Chuck Grassley

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for which time I might consume, and my guess is it will be about 15 minutes.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, first of all, my usual 1-minute speech after I open the Senate. Last week, I spoke about consistent congressional oversight, the checks and balances of government, Congress is to make sure that the executive branch of government faithfully executes the laws under the Constitution. In that speech, I talked about how the Democrats have ignored their own party's use of Russian and Ukranian Government connections to undermine Trump. I noted how the Democrats' action literally fit their own definition of collusion. Congress ought to conduct aggressive oversight. It is a constitutional demand. However, if you want to be taken seriously in this body and by the American public, you have to be very consistent. Of course, I am pointing out some inconsistencies by the other political party. When Democrats ignore their own leadership collusion with foreign governments, yet investigate the President after alleging he did the same, that is a lack of consistency and creates doubts about credibility.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on another subject, I recently introduced the Whistleblower Programs Improvement Act of 2019, a bipartisan bill, and I have the support of the bipartisan whistleblowers caucus. This legislation strengthens whistleblower protection for whistleblowers working in a variety of key sectors, including our securities and commodities industries and the foreign service. There has been a lot of talk about government whistleblowers lately that is very appropriate. It is important to remember that many of our whistleblower laws are there to protect just ordinary average Americans who don't work in government at all. Many of the groups helped by this bill work in private industry. In some cases, they are investors or businesspeople who have been on the receiving end of financial fraud. In other cases, they are employees, like stockbrokers, traders, investment advisers, administrative professionals, and other support staff, who see activities in the course of their work that they know are outright wrong, and these good people decide to speak out. Speaking out, many times, causes you to eventually seek whistleblower protection. Among these brave whistleblowers are people like the three employees at Merrill Lynch who had evidence that between 2009 and 2015 their company was misusing customer cash. Now, just think how lucky these savers were who were helped by whistleblowers willing to come out and say a wrong has been committed. They did it this way: The whistleblowers told the Security and Exchange Commission what they knew. In doing so, they provided information critical to an investigation of the company's practices. That investigation uncovered multiple violations of Federal rules. Among other things, the Securities and Exchange Commission found the company was not depositing cash in reserve accounts as law required. Instead, the company was using tricky accounting maneuvers to free up billions of dollars per week and then using that money to finance its own trading practices. In the process, it is quite obvious the company was putting its customers' cash at risk. The Securities and Exchange Commission said: ``Had Merrill Lynch failed in the midst of these trades, the firm's customers would have been exposed to a massive shortfall in the reserve account.'' The information provided by whistleblowers led to a successful enforcement action, which involved an admission of wrongdoing by the company and a $415 million settlement. Now, getting back to the importance of whistleblowers. If these whistleblowers hadn't stepped forward, then, who knows, those shady accounting practices might still be going on this very day instead of having been stopped--stopped cold. Investors might still be facing the same unnecessary risks. Now, there are plenty of examples from the commodities industry as well--people like Edward Siedle, a whistleblower who informed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that JPMorgan Chase was failing to disclose conflicts of interest with some of its clients. Because Mr. Siedle decided to speak out about what he knew, the government collected hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements. Whistleblowers like Mr. Siedle and the employees at Merrill Lynch deserve our gratitude, and they deserve our support. They help the Security and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to do their job, and they help to promote transparency. With transparency comes accountability--in this case, for our financial system. I will tell you something else they deserve. They deserve assurance that when they put their jobs and their reputation on the line, they will not be fired just for trying to do the right thing. They deserve to know that if the government recovers money because of their disclosures, they will be able to get a decision on their award application in a timely fashion. Currently, whistleblowers don't have these assurances. Last year, despite strong objections that I raised in a brief to the Supreme Court in the case of Digital Realty v. Somers, the Court ruled that a whistleblower who reports violations of our Nation's securities laws is protected from retaliation not all the time but only when he or she discloses the wrongdoing directly to the SEC. Because of this ruling, if a whistleblower in the securities industry reports a concern to a supervisor at their place of work without also going to the SEC, they can be fired without any recourse; in other words, fired for the so-called crime they did, and what did they do? They did nothing more than what you might call the crime of committing truth. They have no legal protection or means of getting their job back. That is not what Congress intended when it created the current Security and Exchange Commission Whistleblower Program, and that was done back in 2010. It is not what I intended when I voted for that whistleblower protection. That law was supposed to protect whistleblowers who report wrongdoing. It was supposed to prevent them from being fired without just cause. This decision has far-reaching implications that potentially affect others beyond those working in the securities industry. Because the commodities whistleblower program was established through the same public law as the Security and Exchange Commission program, that program incorporates many of the same provisions, including similar language to that which the Supreme Court ruled on during the Digital Realty case. That means whistleblowers in yet another program face the prospects of having anti-retaliation provisions Congress