Tim Kaine

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today I am introducing a bipartisan bill to make the process of siting natural gas pipelines fairer, more transparent, and more responsive to landowner concerns. For some time now, I have been listening to Virginians with passionate views on the process involved in permitting the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley Pipelines. For various reasons, many oppose one or both of these projects while others support these projects. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, is tasked with analyzing all the issues--purpose and need for a project, impacts on people 1iving on the route, potential risks to the environment or property-- and deciding what course best serves the public interest. From listening to all sides, I have concluded that while reasonable people may reach different conclusions, FERC's public input process is flawed and could be better. Accordingly, this legislation proposes several steps to address several shortcomings, all of which were originally brought to my attention by Virginia constituents. For instance, this bill requires programmatic analysis of pipelines proposed around the same time and in the same geographic vicinity so that the full impacts of multiple projects can be analyzed. It requires a greater number of public comment meetings so that citizens are not required to commute long distances to meetings at which they must speed through just a few minutes of remarks on these complex topics. It ensures that affected landowners are given proper notice and compensation. It guarantees that landowner complaints will be heard before construction commences. And it clarifies the circumstances under which eminent domain should and should not be used. I am pleased to be joined by my colleague Senator Mark Warner on this bill, which is an update to a version we introduced in the 115th Congress. The public deserves reasonable opportunity to weigh in on energy infrastructure projects, and we are heeding calls by our constituents to make this process fairer and more transparent without mandating a particular outcome. I encourage the Senate to consider this legislation, not to pave the way for pipelines nor to throw up insurmountable roadblocks to them, but to give the public greater certainty that the federal government's infrastructure decisions are fair and transparent.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today I am introducing a bipartisan bill to make the process of siting natural gas pipelines fairer, more transparent, and more responsive to landowner concerns. For some time now, I have been listening to Virginians with passionate views on the process involved in permitting the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley Pipelines. For various reasons, many oppose one or both of these projects while others support these projects. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, is tasked with analyzing all the issues--purpose and need for a project, impacts on people 1iving on the route, potential risks to the environment or property-- and deciding what course best serves the public interest. From listening to all sides, I have concluded that while reasonable people may reach different conclusions, FERC's public input process is flawed and could be better. Accordingly, this legislation proposes several steps to address several shortcomings, all of which were originally brought to my attention by Virginia constituents. For instance, this bill requires programmatic analysis of pipelines proposed around the same time and in the same geographic vicinity so that the full impacts of multiple projects can be analyzed. It requires a greater number of public comment meetings so that citizens are not required to commute long distances to meetings at which they must speed through just a few minutes of remarks on these complex topics. It ensures that affected landowners are given proper notice and compensation. It guarantees that landowner complaints will be heard before construction commences. And it clarifies the circumstances under which eminent domain should and should not be used. I am pleased to be joined by my colleague Senator Mark Warner on this bill, which is an update to a version we introduced in the 115th Congress. The public deserves reasonable opportunity to weigh in on energy infrastructure projects, and we are heeding calls by our constituents to make this process fairer and more transparent without mandating a particular outcome. I encourage the Senate to consider this legislation, not to pave the way for pipelines nor to throw up insurmountable roadblocks to them, but to give the public greater certainty that the federal government's infrastructure decisions are fair and transparent.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, communities of color and those living in rural and underserved area face significant barriers to healthcare, including physician shortages. Unfortunately, in many communities of color and rural areas, there are few pathways to enter the medical profession. Recent data shows that while medical school enrollment is up by 30 percent, the number of students from rural areas entering medical school declined by 28 percent between 2002 and 2017, with only 4.3 percent of all incoming medical students coming from rural areas in 2017. Similarly, Black, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American students face several barriers to matriculate and graduate from medical school. This exacerbates the barriers to care and the disparities in health outcomes that these communities experience. It is critical that we expand the diversity of our physician workforce to tackle the rampant disparities and systemic biases within our healthcare system. This is why I am introducing the Expanding Medical Education Act, which aims to tackle the lack of representation of rural students, underserved students, and students of color in the physician pipeline by encouraging the recruitment, enrollment, and retention of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The bill would provide grants through the Health Resources and Services Administration, HRSA to colleges and universities to establish or expand allopathic or osteopathic medical schools in underserved areas or at minority-serving institutions, including historically Black colleges and universities, HBCU. These grants can be used for planning and construction of a medical school in an area in which no other school is based; hiring diverse faculty and staff; recruitment, enrollment, and retention of students; and other purposes to ensure increased representation of rural students, underserved students, and students of color in our physician workforce. Our rural communities and communities of color face significant challenges in access to healthcare. It is time our physician workforce reflected these communities. We need to diversify our physician pipeline and change the disparity in representation, and this bill will help get us there. I hope the Senate passes this legislation quickly to expand the diversity of the medical profession and to take a step towards improved access to care for our marginalized communities.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, Lorna Breen was a talented and dynamic physician who served as the medical director of the emergency department at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital. Lorna was from Charlottesville, VA, and very devoted to her family there. She attended Cornell University and then the Medical College of Virginia. She was deeply religious, an avid skier, a volunteer with senior citizens, a salsa dancer, and a musician. Mostly, Lorna Breen was a beloved, compassionate, and demanding doctor. A colleague said of her: ``She had something that was a little bit different and that was this optimism that her persistent effort will save lives.'' Dr. Breen suffered from something very common among health professionals--the deep stress of dealing with patients day in and day out--helping them, worrying about them, celebrating with them, praying for them, and mourning for them. Healthcare professionals routinely experience high levels of stress. As many as 45 to 55 percent of this critical workforce suffers from burnout. Physicians have the highest rate of death by suicide of any profession in this country, with a suicide rate more than twice that of the general population. That was the case before COVID-19. In November 2019, Dr. Breen and three colleagues published a short article in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine titled: ``Clinician burnout and its association with team-based care in the Emergency Department.'' The article that she coauthored begins this way: Recent work has noted the alarming prevalence of clinician burnout among providers, particularly among acute care physicians. Burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion, physical fatigue, and cognitive weariness, which may lead to feelings of depersonalization and reduced accomplishment. The article went on to describe how staffing models--in this case, the use of fixed working teams--could mitigate the effects of stress on staff and also improve patient outcomes. Within just a few months of the publication of this article, healthcare professionals like Dr. Breen, already dealing with high stress levels, faced a new foe: coronavirus. Dr. Breen's hospital was