John Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object and with all of the respect I can muster, this bill has more red flags than the Chinese Embassy. Despite my great admiration for the senior Senator from Illinois, I am objecting for three reasons. The first reason I can best explain by telling you a story. An oilman was talking to his banker one day, and the banker said: Mr. Oilman, you know, the bank loaned you $1 million to rework all of your old oil wells, and they went dry. The oilman said: It could have been worse. The banker said to the oilman: Mr. Oilman, we loaned you a second $1 million to drill brandnew wells, and they all went dry. What do you say about that? The oilman said: It could have been worse. Then the banker said to the oilman: Our bank loaned you a third $1 million to buy new drilling equipment, and it all broke down. What do you say about that? The oilman said: It could have been worse. The banker was now very upset. He said: What do you mean it could have been worse? We loaned you $3 million, and you lost all of it. What do you mean it could have been worse? The oilman said: It could have been my money. The cost of this bill is $1 billion--nine zeros. If I started counting to a billion right now by one numeral a second, I wouldn't finish until 2051. I would be dead as a doornail. I wouldn't make it. A billion is a lot. We toss around ``a billion'' these days like it was a nickel. A billion seconds ago, it was 1986. Ronald Reagan was President. That is how much a billion is. A billion minutes ago, the Romans were conquering Mesopotamia. As I made the point the other day on the Senate floor, a billion hours ago, the Neanderthals were roaming the Earth. A billion is a lot. We have a $22 trillion deficit--12 zeros. We have to pay this money back. I am running out of space, and we are probably going to run out of digits if we keep borrowing. My first concern is the money. Now, if we had not given any money to our colleagues at the State level, that would have been one thing. Yet, as my good friend knows, 2 years ago, we gave the States $380 million to combat election fraud. They haven't even spent it all yet. So, yes, I have concerns about the money. Point No. 2, we did have problems in 2016, and I join the senior Senator in wanting to do everything we possibly can to keep it from happening again, which we did in 2018. We all had a classified briefing down in our room. I don't know the particular name of it, but it is in the Capitol Visitor Center. It is classified. You have to leave your phone and your iPad outside. We had the Director of National Intelligence there and the FBI Director, and I think we had every general there from the Western Hemisphere. We went over the 2018 elections. They went off without a hitch. Have you read any articles about our having problems in 2018 like we had in 2016? No. Do you think if we had problems in 2018 that the members of our press would have pounced on it like a ninja? Yes. Yet you haven't seen those articles because 2018 went off without a hitch. This was, in part, because we gave the States $380 million to solve the problem, and they have not spent it all. So a reasonable person would wonder why we would want to give them another $1 billion of American taxpayer money at this juncture. We also asked the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and every general who was there: Are you ready for 2020? Every single one of them said, categorically, unequivocally, unconditionally, yes. Every single Senator, both my Republican friends and my Democratic friends, walked out of that classified hearing impressed. The third reason I, regretfully, have to object to this bill--and I am not ascribing this intention to the Senator from Illinois. I am not--is that some of my friends on Capitol Hill would like nothing better than to take over elections in America, to have our election system federalized. Right now, we don't have one election system; we have 50 election systems. Every State runs its elections its own way, usually by the Secretary of State. Now, I believe that is a matter of federalism. I don't see anywhere in the U.S. Constitution or in the Federalist Papers where it reads the U.S. Government ought to be running elections for States. No. 2, our States do a great job. Yes, we had a lot of activity on Facebook and Google and within other aspects of social media, but we haven't heard one allegation--or at least any proof of an allegation-- that any votes were stolen in 2016, much less in 2018. That is because our Secretaries of State did a good job. It is also safer to have every Secretary of State and every State in charge of its own election system because, if a foreign government wants to hack your system, it has to go to 50 different States. It has to do it 50 times. If we nationalize elections--yet again, give the Federal Government more power--all a foreign national has to do is to hack one system. Again, I am not ascribing this motive or this intent to my good friend from Illinois. I am not. Yet there are some who would like nothing better than to nationalize State elections and have them run by the Federal Government. Then the Federal Government could tell the States what to do--what kinds of machines to use, whether they need paper ballots, how to order the ballots. If they have electric machines and one has to walk into a booth, the Federal Government could tell the States what kinds of and what color of curtains they would have to have. Then they would have a Federal agency get involved, and it would start promulgating regulations. Before you would know it, casting a vote would be like building a bridge. It is a matter of federalism. Those who disagree with me will say: Oh, Kennedy. You are exaggerating. This bill doesn't do that. It doesn't federalize elections. Yes, it does. Do you know how we federalize things around here? We get the object of the federalization hooked on the money. Those who want the Federal Government to run everything never go right at it. They sneak up on them. We say we are going to give them $380 million, and they get a little addicted. Then we are going to give them $1 billion, and they get a little more addicted. Sooner or later, they are addicted to the money, and then the Federal Government has got them. And that is what worries me about this bill. I am going to offer another bill after we are done today that I hope my good friend from Illinois will at least consider supporting. This bill is not going to cost $1 billion, I can assure you. This bill is going to require the chief election official of every State--usually, that is the Secretary of State, as the senior Senator knows better than me--to disclose to the Election Assistance Commission the identity of any known foreign national who has physically handled ballots, machines, or has had unmonitored access to storage facilities or tabulation centers used to support elections or unmonitored access to election-related information or communication technology. What does that really mean? That means that if a foreign national at any stage of the chain of custody has access to the machine or has access to the ballot, that has to be disclosed. Now, if you want to do something to stop foreign nationals from interfering with our elections, we don't need to spend $1 billion. We need to pass this bill.