Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich) is necessarily absent. (Disturbance in the Visitors' Galleries.)

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this is the 11th day of the Trump Presidency. To say that these have been tumultuous days is certainly an understatement. What happened over this past weekend really was unsettling to many people all across the United States. Candidate Trump made it clear that he had strong feelings about refugees and strong feelings about immigration, but I don't think anyone anticipated the Executive orders that were issued by the Trump administration, by the President, on Friday. The net result of that we saw across the United States at O'Hare International Airport, JFK, Dulles, many other airports. International travelers, en route, learned that the laws of the United States were being changed because of President Trump's Executive order. As a result, there was a lot of confusion and uncertainty, and hardships were created. Individuals who were coming to the United States as refugees were being turned away. For the record, this decision to indefinitely suspend the admission of Syrian refugees into the United States is not a decision based on fact. Since 9/11, since the war in Syria began, we have not had a single--not one--instance of terrorism by a Syrian refugee--not one. The United States has not stepped up as other countries like Canada have in admitting Syrian refugees. We have gone to great lengths, extraordinary lengths, to give background checks that are as consuming as one can imagine, to verify their identity and their safety to the United States. Overwhelmingly, these Syrian refugees are the victims of a deadly war which has gone on for years, and overwhelmingly they are children with their mothers. I have met them. I sat down with them in Chicago. It is heartbreaking to think that they have lived through war, may have been lucky enough to make it to a refugee camp, and then waited for years-- for years--to be cleared by the United States and be given a chance to come to this country. It has to be a heartbreaking process. Through it all, many of them have endured losses in their families that they will never be able to forget--injuries and deaths of people whom they love. These are men and women in Syria escaping a deadly war and the terrorists who have ravaged that country. They have tried to come to the United States for safety and security. The history of refugees in America is one that in modern version is very admirable, but unfortunately before--during World War II--it was a sad chapter in our history. Not only did we inter about 120,000 Japanese Americans in camps during the war for fear that they would betray the United States, but during that war, time and again, the administration of President Roosevelt as well as Congress refused to allow those who were escaping the Holocaust in Nazi Germany to come to the United States. Here on this Senate floor where I stand, an effort was made by Senator Robert Wagner of New York to admit 10,000 Jewish children out of Nazi Germany into the United States so that their parents would have the peace of mind that they would not be killed by the war or the Holocaust. That measure was defeated on the floor of this Senate. Prior to our entry into the war, those who tried to escape Nazi Germany and come to the United States were turned away by the United States. The most notorious example was the SS St. Louis, which sailed from Germany, came to, first, Havana, Cuba, then to Miami, FL, and was turned away in both places with about 900 passengers who feared for their lives because of the anti-Semitism and the killing that was taking place in Nazi Germany. They tracked that passenger list. Several hundred of them were rejected by the United States. They were not given refugee status. They were forced to return to Germany. Several hundred of them perished in the Holocaust. It was after that bitter experience that the United States decided to try to set an example for the world when it came to compassion and humanity for refugees. We stepped up time and again to be that place of security and safety. We can point proudly to the fact that when the Cubans were fearful of a Communist takeover in their country, fearful for their lives and their rights and their liberties, they came to the United States in tens of thousands. Now Cuban Americans, a proud part of our country not only in Florida but around our Nation, can point to the U.S. refugee policy as the means by which they finally made it to the safety of the United States. Here we were in a Cold War with the Soviet Union; Cuba, 90 miles off our shore was being taken over by a dictator, Fidel Castro, who was declaring his loyalty to the Soviet Union. Yet we were readily receiving tens of thousands of refugees from Cuba in the midst of that Cold War. Talk about a chance--and taking a chance. Those men and women who came to the United States were not vetted for months, years, and in many cases not at all. They were allowed into our country. Thank goodness we did it. It was the right thing to do. Time and again, whether it was refugees coming in from Vietnam after the end of that deadly war or whether it was Soviet Jews, persecuted by the Soviet Union, trying to escape, coming to the United States, we opened our doors and said: The United States of America will set an example for the world when it comes to refugees. That defined who we were and who we still should be. Now this new President is ready to walk away from that. If we had one instance of a Syrian refugee coming into the United States after that vetting process who caused harm to our citizens or engaged in an act of terrorism--if we had one--then perhaps this President could start to make his case. All he has is fear, unreasoned fear, unproven fear. We recall what Franklin Roosevelt said to this Nation, standing right out here on the steps when he was inaugurated in March of 1933: We have nothing to fear but fear itself. It is fear itself that is motivating this President to make decisions inconsistent with more than 50 years of American history and inconsistent with American values. When you meet these refugees and you hear their heartbreaking stories, how can you say that there is no room for you in this country? Yet that is exactly what he said. Sadly, he not only came up with this Executive order, he did it in a fashion where the agencies that were supposed to implement the order really were caught by surprise. Now they are priding themselves on the fact that they can turn on a dime when given instructions that are important for national security. But in this case, where national security was not the motive--political security was the motive; I am talking in the crassest terms. In those cases, these agencies were forced to make split-second decisions, and some of them were horrible. A man who came to the United States from Iraq, from one of the seven countries designated by President Trump, came from Iraq after having risked his life for American soldiers. He was rewarded with an opportunity to come to the United States, was detained at the airport, questioned at length, threatened to be returned to Iraq, and finally-- after 19 hours--allowed to stay. There is story after story of families coming to see someone who was on the deathbed, their last chance to be together, and families who had gone overseas for what they thought were just casual or really easy trips who were subject to detention and some turned away. Why? It certainly was not in the interest of the security of the United States, and it was not handled in a professional manner. It was impulsive and not decisive. It was ill conceived instead of wise. Here we are today. As I stand here at this chair and this desk in the Senate, across the street thousands have gathered in front of the Supreme Court to express their outrage over the Executive orders issued by President Trump. I am happy to report that almost one dozen Republican Senators have joined us in expressing reservations about this policy. It gives me hope that maybe on a bipartisan basis we can rein in some of the excesses of this administration. God forbid we ignore the basic constitutional issue that has been raised by these Executive orders. It is no coincidence that these seven countries are predominately Muslim countries. It is no coincidence that President Trump went on a Christian broadcasting station and said preference would be given to Christians. The Constitution which we are sworn to uphold and defend, the Constitution which guides this Nation is one that was written at a time when religion was a divisive issue that led to people coming to the United States. I think in this section, our Founding Fathers probably showed more wisdom and more understanding of our future than any other on the issue of religion. They only said three things in the entire Constitution, three things over 200 years ago. They said that this Congress, this government, will not establish an official religion. They did that, of course, many of them having come from England, where they had a national church. They didn't want that in the United States. Most importantly, they said each person in America had freedom of religious belief, to believe what they wished or to believe nothing if they wished, and that would be an honored freedom under our Bill of Rights. The third element: Religion could not be used as a litmus test for public office. That is it. When you think of all the wars and all the deaths and all the persecution based on religion, the fact that we have largely escaped it is because of the wisdom of that document. Now comes this 45th President of the United States who decides to rewrite the book, to ignore this basic constitutional direction and mandate, and to say on the Christian Broadcasting Network: We are going to favor Christian refugees coming to the United States. That, to me, is unacceptable and unconstitutional, and inconsistent with who we are, what we are, and the values we treasure in this country. My mother was an immigrant to this country. I never knew my grandmother, who brought her over on the ship from Lithuania. I do have one thing now in my office upstairs that my grandmother carried with her to this country. It is a prayer book. We are a Roman Catholic family. She was a Roman Catholic in Lithuania. The Russian Orthodox religion was being pushed by the czar, who was dominant when they left Lithuania, and they banned Catholic prayer books written in Lithuania. I never knew my grandmother. I wish I had. She risked everything to bring that Catholic prayer book, that contraband from czarist- controlled Lithuania into the United States. I have it upstairs. It means the world to me that this woman with limited formal education but unlimited courage was willing to risk a lot, bringing three small children into this country, carrying with her that prayer book which might have gotten her imprisoned in Lithuania back in her day. So religion means a lot to our family, not just on a personal basis but what America means when it comes to religion. When this President is so casual with the constitutional guarantees of religion, I don't believe he is serving the United States or honoring the history that came before him. There have been so many issues that have come up during the 11 days of his Presidency, but President Trump's decision to turn away innocent people fleeing persecution, genocide, and terror and to ban immigrants on the basis of religion is the worst, in my view. This attack is not only un-American, it risks alienating 1 billion Muslims around the world. Some of the most conservative people in this country--I am certain Republicans--have said over and over again: Don't do this. There are Muslim countries that are allies in fighting terrorism, and if you alienate them, it is going to lessen our ability to stop the spread of Al Qaeda and ISIS. Furthermore, this is a recruiting tool. You know what is going to happen. Those who hate the United States are going to use this action by President Trump to verify their belief and their credo that the United States is anti-Muslim. There was a Republican President, George W. Bush, whom I disagreed with many times, but thank goodness, after 9/11, he had the wisdom and showed the leadership to come before the American people to say: We are not going to condemn the Muslim religion. We are going to go after those who corrupted it, but we are going to honor it as a religion of peace. How different President George W. Bush, that Republican President, was to President Donald Trump, this Republican President. Senator Dianne Feinstein is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She has introduced a resolution, on which I am proud to be one of the original cosponsors, to repeal and rescind these reprehensible President Donald Trump Executive orders on refugees and immigration. We are in the midst of the worst refugee crisis in the history of the world. More than 65 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes. The brutal Syrian conflict, which