Mike Lee

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration of and the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 68.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I am proud to stand today and support Scott Pruitt, President Trump's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency. I can think of no one who is better suited or more fully qualified to lead this Agency and to advance within it the reforms it so desperately needs. I look forward to voting to confirm Mr. Pruitt as EPA Administrator, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same. In many ways, the EPA epitomizes the broken status quo in Washington--a status quo that is increasingly and rightfully viewed with suspicion and a certain amount of contempt by the American people. That broken and discredited status quo has been described in various ways: out of touch, arbitrary, inflexible, unreasonable, heavyhanded, unaccountable. These words could apply to any number of institutions or offices here in Washington, DC, but they are the hallmarks of the rule- writing departments that make up our Federal bureaucracy. Technically, these bureaucratic agencies are creatures of the executive branch--creatures that exist to assist the President in fulfilling his constitutional duty to take care that the laws, written by the legislative branch, are to be faithfully executed. But over the past several decades, they have been recast as the Federal Government's center of gravity, both writing and enforcing and, in many cases, even interpreting, the vast majority of laws governing America's society and America's economy. Elevating the unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy to the driver's seat of the Federal Government--to the driver's seat, specifically, of Federal policymaking--is mostly the work of Members of Congress, of both Chambers and of both political parties, who understand that the best way to avoid being blamed by voters for unpopular laws is not to make them--at least not to make them completely--but rather to empower unelected bureaucrats to make the laws for them. But the regulatory agencies themselves sometimes deserve some of the blame as well. Congress is guilty of writing laws that are couched in vague terms, centered around gauzy goals, instead of strictly defined as understandable rules. But Federal regulators are guilty of interpreting--and repeatedly reinterpreting--those laws in order to accommodate their ever-expanding conception of their own power, of their own authority to work their own will on the American people. For instance, in the years since Congress passed the Clean Air Act amendments in 1977, Federal bureaucrats have used the law to enact more than 13,500 pages of regulations, which works out to roughly 30 pages of regulations for every 1 page of underlying legislative text. The fundamental problem with this expansion and centralization of regulatory authority is the tendency of Washington, DC, bureaucrats to be ignorant of--and often very indifferent to--the interests of the people who live in the various communities who are affected by the rules they make and the rules they also enforce. This isn't a knock on the individual men and women who work within the Federal bureaucracy, most of whom are well-educated, well- intentioned, and highly specialized. But there is no doubt that a regulator in Washington, DC, knows a whole lot less about a melon farm in Emery County, UT, and cares a lot less about the fate of the people who work at that melon farm in Emery County, UT, than what the regulators say in Salt Lake City. The Environmental Protection Agency, in particular, is notorious for its top-down, Washington-knows-best approach to regulation, which often runs roughshod over the immense diversity of local circumstances in our large country. Too often, the EPA treats States and State regulators not as partners but as adversaries. It treats the States themselves not as laboratories of republican democracy but, rather, as lab rats to be tested upon for their own amusement and for the exertion of their own political power. Scott Pruitt understands this well because he has seen it firsthand as attorney general of Oklahoma. Mr. Pruitt has spent many years being ignored and pushed around by Washington, an experience that has taught him the need for the EPA to work with and not condescend to the States. In his Senate confirmation hearing, Mr. Pruitt explained why improving the relationship between the EPA and State-level regulators is the best way to protect our environment and uphold the separation of powers that is the cornerstone of our constitutional system. He said: ``Cooperative Federalism is at the heart of many of the environmental statutes that involve the Environmental Protection Agency.'' The reason for that is that it is the States that many times have the resources, the expertise, and an understanding of the unique challenges of protecting our environment and improving our water and our air. We need a true partnership between the EPA in performing its roll, along with the States in performing theirs. If we have that partnership, as opposed to punishment, as opposed to the uncertainty and duress that we currently see in the marketplace, I think we will have better air and better water quality as a result. For many Americans--and certainly for many of my fellow Utahns--the EPA is pejorative. It is synonymous with an out-of-touch and out-of- control government. This is a shame. Americans want--and Americans certainly deserve-- clean air and clean water. The EPA has the potential to help them achieve these goals, but only if the EPA itself returns to its core mission and works well, works wisely to accomplish that mission, and works within our constitutional system. That is why I am so pleased that Scott Pruitt is on his way to lead the EPA. The Agency exists to protect the American people, not advance the narrow agenda of some special interests while punishing others. I am confident that Mr. Pruitt is the right man for the job and that he will remain independent while correcting the troubling course that the EPA has taken in recent decades. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions to be the next Attorney General of the United States. I enthusiastically support this nomination, because I know Senator Sessions to be an independent-minded man of great integrity. He is someone who understands and respects the rule of law. He values it deeply, in fact. He is someone who understands the difference between making law and enforcing the law. He understands the difference between setting policy and enforcing laws that contain policy, and he is someone who understands that, as a lawyer, the very best way to serve your client often involves offering honest, independent advice--honest independent advice of the sort that might not always occur to the client on the client's part. I have listened to the remarks of some of my colleagues, and I have to state that I have served with Senator Sessions for the last 6 years, ever since I first became a Member of this body, and I don't recognize the caricature that has been painted of him over the last 24 hours. So I want to address head-on several of my colleagues' expressed concerns about his nomination. Some of my colleagues have expressed and relied upon what really amount to policy concerns--policy disagreements between themselves and Senator Sessions--as a reason to oppose his nomination. As I explained it in our Judiciary Committee markup last week, I have disagreed with Senator Sessions not just 1 or 2 times but on many, many occasions and not just on a few isolated issues that are only tangentially related to something important to me but on circumstances and issues that are very important to me and that are at the center of my legislative agenda. We have disagreed, for example, about sentencing reform. We have disagreed about immigration reform, and several important national security issues implicating constitutional law, and constitutional policy. All of these issues are very important to both of us--to me and to Senator Sessions. They can be emotional issues, and they happen to be issues on which Senator Sessions and I disagree, not just a little bit, but we happen to disagree taking almost diametrically opposed positions in many of these areas. Notwithstanding these disagreements--disagreements that I have seen in every one of the 6 years I have served in this body so far--I have never seen Senator Sessions raise his voice in anger against a colleague. To be sure, Senator Sessions makes his arguments vigorously, passionately, and forcefully, and yet he does so in a way that ensures that he will always treat his colleagues, even though he disagrees with them, with dignity and respect. You may not persuade him that your position is right and his is wrong, but he always gives you the opportunity to make your case. I think Members of this body know that. Those Members of this body who have actually taken the time to get to know Senator Sessions and actually have the opportunity to work with him, even the opportunity to disagree with him know that. Senator Sessions interacts with his colleagues in a way that demonstrates a degree of respect for differences of opinion that are seldom seen here. In fact, I can't think of a colleague who better exemplifies the principles of collegiality to which we aspire in this body than does Senator Sessions. Perhaps even more importantly, Senator Sessions obviously understands the difference between lawmaking on the one hand and law enforcement on the other hand. This is plain from testimony he provided before the Judiciary Committee. As just one example, he told us: To go from the Legislative branch to the Executive branch is a transfer not only of position, but of the way you approach issues. I would be in an executive function and enforcement function of the law this great legislative body might pass.'' His commitment to the rule of law and even application of the law is also plain from his public record, from his record serving in other positions. His record, for example, as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, and his record as attorney general for the State of Alabama. To put the matter quite plainly, a great number of Senators have served in the Cabinet over the years. The standard has never been that a Senator is somehow unfit for the executive branch--for a Cabinet position in the executive branch--if he or she has disagreed with you on important issues. If that were the standard, no Senator would ever be confirmed because we debate important public policy issues every single day, and it is never the case that we will find any among us, even colleagues, with whom we agree most of the time who are going to agree with us 100 percent of the time. So I urge my colleagues to put aside any policy differences they might have with Senator Sessions when considering his nomination and when deciding how they are going to vote in response