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, reserving the right to object, no one in this Chamber has more respect for the senior Senator from Illinois and the Democratic whip than I do. I share much of his frustration. I also share, and I believe what the Senator also believes, that immigration is an extraordinarily important subject that this body should be addressing. We are a nation of immigrants. The American people support legal immigration. I know the senior Senator from Illinois supports it. I certainly support it. I am rising to object because a number of my colleagues--and I don't want to simply put it on them; I join with them in this--would like a little additional time to study this bill. Equally important, if not more important, many of my colleagues' sentiment is that we should take this bill up first in the Judiciary Committee. I commit to the minority whip that I will join with him in trying to get our esteemed chairman to take this bill up. I don't think we ought to be afraid of this issue. I don't think we ought to be reluctant to take difficult votes. That is why we are here in the U.S. Senate. I also cannot think of a subject that is more important for this body to address than the subject of immigration, including but not limited to legal and illegal immigration. The fact of the matter is that the American people deserve an immigration system that looks like somebody designed it on purpose. For the reasons I just expressed, Madam President, I respectfully object.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to talk a little bit today about something I am embarrassed about on behalf of the Federal Government. Before I explain why I am embarrassed on behalf of my government, I need to give a little background. Did you ever stop and think about how much we pay in taxes in this country? We have city taxes. We have county taxes. In Louisiana, we call our counties parishes, so we have parish taxes. We have State taxes. We have fees at all of those levels. Sometimes politicians will try to call a hand in your pocket a fee as opposed to a tax, like you are going to be dumb enough to think that makes a difference. It is still money out of your pocket. And then we have Federal taxes. The government taxes the food we eat, the clothes we buy, the houses we live in, the cars we drive. The government taxes when we work and when we play. If you want to go fishing, you have to pay a tax. If you want to go hunting, you have to pay a tax. The government even taxes us when we die. Let me talk about the Federal taxes for a second. This is just a fraction of the money people pay. At the Federal level, our main tax is income taxes--corporate income tax, personal income tax. Do you know how much we pay every year--the American people--in corporate and personal income tax? I am going to show you. I am going to write it out because it is impressive. Do you see all those zeros? There are 12 zeros--$2 trillion every year. Do you know how much $2 trillion is? That is $2,000 billion. Do you know how much a billion is? If right now I started counting to a billion, do you know when I would finish? It would take me 32 years. I would finish in 2051. I wouldn't make it; I will be dead by then. I will tell you how big a billion is. A billion seconds ago, it was 1986 and Ronald Reagan was President. That is how big a billion is. A billion minutes ago, the Romans were conquering Mesopotamia. A billion hours ago, Neanderthals roamed the Earth. That is 1 billion. The American people pay $2,000 billion in taxes every year--not State and not local; Federal corporate and personal income taxes. Now, look, we know that as a result of the social contract we have made among ourselves, we are better off living and working together and pooling our money so we can hire cops and build roads and educate our children. We know that is the price to pay in a civilized society, but that is still a lot of money. Now, I don't know about you, but I get mad when some people cheat-- when all people whom I know of cheat on their taxes. That means that law-abiding citizens have to pay more to make up for those who cheat. Do you know what else makes me mad? What also makes me mad is when the Federal entity to which we pay these taxes has money of ours and they don't return it. I am not talking about tax refunds. I am talking about something else, and that is going to be the subject of my talk for a few minutes today. Now, look, the Internal Revenue Service, which is housed, as you know, in the Department of Treasury--they are very aggressive. Oh Lord, you better pay your taxes. If you don't pay your taxes, they are on you like a hobo on a ham sandwich. They will chase you like a hound from Hades. You better pay them the right amount, and you better pay them on time. Most Americans don't like that but are OK with it because they know we have to run government, we have to defend our country, and we have to educate our kids. But what happens when the Department of Treasury, which houses the Internal Revenue Service, owes money to the American people and refuses to give it back? That is what embarrasses me, and that is what makes me angry. Right now, our U.S. Department of Treasury is holding $26 billion-- remember I told you how big a billion is--it owes to the American people in unclaimed, matured savings bonds. And you know what a savings bond is. That is a loan by an American citizen to our government. We funded World War II in part through savings bonds. This is how a savings bond works. It is very simple. Let's suppose I go buy a $100 savings bond. I give $100 to the U.S. Department of Treasury, which collects $2 trillion through IRS. I give $100 to the Department of Treasury. It is a loan. The Treasury takes that $100 and promises to give me in, say, 20 years, $200 back. I don't get annual interest payments. There are some exceptions to that. In the old days, I got a paper bond. Today, it is all done electronically. I loan the Federal Government $100. I wait 20 years, and interest accrues. I don't get the checks. In 2 years, I go down with my savings bond, and I say: OK, I want my $200. But sometimes people forget. They put those bonds in a safe deposit box or--today, we don't use paper bonds; we do it electronically. People will forget. In the old days when we used paper bonds, sometimes they would lose those bonds. A lot of times, as a birthday present, grandparents would give a bond to their grandchildren, give them a $100 bond, and they would say to their son or grandson or granddaughter: Hold on to this bond, and in 20 years, you will have $200. Of course, sometimes the young people would lose them. They are not really completely lost. The bond might have been lost--the physical bond--in the days when we used paper bonds. The people who loaned the money to the Federal Government might have forgotten about the bonds, but do you know who knows about the bonds? The U.S. Department of Treasury, because they have the names and the addresses. Right now, they have the names and addresses, and they have the money--$26 billion--that they are holding that belongs to the American people, and they won't give it back. I used to be a State treasurer in Louisiana. I and some my colleagues sued the Federal Department