Mike Lee

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, on the morning of April 5, 1977, a 17-year- old girl--scared, alone, and 7\1/2\ months pregnant--set foot inside of a Los Angeles abortion clinic. She had been advised to get a saline abortion--a procedure in which an injected saline solution burns a baby inside the womb, who is then delivered dead 24 hours later. So she signed some papers, received the injection, and then waited for the poison to run its course. But the child, little Gianna Jessen, had other ideas. Triumphantly, defiantly, and against all odds, Gianna Jessen entered this world after her own abortion. She was delivered--alive--in that same abortion clinic on April 6. She should have been burned. She should have been blind. She should have been dead. Yet, at 2\1/2\ pounds, little Gianna Jessen was very much alive, albeit suffering the effects of the saline solution, which was intended to be lethal. The nurse could have left her to die that day, but mercifully she instead decided to call an ambulance. Little Gianna was transferred to the hospital, and her life was saved. This was indeed an act of mercy. Even more importantly, it was just the beginning of Gianna's story, comprising only the first chapter of her amazing life. The saline solution that had been injected to take her life did not have its intended effect, but it starved her brain of oxygen, so she was born with cerebral palsy, which left her with physical and cognitive disabilities. Doctors said that this child, who was not supposed to live in the first place, would also never be able to lift her head, let alone walk. Yet, here again, Gianna beat the odds. With the help of a loving adoptive mother, a walker, and some leg braces, she was walking by the time she was 3 years old. By the time she was just 14 years old, she was speaking to audiences about her extraordinary birth and the exceptional life it made possible. Since then, Gianna has literally run marathons and trained to climb mountains. For years, she has traveled around the country and, in fact, around the world speaking and marching, limping one step at a time, for the unborn children who cannot. Her accomplishments, especially in light of her disabilities, are breathtaking. Yet, because of those disabilities, she was exactly the kind of baby some would say should have been allowed to die after a botched abortion, exactly the kind of baby some might dismissively characterize as a ``burden'' on society. Gianna Jessen's life shows that she is quite the opposite of a burden on all of those who have the good fortune to know her. As she puts it, she has been blessed with the ``tremendous gift'' of cerebral palsy. She adds, ``I have more joy than I can ever articulate because of the obstacles I have overcome.'' But perhaps that is her truest and greatest achievement, for Gianna lives with a deep, authentic, and contagious joy that she spreads wherever she goes. To listen to her, to talk to her, to know her is truly to know the joy of life--a woman fully alive indeed. It is good that Gianna Jessen exists--very good. Good for her and good for all of us. Her life is not defined by what she can do. It is not defined but what she cannot do or by whether she was originally wanted. Her life is unrepeatable, irreplaceable, and of infinite and immeasurable worth. She has made an indelible mark on the entire world, as only she could. Today, we have a chance to stand up and defend the truth that Gianna's life is, in fact, worthwhile, that all babies' lives are valuable and worth living, just like Gianna's. Women, like Gianna's birth mother, deserve better than what many in our society have told them. They deserve to be protected right alongside their babies. Pro-life Americans like me believe that children like Gianna should be protected within the womb. Both the essential moral principle of human dignity and the undisputed scientific facts of human biology insist on this very point. But the bill I am here to discuss today does not. This bill, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, takes no position on abortion or on the rights of the unborn child. It simply says that in this country, when a child is born, even if by accident, even in the most dangerous place in the world for an infant--that is, a Planned Parenthood clinic--he or she becomes a citizen of the United States under our Constitution and is entitled to the full protection of our laws. Boy or girl, Black or White, rich or poor, each deserves-- paraphrasing the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln--an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. This is the essence of what it means to have rights and to be entitled to the equal protection of our laws. Among our inalienable rights is the right to ``life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness''--a concept that clearly encompasses the right not to be murdered. This bill will simply reaffirm that such fundamental rights extend not simply to the rich and the powerful but even to the furthest margins of our society and even to the most vulnerable and newest citizens of our great Nation. This legislation should not be controversial. In fact, if you think about it, what is more remarkable here is the fact that outlawing the murder of the innocent--in the first moments of life, no less--is even controversial among many Members of this body. Those objecting to this legislation, including the political media covering up the scandal, will say otherwise, but we know the truth, and so do they. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, this coming Friday, tens of thousands of Americans will take to the snowy streets of Washington, DC, to exercise their fundamental rights on behalf of millions of others who cannot. They will come from every State in the Union, including the State of Utah, to march to the U.S. Supreme Court. Fittingly, they will be marching down Constitution Avenue in the name of justice and in defense of the innocent. The March for Life is a spectacular tradition in American politics, a mass demonstration of joy. Despite its size and the diversity of its participants--sometimes north of 100,000 souls, born and unborn--the march is typically ignored by the mainstream media. The marchers also know that the Supreme Court, rightly, is not supposed to be swayed by public opinion one way or another. Yet they march January after January after January, cheerfully, prayerfully, happily, peacefully, bundled up against the cold, with babies in their strollers, and wearing smiles on their faces. I have been, and I can confirm that the March for Life is the happiest protest you can see because they march not principally in outrage over the lives lost to the scourge of abortion but in abiding hope for the lives yet to be saved. The March for Life is often seen as the pro-life movement's response to the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. In truth, it is a continuation of the march of human dignity and equality that has defined American history since we first declared ``that all men are Created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life''--yes, life--``Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.'' Raised from the crib on the Declaration of Independence, Americans can sometimes take its lofty and inspiring words for granted, but these truths, however self-evident, remain as revolutionary today as they were when they were penned in 1776. From the dawn of time, powerful men have dehumanized women, the poor, the sick, the disabled, the young and the old, those who thought differently, looked differently, loved differently, or worshipped differently. Whether enforced by tribal taboos, corrupted science, or judicial fiat, these experiments in dehumanization are the darkest chapters in human history--including the original sin of our Republic, the monstrous evil of slavery. The story of American history is the story of our Nation standing up to oppression, of our coming to the defense of the vulnerable in our laws and with our very lives. From Independence Hall to the Bill of Rights, from the abolition of slavery to universal suffrage, to the civil rights movement, to the triumph over nazism, fascism, and communism, the American people have fought through prejudice and pride to assert and to defend the equal dignity of every single member of the human family. For all the powerful forces arrayed against it, the right to life remains a part of who we are--a common heritage and, I believe history will prove, a common destiny. That is precisely why the march grows every single year not only here in Washington but in solidarity marches in State capitals all around the country. In Salt Lake City on Friday, Utah will host its annual March for Life at the Utah State Capitol building. The same group of people will also be organizing the annual diaper drive for the Pregnancy Resource Center, a nonprofit organization that provides free healthcare services to pregnant mothers in need. They know