to his nomination, because those simply are not relevant to his job and, at a minimum, ought not to be disqualifying factors relevant to his job. As to independence, some of my colleagues doubt that Senator Sessions will be an independent voice at the Department of Justice. Respectfully, I can say with full confidence that anyone who actually knows Senator Sessions knows that he is fiercely independent-minded. He never shies away from expressing his closely held, sincerely developed views on any issue, even when political pressure might suggest a different course of action be in order. It is clear that Sessions will apply his independent-mindedness to his job after he is confirmed as Attorney General of the United States. During his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, he repeatedly outlined the importance of having an independent Attorney General, and he explained how he would fulfill this obligation, how he would become precisely such an Attorney General, one who would exercise a degree of independence and not simply be a rubber stamp. For example, he told us that every Attorney General ``understands, I think, that if a President wants to accomplish a goal that he or she believes in deeply, you should help them do it in a lawful way but make clear and object if it is an unlawful action.'' He described that role--being able to tell the President ``no,'' that is--as ``the ultimate loyalty to him.'' He testified: ``I hope that President Trump has confidence in me so that if I give him advice that something can be done or cannot be done, that he would respect that.'' Sessions also explained that if the Attorney General were asked ``to do something plainly unlawful, he cannot participate in that. He or she would have to resign ultimately before agreeing to execute a policy that the Attorney General believed would be unlawful or unconstitutional.'' Senator Sessions made this point repeatedly. He made it with great emphasis and in such a way that it is unmistakably clear to me that this is the Attorney General he would aspire to be and that he would in fact become after being confirmed. Now, some may argue that you cannot necessarily trust his testimony because no Attorney General nominee would declare an intention to be a rubberstamp to the nominated President. Others may argue that Senator Sessions was too involved in the Trump campaign to be impartial. This is one of those points that you either believe or don't believe. You can't reason your way to an answer. You have to know the person. So I urge my colleagues to reflect on their experiences with Senator Sessions. If I know one thing about him, he is not a ``yes'' man. If I know one thing about him, it is that of all the people with whom I have served in the Senate, he is one of the very last who I would ever expect in any context to sell out his sincerely held views on the basis of political expediency. Instead, Senator Sessions takes his professional responsibility very seriously. When he was a lawyer, he took seriously his obligations to his client and the law. As a Senator, he has taken seriously his obligations to the people of the State of Alabama. I know he will do the same thing at the U.S. Department of Justice. He told us that ``the Attorney General ultimately owes his loyalty to the integrity of the American people and to the fidelity of the Constitution, and the legislative laws of the country.'' This demonstrates that Senator Sessions understands, as any good lawyer does, that every lawyer has a client, and you understand how best to represent that client and that client's interest. You have to understand the nature of the attorney-client relationship. You have to know who the client is, you have to know how to interact with that client, and you have to be willing to push back on that client, even when--especially when--it is difficult, because that is the job of the lawyer. The obligations incumbent upon the lawyer provides that the lawyer sometimes has to push back on the client. At the end of the day, it seems to me that some of my colleagues perhaps just want an Attorney General who will be openly, affirmatively, presumptively, perennially hostile to the President's agenda. Now, that has never been the standard, and it is not a workable way of arranging the executive branch of the U.S. Government. The President should be allowed to assemble his or her team so long as the President picks people who are qualified, people who are willing and able to fulfill their constitutional responsibility, and people who do not have anything disqualifying in their backgrounds that would suggest that they cannot be trusted with this type of very substantial responsibility. Senator Sessions plainly satisfies these criteria. So I support Senator Sessions' nomination. I do so wholeheartedly. I do so, I would add, with a somewhat heavy heart, knowing that as we take this step and confirm Senator Sessions as the next Attorney General of the United States, we will be losing a colleague--not just any colleague but a colleague that has been a dear friend to me, who has been a kind mentor and a good example to me at every stage of my service in the Senate. He has done this not only when we have agreed, but he has done this especially when we have disagreed. That is what I love so much about Senator Sessions--that he has taught me much about how to get along with and respect people who sometimes reach different conclusions than I reach on my own. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I have four 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 commerce, science, and transportation The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to hold a meeting during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, at 10 a.m. in room SDG-50. The Committee will hold a hearing on ``A Look Ahead: Inspector General Recommendations for Improving Federal Agencies.'' committee on environment and public works The Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, at 10 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight: Modernizing our Nation's Infrastructure.'' committee on indian affairs The Committee on Indian Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building at 2:30 p.m. to conduct an oversight hearing on ``Emergency Management in Indian Country: Improving FEMA's Federal-Tribal Relationship with Indian Tribes.'' subcommittee on readiness and management support The Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the nomination of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch to be an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Confirmation of anyone appointed to the Federal judiciary is a big deal. Confirmation of someone appointed to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States is an exceptionally weighty matter. I therefore approach this with the seriousness it deserves. I approach this as one who has argued in front of Judge Gorsuch. I found as a lawyer that he is an exceptional judge, an unusual judge--a judge who comes to argument with an unusual degree of preparation, having read all the briefs and apparently all of the cases and all of the statutes cited in the briefs. There are some judges who at oral argument are constantly asking questions, but they are not necessarily questions that need to be asked. Perhaps some judges want to hear the sound of their own voices. That is, of course, something that would never happen here, in the U.S. Senate, but it happens sometimes with other people. There are other judges who might be quiet throughout an argument. Then there is a unique category of judge, a judge who doesn't necessarily speak constantly but a judge who listens attentively and then pounces at the moment when he or she sees the pivotal moment in the case arising. The late Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., used to say there was a point of contact in every case. When asked, he pointed out that the point of contact in any case is the place where the boy got his finger caught in the machinery. I learned that quote when I was in law school. I have never entirely understood what it means, but it reminds me of the fact that in every case, there is a pivotal fact and a pivotal aspect of the law which, when properly understood, can help lead the court to a proper disposition of the legal question at hand. Judge Gorsuch is one of those rare judges who is able to seize upon the point of contact in any case. He does so with seeming effortlessness. Yet I know he does it in a way that requires a lot of effort because these things don't just come naturally. They come only as a result of faithful study of the law, of faithful attention to detail in every case, reading every brief in every case. Judge Gorsuch does this in part because he was well trained. When we look at his background, we can see that excellence has always been something we have been able to see from him. He graduated with honors from Harvard Law School and received a doctorate in jurisprudence from Oxford. He clerked for three brilliant and very well-respected jurists: Judge David Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and Justice Byron White, as well as Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court. We could not ask for a better legal education or a stronger record of accomplishment from a young lawyer. After his clerkship, Judge Gorsuch entered into private practice, where he was a trial attorney for 10 years. In 2005, he joined the U.S. Department of Justice as Principal Deputy Attorney General, and he became a judge on the Tenth Circuit in 2006, where he has served for the last decade. Judge Gorsuch has what I would consider--and I think what most would acknowledge--is the correct approach to the law. He is a judge's judge, both literally and figuratively--literally, because he sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He literally judges the rulings of other judges. It is his job to decide whether other judges have done the right thing. And he is a judge's judge figuratively in the sense that he has the characteristics that all judges aspire to--or at least should. He decides cases based on what the law says and not on the basis of what a particular judge might wish the law said. I particularly enjoyed last night listening to Judge Gorsuch speak at the White House, his reference to what he considers an important, telltale sign of a good judge or a bad judge. He said: ``A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge, stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands.'' So a bad judge is one who necessarily likes all the results he reaches, and it naturally follows that a good judge will, from time to time, necessarily disagree with some of the judge's own rulings. In other words, the outcome of the case doesn't necessarily match up with the outcome the good judge would prefer--or the judge, an all-powerful ruler who had the power not only to interpret the law but also make it, establishing rules, embodying policies