. So many communities are known for so much--so much that is positive about their culture, about their history, and about their future, and the dynamism of some of our great communities. There are some communities that have all that but also now have attached to their history--I hope not forever but certainly for a period of time--that that city, that community, was a place where an act of gun violence occurred that was of such a scale that the American people focused on that one community for a sustained period of time because of a mass shooting. Of course, we should be remembering all of the examples on a night like tonight, where it doesn't reach the level of a mass shooting by way of victims or carnage but also as a place we should remember when one person dies on a dark street in the middle of the night or a child is injured or in fact killed, but it may not be counted as a mass shooting. You know all the names now. Just this summer we have added several more, as everyone knows. I will not go through all the events--these horrific, tragic events--but it is important to remember the names of the communities, and then, of course, I want to talk about some of the people. Whether it is El Paso or Dayton or Odessa-Midland--many years ago, it was Columbine, it was Newtown, CT, Virginia Tech, Las Vegas, Parkland, Aurora, CO, Orlando, and, more recently, Gilroy, CA, and Virginia Beach. I have left a lot off. That is just a handful in the last number of years. So we think about this issue in terms of those who were lost or those whose lives have been irreparably damaged, sometimes irreparably damaged, permanently damaged because of the injury--an injury they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. Of course, you don't have to be physically injured to sustain an injury by way of the impact on your psyche. I can't even imagine, can't even begin to imagine, nor can most people imagine the horror of being anywhere near a mass shooting. Tonight we remember those victims and their families and those communities. We also remember the individual people who were lost, the individual families who were affected--mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, children. In so many of these instances, children are directly affected or indirectly, but that indirect affect means they lost a parent or they lost a sibling or they lost something in that moment that they will be permanently scarred by for the rest of their lives. I want to focus on two groups of people tonight. We could spend hours talking about so many Americans. One will be parochial in the sense that it is about my home State of Pennsylvania, and the other will be at the other end of the age scale about children who were lost in December of 2012. I will start with the most recent for Pennsylvania. We have had, obviously, example after example--too many to count, hundreds and hundreds--over the last couple of years where someone was killed or injured. We, thankfully, have not had multiple mass shootings, but just a couple of weeks ago in the city of Philadelphia, on about the same day that a guy was gunned down in Philadelphia, there was a standoff in a Philadelphia neighborhood, where one gunman--because of the power of his weapon and because of the advantage he had of being behind closed doors--was able to hold off part of a police force because he was shooting indiscriminately with a high-powered weapon. Thankfully, those six police officers who were injured--the injuries turned out to not be serious, and the police officers were released virtually on the same day. So we were blessed on that day. Right across the street, a very narrow street, there was a childcare center that could have been the scene of horrific carnage if it had gone another way. Thankfully, those children were safe in that childcare center that wasn't a block away. It wasn't a half a block away. It was barely yards and feet away. That childcare center was less than the width of this Chamber away from where that shooter was stationed. I will start with folks who were worshiping in the Tree of Life synagogue on a Saturday in October of 2018. I will not go through all of the details, but I think everyone by now knows what happened there. It was the worst act of violence against the Jewish community in American history that we know of. In this case, these were the victims. My wife Terese was kind enough to suggest to me that when you have a list or something you want to remember an event by, you should probably frame it or preserve it in some fashion. She was kind enough to help me get this framed. What I am holding here--you can't see it from any distance--is just a framed card with names of the victims. I will just read what it says so you know what I am talking about. This card came from a newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the date is October 29, 2018. They put this on the front page of the paper. All it says is ``Victims of the Synagogue Shooting,'' and then it lists each individual and their ages: Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 97; Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Cecil Rosenthal, 59; David Rosenthal, 54; Bernice Simon, 84; Sylvan Simon, 86; Daniel Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 87; and Irving Younger, 69. So this was a group of