Orrin Hatch

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I want to compliment the distinguished Senator from Wyoming for the wonderful remarks he has made. They are right on point. Last week's Judiciary Committee hearing on Judge Neil Gorsuch's Supreme Court nomination made two things abundantly clear. The first is that Judge Neil Gorsuch is a superb, highly qualified nominee. Second, with the possibility of the first partisan filibuster in the history of a Supreme Court nominee, I have come to the conclusion that some Democrats would do almost anything to keep us from having an impartial, independent judiciary. As I explained at the start of the hearing last week, qualifications for judicial service include both legal experience and judicial philosophy. Legal experience looks at the nominee's past accomplishments in the law, while judicial philosophy anticipates the nominee's future judicial service. Judge Gorsuch's legal experience is among the most impressive that I have seen in my 40 years on the Judiciary Committee. He is truly an impressive man. This is no doubt why the American Bar Association easily and unanimously gave Judge Gorsuch its highest ``well qualified'' rating, the highest rating it can give. I certainly have had my differences with the ABA, because at times they appear to let political or ideological considerations influence their rating. I mention their rating now because my Democrat colleagues, including Senators Leahy and Schumer, have called the ABA's rating ``the gold standard'' for evaluating judicial nominees. The ABA testified about their rating at last week's hearing, explaining that they sought input from more than 5,000 people throughout the legal world who would have personal knowledge about Judge Gorsuch. That is about as broad a group as I have ever heard of. They assembled 40 scholars and nationally recognized Supreme Court practitioners to review his judicial opinions, other writings, and speeches. The ABA's 1,000-page report concluded that Judge Gorsuch meets the ``very high standards of integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament.'' Editorial boards across America took notice as Judge Gorsuch demonstrated such qualities to everyone. The Denver Post said that Judge Gorsuch ``possesses the fairness, independence, and opened-mindedness necessary to make him a marvelous addition to the Supreme Court.'' The Detroit News said that Judge Gorsuch ``is proving himself an even tempered, deeply knowledgeable nominee who should be confirmed by the Senate.'' The Chicago Tribune said that Judge Gorsuch's critics ``suggest that they fear Gorsuch won't follow the law, but the opposite is more true. They fear he will. Gorsuch should be confirmed.'' The second and more important qualification for judicial service is the nominee's judicial philosophy or his understanding of the power and proper role of judges in our system of government. This is ground zero in the conflict over the appointment of judges. America's Founders were clear about their design for the judicial branch as part of the system of government they established. Central in this design is the separation of powers. Government power is divided among three branches and is supposed to stay that way. As a result, what the legislature does in making law is designed to be different than what the judiciary does in interpreting and applying that law. This design for government is necessary for the liberty that we all enjoy. Change the design and sacrifice the liberty it makes possible. Specifically for our purpose today, this design provides the job description for judges. They interpret and apply written laws such as statutes and the Constitution to decide cases, and they must do so impartially, deliberately removing their own views, preferences, or agendas from the judicial equation. That is exactly the kind of Justice that Neil Gorsuch will be and has been. Professor Jonathan Turley, a well-known constitutional law expert, told the Judiciary Committee that, like Justice Scalia, Judge Gorsuch has a well-defined judicial philosophy with a record of well-considered writings both as a judge and as an author. In short, concluded Professor Turley, ``we have a very good idea of who Judge Gorsuch is and the type of Justice he will be.'' He will be an impartial Justice who takes the law as he finds it, applies it objectively to decide cases, and leaves the decision about changing the law to the people and their elected representatives. This brings me to the second thing that the Judiciary Committee hearing revealed last week. I said at the start of the hearing that the confirmation process reveals the kind of judge that Senators want to see appointed. And it certainly did. Judge Gorsuch's opponents seem determined to oppose an impartial and independent judiciary. In fact, it looks to me like they want the opposite--a judiciary that is partial and dependent. They want judges to decide cases with deliberate regard to the parties and with determined attention to the political interests that their decisions will promote. This is the 14th Supreme Court confirmation process in which I have participated, and I cannot remember Senators opposing more strongly the basic notion that judges must impartially apply the law. It is important to point out, of course, that Democrats' objection to judicial independence has, to be charitable, not always been consistent. In 2009, for example, Senator Schumer introduced Justice Sonya Sotomayor to the Judiciary Committee for her confirmation hearing. Senator Schumer was a distinguished member of the committee at the time. He praised Justice Sotomayor for, as he described it, carefully applying the law even when it meant ruling against ``so- called sympathetic litigants.'' That was then. This is now. Last week, Democrats turned the Schumer standard on its head, cherry-picking a few of Judge Gorsuch's thousands of cases to criticize him for ruling against sympathetic litigants. Every Federal judge takes an oath to administer justice without respect to persons and to discharge his judicial duties impartially. The ABA's Model Code of Judicial Conduct spells out that this includes a duty not to make commitments about issues that may come up in future cases. When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg appeared before the Judiciary Committee in 1993, she took a firm stand. She said: ``A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints, for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process.'' Every Supreme Court nominee of either party has taken this same position. To me, this simply shows how much these nominees, most of whom are sitting judges already, care about their impartiality and the fairness it provides to litigants. I think it would baffle our fellow citizens to suggest that judges should, in effect, prejudge cases before they even come up or publicly take sides on issues that could later require their judicial decision. Our constituents would think it crazy to say that judges should not keep an open mind or that judges need not be impartial. Today, however, Democrats say they will oppose Judge Gorsuch's Supreme Court nomination unless he spells out those views, unless he provides those same forecasts and previews. In other words, Democrats consider the impartiality they applauded in Justice Ginsburg to be a liability in Judge Gorsuch. To most people, fairness, openmindedness, and impartiality are qualities we need in our judges. To some Democrats, they are obstacles to be overcome, I might say, on the way to a fully politicized judiciary. What do my Democratic colleagues have to fear from judges who are truly impartial? I mean, I don't see where the argument really is. Another tactic last week was to talk about people who had not been nominated and who were not even in the room. Committee Democrats, for example, talked about President Trump and a few of his advisers more than 80 times over just 3 days. They also decried the efforts of grassroots activists working on behalf of Judge Gorsuch's nomination. It mattered not that the nominee had no connection whatsoever with those particular efforts. No, Democrats warned of the ``extreme special interest groups'' that supposedly advised the President about filling this Supreme Court vacancy. They talked about so-called ``dark money'' contributed to such groups by undisclosed donors. I would not go so far as to directly accuse anyone of hypocrisy or of changing their tune based on ideology or political party. I would not do that. I would observe, however, that one group invited by Democrats to testify against the Gorsuch nomination was particularly vocal about condemning ``big money corrupting our politics.'' It turns out that this group was cited by the Center for Public Integrity in January as an opponent of dark money even though the group itself accepts shadowy funds and refuses to fully disclose its own donors. Next week, the Judiciary Committee will report the Gorsuch nomination to the Senate floor, where the same tactics will be in full view. Democrats are already claiming that the threshold for confirming Supreme Court nominees is 60 votes. Where did they get that from? They may wish this were the rule, at least for Republican nominees, but they know that is not true. They know it. Democrats have been playing this game for years, embracing one standard when it suits them, only to do an about-face later. It may be just a coincidence, but the flip-flopping follows an eerily similar pattern to election cycles when different parties control the White House. But, like I said, that may be just a coincidence. What I do know is that Senator Schumer voted 25 times to filibuster judicial nominees of President George W. Bush. Then, when nomination filibusters had declined under President Obama, he voted to abolish them. Now, with a Republican in the White House, he is back on the filibuster train. He was against judicial filibusters before he was for them before he was against them. Why not have a vigorous debate followed by an up-or-down vote? The 1987 nomination of Robert Bork was controversial, yet there was no cloture vote, even though he was defeated. The 1991 nomination of Clarence Thomas was controversial, yet there was no cloture vote, even though he was confirmed. Republicans have never even attempted a partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee. Most recently, then-Majority Leader Harry Reid said in 2010 that he would file cloture on the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan. Republican leaders, including our former colleague Senator Jeff Sessions, told him that filing cloture would be completely unnecessary. The truth is that no Supreme Court nominee has ever been defeated by a partisan filibuster. The only reason Democrats are choosing to push us in that direction is that their leftwing groups have told them to do so. Judge Gorsuch's approach to judging empowers the American people and their elected representatives. It does so by taking seriously what they do. He takes the words of the statutes they enact and the Constitution they established as having substance and actually meaning what they say. That is the respect that our system of separated branches requires that each give the other. Last week's hearing confirmed for all to see that Judge Gorsuch has the legal experience and judicial philosophy and temperament to make him fully qualified to serve on the Supreme Court. It also exposed the fact that some of my colleagues see an impartial and independent judiciary as a threat rather than as an indispensable support for our liberty. I have been kind of shocked at the turnaround by some of our Democratic colleagues--not all of them but some of them--that how, if it is their judgeship nominee, these rules do not apply that they are now trying to apply to Judge Gorsuch. I have seen a lot of nominees in my day and an awful lot of nominees to the Supreme Court. I have never seen one any better than Judge Neil Gorsuch. He is totally prepared for the job. He is an outstanding lawyer with great experience. He is a brilliant judge, someone who will enhance the Supreme Court and not deteriorate it, who deserves to be on the Supreme Court. Thank goodness the President has seen fit to put him there. I hope our colleagues will think it through because we should not be politicizing these judgeships like has been done recently. Frankly, we should never politicize the Supreme Court nomination process. It is not just because the President is a Republican; it is because that is the way I have always approached it. I think that is the way most everybody in this body has always approached it. I hope people will think it through and vote for Neil Gorsuch. He deserves their vote. He will be a great Justice on the Supreme Court. He is going to make it one way or the other, and I hope my colleagues on the other side realize that and will dispense with some of this garbage that has been used against Judge Gorsuch. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I have been very interested in the minority leader's comments here this morning. I have high regard for him. We have worked together on a wide variety of issues, but I have to say that he is leading a party right now that is doing completely the opposite of what Democrats have done in the past when Republicans have had the Presidency and have had the privilege of appointing people to the Court. Frankly, it has become kind of a war that we really don't need and something that literally, I think, is demeaning to the Senate and to this country. I venture to say that it would be very difficult for anybody to find a better nominee for the Supreme Court than Neil Gorsuch. I can't say that the Heritage Foundation was the one that carried the weight with regard to the choice of Neil Gorsuch. Now, the Federalist Society did weigh in rather heavily, and there were around 21 absolutely top judges and lawyers who were on that list. I venture to say that anybody would have a very difficult time finding anything to criticize about that list other than on a partisan basis. Unfortunately for the Democrats, they lost the election. Now keep in mind, all the current majority leader was saying was that we just weren't going to go with a Supreme Court Justice during an intensely hard-fought Presidential election year. In this century, that has been the rule. The majority leader, Senator McConnell, knew that it was very likely, in the eyes of almost every pollster, that Hillary Clinton would win, and although he and I believed that nominee was a good, reasonable, moderate Democrat, we were quite sure that if Hillary got elected, she would not pick him. We were even working on trying to find a way so that she would have to pick him rather than pick another totally leftwing person for the Court. Unfortunately for the Democrats, Donald Trump proved to be a formidable candidate for President and won the election and, interestingly enough, as is his right as President, nominated Neil Gorsuch for the U.S. Supreme Court. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, I would venture to say that it would be very difficult to find any candidate for the Supreme Court in this century who is any better than Neil Gorsuch. Gorsuch is going to apply the law as written, not as he conjures up his ideas of what it should be. He is not going to do that. He is going to apply the law as written. He did that as a circuit court of appeals judge on the Tenth Circuit, my circuit. You would be hard-pressed to find a better qualified person. In fact, I do not think you could find a better qualified person for the Supreme Court than Neil Gorsuch. So what is all the whining about? They lost the election. They knew that this was going to be a big deal if they won and that the Republicans would pretty well have to go along with whomever they chose, but President Trump won the election, and he has a right to pick who should go on the Supreme Court. In this case, I think he picked the most qualified person in the country for the Court. Yes, he is conservative. Yes, he came up the hard way. Yes, he is not likely to be a liberal on the Court, but I would have to say that anybody this President would choose would not likely be a liberal on the Court. In this case, the President chose one of the leading people in this country, one of the greatest lawyers in this country, one of the finest judges in this country, who has a record of working with Democrats on the bench, to become his choice for the U.S. Supreme Court. I know what is wrong with the Democrats on this. They lost, and it is a hard thing for them, and I do not blame them. It is a hard thing because they were so sure they would control this nominee to the Supreme Court and probably two to five more had Hillary Clinton been elected for two terms. But that is not the way the American people chose to vote. I commend the American people for realizing that these things are very important. I have to say, in that last election, probably the single most important issue that drove it toward Donald Trump was, who is going to pick the Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court? Republicans know and President Trump knows that he is not going to be able to put ideologues on the Court, and Neil Gorsuch is anything but an ideologue. He is as fine a judge as we have in this country, albeit conservative in nature. He has as fine an academic background as anybody on the Court--ever. On top of all of that, he is a terrific human being, a good husband, father, and a terrific judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. To be honest with you, I thought it was really nice to have somebody picked from the West who might bring a western perspective of freedom into the judicial system, and I have no doubt that Neil Gorsuch will do that. To make this a big political issue, it seems to me, is beyond the pale, and it does bother me a great deal. On another matter, Mr. President, by any measure, our efforts in this Congress to repeal harmful regulations through the Congressional Review Act have been historic. Prior to this year, only one CRA resolution-- Congressional Review Act resolution--had ever been passed by Congress and signed by the President. We are an overregulated country like never before. This year, we have already successfully rolled back 11 regulations that were proposed and finalized under the previous administration. That is truly remarkable. I think our success in this endeavor can be attributed to a few factors. First, in its last year, the Obama administration was particularly aggressive in its regulatory efforts. A number of regulations were finalized after the election, right up until the day President Trump was inaugurated. In fact, the regulation at issue today was finalized on January 19, the day before the inauguration. In other words, the Obama administration left Congress and the new administration with a target-rich environment for CRA resolutions. There is no doubt what they were doing: They were scrambling to get as many changes as they could instead of allowing the new administration to take over. Another important factor has been the realization by the American people that our economy--our workers, our businesses--is grossly overregulated. The regulatory state extracts hundreds of billions of dollars from our economy, much of it needlessly so. These CRA resolutions are part of a much broader effort to undo some of that damage. Today I am pleased to be able to express my support for H.J. Res. 67, which will likely be the 12th CRA resolution we will pass this year. This resolution, once passed and signed, will roll back a last-second Department of Labor regulation that eliminated longstanding Federal protections for the retirement savings of private sector workers. Specifically, the regulation builds off of a prior regulation that gave States a ``safe harbor'' from the protections workers have under ERISA if the government mandates that employers who do not offer retirement plans either set one up or join the government plan. These government-run plans do not have to be portable, nor do they have to permit workers to withdraw their savings at any time. The resolution we are debating now would roll back the regulation that provided this authority to municipalities, such as New York City. Hopefully, sometime soon, the Senate will also debate and pass the CRA resolution relating to the original regulation, the one that focused on States, like California and Illinois. Combined, these regulations encourage State and municipal governments to impose conflicting and burdensome mandates on private sector businesses and to bar private workers' access to their retirement accounts, and they would let States invest private workers' retirement assets, ignoring provisions in Federal pension law that require prudent pension investment practices and that ban kickbacks and self-dealing. Think about that. To be blunt, places like New York City should not just get a pass on investing potentially billions of dollars in private worker retirement assets without regard to Federal rules that require prudent investment practices--rules designed to protect the retirement nest eggs of hard- working Americans. Now, do not get me wrong--I am all for increasing coverage for employees in workplace retirement programs. In fact, it is something I have been working on for some time with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Last Congress, the Senate Finance Committee, which I chair, unanimously approved the Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act of 2016, which is a bipartisan bill that will increase voluntary retirement savings. It includes a number of provisions from a bill I introduced a few years before that, one that received high marks from analysts and stakeholders in the retirement-security community. My bill and others like it provide workable, voluntary solutions to give more workers access to retirement plans. This approach is far better than the one taken by the Obama administration and former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, which would purposefully take us down the path toward government-mandated and government-run retirement plans. The retirement savings system that has been in place for decades now is one of the clearest examples we have to demonstrate the superiority of the free market over government mandates. Private retirement savings vehicles, including 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts, which have been encouraged but not mandated by Federal tax laws, have produced nearly $14 trillion--that is trillion dollars--in wealth and savings for the middle class. I know some have concerns about the federalism implications in rolling back these Department of Labor regulations. However, let's be clear: Prior to the implementation of these regulations, States were free to pass laws to encourage retirement savings opportunities for private sector workers, and they will be free to do so after this CRA resolution is signed by President Trump. They will simply have to observe the longstanding rules and protections that have been in place under Federal pension laws, including the ban on self-dealing and the duty to invest prudently, and they will not be able to offer plans on an uneven playing field that favors government retirement plans over those produced in a free, private sector market. Unfortunately, I have to wonder why States and municipalities want to do away with these protections in the first place. I also have to wonder why they think they will be able to produce better results than the private retirement savings system, which thus far has been an unqualified success, benefiting workers and employers alike. I also have to wonder how some of my colleagues who value consumer financial protection, as I do, would want to see the continuation of rules that erode protections for workers and future retirees. The first step in undoing these harmful regulations is with the passage of H.J. Res. 67. Toward that end, I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of this resolution. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