of Treasury. Do you know why we sued them? Because as State treasurers, we have programs called unclaimed property programs--you might have heard about them--where we would return money to people in our States that we would take in from businesses that owed people money but couldn't find the people. Let's suppose you go rent an apartment back in your home State. You put down a utility deposit, and you move and you don't get back your utility deposit. You forget about it. The utility can't keep that deposit. They are supposed to look for you, but they can't find you. They can't keep that money. It doesn't belong to them. It is a deposit. They have to turn it over to the State treasurer. The State treasurers of every State work very hard to contact the people and to give them back their utility deposits. Every day, State treasurers return utility deposits, apartment deposits, uncashed payroll checks, lost stocks, lost bonds, and tax refunds. Every State treasurer is very active. They have the infrastructure set up, they have websites, they have computers, and they return this money to people every day. When a business has your money and can't find you, they can't keep it; they have to turn it over to the State treasurer. So the treasurers sued the U.S. Department of Treasury and said: We have these unclaimed property programs. Give us the names and addresses of these people to whom the Treasury Department owes $26 billion, and we will give it back to people. Do you know what the Department of Treasury said? Nothing. Not a thing. They just ignored the treasurers. When we finally got their attention, they said: No, we are not giving it back. We are keeping the money. Well, the treasurers sued them and are still in court. And not only has the U.S. Department of Treasury not given the money back, they have gone and hired lawyers. They are spending millions and millions and millions of dollars to try to keep this money from the American people. Remember, the U.S. Department of Treasury--they have the names and they have the addresses. They may be old addresses, but all they would have to do would be to give the names and the old addresses to the State treasurers in every State. For example, in my State in Louisiana--and we have asked Treasury to do this. The U.S. Department of Treasury could just give all the names of all the people in Louisiana to whom this money is owed through savings bonds and give them the addresses, and the treasurer in my State will track these people down and give them back their money. But the U.S. Department of Treasury won't do it. They are fighting us in court. Do you know why they won't do it? Greed. They figure people will never go claim their money. They are just going to keep it. You can't do that if you are a business. If you are a business in America and you have somebody's money, you have to go look for them--it is a law in every State--and if you can't find them, you have to turn the money over to the State treasurer, and the State treasurer gives it back. Not the Federal Government. Not the Department of Treasury. We are talking real money here. I am going to give an example. I see my good friend Senator Cornyn over here. He works hard for the people of Texas. They love him. I just came back from San Antonio. They love Senator Cornyn. Do you know how much the U.S. Department of Treasury owes Senator Cornyn's people just in Texas? They are owed $2.1 billion. This money isn't lost; the Department of Treasury has it. They have the names, and they have the addresses. Now, as we went along in our lawsuit--and the lawsuit is still pending. It is not mine anymore. I am no longer State treasurer. One of the statements that the Department of Treasury filed in court--I almost laughed. If I had been in court, I would have laughed. They said: Yeah, we have the names and we have the addresses, but it would cost $128 million to organize the records. That was one of the excuses they gave to the judge. Give me a break. If you believe that, you will never own your own home. If you and I lie to the government, we can go to jail, but if the government lies to us--``Oh, it will take $128 million to organize the records''--that is called politics. Oklahoma, which is next door to Texas, is owed $312 million. As far as Michigan, the U.S. Department of Treasury is holding $773 million in fully redeemed--they are not paying interest anymore--but unclaimed savings bonds from the people of Michigan. Do you think some of those folks in Michigan could use that money right now to maybe save for retirement or maybe to educate their children? Idaho is not very big. It has a bunch of lakes, and it is a great State. It is owed $128 million. Tennessee is owed $480 million; Wyoming, $45 million; and New York, $1.5 billion. I am just beside myself. Do you wonder why people hate government? Here it is. We have to pay our taxes in the right amount and on time. If we don't do it, they come and take our firstborn, and if we are late, they fine us. This is the IRS under the Department of Treasury. But here they have $26 billion, and they have the names and they have the addresses, and they won't give it back. It is an embarrassment. It is a disgrace. They should hide their heads in a bag. Now, I have a bill. I am hoping my colleagues will support it. It is called the Unclaimed Savings Bond Act of 2019, S. 2417. It is a very simple bill. It would just tell the U.S. Department of Treasury to do its job. It doesn't own this money. It doesn't own this money, it is not theirs, and they need to give it back. And they don't have to spend a lot of time on it. All they have to do is give the names and the addresses to every State treasurer. I will give them their cell numbers if they want it. Just give the names and the addresses to the State treasurers. I would like to get our Senators involved in Florida, where our Presiding Officer and Senator Rubio are from. I would like them to have the names. Maybe they could go out--we used to do this when we had unclaimed property in Louisiana. You can go advertise in the paper or on the radio or on television or on the internet and say: I am going to be out at the so-and-so mall this Saturday from 10 to 12 with my computers and my team's computers. Come on out and check your name and see if you have unredeemed savings bonds. People come out, and you would be surprised, they find their name, and you say: OK. We will get your current address, and we will get you a check in 2 weeks. People say: Gosh, the last time the government gave me any money was never. But they feel a little bit better about their government. This bill will work. I can't imagine who would oppose this bill except my friends at the Department of Treasury, and they don't have a good reason for opposing it. They just want to keep the money. I am going to be talking about this a lot because the money is important. People have worked hard for this. But I will tell you what is more important--the principle. We have to pay our taxes in the right amount and on time. When the government has our money, they ought to give it back to us in the right amount and on time. Thank you for your attention and your time. I yield to Senator Cornyn, who has over $2 billion of uncashed savings bonds in his State, thanks to our Department of Treasury.