is the epicenter of this humanitarian crisis, has killed hundreds of thousands, injured more than a million, and displaced half of the population of that country. In some areas, children literally starve to death in Syria. This conflict has forced more than 4.7 million refugees to flee. Around 70 percent of them are women and children who are looking for a safe place in this world. Half of Syrian children today are not in school because of this conflict and because of the forces that have dispersed them around the world. Millions in and outside of Syria need humanitarian assistance. Last week--the same week President Trump signed this awful Executive order on refugees--the United Nations issued an appeal for $4.6 billion to meet the basic needs of Syrian refugees and struggling communities hosting them in neighboring countries. Lebanon is a country where I believe half of the children in school today are Syrian. Jordan, one of our best friends and allies in the Middle East, has made more sacrifices on behalf of refugees per capita than any nation on Earth. What message does it send to our friends in Jordan that while they risk the security and safety and stability of their nation to absorb these refugees from Syria and around the world, that as an official policy of President Donald Trump, the United States no longer will even consider allowing a Syrian refugee to come to the United States? How can we in good conscience ask the King of Jordan to risk his monarchy and his country for refugees when President Trump says they are not allowed in the United States? Earlier this month, I am happy to report, more than 1,700 Jewish rabbis called on our government to maintain and strengthen the refugee program for refugees of all ethnic and religious backgrounds--not to halt it, pause it, or restrict it. This weekend, I was so proud of the Catholic cardinal in Chicago, Blase Cupich, who came out and said the Executive orders of Donald Trump are not consistent with American values and certainly are not consistent with the beliefs of the Catholic Church. Religious leaders all across the country are speaking out. They understand that this is more than a political test; this is a moral test of who we are as Americans. Many of the refugees who came to this country were fleeing regimes that were hostile to the United States. We gave them safety. Refugees are the most carefully vetted and investigated of all travelers. Before refugees are admitted into the United States, they go through security screening that is almost unheard of. All of that screening takes place before they can even consider being allowed to set foot in America, and Syrian refugees go through an even stricter review. Extreme vetting? I have news for this President: Syrian refugees and refugees all over the world are already going through extreme vetting. Shutting down the Refugee Resettlement Program won't protect our security. It plays into ISIS's argument that the United States is waging a war against Islam. Listen to what Michael Hayden, former Director of the CIA and National Security Agency under Presidents Bush and Obama, said about President Trump's Executive order: It's a horrible move. It is a political, ideological move driven by the language of the campaign and, frankly, campaign promises--promises in the campaign that were hyped by an exaggeration of the threat. And in fact, what we're doing now has probably made us less safe today than we were Friday morning before this happened because we are now living the worst jihadist narrative possible, that there is undying enmity between Islam and the West. Muslims out there who were not part of the jihadist movement are now being shown that the story they were being told by the jihadists--they hate us; they're our enemy--that's being acted out by the American government. And frankly, at a humanitarian level, it's an abomination. That statement was not made by the Democratic National Committee; it was made by Gen. Michael Hayden, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency under Presidents Bush and Obama. If we are serious about protecting America, we should be serious about closing the real loopholes that might threaten us. Think of the hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program who go through no vetting, not even fingerprinting, before they get on a plane to come to the United States. Want to close a loophole in security? Let's look at that one seriously. Instead of real security threats, President Trump is focusing on innocent people--children, women, families who are fleeing terrorism. Today's refugees, like millions before them from all over the world, will become proud Americans who contribute greatly to our society and economy. Albert Einstein was a refugee. Thank goodness he came to the United States. Today, so many of the leaders of our major corporations and high-tech companies are immigrants to this country and, in some cases, refugees. Building walls on our borders and fear in our hearts will not move America forward. Let's not continue the cruelty or deception of blaming immigrants and refugees for our security and economic challenges. Let's work together to build a better America for all Americans, including new Americans, no matter the color of their skin, where their parents were born, or how they pray. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it was 16 years ago when I introduced the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act was a response to a call I received in my office. A young woman had been brought to the United States as an infant, at the age of 2, from Korea. She lived in the United States and grew up here. When she became an accomplished pianist and was accepted at some of the best musical schools in the Nation, she started to apply but didn't know what to put down in terms of her citizenship. She called and asked, and it turned out that her mom and dad had never filed the papers that would have allowed her to become a citizen of the United States. She was undocumented. Through no fault of her own-- brought to the United States--her papers weren't filed. She grew up in Chicago, went to school, and did well, despite having a family of modest means. As I said, she developed a skill as a pianist and now had an opportunity of a lifetime and wanted to know what her legal status was. We checked the law, and it was pretty clear. She was undocumented, and the laws of America said you have to leave for 10 years, go outside of the United States, and petition to come back. It didn't seem fair or reasonable that a child, an infant of 2, would be held responsible for mistakes made by their parents, so I introduced the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act said that if you are one of those kids and you finish school and you don't have a serious criminal record, we will give you a chance--a chance to become legal in America, a chance to become a citizen. Those kids grew up going to school in our classrooms, pledging allegiance to that same flag we pledge allegiance to. They believed they were Americans, but it was not so in the eyes of American law. I introduced this bill 16 years ago. It passed the Senate in one form, the House in another. It has never become the law of the land. A few years ago I wrote to President Obama and said: As President, can you find a way to protect these young people until we do what we are supposed to do in Congress? He did. He created something called DACA. By Executive order, these young people could apply, pay about $500 in a filing fee, go through a criminal background check, and if they had no problems--no threat to this country--be allowed to stay here on a temporary 2-year basis. They could go to school but with no Federal help, no Federal assistance for their education. They could work and renew it every 2 years. That is DACA. Over 750,000 kids signed up. These were kids just like the one I described earlier--now young people who are going to college and doing important things with their lives. I have come to the floor over 100 times to tell their stories because political speeches, as inspiring as they are, usually don't move people. When you hear about these people and who they are, it can make a difference. I want to introduce one today. It will just take a few minutes. I see a couple of my colleagues on the floor. This is Belsy Garcia Manrique. When Belsy was 7 years old, she was brought by her family to the United States from Guatemala. She grew up in a small town in Georgia and became an extraordinary student. She graduated third in her high school class with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. During high school, she was a member of the National Honor Society, was on the tennis team, and was a member of the mock trial team. She even earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. She went on to attend Mercer University in Macon, GA, where she was a Presidential scholar for 4 years. This award is given to students in the top 10 percent of their class. Belsy was a member of a number of academic honor societies and the premed club. She worked as a researcher in their biology department. She was a leader of her college's Habitat for Humanity chapter and worked as a resident assistant in the student dorms and a tutor for high school students. In 2013, Belsy graduated from Mercer University with a bachelor of science degree in biology, with minors in chemistry and math. She is now in her second year at the Loyola University Chicago School of Medicine. That is where I met her. Like many States across the country, my home State of Illinois faces a shortage of physicians in the inner cities and in the downstate rural communities. As a DACA student at Loyola medical school, Belsy has promised that after she graduates and becomes a doctor, she will work for several years in underserved areas in my home State of Illinois. Even with her busy medical school schedule, Belsy volunteers as a translator at Loyola medical clinic. She is a member of Viva la Familia, a group which educates families on healthy lifestyles, and she mentors undergraduate students who are interested in medical school. She wrote me a letter and said: DACA means the world to me. It has allowed me to continue the arduous journey of becoming a physician, and without it, I would not be where I am today. All I've ever wanted was the opportunity to prove myself and to further my education so that I can give back to those who need it the most. I am so close to achieving my dreams and finally making a difference in the community, but if DACA is repealed, those dreams might never become reality. If DACA is eliminated, what happens to Belsy? If it is eliminated, she loses her right to legally work in the United States and may have to drop out of medical school, and that alone--the clinical experience in medical school--requires actually working. If she can't work, she can't pay for her education. Aside from State of Illinois financing opportunities, Belsy doesn't qualify for a penny in Federal assistance to go to medical school. It is an extraordinary hardship on these students, but they are so darned determined, they do it anyway. I have been encouraged recently because statements made by President Trump, as well as yesterday his press secretary and earlier in the day his chief of staff, lead me to believe that he understands the seriousness of this problem. Young people like Belsy, thousands of them across the United States, are simply asking for a chance to have a good life, to make this a better nation. We could use her. We could use her medical services and talents as a doctor in my State of Illinois, in the State of Texas, in the State of North Dakota, and virtually every State of the Union. Why would we want to lose a great potential doctor like her? We need her, and we need people like her. I hope my colleagues and President Trump will join me to continue the DACA program. I hope this administration will work with Congress to pass the BRIDGE Act, a bipartisan bill I have introduced with Senator Lindsey Graham to create a transition for those like Belsy, protected by DACA, so that until this Congress--as it should--passes comprehensive immigration reform, we would protect these young people from deportation. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I was listening carefully to the comments made by my colleague from West Virginia. I thank her for coming to the floor and expressing her feelings about the Affordable Care Act. It is truly an article of political faith on the Republican side that we must repeal ObamaCare. We have heard that for 6 years, maybe longer, and each and every time, Democrats have asked: And then what? We have asked Republicans: What would you replace ObamaCare with? Until some of the most recent moments, there was never an answer. Now they are starting to put at least some ideas forward, but repealing ObamaCare and then talking about the possibility of replacement is a disaster. It is an invitation to uncertainty and chaos. We might expect that from a Democratic Senator who voted for the Affordable Care Act, but what I ask my colleagues in the Senate to do is, please go home. Please go back to your States. Do as I did yesterday. I called together the administrators of hospitals in Central Illinois, smalltown rural hospitals and larger hospitals such as Memorial Medical Center in my hometown of Springfield. I asked them, in a nonpressurized setting: What would you do? What is wrong with the Affordable Care Act? How would you change it? What would be the impact of repeal? I knew, and they did as well, that there had been some reports from the Congressional Budget Office. Just last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office told us exactly what repeal without replace would look like: 18 million Americans would lose health insurance in 12 months, 32 million within 10 years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, if they went through with the Republican repeal plan, premiums in the individual health insurance market would increase by 20 to 25 percent the first year and double within 10 years. Despite this, on his first day in office, President Trump signed an Executive order that began to dismantle our health care system. We still haven't seen the President's secret replacement plan, even though he has repeatedly said he wants to replace the law at the same time he repeals it, and we are going to be so proud of what he does. Let's talk about what repeal without replace means in Illinois, now that I have taken it home and asked the people who are actually running the hospitals. With repeal, 90,000 young people in Illinois would be thrown off their parents' health care plans. More than 7 million Illinoisans with health insurance through their employer would once again be subject to discriminatory health insurance practices, like discrimination based on preexisting conditions, annual and lifetime caps on coverage, and discrimination against women. In my State, the Republican repeal plan would have an impact statewide because insurance plans statewide could once again decide not to cover maternity or newborn care, mental health, or substance abuse. Those things are required under the Affordable Care Act. That would be removed with this repeal. In my State, more than 1 million people would lose their health insurance--in fact, 1.2 million, to be exact. According to the Illinois Hospital Association, my State would lose $11 billion to $13 billion in annual economic activity with Republican repeal, translating to a loss of up to 95,000 jobs. Let me talk about those jobs in towns like Taylorville and Pana, IL, near my hometown of Springfield. Those are good-paying jobs. Sometimes they are the best paying jobs in the community. Those would be the jobs lost by the Republican repeal of ObamaCare. For years, we have been hitting back against misguided and misleading claims about the Affordable Care Act. Who is hitting back now? Hospitals. And not just hospitals. Health care providers across the board are pleading with the Republicans: We know you have some campaign promise you want to keep, but keep first your promise to the people you represent to provide quality, affordable health care. Senator Tammy Duckworth and I have sent letters to every single Illinois hospital--over 200 of them--asking about the impact of repealing the Affordable Care Act without enacting a replacement to prevent total chaos. Just yesterday morning, I met with these hospital administrators and heard firsthand. I met at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, IL, representatives from Hopedale Medical Center, Pana Community Hospital, Carlinville Area Hospital, and Warner Hospital and Health Services. Memorial Health System is a nonprofit, community-owned health care organization. When I asked about the impact of repealing the Affordable Care Act, here is what they told me: ``Repeal without replacing the ACA would adversely impact patients' access to care and our hospitals' and health systems' ability to provide services as well as potentially result in job losses.'' They went on to say that Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, with Republican repeal of ObamaCare, could lose over $140 million over the next 6 years, and their uncompensated care costs would ``rise dramatically due to both a rise in charity care and decline in Medicaid coverage and reimbursement.'' They cautioned: We would be forced to cut spending by reducing services, reducing staff, and delaying investment in new technology and facility improvements. . . . Losses of this magnitude with repeal of the [Affordable Care Act] coverage simply cannot be sustained and would adversely impact patients' access to care and our hospitals' and health systems' ability to continue to provide services. This is not the only hospital telling me in our State. I am from downstate Illinois, proud to represent Chicago, but I have represented in the Congress and in the Senate smalltown rural America, communities where the hospital makes a difference. If you don't have a hospital nearby, you could be an hour's drive--if you are lucky--from quality medical care, not to mention the impact that hospital has on the local economy, keeping and attracting new businesses. According to the Illinois Hospital Association, the 15th Congressional District of Illinois stands to lose $470 million under Republican repeal of the Affordable Care Act. That means 3,400 jobs lost in that congressional district in Central Illinois with repeal of affordable care. We talk about good jobs and creating them in this State. The President goes and makes trips, as he should, to try to save American jobs. Yet the first congressional action by the Republican majority this year is to threaten 3,400 jobs in the 15th Congressional District. Washington County Hospital in Nashville, IL, is a 22-bed critical access hospital 50 miles from St. Louis. They provide acute care, surgical service, and gynecological services. When I asked them what Republican repeal of the Affordable Care Act would mean to Washington County Hospital in my downstate area, they said the following: To eliminate [the ACA] would be detrimental to the thousands of people in our county that were previously uninsured either because of part-time work or serious health problems. I guarantee that [repealing the ACA] without a strategic healthcare replacement plan, will result in more downsizing and more staff reductions at Washington County Hospital. Our community cannot continue to lose these good paying jobs and I believe our county residents will continue to move to neighboring states with more favorable job markets, better job security and stable benefits. They ended their response with this warning: I truly fear that many Illinois communities will lose their Critical Access Hospitals--the only sources of healthcare in many of our rural counties and a vital part of infrastructure in our communities. As you know, our rural areas have vulnerable populations of elderly folks that have many chronic healthcare needs and limited ability to travel long distances for emergency care. . . . I sincerely hope that you heed the warnings of our physicians and hospitals--do NOT repeal the ACA in a hurried political rush. Washington County is not a blue county, it is not a Democratic county. It is a county that votes regularly for the other party. It is a conservative-voting populous, representing a lot of farmers and small businesses, and this is their hospital administrator warning the Republicans here in the Senate and the House: Be careful what you do in eliminating the Affordable Care Act. According to the Illinois Hospital Association, the 16th Congressional District in Illinois stands to lose $453 million under Republican repeal of ObamaCare, and that means the loss of 3,300 jobs. SwedishAmerican Hospital in Belvidere, IL, in the northern part of my State, provides health care to Belvidere, Boone, western McHenry, and northern DeKalb Counties. When asked how the hospital has fared since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the administrator of SwedishAmerican said the following: The passage of ACA has afforded our health system with significant benefit related to [compensation] of patients with uncompensated care. . . . SwedishAmerican experienced an average annual increase of $43 million in Medicaid payments, and a $10 million reduction in uncompensated care. When asked about the impact of the Republican repeal of the Affordable Care Act, SwedishAmerican Hospital of Belvidere, IL, said the following: The impact would be significant . . . it would create an unsustainable financial result and we would be forced to make significant reductions in staff and curtail future plans for capital expenditures. Yesterday, at my roundtable in Springfield, I asked some of these hospital administrators: What is wrong with the Affordable Care Act? And they told me. Let me add quickly, I believe--as they do--there are things which need to be changed in that law. It is not perfect, by any means. They talked about the cost of care, and they should. In some areas, premiums have gone up too quickly, and the availability of insurance is not as it should be. I have talked to the health insurance companies, including the big companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield. They have told me specifically that the method of enrollment now under the Affordable Care Act leaves loopholes for people to jump in and out of coverage as they need it. You cannot run a viable insurance risk pool if people are only forced to sign up when they are facing a health care crisis. You have to have healthy people paying premiums to cover those who get sick and need to be compensated. So there are things certainly within the Affordable Care Act which need to be changed, and these administrators told us. So I said: I hear commonly from my Republican friends, if we would just allow people to buy health insurance over State lines, there would be more competition. They laughed. They said: You mean to say, if you heard that there was a health insurance plan in Alabama and you lived in Illinois, that you would buy health insurance there; is that the idea? I said: I suppose. I hear it over and over again, if we could just buy policies across State lines. They laughed. They said: Do you know what is going to happen? Do you know what happens when you buy insurance in Illinois and they tell you the hospitals and doctors who are eligible? You certainly want to have doctors in your home area eligible who may not be eligible under an Alabama plan. That makes sense. Secondly, they said: If people outside the State who are truly sick start buying into Alabama to get lower premiums, the premiums are going to go up. They are going to engineer the risk pool to make sure that it is viable. That is a notion that they rejected out of hand. I asked them about health savings accounts. That is another thing you hear over and over again. If people could just set aside nontaxable income and leave that in a pool of money to pay their copayments and other expenses, then there would be a disincentive to overutilize health care. These administrators said: But people who are living paycheck to paycheck don't have money to set aside--even non-taxable money to set aside at that point--and, ultimately, many of them would put off care they desperately need until they become even sicker. Each one of these approaches has its critics. There are people who think we ought to look at it more carefully. I think that ought to be the bottom line. To my Republican majority, look at this carefully. It is not a matter of keeping a campaign promise; it is a matter of keeping a promise to the people you represent not to leave our health care system in chaos. I hope President Trump and my congressional Republican colleagues are listening to what my constituents back home told me yesterday, things that they will hear themselves if they will go back home and listen to people who run the hospitals in the communities where the voters they represent live. I wish to conclude with a quote on the subject from Dr. William Gorski, president and CEO of SwedishAmerican, who wrote to me. He said: I must also speak forcefully as a former practicing physician. Irrespective of any financial impact of repeal, real lives are at stake here. President Obama's vision recognized a great understanding of the importance of health care access to the quality and outcomes of care. Any diminishment of this access threatens the health and well- being of millions of our fellow citizens. . . . My strong view is that rather than repealing the ACA, we should be looking for ways to refine and expand it. That comes from a doctor. I solicited his view. I don't know him personally, but it represents the feelings of many. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the State Journal-Register article from Springfield, IL, on my meeting yesterday.