that to love is to serve, and to be pro-life is to be pro every life and not just some lives. Our duty to justice and equality extends beyond the unborn child in the womb; it extends to her mother and to her father, to her siblings and her friends, her neighborhood, her church, and her school--to her whole life. Abortion is evil, but so is indifference. Human dignity impels us to transcend both, not merely by changing laws but by changing hearts, starting, of course, with our own. It is not enough to restore a legal regime of life; we must also endeavor to forge a new culture of life that is broader and runs deeper than the law. Those of us who call ourselves pro-life have a particular duty to exercise the very right we fight to win back for the unborn: the right to live, the right to grow, to strive every day to become more fully the person God made us to be. A culture of life can be built only one hopeful soul at a time, one by one. We have a long way to go, of course, but the work is well underway. To see what it looks like, stop by the march. The struggle for life is just the latest battle in America's long, noble crusade for justice, for equality, for freedom and liberty, and, of course, for dignity. It is another fight worth having, another fight most worthy of our heritage, another fight worthy of our children. One day soon, we are going to win this fight. We are going to win this fight, too, just as we have won others. Until that day, America will continue to march. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, Tribal recognition is a very serious matter. It is not one that should be undertaken lightly. Given the sacred nature of Tribal recognition and the significant impact it has both on the Tribe in question and on the U.S. Government, as well as on surrounding communities, we have an orderly process by which this needs to be done. In 2009, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, having considered the argument by the Little Shell, concluded it had failed to meet three of the seven categories that are typically considered for Tribal recognition, and on that basis, the Bureau turned down its application. It has been suggested that there is still an appeal pending--a challenge to that finding--by the Little Shell. I am not aware of any legal analysis suggesting that the Bureau of Indian Affairs got it wrong. This is not to say that Congress cannot or should not or could not decide on its own to recognize it. Yes, this is a power that Congress has. Yet, as I see it, those seven criteria ought to be considered and considered carefully. I am aware of no legal analysis indicating that the conclusion by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 2009 was inadequate or flawed. For that reason, I object.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I have great respect for my distinguished friends and colleagues, including my colleagues from Connecticut and from Georgia. I will also add that there is no doubt that all of us owe a great debt of gratitude to the brave men and women who fought and served in the Vietnam war. There is no question that they endured unspeakable hardships there and, of course, for many decades following their service. For some, one of these hardships involved exposure to Agent Orange. This very potent chemical was widely used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam war as part of its herbicidal warfare program, and it has proven to have been something that has caused major health problems for the service men and women who were exposed to it. So Congress passed the Agent Orange Act of 1991 to provide health benefits for those servicemembers who were affected by it. The act presumes the service connection for diseases caused by herbicides for Active military, naval, or air servicemembers when, and only when, there is scientific and medical evidence to support it. In 2002, the VA removed the blue water Navy veterans from the presumption of exposure, as they had looked at the data repeatedly under multiple administrations and had not found evidence to grant the presumption. The bill now under consideration would restore this presumption to the blue water Navy veterans, but prudence demands that we wait until we have more complete information and evidence to make this presumption. In fact, previous studies have lumped all the branches of the services together into their analyses or they focused solely on the Army. In other words, they failed to differentiate between those who were Active on the ground and those who were serving on ships miles offshore. Now we have a chance to get that precise data. The VA is currently undertaking a study, slotted to be released in the early months of 2019, that examines the myriad of health factors in Vietnam veterans and specifically includes a subsample of blue water Navy veterans. It is only right and only reasonable that Congress should examine this study before making any presumption of a service connection for all blue water Navy veterans from this war. The brave men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country should undoubtedly get the medical care they need in connection with their service. As Members of this body, it is also our duty to ensure it is done in a prudent and proper way, with all the relevant information available to us. Our veterans deserve no less, and it is for this reason that I have concerns with it. I have received calls from Secretary Wilkie and from four previous VA Secretaries, all of whom have said consistently that the VA has been strapped with difficulties in recent years. We have to make sure the VA has the tools it needs to offer the services it needs to offer to our veterans. Doing something that would offset that, as these VA Secretaries have concluded, would be unwise. On that basis, I object.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I first want to note that it has been suggested that there is only one objection to Chai Feldblum's nomination to the EEOC. That is not true. I am among those objectors; I am not the lone objector. My objection to this nominee relates to my belief and religious freedom. You see, religious freedom is very important to me. I am the descendant of people who were ordered exterminated by the Governor of Missouri on October 27, 1837. Religious intolerance cannot be tolerated in this country, and I see a growing wave of religious intolerance. I see a growing wave of sentiment of people suggesting that on the basis of people's religious beliefs, they can be subject to adverse government decisionmaking. Ms. Feldblum has written that she sees a conflict between religious belief and LGBT liberty as ``a zero-sum game'' where ``a gain for one side necessarily entails a corresponding loss for the other side.'' I see no reason why that should be the case, and I think that is fundamentally incompatible with our Nation's long tradition of pluralism and religious freedom. Make no mistake--there is no mystery about which side Ms. Feldblum thinks should win. In a separate speech, she said: ``There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases, the sexual liberty should win. . . . I'm having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.'' I find these remarks stunning, especially because an entire amendment to the U.S. Constitution--the very first one, by the way--is devoted to religious liberty. These are not the words of an open-minded jurist. These are not the words of an open-minded lawyer. These are the words of an activist intent on stamping out all opposition to her cause. In fact, she has even said as much. She said: ``[G]ranting liberty to gay people . . . cannot be adequately advanced if `pockets of resistance' are permitted to flourish.'' Who is she to decide whether someone should be permitted to persist in their own religious belief simply because those beliefs happen to conflict with a particular political world view? As an EEO Commissioner, Ms. Feldblum would be in a prime position to stamp out those pockets of resistance. She herself has noted: The EEOC has jurisdiction only over employment. But other Federal agencies that enforce sex discrimination provisions often look to our interpretation for guidance in interpreting the laws they enforce. The Federal Government should never be used as a tool to stamp out religious liberty--that principle which is so central to our Nation's founding and to human happiness itself. It is so important that we have to stand behind it. Ms. Feldblum, however, wants to deny exactly that. On that basis, I object to her confirmation.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I offer up a counteroffer. I am fine with the other two EEOC Commissioners. If that is what we are worried about--the ability of the EEOC to do its business--fine. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following nominations: Executive Calendar Nos. 379 and 381; and that the Senate vote on the nominations en bloc with no intervening action or debate Mr. President. Is there objection?