Pittsburghers worshiping on the Sabbath in a synagogue. They were lost on that day because a hate-filled person came into that synagogue, intent by way of things he said and intent by way of the weapons he had and the ammunition he had, intent on killing as many members of that congregation as possible--so, basically, a congregation where the victims were ages 54 to 97. That was one incident in my home State, and it seems like every State has a day like that where a community is torn apart. Those folks were obviously at the other end of the age scale. How about folks a lot younger? This just happens to be a matted copy of a page in the Wall Street Journal from December of 2012 after the Newtown, CT, shooting that we all know, unfortunately, so much about-- Sandy Hook Elementary School. This is dated December 17, 2012. What the Wall Street Journal did was put a picture of each child with their name and their age and a little vignette about their young life. I will not go through all of them tonight. I have referred to them in the past, and not every child had a picture ready at the time of this publication. These 20 children and 7 adults listed here are part of what we are talking about--the carnage that has enveloped our country over these last number of years. I want to read their names tonight, and then I want to get to the legislation: Charlotte Bacon, 6; Daniel Barden, 7; Olivia Engel, 6; Josephine Gay, 7; Ana Marquez-Greene, 6; Catherine V. Hubbard, 6; Jesse Lewis, 6; Grace McDonnell, 7; Emilie Parker, 6; Noah Pozner, 6; Caroline Previdi, 6; Jessica Rekos, 6; Madeline F. Hsu, 6; Chase Kowalski 7; and James Mattioli, 6. Then, there were several children who didn't have pictures at the time of this publication for the Wall Street Journal: Dylan Hockley, 6; Jack Pinto, 6; Avielle Richman, 6; Benjamin Wheeler, 6; and, Allison N. Wyatt, age 6. When we talk about what we should do here and what we must do, we have to remember more than just a list of communities, which in a sense is about place, and it is about geography. We also have to remember those who were lost. I think we have to begin to ask ourselves some really fundamental questions, maybe in ways we don't often do even in this Chamber, even in this body, which is supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in the world. This is a place where we should ask some of the questions that many of us have been asking. When we remember what those children suffered and what their families suffered, is it too much to ask if we can pass a background check bill that, as Senator Brown and so many others have noted, is supported by more than 90 percent of the American people? Is it too much of a lift for the Senate to pass just one bill? It is not a bill that is going to solve all the problems. We know that. Nobody is arguing that. But we know a recent example of where a background check bill might have been the difference between the gunman having a weapon and killing a number of Americans or not. That was Odessa and Midland. We have to do a lot more than background checks, but let's start with what is in front of us. You have a piece of legislation that has been sitting here for over 200 days--over 200 days. It came over from the House, H.R. 8. H.R. 8, in my judgment, is the best background check bill we have. There are other proposals, and we should debate them. But is it too much of a lift to say that we are going to debate and vote on H.R. 8, which closes the loopholes on these background checks and I think would do the best job of any proposal? Then, if someone has another proposal--I know that Senator Manchin and Senator Toomey have a proposal--let's debate that and vote on that too. If there is a third proposal, let's debate and vote on that. Let's get it right, or at least let's give the American people a chance to see whether or not this legislative body, this Senate, reflects the will of the American people--the overwhelming percentage of American people who support background checks. We should also make sure there is an opportunity to debate and vote on the Extreme Risk Protection Order Act or another version of that. Let's make sure that happens. I don't think we are asking the majority leader to take on a challenge that he hasn't already committed to. What I heard Majority Leader McConnell say in August was that when we come back, we will debate and vote on at least those two measures. I think that was a pretty clear promise. If we did that, would every problem be solved? No. Would gun violence be substantially reduced in a matter of weeks or months? No. No one is making that claim. But at least we could say that we made some progress in reducing the likelihood of greater gun violence. I think the bigger question here that we have to ask over and over, until we act or at least begin to act, is this: Is there nothing that we can do? Because that is part of the argument by those who say no on background checks, those who say no on extreme risk protection orders, no on a limitation on the magazines and the number of bullets you can shoot at any one time, which Senator Brown referred to. In Dayton, in 32 seconds, 9 people were killed and about 25 injured. In 32 seconds, the police officers got there faster than superman could get there, and that wasn't fast enough because of the power of the weapon