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Blumenthal) and the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today, I voted against Representative Pompeo's confirmation as Director of the CIA. His changing statements on the use of torture leave me no choice. His written answers to the Senate Intelligence Committee, saying that he will consult with CIA experts as to whether the methods in the U.S. Army Field Manual are sufficient and, if they aren't, work with legal experts and congressional overseers to make changes, are extremely alarming and contradict what he told me personally when we met in my office. Federal law now clearly prohibits torture and ``cruel, inhumane, and degrading'' treatment of detainees and prohibits interrogation techniques not authorized by the Army Field Manual. We cannot go backwards on this seminal issue of human rights. For years, I was highly critical of the CIA's detention and interrogation program and repeatedly questioned its legality. Over 13 years ago, I authored the first legislation to make clear that the cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of detainees is illegal under U.S. law in all circumstances. Today, I stood in opposition of Representative Pompeo's confirmation to be CIA Director because, in order to win the war on terrorism, we must remain true to the principles upon which our country was founded.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Kaine) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I voted in favor of the nomination of Gen. John Kelly to be U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, and I am submitting this statement to explain my vote. This nomination is not a referendum on President Donald Trump's immigration policy. If it were, I would have voted against the nomination. In considering this nomination, the questions are whether General Kelly is unqualified to serve as Homeland Security Secretary and whether his views are too extreme to lead our homeland security and immigration enforcement efforts. In my view, General Kelly easily passes both tests. Gen. John Kelly is clearly qualified to head up the Homeland Security Department. He served honorably in the U.S. Marine Corps for more than four decades, first as an enlistee and later as an officer, culminating in his role as commander of U.S. Southern Command. As SOUTHCOM commander, Kelly oversaw a variety of operations in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America from headquarters in Miami. General Kelly knows better than most what is at stake in our efforts to protect our Nation from harm. He served three tours in Iraq, and in 2010, his son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, 29, was killed in southern Afghanistan while leading his platoon on a combat patrol when he stepped on a concealed bomb. He is the highest ranking military officer to lose a child in combat in Afghanistan or Iraq. I am sure that I will disagree with General Kelly on some occasions, but he does not have a track record of extreme statements on immigration or the other issues that will be under his jurisdiction as Homeland Security Secretary. I know that some of my Democratic colleagues voted against General Kelly's nomination because he refused to publicly commit to keeping the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals--DACA--program in place and to protecting DACA recipients from deportations. Reasonable people can disagree, and I respect my colleagues who are voting against General Kelly's nomination, but I don't believe this justifies opposing this nomination. There is no one in the Senate who is more committed than I to protecting the DACA program and no one who has worked harder to protect the young immigrants who are eligible for this program. Seven years ago, I was the first Member of Congress to ask President Obama to establish the DACA program. DACA is based on the DREAM Act, legislation I first introduced 16 years ago that would give undocumented students who grew up in this country a chance to earn their citizenship. The young people who are eligible for DACA and the DREAM Act are known as DREAMers. Over the years, I have met hundreds of DREAMers and I have come to the floor more than 100 times to tell these DREAMers' stories, which make the case for DACA and the DREAM Act better than I ever could. Last week, General Kelly came to my office to meet with me. We spent most of our time discussing DACA and the DREAMers. General Kelly promised me that, if he was confirmed, he would be a part of the discussions about the future of DACA. He said that he felt strongly that DREAMers should be protected from deportation and that he would fight for that view. General Kelly also committed that he would come to Chicago with me to meet with a group of DREAMers and to visit an immigration detention center, so that he would understand the human impact of the laws he will be enforcing. Based on these assurances, I am pleased to be able to support General Kelly's nomination. But let me be clear. If General Kelly supports an effort by the new administration to rescind DACA or deport DREAMers, I will fight him tooth and nail. I congratulate General Kelly on his confirmation, and I look forward to working with him on the critical issues under his jurisdiction, especially the future of DACA and the DREAMers.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I listened carefully to the statement by the Republican leader on the floor, and I am hoping we can reach some agreement later today as to the nominations to be considered this day and very quickly next week. I will, for the record, make it clear that the seven nominees who moved through on the first day of the Obama administration were people who had their ethics statements filed on time, had filed all the legally required papers on time for review. Unfortunately, that is not the case for all of the nominees by the new Trump administration. Some of them bring to this nomination some extraordinarily challenging financial data, and because of their companies, because of their lifestyles, because of their wealth, it takes longer to go through these documents than it does for people of modest means. When we proposed, by the Obama administration, Penny Pritzker, of Chicago, to serve as Secretary of Commerce, it took 6 months to clear the paperwork on her financial background. The more complex the financial data, the more difficult and challenging it is for the committees of the Senate to do their work and to do it properly. We want to make certain we don't cut any corners. We don't want to create any advantage for any single nominee. They have to be held to the same standard as the nominees under the Obama administration. I am hoping we can move on it with dispatch on some of these nominees, and I don't quarrel with the Republican leader's premise that there are some noncontroversial nominees who would be easier to handle than others. Let me quickly add, for those who have forgotten the record of the Republicans in the Senate when it comes to delaying nominations, exhibit A will continue to be the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. For the first time in the history of the United States of America, the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate refused a hearing and a vote on a nominee to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. That went on for the entire duration of the Obama Presidency. Some 11 months, that position on the highest Court in the land remained vacant because of the specific political strategy of the Republican leader on the other side. He said: We will keep this open in the hopes that a Republican President will be able to fill it. He had a grin and a smile and, I guess, a feeling of accomplishment on election day when a Republican was elected President. That vacancy continued for political reasons, regardless of the fact that it created at least a hardship and some confusion on the highest Court of the land. It went on for 10, 11 months, and it continues to this day. I might also remind him that the nomination of Loretta Lynch for the highest law enforcement position in America sat on that Senate calendar for months, with no objection stated by any Member on the other side. They refused to call her name and allow a vote for the Attorney General of the United States of America. Similarly, an Assistant Secretary of the Department of Treasury, a key position to deal with terrorism financing, was held on that calendar, I believe, for a year or more with no controversy. They had the power to do it, and they did it. So this notion that we slowed things down really negates and ignores the reality of the record before us. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. The Democratic side yields back all time.

Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, there were 2 minutes extended to each side, if I am not mistaken.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I only want to ask my friend from North Carolina, the chairman of the committee, two questions. Is it traditional for the Senate Intelligence Committee that you chair to report out a nominee like Congressman Pompeo, and have you reported him out of your committee to the floor?

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today I want to take a few moments to acknowledge Illinois State Senator--and my friend--John Sullivan. John is one of the best and most decent men in politics--and there is no stronger advocate for the people of western Illinois. After all, they are John's lifelong friends and family. He has been living and farming there his entire life. And after 14 years in the Illinois Senate, John retired and returned to the family business. John Sullivan grew up on his family farm in Macomb, Nauvoo, and Hamilton. He spent his summers taking care of livestock and baling hay. In 1981, John graduated from Quincy College--known today as Quincy University--with a degree in history. After college, he went to auction school and obtained his real estate license. He sold insurance before taking a job in Rushville with Production Credit Association. He didn't know anyone in Rushville--a town of just over 3,000 people--but he joined the local parish and quickly made friends. As fate would have it, Joan Merna moved to town and joined the same parish. Their friends decided to introduce them, and the rest is history. Today, John and Joan have been married for more than 33 years. And if you talk to their friends, they will tell you their marriage was one of the best things that happened to Rushville. They are a great team and have a wonderful family In 1986, John joined the family real estate and auction business, which his children and siblings still run today. Nearly 20 years later, he sat down with Joan at the kitchen table and decided to run for office. It was something he always wanted to do--and 2002 was as good a time as any. Before John, no one thought a Democrat could be elected Senator in western Illinois. For years, good candidates tried and failed. But John won office the old-fashioned way--by knocking on doors, walking in parades, and listening to people. He also had a secret weapon--six brothers and four sisters. Republicans said it was like running against the Walton family. And a couple of his brothers look just like John. The resemblance was so great that, during that first campaign, people sometimes thought John was everywhere all at once. They didn't realize that sometimes they were seeing one of the Sullivan brothers. John learned fast and rose in just a few years from a political novice to a leader of the Democratic Party in the Illinois Senate. If you want to see John's legacy, you can look at the extensions of Route 336 and Route 67--main arteries that created hundreds of new jobs--and will continue to bring new jobs to the region long after we are gone. He has secured more than $820 million for Western Illinois University in Macomb--and over $16 million to keep the Quincy Veterans Home Guest House open. But the greatest part of John's legacy is the civility, reason, and dignity he has brought to his work--qualities that are needed in public service today. John understands that getting things done involves finding middle ground and getting along with people. Progress is a long march. It demands patience and perseverance. And sometimes, it requires the wisdom and humility to compromise, a lesson John learned from his parents, growing up as one of 11 children. When fights broke out, his parents didn't get involved, they simply said: ``Figure it out and just get along.'' And they did. John took the same approach to governance and built his reputation as someone who is always willing to listen to the other side to see if there is a way to move forward together. He knows that principled compromise isn't capitulation, but how democracy is supposed to work. He will be sorely missed in the Illinois Senate. Despite his many achievements, his proudest accomplishment is his family. John and Joan still live on their family farm in Rushville where they raised four children. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Emily. And let me tell you, Emily inherited some good public service genes--I am indebted to John and Joan for letting her work in my Washington office. I will close with this. On the wall in John's Senate office was a photograph of his dad, along with the advice he gave him. He told John: ``Don't forget the little guy.'' Throughout his career, he has never forgotten the little guys--family farmers, small business owners, and hard-working people wondering how they will send their children to college or retire with dignity. John has stood with them and been their champion. Now, as he enters the next chapter in his life, I want to wish him and Joan many years of happiness and the best of luck with the family business and family farm.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me start by commending my colleagues from Louisiana and Maine. I really believe their approach to the Affordable Care Act is much more reasonable than what we have heard in the past from some. Senator Collins just went through a litany of options of repeal and run or repeal and replace 2 years from now. None of those are good options, and there is a reason why there is a backlash against this repeal effort across the country now, even among many Republicans as they consider the chaos that would be created by simply repealing it. I don't know the merits of the proposal they brought before us. I can tell you, having been through the debate on the Affordable Care Act, which went on for years, that there are many complex questions that need to be addressed to satisfy all of us that we are doing the best we can do to give affordable, quality health care to more and more people across the United States. The Congressional Budget Office just put out its report on what would happen if we just repealed, and it is a disaster. The number of people who are uninsured would increase by 18 million in the first new year following enactment of a repeal bill. Later, after the elimination of the ACA's expansion of Medicaid eligibility and subsidies for insurance purchased through the ACA, that number will increase to 27 million more uninsured and then to 32 million in 2026. Disastrous. Premiums in the nongroup market--and those are folks who don't work for companies that provide health insurance--premiums in the nongroup market, with just repeal, would increase by 20 to 25 percent in the first year and then reach 50 percent in the year following the elimination of the Medicaid expansion and would double by 2026. So fewer people would have insurance, and those who do would pay dramatically more. So we shouldn't take this as just a matter of being able to have a bragging right about repeal. If we are serious about legislating, we should be looking at the options to find out how to make the Affordable Care Act better or how to approach it in a different manner. I commend my colleagues on the Republican side. Here is what it comes down to: If a handful of Republican Senators will say to the leadership: We are not going to vote to repeal until we have a replacement, then we can have a constructive conversation. But this notion of repealing the Affordable Care Act and then getting around to replacing it at some later time is irresponsible, will create chaos, and really says to the American people: We are no longer committed to making sure your family has the peace of mind of good health insurance. So I thank them for the efforts they have put into this, and I look forward to working with them.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, yesterday I went to the White House. It was a great celebration of the World Series champion Chicago Cubs being recognized in the White House by our President from Illinois, Barack Obama. Of course, he is a White Sox fan, and he didn't apologize or change his stripes, but it was a great day of celebration. During the course of it, he said it was his last public event in the White House, and I came to realize that we are only days away from a new President and President Obama leaving. I think back to a memorable moment in my life which most people wouldn't have remembered, but I will never forget. It was July 27, 2004. The place was Boston, MA. At the last minute, I was called on to introduce a friend of mine, a skinny lawyer and State senator from Illinois who was about to deliver the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. His name was Barack Obama. I had known him for several years. I knew he was an extraordinarily gifted politician, and I knew he was a very good person. I had seen him inspire many audiences back home, including some in the most unlikely places. I once saw him hold spellbound a group of blue-collar workers and farmers in Carroll, IL--a town which in the 1960s was completely devastated by racial tension and the presence of a local branch of the Ku Klux Klan--but even I was not prepared for the powerfully moving speech Barack Obama gave after I introduced him in Boston. It has been quoted in the Times. He told us: There is not a liberal America and a conservative America-- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America--there's the United States of America. He went on to say: The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red States and blue States; red States for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue States, and we don't like Federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red States. We coach Little League in the blue States, and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. He only spoke for 17 minutes at that Boston convention--17 minutes-- and in that time, he gave voice to what another tall, lanky lawyer from Illinois once called ``the better angels of our nature.'' He touched a longing deep within the hearts of millions of Americans who wanted to believe in those better angels, who wanted to believe in what Barack Obama called ``the audacity of hope,'' the audacity to believe that America, which had achieved so many miracles, was capable of even greater goodness. People inside the convention hall and millions outside who heard that speech all had the same reaction: I have seen America's future. I remember going back to Illinois a few days after that convention and campaigning with Barack as he was running for the U.S. Senate. He went to the most unlikely downstate towns--Calumet, IL; Freeport, IL. Huge crowds were coming in from adjoining States because they had seen him give that speech at the Democratic Convention. I knew there was something special about him. His grandmother called him after he gave the speech. She gave him some advice. ``You did well,'' she said. ``I just kind of worry about you. I hope you keep your head on straight.'' Good advice for all of us. A little over 4 years later, my friend--then the U.S. Senator from Illinois--was elected the 44th President. On inauguration day 2009, 2 million Americans stood shoulder to shoulder outside on the Mall near the Capitol dome and cheered as the son of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas placed his hand on the family Bible of Abraham Lincoln and swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. For the last 8 years, President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, their daughters Malia and Sasha, and First Grandmother Marian Robinson have made their home in the White House. What an irony--they were living in a house originally built by slaves. The audacity of hope. The awe-inspiring strength of America to continually seek and stretch to be that ``more perfect Union.'' Part of the miracle of America is also the peaceful transition of power from one President to the next. As we prepare for the transition to a new President, we would do well to look back on the historic Presidency of Barack Obama. He was elected and reelected President both times convincingly. His grandmother would be proud that he has not only kept his head on straight, he has held his head high, kept his priorities straight even amidst often unprecedented, unyielding opposition and searingly personal attacks. As First Lady Michelle Obama told us, the motto for the entire Obama family has been ``When they go low, we go high.'' We have seen that grace in them time and time again. President Obama is a profoundly good and decent man who has served America with dignity and integrity. He has been thoughtful, calm, and resolute--never rash or impulsive. He is a disciplined leader who has grappled honestly with complex challenges facing America and the world, and he has delivered solutions that improved lives. In his farewell speech in Chicago, President Obama quoted the fictional hero Atticus Finch, reminding us: ``You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.'' Putting himself in another person's shoes, seeing life through another person's eyes, and finding shared hopes is a lifelong habit and a special gift of this President. He has tried his level best to heal and unite our divided Nation. His accomplishments are significant, and history will record many of them as profound. He was first elected at a time when America badly needed hope. President Obama inherited--inherited--the greatest financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression. The country had lost more than 2 million jobs in the previous 4 months before he was sworn in. By inauguration day, the country's top four banks had lost half their value in less than a year. There was an urgent danger that not only the American economy would collapse, but the economy of the Western world was teetering in the balance. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, called the stimulus bill, saved the U.S. and global economy from a major crash and helped create the conditions for recovery. Unemployment today is at 4.9 percent. America has just seen the longest streak of private job creation in the Nation's history. To borrow a phrase, thanks, Obama. Our friends across the aisle said: Let America's auto industry die. The Obama administration said: No way. They decided to place their bets on American manufacturing and workers instead. The Center for Automotive Research estimates that the special bankruptcy process for General Motors and Chrysler saved at least 1.5 million American jobs. Detroit has posted record profits for 7 years in a row. Barack Obama would not give up on American autoworkers or American auto companies, and it paid off. Predatory lending and other systemic abuses were the cancer at the heart of the great financial meltdown of 2008 and 2009.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. DURBIN. Thank you, Mr. President. Under this President, Congress passed the most comprehensive overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression, protecting consumers and taxpayers. President Obama inherited a Federal budget hemorrhaging red ink. Under his watch, the budget deficit has fallen $1 trillion, despite record investments in education, green energy, broadband, high-speed rail, medical research, and other high-return priorities. He brought us the Affordable Care Act. I am not going to dwell on it because I spoke on it before when the other Senators were on the floor. There was a skit on ``Saturday Night Live'' last week that talked about, would the Republicans be happy if we banned the word ``ObamaCare''? Can we stick with the Affordable Care Act since it is helping so many people? Sometimes we think that is what this is all about: We have to get rid of it because it has his name on it. Well, we shouldn't. We should reflect on the good that it has done and make sure we do nothing less in the future. Health insurance costs are going down at the fastest rate in 50 years. Medicare gets an additional projected 10 years of solvency because of the Affordable Care Act. Numerous Republican Governors, including Vice President-Elect Mike Pence, have used Medicaid expansion of ObamaCare to reduce the uninsured in their States. On the issue of climate, I will defer to my friend from Rhode Island, who has stepped off of the floor for a moment, but when it comes to this, President Obama has taken climate change seriously. He does not view it as an unproven theory or a Chinese-authored hoax; he believes it is a fact, and so do I. It is a threat to the existence of humanity, and we are running out of time to prevent a climate catastrophe. Americans built on the historic breakthrough at the 2015 U.N. summit on climate change in Paris. When that summit ended, 195 countries joined the United States and agreed to lower greenhouse gas emissions. The President once told a group of young people: ``I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that is beyond fixing.'' We have a safer and more secure America. This President brought troops home--massive numbers of troops--who were dispatched around the world in harm's way. He understands we can't fix all the world's problems. We learned that the hard way. He banned the use of torture. We have seen the withdrawal of the majority of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has been decimated, Osama bin Laden is history, and ISIS is on the run. Under President Obama, Americans led the successful global effort to conquer an Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and