put in place a decade ago suddenly yanked away from them. That is unacceptable to me. It is a scenario that should be unacceptable to every Member of this body who cares about keeping our financial system very strong, protecting the investor. My bill prevents the Supreme Court ruling from becoming the status quo. It makes it clear that whistleblowers who report concerns about possible violations of our Federal securities and commodities laws are fully protected, whether they take their concerns to the Security and Exchange Commission or to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or to anyone else in their company who they reasonably believe has the ability to address their concerns. That is what companies should want. They should want it anyway, to keep their public respectability. It is also a commonsense goal that we ought to be seeking, and it is common sense. When an employee tells his or her company about a concern, it gives the company a chance to investigate and address the concerns, and, if necessary, to self-report any problems to the Federal regulators. Companies that come clean and self-report almost always receive reduced penalties. That is an outcome that is better for the company, and it is obviously better for the investors. On another matter, my bill addresses concern for securities and commodities whistleblowers. I said before that if the government recovers money as a result of a whistleblower's disclosure, the whistleblower deserves at least an initial decision concerning their award application and to do it in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, my office has heard of far too many cases where whistleblowers have had to wait years to get a decision from the Securities and Exchange Commission after they apply for an award, and you apply for the award after you make the case for the government. Waiting that long is unacceptable. A year should be more than enough time for regulators to reach an initial determination regarding an award application. My bill makes the 1-year standard law for both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission whistleblowers. If the agency takes longer than a year to reach an initial decision, the whistleblower office must notify the chairman and the whistleblower of the cause for the delay. Recently, I had the chance to sit down with Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Clayton to discuss these changes. My staff worked closely with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to craft the language. Now I urge all of my colleagues to support change, as well. In addition to these changes, my bill irons out other differences between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission whistleblower programs and ensures that whistleblowers reporting to both of these bodies have access to the same judicial remedies. It also enables the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to hold more in the consumer protection fund. That is the fund used to pay out its awards to the whistleblower, and it allows the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use money from the fund to teach stakeholders about the opportunities that are available to them through the whistleblower program. Finally, my bill addresses a critical gap in protections provided to Foreign Service employees through the Whistleblower Protection Act. Due to a drafting error in the law, the Office of Special Counsel has stated that it doesn't have the authority to investigate instances of possible retaliation against Foreign Service workers when the retaliation comes in the form of a poor performance evaluation. That is an important task of the Office of Special Counsel and an important protection that Congress has afforded to other government whistleblowers. The Foreign Service office's people should have that as well. My bill closes that gap and makes it clear that Foreign Service workers should receive those same protections. In closing, this bill contains commonsense changes. It reinforces and extends protections that Congress already granted in the past and ensures that whistleblowers working in different industries who make similar kinds of disclosures are equally treated and equally protected under the law. It also tells the Supreme Court of the United States: You didn't get it right. That is something I am certain we can all get behind--straightening out the Supreme Court when they don't follow congressional intent. The bipartisan coalition of support for this bill is a strong testament to that. I thank my original cosponsors, Senators Baldwin, Durbin, and Ernst, for their enthusiastic support of this legislation. When it comes before the Senate for a vote, I urge all of my colleagues to do the same. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

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

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the purpose of my speaking today is to remind my colleagues about some history as it relates to the adoption of Part D of Medicare back in 2003 and the importance of considering that history in regard to the importance of passing legislation this year in regard to high drug costs. The reminder goes to my colleagues who are up for election, based on the fact that the history of the elections of 2000 and 2002 had consequences for people who weren't aware of the grassroots support for doing something for prescription drugs and Medicare, as Part D turned out to be. In this environment today, I don't think there is proper concern that people--the grassroots of America--are expressing the need to do something about prescription drug prices, so I am going to spend my time doing what I just summarized for you going through the history of 20 years ago versus now. I want to lower the cost of prescription drugs for American seniors. I have spoken on this topic many times before, and in my previous speeches years and years ago, I said that we were delivering on the promises of the last three elections in a bipartisan manner to help seniors who had waited far too long for relief, and that relief came out as Medicare Part D. That speech was more than 15 years ago. We have been here before. In 2003, I was leading the last piece of bipartisan entitlement reform, the creation of the Medicare Part D Program that was entitled the ``Medicare Modernization Act of 2003.'' Now here we are again on the cusp of meaningful, bipartisan action in regard to prescription drugs. This action would fulfill the promises that I and many of my colleagues and the administration, meaning the Trump administration, made to the American people that we are going to do something about prescription drug pricing. We should be reminded that promises made ought to be promises kept. I want to remind