that would govern in all cases. This is the essence of the conservative legal movement--the judicial conservative movement, we might say--in which Justice Scalia was so influential, which is why it is so fitting that Judge Gorsuch has been named to replace Justice Scalia. Judges do not have a roving commission specifically to address all of the evils that plague society. They don't have a roving commission to decide big policy questions of the sort we debate in this Chamber every day. The judge's role, rather, is to apply the facts to the case at hand, and, in the case of the Supreme Court, to provide guidance to lower courts so they can resolve difficult and consequential questions of law. Judge Gorsuch understands the difference between being a judge and being a legislator, and that is very much reflected in his work on the bench. When I had the privilege of practicing law and appearing in front of Judge Gorsuch, I was able to be the beneficiary of his skill as a judge and of his commitment to the rule of law. Over the last few days, I have had the privilege of reading many of his opinions. I spent hours upon hours poring through his opinions. Knowing that he might well be named to the Supreme Court, knowing he was one of the potential nominees made me want to learn more about him than I already knew. I have to say, every single opinion I read, without exception, was impeccable to an unusual degree. They are methodical. They are careful. They are studious. They reflect a degree of academic and professional craftsmanship rarely seen. He treats the parties appearing before him with dignity and respect. He takes their arguments seriously, and he respectfully explains their arguments as he addresses them. I know from my time in the practice of law that no one likes to lose a case, but I doubt any litigant has read a Judge Gorsuch opinion and felt like he failed to understand their position or that he failed to take their views seriously with the credibility and dignity they deserve. This is a crucial yet, sadly, often underrated factor when reviewing the work of any judge. Most of all, his opinions are just brilliant. They are digestible to lawyers and nonlawyers alike. This is crucial because the judiciary belongs to everyone in this country, not just to attorneys. Judge Gorsuch's opinions are memorably written without being snarky, and he scatters his opinions with literary and philosophical references to highlight the legal points he is making while also just making the opinion much more interesting. As someone who has read more than my fair share of judicial opinions, I can tell you that Judge Gorsuch's opinions are among the very best I have ever read. I don't just mean a few of them, I mean every single one of them that I have read, which is a lot of them. They are very, very good. In fact, they are Supreme Court caliber. Judge Gorsuch has written hundreds of opinions, but there are two recently decided cases I wish to highlight. He is a critic of an obscure but very significant legal rule known as the Chevron doctrine. When the Supreme Court decided the Chevron case back in 1984, the Justices may not have thought they were deciding a big case. They might not have realized the extent to which the decision in Chevron v. NRDC--the extent to which that case would have such a profound impact on the Federal judiciary and on the state of the law in the United States of America, but Chevron is in fact one of the most important Supreme Court cases that most of us have never heard of. It says that the courts must defer to an agency interpretation of a statute if the statute is ambiguous. The problem with Chevron, as Judge Gorsuch has pointed out, is that it tends to divest the courts of their obligation to ``say what the law is,'' as Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in Marbury v. Madison. It has led to a system in which executive agencies not only make and enforce the law but also interpret the law, arrogating to themselves, in effect, some aspects of the powers allocated to all three branches of the Federal Government. This is a violation of the doctrine of separation of powers, one of the most important protections in the Constitution, one of the two fundamental structural protections in the Constitution, as important as any other provision in our founding document. Worse, doctrines that have developed in response to Chevron allow agencies to stake out a legal position, lose in court, and stake out a new legal position that reaches the same outcome. As Judge Gorsuch points out, that creates fair notice and equal protection problems. Now, there are two additional points to make about Chevron. First, in the coming days, we will undoubtedly hear some of my colleagues complain that getting rid of Chevron will somehow make the air less clean, our food less safe, our financial system more unstable, and cause a whole lot of other problems, but as Judge Gorsuch has written, ``We managed to live with the administrative state before Chevron. We could do it again. Put simply, it seems to me that in a world without Chevron, very little would change--except perhaps the most important things.'' Second, it is important to note here that the Chevron doctrine is not a particularly ideological one. Indeed, in the 1980s, Chevron primarily assisted the Reagan administration's deregulation efforts, and junking the doctrine today would constrain the Trump administration's use of regulations. So eliminating the doctrine would affect equally Republican and Democratic policy goals. In any event, I am sure, based on his background and on his record, Judge Gorsuch's critique of the doctrine is not about politics; it is about first principles. At the end of the day, Chevron is neither Republican nor Democratic; it is neither liberal nor conservative. It is simply wrong. In another notable case, Judge Gorsuch was the lone dissenter in a case in which an 11-year-old student was arrested for generating fake burps in class. As heinous a crime as some might perceive this to be, it is not ordinarily the kind of thing that results in calling the police. Judge Gorsuch would have concluded that clearly established law prevented the arrest and that the child's parents should prevail in a lawsuit against the school officials who decided to call the police in response to this childish act in class. This is not uncommon for Judge Gorsuch, who has voted not to provide qualified immunity in several cases and has voted in many cases for the underdog, for someone who might otherwise not have had a chance in court but for the willingness of one very brave and astute and diligent judge to study the law and the facts of that case aggressively so as to make sure that justice was accorded to the parties. There are other important areas of the law where Judge Gorsuch has made an important contribution during his time on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. I will be talking about some of those at length in the days and weeks to come. He has been a staunch advocate for the First Amendment. He has read criminal statutes to constrain the government's power, where appropriate, and has voted in several cases to withhold qualified immunity. All of these are important, and I look forward to discussing them with my colleagues. Before I close, I want to talk a bit about the confirmation process. In 2006, Judge Gorsuch's nomination to the Tenth Circuit was so uncontroversial that it lasted 26 minutes--just 26 minutes, less time than a ``Brady Bunch'' episode. He was confirmed on a voice vote. Among other notable Members of the Senate the day that Judge Gorsuch was confirmed were Minority Leader Schumer, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee Feinstein, Senator Durbin, and Senator Leahy. Already, prominent liberal lawyers are praising his nomination. Neal Katyal, who served as Acting Solicitor General under President Obama, has a New York Times op-ed in which he urges liberals to support Judge Gorsuch. Katyal writes: I, for one, wish it were a Democrat choosing the next justice. But since that is not to be, one basic criterion should be paramount: Is the nominee someone who will stand up for the rule of law and say no to a president or Congress that strays beyond the Constitution and laws? I have no doubt that if confirmed, Judge Gorsuch would help restore confidence in the rule of law. His years on the bench reveal a commitment to judicial independence--a record that should give the American people confidence that he will not compromise principle to favor the president who appointed him. Judge Gorsuch is exactly the type of judge who should be confirmed, who should be allowed to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. This vacancy was a central issue in the 2016 election. The people have now spoken, and I plan to honor the results of this election by working as hard as I can to see Judge Neil Gorsuch confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I rise today to give voice to some of my fellow Utahns, including a few of my fellow Utahns who are suffering because of the health care law passed by this body nearly 7 years ago. These are not stories from wealthy Utahns who have simply had to pay higher taxes, nor are these stories from low-income Utahns who already have insurance through Medicaid. These are letters are from the too often invisible victims of ObamaCare--those middle-class families who used to be able to afford health care when they needed it but are now forced to pay for it and to pay for what amounts to, in some cases, one of their largest payments or even their largest payment they make each month for a so-called insurance plan that never seems to pay out because of high deductibles. Jenica from Davis County, UT, writes as follows: I am an ordinary mother raising my kids and striving to live within my means. For the first time, my family is facing a year with no health insurance. Our gross income falls a few hundred dollars per month too high for us to receive help through CHIP or UPP programs, but we cannot afford to purchase health insurance through my husband's work or through the Marketplace. After this year's premium increases, the most inexpensive plan offered to us on the Marketplace is a full quarter of our gross income per month (before taxes), and if we put that into our budget we will not be able to save any money to pay deductibles as healthcare needs arise. We face the same problem with my husband's work insurance; it would be even more expensive, and we cannot wisely budget a quarter or more of our income toward health insurance premiums. I know this problem is not limited to my family, and I want you to be aware of those of us who are falling in the gap this year. We earn barely too much to receive any assistance, but not enough to actually pay for insurance premiums. It seems the wisest course for us is to withdraw from insurance and save our money to pay for medical expenses in cash, as well as saving to pay the fine on our taxes next year. It