overrun by the virus in March and April, as were others in New York, as are others in this country. By late March, the Allen, a small community hospital serving a low-income population in Northern Manhattan, was blitzed with an emergency department clogged with nearly three times its normal number of patients. Dr. Breen shared the sense of anxiety now understood by the whole country: ``People I work with are so confused by all the mixed messages and constantly changing instructions.'' And then Dr. Breen got the virus herself, coming down with fever and exhaustion on March 18 and quarantining in her New York City apartment as she tried to recover. While she was trying to recover, she was texting her colleagues to see if they were OK. She was trying to help them find supplies that they could buy to use at the hospital. Finally, she returned to work on April 1, and the situation in her emergency room, her hospital, her city, was even grimmer. Her sister, Jennifer Breen Feist, described what Lorna faced. When [Lorna] returned to the hospital, she was confronted by an overwhelming, relentless number of incredibly sick patients. She and her colleagues worked 24/7 during the peak in New York with limited personal protective equipment, insufficient supplies, not enough beds, not enough help. Many of her colleagues were out on medical furlough. She told me patients were dying in the waiting rooms and hallways. . . . There was so much suffering, so much death. During the peak of the crisis in New York City, nearly a quarter of all patients admitted to the Allen for COVID-19 would die. Dr. Breen messaged her Bible study group: ``I'm drowning right now--may be AWOL for a while.'' She kept right on working. By mid-April, Dr. Breen reached out for help to deal with the stress she was feeling by talking to colleagues and family. She admitted that she had thought about hurting herself. She told one friend: I couldn't help anyone. I couldn't do anything. I just wanted to help people and I couldn't do anything. Dr. Breen was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for 11 days and went home when she was discharged to be with her family in Charlottesville to recover, and on April 26, Dr. Breen died by suicide, leaving no note. Dr. Breen was a victim of coronavirus, even though her death is not counted among the 151,000 people who have succumbed to the virus. But she was also a victim of another condition that is a preventable condition that affects our healthcare professionals. We place enormous demands upon our healers. Our society, including the medical profession itself, does not do enough to recognize the real cost that the work inflicts upon the mental health of our caregivers. Perhaps even our use of the term ``hero,'' meant as the highest praise, subtly communicates an expectation that our healers must be strong superheroes, placed high on a pedestal by society, thereby making it even more difficult for a caregiver to admit vulnerability and simply ask for help. Loice Swisher, an emergency room physician in Philadelphia, puts it this way: We don't want to be seen as a weak link. We don't want to be seen as incompetent or place an extra burden on our colleagues. It's almost like you're being kicked off the island--you don't belong any more--if you admit to [needing help]. It is still common practice in this country for State medical boards and hospitals to ask doctors seeking licensing and credentialing whether they have ever been treated for depression or other mental illness. This heightens the barriers to asking for help when we should be making it easier to do so. Lorna's sister Jennifer attests to this: And when [Lorna] became so overworked and despondent that she was unable to move, do you know what she was worried about? Her job. She was worried that she would lose her medical license, or be ostracized by her colleagues because she was suffering burnout due to her work on the front lines of the Covid19 crisis. She was afraid to get help. Lorna's worries were not unusual. A 2019 survey of physicians by the American Medical Association showed that nearly 40 percent of surveyed physicians are wary about seeking mental health counseling, while another 12 percent indicate that they would only do so in secret. Dr. Breen's family is devastated by her passing, but they are honoring her by advocating for the cause of a more humane profession, one in which mental health challenges are acknowledged, mental health resources are available, and the healer accessing those services is encouraged. I am proud today to introduce the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act, together with my colleagues, Senators Young, Reed, and Cassidy. The act aims to reduce and prevent suicide, burnout, and other mental and behavioral health conditions among healthcare professionals. In particular, the act would establish grants for training healthcare professionals, students, and residents with strategies to improve their mental well-being and job satisfaction; identify and disseminate evidence-based best practices for combating burnout and suicide; establish a national education and awareness campaign targeting healthcare professionals to encourage them to seek support and treatment for mental and behavioral health concerns; create grants for employee education, peer support programming, and mental and behavioral health treatment with a priority for providers in COVID-19 hotspots; and initiate a comprehensive study on healthcare professional mental health needs, including the impact of COVID-19 on our providers, that can produce recommendations for all levels of government and the medical professions themselves. We introduced this bill mindful of the many priorities that are currently being discussed while we negotiate our continuing response to the Nation's coronavirus challenge. It is our hope that this bill might make it into the next COVID-19 bill as a tribute to Lorna Breen and so many like her. How should we honor the work and sacrifice of a Lorna Breen? How do we honor those healthcare frontline workers whom we call heroes every day? How do we recognize the tremendous work they are doing and also the tremendous burden that they carry? Let's pass this bill and show that we care about our healers and are committed to providing them the resources and the culture they need to keep healing.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President. There are significant racial and ethnic inequities in maternal and infant mortality rates in the U.S. According to the CDC, the maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women in 2018 is more than 2.5 times higher than the maternal mortality rate of non-Hispanic white women, and the infant mortality rate of non-Hispanic Black women is more than 2.3 times higher than the infant mortality rate of non-Hispanic white women. Any pregnant woman choosing to have a child should be able to do so safely without regard to income, race, ethnicity, employment status, or any other socio-economic factor.' This is why Senator Murkowoski and I are introducing the Mothers and Newborns Success Act, which aims to reduce maternal and infant mortality, ensure that all infants can grow up healthy and safe, and protect women's health before, during, and after pregnancy. Our legislation supports innovation in maternal health delivery and improves data collection on maternal mortality and maternal deaths. The bill will help ensure that women are matched with birthing facilities that are risk-appropriate for their particular needs to improve maternal and neonatal care and outcomes. The legislation strengthens support for women during the critical postpartum period, the year after birth, and will help ensure pregnant women get the vaccinations they need and are aware of maternal health warning signs. The bill promotes maternal health research and the use of telehealth to help high-risk expectant mothers in geographically-isolated areas. The Mothers and Newborns Success Act is a significant step toward reducing racial, ethnic, and geographic inequities in maternal and infant health. I am glad that my colleague Rep. Terri Sewell will be introducing companion legislation in the House of Representatives. Given COV1D-19's disproportionate impact on communities of color and recent research from the CDC which finds that pregnant women with COVID-19 are more likely to be hospitalized and admitted to the ICU, this legislation is especially timely. No woman should fear for her or her child's health because of her race. We need to ensure more women of color and their children, particularly Black women and children, receive equitable care. COVID-19 and its impact on pregnant women has only underscored the need for urgent action. By advancing evidence-based policies to improve maternal and infant health outcomes, this bill will work to reduce and eliminate preventable maternal and infant mortality in the United States. I'm calling on my Senate colleagues to support this bill and include it in the next coronavirus relief package so we can enact positive systemic changes to make sure more women and newborns thrive and have the maximum chance for success.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 316, S. 906.

Mr. KAINE. I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendment be agreed to and that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time.

Mr. KAINE. I know of no further debate on the bill, as amended.