my colleagues that history does not have to repeat itself. Hopefully, this will help rid the gridlock that delayed us from delivering Medicare Part D nearly two decades ago. As we all know, the Medicare Modernization Act was signed into law in November of 2003, but the process of creating Part D began long before the President actually signed the bill. We could go back more than a decade--but that is not the most important part of it--but Congress was voting on what would become prescription drug coverage as early as 1988. Obviously, it didn't become law. Suggestions for how to help seniors with prescription drugs came from every corner throughout the next decade after those 1988 votes. Yet the proposals weren't enacted, so we failed to bring any kind of comprehensive change to Medicare. Under President Clinton, prescription drug pricing reform gained national attention, just like it has national attention today because President Trump has made it one of his premier goals of reducing drug prices. So going back to the Clinton administration as part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Congress created a forum to bring more attention to the prescription drug program under Medicare. That was called the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. After a year's worth of work and research, the Commission voted on three recommendations in 1999, including a prescription drug benefit. However, the recommendations failed to receive the mandated supermajority of members' votes, so no formal recommendations were ever submitted to Congress because that was the rule of the Commission at the time. It had to be a supermajority of the members of the Commission. Facing mounting pressure from the public in anticipation of the 2000 election, all of the major Presidential candidates presented plans. President Bush had suggested a new Federal subsidy to help low-income beneficiaries purchase drug coverage through private insurers. Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, proposed a new voluntary benefit within Medicare to protect chronically ill and low- income beneficiaries against catastrophic expenses. Yet the Congress still couldn't reach a compromise, even though it was very much discussed during that Presidential election, and it was in a lot of discussions in Senate races as well. At that time, the country was united behind Medicare reform, but Congress was divided on how or even if it should act, and it did not act. In the Finance Committee, the person that preceded me when I took over the chairmanship of the Finance Committee, a person by the name of Bill Roth of Delaware, proposed two plans to committee members in hopes that a consensus could be reached. The first plan worked to fundamentally change the Medicare Program. The proposal included a universal drug benefit for the Medicare Program with several major contracting reforms. The reforms would have permitted pharmacy benefit managers, insurers, and other qualified firms to compete to manage the government drug benefit in a cost-effective way. Then-Chairman Roth also proposed a scaled-back plan which would extend prescription drug coverage to low-income seniors and on the State level to those seniors facing catastrophic levels of spending. This second piece of the Roth proposal was meant to be a backstop--just a short-term, bipartisan bandaid on a gaping wound while negotiations continued to find a longer term solution. Despite the support from then-President Bill Clinton and the Republican majority leader, Trent Lott, compromise was elusive, and the Finance Committee did not act before the November election. So then we had the 2000 election. Prescription drug coverage was a big issue, and it was a big issue probably more for Republicans because we controlled the U.S. Senate. We lost five incumbent Republican Senators because people didn't pay attention to this being a major issue. Hence, to remind you what I opened with, I don't want Senators making that same mistake this year. The American people were obviously disappointed in the lack of action back in 2000, and it showed, but as we have to do when there is grassroots support like there was then, we marched on to find a path forward, but building consensus was not easy. I was chairman during part of that time between the years 2000 and 2003. I wasn't chairman all that time because the Senate flipped to a Democratic majority when Senator Jeffords of Vermont changed from Republican to Democrat. Between the years 2000 and 2003, we held countless meetings and hearings on the status of Medicare and how we could come to an agreement to add Part D and bring Medicare into the 21st century. The gridlock seemed inescapable. In 2002, the budget allowed for $350 billion to reform the Medicare Program, most of that going toward the prescription drug reform that we were proposing. Partisan discord led to three separate proposals being sent to the Senate from House Republicans that were subsequently voted down. As a result of the 2002 elections, Republicans were back in the majority, and I retook the gavel as chair of the Finance Committee. I promised at that time legislation that would address seniors' concerns and be bipartisan so it would pass an almost evenly split Senate. That was my goal. In the Finance Committee, we went through the important and wide-ranging process of creating what eventually became the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. I worked across the aisle, across the Capitol, and down Pennsylvania Avenue to make sure the prescription drugs and Medicare improvement bill struck the right balance, spending the money allocated to us by President Bush to be done in a fair and equitable way. A lot had changed in the practice of medicine since Medicare had been signed into law 40 years before, in 1965, and we needed to recognize that the practice of medicine had changed. My friend Senator Baucus, who was at that time the Democratic ranking member of my committee, and I were able to thoughtfully pull together a Medicare package by closing a big coverage gap and doing that in the right way. The Part D marketplace offered consumers better choice, better coverage, and better value. Of course, it was about time that Congress had taken this action demanded by the grassroots of America in a serious way. I said in 2003, ``We all know seniors don't want politics, they want prescription drugs,'' and that holds true today as we consider this issue. It is important to note that just like in the 2000 election, the country took notice, but this time it was for our accomplishments, and Republicans gained four Senate seats in that 2004 election. I am now standing here again, more than 15 years later, to make the very same point. It seems like deja vu. American seniors