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, we have a bill here that we received at 10 o'clock this morning, and it is 680- pages long. I have spent many hours reviewing it. This is a bill that came out of the committee on which I serve. I have been trying for many weeks, through the chairman of that committee and her staff, to get language or to at least get an outline of this. We were not able to get that until today at 10 a.m. Even after we got that, we asked for at least an outline of this bill or for a summary of the bill text from the committee staff, from the chairman's staff. They didn't respond to us. They wouldn't give it to us, just as they haven't for weeks. We got this--the closest thing to a summary--from a lobbyist. We had to wait to get it from a lobbyist. This is of great impact to my State. This bill creates 1.3 million acres of wilderness, about half of which is in my State. This bill permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is an entity that has been used to acquire more Federal land. Now, in coming from a State where two-thirds of the land is owned by the Federal Government--where we can't do anything without leave from the Federal Government--this hurts. In coming from a State where we have had about 2 million acres of Federal land declared as monuments through Presidential proclamations, this hurts. I have made what I consider to be a very reasonable offer, and I ask that it be accepted. It involves two words. I want the inclusion of two words in this bill--two words. Add the words ``or Utah'' to some language in the Antiquities Act. I have an amendment that I will counteroffer. I will accept this bill and agree to its passage if these two words are added to the Antiquities Act, the words ``or Utah.'' I ask that my colleagues accept this.

Mr. LEE. Yes, I object.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I find it unfortunate that the addition of two words is somehow unacceptable to the Members of this body--two words. They are two words, by the way, that would put Utah in the same category as Alaska and Wyoming. What do those States have in common? They both have repeatedly been victims of the Antiquities Act. You see, in every single State from Colorado to the west of Colorado, the Federal Government owns at least 15 percent of the land. In many of those States, it is much more than 15 percent of the land. In my State, it is two-thirds of the land--about 67 percent. What that means is that we have to get permission from the Federal Government to do just about everything. What that also means is that our schools are underfunded--everything from fire, search, rescue, education, local governance. All of these budgets are underfunded as a result of the fact that most of the land is owned by the Federal Government. We can't tax that land. We receive pennies on the dollar for a program called payment in lieu of taxes. It is pennies on the dollar because most of our land is not ours. Most of our land cannot be developed privately. Most of our land cannot be taxed by the States and localities, which makes it harder for us to educate our children, for us to secure our streets, for us to put out fires--fires, by the way, that become far more severe because of extensive Federal landownership, which is plainly excessive, which is plainly unfair, which kills people and results in devastating losses not only to property but also to the health of the environment. Bad Federal land management policy is at the root of this. Do you know what is interesting? People like to talk a lot about these wildfires. A lot of them occur in the West. Why? Well, there is a lot of Federal public land in the West. Yes, there are parts of the country where they have forests where these things don't happen, and when they do, they are put out much faster in things called private forests. Privately owned forests and forests owned by many States are much less prone to wildfires, and when they do occur, they put them out more quickly. Why? Because they are not hobbled under a mountain of regulations that makes it almost impossible for us to prevent them and then from putting them out quickly. This is devastating to our States. It is a burden on our States and on our State in particular. Many of you, if you live east of the Rocky Mountains, come from lands where Federal public lands are almost unheard of, where they are rare, where you have private land left and right. A lot of those same States used to be mostly Federal. A State like Illinois used to be overwhelmingly Federal. Many, if not most, of the States have added, since the Louisiana Purchase, language in their enabling legislation, anticipating that, in time, Federal public land within a State's boundaries would be sold and that in the case of my State and that of many other States, a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of that land would be put into a trust fund for the benefit of the States' public education systems. Those promises were honored in the Dakotas and in States like Indiana and Illinois. They were honored as we expanded westward. For some reason, when we got to the Rocky Mountains, they stopped honoring them. There are a lot of reasons for this. Some of it has to do with what we were occupied with doing as a country at the time. Some of it has to do with the fact that our land is what was regarded as rugged and perhaps undesirable for a time. But the understanding was still there, just as it was the understanding in the Dakotas and in States like Indiana and Illinois. The effects are still there. We are still impoverished. Our ability to expand economically is impaired, and the health of our environment is significantly degraded as a result of this excessive, unnecessary Federal landownership. Now, make no mistake--I am not talking here about national parks. People like to caricature those who complain about excessive Federal landownership and suggest--as if we are going to put oil drilling rigs underneath Delicate Arch and other national treasures. That is not what we are talking about at all. I am talking about garden variety, Federal public land--land that is excessively restricted and that is environmentally degraded as a result of poor Federal land management policies. Why? Well, because these decisions are made by Federal landing managers who live and work and make decisions many hundreds and in many cases many thousands of miles from those most affected by those decisions. How, then, does this relate to the Antiquities Act? Well, a State like mine that has a lot of Federal public land, like Alaska and Wyoming do, is particularly, uniquely vulnerable to predatory practices under the Antiquities Act, allowing the President of the United States, under a law passed over a century ago, to utilize his discretion to set aside land as a national monument. It is already Federal; this is putting it into a new classification--a classification subject to even more restrictions, eligible for even less development, less human activity, less access for recreational or agricultural or religious or cultural purposes. When you put it in that category, it makes it even more difficult for those people surrounding it, those people living in and around the Federal public lands in question. So Utah, like Wyoming and Alaska, has had a whole lot of Presidents declare a whole lot of Federal public land, national monument land. Now, fortunately for the States of Alaska and Wyoming, they have had congressional delegations that in the past have said, no more, have demanded relief, and have said that they have had enough. In the case of a State like mine that has had a couple of million acres, roughly, of Federal public land declared monument by a Presidential proclamation, this is important. If it is good enough for Alaska, if it is good enough for Wyoming, why not extend the same courtesy to the State of Utah? Why, when a bill is 680 pages long--which I received at 10 a.m. today, on what may well be the last or penultimate day of this legislative session of this Congress--why are we receiving this just now, especially in the Senate during a term of Congress when it was originally believed that we might be adjourning by December 6 or 7 or 13 or 14? Here it is on December 19--my daughter's 18th birthday, by the way; happy birthday, Eliza--December 19, and we are just getting this bill for the first time today. What does that mean? If we had adjourned when we were originally thinking we might adjourn, would this never have happened? It has been suggested to us by some Members and some staff that had we adjourned earlier, this would have just been released perhaps on the last day of the session. I can't get into anyone else's head. I can't peer into anyone else's subjective intentions. But this makes me kind of nervous, the fact that, yes, I sit on the committee from whence this bill originated, and, yes, I chair the Public Lands Subcommittee, yet there are a whole lot of these that the chairman or the ranking member know darn well that I oppose, that I voted against in committee, and there are other provisions that they know I have had longstanding concerns with. I wonder if maybe, just maybe, that is part of the reason they wouldn't tell me what was in it. I understand it is difficult negotiating a big piece of legislation. I sympathize greatly with that. I am not suggesting that short of receiving the entire 680-page document exactly as it has been submitted, I would irrevocably have bound myself to voting against it. I am not suggesting that at all. It would have been nice to have a roadmap, to have some clue as to what might have been in there. And I know from conversations I have since had with Members today that they have known for weeks, if not months, that they were putting permanent LWCF reauthorization in this bill. I don't believe it was a coincidence that I wasn't informed of this. I don't believe it was a coincidence that even after this bill was released at 10 a.m. today, the staff of the committee refused even to give me an outline--an outline--of what was in the bill, even after they had filed it. We had to get this from a lobbyist. This is wrong. It is wrong that the State of Utah is treated the way it is. It is wrong that you wouldn't give us that language. It is wrong that you won't treat us the same way Alaska and Wyoming are treated. This is wrong. We can do better. I implore my colleagues to make this simple change. Two words. Two words. Add the words ``for Utah'' to this bill, and I will wholeheartedly support it. If not, I will continue to oppose it. Thank you.