Mr. KAINE. I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise tonight to speak about a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act that would direct the renaming of military bases and facilities that are currently named for those who voluntarily fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. I thank Senator Warren for offering the amendment, and I particularly thank her for making adjustments to the amendment to accommodate concerns of colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I was proud to cosponsor the revised amendment in committee and speak in favor of it today. It is important to state clearly what this amendment will do. If it passes and survives a threatened Presidential veto, it will require the Department of Defense to initiate a 3-year process to change the name of any military base, barracks, or other facility named after a Confederate military leader. Why 3 years? The timing is designed to allow a full public process in each location so that the desires of the community leaders can be taken into account in choosing new names. I state with clarity the substance of the amendment because one of my colleagues took the floor earlier this month to oppose the amendment, and he obscured its purpose in describing it, only saying that it required that ``some of the names of our Nation's military bases must be removed.'' He neglected to mention that the amendment specifically sought change only to facilities named for Confederates. In fact, he did not mention the Confederacy or the Civil War at all. If you are unwilling to be plain about what is at stake, it portrays a weakness in your position. So let me be plain. I speak today because I am a Senator from the State with the most at stake in this discussion. Three of the ten bases whose names must be changed under this amendment are in Virginia. Virginia was the State whose people were most affected by the Civil War, and I served as its 70th Governor. My hometown of Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy, and I served as its 76th mayor. I have dealt with issues of Civil War names, statues, memorials, battlefields, and buildings throughout my 26 years in public life. Based on decades of grappling with this question, I want to describe a principle, explain an epiphany, and finally pose a question. First, a principle: If you declare war on the United States, take up arms against it, and kill U.S. troops, you should not have a U.S. military base named after you. If you declare war on the United States, take up arms against it, and kill U.S. troops, you should not have a U.S. military base named after you. This principle is nowhere stated in law because it need not be. It is a basic commonsense principle. The principle explains why we have no Fort Cornwallis, Fort Benedict Arnold, Fort Santa Ana, Fort Von Hindenburg, Fort Tojo, Fort Ho Chi Minh If you declare war on the United States, take up arms against it, and kill U.S. troops, you should not have a U.S. military base named after you, but we make an exception. Ten bases and many other military facilities are named after Confederate leaders who declared war on the United States, took up arms against it, and killed U.S. troops. Even further, they took these actions to destroy the United States, to tear our country in half so that the seceding Southern States could continue to own those of African descent as slaves--a species of property-- rather than treating them as equal human beings. Is this worthy of honor? Does it justify an exception to the sound principle that I describe? Why were these 10 bases so named when they were constructed in the years before and during the First and Second World Wars? The names were not chosen due to the military skill of the Confederate leaders. Some are revered for their prowess, but some are reviled. The names were not chosen to honor the character of the 10 leaders. Some are respected-- excepting the blight on character that support for slavery confers--but others were not distinguished in their behavior or their integrity. The record makes clear that the 10 bases were named for Confederate leaders upon their construction during the First and Second World Wars because of a lingering belief in their cause--dividing the Nation to uphold slavery and White supremacy. In the days of mandated segregation, a vibrant Ku Klux Klan, popular culture painting a false picture of the war and its aftermath with films like ``The Birth of a Nation'' and ``Gone with the Wind,'' there was a powerful desire to hold up the Confederate cause, to sanitize the Confederate cause and deny the reality of African-American suffering. That desire even affected this very body during those years, as the Senate repeatedly used the filibuster to block Federal anti-lynching legislation. It is clear now, as it has been clear for a very long time, that the cause of the Confederacy was not just but monstrous. Destroying the Nation to preserve slavery would have been a catastrophe. History can't be rewritten, and it is important to tell it, but choosing who to honor is another matter entirely. I repeat a principle that I believe brooks no exception: If you declare war on the United States, take up arms against it, and kill U.S. troops, you should not have a U.S. military base named after you. This wisdom was understood immediately in the aftermath of the Civil War by Robert E. Lee. He was asked about memorials to the Confederacy and stated: ``I think it wiser not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.'' This amendment is consistent with Lee's wise observation. Second, let me explain an epiphany that I have had just in the last few months. When I moved to Virginia to get married in 1984, I saw the Confederate statues in Richmond, and I was puzzled. As a Kansas-raised civil rights lawyer and then later as a local elected official in a city that was majority African American, I was struck by their continued prominence. But together with the leadership of my diverse city, we viewed these statues and other symbols of the Confederacy as painful symbols of an incomplete past--painful because of the reality of slavery and discrimination, which have warped our Commonwealth and country since 1619, and incomplete as well. Where were the statues to Richmond heroes from the revolution or the civil rights movement? Why did our city highlight 4 years out of a 250-year history and downplay everything else? My generation of Richmond leaders endeavored to solve this problem by painting a more complete picture--statues of Arthur Ashe, Abraham Lincoln, Maggie Walker, a civil rights memorial on our capitol grounds, new municipal buildings, courts, schools, many named after prominent African Americans, women leaders. Aging bridges that had been named for Confederate generals were eventually replaced and named for civil rights heroes. In short, we viewed this problem as one that could be solved with a path of addition--not replacing the painful symbols of the past but instead adding to our built environment the recognition of people and eras that had not previously been honored. This was necessary and important work. I was proud to play my part in it during my 16 years in local and State service. But in recent months, as I spent our extended April quarantine in Richmond and I talked to people about whether Confederate statues on our Monument Avenue should be removed, I learned something. When I refer to these statues as symbols of a painful past, again and again, I was told: Tim, you might see these statues as signifying a painful past, but we see them as signs of a painful present and even predictors of a difficult future. This sort of stopped me in my tracks. I asked my friends to explain. Here is a composite of what they told me: If honoring these Confederates were just about the past, that would be one thing. But these statues are honored in the present by a city and State that maintain them, spotlight them, emphasize their beauty, and market their appeal to tourists. In the present, these statues become a rallying point for neo-Confederates and others who would take us back, just as occurred in Charlottesville in 2017. The present is pretty frightening. African Americans are dying of COVID at disproportionate rates. The job losses in this economic collapse are falling so hard on African-American communities. We see scenes of police violence against African Americans playing endlessly on our televisions, and we don't see an immediate end to these disparities. Do you really expect us to believe that a society that continues to honor those who tried to destroy our country to save slavery will be serious about ending the racial disparities that exist today? You either support the equality of all or you don't. If you honor those who opposed our equality--indeed, opposed the very notion of our humanity-- what hope can we have about overcoming the real-time injustices that are manifest all around us? I thank God I can still learn some new things at age 62. In my view, the statues and base names and the other Confederate honorifics that dot the American landscape have been about the past. But I now see that, for so many, they raise deep and troubling questions about the present and the future. Are we committed to the equality of all--the moral North Star announced by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and reconfirmed by Lincoln at Gettysburg? If we continue to honor men who fought to deprive those of African descent of their equality, we signal that we are not committed to our most fundamental American value. Finally, there are questions for those, including the President, who attack those who want to remove Confederate names from military bases or take down Confederate statues. When you saw young Germans in 1989 spray graffiti on the Berlin Wall and knock it down, how did you feel? I know how you felt. You felt good to see people standing up to leaders and saying: You will no longer divide us. When you saw people throughout the Soviet bloc pulling down statues of Stalin and Lenin after the collapse of the Soviet Union or Iraqis pulling down statues of Saddam Hussein, how did you feel? I know how you felt. You felt good to see people standing and saying with their actions: We will no longer glorify tyrants who oppressed us. When you see hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers in the streets