is a decision I do not make lightly, as I know that the insurance companies need more people, not less, to participate to make the system work. However, my family cannot afford to participate this year. I know you will represent us well and take our needs into consideration as you work with the other members of Congress to make our country's healthcare system work for all of us. Thank you for serving our state and our country. May God bless you in your efforts. May God bless you, Jenica. May God bless you for having the courage to write these things down and to share them with your fellow Utahns and your fellow Americans. I promised Jenica that I will do everything I can, everything within my power, to make sure that you and families like yours are not forgotten when we repeal this law and replace it. Trevor from St. George, UT, had a similar story. He writes: I recently got a new job and I'm trying to get healthcare. None of the 3 plans my employer offers are affordable to me, even though the government claims they are. Even if I were to buy the cheapest plan, I would never be able to use it because of the high deductibles. I do not qualify for Medicaid, and earn $1,000 per year too much to qualify for subsidies. In a nutshell, I can't afford to buy insurance from anywhere, and by not buying it, I can't afford the penalty levied by the federal government. What is someone in my position supposed to do? The ACA is not helping the very people it was designed to help and is in fact throwing a terrible burden upon me and my family. We need a new healthcare system. This one is not working. Please share my story so that others will be aware that people in my position (and there are many of us) are struggling. I will share your story, Trevor, and soon we will be one step closer to a new type of system, a system that will put patients and doctors back in charge of health care decisions rather than having those decisions made by government bureaucrats in Washington. The last letter I would like to share today comes from Washington County, UT. Ron from Washington County writes as follows: Today I received a letter from my health insurance carrier indicating that the premium for me and my two kids--yes, only three people--is increasing from $1,020 per month to $1,706 per month, an increase of slightly over $8,200 per year. My annual income for 2017 will not be increasing, let alone to cover eight grand. Later this afternoon, I am contacting my travel agency (a local small business) and asking Judy to cease her research into my family vacation for the summer of 2017. Why would I cancel my vacation and also take away revenue from a local small business? The answer is ``67.26%.'' That is the percentage increase for my health care insurance. I need you to see that this is real. It greatly and negatively impacts my family and it subsequently impacts local businesses as more of my money is drained from the economy. I make roughly $60,000 per year. My medical premium is now one third of my gross income! Plus, I still have to pay out deductibles and copays. Even the bronze programs, which are worthless, are designed to bankrupt a family and end up costing more in the long-run, have exceeded the cost of the mortgage I took out on my St. George home in 2014. More than my mortgage! Repeat more than my mortgage. That should send shivers down anyone's spine. One of the most important aspects of America's middle class is the ability for a family to purchase a home. Now that insurance premiums have exceeded the mortgage payment of a median priced home in the US, I suspect that the dream is now slipping out of the hands of many Americans. Ron, you are absolutely right. Thanks to ObamaCare, the American dream is now slipping out of reach for far too many families throughout the State of Utah and throughout the entire country. These are not just the stories of a few isolated Utahns. These are not just stories from a few statistical outliers. There are fewer affordable options for Utahns throughout the State. In 20 out of Utah's 29 counties, Utahns can only choose a health plan from one insurance company. They have just one company to choose from, and the options available are not always as robust as they should be. Within those options that they have, the costs have risen far too much each year. For 2017 plans, insurance rates across Utah increased at least 30 percent, on average. This is after multiple years of substantial premium increases in the other years leading up to this. Fortunately, help is on the way. Thanks to President-Elect Donald Trump's victory this November--and thanks to the outcome of House and Senate races throughout the country--we now have the opportunity to uproot this ill-conceived health care law, root and branch. The old system, to be clear, is far from perfect. After we repeal ObamaCare, we still have much work to do unbundling health care from employer-provided health insurance so doctors, nurses, patients, and innovators can do the work of bringing down prices and increasing quality. That is what happens when we allow the free market to operate. We get competition. When people compete, two things happen that are important for consumers: Prices go down and quality goes up. That is what the American people have come to expect and basically every other sector of our economy. Sadly, we have seen the opposite become true with respect to our health care system under ObamaCare because we have restricted free market forces, and we have impeded competition. As a result, prices have gone up and quality, in some cases, has gone tragically down. Step one involves repealing this health care law. Trevor, Jenica, and Ron, I want you to know that I hear you. I hear you and I hear all Utahns who have contacted me to share their experiences with this health care law. My colleagues in the Senate have heard you too. We will repeal this health care law and we will bring reform and competition to our Nation's currently broken health care system. Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, on January 20 of this year, change is coming to the White House. But until that day, it appears that President Obama will desperately cling to the status quo and continue to do what he has done on far too many occasions: abuse his Executive powers to put in place unpopular policies without the cooperation of Congress and then pretend as if everyone somehow supports him. The most recent case in point involves President Obama's recent decision to designate as a new national monument some 1.35 million acres of public land in San Juan County, UT--the poorest county in the State of Utah, nearly the size of Delaware. This is a small county that is tucked into the southeast corner of our State. It includes--and the national monument is named after--the region's distinctive Bears Ears buttes, which mark the ancestral homeland and sacred site of many members of the Navajo and Ute Tribes who live in San Juan County, UT. President Obama announced the Bears Ears National Monument on December 28, right between Christmas and New Year's Eve, as most Americans were busy enjoying the holiday season and when he was still enjoying time with his family in Hawaii. That same day, his administration released an explanatory document that was officially christened a ``Fact Sheet.'' It was christened that way by the White House officials who wrote it. But, in reality, it reads much more like an elaborate book of fiction. Of all the falsehoods peddled in this bogus fact sheet, the most egregious--and, in many ways, the most insulting--is the claim that the residents in San Juan County, including local members of the Navajo Nation and members of the Ute Tribe, supported the President's decision to turn Bears Ears into a national monument. The document says: The creation of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah [. . .] follow[s] years of robust public input from tribes, local elected officials, and diverse stakeholders, and draws from legislation introduced in Congress. In addition to protecting more land and water than any administration in history-- And here is the kicker-- President Obama has taken unprecedented steps to elevate the voices of Native peoples in the management of our national resources. ``Unprecedented steps to elevate the voices of Native peoples.'' Nothing could be further from the truth in this situation. Perhaps if we replace the word ``elevate'' with the word ``exploit,'' that sentence might apply to the situation in Bears Ears. Now, there is no denying that many Native American people supported President Obama's designation of the Bears Ears National Monument. But the inconvenient truth too often ignored by the Obama administration and its supporters is that virtually all of this tribal support came from Native Americans residing outside of Utah, not inside Utah, and certainly not within San Juan County where this 1.35 million-acre designation occurred. In fact, the most prominent Native American group that advocated for a national monument in Utah is actually an alliance called the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, which is made up of several tribes, and most of its members reside outside of the State of Utah. Yet, national monument advocates routinely invoke the Inter-Tribal Coalition as the authoritative mouthpiece of all Native Americans in the Southwestern United States. So how did a coalition of Native American tribes from Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico rise to such a position of prominence in a debate over a national monument in a remote corner of Utah? Well, part of the answer can be found in the cozy relationships between well- funded environmental advocacy groups, powerful outdoor retail companies, and tribal organizations. Recent investigative reporting by the Deseret News shows how radical wealthy environmental organizations, supported by the outdoor recreational industry, channeled millions of dollars to the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition only after they realized that ``hitching [their] success'' to the Navajo Nation was the only way they could achieve their longstanding goal of creating a national monument in Southeastern Utah. The ability of uber-rich environmentalists to essentially buy a national monument in Bears Ears explains why the people of San Juan County--including the Navajo residents, whose lives and livelihoods are intricately linked to the Bears Ears Utes--stand united in opposition to a monument designation. For the people of the Navajo Nation who live in San Juan County, taking care of their ancestral land--protecting and preserving it for the next generation--isn't optional, it is a sacred duty. It is part of their faith. It is part of who they are. The same is true in many respects in my own faith. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I share many of these views. My church teaches that the Earth is a divine creation that belongs to God. This means that human beings have a spiritual responsibility--an obligation to God--to be wise stewards over the Earth, to conserve it for our children and our grandchildren. The Navajo people of San Juan County have always faithfully fulfilled their responsibility in the Bears Ears region, and so have the Utes who reside in the area. Caring for their homelands--and respecting it as their forefathers did--is the cultural lifeblood of the Native American people of Southeastern Utah. Take away their access to their land-- restrict their stewardship over the Earth's bounty for the sake of increasing the access of wealthy urbanites who use the outdoors for their own purposes--and it won't be long before their culture begins to fade away. The people of San Juan County understand this. They have seen their worst nightmares become reality in other Utah counties as a result of Presidential national monument designations. That is why on December 29, the day after President Obama announced the Bears Ears monument, a crowd of Utahns assembled to hold a protest on the steps of the San Juan County Courthouse. Braving the frigid weather of that day, they gathered together to demonstrate that they--the individuals and the families who will be most directly affected by a Bears Ears national monument--believe that the President has no business seizing vast stretches of land to be micromanaged and mismanaged by distant Federal land agencies. But the protesters weren't just angry. They were resolute, confident about the future, and determined to keep fighting for their right to participate in the management of the land in their community--the land that most directly affects them. Of course, environmentalists and national monument advocates want the people of San Juan County to believe that this fight is simply over, that they have lost, that there is nothing they can do about something that affects them in a very real, very personal, very intimate way. In their view, President Obama's proclamation of the Bears Ears National Monument is permanent. It is irreversible, as if it were carved into stone. As one White House official recently told the Washington Post: ``We do not see that the Trump administration has authority to undo this.'' But they say this only because they are not looking hard enough. The truth is what can be done through unilateral Executive action can also be undone the same way. Such is the impermanence of Executive power in our constitutional republic, where major policy changes require broad consensus, forged through legislative compromise, to endure the test of time. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, two prominent constitutional scholars, Todd Gaziano and John Yoo, explain this point as it relates specifically to President Obama's use of the Antiquities Act to designate the Bears Ears National Monument. The Antiquities Act of 1906, as they explain, does not create an irreversible monument. When a President uses it, its use is not necessarily indelible. Gaziano and Yoo write: After studying the President's legal authority [under the Antiquities Act], we conclude that he can rescind monument designations [. . .] the law's text and original purposes strongly support a president's ability to unilaterally correct his predecessor's abuses. In other words, starting on January 20, President-Elect Trump can use his Executive powers to rescind President Obama's designation of the Bears Ears National Monument. I have asked the future Trump administration to do precisely that. I have also recently cosponsored Senator Murkowski's bill, the Improved National Monument Designation Process Act, which would require all future Presidents to obtain congressional and State approval prior to designating a national monument. I have done these things, and I will do more, because I believe the preponderance of evidence proves that President Obama abused his powers--the powers granted to him under the Antiquities Act--in designating the Bears Ears National Monument. This isn't just my opinion. It is the opinion of most of my fellow Utahns, including those patriots who assembled on the county courthouse steps in the rural town of Monticello on December 29. These are the people who were ignored by the Obama administration. These are the people who were cut out of the decisionmaking process that produced this particular national monument designation. These are the voices that were stifled by the wealthy, out-of-State, well- connected environmental groups that spent millions of dollars to lock up our land for their exclusive use. So it is fitting to let one of them--one of the residents of San Juan County--have the last word today. I think Suzy Johnson put it best when she said: Mr. Obama, you have failed the grassroots natives. A true leader listens and finds common ground. The fight for our land is not over. Your name will blow away in the wind. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, over the weekend, syndicated columnist George Will wrote about a disturbing ruling in a French court. The court ruled that a video called ``Dear Future Mom,'' produced by the Global Down Syndrome Foundation, must be banned from television. It cannot be viewed on television anywhere in France. What, you might ask, triggered this draconian act of censorship? Was it speech inciting violence? No. Was it a hate speech? No. Was it discrimination? In fact, it is the opposite, as it turns out. I will let Mr. Will tell the story as I read the words from his column. The column is entitled ``The `right' to be spared from guilt.'' The word ``inappropriate'' is increasingly used inappropriately. It is useful to describe departures from good manners and other social norms, such as wearing white after Labor Day and using the salad fork with the entree. But the adjective has become a splatter of verbal fudge, a weasel word falsely suggesting measured seriousness. Its misty imprecision does not disguise, but advertises the user's moral obtuseness. A French court has demonstrated how ``inappropriate'' can be an all-purpose device of intellectual evasion and moral cowardice. The court said it is inappropriate to do something that might disturb people who killed their unborn babies for reasons that were, shall we say, inappropriate. Prenatal genetic testing enables pregnant women to be apprised of a variety of problems with their unborn babies, including Down syndrome. It is a congenital condition resulting from a chromosomal defect that causes varying degrees of mental disability and some physical abnormalities, such as low muscle tone, small stature, flatness of the back of the head, and an upward slant to the eyes. Within living memory, Down syndrome people were called Mongoloids. Now they are included in the category called ``special needs'' people. What they most need is nothing special. It is for people to understand their aptitudes, and to therefore quit killing them in utero. Down syndrome, although not common, is among the most common anomalies at 49.7 percent per 100,000 births. In approximately 90 percent of instances when prenatal genetic testing reveals Down syndrome, the baby is aborted. Cleft lips or palates, which occur in 72.6 percent per 100,000 births, also can be diagnosed in utero and sometimes are the reason a baby is aborted. In 2014, in conjunction with World Down Syndrome Day (March 21), the Global Down Syndrome Foundation prepared a two- minute video titled ``Dear Future Mom'' to assuage the anxieties of pregnant women who have learned that they are carrying a Down syndrome baby. More than 7 million people have seen the video online in which one such woman says, ``I'm scared: What kind of life will my child have?'' Down syndrome children from many nations tell the woman that her child will hug, speak, go to school, tell you he loves you and ``can be happy, just like I am--and you'll be happy too.'' The French state is not happy about this. The court has ruled that the video is--wait for it--``inappropriate'' for French television. The court upheld the ruling in which the French Broadcasting Council had banned the video as a commercial. The court said the video's depiction of happy Down syndrome children was ``likely to disturb the conscience of women who had lawfully made different choices.'' So, what happens on campuses does not stay on campuses. There, in many nations, sensitivity bureaucracies have been enforcing the relatively new entitlement to be shielded from what might disturb, even inappropriate jokes. And now this rapidly metastasizing right has come to this: A video that accurately communicates a truthful proposition--that Down syndrome people can be happy and give happiness--should be suppressed because some people might become ambivalent, or morally queasy about having chosen to extinguish such lives because . . . This is why the video giving facts about Down syndrome people is so subversive of the flaccid consensus among those who say aborting a baby is of no moral significance than removing a tumor from a stomach. Pictures persuade. Today's improved prenatal sonograms make graphic the fact that the moving fingers and beating heart are not mere ``fetal material.'' They are a baby. Toymaker Fisher-Price, children's apparel manufacturer OshKosh, McDonald's and Target have featured Down syndrome children in ads that the French court would probably ban from television. The court has said, in effect, that the lives of Down syndrome people--and by inescapable implication, the lives of many other disabled people--matter less than the serenity of people who have acted on one or more of three vicious principles: That the lives of the disabled are not worth living. Or the lives of the disabled are of negligible value next to the desire of parents to have a child who has no special, meaning inconvenient, needs. Or that government should suppress the voices of Down syndrome children in order to guarantee other people's right not to be disturbed by reminders that they have made lethal choices on the basis of one or both of the first two inappropriate principles. That is the end of Mr. Will's column, which I just read in its entirety. As Americans enter yet another era of change in our politics, it is my sincere hope, and indeed my prayer, that it can also be a season of change in our hearts. Here in the United States, the free speech rights of groups like the Global Down Syndrome Foundation to produce videos like ``Dear Future Mom,'' which I highly recommend, are protected by the First Amendment, but the rights of actual Americans with Down syndrome, both born and unborn, can only be protected by their fellow citizens, not just in our laws but in our communities, our families, and our culture. This time of year, we would all do well to remember the life-changing joy that can come from a single, unexpected, and special child, and also remember the courage of their mothers and fathers who chose life-- the heroes who chose to make room at the inn. I know I speak for all of my colleagues when I wish all of them a very merry Christmas. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, on Friday, November 18, 2016, Eric Ellsworth of Brigham City, UT, began his day like virtually every other day of his adult life. He put on his uniform and drove to work fully aware that it could be his last day on Earth. Eric was a State trooper with the Utah Highway Patrol, and for 7 years this is how he began each day: by summoning enough courage to last most men a lifetime. Why did he do it? I never had the privilege of meeting Eric. But over the past several days I have read a great deal about him, and based on the comments of his family, friends, and colleagues, I suspect the answer is that Eric wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Like all law enforcement officers, the life of a trooper is a life of service to one's community and one's fellow man--the vulnerable, the needy, and the insecure. It is also a life of sacrifice. And on November 18, 2016--that Friday that began like all the others--Trooper Ellsworth made the ultimate sacrifice. While directing traffic to avoid a roadway hazard along a rural stretch of State Route 13 near Garland in Box Elder County, Trooper Ellsworth was accidentally struck by a passing vehicle. For 4 days, he remained in critical condition at Intermountain Medical Center, defying the odds and fighting to live another day in that uniform. But on November 22, 2016, Eric succumbed to the injuries sustained in the crash and passed from this life into the next. He died honorably, doing what he loved--and lived--to do: helping others and serving his community. Indeed, if you look at the trajectory of Eric's life, you are left with the distinct impression that the man was destined, from the very start, to be a highway patrol trooper. He was the seventh of nine children--and the eldest brother--which must have taught him at an early age what it means to live with duties and obligations toward others. And his hero--his father, Ronald Ellsworth, who was also a highway trooper--showed him what courage as a daily discipline looks like. Like most sons who revere their dads, Eric grew up wanting to follow in his father's footsteps. And so he served. He served his community, as an Eagle Scout and an active member of his church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served his family, as a loving husband to his wife and high-school sweetheart, Janica, and a nurturing father to their three sons, Bennett, Ian, and Oliver. He served his fellow citizens and countrymen as a highway trooper who kept watch over the roads in northern Utah. And most importantly to Eric, he served his Heavenly Father, as a missionary in Winnipeg, Canada, and as a faithful witness of Jesus Christ. At 31 years of age, Trooper Ellsworth's life was cut tragically short. But in those 31 years, he did more to help his fellow man than most of us can hope to accomplish in a lifetime. He lived a full and bighearted life, always ready to answer the call of service and dedicated to making the world not just safer but better for everyone. This is Eric Ellsworth's legacy, his gift to the world, and his sons' greatest inheritance: the enduring example of a life well lived. May he rest in peace, and may God bless his family and the community he served--it will never be the same without him. Thank you.

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Thursday, September 22; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; further, that following leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each until 11 a.m.; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 5325, postcloture; further, that notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, all postcloture time on the motion to proceed to H.R. 5325 expire at 11 a.m. tomorrow; finally, that if the motion to proceed is agreed to, Senator McConnell be recognized to offer a substitute amendment.

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. 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.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I rise today to lend my support and urge my colleagues to lend theirs to S.J. Res. 39, offered by my friend Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. The purpose of this particular resolution is to reconsider the billion-dollar arms sale between the United States and Saudi Arabia that was negotiated by the two governments earlier this year. Under U.S. law, any arms sale approved by the State Department will go into effect within 30 days after that deal has been finalized, absent passage of a resolution of disapproval to prevent it from taking effect. That is exactly what Senator Paul's resolution aims to do. If passed by the Senate and the House, the resolution would raise formal objections to the sale of $1.15 billion worth of weapons and military equipment to the Government of Saudi Arabia. Notice that there are Senators from both sides of the aisle working to pass this resolution of disapproval, supporting it in speeches and voting on it hopefully later today. It was introduced by a fellow Republican, and I am proud to join three of my Democratic colleagues as original cosponsors: Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, from whom we heard just moments ago; Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, from whom we heard after we heard from Senator Murphy; and Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. Some might call us strange bedfellows--two conservative Republicans and three liberal Democrats working together to achieve the same goal. But this observation misses the point entirely. Each one of us may have their own unique justification for supporting this resolution, but there is nothing strange about that; it simply proves that there are many reasons to consider and to reconsider this deal with Saudi Arabia. One of those reasons and the basis for my support of Senator Paul's resolution is that there is no conclusive evidence that the Saudi arms deal will in fact advance the strategic and security interests of the United States. In fact, there is evidence that points in the opposite direction. We know that Saudi Arabia is heavily involved in the civil war that is raging at this moment in Yemen--a conflict that has left a humanitarian crisis of staggering proportions in its wake and continues to do so. We know that the Saudi military will use the equipment included in this deal--everything from machine guns to grenade launchers to armored vehicles and tanks--to increase its own engagement in that seemingly intractable conflict. What we don't know is exactly how America's involvement in the civil war in Yemen serves our national security interests and protects the American people. I have no problem in principle with the United States approving the sale of weapons and military equipment to foreign governments when it is in our interest to do so. I certainly am not categorically opposed to selling arms to the Saudi Government. Saudi Arabia has long been an American ally in a very volatile region of the world, and I believe strengthening that alliance should be a priority for our foreign and military policy in the Middle East, but the fact that Saudi Arabia is an ally with whom we have a track record of selling arms is not in and of itself a sufficient reason to endorse this particular deal. It is not a reason that this deal should move through, should take effect without so much as a whimper from Members of Congress who might feel the need to raise possible concerns--concerns that relate to our own national security. Yes, we want our allies to be strong. Yes, we want our allies to be capable of defending themselves. Yes, sometimes this means that we should offer them assistance in times of need. But the first and most fundamental responsibility of the U.S. Government is not to satisfy the requests of our allies reflexively, unflinchingly, and without asking acute questions; rather, the fundamental responsibility--the first job of the U.S. Government--is to protect the lives and liberties of the American people. That is where we need to be focused. Now, the Government of Saudi Arabia clearly believes that intervening in this civil war in Yemen and participating in the decades-long sectarian conflict underlying that civil war in Yemen is in the best interest of the Saudi people. I don't doubt that, and it is not my place to question it, even if I did doubt it. That is why the Saudi military has been fighting in Yemen since it first launched its intervention in March 2015. But can the same be said of the U.S. Government? Is intervening in this civil war a national priority for the American people? Is intervening in that civil war in our national security interest? Is it something that is going to make the American people safer? Astoundingly, these are questions that have never been fully discussed and certainly have never been fully debated in this institution--an institution that likes to call itself and loves to be referred to as the world's greatest deliberative body. This is more of an abdication of responsibility by Congress. It is more than just that. It is a national security hazard. It is not just that we are abdicating. It is not just that we are not doing something we are supposed to do. We are making things more dangerous than we need to. The Framers of our Constitution gave important and exclusive foreign policy powers to the legislative branch because our Framers believed that the process of defining America's national interests and developing a foreign policy to pursue those interests must involve the participation of the people's representatives in Congress. But alas, in recent years, Congress, in general, and the Senate, in particular, have happily taken a back seat to the executive branch in debating, developing, and defending to the public our Nation's foreign policy and grand strategy in the Middle East. That explains how it is possible that our military has actively supported the Saudi military's intervention in Yemen, including hundreds of air-to-air refueling sorties at a time when our military leaders unanimously contend that they are suffering from readiness and personnel shortfalls. It explains how it is possible that the U.S. military would be actively involved in the civil war in Yemen, even though many security experts point out that by supporting Saudi Arabia in Saudi Arabia's fight against the Houthis, we could be unintentionally assisting Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS affiliates in Yemen. I urge my colleagues today to support this resolution of disapproval. Let us pause our intervention in this foreign conflict and show the country--show our country--that the legislative branch can fulfill its obligations to the American people faithfully, that we can openly and thoughtfully evaluate our interventions abroad, and that we are focused on protecting the security, safety, and interests of the American people above all others.