he helped preserve a democratic Ukraine, despite the aggression of Vladimir Putin of Russia. He has restored relations with Cuba after 50 years of a failed policy. The President and John Kerry had enormous diplomatic success with the Iran agreement to protect our friend and ally Israel and many other states in the Middle East. I want to close by saying that his efforts in two areas are personal to me. Criminal justice reform, this President is determined to make sure our sentencing laws are just. There are things going on now that are just indefensible. We have been jailing people and imprisoning them for drug crimes for decades--unacceptable. The President is determined to get this done. We did part of it. I hope we can do more. Finally, let me just say that this President, more than any, has really shown a caring for the DREAMers, a bill I introduced 16 years ago, so that those who came to the United States as children, through no fault of their own undocumented, would get a chance. That was it. He put together DACA, an Executive order which gave them that chance. We have to work now to protect these bright, young people. I am so encouraged that Speaker Paul Ryan, at the CNN town meeting last week, acknowledged this and said he was willing to work to make sure we protected them. Barack Obama was the one who gave them this opportunity, and now it is up to us to follow through and give them a fair shake in life. Mr. President, to reiterate, the affordable Care and Patient Protection Act that our colleagues across the aisle are now rushing headlong to repeal--without anything to replace it--represents the greatest advance in economic fairness and security for most Americans since at least the creation of Medicare 50 years ago. ObamaCare has made the health coverage of all insured Americans more secure and more valuable by: outlawing discrimination based on pre- existing conditions; eliminating costs for checkups, mammograms and many other preventive measures; and allowing young people to stay on their parent's policies until age 26--among other new protections. It has reduced the ranks of uninsured Americans by 20 million, and it has saved money. That's not a matter of opinion, it's a fact. According to an analysis by the respected, nonpartisan Brookings Institution, health insurance exchange premiums are 44 percent lower today than they would have been without ObamaCare. Health insurance costs are going down at the fastest rate in 50 years. Numerous Republican Governors--including Vice President-Elect Mike Pence--have used the Medicaid expansion in ObamaCare to reduce the uninsured in their States. That's a good thing. But now President-Elect Trump and our Republican colleagues tell us that they want to repeal ObamaCare, cancel those patient protections, go back to the days when insurance companies write all the rules, and leave 20 million Americans without insurance. They say they will come up ``fairly easily'' with something better than ObamaCare. I say to my friends: If it were easy, it would have happened already. Work with us to fix the things that can be improved, not kill it. Lives are at stake. President Obama understands that climate change is not an unproven theory or a Chinese-authored hoax, it is a fact. It is a threat to the very existence of humanity and we are running out of time to prevent a climate catastrophe. Under Barack Obama, America went from being the chronic spoiler to being a world leader in global climate change negotiations. We reached a sweeping bilateral climate pact with China to cut greenhouse gas emissions--something critics said could never happen. American built on that historic breakthrough at the 2015 U.N. summit on climate change in Paris. When the summit ended, 195 countries had agreed to lower greenhouse-gas emissions. The President once told a group of young people: ``I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that's beyond fixing.'' He has done his part to keep that commitment. We should build on his progress, not reverse it. The cornerstone of President Obama's foreign policy is a recognition that America remains the world's one indispensable nation and that we, and the world, are safer when America chooses engagement over either isolation or unilateralism. He also understands that America cannot fix all of the world's problems. We have to choose wisely, based on our ideals, our priorities and our limits. He banned the use of torture. He has seen the withdrawal of the majority of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has been decimated, ISIS is on the run, and Osama Bin Laden is dead. Under President Obama, America led the successful global effort to contain and conquer an Ebola epidemic in West Africa. And we helped preserve a democratic Ukraine against Russian aggression. President Obama announced plans to restore normal relations with Cuba--reversing 50 years of a failed policy that done at least as much harm to America's relations with our neighbors in this hemisphere as it had done to depose the Castro regime. The President and Secretary of State John Kerry made a momentous diplomatic success in negotiating an agreement to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, protecting our ally Israel and many nations across the Mideast. The Iran nuclear deal holds the promise of defusing a ticking time bomb. If Iran fails to live up to that promise, we will know quickly and we will take the steps to stop them. I want to touch briefly on two other issues that I have worked on very closely and to which I am deeply committed. The first is the growing, bipartisan movement to end America's era of overincarceration. America has 5 percent of the world's population--and nearly 25 percent of the world's prisoners. That ignominious fact is largely the result of inflexible antidrug laws that disproportionately punish people of color, especially poor people of color. In 2010, President Obama signed a law that I introduced with Senator Sessions called the Fair Sentencing Act. It replaced a Federal law that demanded dramatically harsher sentences for convictions involving crack cocaine than powder cocaine. I have worked with Democrats and some brave Republican colleagues for a few years to further reform Federal sentencing--to allow Federal judges some discretion in nonviolent drug cases, and eliminate ``three strikes and you're out law'' and other overly harsh and inflexible laws that are overly harsh and hugely expensive to enforce. In the absence of action from us, President Obama has used his powers to commute the sentences of more than 1,000 people--more than 50 times the number of people whose sentences were commuted by President George W. Bush and more than the past 11 Presidents combined. We can't have it both ways. If we don't want President's to use their lawful Executive authority to correct injustices, we need to correct those injustices ourselves. I hope we will do so in this new Congress. Finally, we must--we must--fix America's broken immigration system. And let's start by assuring DREAMers--those young people who were brought to this country as children and who are undocumented through no fault of their own--that we will not deport them from the only nation they have ever called home. I have come to this floor dozens of times to tell you their stories. They are scholars, American soldiers, researchers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, clergy members. DACA--the President's Executive order--allows them to stay in this country temporarily while Congress works to pass a comprehensive immigration reform plan that meets the needs of our economy, and honors our values and our unique and powerful heritage as a nation of immigrants. More than 750,000 DREAMers put their trust in our Government and came forward to register under DACA. What will happen to them if--as many fear--DACA is not extended? Immigrants are not a threat to America. Immigrants are America. The sooner we acknowledge that fact and align our laws with it, the better we will be. Mr. President, I could go on for quite some time about what President Obama, Vice President Biden, and their administration have meant for America, but time precludes that so I will close with these last thoughts. In that historic speech he delivered in Boston 12 years ago, President Obama told us that, in his father's native tongue, the name ``Barack'' means ``blessing.'' President Obama leaves office now as the most popular politician in America, and assured of his place in history. I believe that America has been fortunate--even blessed--by his service and sacrifice as our President. President Obama has also warned us that ``History travels not only forwards; history can travel backwards, history can travel sideways.'' I hope that we can all pledge, regardless of party, to keep history moving forward.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in 8 days, just a short distance from this Senate Chamber, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. On that date, January 20, 2017, the fate of more than 750,000 young American immigrants will hang in the balance. They will be waiting to learn if they have a place in America's future or whether they will lose their legal status to stay in the United States. For many of them, it is a period of the highest anxiety, wondering what is going to happen next. It was 7 years ago that I sent a letter to President Obama. I had introduced the DREAM Act, which said that if you were brought to America as a child, an infant, or an adolescent, lived here all your life, went to school and did well, and had no criminal record of any consequences, we would give you a chance to stay. Over a period of time, you would be able to become legal in America--a citizen in America. Sixteen years ago, I introduced it, and we passed it once in the Senate, once in the House, and never, ever made it the law of the land. I wrote to President Obama, with Senator Dick Lugar, Republican of Indiana, and said: Find some way, if you can, as President, to protect these young DREAMers, as we call them. And he did. It is called DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. What it basically said is that if you qualify under the DREAM Act, you could pay a filing fee of almost $500, go through a criminal background check and interview, and, then, if you qualify, you will be given a 2-year temporary protection from deportation and the ability to work. So far, over 750,000 young people have come forward. They have made such a difference in their own lives, in the lives of their families, and even in our country. I have come over 100 times to tell their stories, and I will tell another one today. But I want to also announce that today we have a significant bipartisan breakthrough for this Congress: Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and I have introduced the BRIDGE Act. The BRIDGE Act, which has bipartisan sponsorship, would say that even if we eliminated President Obama's Executive order, we would protect these young people from deportation and allow them to continue to work and study. I want to thank Senator Graham. He has been a terrific partner. This is an issue which weighs heavily on my mind and conscience. We believe this is a reasonable way to extend this protection and to say to Congress in the meantime: Get to work. Roll up your sleeves. Pass a comprehensive immigration bill. Work with the new President, work with both sides, Democrats and Republicans, and come up with an approach. I thank Senator Graham for joining me in the introduction of this BRIDGE Act. For the young people across America, I can tell you, I understand your fears. I understand your anxiety. There are many of us who are dedicated to making certain that this ends well for you and for your family. There are pretty amazing young people who are in that category I have addressed. One of them is Jose Espinoza. At the age of 2, Jose Espinoza was brought here from Mexico. He grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago and became an excellent student. In high school, he was a member of the National Honor Society, and he graduated in the top 3 percent of his class. He was elected to the student council every year in high school, the treasurer, vice president, editor of the high school yearbook, mentored and taught physical education to a freshman class of 40 students. He was also captain of the varsity track and field team and a member of the soccer team and the school orchestra. In his spare time, if there was any, Jose volunteered with the United Way, and as a result of his academic record and volunteer service, he received a college scholarship from the United Way. Incidentally, DREAMers--undocumented--don't qualify for any Federal assistance for their education, so they have to find it in other places. His work with the United Way helped to pay his way at the college. He went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and received multiple academic awards and continued his volunteer service with Alpha Phi Omega, a national service