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

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, before I begin my remarks on the Supreme Court nomination, I want to just say a word about the terrorist attack in London yesterday. I was devastated to hear that two Utahans, Kurt and Melissa Cochran, were victims in yesterday's attack. While Melissa is recovering, I was heartbroken to hear that Kurt has since passed away from his injuries. I just want to offer our most sincere condolences to the Cochrans and ensure that we help them in any way we can. I know all our prayers are with the victims and with their families, friends, and loved ones.

Mr. HATCH

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

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to once again address the nomination of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch to be the next Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. I am extraordinarily pleased that the President has nominated such an outstanding individual to fill the seat that was held by my friend, the late Justice Antonin Scalia, for nearly three decades. In the weeks since Judge Gorsuch's nomination, I have done my best to make the case that he is exactly the kind of Justice that we need: one that will--in the timeless words of Marbury v. Madison--say what the law is, not what he wishes the law would be. In my view, his outstanding credentials and his understanding of the proper role of a judge under our Constitution make him a choice that should command universal support. Unfortunately, this feeling does not appear to be as broadly shared as it should be. Leftwing activists are demanding a scorched-earth approach to Judge Gorsuch's nomination, and I am afraid that some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle appear to have been swept up in this fervor. Their opposition stems from two different sources and has taken two different forms. The first cause is the visceral reaction among some to our new President. After last year's bitterly fought election campaign, many on the left simply refuse to accept the legitimacy of the new administration and are dead set on all-out opposition to every initiative, every policy, and every nominee of this President. As a case in point, we are in mid-March and the President is still waiting for the Senate to confirm his Cabinet nominees. This hasn't happened, to my knowledge, in the 40 years I have been in the Senate. Skeptical of any nominee's willingness to hold the administration that nominated him accountable to the law, they are demanding assurances about how Judge Gorsuch would rule on the administration's most controversial moves. The Supreme Court confirmation process should not be treated as just another forum to litigate the wisdom and lawfulness of the new administration's policies. Not only does such an approach distract from the proper focus on the nominee's qualifications and judicial philosophy, but it also threatens to undermine the very independence Democrats claim to want in a Supreme Court Justice. As I have explained in detail as recently as last week, nominees of both parties for decades have refused to speculate on cases that may come before them in order to not prejudice their potential future judgments. Moreover, as a sitting Federal judge, Judge Gorsuch is bound by the code of conduct for United States judges, one of the canons of which prohibits a judge from making ``public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court.'' In light of this longstanding, necessary, and, in Judge Gorsuch's case, legally mandated practice, I have found it extraordinarily disappointing to hear some of my colleagues try to turn on its head Judge Gorsuch's admirable efforts to protect his independence. For example, the minority leader has repeatedly castigated Judge Gorsuch for refusing to take a definitive stand on the legality of the new administration's policies, accusing him of ``avoiding answers like the plague.'' For those of us of all political stripes who want a Supreme Court Justice who decides cases on the basis of what the law commands, rather than whether the result serves a particular political or policy agenda--be it Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, pro- Trump or anti-Trump--Judge Gorsuch's refusal to prejudice his approach to future cases should be celebrated, not condemned. As Justice Sotomayor said recently: ``Any self-respecting judge who comes in with an agenda that would permit that judge to tell you how they will vote is the kind of person you don't want as a judge.'' Put more colorfully, there is a plague threatening judicial independence; here, this plague takes the form of the minority leader's attempt to extract these sorts of inappropriate answers, and Judge Gorsuch is wise to avoid that. The minority leader should know better. Moreover, we know the minority leader does know better, given his many years of service on the Judiciary Committee and, in particular, how he acquiesced to the same approach when now-Justices Sotomayor and Kagan were presented with similar timely hypotheticals during their confirmation processes. Sadly, I have little doubt that this line of attack on Judge Gorsuch will continue to infect the confirmation process, but we should be completely clear and unambiguous about what these attempts to get Judge Gorsuch to answer hypothetical questions about the legality of the administration's policies represent. They are illegitimate, partisan attempts to derail his nomination, cleverly shrouded in a cloak of alleged concern about his independence. Americans should not be under any illusions that these proper concerns about independence amount to anything else. To turn to the second source of opposition to Judge Gorsuch's nomination, one need only examine this week's New York Times heading, which blared: ``Democrats' Line of Attack on Gorsuch: No Friend of the Little Guy.'' This same theme has been repeated by various leftwing interest groups and by some of my colleagues here in the Senate. They should be ashamed. As I have explained extensively in the past, the judge's critics view the judiciary as simply an extension of politics, just another forum to relitigate battles that they lost in the policymaking process. In their view, the job of a judge is not to apply the law to the facts dispassionately, but rather to pick winners and losers on the basis of the political popularity of the litigants and the policy consequences of the decision. While such an approach is antithetical to the role of a judge under the Constitution, it has become an entrenched article of faith for most of those on the left. As such, they have approached Judge Gorsuch's nomination in a predictable manner: cherry-picking and mischaracterizing his opinions as evidence of a political agenda with total disregard of what the law commanded in each of those cases. Simply put, this line of attack on Judge Gorsuch is ludicrous. Any reasonable analysis of his opinions shows that his decisions apply to laws enacted by the people's elected representatives, without regard to his own personal preferences. His approach manifests the Constitution's vision of the appropriate role of a judge that has been prominently embraced by Justice Scalia: ``If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you are not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong.'' Today, I want to examine just a few of the cases seized on by Judge Gorsuch's liberal critics to demonstrate just how unfounded their attacks are. Compass Environmental v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission involved a Tenth Circuit ruling against a firm for failing to provide adequate training to protect its employees from electric shock hazards. Judge Gorsuch did indeed rule in the firm's favor, but the case did not present the question of whether the company should do more to protect its workers. Rather, the case turned on the question of whether the Secretary of Labor satisfied the standard of showing any evidence to demonstrate that the firm in question was providing less training than what is the norm in the industry. One need only examine the judge's opinion to understand how that specific legal burden was met, reaching the same conclusion as the administrative law judge below. Next, Riddle v. Hickenlooper touches on one of the liberals' faith talking points: the supposed need to regulate political speech in order to fight money in politics. While this case has been characterized as some invitation for wealthy and large corporations to exert undue influence in politics, it actually turned on a rather narrow and technical question of whether a $200 disparity in the contribution limits for major party and write-in candidates for Colorado's State House of Representatives amounted to an equal protection violation. Judge Gorsuch joined the majority opinion of his colleagues--an Obama appointee, by the way--in agreeing that it did constitute such a violation, and then wrote a brief concurrence outlining how unclear Supreme Court precedent was on this particular point. Moreover, he stated how ``clear'' it was that ``with a little effort, Colorado could have achieved its stated policy objectives . . . without offending'' the Constitution. In essence, Judge Gorsuch adopted a particularly narrow position on a relatively minor issue in the grand scheme of campaign finance law, meriting none of his opponents' extrapolations about larger issues of political speech. Finally, several of Judge Gorsuch's writings have called into question the so-called Chevron doctrine, under which Federal courts defer to administrative agencies' interpretations of the law. His opponents have seized on this skepticism to argue that Judge Gorsuch is somehow reflexively opposed to regulation. Nothing could be further from the truth. These critics of Judge Gorsuch should recall that the Chevron deference first flourished as a reaction against liberal judges overturning the deregulatory actions of the Reagan administration. I myself am a skeptic of Chevron and have led the fight to overturn it with my Separation of Powers Restoration Act. But as the name of my legislation suggests, overturning Chevron is about restoring the constitutional allocation of powers between the three branches, maintaining fidelity to the text of the Administrative Procedure Act, and ensuring that the bureaucracy abides by the law no matter its policy goals. These are a few of Judge Gorsuch's opinions that have been most prominently mischaracterized as driven by a political agenda, when in reality their results are demanded by the law. Sadly, I expect that these mischaracterizations and inappropriate demands of Judge Gorsuch will continue to appear in this confirmation process. They don't have any better arguments, and those arguments are not only flawed, but they are wrong and inappropriate. Let me quote from a prominent liberal law professor, Harvard's Noah Feldman, to sum up how I think we all should feel about this strategy: I'm not sure who decided that the Democratic critique of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch would be that he doesn't side with the little guy. It's a truly terrible idea. . . . [S]iding with workers against employers isn't a jurisprudential position. It's a political stance. And justices--including progressive justices--shouldn't decide cases based on who the parties are. They should decide cases based on their beliefs about how the law should be interpreted. That is a liberal law professor agreeing with me, really, and condemning these types of ad hominem attacks by people who know better or should know better. I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to resist the temptation to give in to partisan and ideological pressure to engage in these tactics I described earlier, and I hope people will pay attention to what I have suggested. These are unworthy of the Senate's role, and they are unmerited with respect to such a stellar nominee as Judge Gorsuch, a man who is clearly committed to the proper, independent role of a judge. I urge all of my colleagues to join me in helping to ensure his speedy confirmation. This man is a decent, honorable, intelligent man who deserves the support of this decent, honorable, intelligent body. The arguments of the other side are without merit and, frankly, are really abysmal, and I sure hope they will reconsider and vote for this man who will be an excellent Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