don't care about party politics any more now than they did in 2003. When it comes to almost any issue, but particularly healthcare issues, what they care about is having access to affordable medication. Once again, I am leading a bipartisan effort to enact much needed entitlement reform, and once again some of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are resisting compromise. Once again, medicine has changed since the last entitlement reform I led. Let me remind you, prescription medication was not much of a part of the cost of medicine in 1965 when Medicare was passed. By 2003, it had become a significant portion of the cost of medicine. That is why people needed Medicare Part D. Pharmaceuticals are even more a part of the practice of medicine today. Scientific advances have led to many new and more effective treatments. However, they are often accompanied by very high costs. That means prescription drug prices have skyrocketed, and Americans want Congress to act now so they can afford their lifesaving medications. Our seniors deserve better than the over 5-year delay in action we put them through last time--in other words, 5 years before we finally passed something in 2003 called Part D of Medicare. They shouldn't have to wait 5 years this time. Congress has been here before. We want to make sure history doesn't repeat itself. I want to make sure it doesn't repeat itself. I personally have been here before. I have watched the opportunity to help patients slip away. Now, just like in 2003, Americans want action on entitlement reforms. Now, just like in 2003, the President supports action. Now, just like back then in 2003, numerous proposals were floated and ultimately fell short of the finish line. We have another opportunity to deliver meaningful reforms to help the Part D program adapt to new innovations in the healthcare world. The bill that came out of my committee 19 to 9, titled the ``Prescription Drug Cost Reduction Act of 2019,'' builds on the successful programs we created in 2003. It will lower beneficiary premiums by $6 billion and lower out-of-pocket costs by $25 billion. The bill will implement an out-of-pocket cap, eliminate excess payments, cap taxpayer subsidies, and permanently repeal the doughnut hole in Medicare Part D. It uses market forces. Those market forces will incentivize manufacturers to lower list prices and report more accurate calculations of their rebate obligations. In short, this is the right bill at the right time. We should seize this opportunity to support actions that Americans need now, not 5 or 10 years from now. I want to give credit to Senator Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on my committee and my partner on this issue. Thank you for working with us in the tradition of the Finance Committee in the same way that Senator Baucus and I worked together 15 years ago on Part D legislation. I ask all of my colleagues to join Senator Wyden and me in our bipartisan effort to lower the cost of prescription drugs. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, I have some sympathy for the motion that Senator Brown made because he just came from a meeting with people who are very interested in getting this multiemployer pension issue straightened out. It was 3 or 4 years ago that I spoke to a big delegation of people who were mostly from the Central States Teamsters, and they were very much lobbying for a solution to this problem. They treated me like a hero because at that time we were probably in the middle of a Government Accountability Office investigation of the mismanagement of these funds. We thought we were going to get a GAO report that would show the mismanagement, reap the benefits of that mismanagement, and recoup a lot of funds. Quite frankly, that Government Accountability Office study of about 2 years didn't prove what I thought and what the Central States Teamsters people thought was wrong. We still think the mismanagement was there, but if you don't have an authority like the Government Accountability Office to justify that, it doesn't give you much of a leg to follow up on. Now we have the Butch Lewis Act for which Senator Brown is asking unanimous consent. We also have other proposals that the Senate Committee on Finance, which I chair, has been working on--and not only under my chairmanship. The biggest part of this work was probably done when Senator Hatch was still the chairman of the committee. I also want to give people the reasons I have asked to reserve the right to object. The Butch Lewis Act doesn't provide long-term solvency to the Central States' plan or to other critical and declining multiemployer pension plans. It is a costly and incomplete attempt to fix the multiemployer system. According to the Congressional Budget Office, many plans that would be eligible for loans under this legislation couldn't pay these loans back, and most of the plans taking the loans would become insolvent even if they were able to pay back the loans. The bill acknowledges this failing by providing for direct Federal assistance for plans that go insolvent even after they receive loans. Most critically, the Butch Lewis Act makes no reforms to the system in order to secure its long-term solvency. That is not the way we ought to be working to help retirees. In getting back to the work of the Committee on Finance, since last year, both under Senator Hatch's leadership and mine, the committee has been working on a bipartisan basis to address the issues facing the multiemployer system. I emphasize the necessity of bipartisanship in the U.S. Senate. When you have a division of 53 to 47 and you have to have 60 votes to get something done in this body, bipartisanship is very, very important. The committee is nearing its completion of a comprehensive proposal that will include financial assistance to the critical and declining multiemployer pension plans and provide long-term solvency to these plans and to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. That proposal will include financial relief for plans like Central States' and for the coal miners. The Butch Lewis Act is so costly and does nothing to fix the flaws in the system that has brought about this bill. In relationship to the Government Accountability Office, I spoke to some of those flaws that I initiated a few years ago. There is really nothing in the proposal on which Senator Brown is asking for a UC that addresses the mismanagement of the trustees. Our comprehensive plan includes reforms to address trustee requirements and plan operations. In other words, the people in the private sector who are managing this ought to have some responsibility of making sure they are doing it in a fiscally sound way and are carrying out the rights of the trustees. So I object to this request.