fraternity. He received the Distinguished Service Key, the fraternity's highest award. He graduated with a bachelor of science in kinesiology and then went on to earn a master's degree in public health at the University of Illinois. In his last semester of graduate school, President Obama announced the DACA Program, which I described earlier. He applied, signed up, and became part of that DACA Program. What is he doing today with his master's degree, with his opportunity to work in fields of public health and such? He signed up for Teach For America. We know Teach For America is a national nonprofit organization that places talented recent college graduates in urban and rural schools that have a shortage of teachers. Jose is currently a high school physics and public health teacher in the city of Chicago. He wrote me a letter, and he said: DACA changed my life in more ways than I can ever explain. It has given me the power to help others, the freedom to travel, and the right to legally work without fear of deportation. Simply put, without DACA, I wouldn't exist for my students and my community. If DACA is eliminated, what will happen to Jose? The day after DACA, he won't be able to teach. He could be deported back to Mexico, where he hasn't lived since he was a 2-year-old toddler. That would be a tragedy, not just for Jose and his family but for this Nation. This is a fine young man who, against great odds, undocumented, has written this amazing record in his young life. He is a giving person. He could be making a lot more money than his pay with Teach For America in an inner city school. Do we need Jose Espinoza in America's future? I think we do. That is why I am happy that this BRIDGE Act would give him a chance and Congress a chance to address this issue of DREAMers. I hope President- Elect Trump will understand this and continue the DACA Program. If he decides to end the DACA Program, I hope his administration will work closely and rapidly with Congress to pass the BRIDGE Act into law. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

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

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, apparently a number of our colleagues here are having second thoughts about the strategy on the floor. We have before us a budget resolution. It is setting the stage for a budget process called reconciliation. To put it in layman's terms, we are going to be moving from this budget resolution vote to a vote at a time to be announced later, possibly in the next 2 weeks, to repeal ObamaCare. There has been a lot of speculation about what the impact will be if we don't replace the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, with something very quickly--for obvious reasons. We have seen 30 million Americans who now have health insurance because of the creation of the Affordable Care Act. We have changed health insurance policies across the United States so that if you have someone in your family with a preexisting condition, you can't be discriminated against when you buy insurance. Back in the old days, before ObamaCare became the law of the land, health insurance companies could just refuse to insure your family or charge you a premium that was beyond reach. We also eliminated the caps that were built in--the limits that were built into these health insurance policies. People were buying policies which covered up to $100,000 in expenses. Then, God forbid, there is a diagnosis of cancer or some serious illness, and $100,000 evaporates over a weekend. So those limits are no longer allowed in health insurance policies. We said women should be treated the same as men when it comes to premiums. We also went on to say that, when it comes to these health insurance companies, they have to be focused on keeping premium costs in control, and they have to justify any profits that go way beyond the reasonable. Then we said: If you are a mother or father with a son or daughter coming out of college and they are looking for a job, they are doing an internship, and they don't have health insurance, they can stay on your family policy until age 26. That is pretty important for a lot of families. My family has been through that with our kids. To know and have peace of mind that your daughter or son can continue to be covered by your family plan--these things are all built into the Affordable Care Act. Now, simply repealing that, even saying it will happen at a later date, throws into question, if not chaos, our health care system in America. A lot of people are finally thinking about that. It is not just a protest vote about a President who is going to be leaving office in 9 days. It is a life-and-death decision for health care for millions of Americans. Now many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are starting to wake up to that reality. Senator Cotton of Arkansas said: ``It would not be the right path for us to repeal ObamaCare without laying out a path forward.'' Yesterday, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that Republicans want to repeal ObamaCare ``concurrently'' with a replacement--``concurrently.'' Senator Lamar Alexander, my friend and colleague from Tennessee, who chairs the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, responded by saying: ``To me, `simultaneously' and `concurrently' mean ObamaCare should be finally repealed only when there are concrete, practical reforms in place that give Americans access to truly affordable health care''--Senator Alexander. Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House, said: ``I don't think Republicans want to leave 23 million people out there worried that they are going to lose their insurance.'' So you go through the long list of Republican dissenters to this notion of repeal and we will get back to you later: Senators Corker, Portman, Collins, Cassidy, Murkowski. They have come up with an amendment to this budget resolution, and they have said: Let's postpone this whole effort until we have had time to put some work into it and come up with an alternative to answer some of the basic questions about what a new version of the Affordable Care Act would look like. But the problem with that approach is that they have had 7 years--7 years--to prepare something, and they have nothing. So what are we going to do in the meantime? We did the responsible thing, I hope. Let's find a way to make the Affordable Care Act even stronger, better, fairer. Sign me up. Make it a bipartisan effort. Don't repeal it. Sit down and rewrite it in a way that is fair and makes it stronger and better. The basic things we want to make sure of are that people can have the same basic protection if they wish it in health insurance. Ensure that no one loses their current benefits, whether it is maternity care, mental health care, or substance abuse treatment, which is now required to be covered by health insurance plans. Ensure that no one's premiums or out-of-pocket expenses get out of line. Protect people with preexisting conditions and don't just simply shift the cost to States-- my State included--that could not afford to take this on. Keep drug prices down for seniors. You see, that is a part I did not mention. Medicare is affected by the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicare, the 60 million Americans under Medicare used to have something called a doughnut hole. It was on odd invention when this bill was written into law. It said that Medicare for seniors would cover the front end of their prescription costs, if they are high, and, then, they have to take the middle part out of their savings, and, then, late in the year, Medicare kicked back in. It was costing seniors $1,000, $2,000 a year. We eliminated it with the Affordable Care Act. Now, if you repeal that, what happens to seniors and their prescription drug costs? Those are legitimate questions which need to be answered before we go blindly into repealing the Affordable Care Act. Let's work together--Democrats and Republicans--to make this a better law. I have said it before and I will say it again. The only perfect law that I am aware of was carried down a mountain by ``Senator Moses'' on clay tablets. The rest of the efforts that we put into this are always subject to review, amendment, and improvement. The Affordable Care Act I would put in that category. If there is a good-faith effort on the Republican side to join with Democrats, I want to be part of it. I also want to salute my colleague, Senator Debbie Stabenow, who will be on the floor in a couple of hours to talk about the mental health protections and substance abuse treatment protections in the Affordable Care Act. We used to have this debate on the Senate floor about whether health insurance policies should cover mental illness. We debated that. For the longest time, they did not. People with those problems and challenges have long-term care, in some cases. But because of the bipartisan effort of Mr. Paul Wellstone, the late Senator from Minnesota, and Mr. Pete Domenici, the retired Senator from New Mexico--Democrat and Republican--we have included it in there. Senator Stabenow wants to make sure that whatever we write in the future is going to cover mental illness and substance abuse treatment. Facing mental illness challenges across America, facing an opioid and heroin epidemic, we can do no less. Let me tell you a story about Lori Myers in Freeport, IL. She sent me a letter. Here is what she said: I am writing to ask you to fight to preserve the ACA . . . it has literally saved our daughter Brianne. Brianne has been insured through the ACA since its inception. . . . She has multiple health concerns and her prescriptions are insanely expensive without insurance. Lori writes: It is imperative that she continue to have health coverage in order to remain a functioning and productive adult. . . . She has excellent policies purchased through the Marketplace--with BlueCross BlueShield, and she receives a subsidy to assist with cost. The increase in premium this year was offset by an increase in the subsidy. She is actually paying $20-$30 less for her policy this year than she did last year for basically the same coverage. Ms. Myers says: The election of our incoming President and the Republican- controlled Congress has our family in a panic mode. Paul Ryan and company want to take away programs that are assisting people: like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and healthcare. She makes this final plea: I am asking you, as our elected official, to stand strong against any attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and these other extremely vital programs. What does it mean for seniors--the Affordable Care Act? Well, the first thing it did was to start to contain the growth in health care costs. That had a dramatic impact on Medicare and its future. Because of the Affordable Care Act and the changes it includes, which give to seniors, for example, free preventive health exams and that sort of thing, and because of prescription drugs now being covered so it does not come out of pocket for many seniors--because of these changes and others--Medicare is now financially solvent through 2028. ObamaCare, or the Affordable Care Act, added 10 years of solvency to Medicare. That is critically important. What happens when they repeal it? Because we slowed the pace of Medicare costs, seniors are now paying $700 less each year in premiums and cost sharing, on average. Premiums are down, and Medicare solvency is up. We want to repeal that? Our health care system now prohibits insurers from charging seniors much higher premiums simply because of age. Seniors were often charged five times what younger people paid for health insurance--banned by the Affordable Care Act. ObamaCare, as I mentioned earlier, closed this doughnut hole, saving 11 million seniors an average of $2,127 on their prescription drugs. They want to repeal that? Thanks to ObamaCare, more than 30 States have expanded their Medicaid Program. People often forget that the vast majority of money spent on Medicaid is for seniors who are in an institutional or at-home-by- themselves setting. So when you cut Medicaid--and people say that it must be the poor unemployed; it is--but the largest amount of money is going to seniors--mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. The Affordable Care Act has been good for kids across America. Between 2013 and 2015 we saw the largest decline of children uninsured in our Nation's modern history. Today, more than 95 percent of kids in America are insured. We ought to be proud of that. In Illinois, there is a 40-percent decline in the number of children uninsured. Under our current health care system, children can now stay on their parents' plans till age 26, as I mentioned. The number of young adults ages 19 to 25 without health insurance has declined by over 50 percent since we passed this bill. In Illinois, more than 90,000 young people have signed up. Today, insurance companies are required to cover important health care for children free of charge--vaccinations, vision