Mr. KENNEDY

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

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, $1 million a minute--not $1 million an hour or a day or week, $1 million a minute. That is how much we borrow every minute to operate the Federal Government. It is $1.4 billion-- that is nine zeros--a day. That is how much more we spend than we take in. Some people have said--I have heard Americans say this--that we spend money like a drunk sailor. That is not accurate because a drunk sailor stops when he runs out of money. We just borrow. We don't just print this money. We issue Treasury notes and Treasury bonds and Treasury securities. We borrow it. Some Americans loan it to us. Some folks in other countries like Japan and China, they expect to be paid back, and we do have to pay them back. In a couple of years, we are going to be spending more in our budget on interest on our debt than we are spending on defense. Now we are in the middle of putting together a budget for the American people. The first thing we had to do was agree on how much money we are going to spend. They call that the topline number, but that just means how much money we are going to spend for the next 2 years. You will not be surprised to learn we are going to spend more. I think it was a bad deal. I voted against it. Our agreement on what we are going to spend in the budget we are putting forward now, according to the CBO, is going to add to our $22 trillion--that is 12 zeros--deficit. In fact, what we just agreed to, the additional spending, is going to add, according to our Congressional Budget Office, $12 trillion over the next 10 years. I voted against it. I lost. The majority rules. Now we are trying to put together a budget with all this extra money, and our challenge is or ought to be: How do we spend the money the American people are going to give us in an efficient way? I think every single Member of the Senate wants to do that. I want to talk for a few minutes about an issue that is going to come up. It is going to come up through the subcommittee I chair. It has to do with elections, and it has to do with money. Russia tried to interfere with our election. You can write that down and take it home to mama. It is true. They did it. They didn't change a single vote, but they did try to influence the way Americans did vote. To try to prevent that from happening again in 2018, this Congress gave our States $380 million to shore up their election systems. They haven't spent all that yet. This Congress also took other steps. The Senate has unanimously approved two bipartisan election security bills. I think they are both now pending in the House. We passed the Defending the Integrity of Voting Systems Act. That is going to make it a Federal crime to hack any voting system in a Federal election. We passed the Defending Elections Against Trolls from Enemy Regimes Act. We call that the DETER Act. It will bar people who interfere in our elections or attempt to do so from entering the United States. Our Department of Homeland Security, very able women and men, and our cyber security advisors there, smart people--they are helping our State and local officials, on a daily basis, guard against threats. We had a classified briefing. By ``we,'' I mean all Members of the Senate, Republicans and Democrats. ``Classified'' means it is in our room down in the basement where foreign agents cannot listen in. The FBI Director was there. The Director of National Intelligence was there. Most senior ranking members of our military were there, and the topic was: How did we do in 2018? We know the Russians and others took a run at us in 2016. They didn't succeed, but they tried. How did we do in 2018? Let me tell you, our men and women at the FBI and in our military and in Homeland Security, they are on it. Our 2018 election went off without a hitch. I am not saying some foreign despots didn't try to influence how we voted, but they didn't change a single vote. Our people did a great job, and every Senator, Democratic and Republican, in that room, in that classified setting--I can't tell you the details. I wish I could. If I could, you would be impressed. But everybody walked out of there and said: Man, we are on it. The 2018 elections went off without a hitch, and, by God, we are ready for 2020. We didn't just do that. I am going to go back to what I just said. We gave our States $380 million. They haven't even spent all of it yet, but there is going to be an effort to spend a whole bunch more to give it to the States. I don't know how much, but at least $200 million, maybe $400 million, maybe a billion. If I thought it was necessary, I would vote for it. Some of my colleagues, in perfectly good faith, think the States need more money, even though they haven't spent what we gave them to begin with and even though all of our intelligence officials say we are ready for 2020. Some of my colleagues, in good faith, think they need more money, but some of my colleagues see this as a first step to nationalizing elections, and that is what worries me. Do you know what makes our elections safest of all? You can't just hack one system. You have to hack 50. You have to hack 50 because the States run elections, and they do a pretty good job. They do a really good job. There is an effort--not by all but by some--to get the Federal Government in charge of elections. Do you know how you do that? You don't just jump in and grab them. You sneak up on them. I will tell you how you sneak up on them. You start giving them money, and you get them addicted. You give them a little more money, and you get them addicted. Then, the next thing you know, the Feds are running the elections, and not for all but for some of my colleagues that is what this is about. This country started out as a self-reliant, tax-averse Union of States. They were very skeptical of the Federal Government. Our original States and all those after them, they insisted on running their own elections, and it has worked. We don't need the Federal Government in charge of elections. There are some of my colleagues coming this time--and, look, I am not impugning their integrity. They are entitled to their opinion because this is America, but I am entitled to mine. In the effort last year, we were able to beat it back. I am afraid some of my friends on this side of the aisle this time are having second thoughts. I am hearing all kinds of rumors. It is amazing what you can pick up around this place if you just walk around the floor and keep your mouth shut and your ears open. You hear all kinds of stuff. I am here to say, if we do it, we are going to look back, when the Federal Government is running our elections and screwing them up, and say this is where it began. If you want to put the U.S. Federal Government in charge of your elections instead of the States, if you think that is a swell idea, I want you to close your eyes for a minute and imagine living in a world designed by the post office because that is what you are going to get. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have 3 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: Committee on Armed Services The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, September 12, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Ryan D. McCarthy to be Secretary of the Army and Barbara M. Barrett to be Secretary of the Air Force. Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, September 12, 2019, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Select Committee on Intelligence The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, September 12, 2019, at 2 p.m., to conduct a closed hearing.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Secretary of the Senate be authorized to request from the House of Representatives the return of the papers to S. 1790 to provide for a correction. I further ask that if the House agrees to the Senate's request, upon receipt of the papers from the House in the Senate, notwithstanding passage of the bill, the amendment at the desk be agreed to and the papers be returned to the House.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am not going to speak for 10 minutes, but I do want to call attention to an example of breathtaking hypocrisy, and I am not proud of it. We all understand in a social contract that the price of living in an organized society is giving up some of our hard-earned money. That is why we pay taxes. Nobody likes paying taxes, but we understand that taxes are necessary to pay our teachers, build our roads, defend our country, and help those who are less fortunate than us. We set up a pretty good apparatus to go after you if you don't pay your taxes. If you don't pay your taxes, or you don't pay them in the right amount, or you don't pay them on time, they have people trained in the IRS--I am not criticizing. They are just doing their job, but they will chase you like a hound from Hades. So you pay. That is the law, and we are all supposed to abide by it, but what happens when the Department in which the IRS is centered will not follow the same rules? I am talking about the Department of Treasury. The IRS is under the Department of Treasury. Now, what is good for the goose is supposed to be good for the gander. The U.S. Department of Treasury is sitting on $26 billion--not million, billion. That is nine zeros of matured, unclaimed savings bonds that belong to the people of this country. They have the names, and they have the addresses. Do you know what they are doing to try to contact these Americans? Nothing. Zero. Nada. Zilch. They just sit there holding on to the money. We know what a savings bond is. We couldn't have won World War II without savings bonds. A lot of Americans took their hard-earned money, and they bought savings bonds. You know how it works. I am just making these numbers up, but you buy a savings bond. You give the Federal Government 100 bucks. You don't get anything every month. You give up 100 bucks, and in 20 years you go back and redeem your bond and it is now worth $200. In the meantime, the Federal Government gets this loan to use your money. When that 20 years is up, the bond matures. It doesn't pay interest anymore. Some people lose their bonds. Some people forget about their bonds. Some people pass on, and their kids inherit their bonds. They are lost, but you can always count on the Department of Treasury to keep a list of who owns bonds and which ones have been redeemed and which ones haven't. The U.S. Department of Treasury has that list, and there are millions of Americans whose names are on that list. They have names and addresses, and they don't do anything to give it back. They just stand there sucking on the teat. Let me give you some examples. We are talking real money. I will just pick a couple out: New Jersey, $695 million belongs to the people of New Jersey--not the politicians in New Jersey, not the government, the people--that the Treasury is holding. Let me see if I can find--Washington State, $560 million belongs to the people of Washington State--not the big dogs, not the mayors, not the politicians, the real people who get up every day and go to work and pay their taxes. For Hawaii, they have $113 million. In my State, Louisiana, there is $337 million. There is $3 billion belonging to people in California. We are going to get up in the morning, and the IRS--they are just doing their job. You better pay your taxes. They will take your firstborn. But when they have $26 billion of the American people's money, you can't find them with a search party. It is not right. It is not right. I sued them when I was State treasurer, and I got a bunch of other State treasurers to sue them too. I don't like suing people, but the Department of the Treasury has spent tens of billions of dollars fighting the American people. They just don't want to give the money back--and you wonder why people hate the government. I have a bill to try to do something about it. It is not personal. I think the world of our Treasury Secretary. I would think a whole lot better of him if he would start writing checks to the American people. I am not going to give up on this issue. All we are asking is that the Treasury Department share the names with the States. Every State has an unclaimed property program. They have a great one in Washington, a great one in Hawaii. Usually it is a State treasurer. They know to give money back to people. They don't charge a fee. Right is right, and this is wrong. The Department of Treasury needs to give the money back.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, yesterday I stood on the floor of our esteemed Senate, and I said: The Senate needs to do more. The Senate needs to do more. I was very careful--and I want to reaffirm today--I was very careful not to say we are not doing anything. I talked about our important work on confirming judges. I think we are putting some very fine men and women on the Federal bench, who are going to make our country safer and better. I was also very careful to talk about the fact that after a logjam had been created on the appointments for the President's administration, we were finally able to break that logjam. We have started confirming some new advisers for the President. I am very proud of the good work this body has done, but I did make the point that we need to do more. I talked about the fact that, in my judgment, there are many issues--if we think about them--on which my Democratic friends and my Republican colleagues have more in common than we don't, but we can't determine whether that is accurate unless we vote, unless we bring bills to the floor, unless we get bills in front of the committee and mark them up. That is our word, as you know, for amending a bill. One of the bills I talked about yesterday was the need for bipartisan support for trying to do something about the spam, fraudulent robocalls the American people are getting, about which Senator Collins just spoke so eloquently. I said there would be bipartisan support. I believed it. I believe it even more today. I am very proud of the Senate because we just passed a bill. Do you know how many people voted against it? One. One ``no'' vote. See what happens when Senators are allowed to be Senators? There are other efforts that we can work on together. The cost of prescription drugs--I spoke about that yesterday. I don't want to go into it more today. I will give you another one, and I know this is controversial, but I think it is less controversial than people realize--net neutrality, the importance of people being able to access the Internet freely without being blocked or without their speeds being throttled or without their being censored. That is a very controversial issue around here, but I still believe we share more in common than we don't on that issue. I talk with my colleagues all the time. I say: We need to pass a bill. Do you know why? Because the businessmen and the businesswomen and the consumers need some predictability in this area. What happens now is, if