Mr. LEE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, all I am asking is for the language that I have asked for--two words, the words ``for Utah''--to be added to this legislation. I am asking to be treated on equal footing as the language proposed by the Senator from Colorado, the Senator from Alaska, the Senator from Washington, the Senator from Montana, and others--equal footing. We have equal representation in the Senate. It is the one type of constitutional amendment that is preemptively unconstitutional. You can't modify the equal representation of the Senate. That is what makes this place unique. Each State is represented equally, and I will defend my State, the State of Utah, to my dying breath. As long as I am here breathing and holding an election certificate, I will defend it. My distinguished friend and colleague, for whom I have great affection and respect, has just pointed out that the people of Colorado might be disappointed about this water measure that was in there or this or that other provision for Colorado. Do they have reason to be concerned? You bet. Do those people in Colorado have objection to the idea that Utah might be treated equally with Alaska or Wyoming? I think not. I think most people in America would look at a State that has had a couple of million acres of monument declared and that just wants to be treated the same way as Alaska and Wyoming and say that is not unreasonable. This is a sovereign State, one that has been mistreated by Federal land managers. We don't want to continue doing that. This is a generous offer. It is a reasonable offer. As to the suggestion that because it was offered that this receive a separate vote--and it is really not equivalent at all. What he is saying is, split this out; everything else sinks or swims together. All of theirs pass, and ours stands alone. If we are going to consolidate this many bills at once--and he is right: Some of these passed out unanimously, and a bunch of them didn't. I voted against a number of them. Some of them are new. Some are old but have been modified. One provision involving my own State involved 450,000 or 500,000 acres of wilderness and has, since it moved through the committee, been modified to include an additional 200,000 acres of wilderness. That is from my State, and I sit on the committee, and I chair the subcommittee that is supposed to review these things, and this is the first I have seen of them. So, yes, I say to my distinguished friend and colleague, for whom I also have great respect and admiration and affection, yes, there are a lot of parochial matters that are addressed in these public lands bills, and appropriately so. What I am asking is for my State to be treated like your State. That is all I am asking. It is not unreasonable. It is not unfair. So if you are going to have 640 pages' worth of legislation, including some legislation that has some significant ramifications for my State, I ask you to put those two words into the bill. That is not unreasonable. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE. Do the people of Colorado care that you were--

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I first became aware of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis when I was in the fifth grade, and I read a story, a book, and later a series of books about my childhood hero Lou Gehrig, whose name is often used synonymously with this terrible ailment. It is a tragedy that his life was ended and helped bring about the end of his 2,138 consecutive game playing streak in Major League Baseball. This is a horrible disease, a progressive neurodegenerative condition that rapidly attacks the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and eventually it affects the control of the muscles that are needed to move, to speak, and even to eat and to breathe. Sadly, it is always fatal. The bill now under consideration will grant a waiver from the Social Security Disability Insurance waiting period to victims of this terrible disease, no doubt with good, noble intentions, but what we have to remember is that this is not the only tragic disease Americans are dying from. Unfortunately, there are many others out there that are equally debilitating and equally fatal, and the Federal Government should not pick favorites to legislate from among them. Indeed, this kind of policy and approach to policymaking poses several problems. First, it sets the precedent that some diseases or disabilities deserve preferential treatment and not necessarily with a distinction that sets them apart from that disparate treatment. It would undoubtedly open the door for exemption requests for a myriad of other groups who advocate for worthy causes, including any of the 233 compassionate allowance conditions that are already given expedited review for SSDI. I have gone through that list and looked at that list and it contains a lot of other horrible, debilitating deadly diseases, among them non- Hodgkin's lymphoma that claimed the life of my father 22 years ago, along with a whole lot of other diseases that are deadly, that are painful, that are debilitating, that result in the incapacitation of their victims. On top of all that, this approach will set the stage for only those diseases that have the most recognition and the most political backing to find bill sponsors, while others sit at a relative disadvantage with conditions that are more rare and underfunded. Furthermore, while I am happy to consider working on the waiting period issue, we cannot do so without taking a larger look at SSDI as a whole and its sustainability. We cannot ignore the fact that Social Security is facing long-term insolvency with the DI Trust Fund set to run out in 2032, even sooner than the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund is set to expire and from which it has to borrow funds. It is undoubtedly a noble intention to help those with ALS, but we will never have parity if we legislate disease by disease, especially among and between diseases that are comparably debilitating. I said it is incoherent and unjust to pick one favorite group where there are others that are every bit as deserving. On that basis, I object.