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

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, later today, the Senate will vote on H.J. Res. 42, the resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act relating to a Department of Labor regulation on the drug testing of unemployment insurance applicants. I rise to speak in support of that resolution and to urge my colleagues to vote in favor of its passage. Let's put this resolution and the regulation it would repeal in proper context. In 2012, Congress passed and President Obama signed the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act. Among many other things, that law included a number of carefully negotiated provisions relating to the unemployment insurance program, including a number of reforms to address program efficiency and integrity issues. One of those provisions overturned a DOL ban on drug screening for UI applicants. Specifically, the law allowed States to test UI applicants who either lost their job due to drug use or were seeking employment in an occupation that generally required drug tests as a condition of employment. It did not require States to begin drug testing; it only gave them that option. In addition, the law required DOL to issue regulations to define those occupations that regularly conduct drug tests. States would not be allowed to implement any drug testing policies pursuant to the law until the regulations were finalized. DOL issued its proposed regulation in 2014. At that time, Members of Congress and stakeholders at the State level argued that the proposal fell far short of Congress's intent. The final rule was issued in August of last year, about 4\1/2\ years after the provision was signed into law. As before, the final regulation defined the relevant occupations so narrowly that it basically makes it impossible for States to implement any meaningful drug testing policy. So here we are, debating a CRA resolution that would wipe this regulation off the books and give DOL an opportunity to put forward something new that better reflects Congress's intent. Let's talk about why this drug testing provision is important. The UI Program requires beneficiaries to be able and available to work and be actively seeking work. This is a condition of eligibility for UI benefits. This is what it boils down to. If a worker loses his or her job due to drug use, he or she cannot affirmatively establish that they are fully able to work. Likewise, if an unemployed individual is unable to accept a new job because they cannot pass a required drug test, they are not available for work. Congress intended to give States the power to withhold benefits in these cases because, by definition, individuals in these situations are not eligible for unemployment insurance benefits. Keep in mind that, according to recent surveys, more than half of all U.S. employers require prospective employees to take a drug test. It isn't some fringe or mean-spirited notion that there is a connection between the use of illegal drugs and the ability to obtain and maintain employment. Furthermore, 20 States already limit UI benefits for applicants who have refused to take or who fail a drug test required by an employer or who have previous employment issues relating to drugs. The next logical step really is to allow States to conduct the tests themselves in order to maintain program integrity and to improve the solvency of their UI trust funds. Once again, that was what Congress intended with the passage of the 2012 statute. Unfortunately, the Obama administration took it upon themselves to undo congressional intent. We have heard from a number of Governors on this issue--including the Governor of Utah, who will support this CRA resolution--who want to see new and better regulations. A number of organizations, including the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, have chimed in as well, expressing their strong support for State flexibility in governing their UI programs. Ultimately, that is what this is about--State flexibility. Do we want States to have the freedom to run their own programs as they see fit, or do we believe that bureaucrats in Washington have all the answers? It is probably pretty clear where I come down on this particular issue. The law we drafted and passed in 2012--the one that passed with bipartisan support--struck a careful balance on these issues. It was the right balance and the right approach. Hopefully, a majority of our colleagues will share that view and vote today to restore that balance. Once again, I urge all Senators to vote in favor of H.J. Res. 42. With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH. I withhold that suggestion.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in favor of the nomination of Seema Verma to serve as the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. I think we can all agree that this is a critical time for healthcare in America. Health costs continue to rise, and patients face growing uncertainty over coverage. At the same time, the health of too many Americans continues to decline, healthcare costs continue to grow, and millions of new baby boomers are becoming eligible for Medicare each and every year. I might add, you heard the minority leader talk today as if Democrats have had nothing to do with all of this mess. Much to the contrary. Congress and our new President face intense pressure to address these challenges, and the stakes are very high. I am confident that Ms. Verma is up for that challenge. She has over two decades of experience working with State healthcare and industry leaders to reform and improve services for the most vulnerable members of our community. Ms. Verma's experience as an entrepreneur and industry leader allowed her to work extensively on a wide variety of policy and strategic projects involving Medicaid, insurance, and public health in conjunction with the Indiana Governor's office, State Medicaid agencies, State health departments, State departments of insurance, the Federal Government, and private companies and foundations. She has had a tremendous amount of experience in those areas, and I have every confidence that she will be a great leader. There are few professionals in the country who have her level of close relationships with State leaders that will be critical as Congress and the administration work to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act--the so-called Affordable Care Act; it is anything but affordable. Medicaid represents an enormous burden on State budgets, and we now have an unprecedented opportunity to reform a Federal entitlement program long in need of structural changes. Ms. Verma is the ideal candidate to oversee the reform of the Medicaid Program and take steps administratively to give States the flexibility they have been clamoring for. In Indiana, Ms. Verma worked with Governors Daniels and Pence to design a Medicaid expansion program that extended health coverage to nearly 400,000 low-income working Americans. She did so in a way that empowered people to take greater responsibility for their own health by providing incentives to use healthcare resources efficiently. The program ensured that many people got health care coverage for the first time. Now this innovative program has become a national model for other States. Ms. Verma's experience will be invaluable as we work together to improve healthcare across the country and bring down the costs thereof. In addition to her work in Indiana, Ms. Verma has developed several other Medicaid reform programs, including 1,115 Medicaid waivers for Iowa, Ohio, and Kentucky. Her firm helped design Tennessee's coverage expansion proposal and also provided technical assistance to Michigan when the State implemented its Medicaid waiver. She also helped guide the transition of Iowa's Medicaid Program to a managed care program and supported strategy efforts for Maine's Medicaid plan. Having dealt with CMS in her capacity as a consultant working on these myriad projects, she knows firsthand what is needed to make the programs work effectively. Her job as CMS Administrator will not be easy, and that is a heck of an understatement. CMS is the world's largest health insurer. It has a budget of over $1 trillion and processes over 1.2 billion claims a year for services provided to some of our Nation's most vulnerable citizens receiving Medicare and Medicaid. As such, this is a critical agency, and we need a qualified, dedicated leader at the helm. She is certainly that. In addition to ensuring that Medicare and Medicaid work effectively, Ms. Verma will also be charged with helping to ensure the longevity and solvency of the Medicare trust fund, which is projected to go bankrupt in the year 2028. Maintaining the solvency of the Medicare Program while continuing to provide care for an ever-increasing beneficiary base is going to require creative solutions, skillful administration, and a lot of knowledge and experience. All told, between now and 2030, 76 million baby boomers will become eligible for Medicare. Even factoring in deaths over that period, the program will grow from approximately 47 million beneficiaries today to roughly 80 million beneficiaries in 2030. This will also create challenges that will require steady leadership and, at times, decisive action. I believe Ms. Verma is especially qualified to lead CMS and modernize its programs to increase its effectiveness of healthcare delivery. She brings the experience and, importantly, bipartisan solutions that can and should unite people across the political spectrum in addressing some of the greatest challenges in our healthcare system. Ms. Verma has a keen understanding of patients' needs. She certainly has the expertise to create a healthcare law that this country needs and improve the lives of the 100 million Americans covered by Medicare and Medicaid. At a time when the healthcare challenges we face are very real and extremely complex, our Nation needs leaders, like Ms. Verma, who have demonstrated their ability to deliver results. I know that many people have different ideas about the best direction for the Medicare and Medicaid Programs and how we should meet the complex challenges facing CMS. While we can disagree on policy, we should all agree that the agency needs smart, experienced leadership at its helm. That being the case, I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting Ms. Verma's nomination to this important position. I personally am very grateful that she is willing to dive into this very difficult process and these problems right in the middle of politics being played and that she is willing to do the job America needs at this particular time, especially for those who need healthcare. With that, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to speak once again on the so- called Affordable Care Act and the ongoing effort to repeal and replace. We all know the House of Representatives has produced a repeal and replace package, and both the Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees have been marking it up. We don't know what it is right now. In other words, the endeavor to right the wrongs of ObamaCare is moving steadily forward on the other side of the Capitol, and soon it will be the Senate's turn to act. I commend my colleagues for introducing this legislation and moving it forward. This is an important step, and I don't think I am alone when I say that I am watching the progress in the House very carefully to see how things proceed and what the final House product will look like. Of course, virtually all Republicans in Congress want to repeal and replace ObamaCare. We are in unison there. While there are some differences of opinion on how best to do that, there is generally unanimity on that point. I am confident that whatever differences exist among House Members will be worked out through the House's legislative process. In addition, whatever passes in the House will be subject to the input and review of the Senate and to the rules of the budget reconciliation process. I want to note that I have heard from a number of Senators who have items they would like to see included when the bill comes before the Senate. I actually have several ideas of my own. However, there are limits as to what we can do under the budget reconciliation rule. Many of the proposed policy changes I have heard, although they have merit, would be banned by the rules and subject to the 60-vote threshold. That said, I am committed to working with my colleagues on both sides of the floor to ensure that the Senate process on this bill is productive and that it yields a result we can support. Long story short: This process is far from over. We have a lot more work to do. It is worth pointing out that the vast majority of the policies at play in this discussion and virtually all of the spending fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee, which I chair. Make no mistake. The Finance Committee is already hard at work and has been for some time. In many respects, I suppose you could say we have been working on this effort since the day ObamaCare was signed into law. However, for obvious reasons, our work has intensified over the past several months. In working through this process, I have been in constant contact with Chairmen Brady and Walden, who head up the relevant committees in the House. I have also been working closely with the Speaker's office, and I have been gathering input from Governors around the country. In addition, I have been working closely with the distinguished chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Enzi, who has the chief responsibility of navigating the budget process and shepherding a final repeal-and-replace bill through all the necessary rules and restrictions. In all of those conversations, we have been talking about the process, and we have been talking about the timing. Most importantly, we have been talking about the substance of the healthcare reforms and how we can best serve the interests of the American people. Throughout this effort, we have been reminded that Republicans currently control the White House and both Chambers in Congress due, in large part, to our stated commitment to repeal and replace ObamaCare, and we intend to deliver on that promise. I would like to take a few minutes to talk about some of the policies we will need to tackle as we take up the House healthcare bill in the coming weeks. Once again, the vast majority of the policies and virtually all of the spending involved in this effort fall under the Finance Committee's exclusive jurisdiction, and I intend to make sure all of my colleagues are well informed on the issues and that in the end whatever version of the bill we pass in the Senate reflects the collective will of a majority of Senators. All told, there are five major policy areas that are addressed in the House bill that fall under the Finance Committee's purview. First, there are the provisions to repeal the ObamaCare taxes. This is big. If one recalls, I came to the floor a few weeks ago and pointed out how misguided it would be, in my view, to start picking and sorting through the ObamaCare taxes to decide which to keep and which to leave in place. The House bill repeals them, along with the individual and employer mandates, both of which reside in the Tax Code. I have been working with Chairman Brady on this issue. In the end, I believe the Senate version of the bill should do the same, and I am going to continue to push to ensure it does. Second, there is the issue of premium tax credits. Chairman Brady and I have been working extensively on this issue as well. The House bill replaces the ObamaCare premium subsidies with a refundable tax credit for the purpose of State-approved health insurance, limited to those who do not qualify for other governmental healthcare programs and who have not been offered insurance benefits from their employers. Most major ObamaCare replacement proposals that we have seen contain some version of health insurance tax credits. The House approach represents a significant improvement over the ObamaCare premium subsidies. The Senate, when it takes up the bill, will have to consider how best to implement the tax credits. I will continue to work with my House and Senate colleagues to ensure that the tax credits are designed to help those lower and middle-income Americans who are the most in need. Third, there are the issues surrounding Medicaid. Chairman Walden and his predecessor, Chairman Upton, and I have been working extensively on this matter. As we know, the vast majority of the newly insured people who the proponents of ObamaCare have cited as proof that the system is working have been covered by the expanded Medicaid Program. The problem, of course, is that the Affordable Care Act did not do anything to improve Medicaid, which was already absurdly expensive for States, and ultimately unsustainable, not to mention the fact that it provides substandard healthcare coverage. The House bill draws down the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion and makes a number of significant changes to the underlying program. Most notably, it establishes per capita caps on Federal Medicaid spending, which are intended to give States more flexibility and predictability while also controlling Federal outlays related to the program. We have received substantial input on this matter from Governors around the country, and virtually all of them agree changes need to be made. Given these concerns and the sheer vastness of the Medicaid Program under ObamaCare, the Senate will have to tackle this issue when it takes up the budget reconciliation legislation in the next few weeks. I am confident that in working with my colleagues in the House and Senate and with the Governors, we can find the right solution. Fourth, there is the issue of savings accounts for healthcare costs. I have long been an advocate for the expanded use of HSAs and FSAs. Needless to say, I was particularly opposed to the ObamaCare provisions that limited the use of these savings accounts and essentially marginalized their usefulness for consumers and patients. The House bill removes a number of restrictions on these accounts that have been imposed by ObamaCare, and it goes further to remove longstanding restrictions on HSAs in order to expand their use and give patients and consumers more options to pay for health expenses. I am very supportive of this approach. In fact, the language from the House bill mirrors the legislation I introduced this year--the Health Savings Act of 2017. Fifth, there are some important transition issues that need to be addressed. To get at these issues, the House bill creates a Patient and State Stability Program, under the Social Security Act, that would distribute $100 billion to States over 10 years to enhance flexibility for States in how they manage healthcare for their high-risk and low-income populations. For example, the funds could be used to, among other things, help individuals with cost-sharing. This program was proposed with the idea of giving States an expanded role in the healthcare system, a goal that is shared by most Republicans in Congress and something that almost all of the Governors have told us they want to see. There are other issues from the House bill in the broader healthcare debate that will demand some attention when we consider the bill in the Senate. However, almost all of them fall under these general categories. Once again, the vast majority of them fall under the sole jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee, the primary committee. There are other critical issues out there which do not involve the Tax Code, the Social Security Act, or Federal health programs. Yet they are extremely important. The biggest mistake made by those who drafted ObamaCare and forced it through Congress was their failure to address healthcare costs in any meaningful way. After all, cost is the largest barrier preventing people from obtaining health insurance coverage, and the increasing healthcare costs are among the most prominent factors leading to wage stagnation for U.S. workers. Yet ObamaCare did little to address this problem, and in fact it has made things worse. If we are going to fully keep our promises to the American people with regard to ObamaCare, we are going to have to eventually address these issues. After all, most people's negative interaction with the Affordable Care Act has come in the form of increased healthcare costs. If we are going to truly right all of ObamaCare's wrongs, we need to tackle the costs head on. This will mean, among other things, fixing the draconian regulatory regime in our health insurance markets and giving individuals the ability to select only the coverage they want and need. Many of these types of issues fall far outside of the Finance Committee's jurisdiction and are under the watchful eye of the distinguished chairman of the Senate HELP Committee. The House bill also includes some provisions that are intended to address these concerns. I assume our distinguished colleague running the HELP Committee is working tirelessly to address the issues, and others, both through the reconciliation exercise or some alternative means. Ultimately, if our goal is to place the healthcare system in a better position than it has been under ObamaCare, costs will have to factor heavily into the equation. I am looking forward to receiving guidance and leadership on the HELP Committee on these important market reform issues. Overall, I believe we can and will be successful in this endeavor to fix our broken healthcare system. The American people are counting on us to do so. At the end of the day, success in that endeavor is, in my view, going to require a robust Senate process that allows this Chamber to work its will. We have two Chambers in Congress for a reason. The House reconciliation bill needs 218 votes to pass. The Senate will also have to act when we receive the bill, and we will need to produce a package that can get at least 51 votes in this Chamber and hopefully more. That may mean some differences between the Senate and the House versions of the bill, but that is not problematic in my view. It is not particularly novel or unusual for different views and ideas to be resolved through the legislative process rather than simply dissipating when a bill is introduced. It seems to me that is not novel, and I am not the only one who has this view. Earlier this week, Secretary Price sent a letter to the chairmen of the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees. The letter commended the chairmen for their work and praised the legislation they unveiled to repeal and replace ObamaCare. The Secretary also noted that this was not the end of the process but that the introduction of the House bill was a ``necessary and important first step'' and that the administration anticipated that the Congress would be ``making necessary technical and appropriate changes'' to get a final bill to the President that he can sign, which reminds us of the other important advocate in this endeavor. President Trump ultimately needs to support the bill that is passed by each Chamber of Congress, and his support for our efforts is paramount. While, at this point, it may not be entirely clear what the final bill will look like, we do know two things for certain. First, we know that ObamaCare is not working. As the majority leader said yesterday, ObamaCare is a direct attack on the American middle class. Thanks to skyrocketing premiums, shrinking options in the health insurance market, burdensome mandates, and harmful taxes, millions of Americans are dealing with the failures of ObamaCare on a daily basis. We need to act now to fix these problems. Second, we know that by introducing its bill and moving it through the legislative process, the House has taken significant steps in advancing this effort, and the leaders in the House should be commended for doing so. Long story short, I have nothing but praise for the leaders in the House this week for the work they have done on these issues. Remember, this is just the beginning. I look forward to working with my colleagues in both Chambers to get this over the finish line so the Republicans can collectively make good on our promises with regard to ObamaCare.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage Senator Klobuchar in a colloquy to commemorate Rare Disease Day in order to discuss issues facing patients and the families of those who have been diagnosed with these types of conditions.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as cochairs of the Rare Disease Caucus, Senator Klobuchar and I have worked hard to bring more hope to patients and their families who are coping with rare diseases on a daily basis. Today 1 in 20 individuals worldwide is living with one or more of the more than 7,000 rare diseases, 95 percent of which do not have an effective treatment. While the incentives provided by the Orphan Drug Act, first championed by me in 1983, has led to the approval of nearly 600 orphan drugs, much more needs to be done. Many patients living with rare diseases rely on the FDA to evaluate and approve treatment options for their conditions. That is why it is so important for the FDA to use its authority to accelerate the evaluation and approval of drugs for treating rare diseases and for Congress to ensure that proper incentives exist for research to discover and make affordable treatments and cures available for this community. To address this issue, Congress passed the FDA Safety and Innovation Act of 2012, which refined and strengthened the tools available to FDA to accelerate the evaluation and approval of new drugs targeting unmet medical needs for rare conditions. I have been paying close attention to how this new authority translates into advances for patients suffering from conditions such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy, atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome, Bertrand-N-glycanase deficiency, and other rare diseases. In light of these changes over the past few years, I ask my friend from Minnesota whether the current approval process is achieving its goals of safety and efficacy without hampering the development of new therapies.