we have a Democratic President who gets control of the FCC, they pass one set of net neutrality rules, and then if we have a Republican President who gets control of the FCC, they pass a different set of net neutrality rules. The business community and the consumers are like ping pong balls. There is no predictability. There is no certainty. You can't plan. So everybody says: We need to pass a bill. Well, I am going to say it too. We need to pass a bill, but the only way to pass a bill is to pass a bill. And I think that is an area where we can work. Another area--I understand how hard it is to fix our healthcare delivery system, but we ought to at least try. Our efforts in the last Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act did not work. We could not pass the bill. I do not know a single person, honestly, a fairminded person who thinks the Affordable Care Act is working. But there are things we can do in the meantime while we are trying to reach an agreement on health insurance and the healthcare delivery system that looks like somebody designed the two things on purpose. There are things we can do together in the meantime. I think there is bipartisan support for the idea that if you have health insurance and you go to the emergency room--and you picked an emergency room at a hospital that is under your policy--and you go and you pay your $500 deductible, a month later, you should not get a bill for $1,000. You call them up and you say: What do you mean? The hospital is listed on my policy. I did what I was supposed to do. I went there. It was an emergency, but I did not go to the closest hospital. I went to the hospital in my policy, and I get a bill for $4,000. They say: Oh, that doctor, that radiologist--not to pick on radiologists--that radiologist wasn't covered by your plan. Well, how am I supposed to know? We can address that. I guarantee you that there is bipartisan support to do something about that. We might not agree on the details, but that is why, you know, God created the Senate floor. You come down here, you debate, you discuss, and you offer amendments. There are other examples. Let me say I am cutting this short because we are about to have another vote on a disaster bill. Thank you. Thank you, United States Senate. Thank you, President Trump, for meeting us in the middle. I am not clairvoyant, but I feel really good about its passing--not good for the Senate as an institution, although I am proud of us today, but good for our farmers and our people in so many States who have been hurt by natural disasters--wildfires and hurricanes. Puerto Rico was hit with two hurricanes right in a row. We are going to do something about that today. I am happy for the Senate, but I am even happier for the American people. I am going to say it again. We have more in common--our Democratic colleagues and our Republican colleagues--than we don't on certain issues, and I think we would surprise ourselves in what we could achieve if we just try. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I don't have a speech prepared. I just want to share a few thoughts with my colleagues. What I am about to say I intend to say gently and constructively, and that is this: We need to do more. We need to do more. By ``we,'' I mean the U.S. Congress. We have completed almost 25 percent of the time allotted to this current Congress. And what have we done? Other than nominations, which are important--and I will come back to that--we have done nothing-- zero, zilch, nada. Let me talk about my friends in the House of Representatives first. I have great respect for them. I wish I had served in the House. I would have loved to have had that experience. So far, our friends in the House--at least the leadership--have done two things. No. 1, they have passed bills they know have not a hope in Hades of passing the U.S. Senate. We call those bills messaging bills, as you know. They are not designed for the next generation. They are designed for the next election. They don't do anything to make the American people any more secure or improve the quality of their lives, and we all know that. The second thing that my friends in the House leadership have done-- and I say this with all the respect I can muster--is to harass the President. Again, I say this gently, and I say this, hopefully, constructively to my friends in the House leadership: The House leadership needs to urinate or get off the pot. The House leadership needs to indict the President of the United States, impeach him, and let us hold a trial-- he will not be convicted--or they need to go ahead and hold in contempt every single member of the Trump administration so we can move those issues into our court system and get back to doing the people's business. Now, if they decide to go the court route, I would caution my friends to be very, very careful because once it enters the court system, it becomes a zero-sum game. One or two things are going to happen. Either the administration will win, in which case the oversight authority of the U.S. Congress will be undermined, or the House leadership will win, in which case no American with a brain above a single-cell organism is going to want to run for President of the United States, because Congress will be able to find out everything about your life, even the most intimate details, whether it is relevant to your job or not and whether it happened when you were President or not. What I hope happens is that my friends in the House leadership and the administration sit down and talk--not talk like 8-year-olds in the back of a minivan fighting but talk constructively about how their behavior could impact important institutions in this country--and work it out. I thank the Attorney General for making overtures to the House leadership to try to find common ground. Now, let me talk about the Senate. We need to do more. I am not saying we haven't done anything. We have confirmed some very important nominees to the Trump administration. It is long overdue. They are fine men and women. We have confirmed some very fine men and women to the Federal Judiciary, and I believe they will make this country safer and will make this country better. I am very proud of that effort. So let me say it again. I am not saying we have done nothing. I am saying we need to do more. There are issues where our Democratic friends and my Republican friends have more in common than we don't. We need to bring the bills to the floor of the Senate. Everyone has their own list, and everyone in the Senate knows what I am talking about, whether they will say it or not. What is one of the things that moms and dads worry about when they lie down at night and can't sleep? The cost of prescription drugs. There is bipartisan support for prescription drug reform. I just read a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. They studied the U.S. healthcare delivery system and the healthcare delivery systems of all other wealthy countries. So it is apples to apples. In America, we pay about $1,500 for every man, woman, or child every year for pharmaceutical drugs. In the average rich country, other countries pay $750. I am not criticizing our pharmaceutical drug companies. What they do is marvelous. We live longer. They save money. They keep us out of hospitals. But why is everybody else paying $750 and our people are paying $1,500? There are things we can do that will help make the pharmaceutical industry better but also help consumers. Do you know what we are doing about it? Nothing. We need