Mr. LEE. In no way, shape, or form am I making the argument that we cannot help anyone until we help everyone. That is a mischaracterization of the argument I am making. I am arguing that if, among and between these 233 categories, we can make no principle distinction between this condition and the others, we are mistreating those other people. Who is going to stand here for them? Today, I am going to. On that basis, I object.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I respectfully, most vehemently disagree with the characterization made by my distinguished colleague, the Senator from Rhode Island. This is not, with all due respect, an instance of ``we can't help anyone until we help everyone.'' That is a blatant mischaracterization of the facts. We have already 233 conditions that qualify for the compassionate allowance category. If you look through those, they are full of debilitating, life- threatening conditions. Those categories already do receive expedited treatment. They already are in a category where they have to be reviewed and a decision has to be made within a set period of time--I believe, within the range of 5 months. That is a good thing, but it is simply not accurate. In fact, it is blatantly misleading to suggest that my argument here boils down to the notion that we cannot help anyone until we help everyone. That is not true. It is the point here that unless or until we can make a distinction between this condition and the other 233 conditions that are on that list, I see no valid basis--other than the fact that this one has more political support and, perhaps, more financial backing--to draw that distinction here. I think it is unfair to those who benefit from and will need to invoke the need for Social Security disability insurance to put it in an even less sustainable posture moving forward. Yes, in an ideal world we would like to say no waiting period for anyone. In an ideal world we would like to not have anyone have to wait for these sorts of things, but we do have, in our government, a susceptibility to claims that are not substantiated, and we also have people who have to review them. In the absence of a perfect system, it may not be possible. It certainly isn't going to be possible for us to make this program sustainable if we can't put meaningful limits on it. Again, I am all for finding ways to shorten that waiting period as much as we possibly can. I have yet to hear an argument that sets this condition apart from the others in this category of 233 compassionate allowance conditions. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the Senate is currently considering S.J. Res. 54. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation--lead cosponsor, along with my distinguished colleague from Vermont, Senator Sanders. He and I, along with Senator Murphy and a number of other Members of this body, have engaged in this bipartisan effort, in a concerted endeavor to make sure that the separation of powers among our three branches of government is respected. There is perhaps no more morally significant decision made in government than the decision to go to war. Whenever we take an action as a government that puts American treasure and, especially, American blood on the line, we have a sacred responsibility to evaluate and carefully weigh the relative risks and advantages of acting and the relative risks and advantages of not acting. To make sure that kind of analysis takes place, the Founding Fathers wisely put this power squarely within the branch of government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals--the Congress. This was a big distinction from our former National Government, based in London, where the chief executive--the King--had the power to commit troops to war without going to Parliament. Alexander Hamilton explained this principle in Federalist No. 69. He explained that it was no accident that this power was put in the hands of Congress. To be sure, the power Congress has to declare war means more than simply to state something in the abstract. It is something that has to happen before we put American blood and treasure on the line. It is something that should never happen in the absence of some type of dire emergency--some set of exigent circumstances in which the President must protect the United States of America from an imminent attack. It needs to be declared by Congress. This isn't a mere formality; this is the only thing that guarantees that this is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is the only thing guaranteeing that we will actually have a debate about the relative merits of the conflict in question. There are a number of reasons why. In addition to the fact that there is an obvious economic expense associated with war, there is a tremendous human cost associated with war on our side, on the side of those among whom we might be fighting, and on the side of those against whom we might be fighting. This particular conflict in Yemen provides one of many examples of the moral perilousness associated with war, of the many moral questions brought about as a result of war. We are involved in a conflict half a world away. We are involved in providing targeting assistance, midair refueling, reconnaissance, and surveillance. We are involved in this conflict as cobelligerents. As we are involved in that, we are responsible in one way or another not only for the American lives that might one day be directly implicated in this conflict--more than they are today because we know how wars go; we know how they tend to spread. We know that once we put the good name of the United States of America on the line, we are understandably reluctant to walk away from it because of what that might say to the rest of the world. But in order to make it legitimate, in order to make that decision authentic, in order to make it sustainable, it has to be done in the appropriate way, which means it first has to go to Congress. Many of my colleagues will argue--in fact some of them have argued just within the last few minutes--that we are somehow not involved in a war in Yemen. My distinguished friend and colleague, the Senator from Oklahoma, came to the floor a little while ago, and he said that we are not engaged in direct military action in Yemen. Let's peel that back for a minute. Let's figure out what that means. I am not sure what the distinction between direct and indirect is here. Maybe in a very technical sense--or under a definition of warfare or military action that has long since been rendered outdated--we are not involved in that, but we are involved in a war. We are cobelligerents. The minute we start identifying targets or, as Secretary James Mattis put it about a year ago, in December 2017, the minute we are involved in the decisions involving making sure that they know the right stuff to hit, that is involvement in a war, and that is pretty direct. The minute we send up U.S. military aircraft to provide midair refueling assistance for Saudi jets en route to bombing missions, to combat missions on the ground in Yemen, that is our direct involvement in war. Now, if you don't agree with me, ask any one of our armed services personnel who is involved in this effort. I would imagine that he or she would beg to differ. I would imagine that the parents, the children, the family members, the loved ones of these brave men and women who have been involved in this effort would beg to differ when told that we are not involved in a war in Yemen. In any event, regardless of how you define war, regardless of what significance you might attach to direct versus indirect military involvement in a civil war half a world away, it still triggers the constitutional requirement that Congress and not merely the President decide that we are going to get involved in this war. Look, I understand that there are some competing powers in the Constitution. It was set up deliberately that way. There is some arguable gray area between, on the one hand, the outer limits of the President's Executive authority as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and, on the other hand, the power enjoyed exclusively by Congress to declare war. Because there is some gray area, some matters on which people of reasonable minds might disagree as to where a war begins, Congress, several decades ago, adopted the War Powers Act in an effort to try to delineate the respective powers of these branches. Congress decided, among other things, that it would be significant any time we got involved in hostilities. Many of my colleagues will argue and many of them have argued on this very day, in fact, that we are not involved in hostilities in Yemen and therefore the War Powers Act is not triggered. Yes, there are a couple of problems with that argument. One, it is just categorically untrue for the reasons I mentioned a minute ago. We are helping them get to the bombing sites. We are telling them what to bomb, what to hit, what to take out. That is rather direct involvement in war. Increasingly these days, our wars are high-tech. Very often, our wars involve cyber activities. They involve reconnaissance, surveillance, target selection, midair refueling. It is hard--in many cases, impossible--to fight a war without those things. That is what war is. Many of my colleagues, in arguing that we are not involved in hostilities, rely on a memorandum that is internal within the executive branch of the U.S. Government that was issued in 1976 that provides a very narrow, unreasonably slim definition of