Bob Casey

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I come to the floor again this morning to discuss several judicial nominations considered by the Senate this week. Earlier this week, the Senate voted to confirm Michael Truncale to the Eastern District of Texas and Kenneth Lee to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals seat in California, and today we will be voting on the nomination of Wendy Vitter to the Eastern District of Louisiana. The Senate is considering and confirming nominees whose records indicate they are far outside the mainstream. I have worked very hard over a number of years now--I guess we are in our eighth year--working with Senator Toomey, to fill district court vacancies in Pennsylvania with well-qualified and experienced judges whom I believe will be able to set aside their ideologies or personal beliefs and apply the law to the cases before them. But I do not have the same confidence in many of the nominees before this body today and especially the nominees we are considering. I will go in the order that I mentioned before--first, Michael Truncale, then Kenneth Lee, and Wendy Vitter. I believe that in all three cases, all are not mainstream conservatives. Their backgrounds and records are very political, and they have long records of advocating for certain positions on issues that may come before them as either a U.S. district court judge or an appellate judge. First of all, Mr. Truncale has advocated strongly for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which provided healthcare coverage and critical patient protections for 20 million people in terms of coverage and tens of millions more in terms of protection. He said that the Affordable Care Act would ``lead to the rationing of healthcare.'' He has personally advocated for abolishing the Department of Education, and he used false, unfounded claims of voter fraud to support voter ID laws that disproportionately affect low-income voters and communities of color. Second, Kenneth Lee was confirmed over the objections of both California Senators, Senator Harris and Senator Feinstein--Senator Feinstein, in this case, being the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, the very committee that considers judges. Mr. Lee has a litany of writings that include offensive statements about immigrants, people of color, and LGBT Americans. He has strongly opposed affirmative action policies that help make our institutions of higher learning more diverse, and it is very possible that he may consider matters relating to these policies as a member of the Ninth Circuit. Finally, Wendy Vitter has virtually no Federal trial court experience, has a long record of opposing contraception, and has promoted false information about the safety of oral contraceptives. These views are not only outside of the mainstream--the judicial or legal mainstream--but they are also not supported by science. I don't believe these nominees will be able to set aside their personal views and apply relevant precedent, and my concern is compounded by recent efforts by conservative jurists to overturn longstanding precedents. Most Americans thought that the Voting Rights Act, which for decades protected the franchise for Americans of color, particularly Black Americans, was a foundational, almost untouchable statute. But in 2013, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, which has gotten only more conservative, moved to the right even more. That Court, the Supreme Court, gutted the protections of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County v. Holder case. Just last year, in the Janus decision, the Supreme Court overturned a four-decades-old precedent in the Abood case that allowed public sector unions to collect nonpolitical, so-called fair share fees to cover the costs of negotiations that benefit all workers. So you have the union doing the work, and the law allowed them, for four decades, to charge other employees who benefit from the work of the union, and the Supreme Court struck that down. Pennsylvania passed a similar law in the 1980s, which has been the law of the land in Pennsylvania for years. It was signed into law in the late 1980s by my father when he was serving as Governor, so that is an important issue in Pennsylvania for working men and women. The conservative majority of the Supreme Court overturned the Abood case, eviscerating a precedent that was relied upon by public sector unions and their governmental employers all over the country. I believe the next step by the far right and by this court and maybe by the Supreme Court and maybe in another court would be to make illegal the very right to organize for wages and benefits. I hope I am wrong about that, but I believe that is the logical next step for the right. Just this week, a conservative majority of the Supreme Court overturned a 40-year precedent regarding States' sovereign immunity in the courts of other States. In the last line of his dissent, Justice Breyer sounded alarm bells about this kind of judicial activism from the right, saying: ``Today's decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the court will overrule next.'' He is right. We no longer know what is civil law and what could be up for debate. We thought that Abood was settled law in the context of labor unions and the right to organize or an issue related to the right to organize. We thought the Voting Rights Act was settled law. This week we mark the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, a unanimous Supreme Court decision holding that segregation in our public school system, in addition to being a profound moral failure, was a violation of our Constitution. I would hope--we all would hope that Brown v. Board of Education would remain rock solid settled law. Yet, because of what we have seen in the last couple of years with this Court, we must stay vigilant. We cannot let civil rights that Americans fought for and earned and have cherished for decades be chipped away by extreme judicial nominees who hold insuperable political and policy preferences. I oppose the nominees that the Senate has considered this week, and I will continue to oppose extreme nominees to our Federal courts. I yield the floor to the distinguished Democratic leader.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the Senate's failure to meet its constitutional obligation and conduct effective oversight of what seems to me and many others to be this administration's inexorable march toward war with Iran. This week, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is making plans to deploy 120,000 American troops to the Middle East in anticipation of a confrontation with Iran. It is no secret that some of the President's closest advisers are focused on regime change and possibly military engagement with Iran. I was encouraged by a story in the Washington Post that was posted last night. The headline of that story read as follows: ``Trump, frustrated by advisers, is not convinced the time is right to attack Iran.'' That was the headline in the version of the story reported by four Washington Post reporters. In pertinent part, the story indicated that the President thinks his advisers ``could rush the U.S. into a military confrontation with Iran.'' Then it goes on to further state that ``Trump prefers a diplomatic approach to resolving tensions.'' I am encouraged by that, but we have to be vigilant when it comes to this issue and the broader issue of the use of force. The plans that I mentioned before referred to by the New York Times apparently were submitted by Acting Defense Secretary Shanahan. These are the most recent in a string of actions this administration has taken, from withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, to designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps--the so-called IRGC--as a foreign terrorist organization, to suspending waivers that allow partner countries to continue importing Iranian oil. I have a long record of working to fight against Iranian aggression. We all know--and we have said it often, and we should say it again-- Iran is and has been the leading state sponsor of terrorism. For years, many of us, in a bipartisan way, have led efforts to confront Iran, to sanction Iran, to hold Iran accountable for its malign activity and actions in the Middle East and its actions to support terrorist organizations, whether it is Hezbollah or any other terrorist organization. We will continue that regardless of this debate. But when the New York Times talked about that military plan, they referred to a prior engagement, a prior military conflict--the conflict in Iraq. ``Echoes of Iraq War'' was what the Times said. These ``echoes'' trigger memories and reflections of a misguided period of this body's history in which Congress approved a U.S. invasion of Iraq based upon faulty intelligence. By the end of that long war, thousands of Americans had been killed, and many more Americans had been wounded. In Pennsylvania alone, 197 Pennsylvanians were killed in action in the Iraq war and more than 1,200 were wounded. I haven't even talked about the conflict in Afghanistan, where Pennsylvania lost more than 90. The last number I saw was 91 Pennsylvanians were killed in action in Afghanistan. Pennsylvania is well familiar with contributing fighting men and women to conflicts from the beginning of our Republic until this very day. The administration's actions on Iran also ``echo'' our ongoing stalemate--``stalemate'' might be an understatement--regarding the authorization for use of military force--the so-called AUMF--against ISIS, for example. If we don't debate and vote on an AUMF as it relates to Iran or any other country or any other conflict, we are not doing our job. For 6 years, the United States has been engaged in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. For many years, the executive branch has relied on the 2001 authorization for use of military force to justify its fight against ISIS, as well as to justify other military engagements. I ask Majority Leader McConnell to set aside time for sustained debate and votes on a new authorization for use of military force. Last month, Secretary of State Pompeo implied during testimony in front of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate that the 2001 AUMF to go after al-Qaida and its affiliates authorizes war with Iran. A lot of people would disagree with that. I believe that an 18-year-old authorization needs an update--another understatement. The threats we confront today have evolved since 2001. As this administration seeks to link al-Qaida and Iran in anticipation of a military confrontation, I am concerned over the bipartisan failure to hold both this and the prior administration to account for their constitutional overreach over congressional authority. I commend Senator Kaine and other Senators from both parties for efforts over the last number of years to force a debate on congressional oversight over this issue. The majority leader should allow floor time and a robust debate on congressional war powers and oversight over the Executive's unilateral actions that send American troops overseas. The debate on the Yemen resolution and the vote--several votes, actually, on that--demonstrated that there is bipartisan concern over the use of force, but we need a broader debate than we had in the debate on the Yemen resolution. As this administration pursues a reckless strategy with Iran, it is time for a sustained debate and vote on a new authorization for use of military force that allows our Nation to, in fact, destroy terrorists and fight threats to U.S. national security but doesn't result in endless war. The 2001 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force authorizing military action in Iraq and Afghanistan are outdated and must be replaced. I will conclude with some words from Abraham Lincoln in that now- famous letter to Mrs. Bixby in which he talked about the loss of her sons' lives in the Civil War. When they did the checks on it, it turned out to be two sons. When the President was writing, he thought she had lost five sons. But we still have families who suffer the loss of a son or a daughter in conflict--we hope not as many as two or more. In this case, in the second paragraph, President Lincoln said ``the grief of a loss so overwhelming.'' He then went on to say to this grieving mother: But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. So said President Lincoln at that time. The words still ring true today--``the grief of a loss so overwhelming,'' the memory of ``the loved and lost.'' It goes on to read ``so costly a sacrifice.'' Every President should read this letter as he or she deliberates about the use of force that commits our sons and daughters to fight and risk their lives. When we talk about so costly a sacrifice, we all know what happened in our State. Military families in Pennsylvania, in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, endured so costly a sacrifice. I hope President Trump will reread this letter as he deliberates our next steps with regard to Iran and our next steps with regard to the authorization for the use of military force. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to celebrate the 54th anniversary of Head Start and the 25th anniversary of Early Head Start on May 18. We know that in January of 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared the War on Poverty in his State of the Union Address. Sargent Shriver, who was the then-Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, assembled a panel of experts to develop a comprehensive child development program to help communities meet the needs of disadvantaged preschool children. It resulted in Project Head Start's launching in the summer of 1965. Over 50 years later, Head Start and Early Head Start have served hundreds of thousands of children with high-quality, comprehensive early learning and wraparound services. Just to give the Senate a reminder of what Head Start is in terms of the ages, Head Start serves children who are ages 3 to 5. Early Head Start serves children who are up to the age of 3--so under the age of 3. We know that these early learning experiences provide children with the tools they need to develop and succeed in school. When children learn more earlier in life, they earn more later in life. It is not just a rhyme. All the evidence and research show that there is a direct connection between early learning and later earning. A study of Head Start children in Harrisburg, PA, found that they had higher scores in the fifth grade than a control group on all academic and executive functioning outcomes. These benefits stay with children through adulthood. Research shows Head Start children have a higher likelihood of graduating from high school and receiving postsecondary degrees. These benefits even flow to the next generation. The children of Head Start graduates are significantly more likely to finish high school and enroll in college, and they are significantly less likely to become teen parents or to be involved in the criminal justice system. One of the core tenets of Head Start that has made it so successful is its responsiveness to local community needs. In Pennsylvania, for example, as in many other States, the opioid epidemic has hit far too many communities, and Head Start has responded to that crisis with innovative programming. For example, the SafeStart Program in Allentown, which is an Early Head Start program, provides early intervention to assist the development of infants and toddlers who have suffered abuse or neglect. After having completed SafeStart--the new program in Allentown--68 percent of 3-year-olds were on age developmentally, and 100 percent of the children showed significant improvement in their drug-impacted symptoms, with 53 percent having shown resolution. Of the women who became pregnant while their substance-impacted children were enrolled in SafeStart, 88 percent gave birth to full-term, drug-free, and healthy second children. The whole family approach and integration with local community partners have created not just better outcomes for families but have resulted in significant savings. Through this program, 91 percent of the children achieved stable, permanent homes and caregivers, and it is estimated that the SafeStart Program has resulted in nearly $1.5 million in foster care savings and in over $9.5 million in child welfare involvement by stabilizing 106 families. So we are grateful for those results from the SafeStart Program in Allentown. Head Start is a critical program for lifting families out of poverty, obviously, and providing children with the early learning experiences they need to start kindergarten and to be ready to learn. Unfortunately, only about a third of eligible children still have access to Head Start, and less than 10 percent--these are national numbers--have access to Early Head Start. Again, Early Head Start serves those who are up to 3 years old, and Head Start serves those who are 3 to 5 years old. So funding for these programs is critical. To give you an example of those numbers in Pennsylvania--and the numbers are even a little lower--just 27 percent of eligible 3- to 5- year-olds have access to Head Start, and only 7 percent of eligible children under 3 years old have access to Early Head Start. Even with a lot of children being eligible but not being served, this is purely a question of funding. As we celebrate over 50 years of Head Start on May 18, we must work to ensure these programs receive robust funding and continue to serve low-income children and families across the Nation. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise to speak about the pending nominations. I will have comments on both. First, I ask unanimous consent that both sets of remarks appear in separate parts of the Record that are relevant to those nominations.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I want to say a few words about the nomination of Janet Dhillon to be Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which we know by the shorthand EEOC. I will vote against her nomination. I have voted against it in the past in committee. But let me tell you about the EEOC. We need a little reminder of this once in a while. It is a bipartisan Commission that for decades has worked to protect American workers from discrimination in the workplace--all kinds of discrimination. Many lawyers know that if you bring an action in a State court or in a Federal court, the first step is that you have to go through all of your administrative remedies. So if you bring a Federal lawsuit or a civil action based upon discrimination, the first thing you have to do is to go to the EEOC. Before you can get to a Federal district court, you have to go through the EEOC. So it becomes the first court, in essence. It is not technically a court, but it becomes the first place you go to have your ``discrimination in the workplace'' claim considered. During that time, since the founding or the beginnings of the EEOC, people in both parties in the Senate have worked together to move forward nominees from both parties in tandem so the Commission could continue its essential work. Today this bipartisan process is being cast aside by the majority in the Senate because no Democratic nominee is being considered along with Janet Dhillon, who has been proposed by the administration. My colleagues in the majority have decided to abandon this bipartisan cooperation. We know that the EEOC plays a critical role in protecting workers from all forms--all forms--of workplace discrimination and in ensuring that all workers have equal access to employment opportunities. Another point that is important is that the EEOC is currently in the middle of collecting data on pay gaps faced by women in the workplace, and the EEOC's leadership is badly needed so that we can work to eliminate workplace sexual harassment--still a big problem where we have a long way to go. So instead of working with Democrats to make their sure that all-- all--EEOC positions are filled so the Commission can undertake this work, the majority is instead working only to advance the Republican nominees put forward by the White House. This is not how the Senate should work. It certainly is not how the Senate should work as it relates to the EEOC, and the most significant losers here are American workers. They will pay the price because of the EEOC not having more nominations that are bipartisan. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, this week, we know that the Senate is considering the nomination of Michael Park, who has been nominated by the President to serve on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. I have a number of concerns with Mr. Park's nomination and his record. I will highlight just one that I think is a major concern for many Americans. In 2011, Mr. Park submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion was unconstitutional. That is the argument he made. He claimed that the Medicaid expansion provision coerced States into accepting a ``greatly enlarged Medicaid program.'' I will come back to that later because those words are important. The rationale for this, he asserted, was that these States could not realistically opt out. Obviously, I disagree with his argument, and I disagree with his rationale. Yet I want to talk about the program and, more importantly, the people who will be affected by his point of view on this policy if he is to be successful in his arguments. If he is to be confirmed, I have a real concern about how he will make decisions as a judge as they relate to healthcare, Medicaid expansion, and related topics. So I am not going to go through the legal arguments, but I do want to talk about Medicaid expansion, the importance of it, and the people it helps. Everyone here knows that Medicaid itself has been a program that we have enjoyed the benefits of for more than 50 years. Right now, about 75 million people are covered by Medicaid. Approximately 17 million of those individuals are eligible because of Medicaid expansion. So millions of people got healthcare because of the Medicaid expansion part of the Affordable Care Act. Medicaid itself covers 38 percent of the 1.9 million people younger than age 65 who are battling an opioid addiction. So 38 percent of the 1.9 million people are helped who are in the grip of that addiction. That affects every State, every community, and, increasingly, virtually every family, or at least we all seem to know someone who has been adversely impacted by an opioid addiction or a substance use disorder issue. So 38 percent is almost 4 in 10. So 4 in 10 people who need that help are benefiting from Medicaid itself because of Medicaid expansion. A lot of politicians in Washington tried to convince people, both here and around the country, that Medicaid was about some other person over there, some person that you didn't know, some person that you may not have to be too concerned about, or so the argument went--that Medicaid was not about you or your family. It was about some other person. The implicit message was this: Don't worry about them. They probably don't need it, and you can vote for repeal and everything will be OK for the country. Well, we know now better than ever, probably, in the last 2 years since that debate and the ongoing debate we had starting in 2017 and a debate, frankly, that has been playing out over many years, that Medicaid is not a program for someone else. It is an ``us'' program. Medicaid is about us, about who we are as a country. It tells us a lot about our values--whom we value, for whom we will fight, and whom we stand up for. Medicaid provides coverage--basically, if you wanted to simplify it-- for three groups of Americans: seniors, kids, and people with disabilities. In my home State of Pennsylvania, Medicaid could be simplified this way. It is an oversimplification, but it is a good way to describe it in numerical terms. Medicaid is a 40, 50, 60 program--40, 50, 60, pretty easy to remember. Forty percent of all the births in Pennsylvania--the national number is actually higher--and roughly 40 percent of all the kids in our State have Medicaid. The 50 is when you look at this through the lens of individuals with disabilities--certainly, for children with disabilities. It is actually 54 percent of children with disabilities in Pennsylvania who get Medicaid. It is a big number, and those families don't want to hear talk of repeal or talk of eliminating Medicaid expansion or talk of in any way undermining Medicaid itself. How about 60? Where does the 60 come in the 40, 50, 60 equation? The 60 are people in nursing homes. So there are a lot of families out there who may not have realized before but certainly after 2017 and 2018 that their loved one--their mom or their dad or their grandparent or relative, or their grandmother or grandfather--was getting into a nursing home in many cases solely--solely--because of the Medicaid Program. They couldn't get there any other way. They couldn't afford it unless you could shell out tens and tens of thousands of dollars a year for long-term care. So Medicaid affects that many people just in Pennsylvania--literally millions in our State. That is just one State. The numbers are very similar across the country. The exact numbers for Medicaid expansion in Pennsylvania exceed 700,000. So after the Affordable Care Act was passed and then implemented after 2010, over the course of several years we gained coverage in Pennsylvania of over 1.1 million people--a big number. Unfortunately, because of the administration's sabotage over the last 2 years, that number has gone down. It is still above 1.1 million, but it is going down. The Medicaid expansion part of that, of course, was over 700,000 people. Now comes the administration's budget--this current budget proposal by the administration, which I predict will be rejected by the Congress. But we have to make sure it gets rejected because one of the proposals in that budget is to cut Medicaid by a trillion and a half-- $1.5 trillion--over 10 years. The other reality here is that the official Republican position on the Affordable Care Act and related issues is that they, the Republican Members of Congress, want to eliminate Medicaid expansion over time-- not just to cut it, not to change it, but to eliminate it. They want to eliminate Medicaid expansion, and, of course, based upon the $1.5 trillion proposed cut, along with other proposals, one after another, they want to cut Medicaid itself. So when Mr. Park uses words like his concern about the Medicaid expansion being greatly enlarged Medicaid programs, or the program itself, overall, I worry what he might do as a judge, not just on Medicaid expansion, but what he might do and decisions he might make based upon Medicaid itself. So my original concerns about his arguments about the Affordable Care Act are now greatly and significantly increased because of what he has said about Medicaid itself, indirectly saying that he is not sure whether Medicaid itself would be worthy of the kind of support that it is going to require over time. So I have real concerns on Medicaid.

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I come to the floor tonight to discuss the troubling state of judicial nominations before the Senate. This week, we are voting on, among others, two district court nominees-- Campbell Barker and Andrew Brasher--who have, in my judgment, very concerning records. Just several weeks ago, Senate Republicans changed the Senate rules so that they can continue to put on the Federal bench highly ideological and sometimes unqualified jurists who have the corporate stamp of approval but I don't think the mainstream stamp of approval. Under new Senate rules, these nominees will receive only 2 hours of postcloture consideration time on the Senate floor, but if confirmed, they would sit on the Federal bench for life. So 2 hours postcloture for a lifetime appointment. I will start with Mr. Campbell Barker, who has been nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. He has a troubling record from his time as deputy solicitor general of the State of Texas. In 2016, he defended Texas's voter ID law, which the Fifth Circuit said violated the Voting Rights Act because it prevented minority voters from exercising their right to vote. Second, Mr. Barker submitted amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court attacking the Affordable Care Act. In those briefs, he argued that the individual mandate is unconstitutional--a position rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. He also opposed the contraceptive coverage mandate, which was a critical part of the ACA's efforts to make sure that women have access to the medical care they need. He also signed amicus briefs arguing that businesses should be allowed to discriminate against LGBT customers and supporting the President's travel ban, which, in my judgment, was a bigoted policy that discriminated against the Muslim community. The second nominee I will make some comments about tonight is Mr. Andrew Brasher, a nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. Like Mr. Barker, Mr. Brasher has a troubling record from his time in the state solicitor general's office. In 2014, he defended the Alabama State redistricting scheme, which a Federal court determined violated the Constitution because it packed African- American voters into a few districts, diluting the power of their vote on the basis of their race. Similar to Mr. Barker, Mr. Brasher challenged the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act and argued that the reasonable accommodations made for religious nonprofits were still too burdensome--an argument that the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected. In 2015, he submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing against the right of same-sex couples to marry--a position the Supreme Court has rejected. Lastly, Mr. Brasher submitted amicus briefs to the Supreme Court arguing against commonsense gun laws, such as age requirements for gun purchases and restrictions on concealed carry licenses. There is no good reason why we should be confirming these judges with these troubling records on matters of critical importance to many Americans. There is no shortage of qualified, mainstream attorneys or judges, State court judges and other judges across the country. Of course, in the case of a Republican Senate and Republican President, these judges are often Republican in their party affiliation or by way of their philosophy, but I think there is often a big difference between a conservative jurist or potential judge who has a conservative view on issues--that is different from being extreme right, as many of these nominees are. Just by way of contrast to these nominees and others we will be considering, Senator Toomey and I have worked together jointly to recommend experienced, consensus nominees for Federal district courts in Pennsylvania. Everyone knows we are in different parties. We have different views. We rarely vote together. But we have figured out a way on most days--not every day, not every nominee or potential nominee, but on most days--to work together to try to find consensus for district court nominees. I want to thank my colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Toomey, for his commitment to our process over these many years we have served together now, since 2011. This process has allowed us to confirm 18 Federal judges to the 3 Federal district courts in Pennsylvania since 2011. We have five others who are being considered by the Senate now, including Joshua Wolson, whose nomination is on the floor this week. I returned a blue slip and will vote for Josh Wolson. He is experienced. He has strong academic credentials. He is a conservative. He probably wouldn't be my first pick, but I am supporting him. He has been a partner at a distinguished Philadelphia law firm, the Dilworth Paxson firm, since 2008 and has both the ability and I think the integrity to serve as a Federal district court judge. So that is a demonstration that this process can work when you have consensus, even between Senators who don't often vote together. This is a bipartisan process. It requires both parties to work very hard. It requires our staff to work hard. It requires consensus. It has required several White Houses now--the Obama administration's White House, as well as the Trump administration--to work with us. But we found a way to make it work on most days. This bipartisan district court process is indeed the exception, not the rule. In so many other instances, especially with regard to circuit court nominees, we have seen extreme nominees being pushed through. The rule change that I referred to earlier that cut the postcloture time to just 2 hours means there is very little time to fully consider nominees to these lifetime appointments to the Bench. The Judiciary Committee has stacked multiple circuit court nominees in single hearings, giving Senators on the Judiciary Committee less time to ask nominees questions. Circuit court nominees now receive votes over the objection of their home state Senators. That is new. That wasn't happening just a few years ago, and it wasn't happening many years before that. The blue-slip process has been eviscerated for circuit court judicial nominees. That is a loss for the Senate, which may be the only body in the world that has the kind of rules that govern our work so that we will arrive at a consensus by empowering the minority to work with the majority to arrive at that consensus. It is a loss for the Senate, but it is also a loss for our constituents who are served by Federal district courts and Federal circuit courts. Last year, the Senate confirmed David Porter to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania--Pennsylvania being one of the States represented in the circuit. That nomination and confirmation was over my objection as a home State Senator. This was in spite of my record of bipartisan work on judicial nominations. My record now goes back over the course of three Presidencies and different Senates--Democratic Senate, Republican Senate. Despite all the bipartisan work, this nominee was both nominated and confirmed without my consent. For the first time in history, we have confirmed two judges to the circuit court--Eric Miller and Paul Matey--without the consent of any home State Senators, meaning you have two Democratic Senators who did not give consent, and now they have been confirmed. I don't think that is good for the Senate in the long run. I am certain it is not good for our constituents, as I said. I think they would prefer judges who come through a process where there is a degree of consensus, including all of the vetting that these nominees go through. This isn't how the process is supposed to work. This process is supposed to be one of advice and consent. Advice and consent as to nominating people for lifetime appointments to the Federal courts, especially the circuit courts, has been gutted. ``Gutted'' might be an understatement. These nominees will impact not just the lives of the parties before them in court, but, of course, the lives of all Americans. It is true that in our system, one Federal judge can affect the whole country. We know that from our history. And that includes both district court judges, as well as circuit court judges. In the case of circuit court judges, often that is the last stop. Very few cases are briefed and argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. In many cases, the last stop is the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. For all intents and purposes, that becomes the Supreme Court for a lot of cases--the highest level of review. I hope we can return to a more inclusive process that focuses on putting experienced, mainstream judges on the bench rather than ramming through--and that is the best way to describe what has been happening lately--nominees with views and with records that are out of the mainstream. I would argue for purposes of the near-term votes that both Mr. Barker and Mr. Brasher would not fit under the umbrella of being mainstream. I think there are plenty of folks around here in the Senate who would like to work together to arrive at more of a consensus. It doesn't mean that we will not have disagreements; it doesn't mean that one side will not have a different point of view. But I think someone can be conservative and philosophically aligned with one party or one point of view without being so far out of the mainstream that a lot of Americans would consider them extreme. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President. I recently visited two senior centers in Pennsylvania, the Emporium Senior Center in Cameron County and the Clearfield Senior Center in Clearfield County, to discuss issues on the minds of older Pennsylvanians and those who serve them. We spoke about the need to protect Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; the importance of bringing down the high cost of prescription drugs; and how to prevent con artists from scamming older adults out of their hard-earned savings. We must continue to support senior centers and other gathering places for older adults. For many, senior centers are a hub for services and a place where older Americans find a sense of community and belonging. They are the place where seniors gather with friends to socialize, look for help with everyday challenges, and learn about timely topics. I am pleased that the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, of which I am the ranking member, has examined ways to enhance the services and supports that senior centers provide. I'd like to commend the Emporium Senior Center and Clearfield Senior Center for the excellent services that they provide seniors and important role they play in the community.