Mr. HATCH. I appreciate that question. We must continue to urge the FDA to fully implement its relatively new authority. Every one of us in this body represents constituents who are battling rare diseases, and I urge the FDA to consider this flexibility as applied in reviewing all candidates' therapies. I will continue to work closely with my Senate colleagues to ensure that the FDA uses the tools, authorities, and resources required to provide patients and physicians with new treatment options. I have also contacted the FDA frequently during the past year to encourage the agency to listen to the voices of patients during the agency's evaluation process. When the Senate considers the nominee for FDA Commissioner, I will continue to stress the importance of incorporating a balanced and flexible approach when weighing risks, benefits, and outcomes, especially when dealing with small patient populations with such rapidly progressing prognoses. Patients with limited or no treatment options are depending on FDA to utilize the flexibility outlined in FDASIA. This law, which provides full and fair review of new drug therapies in a timely manner, gives hope to patients suffering from life threatening diseases and, of course, their families as well. I ask Senator Klobuchar, how can we move forward into the next user fee agreement?

Mr. HATCH. I thank my dear friend, the senior Senator from Minnesota, for her time with me today. It is very meaningful to me and, I think, to everybody who is concerned about this rare disease situation in our country. This is just the start of our conversation for this Congress. There is so much left for us to do, and I am certain we will succeed as long as we stay together and work in a bipartisan way. So I thank my dear colleague for her words and support and the good leadership she provides in the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. HATCH