to bring a bill to the floor. I could give you another example. We all know there needs to be reform of our National Emergency Act. We know that. It is not about President Trump. It is about institutions, checks and balances, and Madisonian separation of powers. We could do something together to get rid of spam robocalls. I get about 12 a day. Rob Portman has a great bill that would end government shutdowns. We have more in common on that than we don't. We need a supplemental disaster bill. We have Americans who are hurting. In my State, after Katrina, we were flat on our backs. If it hadn't been for the American taxpayer, we would have never risen to our knees, much less to our feet. We have other Americans and friends in Puerto Rico who need help. We ought to be able to work it out. I could keep going. Everybody has their own list. I don't care whether we move a bill through committee or whether we bring a bill directly to the floor of the Senate--I am in labor, not management; that is above my pay grade--but we need to try. We need to try. I understand it is an election cycle. I get that. I say to the Presiding Officer, I am a politician. You know that. But we are always in an election cycle. When are we not in an election cycle? And I understand some of my colleagues with a lot more experience than I have--and I listen carefully to them, and I try to listen carefully to them--are thinking right now: Kennedy, that is just not the way it is done here. Well, by God, maybe it is not, but maybe it should be. I know some of my friends are thinking: Kennedy, if we do that, we are taking too big of a political risk. Maybe we are. Maybe we will win. I just think that there are bills that will make the American people able to live better lives, and we ought to spend a little more time thinking about the next generation than the next election. With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I rise as a Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship to highlight a veteran-owned Louisiana business that is a true success story. With me today is my colleague from my office, Ms. Cassie Leonard. We all know small businesses are how many Americans live the American dream. They start small; they start with a passion; they create jobs; and then they help us compete globally in America and spark innovation. These American small business owners are often our friends. They are often our neighbors. They succeed through the hard work of entrepreneurs like Mr. Mike Hackley of Baton Rouge. I am talking about Mike and his business BBQGuys because it is National Small Business Week and because BBQGuys was named Senate Small Business of the Week just last week. Mike has served our country in many ways. He has served our country in the Air Force for more than 10 years. Once his military career ended, he worked in a number of different sectors. Like a lot of Louisianans, Mike loves the outdoors. In Louisiana, we will barbecue no matter how hot it gets outside. Mike turned his passion into a profession, and he did it by starting an outdoor business called The Grill Store & More. Early on, being the perceptive business person he is, Mike saw an opening with e-commerce, something we take for granted today. He launched a website called www.bbqguys.com, and he did this in 2001, 18 years ago, when Americans who did have the internet were on dial-up connections. Today, 18 years later, BBQGuys is a giant in outdoor living online retailers. Mike now employs nearly 300 workers. He started with less than 10. That is the American dream. That is American success, and BBQGuys continues to evolve and to grow. They started designing and manufacturing premium barbecue grills, with manufacturing operations here in the United States, and they are looking to export into Europe and Australia. Mike also remains committed to a culture of teamwork at BBQGuys. Every day he makes a point of going around the office to say good morning to his employees, and I am not talking about just to the executives. It is no wonder Mike has a high employee retention rate, a reputation for outstanding customer service, and an A-plus rating from the Better Business Bureau. BBQGuys has also been named one of the 5,000 fastest growing businesses in the United States by Inc. Magazine for 11 years in a row. I am proud to stand today before the U.S. Senate to say I am proud of Mike Hackley. I am proud of what he has built. He is realizing the American dream, and he is creating good jobs for my State. Mike, if you are listening, thank you for making Louisiana proud. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments to speak on an issue that, as you know, is important to American families all across the country. Hardworking Americans long for cheap and efficient sources of energy for their homes, for their businesses, and for their schools, and one of the answers--not the only answer, but one of the answers--to this dilemma is clean-burning natural gas. Natural gas is an abundant energy source that, unfortunately, in some cases is being squandered. We can do a better job of getting the fuel to consumers. In fact, we waste too much of this useable fuel source through a process known as natural gas flaring. Natural gas flaring is a practice where the natural gas is intentionally burned off at a drill site. What I can happily report, however, is that President Trump and his administration have begun to take the necessary steps to address the underlying causes for this inexcusable waste. Just last month, President Trump signed a pair of executive orders to expedite the construction of pipelines that will allow oil and natural gas to be safely and economically transported from drill sites to end users. The President took the courageous first step in addressing a problem that has been present for far, far too long, and I am talking, of course, about the lack of infrastructure. The lack of infrastructure not only chips away at the great economic benefits our country receives thanks to our drilling boom, but without pipelines and other means of transport, processing, and storage, the cheaper and cleaner burning natural gas is too often wasted--natural gas, mind you, that could be powering businesses, schools, and even tens of millions of homes across the United States. I would also like to note that I would be remiss if I didn't mention the environmental benefits of natural gas. Simply put, natural gas is an environmentally friendly fuel source. This abundant fuel is not only incredibly efficient, with a 92-percent energy efficiency, but the use of natural gas reduces carbon emissions as well. When compared to other fossil fuel sources, burning natural gas results in far fewer pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, nonmethane organic gas, and carbon dioxide. In fact, depending on the pollutant, using natural gas can mean a reduction in carbon emissions of up to 90 percent--90 percent--in some cases. As our drilling boom continues in America, by implementing greater direct use of natural gas, we can cut thousands and thousands of tons of carbon emissions from our atmosphere every year, and these are numbers that we should all be able to get behind. Ever since the advent of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, we have been able to extract crude oil from deposits that we not only didn't think we could ever reach but from deposits we didn't even know existed until a few years ago. American ingenuity is truly an amazing thing, and that American inventiveness and perseverance