checks, lead poison screening. Of course, we ended the preexisting condition provisions. The Republicans want to repeal this. What will they replace that with to protect children and seniors? When it comes to women, because of ObamaCare, the uninsured rate for adult women in America has declined by 44 percent. Today, women can no longer be charged more than men simply because of their gender. Our health care system now prohibits insurers from discriminating based on preexisting conditions. There was a time, literally, when health insurance companies said being a woman is a preexisting condition. We are going to charge you more. Our health care system now ensures that women can get free preventive health services. Before ObamaCare, 62 percent of individual health plans did not cover maternity or newborn care. Today, it is a requirement. So when you talk about cutting the cost of health insurance and that we will just take off some of these benefits, understand what you are doing. If you take the basic maternity care out of a health insurance plan, and it is not included and it is needed, that family is going to have to bear that expense. If they can't pay the bill--some won't be able to--who is going to pay for it? The hospital will deliver the baby and send the mother and baby home happy and healthy, I hope. But the cost will be passed on to everyone else who shows up at that hospital with a health insurance plan. That was the old days. Do the Republicans want to return to that? In the area of behavioral health, as I mentioned earlier, thanks to ObamaCare, health insurance plans now cover mental health and substance abuse disorders. The law extended protections under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act to 60 million Americans in private health plans. This means that insurers can no longer discriminate against individuals with mental illness or addiction. Our health care system now prohibits insurers from discriminating based on preexisting conditions, including the 44 million Americans with some history of mental illness and 20 million with a substance abuse disorder. When you repeal this, as the Republicans plan on doing, what will they replace it with? What will they say to the families who have someone with a mental illness or someone suffering from a drug addiction? Substance abuse and mental health disorders often present in young adulthood, and that is why the provision that families can keep their kids on their plan is at the right time and the right place for many young people. There is a long list of things that were done by the Affordable Care Act. It is one thing to campaign and say: We will repeal it. People cheer. And then you ask yourselves: What are you going to say, as some of the Republican leaders have said, to the people who are going to lose this coverage, to the people who want their guarantees built into their health insurance plans? I can still remember--and I will bet many watching this debate can too--the bad old days when you called up that adjuster for the health insurance plan that you owned and wondered how long you were going to sit on hold for the person on the other end and if the person on the other end would even be able to comprehend what you were asking. These sorts of things don't need to be returned as evidence that we are making progress. If we go back to those bad old days, it is a step in the wrong direction for millions of Americans. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, NBC News compiled a document of activity by Russia and Vladimir Putin. It starts in April of 2007 in Estonia, where the Russians were disabling their Internet; in June 2008, in Lithuania, where the Russian hackers were defacing government Web pages; in August 2008, in Georgia, where the Russian hackers shut down the country's internal communications system; in January 2009, in Kyrgyzstan, as part of an effort to persuade the President there to evict a U.S. military base, the Russian hackers shut down two of the country's four Internet service providers. April of 2009 in Kazakhstan. After Kazakh media published a statement by the country's president that criticized Russia, Russian-attributed attacks shut down the publication's Web site. August 2009 in Georgia, there was similar activity; May 2014 in Ukraine; March 2014 in Ukraine; May 2015 in Germany; December 2015 in Ukraine; October 2015 in the Netherlands; January 2016 in Finland; December 2016 in Germany. Of course, there was also the Russian military seizure of sovereign territory in the nation of Georgia in 2008 and their invasion of Ukraine in 2014. In fact, Russian forces and their proxies still hold captured land in Georgia and Ukraine, and from that spot in Ukraine separatists shot down a civilian airliner 2 years ago, murdering 283 innocent passengers, including 8 children. This is our adversary. This is the man who is trying to undermine the American electoral system. We cannot take it lightly. Twenty years ago, when I was elected to the Senate, I was a member of the Government Affairs Committee. The first hearing we had was a lengthy investigative hearing. What was the basis of it? We had just concluded a Presidential campaign, and allegations were made that the Chinese Government 20 years ago was trying to insert itself into the Presidential campaign of the United States, specifically in support of the Clinton-Gore ticket. Fred Thompson was chairman of that committee, a pretty well-known man who has since passed, but he was a pretty outstanding lawyer in addition to being a pretty famous actor. He was my chairman. He spent months in public hearings investigating whether the Chinese tried to insert themselves in any way, shape, or form in the election of Clinton-Gore. They found virtually no evidence, other than a handful of Buddhist nuns writing checks to the campaign, which nobody ever really explained. But there was no evidence that the Chinese Government was involved in this in any specific way. We spent months on that theory in open hearings, and then published reports--conflicting reports on conclusions from that committee. We took it that seriously 20 years ago. What are we doing about this? Well, Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, said that we will do the regular order; we will let the regular committees go about their business and figure out what might have happened in the course of that. That is not good enough. Regular order may put this investigation in the Intelligence Committee. Do you know what that means? It means you are not going to see their hearing. You are not going to be able to see their witnesses and listen to their testimony, and much of the evidence that is going to be presented will never be shared with the public. I understand the need to protect classified material. We must do that. I insist on that. But at the same time, we need to answer some basic questions about what Russia tried to do in this last election and to make it clear to them and to the world that the United States is not going to be a sucker. We are not going to allow anyone who can hack into our systems to try to undermine the electoral system of the United States. We are proud Americans. We will handle our own elections, thank you. Keep your hackers out of business in the United States. Recently, we have had allegations--and I underline the word ``allegations''--of other involvement of the Russians with the Trump campaign and the preparation of certain documents, which have not been collaborated as of this date. They may lead to nothing, but they certainly deserve investigation so that we know what the facts may be. Yesterday at the Senate Judiciary Committee, I asked Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a man who is aspiring to be Donald Trump's Attorney General, if he could recuse himself from investigations into Russian connections with the Trump campaign. He had just said earlier he was going to recuse himself from investigations involving Hillary Clinton. Senator Sessions said, ``I would review it and try to do the right thing as to whether or not it should stay within the jurisdiction of the attorney general or not.'' I hope that Senator Sessions, if he in fact becomes the Attorney General, will have some second thoughts. It is far better to consider a special counsel in the Department of Justice in light of the political circumstances of these allegations. Secondly, we need to have a select committee--not the Intelligence Committee--of either the House or the Senate that will meet and consider this information and investigate it in a responsible way. In fact, I think it is of such gravity that we ought to consider a public- private commission--a commission of elected officials, as well as private citizens, whom we respect. I think of the names of General Colin Powell and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as chairs and cochairs of that effort, people of unquestionable integrity who will make the right findings for America and not for any political reasons, as far as I am concerned. Today, I asked Michael Mukasey, former Attorney General under President George W. Bush, whether the Attorney General has the authority to shut down an FBI investigation, and he answered very simply, ``yes.'' So we need more information. We need to make sure that this is taken seriously and that we address it in a serious manner because it is a serious issue. What, in fact, has been the response from the other side of the aisle? With a few notable exceptions, that party of Ronald Reagan, the 40th President--who really understood the old Soviet regime--has greeted this information with near silence. That is right. Except for a few voices--my colleagues Senators Graham and McCain in particular-- there has been near silence. How in the world did an attack ordered by a former Soviet KGB official on our Nation become a partisan issue that is largely ignored by a majority of one of our Nation's two great political parties? How did the Republican Party, which now controls both Chambers of Congress, decide that repealing health care insurance for millions of Americans was the most urgent, first priority to deal with amid this sweeping evidence of a Russian attack on our democracy? Ronald Reagan must be rolling in his grave. Does anyone remember his clarity about standing up against attacks on the West and its allies when the Soviets shot down a civilian Korean airliner in 1983? This is what President Reagan said: And make no mistake about it, this attack was not just against ourselves or the Republic of Korea. This was the Soviet Union against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere. It was an act of barbarism born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations. There was a time in this town when national security issues were truly bipartisan, when security meant patriotically putting aside partisan agendas. Can anyone here imagine for a second--just one second--the debate we would be having here now if the situation were reversed? The House alone spent millions of dollars on countless and ultimately fruitless investigations into the tragic events of Benghazi. Here we are, with overwhelming evidence of an actual attack on our Nation, and the majority party is largely silent. That is incredible. It is quite simply an abdication of political responsibility not to address a verified national security threat to our Nation. With the release of Friday's report, I urge my colleagues to read both the public and classified reports. The classified version contains the same damning and sweeping conclusions I mentioned here today from the public document, but it goes into detail. As such, I urge this body to come up with an appropriate response to this attack. I have joined in bipartisan Russian sanctions legislation with Senators Cardin, McCain, Menendez, Graham, Shaheen Rubio, Klobuchar, Sasse, and Portman. We urge that we quickly advance as an urgent priority Russian sanctions to make it clear that what they have done is reprehensible, unacceptable, and will not be tolerated. This Congress can also do what many tried to do in the past and failed--which is certainly timely--and that is pass meaningful cyber security legislation. We have to maintain our strong NATO Alliance, stand firm against Russian meddling or attacks, and tell our friends in the Baltics and Poland, in particular, that we stand by their side, that nothing has changed, and that our friends in Ukraine can trust that we will be with them as they establish democratic sovereignty. We must work with the new administration to fully accept and counter this Russian threat. We must work to undermine any such future attacks at home and against our allies. We should get to the bottom of the extremely troubling allegations that have been made recently. Yes, ultimately we must work with Russia where those efforts serve our global interests--and I think there will be some common areas--but we must not do so from a position of weakness. We will never be taken seriously by Putin or our adversaries otherwise. Madam President, I yield the floor.