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, today I wish to remember and pay tribute to former Senator Harris Llewellyn Wofford, Jr. and his life of dedicated service to our country and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Harris lived a life of service, committed to advancing civil rights and ending injustice. Early in his career, Harris went to India to study nonviolence and the teachings of Gandhi. The lessons he learned during that time would become indispensable as Harris got to know Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and became involved in the civil rights movement, helping to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil rights legislation since reconstruction. When John F. Kennedy was running for President in 1960, Harris was an adviser on his campaign. Days before the election, Dr. King was unjustly imprisoned, and Wofford urged Kennedy and his team to call Coretta Scott King to comfort her and demonstrate his commitments to civil rights. Once Kennedy was elected, Harris Wofford served as Special Assistant to the President for Civil Rights and chairman of the Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights. He urged the President and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to pursue civil rights legislation. Wofford would join Martin Luther King and others in the Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights marches in 1965 in support of voting rights for African- Americans. While serving in the Kennedy administration, Wofford worked with R. Sargent Shriver on the creation of the Peace Corps, eventually leaving the White House to serve as the Peace Corps' special representative to Africa and director of operations in Ethiopia, as well as associate director. He would also play a role in the creation of Volunteers in Service to America, a domestic version of the Peace Corps. In 1991, when former Pennsylvania Senator H. John Heinz was killed in a plane crash, my father, Governor Robert P. Casey, turned to Harris Wofford to fill the vacancy. Harris went on to win a special election and served until 1994 when he narrowly lost reelection. While in office, he worked to pass the National and Community Service Act, creating AmeriCorps, the Senior Corps and Learn and Serve America. Harris would go on to serve as the head of AmeriCorps. If one tried to sum up Harris Wofford's life in one word, it would be service. He truly believed that through service every individual could contribute to the betterment of his or her community, State, country, and the world. Harris Wofford's friend, Martin Luther King, Jr., said ``everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.'' Today we honor Harris Wofford's life of service which will continue to inspire Americans to serve one another and our Nation.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an issue that I know is on the minds of many, many Americans, especially folks who are in the middle class or who are struggling to get to the middle class, and that is the issue of childcare. I think most of us in this Chamber agree that all children born in this country have a light inside of them. For some children, that light will shine very brightly without a lot of help as they have innate abilities or they have circumstances they are born into for which they don't need a lot of help from public policy or from programs or from legislation. Yet there are a lot of children who have a light inside of them that can burn to the full measure of its potential if we do our job. When I say ``our job,'' I mean the job of elected officials. I think it is the job of every elected official at every level of government and of those who work with them to do everything they can to make sure that the light inside of every child burns as brightly as at least the full measure of his or her potential. We know, just by way of one example in the context of childcare, that affordable, high-quality childcare enables parents to work so they can support their families. Also, quality, affordable healthcare helps give children the early learning experiences they need to develop and succeed in school. When children learn more and it is early in life, they will earn more much later in their lives. That connection between learning and earning isn't just a rhyme; all the research shows that there is a direct connection. When that child learns at a younger age because of early education and quality childcare and so many other strategies, we are all better off. Not only is that child better off in his or her family, but we are all better off. We will have a higher skilled workforce; we will have a more productive workforce; and we will grow and be able to out-compete any country in the world if we invest in early learning. Unfortunately, we know the challenges. The cost of childcare has increased by 25 percent in just the last decade, which has created significant financial strains for those same middle-class families. According to data from Child Care Aware, which is in my home Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the average cost of full-time, center-based childcare is about $11,560 for an infant and about $8,712 for a 4-year-old. This is about 12 percent of a married couple's annual income in Pennsylvania, and it is nearly 46 percent of a single parent's annual income--46 percent. That is not sustainable. That is not a number that anyone should be satisfied with. Frankly, I am not sure that 12 percent of the annual income for a two-parent family is sustainable. We should get that number into the single digits. The bill I will talk about in a moment seeks to do that. Just this past week, when we were all back in our States and were able to travel for the better part of a week, I had the chance to get to six childcare centers in cities across Pennsylvania, and I spoke to more than 25 families who shared their stories about their struggles. The struggle, of course, in this case, was the struggle to afford high- quality childcare. I was in Philadelphia, Pottstown, Gettysburg, Verona, Erie, and Reading. If you had charted those cities on a map, you would have literally gone from the furthest corner of the southeastern part of our State, which is Philadelphia, to the most remote, northwestern corner of the State, in Erie. I went to communities below Erie and to the northeast as well--so literally every corner of the State. Across those communities, we heard a lot of the same challenges, a lot of similar stories. For example, one single mom in Philadelphia told us recently what, I think, is emblematic of what is happening in a lot of communities: I struggle every day to make ends meet. I am not eligible for any public assistance, so I juggle my bills just to make ends meet. I have to become very creative in making sure that I pay my mortgage, utilities, and childcare. Then she goes on from there to write: Then I decide if I can pay for anything in addition to that, such as healthcare, food, necessities for my child or my home. I knew I would not be able to afford childcare. Luckily, I have the support of loved ones in my life who support me when I fall short. Most do not have this. Then this single mother goes on to write the following: All of my family and friends struggle to pay for childcare because we are middle class individuals who make too much money to qualify for childcare assistance or any other programs, but we also don't make enough money to actually afford childcare out of pocket. Oftentimes, we have to choose a childcare based off of a price and not based off of the quality of education they will provide our children at the childcare facility. Notice what she wrote at the end there. She is making a decision about the childcare she will provide for her children based off only one consideration--the price. It is not based on the quality. Therein lies the problem that we have to try to solve. If we have millions and millions of families--middle class or who are struggling to get to the middle class--making childcare determinations based solely on the cost, we will all be in trouble over time. That is not what we should be doing. It doesn't mean the price will not be a challenge for so many, and it doesn't mean the price will be irrelevant, but if they are not able to find quality childcare that is affordable, that child will be worse off over time; that community will be; and the rest of us will be. We will not have the high-skilled workforce that we need. We will not be able to compete and win the battle across the world that we need to win, and that is the battle to create the highest skilled workforce in the world and to maintain that advantage. When I was in Gettysburg this past week, I heard from two parents who had adopted two children, one of whom has significant medical issues and has been in and out of the hospital. They have struggled to find a childcare center that is able to handle the behavioral and developmental needs of their children. The father, who is a small business owner, has had to make adjustments to his work schedule and sell off some of his business assets to make ends meet. He has had to choose between paying for his own health insurance or that of his children. He has had to give up his own insurance to ensure there will never be a lapse in coverage for his children. He makes too much money to qualify for childcare subsidies but lives with constant anxiety over his financial situation. Part of his testimony and that of his wife was very emotional because of the stress and the pressure on that family--the stress and pressure of the healthcare itself and also of the stress and pressure because of the cost of childcare. I was grateful he was willing to share his story. In a public setting, it is not easy to talk about the burdens that you live with every day in order to push a policy forward so as to make life better for another family. Like a lot of these parents, I was grateful they were willing to help us better understand those struggles so that we could better propose good policy. We also heard from a single mom who works long hours as she tries to advance and work her way up the corporate ladder. Prior to her current circumstance, she was waitressing and barely making $11,000 a year. When she was hardly making any income, she was able to make ends meet with the assistance of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and CCIS, which is our State's childcare program that helps families. Now she is in a different circumstance. She works full time--an achievement that she is quite proud of. She is no longer eligible, though, for these programs because her income has gone up. The good news is her income went up, and she has a full-time job. The bad news is that it knocks her out of eligibility. She must pay the full cost of childcare and be away from her children. She doesn't know what she will do during the summer as she will need to increase the time her children are in care, which will result in higher costs when her children are on summer break. So that is the dilemma she faces-- working harder and getting a full-time job but then not being able to afford help. She needs help from us as well. I spoke with a mother in Verona, PA, in Allegheny County, who has an 11-month-old child who is in childcare now. Though both she and her husband work full time, they struggle to afford care. They would like to grow their family, but, again, the cost of childcare is their main reason for not doing so. We know that childcare helps children grow and learn, that it helps parents work and provide for their families, and that it helps employers retain a productive workforce. Yet families across the country are unable to afford care. That is why it is so important that we increase Federal investments in early learning and childcare. For example, in fiscal year 2018, the Childcare and Development Block Grant program was funded at $5.27 billion here in Washington. That was an 83-percent increase--the largest single increase in the history of the program. In that same year--the last budget year, the last appropriations year--Head Start received a little more than $9.8 billion, and that was $610 million more than the program got in 2017. Both of those were good results. It doesn't happen every day in Washington, we know. These historic, bipartisan investments were continued in the last fiscal year. So there was an increase in this last fiscal year. It was nowhere near the increase of the prior year, but there were extra dollars to sustain funding. These investments are already making an impact in States like Pennsylvania and across our country, but there is so much more unmet need and so much more work to be done. So it is good news on the block grants, but, of course, that is not the whole story on childcare. I am pushing for both increased funding for the next fiscal year--the one we are working on now, 2020--as well as two bills that will make high-quality childcare accessible and affordable for low- and middle- income families. The first is the Childcare for Working Families Act, and the second is the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit Enhancement Act. I will discuss them in that order. The Childcare for Working Families Act would first provide direct financial assistance to working parents to help pay for childcare and early learning to ensure that no parents would pay more than 7 percent of their household incomes for childcare if they earn less than 150 percent of the State's median income. These numbers change between median household income and median family income, but if you are just looking at the median household income in Pennsylvania, it is about $57,000. If you do 150 percent of that, you will be into the eighties, roughly. We don't know where the line would be drawn for certain State by State, but if we can come up with a way to keep costs below 7 percent for folks who are in that income range--say, roughly, in the low eighties down--we can help these families do two things: go to work while providing childcare for their children that is quality childcare and also be able to afford it. The second part of the bill--and it is, basically, three parts--will be universal access to high-quality preschool programs for 3- and 4- year-olds. The third part would be to improve workforce compensation by ensuring that all childcare workers are paid a living wage and that early childhood educators are provided parity with elementary schoolteachers who have similar credentials and experience. So there are three parts to that bill--childcare help, early learning help with preschool, and paying the workforce more. People in both parties say it all the time: We care about our children, and we care about our seniors. But sometimes the folks who provide care to both groups of Americans--those who provide care and early learning to children and those who provide skilled care in nursing homes and other settings to seniors--are among the lowest paid workers in our society. So we say we prioritize those Americans, and we don't lift them up with the kind of workforce that they sometimes need. The second bill I will talk about--and then I will wrap up--I will soon reintroduce with Congressman Davis. It is a proposal to improve and expand an existing tax credit which we know as the child and dependent care tax credit, not to be confused with the child tax credit, the tax credit you may have eligibility for if you have a child. This one focuses on child care and dependent care. This bill would help families pay for childcare expenses by doing the following: first, increasing the maximum amount of the credit from just over 1,000 bucks--about $1,050--to $3,000 per child, and it could go up as high as 6,000 if you have more than one child, making the full tax credit available to most working families with incomes up to $120,000 a year. Now, under the current law, that credit starts to lose its value once you hit only $15,000 of income--not that high of an income level. By raising that number, you are going to get a lot more middle-class families that will benefit, as well as some trying to get to the middle class. The third part of the bill would ensure that lower income families are better able to benefit from the credit by making it fully refundable. You have this strange dynamic where folks are working and they have an income, but the income is rather limited and the credit is not refundable. So they don't get anything back from that credit. So it isn't worth much to them in many cases. The last part of the bill will retain the value over time by indexing the benefits of this child and dependent care tax credit and raise those thresholds based upon inflation. In conclusion, I think it is pretty simple. All children deserve the chance to learn and succeed, regardless of where they are born or regardless of their family's income. That is why it is so important to make sure that all families have access to high-quality, affordable childcare and early learning. Together, these proposals will help to bring us closer to that reality and, I would argue, closer to meeting our obligation as elected officials at every level of government--this being the Federal level in the Congress, the Senate and the House, meeting our obligation to make sure that the light inside of every child burns to the full measure and shines to the full measure of its potential. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise to speak about the urgent need for the United States to take action to confront climate change. I think it is pretty clear from the evidence and from the science right now that the following is true: climate change is real, and it is a threat to human life; second, that climate change is caused by human activity; and third, we must take action against it by reducing substantially greenhouse gas emissions. We have an obligation, all of us--in both Houses of Congress and in both parties and in both branches of government, the legislative and executive branches--we all have an obligation to care for and protect God's creation. We don't have time. We don't have time for cynical political games. We need to be serious about this challenge. According to the World Food Program, over 120 million people face ``crisis-level food insecurity'' worldwide. Too often we don't focus on that challenge. Developing countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America have been hardest hit by frequent and intense floods, droughts, and storms. These climate events can quickly spiral into full-blown food and nutrition crises. The U.S. intelligence community, the intelligence agencies of the United States of America, have linked global food insecurity to instability that can lead to a rise in violent extremism and international crime that puts the United States at risk. The January 2014 ``Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community'' reported that the ``lack of adequate food will be a destabilizing factor in countries important to United States national security.'' We know the following is true: Climate change leads to humanitarian crises; humanitarian crises lead to hunger, death, and insecurity; hunger, death, and insecurity lead to desperation, instability, extremism, and terrorism. Inaction on this issue predicated on denial or indifference will result in millions around the world suffering extreme hunger resulting from climate-related disasters, which in turn leads to a rise in extremism and terrorism. Ignoring climate change undermines U.S. national security. Similarly, failure to address climate change will have negative consequences here at home. In one example--among many--a 2015 paper titled ``Growing Stronger: Toward a Climate-Ready Philadelphia'' reports that since 2010, Philadelphia has experienced the following: the snowiest winter on record, the two warmest summers on record, the wettest day on record, the 2 wettest years on record, and two hurricanes. That is just in 5 years, in one city, in one State. The same paper projects: Philadelphia may experience four to 10 times as many days per year above 95 degrees, and as many as 16 days a year above 100 degrees by the end of the century. Up from the 1950 [to] 1999 average of fewer than one. Fewer than one. All of these changes have negative consequences for local economies and for the well-being of all of our constituents. Increased heavy rainfall can lead to more flooding in communities along, just for example, the Delaware River and the Schuylkill River in my home State, which places additional stress on our already outdated wastewater infrastructure. Older Americans and lower income American families are particularly hard hit by heat waves. We know nearly one-quarter of the children in Philadelphia suffer from asthma, a condition that is exacerbated by ground-level ozone, which is made worse by hot weather. So as Americans we have a duty to develop a strategy and to take action to confront climate change. We must also provide robust assistance, training, and support for workers who may be adversely impacted by the steps we take, but we don't have time to waste. We need a serious bipartisan effort to develop a strategy to take action to prevent the horror that results from inaction on climate change. Everyone knows that today's vote will do nothing to help us deal with this grave crisis. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