have led the United States in becoming the world's leader in oil production. Did you ever think America would lead the entire world in oil production? Unfortunately, the infrastructure to support this boom has lagged. When drilling for oil, it is not an a la carte menu. Once the drill reaches the desired deposit and begins pumping the targeted crude oil to the surface, what is also brought to the surface alongside the crude oil is natural gas. You simply cannot drill for shale oil and not extract natural gas. The problem, however, is while we should be looking at this phenomenon as a net positive--one drill extracting two sources of energy--far too often this natural gas byproduct is wasted because the infrastructure is simply not there to move the large quantity of natural gas to consumers. In one of our Nation's busiest oil fields-- perhaps the busiest, at least operating in America today--the Permian Basin in the great State of Texas and the great State of New Mexico, our shale drillers have long complained that they have no way to move natural gas to the market because there simply aren't enough natural gas pipelines. Adding to the dilemma is the fact that not only is there a severe lack of pipelines, there is a severe lack of alternative transportation options as well. When it comes to transporting oil and natural gas, we have four alternatives: pipeline, train, truck, and boat--pipeline, train, truck, and boat. Until President Trump signed his Executive orders last month--one requiring the Transportation Department to allow liquefied natural gas to be shipped via specialized rail and tanker trucks--too much of the natural gas extracted had no way of getting to open markets. In the Permian Basin alone--remember in Texas and New Mexico--about 3 percent of the natural gas that comes to the surface with the oil is flared. That means it is just burned off. It is wasted. Now, 3 percent may not initially sound like a lot, but when you run the numbers, it becomes clear that we are wasting a vast amount of money and a huge source of energy. There is so much oil being extracted in the Permian Basin alone that over $1 million worth of natural gas is burned away, flared, wasted every day; $1 million worth of natural gas--a relatively clean source of energy, better for our environment-- is burned away every single day. To put that in perspective, the entire daily energy needs of Montana or New Hampshire could be met with just the gas that is flared in 1 day in the Permian Basin. A further look at the numbers suggests that by the end of 2018 alone, so much natural gas was burned off in the Permian Basin that the entire residential energy needs of Texas for the year could have been met--the entire State of Texas. The problem is likely only going to get worse. The Permian Basin is far from the only area in which flaring occurs today in our country. Just accounting for the month of October this past year in North Dakota, it was reported that the amount of gas flared or burned off or wasted was enough to heat 4.25 million homes. The amount of natural gas flared, burned, wasted for the month of October, just in North Dakota, would have heated 4.25 million homes. This has to change. We simply cannot continue to sit by as millions of dollars are literally burned off every day into the atmosphere. I thank President Trump. He took some great initial steps in trying to solve the wastefulness inherent in flaring from speeding up the construction of much needed pipelines to ordering increased use of specifically designed trains and tanker trucks. The American people will have far more access to this abundant and ever-present fuel source for their homes, for their businesses, and for their schools. There is still a long way to go--a long way to go. Additional miles of pipeline and specialized train cars are just the beginning. I believe we can do better--much better, in fact--than simply sitting idly by as we watch good fuel being burned off into the night sky. (Ms. McSALLY assumed the Chair.)

Mr. KENNEDY

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

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, today I wish to congratulate and honor two Louisiana students who have achieved national recognition for exemplary volunteer service in their communities. Kate Walker of Ruston and Nikki Leali of New Orleans have been named State honorees in the 2019 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program, an annual honor granted to one high school student and one middle school student in each State and the District of Columbia. Ms. Walker, a sophomore at Cedar Creek School, is being recognized for raising more than $70,000 to find a cure for a rare neuromuscular disease known as Friedreich's ataxia, FA. In addition to raising tens of thousands of dollars to bring awareness to FA, Kate used different kinds of media to spread awareness and educate the public about disabilities, including hosting a local screening of a documentary film about FA and starting a YouTube channel featuring weekly videos about the challenges facing people with disabilities. Kate's mission is to teach people the importance of treating people with disabilities the same as everyone else. Ms. Leali, a seventh grader at Ursuline Academy, is being recognized for organizing a reading club that brings middle school students and younger children together. Nikki organized the club after conducting an annual book donation drive for several years that redistributed more than 55,000 books in her community. Nikki's club allows young children to build confidence in reading in a safe and fun environment, while also providing middle schoolers an opportunity to serve their community. Nikki has grown her club with a website and corporate sponsors, and she now has 15 to 30 children regularly attending her monthly meetings. It is vital that we encourage and support the kind of selfless contributions these young people have made. People of all ages need to think about how we, as individual citizens, can work together at the local level to ensure the health and vitality of our towns and neighborhoods. Young volunteers like Ms. Walker and Ms. Leali are inspiring examples for all of us and are among our brightest hopes for a better tomorrow. I also would like to salute other young people in my state who were named Distinguished Finalists by the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards for their outstanding volunteer service. They are Hailey Enamorado, 15, of Denham Springs, LA; Julianna Gouthiere, 12, of Shreveport, LA; Myracle Lewis, 17, of Baton Rouge, LA; and Grace Sun, 17, of Shreveport, LA. All of these young people have demonstrated a level of commitment and accomplishment that is truly extraordinary in today's world and deserve our sincere admiration and respect. Their actions show that young Americans can and do play important roles in their communities, and that America's community spirit continues to hold tremendous promise for the future.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 192, submitted earlier today.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 61, S. Res. 96.

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, May 8; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two Leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Bianco nomination under the previous order.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of Senators Menendez and Whitehouse.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 193, submitted earlier today.