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, my home State of Utah has long been one of the best kept secrets in America. But this is beginning to change. Utah is increasingly recognized as one of the best places in the world to live, study, work, raise a family, start a business, and build communities. In fact, many call Utah the next Silicon Valley, as the Beehive State is fast becoming one of the most popular destinations in America for venture-capital funding and pioneering businesses. Central to the success of our State's business community is the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, Utah's largest business association, with members in each of the State's 29 counties, representing more than 8,000 businesses and nearly half the State's workforce. For generations, the Salt Lake Chamber has played a pivotal role in building a strong and dynamic economy across Utah, by supporting its members, forging collaborative and productive partnerships, and investing in local communities in every corner of the State. On June 8, 2016, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recognized the Salt Lake Chamber's record of success by awarding it a five-star accreditation--a highly esteemed designation carried by only 204 of the approximately 7,000 chambers of commerce across the country. Receiving a five-star accreditation proves what many Utahns already knew to be true: the Salt Lake Chamber embodies the enterprising and cooperative spirit of our State and our people. On behalf of the people of Utah, I congratulate the Salt Lake Chamber--and the thousands of Utah businesses and workers they support--for this well-deserved and impressive distinction, and I thank the chamber's staff, board, and volunteers for the outstanding work that the five-star accreditation represents.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 12 minutes.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, Capitol Hill is a famously transient place. Every 2 years, the membership of the House of Representatives changes, the membership of the Senate changes, and in the interim, the coming and going of congressional staffers is virtually constant. But when you take a step back and look through the wide lens of history, you can see certain pillars of permanence, certain exceptional individuals who stand out from and rise above the fleeting crowd. These are the institutional giants of Congress, the men and women whose extraordinary talents and devotion to the Constitution have shaped the character and the course of government and whose legacies continue to influence Congress long after the individuals behind them have gone. For the past 5\1/2\ years, I have had the pleasure of working with and learning from one such individual, a true master of the Senate, James Wallner. Friday will be James's last day as executive director of the Senate steering committee--although the optimist in me hopes that he will be back in the Senate someday. Starting next week, he will join the Heritage Foundation as the group vice president of research, where he will oversee all of the think tank's research papers, projects, and initiatives. For this, James is eminently qualified. James has been studying politics in the classroom and in real life on Capitol Hill throughout his entire adult life. In all his spare time, in between advising Senators and raising his two children, Graham and Quinn, with his wife Kimberly, James has been busy becoming a scholar, earning two master's degrees and a doctoral degree in politics, and an accomplished author, having published one book, with another forthcoming. Aside from what must be the best time-management skills in the world, coupled with the fact that the man probably never sleeps, this is what you first notice about James: just how freakishly smart he is. I will never forget the first time I met James, which was back in 2011, not too long after I had been sworn in to office as a Senator. As a brandnew Senator with a brandnew staff, one of my top priorities was to find someone who could help mentor and guide me and my staff-- someone outside of my staff. My staff included a lot of people who had never worked in Washington before, so we needed someone on the outside of our staff to help teach us how the Senate really works and how Congress really works. I asked around for suggestions, and one name kept coming up: James Wallner. If you need someone to give a crash course or an extended, semester-length course or a course lasting 5\1/2\ years on Senate procedure, politics, and policy, James Wallner is the man. This was some of the best advice I had ever received--to consult James Wallner on these and other issues. The instruction and guidance James provided to me and my staff far exceeded expectations. James's knowledge of the Senate is encyclopedic. Working with him is like having your own personal Parliamentarian by your side, always ready and eager to give comprehensive answers to virtually every question that might come up, even those dealing with the most arcane procedural mechanics within the Senate. Most people in Washington operate on the premise that connections are what you need to succeed in politics. Some might even assume that they are all you need to succeed in politics. James, although known and esteemed by many, has flipped this conventional wisdom on its head. For him, it is not who he knows but what he knows that has made him an invaluable resource for so many Members in Congress and so many staffers on both sides of the Capital over the years. While his formidable intellect has set him apart over the 10 years in the Senate, the qualities I always admired most in James are his deep and abiding love for this country, for its history, its people, and its institutions, and his uncompromising commitment to the self-evident truths upon which it was founded and the truths built into our governing document, the U.S. Constitution. One of my favorite examples of this is exemplified by James's annual tradition of reading, start to finish, the official and complete notes from the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Of course, for James, it is not enough to simply read and re-read this voluminous text every year; he makes sure to do it between May 25 and September 17 so that he can read each day's notes on the very day or the very anniversary of the very day on which they were originally recorded. James brought the same passion and appreciation for our constitutional heritage to his work as the executive director of the Senate steering committee, a position which he has held since 2012. The purpose and mission of the steering committee is to encourage innovative thinking and bold action within the Senate's Republican conference. This is no easy task, of course. In a town that is not exactly known for innovation or boldness, many may see this as a mission impossible, but James saw it as a moral imperative because he understands that many of our government's and our country's most urgent problems today are caused by an unnatural timidity and sclerosis within the legislative branch. The job may be difficult, but James carried it out with an admirable combination of tenacity, patience, courage, and grace, and always with an unrelenting devotion to recovering America's founding principles and thereby putting the Congress back to work for the American people. As James knows better than most, placing principle over party and elevating the interests of the American people over the interests of political elites is unlikely to win a popularity contest in Washington, but it will earn you the respect of your colleagues and anyone happening to be watching. Few on Capitol Hill respect James more than two of his former bosses, Senator Pat Toomey and Senator Jeff Sessions. This is what each of them had to say about James on the occasion of his departure from the Senate. Senator Toomey said: James Wallner not only understands a wide range of policy issues, but he is a master of the congressional rules and procedures needed to turn conservative philosophies into action. He is an exceptionally smart strategist and is willing to work hard to advance the ideas needed to restore an American government that is limited in scope, efficient with taxpayers' money, and accountable to the voters. Senator Sessions said: It has been an honor to work with James in the Senate. I am proud to say that James began his Senate career in my office as a Legislative Assistant and later became my Legislative Director. In these roles, James demonstrated a mastery of congressional procedure and policy. He has supported not only me, but the entire party in developing and working to implement conservative, pro-growth policies that help place our nation on a more sustainable path. The Heritage Foundation is fortunate to have hired a man of such skill and I am confident that he will serve them well. James is without a doubt one of the most talented and dedicated staffers I have ever worked with or known in the Senate. For 10 years, James Wallner has been an exceptionally articulate, passionate, knowledgeable, and steadfast champion of the very things that make the Senate great and that make the Senate unique--especially open, robust debate and deliberation. The Senate is better because of him. He will be missed. But with so many challenges looming over the horizon and with so much work yet ahead of us to be completed, something tells me this will not be the last time the Senate hears from James Wallner. Thank you, Mr. President. Cloture Motion