protesting against the Chinese Government, how do you feel? I know how you feel because I heard you, even in this Chamber. You feel good seeing everyday people standing up against a government that would deprive them of their basic freedom. Well, if you feel that way--and I believe virtually all Americans do--how can we feel otherwise about patriotic Americans who believe in a nation committed to the equality of all when they stand up and say: We will not be divided. We will not glorify those who oppressed us. We will not honor those who stood against our freedom. That is what our people, especially our young people, are saying to us now. Supporting this amendment will show them that we are listening. In conclusion, we Americans have grown as a nation and as a people since the Civil War. And we have grown as a nation and as a people since the first half of the 20th century when, in very different circumstances, it was still seen as a good idea to honor the Confederacy. One of the key areas of our growth--admittedly a progress of fits and starts--has been a greater acceptance of others, regardless of race or religion or sexual orientation or gender or nationality or physical ability. Thank God for that growth. Of course, the evidence all around shows that we still have a long way to go to reach full equality. It might be like the North Star. We can steer by it, but it is not in the capacity of mortal mankind to reach it. But when we do steer by it and step in its direction, we become better. That is what this amendment will accomplish, and it is why I so strongly support it I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to briefly discuss a matter that is contained within the NDAA bill that is currently pending before the Senate, a matter for which I sponsored as an amendment, in the Committee on Armed Services' markup on the bill, that received the unanimous voice vote of my colleagues, and I just wanted to stress its importance. A few weeks back, on a Monday in May, peaceful protesters assembled in Lafayette Square to protest against police violence. They were peaceful, and they were in full compliance with a curfew ordinance that was in place. It was before the curfew. Federal law enforcement officials fired tear gas at them to disperse them, which I found very, very troubling, as, I know, many people did. What concerned me even more was the President's indicating that he might use Active-Duty military against the protesters. That was happening during the same week that we were submitting amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act. So I wrote up a very simple amendment that read: No funds under this Act shall be used for any military program or personnel to infringe upon people's rights to peacefully assemble or petition government for a redress of grievances. It was a very simple amendment. There is an act, the Insurrection Act, that sets forth specific circumstances under which the military can be used to do law enforcement activities for domestic purposes, but I wanted to have the strong statement that the military should not be used to infringe upon people's rights to peacefully assemble and petition the government. I was proud, when I presented that to my committee colleagues within a week after this event, that they agreed and, by a unanimous voice vote, included it in the base bill. I want to just stress why I think this is so very, very important, and I appreciate my colleagues' support to this point. Peaceful protests are protected in the First Amendment, and I think the Framers of the Bill of Rights, when they protected something, they sort of encouraged it. I think the Framers of the Constitution got some things wrong, but they also got some things right. One of the things I have always been interested in is that, while elections are important--and elections and campaigns are in the Constitution as being every 2 years for the House, every 6 years for the Senate, and Presidential elections--the Framers knew elections wouldn't be enough to protect this great democracy. If they had thought elections would have been enough, they wouldn't have said that people need to be able to peacefully assemble and that people need to be able to petition the government for a redress of grievances. If elections had been enough, they would have said: Well, if you are mad, just wait 2 years, and then you can vote out somebody bad and bring in somebody good. The Framers had been through the experiences of things like the Boston Tea Party and other events. They knew that to have a more perfect Union and really preserve the democracy, they needed to have elections, but they also needed to give people the room and the space to be able to peacefully assemble and say: Hey, I don't like this. Can we make these changes? It is a value that is so important, like the freedom of religion and the freedom of the press, and were put in the First Amendment for a reason. Those in the military, just as Senators, take vows to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Yet, in particular today, 2020, we have a significant issue that I see cropping up sometimes, which is, thank goodness, that we as civilians appreciate the military--that the ``thank you for your service'' attitude, I think, is widely shared. There is often a gulf between the military and civilians because, in the time of an all-volunteer military, only 1 percent of people serve in the military. That means, for those of us who haven't served, often, we might have a general appreciation, but we don't really have an understanding, and there can start to be a gap, or a gulf, between civilians and the military. Former Secretary of Defense Mattis has commented about this a lot, about this gap that can grow. I am not challenging that an all- volunteer military is a good thing, but there can be a gap of misunderstanding. We would never want to widen that gap, and we should always do things to narrow that gap. There would be nothing that would widen the gap more than if people were to perceive that the military were now being arrayed against them, against the civilian population. It would not only endanger important First Amendment rights, but it would also potentially lead to a wider canyon between the civilian and the military, and we should not do that. There can be uses of military assets in protest situations. A sort of standard way of thinking about it, for example, would be to use Guard troops. The Guard is often called up to protect protesters, and then local law enforcement is used to police bad actors. One would use a group like the Guard to protect protesters, to keep them safe, and to make sure they are not doing things to or are being harmed by others, but the law enforcement activity should be carried out by police and not by the military. This is something we promote in the Committee on Foreign Relations all the time. I see my colleague from Wyoming who is here, who is on the Committee on Foreign Relations with me and does such a good job there. We are often encouraging foreign nations: Don't use your military to do police work. Have a professional police department. Use your military to defend the country. The professionalizing of police is an important thing, because that is not what a military should do. That was the reason I introduced the amendment. It was not solely to protect First Amendment rights, which are really important, but it was also to not allow a gulf that exists between civilians and the military to get even worse if civilians feel like the military is arrayed against them. The last thing I will say--and then I will conclude--is that I lived in a military dictatorship when I was young. I took a year off in the middle of law school to go to Honduras and work with Jesuit missionaries in 1980 to 1981. It was a military dictatorship, and people could not vote for anything. It was a shock to me, my seeing a society where people could vote and, maybe, sometimes even choose not to vote, and then my going to a society where people couldn't vote. People prayed for the day that they might be able to finally vote for their leaders, but they couldn't because the military was running the country at the time. There I saw the reaction that the people had toward the military, and the reaction that they had toward the military and to that form of government was not ``thank you for your service.'' It was ``you scare me to death.'' There was military on every corner with automatic weapons. There were roundups, and they would do an organized draft. Sometimes they would just surround a movie theater, and as young men would come out, they would commandeer them to go into the military. I experienced something so different from what I experience here, which was a society in which your first reaction when you see somebody in uniform--in the military--is fear. You are afraid of him. We would never want that to be the prevailing attitude here. We would want our attitude here to be ``thanks for your service.'' I believe my amendment, now incorporated in the NDAA, will preserve the important roles that the military plays, preserve the important principles of peaceful assembly, petitioning government, First Amendment, but we will also make sure that we as a society don't find, by pitting the military against civilians, that we will be led to a situation where we will not be able to fully appreciate the sacrifices they make and the work they do for us. I am excited that the bill on the floor now contains this provision and hope my colleagues will promptly and quickly pass the NDAA. I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise to speak about the disturbing reporting regarding Russian efforts to harm Americans in Afghanistan through payments to the Taliban and the Haqqani network. This is deadly serious and we--the Congress and the American public--must get answers to a number of questions. When did the United States first receive information suggesting that Russia was providing financial support to Taliban or HQN operatives to kill American troops? What investigation has been done by DOD or intel agencies to corroborate the charge? What investigations have been done into the deaths of U.S. troops in Afghanistan during the relevant time period to determine whether they might be linked to Russian payments? Was information about this allegation contained in the President's daily briefing in late February? If so, why are the President and the White House maintaining so strongly that the President was never briefed? When did the United States first brief allies--specifically, the United Kingdom--on the intelligence concerning the Russian bounty allegations? What events led to an administrative interagency meeting on this topic in late March? What options were explored at that meeting? Were any undertaken? To the extent that there is a difference of opinion about the existence of such a program among U.S. agencies, what explains the differing conclusions? Did President Trump discuss the matter in any of the numerous phone calls he had with Russian President Putin from late March through this month? If the President knew of the concern, why did he persist in trying to get Russia invited as a participant to the G7 meeting to be held in the United States this fall? Why hasn't the President condemned the existence of any such program or at least pledged that there would be serious consequences if such a program existed? That Russia might behave in a hostile manner toward U.S. troops in Afghanistan would not be a surprise based upon Russia's track record of bad behavior all over the globe, but what has been surprising has been the administration's actions regarding this explosive allegation, and I believe the Senate must get to the bottom of it. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I appreciate my Senate colleague's desire to increase accountability and transparency of student outcomes. As Governor, I was doing the same thing with Virginia institutions. I view his request as a little bit of a non sequitur. It is not really connected to mine. He mentioned that we shouldn't be throwing more money at colleges. Let me make plain again that my request does not cost a penny. It is not about an additional penny for colleges. It is about implementing the CARES Act, which was passed on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote by this body on March 26. Senator Scott's bill does not deal with something we have already done. It does not deal with the COVID emergency. It does deal very directly with something that we are in the process of doing. The HELP Committee right now is considering the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Senator Scott's proposal, dealing with transparency and accountability, fits squarely within the discussion that the HELP Committee is currently having about reauthorization of HEA, and it is an appropriate and important topic for the committee to grapple with as we work on the HEA reauthorization. But in that sense, I am a little puzzled because there is a venue for his proposal right now in the HEA reauthorization discussion as we go forward and look at what more accountability we would ask of our colleges. I don't think we should jump Senator Scott's bill ahead of that reauthorization and impose new restrictions on universities in the middle of this pandemic, as we are trying to help them get through COVID. For that and other reasons, while I would certainly pledge to work with the Senator on this matter in the committee on which we both sit, during HEA reauthorization, I do not agree to modify the request that I made regarding S. 3947.

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, before I get to the motion I am going to make, I am going to take just a few minutes to discuss the importance of why the Senate must pass the Coronavirus Relief Flexibility for Students and Institutions Act, which is S. 3947. This has to do with an action that we took as bipartisan colleagues-- a most important action--in March, passing the CARES Act. The CARES Act included $13.9 billion for higher education emergency relief for institutions to directly support students facing urgent needs related to this pandemic and also to support the institutions as they cope with the effects of COVID-19. From this amount, about $12.5 billion was provided to all institutions of higher ed, and they had to use half their dollars to award emergency aid to students and half the funds to cover the institutional expenses and needs. Congress was very careful in crafting this bipartisan provision to provide flexibility so that the institutions could make their own decisions about how to use and reward those funds--both for students and how to use them for institutions. Unfortunately, the Department of Education is not following congressional intent and is including additional restrictions and conditions that Congress did not include that are making these funds more difficult to access by students and by the institutions. On the institution side, colleges had to quickly transition their programs online, many doing so on a widespread scale for the first time, without the technology capacity and staff training to conduct those classes. Colleges have also had to quickly send students living on campus home, bring students home who were studying abroad, clean and sanitize their facilities, and provide refunds to students for room and board charges. They have had to meet greater financial needs and basic need challenges from their students, including housing, food, and childcare costs. This has resulted in higher costs for colleges at the same time as COVID-19 has led to a sharp reduction in normal revenue streams: fundraising, housing, dining, event space, athletic, bookstore, conferences, and much more--including State funding that has been hurt. These revenue losses are likely to continue as students drop out and tuition revenue decreases in the fall. This would come as schools implement costly safety measures for reopening, like testing and PPE distribution. Many institutions have already cut pay and benefits, laid off full-time staff and student employees, and slashed to reorganize academic and athletic programs. This is all in addition to the potential cuts colleges will likely see from State budgets. I got a letter from the president of one of my community colleges, Dr. John Downey, president of Blue Ridge Community College in fall. This would come as schools implement costly safety measures for reopening, like testing and PPE distribution. Many institutions have already cut pay and benefits, laid off full-time staff and student employees, and slashed to reorganize academic and athletic programs. This is all in addition to the potential cuts colleges will likely see from State budgets. I got a letter from the president of one of my community colleg Weyers Cave. Here is what he said: ``We anticipate devastating lost revenue and state budget reductions, and we have no way, with the possible exception of the CARES Act institutional funds, to offset those losses. The current CARES Act restrictions mean that community college will likely only be able to offset $100,000-$300,000 of [additional PPE expenses while we] open up. . . . Without the ability to offset revenue losses looming for FY21, we are concerned that we will be forced to close vital programs and layoff hard-working personnel.'' Moody's Investors Service has changed their outlook for higher ed to negative, indicating that 5 to 10 percent of institutions--particularly regional public schools and small private colleges--could face significantly intensified financial challenges. In Virginia, one such institution, Sweet Briar College, a small, rural, private college, says the impact is likely to be $10 million. VCU, a large, public university, said it is likely to be $50 million in the next fiscal year. This is why we acted together as Congress to provide CARES Act funding that could be used for revenue losses experienced by colleges. We didn't specifically exclude using these dollars for revenue losses, as we did in the State and local government aid; we allowed such a use, as we did with the PPP program and the aid to hospitals. But the Department of Education is using a very narrow interpretation of the law and refusing to allow colleges to use money for revenue losses. On to the student side of the equation, 50 percent of the money was to be used for student aid. This is even more concerning. The unauthorized guidance that the DOE has issued outlines that the financial aid for students can only be provided to students who qualify for aid under title IV of the Higher Education Act, which would exclude any student who hadn't filled out a FAFSA, who has a minor drug conviction, or who is not meeting academic progress requirements. Again, these were not conditions that Congress put on the aid to students. Nowhere in the CARES Act are these restrictions mentioned. The financial aid director at the University of Virginia wrote my office as follows: When the CARES Act was signed into law, we, along with many others in the financial aid community, believed that the funding source would be available to provide assistance to our students using school discretion. Schools have long operated in this manner. Because of COVID-19, the parents of many students who suddenly lost their jobs or have reduced employment realized that their income had changed dramatically and wished to appeal. In other words, students who never had to fill out a FAFSA or who never did one because their parents were employed are now facing parents who are not employed. It is not right for the DOE to put new requirements on the students and bar them from receiving aid. Some students have written. Here is a third-year undergraduate student from Fairfax: I was studying abroad this past semester but had to return home in March. My study-abroad program is unsure whether they are going to be able to refund any of the semester's worth that I paid for fees, including housing, meals, tuition. Due to the travel ban, I had to book a ticket home on 1-day's notice, initially costing me $1,800, but I was able to receive a partial refund of $900. My father has been the primary source of income for my family, but he loses his job this month. Since we don't know when he will be reemployed, this has resulted in significant financial challenge to my family. There are similar stories from other students--graduate students in engineering in Henrico, undergraduates from Halifax. Again, Congress intended these dollars to be used flexibly. The DOE is getting in our way. What the act would do that I am about to call up--it would ensure that the Secretary in the Department of Education just follow congressional intent by providing institutions of