the word ``hostilities.'' It defines ``hostilities'' in a way that might have been relevant, that might have been accurate, perhaps, in the mid-19th century, but we no longer live in a world in which you have a war as understood by two competing countries that are lined up on opposite sides of a battlefield and engaged in direct exchanges of fire, one against another, at relatively short range. War encompasses a lot more than that. War certainly encompasses midair refueling, target selection, surveillance, and reconnaissance of the sort we are undertaking in Yemen. Moreover, separate and apart from this very narrow, unreasonably slim definition of ``hostilities'' as determined by this internal executive branch document from 1976 that contains the outdated definition, we ourselves, under the War Powers Act, don't have to technically be involved in hostilities. It is triggered so long as we ourselves are sufficiently involved with the armed forces of another nation when those armed forces of another nation are themselves involved in hostilities. I am speaking, of course, in reference to the War Powers Act's provisions codified at 50 USC 1547(c). For our purposes here, it is important to keep in mind what that provisions reads: ``For purposes of this chapter [under the War Powers Act], the term `introduction of United States Armed Forces' includes the assignment of members of such Armed Forces to command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany the regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country or government when such military forces are engaged, or there exists an imminent threat that such forces will become engaged, in hostilities.'' In what sense, on what level, on what planet are we not involved in the commanding, in the coordination, in the participation, in the movement of or in the accompaniment of the armed forces of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia-led coalition in the civil war in Yemen? I challenge anyone to explain that to me--how it is that we are not involved in the way described by 50 USC 1547(c). We are. Because we are under this power-sharing agreement that was reached in the War Powers Act that has been in place over the last four or five decades, we need to follow those procedures. It is one of the reminders we have that we need to respect the separation of powers. We first brought up this resolution--or one like it--earlier this year. It was about 8 or 9 months ago. At the time we brought it up and got it to the Senate floor, we utilized a privilege status accorded to resolutions like these in order to secure a vote on the Senate floor to try to bring this bill out of committee. At the time, sadly, we received only 44 votes to get it out of committee. That was not enough. Fast-forward a few months to the week before last when we voted on it again. It was, actually, the same vote, and it resulted in 63 Members of this body supporting the idea of advancing it out of committee. Then, today, we moved to the consideration of this bill, and we got, if I am not mistaken, about 60 votes for that. I am thrilled, I am ecstatic that we had that result, and I look forward to my colleagues passing S.J. Res. 54 in the coming days. I urge my colleagues to vote for it. I suggest, however, that it would have been even better had we done it sooner. What, you might ask, changed? What changed between when we voted for this a few months ago and we fell short of the votes we needed and when we brought it up the week before last to discharge it out of committee and then voted today to move to the bill? Well, a number of things have happened. First, the war in Yemen has continued. We have had a whole lot of people killed in Yemen as a result of this civil war. We have had a whole lot more people in Yemen die as a result of causes related to that war. There has been starvation. There have been all kinds of atrocities that have accompanied that war. Now, I know--this is war, and war inevitably involves atrocities. War inevitably leads to some people dying as a result of a direct kinetic attack, and it almost inevitably leads to other people dying as a result of starvation or their being subjected to other violent acts or tragic outcomes. I get it. That is what war does. That is precisely why it is unconstitutional and morally bankrupt for us to get involved in a war without the people's elected representatives in Congress voting to do so, without our having the ability to debate it, to discuss it, and to vote affirmatively to put our brave young men and women in harm's way to engage in that war. What else changed in addition to the fact that this war has gone on and on with a lot of death and suffering and misery by a whole lot of innocent people? We have also seen that when we pulled back the mask a little bit, when we pulled back the curtains and looked into exactly who we were fighting for and why we were fighting, the people, understandably, got a little freaked out. The death, the murder of a journalist got a lot of people's attention. I completely agree with the comments that have been made by several of my colleagues that every life is sacred, that every human soul has inestimable worth in the eyes of God and should be respected by each and every one of us. It is therefore sad that it has had to take this long for us to care about it. It shouldn't be the case that we had to wait for a journalist to be murdered for us to care about this unconstitutional, unjustified, and, I believe, immoral war. Regardless of how we got here, we are here. The murder of Mr. Khashoggi caused us to think long and hard--with good reason--about the fact that we have gone somewhat blindly into war, first under a Democratic President and then under a Republican President, where it has been continued, following, somewhat blindly, the leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The fact that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has been implicated in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi has caused a lot of people to stop and say: Wait a minute. Maybe this doesn't make sense. Wait a minute. Perhaps this is a regime that we ought not be supporting or at least, at a minimum, regardless of the fact that we may have some interest, some reason to be allied with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in some ways, maybe--just maybe--this is enough of a reason for us not to be fighting a war on behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We know this to be true. Those of us who serve in this body or who serve down the hall in the U.S. House of Representatives know something very significant, which is that if we went to almost any one of our constituents in any part of the country and asked them ``Why should we, the United States of America--the greatest military power, the greatest republic, arguably, the greatest civilization the world has ever known--be putting American blood and treasure on the line to fight as cobelligerents in a civil war half a world away in Yemen?'' we know that 99 times out of 100-- perhaps 999 times out of 1,000--that it would not result in a confident answer. We know that it would result in an answer full of uncertainty, ambiguity, grave concern, and well-justified fear for the fact that we are involved in somebody else's civil war--in a civil war in which we have no business fighting, in a civil war in which we have blindly followed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia into conflict. This is our decision to make. That war results in bloodshed and the shedding of blood that will be on our hands if we fail to exercise our constitutional prerogatives under a system of government in which we have taken an oath to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I hope and expect that we will do our duty. I hope and expect that we will respect the lives of those who put their lives on the line to protect us. I urge my colleagues, with all the emotion and all the compassion I am capable of summoning, to vote for and pass S.J. Res. 54. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, it is with mixed emotions that I stand today to honor my friend, my colleague, and my mentor, the senior Senator, the Senator from Utah, Orrin Hatch. This year marks the end of an outstanding 42-year tenure serving the people of Utah in the U.S. Senate. In that time, Senator Hatch has made an indelible mark on our State, on the U.S. Senate, and on this Nation. People who follow Washington politics closely know, of course, what he has meant to this institution and also to his party, to his State, and to the Republic. But for those of us from Utah, Orrin Hatch is more than just a prominent name in the news; he is a towering political figure, not only of his generation but also of the generations that have come along in his wake and that will follow. Many Utahns can't remember a time before Orrin Hatch was serving, leading, and speaking out for us in Washington. One of the great privileges of my young life was the opportunity to serve as his page when I was a teenager. He was then, as now, one of the leaders of the Senate--not only a political role model but a role model, period; outspoken but always thoughtful; honest but always gentle; tough when he had to be and kind even when he didn't have to be. One of my fondest memories of Senator Hatch was something that occurred a couple of years after I was his page. I was maybe 18 years old or so. I was in Salt Lake City attending the semiannual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the