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

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise today to talk about the debate that we are having with regard to the nomination or, I should say, confirmation of the EPA Administrator. All of us in this Chamber and the other body, the U.S. House of Representatives--frankly, anyone in government--has an obligation to act in accordance with a goal of being good stewards of the Earth. Some might call it creation care--care of God's creation. Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency, under its current leadership, is, in my judgment, failing to meet that obligation. From day one, the administration has prioritized gutting environmental protections and rolling back policies that had us on a path toward a more sustainable future. From attacking the Clean Power Plan to weakening methane protection standards, this administration has repeatedly prioritized the interests of polluters over the health and wellness of the American people. Andrew Wheeler, the nominee, if he is confirmed to run the EPA or, I should say, the Environmental Protection Agency, which we call the EPA--this assault on clean air, clean water, and so many other protections will continue if he is, in fact, confirmed. Some of the most troubling EPA actions have come while Mr. Wheeler has been running the EPA in an acting capacity. In recent weeks, the EPA has decided to move forward with a rollback of the clean car standard and to gut the mercury and air toxics rule. These moves will harm public health and the health of our children, in particular. The American Lung Association reports that 5 Pennsylvania counties, 5 of our 67 counties, which are home to approximately 4 million people, rank among the top 25 counties most polluted by particulate matter year round. Rolling back the clean car standards and clean air standards will cause more exposure to harmful pollutants that lead to increased mortality, respiratory problems, emergency room visits, and work-loss days. As we know, the transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. We also know that the MATS rule, the so-called mercury and air toxics rule, is an environmental and public health success story. Mercury pollution is particularly harmful for unborn children, who are much more sensitive to exposure and who may suffer neurological and developmental problems. Powerplant mercury emissions have declined by 90 percent because of the MATS rule. This was achieved ahead of schedule and at one-third of the projected cost. Let me say that again. Powerplant mercury emissions have declined by 90 percent because of the MATS rule. This was achieved ahead of schedule and at one-third of the scheduled cost. Let me give testimony from two Pennsylvanians--partial testimonies, though they are from longer letters that they wrote to us. Mollie Michel of South Philadelphia wrote to me, and I am quoting her: As parents, my husband and I spend a lot of time making sure our daughters are safe and healthy. We make sure they eat healthy foods, get enough sleep, do their homework, and treat each other and their peers with kindness and respect. But the one thing we cannot control is the air they breathe. For that, we rely upon our elected officials to enact the policies that protect the health and well-being of my children. The only thing I would correct in Mollie's excerpt of her letter is that it is the obligation not just of elected officials but of appointed officials, as well--those confirmed by the U.S. Senate, in this case, the Administrator of the EPA. Of course, it is our duty, as elected officials, to make sure that we confirm people who will meet the legitimate expectations of a mom like Mollie. Patrice from Gibsonia, PA, wrote to me to say: As a mom of two boys, I am deeply concerned by the track record of Acting Administrator Wheeler. He has spent his time at EPA proposing and implementing dangerous rollbacks to and attacks on pollution protections. He is putting our children's health and future at risk. So said Patrice of Gibsonia. While we are on the subject of major threats to the environment, major threats to our communities, to our children, and to our families, we cannot forget about climate change itself. Climate change is a threat to the health and well-being of our children and future generations. We must take action to address the global climate crisis with a sense of urgency and determination. The effects of climate change are real and have become worse, and unless we take action, we are going to be in a position where it will be impossible to take any action if we do it too late. We can address the challenge of climate change and continue to protect jobs. We can and we must do both. One is not exclusive of the other. We have already demonstrated that we can make advancements in clean energy and that it can happen quickly while also benefiting the economy and creating jobs. According to the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, renewables--renewable sources of energy-- now account for 18 percent of power generation in the United States, up from just 9 percent in 2008. According to the 2018 U.S. Energy Employment Report, the wind and solar industries support three times as many jobs as oil and gas--three times as many jobs as oil and gas. According to S&P Global, battery storage cost for a 20-megawatt facility declined by 40 percent in 2018. So I think it is entirely possible, and the data proves it, to deal with this crisis, to meet our obligations, to continue to create and grow jobs, and also to make sure that our economy grows as well. I live in a State where more than a generation ago we passed a State Constitution provision. Article I, section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution says in pertinent part that people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural scenic, historic, and aesthetic values of the environment. That constitutional provision goes on to say that we are trustees. We, the citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, are the trustees of our natural resources, and they specifically talk about future generations. That is my obligation, not only as a citizen of the Commonwealth and not only as an elected official but, I believe, as an American as well. To confront these crises--whether it is attacks on clean power standards, clean air and clean water standards or whether it is the challenge of climate change itself--we need an EPA and an EPA Administrator who is totally committed to that same spirit that is set forth in that State constitutional provision that the people have a right to clean air and clean water, and, I would argue in a larger sense, the right to the kind of creation here that is connected directly to the question of climate change. We are talking about God's creation and preserving His creation. If we are trying to preserve God's creation, we better make sure we nominate and confirm people committed to preserving creation itself. We are but stewards of that creation. 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. Madam President, I rise today, in commemoration of Black History Month, to recognize, honor, and pay tribute to five Pennsylvanians who have committed themselves to creating innovative solutions to our Nation's most pressing problems. For 13 years, I have stood on this floor on this Monday, every year, to pay tribute to Pennsylvanians. Sometimes it has been one individual, and sometimes it has been more than one, but today we have five honorees. While these innovators hail from different backgrounds and have each mastered a different craft, they share one thing in common, and that is a commitment to their communities and to improving the lives of others in groundbreaking ways. Today, we will honor the individual work of the following people. I will list them for you first and then talk about each of them in succession: first, the Reverend Dr. Lorina Marshall-Blake; second, Joan Myers Brown; third, Sulaiman Rahman; fourth, Rakia Reynolds; and fifth, Omar Woodward. You will hear more about each of them in a moment. There is no one way, of course, to make a difference in our society. I hope the stories of today's honorees will help to inspire the next generation of leaders. These honorees are with us here in Washington today, and we are grateful to have the chance to spend a couple of minutes talking about each of them. Let me start with the Reverend Dr. Lorina Marshall-Blake, someone I have known for a long time. This is the story of a woman who has spent her life working to build healthier communities by advancing the conversation on issues like the opioid crisis and health disparities in our Nation, just to mention two things. Lorina Marshall-Blake's life began in West Philadelphia, alongside her sister and three brothers. She excelled in her education, earning degrees from Antioch College and the University of Pennsylvania. Today, Lorina is vice president of community affairs for Independence Blue Cross and also president of the Independence Blue Cross Foundation. Lorina has spent the better part of 30 years working to improve access and healthcare outcomes for those across the region of Southeastern Pennsylvania, which is Philadelphia and the counties and communities around the city of Philadelphia. Her faith- driven work continues outside of the office, where she serves as an associate minister at the Vine Memorial Baptist Church. Lorina is affiliated with over 30 professional and civic organizations. I will just mention a few: The United Negro College Fund, the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, and the Urban Affairs Coalition. While the health and well-being of our Nation is not perfect, it is in great part thanks to women like Lorina Marshall-Blake that the future of healthcare and the future of access to healthcare is only brighter. The second individual we are honoring is Joan Myers Brown. We all know that art itself has the power to enrich lives and inspire change. At the age of 17, Joan Myers Brown decided she was going to be a professional ballerina. She refused to let pervasive racism and segregation stop her from touring as a member of dance revues for Cab Calloway, Pearl Bailey, and Sammy Davis, Jr. After excelling in her own right, she decided she wanted to give opportunity to others. To that end, in 1960, Joan Myers Brown started her own dance school in West Philadelphia called the Philadelphia School of Dance Arts. Building on that work, she founded the Philadelphia Dance Company in 1970. This dance company was created to provide opportunities for Black dancers who were systemically denied entrance to local schools. The company continues to be recognized across the world for its dancers and for its performances. Personally, Joan is an industry icon in both the national and international art communities. For example, in 2005, the Kennedy Center honored her as a master of African-American choreography, and in 2009, she received the prestigious Philadelphia Award. In 2012, she received the National Medal of the Arts, the Nation's highest civic honor for excellence in the arts. The arts have benefited greatly from Joan Myers Brown. Third is Sulaiman Rahman. No individual's success is achieved alone. We know that, and many in Philadelphia and beyond owe some of their success to Mr. Rahman. He has dedicated his life to empowering young professionals to personal and professional success. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Sulaiman started his career as an entrepreneur. He founded a platform for urban professionals to find local social, civic, and business events, and he successfully built an international marketing and distributing business. With the goal of ending the opportunity gap for people of color, Sulaiman created the Urban Philly Professional Network and, later, DiverseForce, and the DiverseForce on Boards program. Every day he works to empower and connect the diverse leaders from multiple sectors and communities. He creates high-tech solutions to impact a more diverse business culture. When he is not running DiverseForce, he is serving on a number of boards, including the Community College of Philadelphia Foundation, TeenSHARP, and the Year Up Greater Philadelphia Chapter. Rakia Reynolds. We know that some of our Nation's greatest successes have been born out of interdisciplinary collaboration. Few in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania know how to bring people together for new opportunities like Rakia Reynolds. From her earliest days as a child reading the book ``A Wrinkle in Time,'' she has always been committed to making things happen. She is a New Jersey native. She moved to Philadelphia to pursue a degree at Temple University. After working as a television and magazine producer, she started her own company, Skai Blue Media. Among other ventures, she helped to craft Philadelphia's Amazon bid and continues to advise and grow small businesses of all types. She gives back to her community as the copresident of the Philadelphia chapter of Women in Film & Television and serves as a board advisor for Fashion Group International and the National Association for Multi- Ethnicity in Communications. In addition to her full-time work in multimedia communications, Rakia is a wife to her best friend, her husband Bram, and mother to her three amazing children. Finally, our fifth honoree is Omar Woodward. Like many of today's successful leaders, Omar Woodward understands the importance of social enterprises and knows how to look beyond what meets the eye. Omar is a Southeastern Pennsylvania native. He is the executive director of the Philadelphia branch of the GreenLight Fund, a nonprofit venture capital firm that invests in evidence-based social innovations focused on ending poverty. At the GreenLight Fund, Omar is investing millions of dollars to address the needs of many Philadelphians, including bringing formerly incarcerated individuals back into the job market, helping low-income children receive quality care, and ensuring that those who were eligible have access to public assistance programs. Widely recognized for his expertise in nonprofit board governance, Omar is also a board member of the Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia, the Global Philadelphia Association, the Maternity Care Coalition, and the Girard College Foundation, and he holds multiple degrees from George Washington University. In closing, these five individuals have overcome significant barriers to become pioneers in their fields and leaders in their communities. Throughout their careers, these innovators have recognized gaps within communities, developed creative ideas, and brought these ideas to life by using their determination, their passion, and their talent. We celebrate Black History Month to commemorate the great leaders of the past but also to celebrate the leaders of today and the leaders of tomorrow--the future. It is my honor to recognize and to pay tribute to the Rev. Dr. Lorina Marshall-Blake, Joan Myers Brown, Sulaiman Rahman, Rakia Reynolds, and Omar Woodard for their work in creating a stronger, more innovative Philadelphia. I look forward to the work these leaders will continue to do and the impact their work will have on the city of Philadelphia, our Commonwealth, and our Nation. I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I thank the senior Senator from West Virginia for his time today, but, more importantly, as the Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner, said, Senator Manchin has fought harder than anyone in this Chamber on behalf of men and women, whether they are coal miners or their families or their spouses. This is a very simple debate. It is not a debate about some far-off, complex issue. This is about a promise--a promise that was made to coal miners and their families in the 1940s. The only question--a real simple question--is that we are either going to keep the promise or not. It is as simple as that. Both parties, both Houses, and the administration--this is not complicated. We made substantial progress, but it took far too long, and there are some people in this Chamber who have been blocking it for far too long on healthcare. We got that done. That is the good news. The bad news is, the pension issue is still unresolved. There is still a lot of suffering, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of trauma because two branches of government haven't done enough for these families. I come from a State where large portions of our State were dependent upon the sweat and the blood of working men and women, especially coal miners. Stephen Crane, the great novelist, wrote an essay in the early 1900s--actually late 1800s--about all of the dangers in a coal mine and all of the ways a miner could die. He described the mine as a place of ``inscrutable darkness'' and ``a soundless place of tangible loneliness.'' That is how he described the work of the coal miner. I know we made progress in the intervening generation since then, but that work has always been difficult. It has always been dark and dangerous, but the people who did it kept their promise. They kept their promise to their employer to work every day and kept their promise to their family. Many of them kept their promise to their country when they served in World War II or Korea or Vietnam or any conflict after that, even up to the present day--but especially those who were serving in those years. The only question is whether this government and all of us here--and both parties are on the hook here--whether we are going to keep our promise along with this administration and any future administration. It is as simple as that. We have some work to do here to make sure that promise is fulfilled. These families, these miners have already kept their promise. They are done. This isn't something extra we are giving them. All we are doing is our part. We are obligated here, and I am grateful that the senior Senator from West Virginia and others have worked together to make sure that this issue is front and center, even as we are dealing with a range of other issues. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the same topic that my colleague from Maryland and my colleague from Minnesota just spoke of. I will start by highlighting the legislation that Senator Smith from Minnesota has been leading. I am grateful for her work and am grateful to be a cosponsor and a supporter of the legislation. The Fair Compensation for Low-Wage Contractor Employees Act is the bill that we are talking about. I think it is critically important that we pass this legislation. The country has endured the shutdown of 35 days. Now we are in this interim period, waiting for the results of negotiations that are underway with appropriators. We wish them well, and we hope they can come to an agreement that can be signed into law so that we will not have the threat of yet another shutdown. In this case, President Trump decided to shut the government down for 35 days. That decision, I guess, was prompted by his not receiving funding or winning the debate, at that time, for the funding of his proposed border wall. As we know, Federal employees, as opposed to Federal contractors, have received backpay. That was pursuant to legislation that was led by Senator Cardin. I know his colleague from Maryland, Senator Van Hollen, who just spoke, also worked very hard to pass that legislation. That is good news that Federal employees have backpay. In this case now, though, although the government has been open for nearly 2 weeks, many vulnerable, low-wage Federal contractors, as opposed to employees, are still struggling due to the lack of their backpay. They were not covered by the bill that provided backpay to Federal employees. Over 820,000 Federal workers went without pay in the 35-day shutdown. It is also estimated that some 2 million private sector employees who work at companies that contract with the Federal Government also may have gone without pay. Although the financial future of the Federal contractors was and remains in serious jeopardy, many of their stories have gone untold. For example, a constituent of mine from Adams County, which is on the southernmost border--right on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border--is a Federal employee, not a contractor, who was furloughed, and her husband works for a private company that has a contract with the TSA. So there, in one family, one couple, you have a Federal employee, and you have an employee of a Federal contractor. This is what this constituent said: Because of all of this, we have taken our children out of daycare . . . so, now our daycare provider is without hundreds of dollars a month. This will keep trickling down to many others. . . . It will not just affect federal employees. That is what a woman from Adams County said. Then you go further east in our State to Montgomery County, a very populous, suburban Philadelphia county. This constituent is a Federal contractor. I will read part of this letter, not all of it. This constituent said: ``As of now, I am back working; however, it may only be until February 15th.'' That is the day when the current continuing resolution runs out. I will continue the letter with these words: In these last 6 weeks, I have completely drained the family's rainy day fund. . . . I have asked all my utilities and credit card companies to postpone my due payments. In addition, my 8-year-old daughter was concerned we are not going to be able to eat. Like many Americans we live paycheck to paycheck. I could go on from there, but I will not. I think people understand the sentiment. Most people have some sense of the gravity of the suffering and what could be even additional suffering, but most of us can't even begin to imagine. The longest shutdown in American history might be over, but these Federal contractors are still struggling to put food on the table, to purchase medicine, and to pay their bills on time. That is why, led by Senator Smith, we must pass this legislation, the Fair Compensation for Low-Wage Contractor Employees Act. The legislation would compensate contractors for providing backpay to low-wage contractor service employees who have been furloughed or laid off during the shutdown. Who are these individuals we are talking about? Here are just a few examples. They are custodians, security guards, and food service workers who work alongside Federal employees and ensure that our government runs smoothly. We always hear a lot of talk by politicians and sometimes citizens who complain about the government, denigrate the government, and talk about how bad the government is. Then we go through a 35-day shutdown, and people realize, maybe more significantly, what the government does every day. It does, in fact, help our country run. The country doesn't run simply because of the private sector. When we are dealing with the aftermath of this, we have to be thinking of making those employees whole but also helping the contractors and those who work, of course, for the contractors. These Americans, just like the Federal employees, also deserve to be made whole once again. It is essential that we show our support for those workers who keep the government running, whether they are employees or contractors. Shutdowns are harmful to the Federal workforce in both the short and long term. They pose immediate danger of destroying the economic well- being of working families. As we have heard from constituents across the country and some I just noted today, frequent shutdowns create uncertainty and dissuade people from entering public service. These are just two of the adverse outcomes or consequences. The bottom line is that we not only need to repair some of the damage and help people by way of legislation or other actions, but we should also commit ourselves--both parties, both Houses, and it would help enormously if the President of the United States would also commit himself--to a very simple goal: no more shutdowns--no more shutdowns by anyone. In fact, I know that there are a number of pieces of legislation that would, if not have that effect, then at least create the greatest disincentives for a shutdown to occur. It would help all of us if the President used that microphone that he has every day to make it very clear that he is committed to no more shutdowns, no more hostage- taking, and no more use of shutdowns for leverage. If the President will not do it, the Congress has to act and send him legislation. He has the right to veto legislation, of course, but I would hope that if he receives bipartisan legislation to make people whole, to pass Senator Smith's bill, or to pass legislation to prevent future shutdowns from ever occurring again, he would sign all of those measures. For purposes of today, we want to make sure that we highlight and lift up the legislation by Senator Smith to help contractors. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the shutdown, as my colleague, the senior Senator from Minnesota, just did. I am grateful for her comments on what is happening to people in Minnesota, the direct adverse impact of this shutdown on their lives. We have all seen it. We have all experienced it. I will be referring to specific testimony from people who wrote me letters, but let me just highlight one experience I had the other day at a food bank in Central Pennsylvania, just miles from our State capital--a food bank that serves 27 of our 67 counties. I was talking about how this shutdown could end. The President wanted the shutdown. He got the shutdown, but he could also end it. Prior to the discussion we had, behind us, they had an entire table full of food items that the food bank and others in that region of Pennsylvania were delivering to Federal workers, especially to TSA agents, who cannot afford food because they are working but are not being paid. It is hard to comprehend that. It is hard to comprehend that so many veterans around the country are, once again, serving their country by serving in the government as they served in combat or in the military; yet they are being left out in the cold, so to speak-- sometimes literally--but are, obviously, being left out when they don't have paychecks. So this is real life. We debate bills and budgets and appropriations here in Washington. We have debates on the floor and debates and discussions in the hallways, but for these folks, this is real life. I will just point to, maybe, five examples in Pennsylvania. Adams County, which is in the southernmost part of our State, where Gettysburg is--just on the Maryland border--is not a big county by population. Here is what one individual who is married to a Federal worker wrote. I will just quote her in part. She writes: We are expecting our first child this summer and, prior to December 22, were excited about the future and potential of 2019. Now we are anxious, sad, and angry, not knowing where the money will come from to buy necessities for this child, let alone medical expenses related to birth and daycare. She goes on to write later in the letter: We are now in real and serious danger of losing our home and our vehicles. We will soon have to choose between buying groceries or paying for the electric bill. She goes on from there. She is one Pennsylvanian in Adams County. Here is one from Cambria County, which is in the southwestern part of our State. This individual wrote: ``My husband is a Federal employee who has been furloughed.'' She goes on to write: We have a son in elementary school. It is about time for spring sports sign-ups, but we don't know how we are going to pay our bills or buy groceries. It is our son's birthday in less than 2 weeks. We canceled his birthday party to save some money. That was from Cambria County, PA. The third one I will highlight is from Delaware County, which is one of the big, suburban Philadelphia counties. It is a big population county. Here is, in part, what this individual wrote: ``My in-laws are selling their home and cannot go to settlement because the FHA will not close a mortgage for the buyer.'' That was among several things they wrote in the letter. In the interest of time, I will not read all of it, but we hear these stories all the time of people not being able to complete the work on a mortgage because of the impact on the FHA. Here is one from Montgomery County, which is also a suburban Philadelphia county. This individual wrote: I am a law enforcement park ranger for the National Park Service. . . . I am the sole provider for a family of four, to include two young children. Not knowing when I will get paid again is putting undue stress on the entire family. That word ``stress'' keeps coming up either directly in these letters or by implication. Over and over again, we hear of the stress this shutdown is putting on families across America. The last one I will highlight is from Warren County, which is in the northwestern corner of our State. It is a much smaller population county than were the two suburban Philadelphia counties I just mentioned of Montgomery and Delaware. Here is what this individual wrote from Warren County: Both my wife and I are federal employees working for the U.S. Forest Service. We are also both veterans. We will be using our savings to live off of and charging food to our credit cards if we must. It goes on and on, and I know the Presiding Officer has seen the same thing. We have all seen and heard much about this. There is not enough time tonight to go through every letter. This is what has to be the priority of all of ours. We have to be responsive to these cries for help, to be responsive to Americans who are just asking us to open the government so they can be paid, so they can make ends meet, so they can pay for groceries, so they can pay their mortgages--or to even have a mortgage in some cases--so they can pay for basic necessities, and so they can sometimes even just pay for birthday parties for their sons. Over and over again, we hear these stories. As my colleague from Minnesota made reference to, I was encouraged that, today, we had two votes. There was a likely expectation prior to the votes that they wouldn't get enough to pass, but at least we were voting. At least we were voting on one measure that one side favored and were voting on another measure that my side of the aisle favored. I was also encouraged that five Republicans voted for the Democratic proposal, which is very simple--to fund the government, to open the government, and add disaster assistance for emergencies from natural disasters. The lives of people are adversely affected by so many natural disasters, but this is also, of course, an emergency--funding the government so as to make sure that workers have their pay and to make sure people are served by important programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Of course, we could make a long list of programs that are important to people's lives. In the case of the so-called SNAP program--what we used to call food stamps--you are talking basically about children, seniors, and people with disabilities. These are most of the people who get benefits from the SNAP program. They are only guaranteed help from that program through February. There is no certainty about March. There is no certainty about April or the forthcoming months. It is just one program that serves millions of Americans that has already been adversely impacted because of the shutdown. Whether you are talking about a mom or a dad who is a Federal employee or whether you are talking about someone who needs the help of the Federal Government--people who we have said over many generations deserve that help--in either case, it is unacceptable to them, and it should be unacceptable to us to not have the government open. We have lots of time to debate many issues after that, but priority No. 1 has to be to open the government. Then we will have a lot of time for debate on a range of issues. Remembering Harris Wofford Mr. President, I conclude tonight with some brief remarks. We are going to have several occasions to amplify these remarks in the coming days regarding the passing of Senator Harris Wofford, the Senator from Pennsylvania from 1991 to the early days of 1995. I just want to offer some personal remarks. In a short timeframe, it is very difficult to encapsulate the life of any individual, obviously, but in this case, it is impossible in a few short minutes to encapsulate the life, the contributions, and the achievements of Senator Harris Wofford, so I will just highlight a few. If you were to just read his resume, you would think you were reading the life story of the achievements of several people instead of just one. To give you some highlights, he was an early advocate for civil rights. He was someone who stuck his neck out to march with Dr. King, his good friend, and to advocate on behalf of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He then worked for President Kennedy as a special assistant for civil rights and prepared the way for the great breakthroughs of the midsixties, of the civil rights legislation of the sixties. He worked with Sargent Shriver and others in the Kennedy administration in the formation of the Peace Corps, and he served in that capacity overseas. As I mentioned, he was a good friend of Dr. Martin Luther King's and participated in the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches in 1965 in support of voting rights for African Americans. He was the President of two different colleges--one in Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr, which is a great college. It is one of the best in the country. I got to know Harris Wofford before he was Senator Wofford. It was when he worked for the new Casey administration, when my father was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 1986. He put together a cabinet in the early part of 1987, and he appointed Harris as the Secretary of Labor and Industry--one of the big departments in State government. It was from that position that he was chosen to be a U.S. Senator. It was after the tragic and untimely death of Senator John Heinz, who passed away in April of 1991. Harris was named that next month. He was elected in 1991 to complete that term and then lost his reelection in 1994, but Harris was not done with service. After serving in the Kennedy administration and in the Senate--after doing such great work on education and civil rights in the interest of justice--he continued his work. He worked very hard to make sure that the Martin Luther King holiday was not just a holiday but a day of service. So he and others came together in the midnineties--after Harris was out of office and after he had left the Senate--to make sure that day would be a day of service. Now, all of these years later--more than 20 years later--hundreds of thousands of people across the country perform acts of service, engage in service, on that day. We will spend more time highlighting his life here on the Senate floor and in other places around the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and, I am sure, across the country, but let me just conclude with these words: Harris Wofford was a champion for justice. In the Scriptures, they tell us that those who pursue justice should be blessed. Blessed are they who will hunger and thirst for justice for they shall be satisfied. Harris Wofford was never satisfied when it came to justice. He was always trying to march us forward. He was always urging us to do more in the interest of justice, in the interest of civil rights, and of equal rights. He was a champion for justice. That is probably an understatement. He was also a person of uncommon courage to stand up as he did on civil rights when it was not easy--when, at times, it was literally dangerous. In addition to his courage, he was a person of integrity and decency. He always wanted to know what others were doing, what other's lives were like, what they hoped for our country. He was always curious about other people's lives and what he could learn from them. To say that he lived a life of service is, again, an understatement. I don't know of anyone who served in so many different capacities, whether it was in the Army Air Corps in World War II, whether it was in leading the way on civil rights for President Kennedy, or whether it was here in the Senate in his helping to create opportunities for service. He not only lived that life of service, but he challenged all of us. Whether we were public officials or citizens, he challenged us to serve. He lived the words of Dr. King, the words of service. Dr. King said that everyone can be great because everyone can serve. Harris Wofford was great for lots of reasons, but he was also great, of course, because he served. We will have more opportunities to amplify this small measure of commendation to Harris Wofford, but on a night like tonight, we are thinking of him. We are inspired by him, and we are grateful for his service and for that of his family's. I had a chance to talk to his son Dan, who has been a friend of mine for a long time, just hours before his father passed away. I was honored to talk to him in those difficult hours. Mr. President, in remembering Harris Wofford, as we will do more formally in the next number of days, I want to thank him for his service to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and for his service to America. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. I ask unanimous consent that Rahmon Ross of my staff be granted floor privileges for today's proceedings.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise to talk about the Medicare Program and in particular a news story that came to our attention this past weekend. This is the headline from a story dated January 11, late in the day, and it is by The Hill newspaper. You will not be able to see it from a distance, but the headline reads: ``Trump officials consider allowing Medicaid block grants for states.'' Here is what just the first two short paragraphs outline. The story begins as follows: The Trump administration is considering moving forward with a major conservative change to Medicaid by allowing States to get block grants for the program, sources say. Capping the amount of money that the federal government spends on the health insurance program for the poor through a block grant has long been a conservative goal. It was a controversial part of the ObamaCare repeal debate in 2017, with much of the public rallying against cuts to Medicaid. After the failure of that repeal effort, the Trump administration is now considering issuing guidance to states encouraging them to apply for caps on federal Medicaid spending in exchange for additional flexibility on how they run the program, according to people familiar with the discussions. I will not read the rest of the story, and I will not enter the whole story into the Record because folks can look it up, and there are other stories as well that cover this same news. So, in a sense, it is a big new development, but it is an old story. It is an old story of Members of Congress and the administration coming together to try to make changes to the Medicaid Program. In this case, it differs only slightly in that, so far at least, this seems to be an initiative that is an administration-led initiative. We are not aware of any--as far as I know--congressional involvement, but it is not all that much different, right? It is the same thing. We had a long debate in 2017 about whether we should not only repeal the Affordable Care Act but thereby do two things to Medicaid--one is to end over time Medicaid expansion, and second would be to have cuts to Medicaid that would result from this same idea, the so-called block granting of Medicaid. I believe we litigated--if we can use that word in a legislative sense--that in 2017. The repeal bill did not pass the Senate in the summer of 2017. There were other attempts that didn't come to a vote on full repeal. Then we had an election in 2018. Healthcare was a major part of that debate, most of it centering on protections for preexisting conditions and other consumer protections in the law. If you look at the last 2 years, we had one-party rule in Washington--Republican President, House, and Senate. There were major efforts by the administration and by both majorities in the Houses of Congress to make substantial changes to Medicaid, and it did not happen. So failing all those attempts, now the administration, I would assume, is trying to do it secretively but, now exposed, wants to make changes to Medicaid by way of granting waivers and inviting States to, in essence, change Medicaid at the State level. This initiative will not affect Pennsylvania--or it is highly unlikely to affect Pennsylvania in the near term. So this is about major parts of the country but not every State. It is a bad idea, in short order, because what this block granting means is benefits get cut. It is very simple. When you cut a program that is focused on healthcare for low-income children, healthcare coverage for those with disabilities, children and adults, and helping seniors have the benefit of skilled care in a nursing home--that is another benefit of Medicaid--you are talking about benefits being cut over time. Maybe there will be more cuts in one State versus the other, depending upon the nature of the waiver and the particulars of the program in that State, but it is going to be cutting Medicaid. It is a bad idea, and I think the American people understand that, especially after the debate in 2017. It is a bad idea, and I think the American people understand that. Maybe there are some folks who didn't really appreciate Medicaid; probably a lot of them in Washington didn't appreciate Medicaid before the 2017 and 2018 debates. Maybe there are folks who weren't paying attention for a lot of years and didn't realize the scope of Medicaid, didn't realize it covers 70 million Americans. I know that is why some Republican-elected officials in the Congress are very hostile to it; they think it covers too many people. But after 2017, those who were misinformed or had forgotten or just were never aware of the benefits of Medicaid got a real good reminder because of the debate we had. That was one positive outgrowth of that long and difficult debate on healthcare generally--the Affordable Care Act specifically--but also, by extension, Medicaid. A proposal like this to block-grant Medicaid, which was proposed numerous times here in the Congress over the last couple of years, hurts basically those three groups of Americans. It hurts kids, hurts people with disabilities, and hurts our seniors. I think the part of it that people tend to forget is that this program helps middle-class families as well. If you have a disability, your income might be higher than low income, but you get the benefit of Medicaid. A lot of middle-class families have a loved one in a nursing home who would not be able to afford that kind of long-term care without the benefit of Medicaid. A lot of those families are middle class. When it comes to children, of course, it is for children from low- income families, but those children are getting what many believe to be the gold standard for children's healthcare. I like to say that in Pennsylvania, Medicaid is a 40-50-60 program. It is real simple: 40 percent of the kids in our State, thankfully, have the benefit of Medicaid; 50 percent of people with disabilities-- roughly, about half of the people in our State with disabilities get the benefit of Medicaid. Thank goodness they do. Thirdly, 60 percent of people getting long-term care in Pennsylvania could not get it without the benefit of Medicaid. In some States, the percentages might be higher or lower than that, but when you have a program that covers 40 percent of your children, 50 percent of your population with disabilities, and 60 percent of your seniors could get long-term care, which they need--those folks who have long-term care need it and have to have it. When you have that kind of program, which covers roughly 2 million people in Pennsylvania and 70 million nationwide, you are going to get the attention of a lot of people when you are messing with it. That is a technical term, ``messing with it.'' By saying, to some degree, under the cover of darkness--not having a debate on the floor of the House or the Senate but sending guidance to States, inviting them to apply for a waiver, and it takes a while to approve the waiver, then all of a sudden it comes out, and the waiver is granted--guess what. If you live in a State where that happens and you are on Medicaid, you might not have Medicaid a year from the waiver being granted--or 2 years or 5 years. At some point, you may be adversely affected by that. This is very serious business when it comes to those very vulnerable Americans. In so many ways, Medicaid, like a lot of things we debate here--not only Medicaid, but Medicaid is one of many examples we could cite-- tells us who we are as a nation. People around the world don't respect America simply because America has the strongest, best military. We have the best fighting men and women in the world; no one is even close. But there are a lot of nations that spend a lot on their military and have strong, fighting men and women; they have a strong military, and they are not respected like we are. Thank God we have a strong military and the strongest economy in the world. We are blessed by that. But one of the other ways the world respects us is that they often conclude that we treat our own people better than some other places do. Medicaid, which is a 50-year-old program, is a program that tells us who we are as a nation, whom we value, and whom we are willing to fight on behalf of. It tells us a lot about who we are. America is great because we care deeply about those 70 million people who get the benefit of that program, just as we care deeply about other Americans who benefit or have a connection to our government. Before any administration or any part of our government takes an action that will lead to the cutting back of a program like Medicaid-- whether it is by way of legislation or by way of waiver or regulation-- they need to hear from us. I, for one, am willing to fight on this for a long time. If I do nothing else but fight this battle, sign me up because we are going to fight hard. I am not certain we will win, but I think we will win this battle. Medicaid tells us who we are. Why do I say that? Well, because we hear from families all the time. I got a letter at the beginning of the debate in 2017 from a mom. Like a lot of Members of the Senate, you get a letter from a mom or a dad or a family member who sits down to put pen to paper--in a sense, to write you a letter or send you an email or to express what their lives will be like without a program, what their lives will be like if a change goes forward. In this case it was Pam, a mom talking about her son Rowan. Rowan is on the autism spectrum. This mom talks about the prospect of not just learning that and what that meant to her and her family and the challenge of it, obviously, but also the benefits she received because of Medicaid--in Pennsylvania we call it Medical Assistance, or by the shorthand, MA. I will not read the whole letter, but Pam talks about, in just one example of what Medicaid means, the wraparound services--all of the services that a child who has a disability gets, maybe on either the autism spectrum or a physical disability or maybe a child who has Down syndrome. In this case, Rowan is on the autism spectrum. She talks about the behavioral specialist consultant and the therapeutic staff support work that helps her and the benefits of that and what that means to Pam, as a mom, and to her family--but also what it means to her son Rowan. She talks about Rowan benefiting ``immensely from a program called the Child Guidance Resource Center,'' which recently started a new program called the CREATE Program. It is a social skills program specifically for autistic children ages 3 to 21. She enrolled Rowan in that so- called CREATE Program. She goes on to say: ``I am thrilled by Rowan's daily progress. I cannot say enough great things about this program.'' That program would not be part of the life of that family, absent Medicaid. That program would not be part of the life of that family in the instance where that family was living in a State that had been granted a waiver that allowed block grants that, thereby, allowed cuts that resulted in that family not getting that kind of service. Thankfully, she is in a State where the Medicaid Program is strong and will be defended aggressively. But I don't want a Rowan in another State or a Pam--a mom in another State--not having the benefit that Rowan in Pennsylvania has and that Pam in Pennsylvania has. Pam goes on to say: ``Without medical assistance, our family would be bankrupt or my son would go without the therapies he sincerely needs.'' At the end of the letter, she concludes by asking me, as her representative, to think about her family when we are debating these issues. She talks about her husband and her son Rowan first, and then she concludes the letter this way: Please think of my 9-month-old daughter, Luna, who smiles and laughs at her brother daily; she will have to care for Rowan late in her life after we are gone. Overall, we are desperately in need of Rowan's Medical Assistance and would be devastated if we lost these benefits. That is what one mom said about the importance of Medicaid to that family. My point in raising this issue--even though, thankfully, we have beaten back an effort to legislatively change the Medicaid Program for the worse, and we now have an administrative effort to undermine the program, but I raise this simply to say that family in America should not have to worry for 10 minutes about whether their government is going to continue those important benefits to their son or to their daughter, whatever the case may be. Maybe their mom is in a nursing home or maybe a neighbor has a son or a daughter who, because of income levels, is getting Medicaid. They shouldn't have to worry for 10 or 15 minutes about that because we are America. We made the decision 50 years ago--and it was a good decision--to take care of those families and to do everything we could. Some days we will not get it right; some days we will make mistakes. But on most days, a program like that is helping lots of families, tens of millions of them, and the bureaucrats or the elected officials or the administration officials in Washington who seek to make changes that will adversely affect even one of those families has to look those families in the eye--or should look them in the eye--and tell them why that is good, not just for that family but why that is good for America. How is that going to help us? I know what the argument will be. I hear it over and over again. They say that the program is unsustainable, right? We are not going to be able to afford this much Medicaid 10 years from now, 15 years from now, 25 years from now. Well, when they say ``unsustainable'' around here, I want to translate for you. That means they are not willing to make people of means pay for it. Let me say it bluntly: If we have to charge someone else who has a high income to preserve Medicaid, sign me up for that too. Let's be very clear about this. This program is that important. I believe there are a lot of Americans of means--of high incomes--who would want to make sure this program is preserved. I know there are some politicians around here who are always talking about how you have to make sure that they have low tax rates, but I think a lot of those Americans want to preserve the Medicaid Program, want to strengthen it, want to make changes that are appropriate, want to make it more efficient where we can, but there are a lot of Americans out there of great means who want this program preserved. So we have a lot of work to do to make sure we move in the right direction. Let me make one or two more final points, and I will conclude. One of the other questions is, What happens if a block grant proposal goes through nationwide but even in more limited instances? Way back in November of 2016, one of the many organizations that track this kind of a program over time--the Medicaid Program or healthcare programs--issued a report. It has issued many of these reports, but here is just one for your consideration. The name of the organization is Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. It is here in Washington and has been around a long time. It was very helpful in the debate on healthcare and about the impact of various proposals. Here is what the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in November of 2016. The date was November 30, 2016. In order to save some space, I will not read the whole report, and I will not enter it into the Record. People can look it up, right? Here is the headline: ``Medicaid Block Grant Would Slash Federal Funding, Shift Costs to States, and Leave Millions More Uninsured.'' Here is what some of the headlines say in the report. The first one reads ``A block grant would cap Federal Medicaid funding in order to achieve savings for the Federal Government.'' That is what the proposal is intended to do. No. 2, ``The likely magnitude of the Federal funding cuts and resulting cost-shift to States would be very large.'' No. 3, ``Such a block grant would push states to cut their Medicaid programs deeply.'' The last two are as follows: ``Medicaid is already efficient and innovative.'' That is true. We don't talk about that enough, but it is true. The last headline is ``A Medicaid block grant would lead to draconian cuts to eligibility, benefits, and provider payment rates.'' What they didn't mention there is that cuts to Medicaid would also hurt a lot of hospitals, especially rural hospitals. Here is the number from the House Republican budget plan for fiscal year 2017. We are going back now to the latter part of 2016. Here is what the report concludes, and this is in the instance of being implemented as law: ``It would have cut federal Medicaid funding by $1 trillion--or nearly 25 percent--over ten years, relative to current law, on top of the cuts the plan would secure from repealing the ACA's Medicaid expansion.'' I realize that number is bigger than what we are talking about here because we are talking about a number of States changing their Medicaid Programs because of a block granting waiver that was granted to that particular State, but I am not too concerned about the overall number because that is impossible to predict. Even if just one State were to be granted this kind of a waiver in implemented block grants, a lot of people in that State would lose their Medicaid. I think we should be concerned if it were one person losing Medicaid because of that, let alone thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or, in fact, millions. If block granting were to be granted for the whole country, you would be talking about double-figure millions losing that kind of coverage. Even if it were to be a much smaller number, we should be very concerned about this. Here is another reason not to mess around with Medicaid in a way that adversely impacts people or undermines the program. I hear from a lot of politicians in Washington from both Houses and both parties. I think, in almost every instance--and there is probably an exception to this--they speak from their hearts and do truly care about what is happening in their communities and in their States because of the opioid crisis. It is everywhere. It is urban, rural, and suburban. It is everywhere, and it is devastating. We have never seen a public health problem like it in probably 100 years or at least not anything worse than it. It is a problem in Pennsylvania, and it is a problem in every State, as I am sure the Presiding Officer would agree. Yet here is the part they don't talk about. Sometimes the same people say, ``I really am worried