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

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, in a little more than 2 weeks, the Judiciary Committee will open its hearing on the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch for the U.S. Supreme Court. This is the 14th Supreme Court confirmation process in which I have participated. Over that time, while some things have changed, others have stayed the same. The conflict over judicial appointments, especially to the Supreme Court, remains at its core a conflict over the proper role of judges in our system of government. The two sides of this conflict want two very different kinds of judges. Some of my colleagues, joined by their liberal allies, instead want judges who owe their fidelity to a particular political agenda. For them, the judiciary is simply a backup plan for achieving political objectives. If the legislative branch does not deliver, they go to the executive--as they often did in the previous administration. If that does not work, they figure that the courts offer a second or third bite at the political apple. This vision is fundamentally inconsistent with the way our system of government was destined, designed, and intended to be. Instead, the Framers devised the role of the judiciary on the wisdom of Montesquieu, who posited: Were the power of judging joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control. . . . Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave [as] an oppressor. That was Montesquieu. Reflecting this wisdom, the Constitution endows the judge with the role of saying what the law is, rather than what he wishes the law would be. Alexander Hamilton rightly observed: The people's liberty cannot be endangered by the judiciary ``so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the executive.'' The stakes in this conflict over judicial power are really enormous. The choice determines whether the people or unelected judges will govern the country and define the culture. Our system of government and the liberty it makes possible allow only one answer. The confirmation process allows us to determine which kind of judge Neil Gorsuch is and which kind of Justice he will be. The dynamics of the confirmation process often reveal what kind of judge Senators and interest groups really seek. Those who want political judges, for example, use a variety of strategies to determine how a judicial nominee, especially to the Supreme Court, will rule on issues and cases they care about. In fact, most of the time it seems that the policy consequences of how a judge will rule is the only thing that some Senators and advocates really care about. For example, when President Bush nominated Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005, one Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee said that the real question was this: ``Whose side is Judge Roberts really on, on the really important issues of our time?'' Another Democratic Senator said: ``Before we vote, it is important to know where Judge Roberts stands on key issues.'' Another said that she needed to know whether ``Judge Roberts will stand with us and with our families or be on the side of major special interests.'' Now, something is seriously wrong when the confirmation process for a Supreme Court nominee sounds more like an election campaign for a Senator or a Senate seat. Unfortunately, the same thing is happening again today regarding Judge Gorsuch. If a corporation won a case before him on the Tenth Circuit, for example, those groups claim that he is a champion of corporate interests, no matter the legal grounds of the decision, the facts, or anything else. If another decision's result does not sufficiently advance the feminist agenda, they say that he is anti-woman. This radical approach seems to say that judges are free to decide every case based on the political popularity of the result and, therefore, that the judge personally intends every outcome. These advocates do not distinguish between the commands of the law and the personal preferences of the judge. In this view, statutes and the Constitution mean whatever judges want them to mean, making unelected, unaccountable, lifetime appointees the master of the people. Political judges take away from the people the power to govern themselves and undermine their liberty. Using political or theological litmus tests in the quest for such political judges, demanding that they take sides and insisting that they make commitments to certain policy agendas before even taking office, poses a similar threat to the independence and impartiality of the judiciary. There is nothing mainstream about political judges and nothing mainstream in the tactics used to appoint them. In contrast, impartial judges are consistent with the principles on which our system of government is based and the independence that judges must have. When Judge Gorsuch took his seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in 2006, he took the oath required by title 28, section 453, of the United States Code. He pledged to administer justice without respect to persons and to faithfully and impartially discharge his judiciary duties. Now, I want to suggest that my colleagues try an experiment. Ask your constituents whether judges should make up their mind on a case before hearing all of the evidence and arguments. Ask whether judges should take positions on issues before those issues even come before them in court. I know what Utahns would say. The ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct, for example, twice states this principle: A judge shall not, in connection with cases, controversies, or issues that are likely to come before the court, make pledges, promises, or commitments that are inconsistent with the impartial performance of the adjudicative [functions and] duties of judicial office. State codes of judicial conduct include the same commonsense protection for judicial impartiality. The California code, for example, prohibits statements, whether public or not, that ``commit the judge with respect to cases, controversies, or issues that are likely to come before the courts.'' Now, this has been the consistent practice of judicial nominees before the Judiciary Committee. Elena Kagan came before the Judiciary Committee in June 2010, after being nominated by President Obama to replace Justice John Paul Stevens. On June 29, 2010, she said that it would not be appropriate for her to comment on an issue that could come before the Court. Samuel Alito--Justice Alito--came before the committee in January 2006, after being nominated by President Bush to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. On January 11, 2006, he said: But the line I have to draw, and I think every nominee, including Justice Ginsburg, has drawn, is to say that when it comes to something that realistically could come before the Court, they can't answer about how they would decide that question. That would be a disservice to the judicial process. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg appeared before the Judiciary Committee in July 1993, nominated by President Clinton to replace Justice Byron White. On July 20, 1993, she said this: ``A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints, for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process.'' Antonin Scalia came before the committee in August 1986, after being nominated by President Reagan to replace Justice William Rehnquist. On August 5, 1986, he said that taking positions in a hearing on issues that could come before him was not just a slippery slope but, in his words, a precipice. He said: ``I just cannot do it, and I think the only way to be sure that I am not impairing my ability to be impartial in future cases . . . is simply to respectfully decline to give an opinion.'' Let me reach even further back. Justice Abe Fortas came before the Judiciary Committee in July 1968, after being nominated by President Johnson to replace Chief Justice Earl Warren. The committee sent the nomination to the full Senate and said these words in its report: To require a Justice to state his views on legal questions or to discuss his past decisions before the committee would threaten the independence of the judiciary and the integrity of the judicial system itself. It would also impinge on the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers among the three branches of Government as required by the Constitution. Judge Thurgood Marshall came before the committee in July 1967, nominated by President Johnson to replace Justice Tom Clark. The committee sent the nomination to the full Senate and its report noted that the nominee had said he would ``wisely and forthrightly decline to give a judicial opinion on hypothetical questions.'' Just 2 years earlier, when the committee reported the nomination of Abe Fortas to be an Associate Justice, its report said: ``We have always felt it would be unfair to ask any nominee for any judicial office to give a legal opinion on the basis of a hypothetical question.'' I think the point is obvious. Every nominee, of either party, for decades has taken the same position, and it is the right position. It reflects a commitment to judicial independence, to impartiality, and to the integrity of the judicial branch of government. If my Democratic colleagues and their liberal allies believe that Justices Kagan, Alito, Ginsburg, Scalia, Fortas, and Marshall were all wrong, they should say so. If they believe that judges should prejudge cases by committing to particular outcomes, then they should make that case. If they believe that the oath of judicial office and code of judicial conduct are all misguided, then, it seems to me, they should be upfront about it. I, for one, believe that judges should be impartial, that they should follow the law, and that they should stay within their designated role. America needs impartial, not political, judges. I don't care which party you are in. If you are an attorney, you have to appreciate judges who are impartial, especially if you are an honest attorney. We need judges who will follow, rather than lead, the law. The Constitution, after all, is the primary way that the American people set rules for government, and that includes--God bless it--the judicial branch. The Constitution cannot control judges if judges control the Constitution. Yesterday the Judiciary Committee received a letter signed by more than 30 prominent members of the Supreme Court bar. In combination, they have argued more than 500 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Though they hold different political and legal views, they are united in strongly supporting Judge Gorsuch's nomination. They write that he is fair-minded, principled, and ``has the unusual combination of character, dedication, and intellect that would make him an asset to our Nation's highest court.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. I believe the record demonstrates that Judge Neil Gorsuch is an impartial judge and will, when confirmed, be an impartial Supreme Court Justice. He will take the law as he finds it and apply it ``without respect to persons,'' just as the oath commands. With him on the bench, the law--made by the people's elected representatives--will determine winners and losers. In doing so, he will be exactly the kind of Justice America needs. Judge Gorsuch has a tremendous reputation on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, supported by Democrats and Republicans alike. Judge Gorsuch is a brilliant lawyer and an even more brilliant judge. He is a person of impeccable reputation and integrity. He is exactly the type of person you would want deciding your case if you had a case before the Supreme Court. He is exactly the type of person whom other judges could emulate and follow, so he is exactly the type of person we want on the Supreme Court. I have heard some ugly rumors that some of my colleagues in this body might, because of political concerns and political pressure, want to vote against Judge Gorsuch. I would caution them not to do that. I think Judge Gorsuch will basically please almost everyone in this body over the years that he serves as a Supreme Court Justice. He is a really fine man. He is a fine family man. He is a very fine lawyer and a fantastic court of appeals judge. He will make a great Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. So I urge my colleagues on both sides to vote for him and help us fill this void so that the Court can continue to act as the Court should.