higher ed and students with the increased flexibility they need during this time. The bill would allow colleges to use their revenue from the CARES Act for lost revenue--the higher ed funds for lost revenue. The bill would ensure that emergency financial aid to students is made available to all students in need, letting the institutions decide how to make that determination. Finally, it would better target funds designated for colleges hardest hit by COVID-19. Colleges and universities are major economic drivers. Placing arbitrary restrictions on them is a challenge at any time--especially now. We should be working together to ensure that the institutions and our students get the help that Congress wanted them to get. Again, the bill I have before you doesn't create a new program, and it doesn't cost a penny. All it does is ask the Secretary of Education to simply follow what Congress intended Madam President, with that, I would ask unanimous consent that the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 3947, a bill to amend the provisions relating to the higher education emergency relief fund to clarify the flexibility provided to institutions and for students under the fund, and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. My experience on every committee I have been on is that we leave it to a markup in the committee with a simple majority, not allowing a simple majority amendment process in committee, but saying ``no, we will give you some amendments on the floor with a 60-vote threshold'' is not the same thing. It doesn't respect an individual's ability to try to persuade the majority of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, that it is a good idea or not. That is why this bill was not sent to committee but just put on the floor. So I don't view that as fair, to respond. I get Senator Scott, and I appreciate him saying that we should have open amendments on the floor. But depriving people the ability to offer open amendments in a simple majority--can I convince the majority of my colleagues in the committee?--that is already stacking the deck, in my view.

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I came to the floor to hear my colleague from South Carolina, with no notes and with an open heart and open ears, because I knew he would be very disappointed that the motion to proceed failed and that he would have strong feelings about that because of his earnest desire to do police reform. I don't question that desire or the desire of any of the cosponsors of this bill, just as I hope colleagues on the other side don't question the sincerity of Senators Booker and Harris and those who cosponsored their bill. But I came with no notes to listen to my colleague and then to offer a word of explanation. I am one of the 44 people who voted no. The Senator from South Carolina said that those who voted no on the motion to proceed didn't vote on the what; we voted no on the who. That is a stiff charge. That is a stiff charge. What I want to say is this. I voted no not on the what and not on the who, but I voted no on the how. We tried it the wrong way. Let's try it the right way. My colleague from South Carolina acts as if this discussion is over. It is only over for those who want it to be over. We tried it the wrong way. Let's try it the right way. What do I mean by that? I think everyone in the Chamber knows what I mean by this. This is an amazingly important topic that is exciting deep and legitimate concerns in the streets of every community in this country. There are two good-faith bills that have been introduced dealing with police reform. I see virtues in both. I favor the Democratic bill, but that does not mean that I don't see virtues in the Scott bill. I have only been in the Senate 7 years. I am not an expert on procedure, as some are who are standing in the Chamber right now, but my service tells me that there is a clear path to a bipartisan police reform bill that will do a good job and will speak to an America that wants to see leadership that is bipartisan. It is obvious. These bills are both in the province of a Judiciary Committee that is chaired by a Republican from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, whose ranking member, Dianne Feinstein, has been on that committee for a very long time. Why are these bills not being taken up in a committee with a Republican majority and debated and marked up and reported to the floor in a bipartisan way? I serve on the Armed Services Committee. That is what we do every year with the NDAA. We introduce it, we let members have the ability to offer amendments that can be voted on by a simple majority vote in committee. We get to the end of a process and when no one has an amendment left, we then have a final bill, and then we vote it out overwhelmingly bipartisan. The NDAA came out of committee 2 weeks ago on a 26-to-2 vote. We will be taking it up on the floor. I am on the HELP Committee. I have a wonderful chair and ranking member in Senators Alexander and Murray, and we tackle tough issues with a committee that has some big personalities on it. I have a couple of them in the room with me now. There is great ideological diversity on that committee, but we take up tough issues, and we don't always solve them, but we usually do when we put our minds to it and report something to the floor and we do it in a bipartisan way. When it comes in a bipartisan way, there is a great chance that we get action here on the floor. That is the right way to do things. It respects the traditions of the body, because it is a majority that runs the committee, but it allows those who have devoted themselves to health issues or armed services issues or judiciary issues to offer their thoughts. When these bills were introduced, I assumed that a committee ably led by Senators Graham and Feinstein would put these bills together and have a markup and let people offer amendments with a 50-percent-vote threshold and then report out a bipartisan bill. Why would the Judiciary Committee not do it? I believe the leaders of the committee wanted to do it, but I believe they were told not to do it. They were told that we are not going to use the committee process on this. We are going to force this to a floor vote, a snap vote, and then, when it goes down, we will say: Democrats killed it. It is all over. Move on to the next issue. This is only over for anyone who wants it to be over. I think the vote today says: We are not going to do it ``my way or the highway.'' We ought to do it the right way--the way we do the NDAA, the way we did the FIRST STEP Act. The FIRST STEP Act, criminal justice reform, Democrats and Republicans working together, in committee and then negotiating with Jared Kushner and others at the White House--we did something good that all can take credit for. How about the CARES Act? There is a recent example of this. The CARES Act was an unusual one. We were under an emergency. We were socially distant from each other. We couldn't even be in the same room as we were negotiating it, and it was in multiple committees' jurisdiction. So it wasn't as if one committee was taking it up. But there was good- faith, bipartisan negotiation on the different pieces of it. One day, Leader McConnell called us all back to Washington on a Sunday to vote--not on the bipartisan negotiated bill but on a partisan version. And, again, Democrats on this side of the aisle said: We are not ready to proceed. We are in the middle of bipartisan discussions. We are not ready to proceed to the partisan bill because we are in the middle of bipartisan discussions that will have the payoff for this country, and so we voted no--not on the what, not on the who. We voted no on the how. We are not ready to proceed to a partisan, ``my way or the highway'' bill when we are engaged in bipartisan discussions that can find a solution that is good for the country. Guess what happened. Three days later, after that ``no'' vote, we were here on the floor voting yes-- voting yes to a bipartisan bill that helped individuals and families, that created a grant program for small businesses, a loan program for large businesses, aid to State and local governments, aid to hospitals and nursing homes and healthcare providers. We voted no on the ``my way or the highway'' and said: Stay at the table with us. Let's have bipartisan discussions, and we can get to a yes. And even as Members of this body were being diagnosed with coronavirus or exposed to it, we stayed at the table until we could get the work done, and we did it for the good of the country. This discussion is not over unless people want it to be over. Senator King and I, on Monday, sent a letter to the two leaders and to the Judiciary Committee chair and ranking member, and we said: For God's sake, with a nation that is crying out for solutions that can show some unity, please do with this bill what we know will work and what has worked. Let the Judiciary Committee take it up promptly and let them work and report it to the floor, and we can do this bill before the August recess and do it in a way where, in committee and on the floor, everyone has a chance to participate and we can get a win for the American public that is critically important. It is my hope that we will still do that. The tenor of some of the conversations is as if this is now over, in the rear-view mirror, not to be returned to until after November. I don't accept that. I don't accept that. These bills are pending. We have a Judiciary Committee that can do this work. I went to the Judiciary Committee this morning to introduce a judicial nominee and asked members of the committee who were there: If these bills were taken up in this committee, could you find a bipartisan result? And the answer they gave to me was yes. I didn't vote no for the what. I didn't vote no for the who. I voted no for the how. I know how we can do this bill, and shame on us on a matter of such seriousness if we don't engage in a process whose seriousness matches the gravity of the moment With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE. When the Senator has markups in the Judiciary Committee on a bill like the FIRST STEP Act and someone, Democrat or Republican, proposes an amendment to mark, isn't it the standard to vote on the amendment and if the majority of the committee approves, then the amendment is added to the bill?