about the opioid crisis, and I want to do the following to help people who are in the grip of that addiction, and I want to institute a program or provide funding or otherwise,'' and that is wonderful when they have that initiative. Yet sometimes those same Members of Congress, in the next breath, will say, ``But I want to block grant Medicaid'' or ``I want to cut or cap Medicaid'' or ``We need to cut back on what we spend on Medicaid,'' and they vote for budget after budget after budget and bill after bill to cut Medicaid. What do you think is the No. 1 payer when it comes to the opioid crisis, the primary payer for opioid treatment and recovery? You guessed it--Medicaid. If you are going to go down this road and talk about this program as if it were some far-off program for them, for someone else, you should look in the mirror because Medicaid is an ``us'' program, not a ``them'' program and not a program for someone far away. It is for our neighbors. It is for our friends if they have opioid addictions and can only get treatment and services mostly because of Medicaid expansion-- actually, as part of the Affordable Care Act. Medicaid itself, the core program, of course, is a program that makes sure that a child has healthcare. Even if he is of low income and his mom or his dad or the person taking care of him is not working and doesn't have employer coverage, he gets the benefit of Medicaid. Guess what. When that low-income child gets Medicaid, we all benefit. That child is more likely to grow up healthy, and he or she will be more productive and will be a stronger part of our economy. So Medicaid for low-income children or children from low-income families helps all of us. It doesn't just help that child. It is not just a nice thing to do. It is the right thing to do, but it is also very practical. Medicaid helps people with disabilities whether they have profound disabilities or otherwise. They have to be eligible for it based upon their disabilities, but we have made a decision that that is a good thing to do for that individual and for society. The same is true of people making decisions about a loved one's going into long-term care and one's spending down one's assets, and there is usually a big gap after one spends down. Middle-class families--sometimes people above middle class--spend down. They can't afford the cost of nursing home care, and the State says and the Federal Government says: We want to help you. That is why Medicaid is so critical to nursing homes. If you look at the dollars spent, it would not be entirely inaccurate to say that Medicaid is a nursing home program with help for children and people with disabilities as well. I am just putting the administration on notice that if it wants to continue to pursue this, we are going to have a big fight about it, and it is a fight that will go on for a long time. It will go on in the courts. We will litigate it on this floor. We will litigate it in committees and fight about it in the House and in the Senate. We will fight in the streets of our States, and we will fight about it for a long time until we win because we have other things to do to lift people up around here. We have to do more on healthcare--lower the cost of healthcare, lower the cost of prescription drugs--and make sure that these programs work well. We don't have time for throwing millions of people off of healthcare or tens of millions off of healthcare. There is a broad, bipartisan consensus on a whole range of things we could do on healthcare. That is what we should work on. The administration, if it is doing the right thing, would abandon these reckless, extreme ideas on Medicaid and join us--join both parties in both Houses--in trying to do something positive and constructive and American on healthcare. I don't think it is American to say to a child, ``Yes, you had Medicaid before, but we couldn't afford it. You are not going to have healthcare any longer'' or to say that to someone with a disability or to a senior. If the administration wants to fight, we are going to be ready to fight, and we will punch hard in that fight--figuratively speaking, of course. We will fight every minute of every day against this. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight to speak about the shutdown. I know the hour is late. I will cut short my remarks. But we are now, as you heard and as many Americans know, in day 24 of the shutdown. This is a shutdown that the President, a number of weeks ago, said that he--I am not quoting him exactly, but he seemed to want to have a shutdown, and then he went forward and executed it even after this body, the Senate, voted unanimously just before Christmas to extend funding for the government until February so we could continue debates until then. But he chose to upend that and now we have this shutdown lasting not just 24 days but now the longest in American history. That is not a distinction any President or administration or Congress--especially the majority here in the Senate--should be proud of. I think it is very clear that there is a way out of this, and the way out of this would not foreclose--in fact, it would enhance--the chances that we can have a fulsome, thorough, policy-oriented debate on border security, which we should have. We should actually enlarge that to speak to or debate a lot of major immigration issues and maybe come up with a bipartisan bill like we had in 2013, where 68 votes brought forward a bill out of the Senate that had probably the best border security provisions in recent American history. It had a pathway to citizenship. It was a long and arduous path but a pathway, nonetheless. As well, it had guest worker provisions so that employers could have order, rules, and certainty as to their workforce and our immigration system. We have a very broken system that we would have been 5 years, at least, into the fixing of or the repair of if we had passed that bill-- or if the House had passed that bill. It had 68 votes in the Senate, but it died in the House. We haven't seen a bill like that since-- certainly, not any bill that was as comprehensive. Here we are with 24 days of government employees being held hostage by the administration. I think there is some complicity here in the Senate, as well, because we know there is a bill that would open eight of the nine agencies. That bill is here in the Senate. We could pass it tonight, tomorrow morning, or tomorrow afternoon. We could pass it very quickly because--remember, the first act of a Democratic-majority House was to pass Republican appropriations bills--they are bills that sailed through the Republican-majority Senate with little to no opposition. That is where we find ourselves, with a way out of this predicament, which I believe would not only open up the government--which would be good for the whole country and for both parties all across the country and, especially, for the people mostly adversely affected--but it would also isolate the issue. Right? The President says that he wants to have changes made, and he has a different view than I do, but let's have weeks of debate on border security or everything else he wants to talk about. Let's bring in the experts. Let's have a dueling set of experts. Let's see whom the American people support. Do they support one point of view that says we want border security or the other point of view that says that you want a wall or some steel barrier? That is kind of the choice. Do you want real border security or something else? We should have a debate about that. If anything, the debate about the shutdown would be set aside because it would be over. The government would be opened. The country, the press, the Senate, and the House would naturally focus then on issues of dispute. That would isolate the issue. But it is very difficult to maintain an argument or a reasoned debate--a debate based upon facts and policy and law, and, I hope, on the advice and consultation of border security experts, not just politicians. We have a lot of smart people in the Congress, but very few, if any of them, are border security experts. Let's listen to the experts. Let's take testimony from them like they had back in 2013, which undergirded the bill that got 68 votes. That would be a way to isolate and focus on the issue, instead of bringing misery to what is now hundreds of thousands of Americans--soon to grow to millions and, then, tens of millions--because those who miss paychecks today are a very big number. That number will grow when it starts to affect government services, which I will outline rather quickly because of the hour. We have a lot of men and women in the country now working without pay or being furloughed, worrying about whether they can make a mortgage payment, put food on the table, or pay their heating bill. They don't have a choice. They can't just say: Well, sir, I can't pay the bill today because the government shut down. So just wait and you will be just fine. No, they have to pay the bill. Thank God we passed legislation for backpay, but for some of these folks, backpay will not be enough because their credit will be adversely impacted. Their credit may be destroyed even if they get the backpay. On Friday, 820,000 Federal workers, including 14,000 in my home State of Pennsylvania, missed a paycheck--more than 1,300 Department of Agriculture employees, 990 Department of Interior employees, 1,200 Federal Bureau of Prisons employees, 775 FAA and TSA employees, 700 EPA employees, as well as assistant U.S. attorneys in different parts of Pennsylvania. I will share a small part of a longer letter that I got from a constituent. This constituent said: I am currently a furloughed U.S. State Department employee and one of your constituents. I will soon miss a paycheck and, with car payments, student loan payments, et cetera, on the horizon, my family of five will likely suffer. Beyond our personal hardship, this shutdown is both expensive and counterproductive to border security. I couldn't agree more with that constituent and with the argument that constituent makes, but what is even more compelling, of course, is not the argument about the policy debate here in Washington. The more compelling part of that, of course, is missing car payments, student loan payments, and a family of that size suffering. That is real life. That is not just a Washington theoretical debate. That is real life for that family. How about farmers? These are people who are not Federal Government employees, but they are affected by the fact that Federal Government employees are not at their desks or not in the field. Farmers can't visit their local Farm Service Agency office to get assistance. We have a new farm bill. It is one of the great bipartisan achievements. Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate, came together for a big farm bill. That is great. I am glad we got that done at the end of 2018. The bad news is that some of that requires advice, consultation, and engagement with Farm Service Agency offices. They are not able to give that assistance. How about seniors who rely upon transportation services and nutrition services provided by the Enhanced Mobility of Seniors and Individuals with Disabilities Program? That and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, also known as the Senior Food Box, are now at risk of being isolated. These seniors are now at risk of being isolated at home and without food. Approximately 2,400 units of low-income housing in Pennsylvania are in jeopardy because the Department of Housing and Urban Development will not be able to renew a contract. More than two-thirds of the people who receive this type of assistance are seniors and people with disabilities. The people who benefit from this type of housing assistance have average incomes of less than $13,000. Two million Pennsylvanians receive food assistance. It is actually about 1.8 million, but it is almost 2 million Pennsylvanians who receive assistance through the SNAP program, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. We used to call it food stamps. They may lose access if the shutdown drags on much longer. I know the administration says: Don't worry. Everything is OK for February. That is, in essence, what the administration said, and they haven't given us a definitive word about March. So of those 1.8 million Pennsylvanians, a huge share of them have a disability, and a huge share of them are children in households who can't support themselves and can't afford food on their own because they are children. They benefit, as well. They are part of the 1.8. A lot of them, of course, are seniors who deserve this program because that is what we do in America. We try to help people who need food assistance. That is called being America--being the strong country that we are, showing how strong we are not just by virtue of our military and our GDP--everyone knows that. No one comes close in the world. But we are also strong because we say we care about people with disabilities. We want to make sure if they need Medicaid, they get that kind of healthcare. If they need food assistance, we will get that for them. We care about our seniors, too, because we are America and we are strong, and it is an American value. These programs are important. When they are shut down, that is not an American value being upheld. When we talk about these programs and about food assistance, this is also real life--literally, today or the day when you lose food assistance. Why should that assistance even be the subject of uncertainty--uncertainty because someone doesn't get their way on a policy matter here in Washington? I guess it is OK for any Member of Congress because we are a coequal branch of government. It is not like the President is higher than the Congress. We are coequal. I guess because the President wants to shut the government down to make a point about a policy matter, I guess that should be an option that any Member of the House or the Senate should exercise. So the next time, it will be a Member of Congress, when you lose a battle on a policy matter or you don't propose the funding on time, which is what happened here. They didn't ask for the money at the beginning of the year. So they tried to shoehorn it in at the end of the year. I guess if you lose the policy debate or your bill doesn't pass, you vote to shut the government down--take action to shut the government down like the President did. I don't think that is the way any party or any country should operate. So 200,000 Pennsylvanians may lose access to the Women, Infants, and Children Program, which provides critical nutritional support to mothers and young children--200,000. So there are the 2 million I talked about. There are 1.8 million people who are getting the benefits of the SNAP program, which, by the way, helps all Americans. People ask: What do you mean by that? It does. If you spend a buck on SNAP, you get $1.80 back in economic activity because people have to eat, and they tend to spend that money quickly. It helps everybody. So the SNAP program is not just a nice thing to do for people who have disabilities or for seniors or children; the SNAP program helps all of us because it helps to stimulate the economy. Even if you are disinterested in supporting this program but are interested in having your own American economy grow, you should support the SNAP program. It is also the right thing to do because it is a darned good program. When you add 1.1 million people who are getting SNAP and then 200,000 people who benefit from the WIC Program, you will have gotten over 2 million just in one State. These programs are not out of money this week or in the month of January or in the month of February, but we don't know about March yet. We haven't gotten any guarantees about March. Even if we get a guarantee about March, what about April? That is far from guaranteed. So that is what we are talking about here. Why should these people have to wait? Why should a farmer have to wait weeks or months to talk to a Farm Service Agency office? Why should families who have food insecurity as part of their lives not be able to get something to eat because we are having a policy debate here? Why shouldn't we give them the certainty that they vote for us to ensure? It is unconscionable and unacceptable, and I wish I could come up with better words than that because they are not at all adequate. It is unconscionable that children and moms and hungry Americans will suffer because of this shutdown. The President says he is concerned about crime and the flow of dangerous drugs into the country. I agree with him. A lot of Americans do, of course. Yet the shutdown is significantly impairing the FBI and the DEA's law enforcement efforts. These are part of the list of Agencies that are impacted. Agents are still doing their work to keep the public safe. They are dedicated, and they are going to do their work no matter what. Yet, with many analysts on furlough, it is getting harder and harder to work effectively to keep the public safe. I want an FBI that has all of the resources it needs, with everyone on duty, with everyone working. If the FBI is undermined because of the shutdown, we are less safe. If the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency, is undermined because of the shutdown, we are less safe. You don't have to be a law enforcement expert to say that. It goes on from there. I have more, but I will not because of the hour. I will go back to the beginning. There are adverse impacts today with people not being paid as of Friday. That alone is compelling and urgent and insulting, frankly, to us as Americans and is directly insulting to those families who don't deserve this. It is going to get a lot worse, though. That number is going to grow and grow, not just with those who are directly affected with their paychecks and in their livelihoods and their credit ratings and all of that but with people who depend upon the Federal Government for help when they are vulnerable, when they are hungry, when they want an answer to a question, when they want to close on a mortgage or do a long list of other things. For the life of me, I do not understand why we would not pass a bill that is sitting in this Chamber that would open eight of the nine Agencies--that are closed--until the end of the fiscal year, September 30, so the shutdown will be over for those eight agencies. Then you would have one Agency, Homeland Security, that would get short-term funding, which would be another reason we could continue the debate and another way to focus attention on border security and anything else anybody wants to talk about here. It would focus the attention on that issue and remove the issue that is in front of all of us, which is that 25 percent of the government--and a lot of it affecting a lot of people--is closed, shuttered, not working, not effective, not delivering on results. There is an easy solution here that not only does not close the debate on border security--effective, expert-recommended border security--but, if anything, enhances the possibility that there will be a more engaged debate on border security. As I said, I hope it will grow into a larger immigration debate. I yield the floor.