Mr. HATCH. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, with all the division and conflict in politics today, it would take something truly compelling to unite all 100 Senators, including Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. Well, it has happened. This week I sent to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson a letter, signed by all 100 Senators, asking that it be conveyed to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The letter supports the decades-long quest by Agudas Chasidei Chabad of the United States to recover from Russia its collection of sacred religious texts and manuscripts. Chabad was established in the 18th century in Russia and is today the largest Hasidic Jewish organization in the world. The organization's past leaders, or rebbes, accumulated this collection of sacred texts, which includes a library and an archive and is central to Chabad's religious life. The Soviets took control of the library in 1920 and in 1927 arrested the sixth rebbe and sentenced him to death. He was allowed to leave Russia later that year but had to leave the library behind. In 1933, the sixth rebbe and the archive moved to Poland. In 1940, after both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland, the sixth rebbe fled to the United States without the archive. It was confiscated, first by the Nazis and then by the Soviets. Chabad has since worked to reclaim both the library and the archive. It is important to place the letter we sent this week in its full context because this is only the latest in a long series of actions by all three branches of the U.S. Government to support Chabad's quest. Members of Congress, for example, began calling for the return of these works in the 1930s. Just weeks before the Soviet Union dissolved on Christmas Day 1991, both President Mikhail Gorbachev and a state arbitration panel ordered that the library be returned to Chabad. On January 24, 1992, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe wrote President Boris Yeltsin, urging him to carry out the court's order and return the collection. Unfortunately, both President Gorbachev's directive and the court's order were effectively nullified when the Russian Federation replaced the Soviet Union. Within a few months, however, the U.S. State Department expressed ``strong support'' for returning the full collection to Chabad. On May 31, 1992, all 100 Senators signed a letter to President Boris Yeltsin urging the collection's ``quick release.'' On February 20, 2005, all 100 Senators signed a letter to President Putin, again urging that the collection be returned to Chabad. The letter said this: ``The religious texts that Chabad seeks to retrieve consist of rare and irreplaceable books, archives and manuscripts on Chabad philosophy, Jewish religious law, prayer and tradition. . . . We urge you to return these sacred religious texts, archives, and manuscripts to Chabad, which would be a significant example of your government's commitment to justice, human rights, and religious freedom.'' Chabad filed suit against Russia in Federal court. During this litigation, the United States filed statements of interest reiterating its ``strong support'' for returning the collection to Chabad. On July 30, 2010, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered Russia to return both the library and the archive to Chabad. I am truly grateful to all of my colleagues for your support of Chabad and their effort to recover this important component of their religious life. As striking as this unity is, I hope my colleagues also see it as part of a much longer story of extraordinary faith and commitment in the face of loss and persecution. I hope and pray that such efforts will be successful and that Russia will respond favorably to Chabad's request. It would indeed be a demonstration of their commitment to justice, human rights, and religious freedom. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the 1992, 2005, and 2017 Senate letters to which I referred be printed in the Record.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:55 p.m., the Senate stand in recess subject to the call of the chair to prepare for Washington's Farewell Address.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, 70 years ago this May, the Senate Appropriations Committee sent to the full Senate a constitutional amendment to require a balanced Federal budget. It had been proposed by Senator Millard Tydings, a Democrat from Maryland. In its report, the committee said this: ``In no other way except by an amendment to the Constitution can Congress be compelled to balance its budget in peacetime.'' Seven decades of experience proved that the Appropriations Committee was right, and we have never been in a more serious, perilous situation than we are today. Two essential facts compel me once again to introduce a constitutional amendment to require fiscal responsibility: the gravity of the national debt crisis and the fact that neither willpower nor legislation will solve it. The greatest challenge in describing the gravity of the national debt crisis is deciding how much of the bad news to present at one time. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, one of the candidates criticized the outgoing President for adding $4 trillion to the national debt. That increase, Barack Obama said, was not only irresponsible but ``unpatriotic.'' The national debt on inauguration day 2009 was $10.6 trillion, and on inauguration day 2017 it was $19.9 trillion. If a $4 trillion increase was irresponsible and unpatriotic, what words describe a $9.3 trillion increase? President Obama won the 2008 election with the Government Accountability Office warning that the Nation's long-term fiscal outlook was unsustainable. In its January 2017 assessment of the Nation's fiscal health, GAO reports that the national debt as a share of GDP in 2016 was 75 percent higher than the average since World War II. As it had been before, GAO concluded that ``the federal government's fiscal path is unsustainable.'' One way to understand the gravity of the national debt is to compare it to the size of the economy, or the gross domestic product. In other words, we can compare what we owe to our ability to pay. When President Obama took office, the national debt was 82 percent of GDP and is now 105 percent of GDP today. Some economists prefer to evaluate the national debt as a percentage of tax revenue; that is, by comparing what we owe to what we earn. The national debt rose from approximately 350 percent of Federal revenue when President Obama took office to 600 percent of Federal revenue today. But neither numbers nor percentages tell the whole story because the national debt crisis is becoming not only a bigger crisis but a different kind of crisis. During the last several years of skyrocketing national debt, the interest rate on that debt has been nearly zero. If interest rates had been at the historical average, annual interest costs would be more than twice what they are today and on their way to consuming more than half of all Federal revenue. And now interest rates are starting to creep up. The Concord Coalition and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget both anticipate that over the next decade, interest payments on the national debt alone will approach $1 trillion per year. That is interest payments. In other words, as GAO found in its new fiscal report, the growing national debt now means that the rising cost of servicing that debt becomes one of the drivers of the growing debt itself. This is becoming what one study calls a self- propelling crisis. A national debt of this magnitude dampens the economic growth necessary to minimize borrowing to fund the government, and rising interest costs for such a monstrous debt add to the debt on which more interest must then be paid. Last month, for instance, the Treasury Department echoed this point in its financial report with the U.S. Government for fiscal year 2016. The Treasury Department concluded: The debt-to-GDP ratio rises at an accelerating rate despite primary deficits that flatten out because higher levels of debt lead to higher net interest expenditures, and higher net interest expenditures lead to higher debt. The continuous rise of the debt-to-GDP ratio . . . indicates that current policy is unsustainable. We can also consider the legislative budget and economic outlook from the Congressional Budget Office. I want to highlight a few things that stood out to me. First, annual budget deficits are on their way back up after 6 years of decline. In fact, the budget deficit for fiscal year 2016 will be one-third larger than in 2015. Second, CBO projects that the national debt will rise by nearly $10 trillion over the next decade. Looking beyond the next decade, CBO says that under current law, the national debt will explode to more than 150 percent of GDP--by far the highest level in American history. Third, CBO also says that interest on the national debt is itself an increasingly forceful engine driving the debt even higher. Interest payments on the national debt are increasing nearly twice as fast as spending on Social Security and Medicare. Just last month, CBO Director Keith Hall said that over the next 10 years, interest payments are expected to triple in nominal terms and double relative to GDP. Fourth, CBO repeated some of the serious negative consequences of this national debt for the budget, the economy, and the Nation. In addition to substantially higher interest payments, these include lower productivity and wages, less flexibility by lawmakers to respond to fiscal challenges, and increased likelihood of a fiscal crisis. In addition to these problems, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen and experts from the Heritage Foundation to the Brookings Institution warn that the national debt crisis is a serious threat to national security. Economists tell us that national debt above 90 percent of GDP for a sustained period of time will lead to substantially slower economic growth and higher interest rates. The United States is now in the longest period in its history with the national debt above that toxic 90-percent level. Not surprisingly, since the recession ended in June 2009, the national debt has grown more than twice as fast and GDP has grown less than half as fast as during the comparable period after previous recessions. It is no wonder to me and to many others that more than two-thirds of Americans say that their concern over the national debt is growing and more than three-quarters of Americans say that the national debt should be among Congress's top three priorities. The national debt was once such a top priority. In fact, America's Founders were so determined to avoid debt that their commitment to fiscal balance was often called our unwritten fiscal constitution. President George Washington, for example, told Congress that the regular redemption of the public debt was the most urgent fiscal priority. That was George Washington. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1798 that if he could add a single amendment to the Constitution, it would prohibit the Federal Government from borrowing. That commitment, of course, is long gone. The Federal budget has been balanced in only a dozen of the last 80 years. And, as I said earlier, we are in the longest period in American history with a debt above 90 percent of GDP. As its fiscal willpower failed, Congress has also tried to address the debt crisis by legislation. The first bill requiring a balanced budget was introduced in 1934 when the national debt was 40 percent of GDP. Fifty years later, Congress enacted the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act. Since then, we have enacted multiple budget control acts and budget enforcement acts, only to see the national debt climb from 42 percent of GDP in 1985 to 105 percent of GDP today. Good intentions will not balance the Nation's checkbook. Statutes that Congress can change or ignore will not keep our fiscal house in order. Neither willpower nor legislation will tackle the national debt crisis. Pretending otherwise is the fiscal equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns. All the evidence--every bit of it--proves true the conclusion drawn by the Appropriations Committee 70 years ago. In no other way except by amendment to the Constitution can Congress be compelled to balanced its budget in peacetime. We have, as lawyers put it, exhausted our other remedies for this crisis. This would be a very different country--a freer and more prosperous country--if Congress had already proposed the only solution that exists, a constitutional amendment which requires fiscal responsibility. The first balanced budget amendment was introduced in the House of Representatives in 1936. As you can see, the national debt as a percentage of GDP has been going up by leaps and bounds. I introduced my first balanced budget amendment in June of 1979, during my first term in the Senate when the national debt was 32 percent of GDP. That share of GDP doubled by 1997 when the Senate came within one vote of passing a balanced budget amendment that I introduced--one vote. It rose to 95 percent when the Senate last voted on a balanced budget amendment in 2011 and is 105 percent of GDP today. Since this crisis is already so grave and getting worse, since the only way to tackle it is through the Constitution, we should propose a balanced budget amendment and let the American people decide whether to take this step. After all, Congress cannot amend the Constitution. A requirement that Congress keep its fiscal house in order cannot become part of the Constitution until that is approved by three-quarters of the States. Congress, however, is not the only way to propose constitutional amendments. Article V of the Constitution also allows the States to apply for a convention to propose constitutional amendments. Concerned citizens have been working since the mid-1970s to reach the two-thirds threshold for calling such a convention to propose a balanced budget amendment and are only six States away from that goal. Since Congress has never called an article V convention, questions remain unresolved and theories untested regarding that method of proposing an amendment. I can assure my colleagues, however, that Congress's continued failure to propose a balanced budget--and a balanced budget amendment at that-- guarantees that our fellow citizens will continue working to force that course upon us. There are two facts that we must face: the gravity of the nation's debt crisis and the failure to address it by willpower or legislation. Perhaps some of my colleagues believe that the Congressional Budget Office is wrong in its disturbing projections and dire warnings; that the Government Accountability Office is mistaken and the fiscal path we are on is sustainable after all; that the Treasury Department is wrong about the spiral of increased debt and growing interest payments--some people feel that way; that the Concord Coalition and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget are wrong about how national debt interest payments will continue to grow and add to the debt; and that economists are wrong to warn about the impact of sustained national debt of this magnitude. If my colleagues are convinced that everyone else is wrong and our fiscal future is just fine after all, then they should say so and then try to make that case to the American people. Even they will not do that because they know they are wrong, yet we can't seem to get them to do what is right. I, for one, think that would be a very tough sell for them to make. Americans have been polled about this issue dozens of times over the years by major polling firms and national news organizations. Three-quarters of Americans supported a balanced budget amendment in 1976, and three-quarters support it today. Perhaps all of these polls over the last 40 years are wrong. Perhaps the American people are content watching their national debt swallow the economy. Perhaps our fellow citizens are actually OK with slower economic growth, a rising threat to national security, the greater likelihood of a fiscal crisis, and an unsustainable path to fiscal disaster. If that is what the American people actually believe, then they certainly are inclined to ratify a balanced budget amendment. The real reason Members of Congress refuse to give the American people this choice is that they know what the American people will say. I say with respect, but as strongly as I can, that this is not a legitimate basis for refusing to propose a balanced budget amendment. In our system of government, as Founder James Wilson once put it, the people are the masters of government. They alone have authority to set rules for government. This choice must be theirs, not ours. Here is the heart of the matter. First, the national debt crisis poses a significant and growing threat to the economic and national security of this country. In fact, we have never been in such an extended, perilous period as we are right now. Second, Congress has tried and failed to address this crisis by either willpower or legislation and will actually do so only if the Constitution requires it. Third, the decision of whether to use the Constitution to require fiscal responsibility belongs to the American people, not to Congress. We can either take the responsibility we were elected for and propose a balanced budget amendment or the American people may do it for us. I hope we have the guts to do what is right. Our very country is hanging in the balance. The rest of the world depends on the United States and the strong principles of the United States, and we need to do what is right. I think it is time for us to wake up and realize this is the Congress that can make the difference. After all these years of impropriety and excessive spending, we can do it. We can live within certain constraints. It may take a period of time to wind this down, but we can do it. This amendment does provide for some ways of getting there.