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, the Senator from Nebraska is a member of the Judiciary Committee, isn't that right?

Mr. KAINE. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, on Saturday, I attended a rally for justice sponsored by two young women--one, a high-schooler and one a middle-schooler--in my hometown. The rally was one of numerous marches and rallies that have occurred every day, sometimes multiple times a day, in Richmond in the weeks after the horrific public murder of George Floyd. Hundreds of people gathered in the Maggie L. Walker Plaza, a plaza named after a pioneering African-American woman, a business and civil rights leader. They gathered in the plaza to hear from our city's young people. Many raised their hands when they were asked if they were graduates of this class of 2020, a class whose senior year was upended in mid-March and who face a future that, frankly, seems very, very frightening to many of them. I attended to listen. I used to be the mayor and Governor--now a Senator--but I attended as a neighbor to listen. I wasn't on the program, and I didn't ask to speak. I wanted to hear how our young people view this moment in time and what they are asking of us. What I heard in many different ways, from speeches and artistic performances, was no more politics as usual; no more police killings of people of color; no more empty promises of reform after each new policing outrage; no more education system that downplays the reality of injustice in this country since its birth; no more educational content that also downplays the contributions of African Americans, Indians, Latinos, and others to our Nation; no more veneration of the Confederacy in Richmond, in Virginia, or anywhere else in the United States. This gathering, this rally, had a lot of police there. The police were there trying to keep the crowd from spilling from the plaza onto the busy Broad Street, where they would have been endangered by passing vehicles. Some of the attendees of the rally advocated to defund the police, but others disagreed. Some asserted ``all cops are bad,'' but others disagreed. The rally was robust, it was raw, it was diverse, and it was respectful. It was the epitome--the absolute epitome--of peacefully assembling to petition government for redress of grievances contemplated by the First Amendment. Just as my young activists urged in many different ways to end politics as usual, I desperately want to end apathy as usual. Apathy of the citizenry is a chief guarantor of politics as usual. In the tremendous energy demonstrated by these Richmonders and demonstrated on the streets of communities all over this country, I am starting to be hopeful about the end of apathy as usual. These young people, they want action and results, and they deserve it. That is why I am proud to join Senators Booker, Harris, and many others in supporting the Justice in Policing Act of 2020. We need to ban choke holds. We need to ban no-knock warrants. We need to ban racial and religious profiling. We need to hold police officers and police departments accountable for violent, reckless behavior. We need to promote better training and professional accreditation of police departments. Why do we demand that universities maintain accreditation to receive Federal funds but make no such demand of law enforcement agencies? We need to do much more within the criminal justice system--but also within all of our systems--to dismantle the structures of racism that our Federal, State, and local governments carefully erected and maintained over centuries. We know a little bit about this in Virginia. The first African Americans to the English Colonies came to Point Comfort, VA, in 1619. They were slaves. They had been captured against their will, but they landed in Colonies that didn't have slavery. There were no laws about slavery in the Colonies at that time. The United States didn't inherit slavery from anybody. We created it. It got created by the Virginia General Assembly and the legislatures of other States. It got created by the court systems in Colonial America in the sense that it enforced fugitive slave laws. We created it. We created it and maintained it over centuries. In my lifetime, we have finally stopped some of those practices, but we have never gone back to undo it. Stopping racist practices at year 350 of 400 years but then taking no effort to dismantle them is not the same as truly combating racism. I am mindful of the challenge laid down by our young people: no more politics as usual. It is one thing to introduce a bill. We do that all the time here. So often the introduction of the bill is all that occurs--no committee hearing, no committee markup, no committee vote, no floor debate, no floor vote, no signature by a President--merely words on a page and a 1-day story and then, possibly, a blame game about who was at fault for nothing happening. That has been my biggest disappointment in 7\1/2\ years in the Senate. Unlike my service at the State and local levels, where we took action and then engaged in healthy competition about who should get credit, in Congress, it is too often a story of inaction and then an unproductive competition over who should be blamed for nothing getting done: politics as usual. I pray that the engaged activism of our citizens has brought us to a new moment that will compel us to act in ways, large and small, in accord with the equality ideal that we profess to believe. This bill is a test of our resolve, and I urge my colleagues to meet the moment so that we can look our young people in their faces and tell them that we truly heard them. I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, on March 27 Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in response to the ongoing public health and economic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The CARES Act included a Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, which provided nearly $14 billion in funding to ensure institutions of higher education could make the transition to distance learning, provide students with essential supports and resources, and cover the enormous costs they've incurred during this time. Unfortunately, the Administration has not followed Congress' intent to provide these colleges and universities with the increased flexibility they need to meet the needs of their students. This is why I'm introducing the Coronavirus Relief Flexibility for Students and Institutions Act, which would fix several implementation issues with the higher education funds in the CARES Act by providing institutions of higher education and students with the flexibility Congress intended. This bill would make an additional 7.5 million students eligible for emergency financial aid by expanding eligibility beyond just those who have filled out a FAFSA and are eligible under Title IV of the Higher Education Act. Additionally, it would allow institutions of higher education to use CARES Act funds to cover revenue losses incurred as a result of COVID-19, rather than limiting the funding to the U.S. Department of Education's narrow interpretation that funds can only be used for new expenses associated with the transition of instruction to distance learning. It would also ensure that colleges hardest hit by COVID-19 are receiving the support they need by requiring an application to demonstrate such needs, rather than providing all colleges with $500,000 in taxpayer funds regardless of size. In this difficult time, colleges desperately need the flexibility to best serve their students. This bill will help ensure that Secretary DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education follow Congress' intent to stabilize our institutions of higher education that are hurting from COVID-19 and provide emergency financial aid for the students who need it, not just those that who have met bureaucratic requirements. I hope the Senate passes this bill quickly to ensure that institutions have the flexibility and supports they need to continue providing high quality and equitable access to education for all students as we continue to weather this pandemic.