and because of the amount of ammunition. There is nothing we can do about that, we are told. We are told over and over, here and around the country, where disciples of this point of view have their time to debate, that there is nothing that the most powerful country in the history of the human race can do to make sure that doesn't happen in another American city, or at least take action to reduce the likelihood that that would happen in another American city. So there is apparently nothing, according to this argument, that this great Nation of ours can do to prevent someone from, in 32 seconds, killing 9 people and injuring, I guess, about 25. What haunted me, among many things--and I am sure it haunted many Americans at the time of the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, shooting--was that the evidence indicated, according to an NBC News report at the time, which I was watching on my television at home in Scranton, PA, that there was evidence that the killer, after killing 20 children and several adults, was moving to the next classroom. We know that hundreds of children were in that school. I don't know the exact number, but it wasn't just a school of 20 children. A lot more than 20 were in that school. Again, as for taking this argument that there is nothing we can do except to enforce existing law, we hear over and over that we can't do anything and that we have to enforce existing law. That is the argument. They have been making this argument for decades. Based upon that argument, there is nothing we could have done in that instance, either, to prevent someone from killing 20 children or hundreds of children in 1 school, and then maybe several months later going to another school and killing hundreds of children. Does anyone really believe that there is no law, no action you can take to at least reduce the likelihood that that will not happen in the United States of America? We don't believe that because we call ourselves Americans. We have never had that attitude. Think of our history. Think of what happened in the last century, if we had that point of view: nothing we can do about this threat in Europe; nothing we can do to advance medical research, because we just have to accept the fact and try to nibble around the edges. No one really believes that. So that argument is getting pretty tired--that enforcement of existing law is the answer here. This is a uniquely American problem. No country has this problem. It has been building and building for years and decades. By inaction we allow the problem to get a lot worse, and it is about as bad as it gets right now. Huge numbers of Americans now--not like 5 percent or 8 percent, but like 40 percent of Americans now--believe that they can be a victim of gun violence. Forty percent of a country of over 300 million people believes that because of what they have seen. But again, the answer here from one side over and over is that there is nothing we can do, as more and more people believe they could be a victim next. You saw the footage for the news coverage of children going off to school at the start of this school year with their backpacks with a protective shield, like a Kevlar shield--I am not sure exactly what it is, but I saw the reports--in their backpack. An American child has to go to school and have armor-plated backpacks in America--that is not happening anywhere else--because their parents are worried about them going to school. Now we have to worry about where you go to school, where you worship, where you go for entertainment, and what public event do you not want to go to, because the U.S. Senate, for years now, hasn't voted on a series of gun bills in years. I guess people should get used to being afraid and wondering if they will be next or their children will be next. In essence, what they are telling us on the other side, when they say no to background checks, absolutely not--that is what they are saying-- and no to any kind of action, is that the most powerful country in the world should surrender to this problem. That is what it is. It is surrendering to this problem--that there is nothing that this country can do to make sure that you never have a full page of a newspaper with 20 children listed there ages 6 and 7 years old. That is not America. That is not who we are or, at least, it is not who we claim to be. I would say in conclusion--and I know I am well over my time--that the least we can do--this isn't hard, guys--is to debate and vote. Debate and vote--is that hard? It is not that strenuous--to debate and vote on background checks, to debate and vote on extreme risk protection orders. I would go further than that, but we don't have time for that tonight. Let's debate and vote. We are not going to wait. Why would we wait for the President to give us the high sign about what he will sign into law? This Chamber should not wait for any other official. We should debate and vote and see where things are. The American people will sort it out after we vote, and they will know who is on the record voting which way. But at least let's give them something to indicate that we are Americans. We don't surrender to problems. We don't surrender to big problems. We don't surrender to problems from an enemy, from a disease, and from an epidemic called gun violence. I yield the floor.