Mr. CASEY

Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I join in raising these issues tonight about the government shutdown. The reason so many of us have referred to it simply as the ``Trump shutdown'' is because the President is the person who led the way to have the government shut down. He said that before the shutdown, as we all know. We have heard the statement he made in the Oval Office. Then, of course, we went forward. I think it is important to reset where we have been and where we are. There was an agreement in this body, the U.S. Senate, by 100 Senators, just before Christmas, to extend funding for the government for a short period of time so that if there were issues to debate between now and February, we could do that. It is hard to get 100 Senators to agree on anything around here, but of course that is what happened. Then it went to the House, and we know what happened after that. The President got pressure from rightwing talk show hosts, and I guess they have more influence on him than a lot of Americans, who never want a government shutdown. As we stand here tonight, 9 of 15 Federal Departments are closed, shut down, and I am not even itemizing the number of Agencies that is. Then we came into the new year, on January 3--I don't know what hour it was, but it was in the evening--with a new majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, a Democratic majority. What did that Democratic majority do? What did the Democratic House Speaker do? In her first act as Speaker, and in essence their first vote on substance, they voted to open up the government by voting in favor of a bill that was essentially a Republican appropriations bill. That is what the Democratic-controlled House did. They voted to move forward Republican appropriations bills that were voted on here in committee but also were agreed to here, in a sense, by consensus--a 100-to-0 consensus just before Christmas. So there is ample reason, there is a lot of documentary evidence--video evidence--that this is a Trump shutdown. I think it is important for people to understand. I know some here call it a partisan bill. No, it wasn't. It was a bipartisan bill. It just happened to have its origin in the work of Republicans in the Senate--the Senate appropriations work that was done by Republicans, with Democratic help. Of course, this Chamber is controlled by Republicans, so these were Republican bills. It is also important to know what could happen here. There is legislation now that the Senate can vote on that will open the government up by doing the following: by funding eight Departments of government until the 30th of September. It is important for people to understand that. They see the back and forth, and they see how a bill like that is characterized on television, but it is important for people to know--and I will keep saying it for emphasis because this is important we get the facts right--this is an action by a House controlled by Democrats to move forward bills that virtually every Republican agreed to in one way or another over time on various occasions. The effect of passing that bill here would open the government for those Agencies--those Departments is a more correct word--those Departments that are shut down right now, leaving only one Department that would now be funded over a longer term, the Department of Homeland Security. That Department would not be funded after a certain date in February if we can't agree on funding until then. What the effect of that is, it moves forward the effort to keep the government operating, to keep--just by way of example--13,709 FBI agents who could be working without pay, 4,399 DEA agents who could be working without pay, and I can go down the list. We have had many examples tonight. I will not restate them. It allows all of those operations of the Federal Government to go forward but still preserves the opportunity for the President or anyone to make assertions, to make arguments, and to put forth policy regarding border security, no matter what it is. We could debate that from now until that moment in February--that date in February when the Department of Homeland Security would run out of money--and see what would happen at that point. That is what people have to understand. There is a way to continue a debate about border security, a very important debate. I voted for, I don't know how many tens of billions now--billion with a ``b''--on border security since I have been here. I voted for the bill in 2013, the comprehensive bill that got 68 votes here in 2013--68 votes. That means a whole number of Republicans voted for it. That committed more than $40 billion to border security, based upon the testimony of experts, based upon people who understand border security. Let's be honest, folks. A lot of House Members and a lot of Democrats and Republicans in both parties and both Houses are not border security experts. That is why we should ask for their advice in telling us the best way to secure the border. That is essentially what happened in 2013, when both parties voted--68 votes here--to pass a comprehensive bill that had more than $40 billion for border security. That is how you do border security. You don't just say: Well, because I used a word in a campaign, I used a sound bite in a campaign, therefore, the sound bite--which isn't based upon good policy--has to become the policy. That is not how we should do things here. No one in either party should do it that way. Now we are, I guess, 17 days since the President decided to shut down the government because he would not get his wall. We should never confuse a wall with border security. We all want border security. I don't know of a legislator who doesn't support that. Most people here voted for it many times--border security--based upon what the experts tell us, not the politicians. If we were using politicians for that kind of expertise, we would be in big trouble. We wouldn't do that in many subject areas, including something as consequential and as important and as complicated as border security. We should do it the right way and have a debate about it and hear testimony from experts, not just hot air from politicians because they said a word or two or three in a campaign. That is not policy. Right now, there are 820,000 Federal employees, 14,000--some in Pennsylvania, wondering how they are going to make a mortgage payment or pay the rent or buy food. The list is longer than that. It is, in essence, appropriations hostage-taking. My colleague referred to and used that word in his remarks earlier. This is appropriations hostage- taking that hurts a lot of people and will continue to hurt more and more people as the days go on. That is one of the reasons why I supported the legislation introduced by Senators Cardin and Van Hollen that would guarantee backpay for these hard-working Federal employees who do so many things for the American people that we don't itemize or praise, except when there is a crisis like the one we are facing right now, the crisis of not having a government fully funded. So the President shut down the government over a wall that will not work, will not secure the border. Let's not confuse the two. We have always made investments over time--both parties, many administrations, many sessions of Congress have made investments in effective border security based upon the recommendations from experts. We should do that again, as we have done over many years. The security experts over the number of years charged with keeping our Nation safe have said this concrete or steel wall along the width of the southern border will not work. It will not work. Former Commissioner of Customs and Border Patrol Gil Kerlikowske said, in January 2017: ``I think that anyone who's been familiar with the southwest border and the terrain . . . kind of recognizes that building a wall along the entire southwest border is probably not going to work.'' That is someone who understands this subject. That is what he said. He is not a politician spewing out a sound bite or just doing an interview. He is a person who has dedicated a large portion of his life to border security, and we should listen to those voices. Building a concrete wall will not stop illegal activity. Border security--effective border security--will. What is that? It is technology. It is 24-hour surveillance. It is, as in the 2013 bill, in essence, doubling the Border Patrol. I think we could have hired 20,000 more people at the border to do border enforcement. That is why the cost was so high--because to hire 20,000 people costs a lot of money, but that is what we voted for then. I haven't even listed all of them, but those kinds of methods--battle-tested, proven methods to secure the border will work. That is what we should be doing. According to a 2017 national drug assessment report, most illegal smuggling happens at our ports of entry, not crossing a line in a desert at the southwest border--ports of entry. One example is at our airports. Airports are among the places we should be focusing our attention. I haven't heard the President talk about airports. Maybe I haven't been listening, but he has been President now for just about 2 years, and I am not sure he has talked about stopping smuggling at ports of entry. If the President was serious about securing the southern border or fixing our immigration system, he would work with both parties, both Houses, on an immigration system that would secure the border and do a whole range of things we need to do because we have a broken system. Here is my belief. I can't prove this. This is just my belief watching what he has said and listening to his speeches and listening to the policies he has supported and the policies he has not supported. I don't believe the President has any interest in fixing our broken immigration system. He seems to have an interest in building a wall that will not work--I am rather certain of that--but I don't think he has any interest in fixing this broken system. He has a strong interest, in my judgment, of scoring points, and I will give him that. He is an expert at scoring political points, but in terms of sitting down with people in both parties, taking hours and hours and hours and hours of testimony from border security experts, or at least listening to the presentations made here by way of hearings or information that can be ascertained in a hearing, I don't think he is willing to do that. I don't think he has any interest in doing that. The Presiding Officer and many Members of this Chamber, including the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Virginia, worked long and hard--not over hours but over days and weeks--to come up with a proposal last year which would have provided $25 billion for border security over about 10 years. It is a lot of money over 10 years, and they had to agree to that based upon those expert recommendations. They also coupled that with a statutory change that would make sure those Dreamers in the DACA Program were given the benefit of the fulfillment of our promise to them. That could have been done in law by statute, and I commend Republicans who stood up then and worked in a bipartisan way. What did the President do? He told them he would back them up, that he would sign that bill--that bill with $25 billion and a fix for the DACA Program. Then his second promise he made was, he said: I will take the heat. It didn't happen. He didn't sign it. He denigrated it. Of course, he didn't take the heat because he went running for cover. I don't see much evidence on the record that he wants to fix a broken system. Everyone knows the system is broken, everyone knows we have to rely upon experts to secure the border, everyone knows the path to citizenship is complicated, but we had a way to do that in the 2013 bill. Everyone knows that the guest worker program and bringing people out of the shadows and having order and rules to our immigration system is complicated and difficult. Everyone knows you can't do that with a sound bite. You can't do that with an image. You can't do that with a symbol. You have to do it with policy. That is what you have to do. The President seems totally disinterested in sitting down and trying to lead an effort on the kind of immigration reform that both parties know we need and that most Americans know we need as well. We all want to fix this system with a comprehensive bill. I mentioned the 2013 effort and what that would have done. Instead of wasting $5.6 billion on a wall, we could use that money to rebuild our infrastructure or to invest in border security that is based upon expertise. We could use $5.6 billion to do a lot of infrastructure in my State and a lot of States--fixing bridges, for example. I live in a State, like many, that has thousands of structurally deficient bridges. We could use that money to enhance our national security. I am told that we are to understand the President is looking for money--the $5.6 billion--potentially out of the Defense Department. Is that what we should be doing with DOD dollars that are meant for national security? We could also use $5.6 billion to invest in our children and thereby invest in our future, but I don't think the President is interested in this. He wants to win a sound bite war or an image or symbol war, not fix the problem and not make the investments we should make. Instead of creating chaos and perpetuating chaos, the President should support the bipartisan funding bill the House passed last week-- the Democratic House, which passed the Republican bills, for a little shorthand there. The bills would reopen the government and also provide $1 billion for border security that is based upon facts and evidence and expertise and effectiveness, not based upon some sound bite and hot air. The vast majority of Senate Republicans supported these funding measures last Congress. On August 1, Senate Republicans joined Democrats to advance funding for the Department of Agriculture, Financial Services, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Interior. That big appropriations bill is affecting all those Agencies referred to there. The vote was 92 to 6 on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I don't know who the 6 were, but 92 is a good number--and obviously in both parties. The Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies appropriations bill passed out of committee--this is a committee vote; not a floor vote but an important vote--on June 14 by a vote of 30 to 0. The State-Foreign Operations bill passed out of committee by a vote of 31 to 0. So one bill passed on the floor 92 to 6, and the other committee votes were 30 to 0 and 31 to 0--again, bills passed by a Democratic House that are, in fact, Republican appropriations bills. That is what the House did. That bill is here, in essence. All the majority leader has to do is put it on the floor, and it will pass. The government will be opened up, and we could debate border security until the cows come home--all the rest of January, longer into February, as long as we all agree to debate it. Let's have a real debate. Let's not debate a sound bite about an image that refers to a way someone thinks we should do border security. Let's have the evidence and put it on the table. I think my point of view on this would prevail, but let's hear from both sides. We have a way out of this predicament for the American people, a way to provide certainty and relief to those families who are suffering right now and the many more families who will continue to suffer if this continues. It is time for the majority leader to schedule a vote and stop making excuses why he shouldn't. Let's see what happens if the President has to confront a bill passed by both Houses. If he vetoes it, then it is further evidence that he is not serious about border security, but we will see. Maybe the President would sign a bill that was passed by both parties in both Houses.