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 2 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on October 13, the U.S. Navy celebrated its 244th birthday. The U.S. Navy was founded by the Continental Congress in 1775 to disrupt British shipping and naval power in the Revolutionary War. At the time, the Navy was just a simple, ragtag band of converted merchant ships. The U.S. Navy today is the most powerful naval force anywhere in the world. It provides the military with the ability to project power to every corner of the globe. America's Navy works tirelessly to protect the freedom of navigation, of commerce, and travel around the world.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on another point, for the last three decades, Des Moines has hosted something every year this week called the World Food Prize. As the World Food Prize kicks off this week in Des Moines, I pay tribute to an outstanding Iowan and the president of that foundation. In his Foreign Service career, Ken Quinn was the Ambassador to Cambodia, but earlier in that career, Ken Quinn's life of service took him from a small town in Iowa to Southeast Asia and back. Decades ago, he identified an avenue to peace and prosperity. As a young Foreign Service officer, he saw that roads secured economic freedom and food security for the impoverished people of Southeast Asia. For the last 20 years, Ambassador Quinn--now not in the Foreign Service--has cultivated the World Food Prize into the Nobel Prize for Agriculture. Thanks to his stewardship of the seeds first planted by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate of 1970, Dr. Norman Borlaug, the World Food Prize will yield humanitarian goods for generations to come. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

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

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, we have heard a lot about whistleblowers in the past several weeks. There has been an outpouring of concern for whistleblowers ever since word came out that there was a whistleblower complaint that implicates the current administration. A lot of those on the other side of the aisle, expressing support for whistleblowers, to the best of my recollection, haven't expressed the same level of concern for whistleblowers in the last administration. Well, welcome to the table. I hope you stay at the table quite a while. I have said for years that it is critical that we protect the whistleblower process to incentivize the disclosure of true waste, fraud, and abuse of the taxpayer's money. Those processes must be carefully followed by all whistleblowers, and that process must be respected by our government's institutions. Those legal processes are especially important for government employees who work in the intelligence field. Whistleblowers who act in good faith, who comply with the disclosure process set out by law, and who report their concerns through proper channels deserve to be heard and deserve to be protected. I have also said that first-, second-, and third-hand information doesn't make or break a whistleblower. If they follow the procedure, that is really most important. However, hearsay is a factor to take into account when analyzing the strength of underlying allegations. Clearly, first-hand knowledge is much more powerful than second- and third-hand knowledge. That is just common sense. It is common sense no matter what the allegations are or who the subject is, and there needs to be a consistent approach in the way that Congress conducts oversight. On April 8 of this year, I spoke on this Senate floor about the need for consistent oversight. I pointed out clear double standards between what the Democrats are doing to the Trump administration and the blind eye that they have used on any fact pattern that might damage their political narrative. Let me remind the Democrats that I threatened to subpoena the President's son and that my staff later deposed that son. In fact, I investigated alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign and interviewed more than 10 people connected to the June 2016 famous Trump Tower meeting, many of them Trump campaign officials. By the way, I also welcomed Democrats' participation in those interviews. The Democrats did participate. But, unfortunately, the same equal access and transparency doesn't exist in the House of Representatives these days as they do oversight of what has gone on with the famous telephone call to the Ukrainian President. I have routinely challenged the administration's policies and engaged in robust oversight to hold this administration accountable. My oversight and investigation units have sent out almost 300 letters to the executive branch since President Trump took his oath of office. So I think I can declare myself an equal-opportunity overseer because I seek facts, irrespective of party and no matter where they lead. I don't think many of the Democrats today can say the same thing. These folks today, who are suddenly so concerned about congressional oversight, are the same ones who had no interest whatsoever in defending the institutions of the legislative branch when the Obama administration was in office. Quite frankly, I find it all too convenient that the Democrats today have used allegations of wrongdoing against the President that actually apply much more clearly to their own political leaders. Let us begin down this road with the now-debunked Russia collusion investigation. First, the Clinton campaign hired Fusion GPS to do opposition research against candidate Trump. Second, the Democratic National Committee did the very same thing. Third, Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, to compile the famous Steele dossier. Even James Comey, a former FBI Director, a man who leaked sensitive government records to spark a special counsel investigation, called that Steele dossier ``salacious and unverified.'' That same Steele dossier factored heavily in the FBI's investigation against Trump. Fourth, Fusion GPS then--would you believe it--used Russian Government sources for information for that Steele dossier. Now, it is a fact, not merely an allegation, that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party used a foreign intel officer and information from the Russian Government to undermine the Trump campaign and later the Trump administration. And that is not Trump. No, Trump didn't do any of that. It was the Democrats. The Democrats' action literally fit their own definition of collusion. Maybe that is why the Democrats have failed to seek documents and information relating to how and why the now-debunked FBI investigation into Russian collusion started, because the Democrats would be front and center in that investigation. Special