tabernacle at Temple Square. I happened to be sitting with my family-- with my parents and siblings--just a row behind Senator Hatch and his family. Toward the end of the meeting, it was time for Senator Hatch to catch his plane to go back to Washington, where he was representing our State so faithfully. When he turned around and saw me there, he stopped, recognizing me. He took the cuff links right off of his shirt--they had the seal of the U.S. Senate on them--and he handed them to me as a gift. I felt like and was at that moment the luckiest kid in the world. I felt just like a rock star had handed me his guitar after a sold-out concert. That is how I felt at the conference that day. Of course, Orrin Hatch's career stretches back much further than that. In 1976, the political landscape of the United States was very different than it is today. We were plagued at that time with double- digit inflation, high interest rates, growing unemployment, and a diminishing military. America was still reeling from the war in Vietnam and from the Watergate scandal. At the same time, Congress was rapidly expanding the Federal budget with little or no regard for the future debt it was racking up. Washington was governed by the belief that government was the answer to every problem and that ordinary Americans could not be trusted to make decisions by themselves. It was in this environment that Orrin Hatch, without any previous political experience, without having held previous political office or, according to experts, much chance of success, stepped up, and he stepped up in a very big way. As he wrote in one of his memoirs, ``I could not escape the powerful and persistent belief that my state and country were in serious trouble, headed down a dangerous and destructive path, and that if given a chance, I could make a difference. I felt it was my duty, my responsibility, to run and at least give voice to my concerns and my ideas for remedying what was wrong. It was my obligation to give the voters another choice.'' So Orrin--the son of a tradesman, who grew up during the Great Depression in a ramshackle house built from recycled lumber--did just that. He defied the pundits, and he took the plunge. From his first campaign in 1976, Orrin understood that Utahns wanted the country to go in a different direction, and he was ready to offer his service and the full energy of his heart and devotion to that noble cause. Against all odds and with a whole lot of work from Orrin, from his family, and from his faithful band of supporters, Hatch beat the incumbent Democrat by a solid margin. Thus began his long and now famous career in the Senate and his many years of striving to serve the interests of Utah and the Nation. For more than four decades, Orrin has not only been engaging in the great debates of his time, he has been leading them. As I see it, the thread that runs through Senator Hatch's politics is trust--his trust in the American people, his trust in the Constitution of the United States, his trust in this great institution that is the U.S. Senate. That trust of consumers, producers, workers, and families is why he is such an effective advocate for the free enterprise economy. It is why he sponsored a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution some 17 times and whence his nickname ``Mr. Balanced Budget'' from Ronald Reagan originated. In shepherding the historic tax reform law we passed last year, Senator Hatch adopted an inclusive, open-minded approach that succeeded specifically because he trusted his colleagues, because he invited them into the process and he allowed them to make their own mark on that legislation. He trusted his colleagues, and it worked. His work in the 1980s helping to create the modern generic drug industry was based on the same principle--trusting the American people and the American economy to make good decisions for individuals, for families, and for their healthcare. We all know the honors and accolades. They include President pro tempore and being a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But Orrin would be the first to tell you that the real legislative legacy he leaves behind is the work of a Senator who has sponsored more bills that have become law than any other lawmaker alive today. Look at the stamp he leaves on the Senate Judiciary Committee alone, for example. Not just landmark legislation like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which guarantees robust protections for all Americans to live, work, and worship according to their beliefs--this legislation itself leaves behind a solid, proud legacy, one that will last for generations. Just within the Senate Judiciary Committee alone, Senator Hatch has also been involved in the selection and confirmation of Federal judges not just in Utah but across the country, and every current member and many past members of the U.S. Supreme Court. That, too, is a legacy which will far outlast his time in the Senate still by many, many decades. Yet, despite all the history Orrin has made in Washington, his story is even more impressive. He has been a loving and devoted husband to his wife Elaine for 61 years. Together, they have 6 children, 23 grandchildren, and 24 great-grandchildren. They are his proudest achievements, and he credits their love as his key to success. Despite decades at the very pinnacle of American Government, Orrin believes the most important years of his life were the two spent serving as a missionary in the Great Lakes Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As Senator Hatch mentioned in recent remarks, an article of our faith is that ``if there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.'' And this is, indeed, how Orrin Hatch has lived his life and the way in which he has faithfully served God, family, his country, and his State. Utah and the United States of America as a whole are better off for his service since he decided to run for the Senate all those years ago. I am grateful for all the time he has dedicated to the State of Utah and for the personal encouragement he has given me. And from the time that I was his page to the past years that I have also been his colleague in the U.S. Senate, it has been an honor to serve with him. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, David Sneddon was a 24-year-old Brigham Young University student who tragically vanished while traveling in the Yunnan Province of China in August of 2004. After a cursory investigation, Chinese officials concluded that David must have died while hiking alone through Tiger Leaping Gorge, but the officials' story didn't add up. For starters, David was an avid and experienced hiker, unlikely to make a mistake that would have led to his death on the trail. Over 14 years later, a body has never been found. David's family retraced his steps and found eyewitnesses that both interacted with him on the trail and saw him in a Chinese city at the end of the hiking route, suggesting that he made it safely through the other side of the gorge. In fact, there is much evidence to suggest that the North Korean government was responsible for David's disappearance. For starters, he was traveling near the so-called Asian Underground Railroad, a network of mostly Christian missionaries who help North Korean defectors flee to safety. North Korean agents are known to operate along the route, ruthlessly hunting down defectors and returning them to execution or permanent captivity on the gulag peninsula of North Korea. Second, David was last seen leaving a Korean restaurant. Korean restaurants are reportedly used as outposts for North Korean espionage and illicit enterprise. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, 1 month before David's disappearance, North Korea took the rare step of releasing an American captive, 64-year-old Charles Jenkins. North Korea forced Jenkins to teach English to its spies at a military university during his almost 40-year captivity. After his release, the regime would have needed a substitute teacher. David Sneddon, unfortunately, would perfectly fit the bill. A highly educated Asian languages major, he spoke fluent Korean and was learning Mandarin. Subsequent intelligence from inside North Korea has strongly supported these facts. David Sneddon was taken by the North Korean regime in 2004. He likely has been held captive in that country ever since. I, along with my colleagues Senators Hatch, Coons, Fischer, Sasse, Rubio, Flake, Gardner, and Sullivan have introduced a resolution expressing our grave concern about the disappearance of David Sneddon. Our resolution directs the State Department and intelligence community to investigate all plausible explanations for David's disappearance including abduction by North Korea. Further, it encourages them to reinvigorate diplomatic efforts and work closely with our allies in the region. Lastly, it calls upon the State Department and intelligence community to continue to work with and inform Congress and the Sneddon family on efforts to recover David and resolve his disappearance. We owe it to David, who had his whole life ahead of him before setting out to hike the Tiger Leaping Gorge on that fateful day in August 2004. We owe to the Sneddon family, who have waited, prayed, and tirelessly advocated for his safe recovery. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this resolution.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes to articulate the basis of my concern.

Mr. LEE. I am very late.