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, 70 years ago this May, the Senate Appropriations Committee sent to the full Senate a constitutional amendment to require a balanced Federal budget. It had been proposed by Senator Millard Tydings, a Democrat from Maryland. In its report, the committee said this: ``In no other way except by an amendment to the Constitution can Congress be compelled to balance its budget in peacetime.'' Seven decades of experience proved that the Appropriations Committee was right, and we have never been in a more serious, perilous situation than we are today. Two essential facts compel me once again to introduce a constitutional amendment to require fiscal responsibility: the gravity of the national debt crisis and the fact that neither willpower nor legislation will solve it. The greatest challenge in describing the gravity of the national debt crisis is deciding how much of the bad news to present at one time. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, one of the candidates criticized the outgoing President for adding $4 trillion to the national debt. That increase, Barack Obama said, was not only irresponsible but ``unpatriotic.'' The national debt on inauguration day 2009 was $10.6 trillion, and on inauguration day 2017 it was $19.9 trillion. If a $4 trillion increase was irresponsible and unpatriotic, what words describe a $9.3 trillion increase? President Obama won the 2008 election with the Government Accountability Office warning that the Nation's long-term fiscal outlook was unsustainable. In its January 2017 assessment of the Nation's fiscal health, GAO reports that the national debt as a share of GDP in 2016 was 75 percent higher than the average since World War II. As it had been before, GAO concluded that ``the federal government's fiscal path is unsustainable.'' One way to understand the gravity of the national debt is to compare it to the size of the economy, or the gross domestic product. In other words, we can compare what we owe to our ability to pay. When President Obama took office, the national debt was 82 percent of GDP and is now 105 percent of GDP today. Some economists prefer to evaluate the national debt as a percentage of tax revenue; that is, by comparing what we owe to what we earn. The national debt rose from approximately 350 percent of Federal revenue when President Obama took office to 600 percent of Federal revenue today. But neither numbers nor percentages tell the whole story because the national debt crisis is becoming not only a bigger crisis but a different kind of crisis. During the last several years of skyrocketing national debt, the interest rate on that debt has been nearly zero. If interest rates had been at the historical average, annual interest costs would be more than twice what they are today and on their way to consuming more than half of all Federal revenue. And now interest rates are starting to creep up. The Concord Coalition and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget both anticipate that over the next decade, interest payments on the national debt alone will approach $1 trillion per year. That is interest payments. In other words, as GAO found in its new fiscal report, the growing national debt now means that the rising cost of servicing that debt becomes one of the drivers of the growing debt itself. This is becoming what one study calls a self- propelling crisis. A national debt of this magnitude dampens the economic growth necessary to minimize borrowing to fund the government, and rising interest costs for such a monstrous debt add to the debt on which more interest must then be paid. Last month, for instance, the Treasury Department echoed this point in its financial report with the U.S. Government for fiscal year 2016. The Treasury Department concluded: The debt-to-GDP ratio rises at an accelerating rate despite primary deficits that flatten out because higher levels of debt lead to higher net interest expenditures, and higher net interest expenditures lead to higher debt. The continuous rise of the debt-to-GDP ratio . . . indicates that current policy is unsustainable. We can also consider the legislative budget and economic outlook from the Congressional Budget Office. I want to highlight a few things that stood out to me. First, annual budget deficits are on their way back up after 6 years of decline. In fact, the budget deficit for fiscal year 2016 will be one-third larger than in 2015. Second, CBO projects that the national debt will rise by nearly $10 trillion over the next decade. Looking beyond the next decade, CBO says that under current law, the national debt will explode to more than 150 percent of GDP--by far the highest level in American history. Third, CBO also says that interest on the national debt is itself an increasingly forceful engine driving the debt even higher. Interest payments on the national debt are increasing nearly twice as fast as spending on Social Security and Medicare. Just last month, CBO Director Keith Hall said that over the next 10 years, interest payments are expected to triple in nominal terms and double relative to GDP. Fourth, CBO repeated some of the serious negative consequences of this national debt for the budget, the economy, and the Nation. In addition to substantially higher interest payments, these include lower productivity and wages, less flexibility by lawmakers to respond to fiscal challenges, and increased likelihood of a fiscal crisis. In addition to these problems, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen and experts from the Heritage Foundation to the Brookings Institution warn that the national debt crisis is a serious threat to national security. Economists tell us that national debt above 90 percent of GDP for a sustained period of time will lead to substantially slower economic growth and higher interest rates. The United States is now in the longest period in its history with the national debt above that toxic 90-percent level. Not surprisingly, since the recession ended in June 2009, the national debt has grown more than twice as fast and GDP has grown less than half as fast as during the comparable period after previous recessions. It is no wonder to me and to many others that more than two-thirds of Americans say that their concern over the national debt is growing and more than three-quarters of Americans say that the national debt should be among Congress's top three priorities. The national debt was once such a top priority. In fact, America's Founders were so determined to avoid debt that their commitment to fiscal balance was often called our unwritten fiscal constitution. President George Washington, for example, told Congress that the regular redemption of the public debt was the most urgent fiscal priority. That was George Washington. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1798 that if he could add a single amendment to the Constitution, it would prohibit the Federal Government from borrowing. That commitment, of course, is long gone. The Federal budget has been balanced in only a dozen of the last 80 years. And, as I said earlier, we are in the longest period in American history with a debt above 90 percent of GDP. As its fiscal willpower failed, Congress has also tried to address the debt crisis by legislation. The first bill requiring a balanced budget was introduced in 1934 when the national debt was 40 percent of GDP. Fifty years later, Congress enacted the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act. Since then, we have enacted multiple budget control acts and budget enforcement acts, only to see the national debt climb from 42 percent of GDP in 1985 to 105 percent of GDP today. Good intentions will not balance the Nation's checkbook. Statutes that Congress can change or ignore will not keep our fiscal house in order. Neither willpower nor legislation will tackle the national debt crisis. Pretending otherwise is the fiscal equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns. All the evidence--every bit of it--proves true the conclusion drawn by the Appropriations Committee 70 years ago. In no other way except by amendment to the Constitution can Congress be compelled to balanced its budget in peacetime. We have, as lawyers put it, exhausted our other remedies for this crisis. This would be a very different country--a freer and more prosperous country--if Congress had already proposed the only solution that exists, a constitutional amendment which requires fiscal responsibility. The first balanced budget amendment was introduced in the House of Representatives in 1936. As you can see, the national debt as a percentage of GDP has been going up by leaps and bounds. I introduced my first balanced budget amendment in June of 1979, during my first term in the Senate when the national debt was 32 percent of GDP. That share of GDP doubled by 1997 when the Senate came within one vote of passing a balanced budget amendment that I introduced--one vote. It rose to 95 percent when the Senate last voted on a balanced budget amendment in 2011 and is 105 percent of GDP today. Since this crisis is already so grave and getting worse, since the only way to tackle it is through the Constitution, we should propose a balanced budget amendment and let the American people decide whether to take this step. After all, Congress cannot amend the Constitution. A requirement that Congress keep its fiscal house in order cannot become part of the Constitution until that is approved by three-quarters of the States. Congress, however, is not the only way to propose constitutional amendments. Article V of the Constitution also allows the States to apply for a convention to propose constitutional amendments. Concerned citizens have been working since the mid-1970s to reach the two-thirds threshold for calling such a convention to propose a balanced budget amendment and are only six States away from that goal. Since Congress has never called an article V convention, questions remain unresolved and theories untested regarding that method of proposing an amendment. I can assure my colleagues, however, that Congress's continued failure to propose a balanced budget--and a balanced budget amendment at that-- guarantees that our fellow citizens will continue working to force that course upon us. There are two facts that we must face: the gravity of the nation's debt crisis and the failure to address it by willpower or legislation. Perhaps some of my colleagues believe that the Congressional Budget Office is wrong in its disturbing projections and dire warnings; that the Government Accountability Office is mistaken and the fiscal path we are on is sustainable after all; that the Treasury Department is wrong about the spiral of increased debt and growing interest payments--some people feel that way; that the Concord Coalition and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget are wrong about how national debt interest payments will continue to grow and add to the debt; and that economists are wrong to warn about the impact of sustained national debt of this magnitude. If my colleagues are convinced that everyone else is wrong and our fiscal future is just fine after all, then they should say so and then try to make that case to the American people. Even they will not do that because they know they are wrong, yet we can't seem to get them to do what is right. I, for one, think that would be a very tough sell for them to make. Americans have been polled about this issue dozens of times over the years by major polling firms and national news organizations. Three-quarters of Americans supported a balanced budget amendment in 1976, and three-quarters support it today. Perhaps all of these polls over the last 40 years are wrong. Perhaps the American people are content watching their national debt swallow the economy. Perhaps our fellow citizens are actually OK with slower economic growth, a rising threat to national security, the greater likelihood of a fiscal crisis, and an unsustainable path to fiscal disaster. If that is what the American people actually believe, then they certainly are inclined to ratify a balanced budget amendment. The real reason Members of Congress refuse to give the American people this choice is that they know what the American people will say. I say with respect, but as strongly as I can, that this is not a legitimate basis for refusing to propose a balanced budget amendment. In our system of government, as Founder James Wilson once put it, the people are the masters of government. They alone have authority to set rules for government. This choice must be theirs, not ours. Here is the heart of the matter. First, the national debt crisis poses a significant and growing threat to the economic and national security of this country. In fact, we have never been in such an extended, perilous period as we are right now. Second, Congress has tried and failed to address this crisis by either willpower or legislation and will actually do so only if the Constitution requires it. Third, the decision of whether to use the Constitution to require fiscal responsibility belongs to the American people, not to Congress. We can either take the responsibility we were elected for and propose a balanced budget amendment or the American people may do it for us. I hope we have the guts to do what is right. Our very country is hanging in the balance. The rest of the world depends on the United States and the strong principles of the United States, and we need to do what is right. I think it is time for us to wake up and realize this is the Congress that can make the difference. After all these years of impropriety and excessive spending, we can do it. We can live within certain constraints. It may take a period of time to wind this down, but we can do it. This amendment does provide for some ways of getting there.