Counsel Mueller's investigation didn't look at the Democrats' role in collusion, either. After 2 years, more than 2,800 subpoenas, approximately 500 search warrants and witness interviews, and $30 million in taxpayers' money, that report ignored what the Clinton campaign and Democrats did. I can see why President Trump would be so frustrated at being incorrectly painted as a Russian agent. So what is next? Now that the collusion narrative has been destroyed, the Democrats have turned to Ukraine. First, the news reports said Trump offered a quid pro quo, and then Trump released not only the call transcript with the Ukrainian President but the intelligence community complaint. Those were extraordinary acts of transparency, and with transparency comes accountability. The call and complaint showed no quid pro quo. The call showed that Trump was concerned about whether Ukraine had a role in the debunked Russia collusion narrative. This is a reasonable concern, and it is a concern that I share. Accordingly, since I share that concern, on July 20, 2017, I wrote to the Justice Department about reports of brazen efforts by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign to use the Government of Ukraine for the express purpose of finding negative information on then-Candidate Trump in order to undermine the Trump campaign. Ukrainian officials reportedly ``helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers.'' Moreover, Nellie Ohr, the wife of Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, stated during a congressional interview that Fusion GPS used a Ukrainian politician as a source for derogatory material against then-Candidate Trump. It is no wonder, then, that President Trump is concerned about Ukraine's involvement in the debunked Russian collusion narrative. The phone call also showed that he was concerned about then-Vice President Biden firing a prosecutor who was investigating one of the largest natural gas firms in the world. That firm happened to employ Biden's son. Years later, Biden bragged about getting the prosecutor fired. This has been seen on television a lot: We're not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You're not the president. The president said--I said, call him. I said, I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars. I said, you're not getting the billion. I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money. Well-- Then he used a cuss word. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time. The Democrats have argued that Trump has tried to get the Government of Ukraine to look into this matter to benefit his political campaign. Yet it doesn't sound like there is much concern from many on the other side of the aisle about what Biden claimed to have done. There is also another call transcript I would like to share. This one says the following: We put some more ideas down to resolve the airport dispute we have with British Airways, USAir, and American Airlines. Would you take another look at that and see if we can get it done? Further quoting: It's sort of a big deal here. . . . In a political season, it would be big over here to get this open sore resolved. If you could have somebody take a look at it. Well, that was President Bill Clinton asking for a political favor during the 2000 Presidential election between Al Gore and George Bush. I don't hear any objection whatsoever from the Democrats about the substance of that call. Now the Democrats have also accused the President of obstructing Congress. Here, too, I think they have selective memory. The Democrats in the Obama Justice Department didn't bat an eye when Clinton's associates deleted records subject to congressional subpoena and preservation orders. In March of 2015, Secretary Clinton's attorneys had a conference call with Paul Combetta, the man who helped manage Clinton's nongovernment server. After that call, he deleted Clinton's emails with BleachBit, a software program designed to prevent forensic recovery. Combetta admitted he lied to the FBI in his initial interviews and got immunity from the FBI in exchange for agreeing to tell the truth. So the Obama administration gave immunity to the person who deleted Clinton's emails after a call with her attorneys. To this very day, the FBI has yet to explain why they took that course of action. During the course of the FBI's investigation, it recovered thousands of work- related emails that were not turned over to the State Department by Secretary Clinton. The FBI also recovered work-related emails that Secretary Clinton and her associates apparently deleted. All of this is very clear evidence of alienation of Federal records, which happens to be a Federal crime. What also troubles me about one aspect of the Clinton investigation is that the FBI agreed to limit the scope of their review to her time as Secretary of State. That eliminated potentially highly relevant emails before and after her tenure that could have shed light on why she operated a nongovernment server. It also eliminated emails around the time of that conference call that could have shown what exactly was intended in deleting those emails. That limitation of scope defies reason. Lastly, the FBI agreed to destroy records and laptops of Clinton's associates after reviewing them. That is an astonishing agreement in light of the fact that these records could have been relevant to an ongoing congressional inquiry that the FBI knew about. So where were the Democrats when all of that happened? Where was their outrage at the potential obstruction of justice and obstruction of congressional oversight? Seems to me that if the Democrats want to be consistent, they will have to address what was done and what was totally ignored in the Clinton investigation. Russia. Clinton. Ukraine. The Democrats have ignored facts relating to these investigations that would destroy their political narrative, but facts matter, and the facts are not going to go away. It is a shame that they have gone down this road in such a blatant attempt to remove a duly-elected President from power simply because they can't get over the 2016 election. Instead of coming together to work for the American people and to pass trade deals and legislation that would lower drug costs for seniors, the Democrats choose to gin up false political controversies while ignoring the involvement of their own political leaders. Get over yourselves. All of us will be footnotes to footnotes in history. It is the policies that we leave behind that will matter for future generations, not smear campaigns. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, let me give a short explanation. The issues facing miners' pension plans are of critical importance, but I have to tell my colleagues that so are the issues that face a large number of multiemployer plans, and one of the biggest that is of concern is the Central States Pension Plan. Since last year, the Committee on Finance has been working on a bipartisan basis to address the issues that face the multiemployer system. We are nearing the completion of a comprehensive proposal that will include financial assistance to the critical and declining multiemployer pension plans and will provide long-term solvency to these plans and to the longer term solvency of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, or, as we know it around here, the PBGC. That proposal will include financial relief for miners and mining companies because the situation with the miners' pensions should be handled in the context of these broader, multiemployer plan reforms. The Senator from West Virginia is a person with whom I work very often and like personally, but I must object to this and take the course of action of dealing with this in a larger context rather than just for miners' pensions, so I object.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I heard what my friend said. I still stick by what I told him, which is that we are working on a plan to deal with multiemployers in many different situations of which the Senator's is a very important part.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for 1 minute as in morning business.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. We are getting toward the end of the year, and one of the issues I would like to get done--which has to go through the House of Representatives first--is the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. In regard to that agreement's helping agriculture, I want to start by laying out the fact that there is a lot of anxiety in agricultural America. Even though the harvest is about to start across Iowa, we had a really difficult, tough spring getting the crops in. There is a crop to be harvested, however, and farmers will now be doing that job. They hope they can cover their costs. And while they are doing that, they are thinking about putting in next year's crop. Passing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement would inject more certainty into the plans that the farmers have about this year's harvest and the plans they have for next year's crop. Passage of that would signal to the world that we here in the Congress are very serious about passing new, modern trade arrangements. Yet we are running out of calendar days in 2019. Congress must step up and deliver for our hard-working farmers, as well as workers in America and small business in America and, in a sense, by getting this agreement passed, helping all of America. The time for the U.S.-Mexico- Canada Agreement is now. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate as in morning business for 1 minute.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, we have been hearing from the other body a lot about how the Senate isn't taking up House bills. Now, that seems to be as though the Senate is supposed to somehow be a rubberstamp for the other body. Well, we just celebrated Constitution Day last week, and the Constitution doesn't provide for the Senate to automatically take up bills from the other body. Maybe it is time for a reminder about how the Founding Fathers intended the Senate to work, so I am going to give a short quote by James Madison in the Federalist Papers, No. 62, entitled ``The Senate'': The necessity of a senate is not less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies, to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions. I am not saying that the House of Representatives passes intemperate and pernicious resolutions, but at least the Founding Fathers thought that could happen, and they had the Senate to be a check on the House of Representatives, just as the House of Representatives can be a check on anything that we do. There are now over 80 bills that have passed both Houses, but there are some that can't pass the Senate, and there are probably some the Senate feels shouldn't even be brought up. The difference between the House and Senate--and some contemplation by the Senate to be very cautious--is how the Constitution meant the Senate was supposed to work. I hope leaders of the House of Representatives will be reminded of that from time to time. That is my purpose today. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I want to address an issue for my colleagues, something a lot of Senators have been talking about more recently, and none too soon--the Mexico-Canada agreement with the United States, a very important trade agreement. President Trump and the leaders of Mexico and Canada signed the USMCA on November 30, 2018, which was 43 weeks ago. More than 3 months have passed since Mexico ratified the USMCA, and Canada's ratification is well underway. However, the U.S. Congress must do its part, and time is running short. We have a limited opportunity to ratify the USMCA before election politics get in the way of securing this very critical win for literally every broad industry sector in America. I therefore urge the administration and House Democrats not only to intensify discussions on the USMCA but also to expedite those discussions and to present USMCA to the Congress. By now, everyone should know very well that Mexico and Canada are by far America's most important trading partners. In 2017, America sold more than a half trillion dollars of exports to Mexico and Canada. Those were more exports than we sold to the next 11 largest export markets combined. For Iowa, my State, 130,000 jobs were supported by the $6.6 billion of exports to Mexico and Canada in the same year of 2017. These numbers are not just academic statistics. During the August State work period, I completed my 39th year holding Q and A's in every one of Iowa's 99 counties, and I consistently heard from Iowans that passing the USMCA ought to be a very top priority for the Congress. I joined the former Governor of Iowa and former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, at a dairy processing plant in Des Moines. This meeting, with one Republican and one Democrat appreciating the great contributions of Iowa agriculture to our Nation and to exports, demonstrated what I heard at my town meetings--that passing the USMCA should be a bipartisan priority. In Cedar Falls, IA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary, Bill Northey, and I held a roundtable discussion with various commodity groups about the farm economy and the certainty that passing USMCA would bring to the agricultural community, particularly to the family farmers. USMCA was also a focal point when I held meetings at manufacturing plants, such as Altec in Osceola, IA, and AIM Aerospace in Orange City, IA. I can