Mr. LEE. No, it was not. At the time it was written, it was somewhat novel; it was somewhat new. Since then, it has become a widely adopted view--a view adopted by people across the political spectrum, regardless of their political ideology. I challenge every one of you to read it. It is right.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I stood before this body in March of this year to protest our country's unconstitutional intervention in Saudi Arabia's bloody war in Yemen. I was proud to stand with my colleagues, Senators Sanders and Murphy, to file a discharge motion of our resolution, S.J. Res. 54, which would remove U.S. Armed Forces from Yemen. At that time, members of the Foreign Relations Committee requested additional time to study the issue and to debate the resolution in the Foreign Relations Committee. The chairman of that committee, my friend and colleague from Tennessee, Senator Corker, requested this with the commitment to ``bring forth legislation to actually appropriately deal with many of the issues relative to Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and ourselves.'' So with that, the Senate voted to table the motion. Since then, the committee has held a hearing on this issue and introduced a separate bipartisan bill to address it, but no further action has been taken. So today, 8 months later, the bloodshed continues, still abetted by the United States, even amidst further revelations of Saudi depravity. It is long past overdue that Congress remove U.S. forces from Yemen, as recent circumstances only confirm. Today, we have a chance to remedy our course of action and to do what the Constitution and justice demand. The situation in Yemen is dire. The war has killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians--human beings, lest we forget--each one of them possessing immeasurable dignity and inherent worth. It has created refugees, orphans, widows, and has also displaced countless families. The numbers and the inhumanity are staggering--nothing short of it. Since 2015, more than 10,000 civilians have died, and 40,000 have been wounded. In an attack just a few months ago, a bomb was dropped on a school bus that killed 40 young boys who were on a school trip and wounded another 56 children. What few Americans knew until recently is that the U.S. military has actually been making the crisis worse by helping one side bomb these innocent civilians. So how did we get entangled in this crisis to begin with? In March of 2015, Saudi Arabia launched a war against the Houthi rebels shortly after the Houthis ousted the Saudi-backed government in the capital city of Sanaa. The Obama administration, without consulting Congress, quickly authorized U.S. military forces to provide ``logistical and intelligence support'' to the Saudi-led coalition. U.S. military support has continued since then, including midair refueling, surveillance, reconnaissance information, and target selection assistance. In other words, we have been supporting and actively participating in the activities of war in Yemen. But article I, section 8 of the Constitution states that Congress shall have the power to declare war--Congress, not the President, not the Pentagon, not someone else in the executive branch, not any other part of government but Congress. The Founders could not have been any clearer about this. They did so with very good reason. The Founders set up our system of government in such a way as to protect the people from the dangers associated with the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of the few. We know from experience and we knew then from our young Nation's experience under British rule that bad things happen, especially on a national level, when too few people exercise too much power and that power goes unchecked. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of the power to declare war. So the Founders placed that war power squarely in the legislative branch, the branch where honest, open, and public debate is supposed to happen and the branch that is held most accountable to the people through elections at the most regular intervals. As Alexander Hamilton pointed out in Federalist Paper 69, this power would not be exercised by the executive branch so that it would be less likely to be abused, just as it was when the King of England acted in and of himself, by himself, to send his country--and ours, for that matter--into war. Now, some opponents of our resolution claim that our involvement in Yemen is somehow constitutionally justified under the War Powers Act of 1973. This isn't true. It is true that the War Powers Act makes it possible for the executive branch of government acting alone to use Armed Forces in cases of emergencies and subject to certain limited, defined time constraints. But the conflict in Yemen by no means--in no way, shape, or form--constitutes a threat to the safety of American citizens. Our involvement has far surpassed the allotted emergency time constraint. The Houthis, while no friends of ours, are a regional rebel group that does not itself threaten American national security. In fact, the longer we fight against them, the more reason we give them to hate America and embrace the opportunists who are our true enemy in the region--Iran. The more we prolong the activities that destabilize the region, the longer we harm our own interests in terms of trade and broader regional security. The War Powers Act also states that the assignment of U.S. Armed Forces to coordinate or participate in hostilities of a foreign country constitutes a conflict of war. Some have argued that we have not been engaging in hostilities and therefore have not violated the War Powers Act, but this claim, too, falls flat on its face. We have specifically aided the Saudi coalition with midair refueling and target selection assistance. As Defense Secretary Jim Mattis himself said in December of 2017, our military is helping the Saudis ``make certain [they] hit the right thing.'' In other words, we are helping a foreign power bomb its adversaries. If that doesn't constitute hostilities, I don't know what does. Finally, some critics say that this resolution would somehow hurt our efforts to combat terrorism in the region, specifically, al-Qaida and ISIS. However, the resolution explicitly states that it would not impede the military's ability to fight these terror groups. In fact, the U.S. effort in Yemen has arguably undermined the effort against al-Qaida's affiliates. The State Department's country reports on terrorism for 2016 found that the conflict between the Saudi-led forces and the Houthi insurgents has helped al-Qaida in the Arabia peninsula--AQAP--and ISIS's Yemen branch to ``deepen their inroads across much of the country.'' It appears that our involvement in Yemen accomplishes no good at all--only harm, and serious consequential harm at that. The situation in Yemen now poses a true humanitarian crisis. The country is on the brink of rampant disease and mass starvation. An estimated 15 million people don't have access to clean water and sanitation, and 17 million don't have access to food. More innocent lives are being lost every single day. My position on this has not changed for the past 8 months, but with the taking of another innocent life--that of Jamal Khashoggi--the circumstances have only further deteriorated. Intelligence suggests, despite his repeated denials, that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia himself ordered the murder. Saudi Arabia's moral depravity has only been made plainer. This is not an ally that deserves our support or military intervention on its behalf, especially when our own security is not itself on the line. On the contrary, to continue supporting them in this war would be bad diplomacy and undermine our very credibility. U.S. intervention in Yemen is unauthorized, unconstitutional, and immoral. We must not--we cannot--delay voting to end our involvement and our support of Saudi Arabia any further. If we do, we have ourselves to blame for our country's lost credibility on the world stage, and, more importantly, our own consciences will bear the blame for the thousands of lives that will surely continue to be lost. The Founding Fathers had incredible wisdom in requiring these issues--issues of American blood and American treasure--to be debated and discussed between two equal branches of government. They understood that matters of war and alliances must constantly be reconsidered and reevaluated--and in an open, honest, and public manner. That is one of our most solemn duties in this body, and it is the opportunity that lies squarely before us today. We owe it to the sons and daughters of the American people who put their sons and daughters in harm's way to defend us. We owe it to their parents and their families, and we owe it to ourselves, who have taken an oath to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the motion to discharge the resolution. Thank you. I yield the floor.

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