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. Madam President, the formation, development, growth and success of Good Shepherd Housing and Family Services, GSH is a story that exemplifies the very best in people-to-people programs. Started in 1974 as a ``helping hand'' volunteer-run organization by members of the Mount Vernon community, including several churches and local businesses, the founders of GSH established a volunteer board of directors to steer the organization's efforts to help those experiencing homelessness in the Greater Mount Vernon community. Today, GSH is a vital affordable housing and services provider with a 10-person professional staff and a $2.7 million operating budget. GSH remains true to its founding vision and mission. GSH works every day to reduce homelessness and enable self-sufficiency by providing permanent affordable rental housing, emergency financial services, budget counseling, and case management to hundreds of working families in Fairfax County. Then, as now, GSH helps struggling families create and sustain a better way of life for themselves and their neighbors. In 1975, GSH acquired its first property on Holland Road, built and furnished a home, and moved in a struggling refugee family of nine and began providing them ongoing support services, starting them on the path towards self-sufficiency and housing stability. Two months later, several Laotian and Vietnamese refugee families received housing assistance upon their arrival in the community. For the next several years, GSH continued to serve families and individuals needing housing and emergency financial assistance. Under the leadership of its board, GSH functioned solely with the support of volunteers and individual donations. Today, with its affordable rental housing portfolio of 100-plus leased and owned units, as many as 120 struggling families are housed and supported every year in GSH housing. GSH's emergency financial assistance program assists an additional 200 households a year by preventing evictions or providing security deposits. GSH case managers also provide service referrals to another 200-plus households each year to receive community services to address their healthcare, transportation, and food needs. Additional support services and programs are offered to move resident household to greater self-sufficiency. The Children's Resources Program supports the 110-plus schoolchildren residing in GSH affordable housing units and ensures their educational needs are met. Various financial counseling programs help low-income female heads of household create a healthy consciousness around money and empowers them to begin to establish financial security. A president/chief executive officer, vice president/chief operating officer, financial manager, and development director lead the day-to- day operations of GSH. They are assisted by staff of six full- and part-time employees. A 16-member board of directors oversees its work, while a leadership council of 23 key community stakeholders in the service area provides advice and guidance on the needs and human services trends within the community and the impact of GSH programs in meeting those needs. The current service area lies within the Mount Vernon and Lee Districts of South Fairfax County, mainly along Richmond Highway from Alexandria to Lorton, where many low-income workers live. The deepest pockets of poverty in Fairfax County are here. For example, according to 2016 U.S. Census Bureau data, 66,618 people 5.9 percent or 1 in 17 Fairfax County live in poverty i.e., below the Federal poverty level of $24,600 per year for a family of four. Based on census data disaggregated at the ZIP code and neighborhood level, several of the neighborhoods in the GSH service area report that 10 to 15 percent of their households live in poverty. For more than 45 years, Good Shepherd Housing and Family Services has had one outcome in mind: to ensure that the households it serves reach housing stability, build financial resources, and never face the possibility or reality of homelessness. Every year, GSH programs stretch and grow to make this outcome a reality for its residents. Recently, several local Northern Virginia and Metropolitan Washington, DC, agencies recognized the affordable housing contributions of GSH through grant awards that help finance the programs. As the need for its services unfortunately continues to grow at a staggering pace, GSH will continue to step up, lend a helping hand, and empower its clients to do the same.

Mr. KAINE

Mr. KAINE. I yield the floor.

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to speak about President Trump's veto of S.J. Res. 68, a veto that he communicated to the Senate by a statement yesterday afternoon. We debated this at length in February. So there is no need to spend too much time on the substance. I was proud of the resolution, cosponsoring it in a bipartisan way, to assert the importance of the Senate. I very much appreciated hearing my colleague from Oklahoma talk about the importance of the Senate. The debate that we had in February about S.J. Res. 68 was about the importance of Congress in one of the most important responsibilities we have, whether or not the Nation would go to war. We specified in that resolution that except to defend the Nation against attack or imminent attack, the United States would not be engaged in war with the government of Iran absent a congressional vote. It passed this body by a healthy bipartisan margin and also passed the House by a bipartisan margin. The President has vetoed S.J. Res. 68, and the next vote at 1:30 will be on whether to override the veto. I know what the votes will be because we have already voted on this once. I want to just focus for a minute on the President's veto statement, which I think is instructive. When he vetoed S.J. Res. 68, this was his primary reason--the first thing he said: This was a very insulting resolution introduced by Democrats as part of a strategy to win an election on November 3 by dividing the Republican Party. The few Republicans who voted for it played right into their hands. What I find so notable about that statement is that the President could not see Congress expressing an opinion about war through any lens other than himself and his reelection on November 3. As everyone in this Chamber knows, the bill was not a partisan bill. It was introduced with an even number of bipartisan Senators. It was not part of a strategy to hurt President Trump. I have advocated these same positions, as have other Members of this body, under Presidents who were both Democrat and Republican. The Republican Senators and Democratic Senators who voted for it and those who voted against it had particular views about the allocation of constitutional war powers, but in no way was this partisan, and in no way was it part of a strategy dealing with the November 3 election. For President Trump to look at a matter of war and peace and the Constitutional obligations of Congress through the lens of the November election, frankly, shocked me. The President, later in the statement, said: The United States is not engaged in the use of force against Iran. Let's be clear. The U.S. military engaged in military action that wiped out Iran's top military commander. If any other Nation did that to our Secretary of Defense or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would we call that a use of force against the United States? Of course we would. As for the strike against General Soleimani, you might say it was a great thing. The President advocated for it. No one is sad that General Soleimani does not exist. But rather than justifying it as a necessity, the President says it was not a use of force against Iran. The President goes on to say that the strike was justified by law, citing article II of the Constitution--we had some debates about that, obviously--but also citing the Iraq war resolution of 2002. I have not heard anyone assert that as a justification for killing an Iranian leader. That resolution, which is now essentially dead letter, was designed to topple the government of Saddam Hussein, and to use that as a resolution to attack members of the Iranian Government is a stretch. Finally, the President says: We live in a hostile world of evolving threats, and the Constitution recognizes that the President must be able to anticipate our adversary's next moves and take swift and decisive action and response. He concludes: Congress should not have passed this resolution. You cannot tell the article I branch how to do its job. We can't tell the article II branch how to do its job. But for the President to say it is insulting for Congress to take up matters of war and peace and that we should not have passed the resolution, to me, demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of the article I branch. We are not an article 2\1/2\ branch, and we are not required to play ``Mother May I'' with the President. We have our own independent responsibilities that we swear to uphold. S.J. Res. 68, in my view, was a great example of coming together in a bipartisan way to uphold those responsibilities. I urge my colleagues to vote to override President Trump's veto of the resolution