state firsthand that people in the real world--people living outside of the Washington Beltway--want Congress to pass the USMCA as soon as possible. My county meetings help me better represent Iowans, and it is clear to me that Iowans support the USMCA. We can't squander this opportunity to update NAFTA, which has been critical to American farmers and businesses but is now a quarter century old. Issues negotiated in the USMCA were not issues 25 years ago, showing just how out of date NAFTA is, as well as the importance of the USMCA. USMCA will bring greater market access for agriculture and important new commitments in areas such as customs, digital trade, intellectual property, labor, the environment, currency, and nontariff trade barriers. These updates and upgrades will translate into higher wages, greater productivity, and consequently more jobs for Americans. In fact, the independent U.S. International Trade Commission found that USMCA will create nearly 176,000 new American jobs while adding more than $68 billion to America's GDP. Let's not forget, USMCA was a hard-fought negotiation. For Mexico, two Presidents worked across opposing administrations to get this job done. Canada initially held out of the agreement altogether, only to sign on at the last possible opportunity. It is easy for Members of Congress to talk about how we would have negotiated the agreement differently. There is some talk like that going on. That would be true whether you are a Republican or Democrat. However, as the U.S. International Trade Commission report made very clear, USMCA is a major advancement from the 25-year-old NAFTA agreement. This is certainly true for labor and the environment, which were mere side agreements to NAFTA 25 years ago. Now these issues addressed in USMCA are some of the strongest obligations ever to have been included in any U.S. trade agreement. Simply put, we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and calling the USMCA ``good'' would be a serious understatement. The administration did its job and brought us a modernized trade agreement. Nevertheless, the administration has listened to the concerns of House Democrats and has proposed actions to address those concerns. For my part, I have kept an open mind throughout this process, and I welcome any workable, bipartisan solutions. However, given the political calendar that lies ahead, I need those solutions promptly. We simply don't have any more time to spare. Iowans and all Americans deserve some much needed certainty on access to our half-trillion-dollar export markets in Mexico and Canada, and it is the job of this Congress to deliver. The time for USMCA is right now. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I want to address a matter relating to the nomination of Daniel Jorjani to be Solicitor at the Department of Interior. In March, I joined a bipartisan, bicameral letter to Interior raising concerns about proposed updates to its Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, regulations. These changes appeared to shift the burden of identifying the location of agency hold records from the agency to the public, set limits on requests when they involve processing a ``vast quantity of material,'' and imposed a monthly limit on the processing of records for a given requester--all of which have no identifiable basis in the FOIA statute. Since then, reports indicated other concerning FOIA policies at Interior that could result in unlawful delays of FOIA responses--policies that were in place while Mr. Jorjani served as Deputy Solicitor, with key FOIA responsibilities. Over the weekend, Interior's inspector general confirmed an investigation into the FOIA process at Interior. I look forward to reading the results of this investigation and learning more about the development of these policies. If confirmed as Solicitor at Interior, Mr. Jorjani would oversee and resolve FOIA appeals, among other critically important transparency policies. As we have seen in successive administrations, FOIA requests are often viewed as the skunk at the picnic. But the government's business is the people's business. Going forward, Mr. Jorjani would do well to consult with Congress on any FOIA policy matters at Interior to ensure compliance with the law. I intend to vote for Mr. Jorjani today, but let me be clear: I will be holding him--and any others under any administration--accountable to faithful compliance with both the letter and spirit of FOIA.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for 1 minute as in morning business.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Last week, Siouxland Energy, an ethanol plant in Sioux Center, IA, announced that they are halting production due to the unfair small refinery exemptions. This farmer-owned plant was annually buying 23.4 million bushels of corn from farmers in the area, and it also employed 42,000 people who, today, do not know when they will be able to go back to work. This kind of economic impact is a big deal in rural communities. If it spreads, it is going to create a lot of unemployment and closed ethanol plants in other places around the country. I have heard of production halts announced in other States as well. In fact, the ethanol industry supports more than 365,000 total jobs, and the biodiesel industry supports more than 65,000 total jobs. We have made great progress through the Renewable Fuel Standard in diversifying our Nation's fuel supply while creating jobs and strengthening local economies. We have to get this issue settled. I hope we can get an announcement from the EPA very soon about that so we can get these plants open and get these people back to work. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for 1 minute.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. The latest political ploy by the Democrats is to paint the Senate majority leader as an obstructionist because he hasn't moved to consider certain bills passed by the other body. Well, let's think about that for just a minute. They can hardly use that talking point anymore. Yesterday, the Senate majority leader moved to take up the House- passed appropriations package, and the Senate Democrats blocked that motion. The Senate isn't obliged to consider every partisan bill from the House, and the House doesn't have to consider every bill that is passed by the Senate. But if there is any House bill that the Senate has the responsibility to take up, to debate, and to amend, it is the annual spending bills to keep government operating. We have to fund the government, and that is what we are doing. So I hope we don't hear any of this bellyaching anymore when we have a House bill that the Senate doesn't somehow take up. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for 30 seconds.