Mr. HATCH

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

Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise to speak in support of the nomination of Scott Pruitt for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Attorney General Pruitt has a distinguished record of public service in having served for 8 years in the Oklahoma State Senate before being sworn in as the attorney general of Oklahoma in 2010. Two dozen State attorneys general wrote to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in support of Mr. Pruitt's nomination. He has been endorsed by a wide variety of organizations representing a broad swath of America culture and industry, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Home Builders, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the Western Energy Alliance, and the Western Growers Association, just to name a few. In his capacity as State attorney general, Mr. Pruitt has consistently fought against Federal intrusion on State and individual liberties, and he has shown himself to be a thoughtful attorney who is dedicated to the Constitution and to the rule of law. The next Administrator of the EPA must respect the limits of Federal power. Few know these limits better than Mr. Pruitt, which is why I believe he will be a capable leader at the EPA. Mr. Pruitt will rein in Federal overreach and put a stop to many of the overbearing regulations that have done very little to protect the environment but much to hurt businesses, large and small. Modernization of the Environmental Protection Agency is long overdue. For too long, the Agency has acted outside its legal authority. For too long, the Agency has strayed from its core mission of protecting human health and the environment. For too long, it has imposed draconian regulations that cause undue harm to America's small businesses and rural communities. I have long held that the EPA can fulfill its vitally important mission of protecting the environment without causing unnecessary harm to the economy, but to achieve this objective will require a massive culture change at the Agency--a culture change that only Mr. Pruitt can bring. Mr. Pruitt wants an EPA that is both pro-environment and pro-growth. What is wrong with that? That is long overdue. He understands that protecting our lands and helping our businesses succeed is not a zero- sum game. With Mr. Pruitt at the helm, I am confident he will bring much needed change to the EPA and restore the public's trust in the Agency. Once confirmed, I am eager to work with Mr. Pruitt to discuss how we can best protect our air and our water and how we can best modernize the EPA. It is amazing to me that some of the greatest leaders in the bureaucracy over the years have been people who have worked in the fields that really constitute what we are talking about here today. They have surprised people by making sure that both sides have really been taken care of and that the laws are faithfully executed and some of the partisanship and biased approaches toward the environment are overcome. Mr. Pruitt is capable of doing that--a brilliant man with a brilliant record. He is supported by an awful lot of attorneys general in this country. He is a person who, if liberally given the chance, might be able to help turn around some of the things that are just plain wrong at the EPA. Madam President, I yield the floor.