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I would like to give a few remarks about how I first became involved in the cause of sentencing reform within our Federal criminal justice system. I will never forget when I first began to appreciate the full magnitude of this problem--the problem we face within a Federal criminal justice system that is sometimes too inflexible and sometimes doesn't allow judges to take into account the unique circumstances of each case. It was 2004. I was a Federal prosecutor, an assistant U.S. attorney in Utah. In some cases, I witnessed judges being forced by Federal law to impose punishments that simply, under any standard, did not fit the crime--first-time offenders sometimes being locked up for periods of time longer than some rapists or murderers, terrorists or kidnappers. These were real people--people with children, siblings, parents, spouses, and, of course, dreams for a better life. Yet in too many cases the so-called system that was supposed to correct their mistakes arguably compounded them. This system wasn't just wasting money, it wasn't just wasting physical material resources, it was wasting lives. I know some in my party may view this as a progressive cause. I view it as a conservative one. Think about it. When there is a major problem tearing at our economy and our civil society--a problem that is threatening our most vulnerable families in our communities-- conservatives don't just shrug their shoulders and expect a bunch of outdated laws and bloated government bureaucracies to take care of it. We know better. Criminal justice reform doesn't call on conservatives to abandon their principles, it calls on them to fight for them. This process and the conservative cause are all about making our communities--these little platoons, if you will, of service and cooperation at the very heart of our constitutional republic--safe and prosperous and happy. It is about basing our laws and basing our court procedures and our prison systems on a clear-eyed understanding of human nature--of how human beings respond, what brings out their better selves and what doesn't, about man's predilection toward sin and his capacity for redemption--along with an uncompromising commitment to human dignity. Respect for the dignity of all human life, the basic dignity of the human soul, no matter how small or how weak, how rich or how poor, and the redemptive capacity of all sinners, no matter how callous, are the foundation for everything that conservatives purport to stand for. Our approach to policing and of punishment should be no different. Moreover, as a conservative, I believe we ought to watch out anytime we give the government extraordinary powers, especially powers that deprive the individual of liberty. And nowhere is the deprivation of liberty more severe, more intense, more long-lasting than the deprivation of liberty that occurs when a person is locked up for years or for decades at a time, with no opportunity to progress, no opportunity to interact with family members, no opportunity to interact with the vibrant growing economy. So when I got to the Senate and I was assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee, I started looking for partners--partners on both sides of the aisle--who shared my concerns with the Federal criminal justice system, shared my concerns with the way Federal minimum mandatory sentences were working. I started looking for partners on both sides of the aisle who shared this commitment to reform. Progress in this area is difficult, and for a long time the progress we made in this area was slow, just as any deliberative process often is. I found an ally in my colleague, the senior Senator from Illinois. We teamed up and put together legislation. That legislation gradually started gaining some support. At first, it gained more support on the other side of the aisle than it did on my side of the aisle, but we were pleased with the progress that was made. But in the fall of last year, we struck an agreement and we started making more progress. We introduced a bill called the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act. Like most legislative compromises, it isn't perfect and it doesn't accomplish everything that every member of our coalition might wish we could accomplish, but it is an extraordinarily great start, and it proves it is possible to design our laws in a way that can balance the sometimes competing interests of retribution and rehabilitation, justice and mercy, the rights of victims and the rights of perpetrators. The Sentence Reform and Corrections Act will expand the now-limited discretion of Federal judges so they can treat offenders like human beings and not mere statistics and punish them according to their particular circumstances. It would broaden the Federal safety valve, a provision of existing law that allows judges to sentence a limited number of offenders below the mandatory minimum. Contrary to what many of this bill's critics claim, this would not absolve offenders of their crimes, nor would it suddenly and indiscriminately release legions of violent predators into our communities. In fact, under this reform, the status of violent offenders would not change at all. They would remain ineligible for Federal safety-valve relief. Our criminal justice system simply has to be flexible--at least flexible enough--to apply in many different situations. Prosecutors and judges need to have the ability to impose lengthy sentences on serious offenders who pose the greatest threat to public safety, just as they must have the ability to impose modest sentences on those who violate our laws but do not pose an ongoing threat to public safety. Whenever we interfere with the flexibility of either of these, we impair the effectiveness and the efficiency of our Federal criminal justice system. When we do that, we necessarily make our country less safe, rather than more safe. So this bill would leave untouched the maximum penalty levels that exist under current law. It also would not eliminate any mandatory minimum sentences. Instead, it takes a targeted approach, reducing the harshest mandatory penalties and providing relief for low-level offenders with limited criminal history. It is this type of offender that helped draw my attention to this issue back in 2004, just as I described a few minutes ago. One of the cases that was being handled by the office in which I worked, the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah, involved a young man named Weldon Angelos, a young man in his midtwenties, the father of two young children. He got involved in some criminal activity and was caught selling three relatively small quantities--dime-bag quantities--of marijuana to what turned out to be an informant. Because Mr. Angelos had a gun on his person at the time of these transactions, because of the way he was charged, and because of the way some of these provisions of law have been interpreted-- including a provision of law in 18 USC, section 924(c)--Mr. Angelos received a sentence of 55 years in prison. Now, we may ask: What on Earth was this judge thinking? How could such a judge be so cruel, so arbitrary, so capricious as to sentence this young man to 55 years in prison for selling three dime-bag quantities of marijuana? The judge didn't have a choice. In fact, it was the judge who first drew my attention to the case because it was the judge who took the unusual-- the almost unprecedented, almost unheard of--step of issuing a written opinion prior to the issuance of the sentence, disagreeing with the sentence the judge himself was about to impose. Then-Federal district judge Paul Cassell issued a lengthy opinion stating: This is a problem. This young man is about to receive a sentence that is excessive under any standard. It is a longer sentence than he would have received had he engaged in many acts of terrorism or kidnapping. So why are we sending this guy away until he is about 80 years old simply because of this minimum mandatory penalty? But, the judge said: This is a problem I cannot address. This is a problem I am powerless to remedy. Only Congress can fix this problem. Those words have haunted me ever since then: Only Congress can fix this problem. So when I became a Senator in 2011, I still remembered those words. Those words continued to haunt me and continue to haunt me to this day. Miraculously, fortunately, Mr. Angelos has been released through a variety of procedural maneuvers that I don't have time to address right now. He himself has been released. Many others are still in prison, under the same system, who have been locked up for years--decades--at a time, much longer than any reasonable person would think would be a just sentence. In fact, I have yet to meet a single person--Democrat, Republican, old, young, male, female--who believes that the sentence Mr. Angelos received was just. His story, his example is a good reason why we need to pass this bill. Finally, this bill improves the quality of our Federal prisons. If it became law, it would increase access to vocational training, therapeutic counseling, reentry services, and other programs, so that we would have fewer first-time offenders turning into career criminals. All of these are commonsense and, I believe, long-overdue reforms. But make no mistake. We are at the beginning, not the end, of this generation's story of criminal justice reform. As all of us know, the road to reform is long and full of setbacks and obstacles. Today's movement for criminal justice reform is no exception. But so long as the people here today are involved in this effort, I am confident we can together succeed where our prisons today often fail--in preparing offenders to reintegrate into their communities as productive and law- abiding citizens, as spouses, parents, neighbors, and employees, instead of career criminals. We can fix this problem. This bill would begin to address this problem. But we need to bring this up. We need to have the opportunity to debate this, to discuss this, to vote on it, and to pass it. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, whenever government acts, it does so inevitably, unavoidably necessarily at the expense of individual freedom, at the expense of individual liberty and autonomy. This doesn't mean every act by government is bad--quite the contrary. We need government. We need it to protect us from those who would undermine our liberty, those who would interfere with it, those who would harm us personally, whether physically or in some other way. But just as it doesn't mean that every act by government is bad, we should also not be too quick to leap to any conclusion that any and every act of government is good. We have to balance liberty, privacy, autonomy with our corresponding needs for security and physical protection. These things need not be deemed irreconcilable with one another. They can exist in the same universe. In fact, when they are properly balanced, our privacy and our liberty become far from incompatible with our physical security, far from at odds with our need for protection. They can become part of the same whole. In other words, in this respect, our privacy is not at odds with our security. Our privacy is in fact part of our security. To be truly secure means there are limits as to what the government can do to you. It means there are limits as to what information the government can obtain. There are limits as to how the government may go about getting information about you. There are limits as to what the government can do to you in depriving you of any of your fundamental rights. We are here this week, as we had been last week, in the wake of a tragedy, a horrible tragedy in Orlando, one in which 49 people were killed. Forty-nine people lost their lives at the hands of Omar Mateen, an individual who had pledged allegiance to ISIS. This is the worst terrorist attack we have seen on U.S. soil since that tragic day on September 11, 2001. I do want to make clear that pretending this attack was simply a crime of gun violence would be an exercise in willful denial and in political theater. Ignoring it altogether is also not something we can or should do, but it is important to make clear, even when--and I would argue especially when--a tragedy like this prompts Congress or any legislative body to act. It is in those moments we have to be very careful of how we act. We have to remember there is this tension. We have to remember, especially in those moments when we are feeling the anxiety of an attack, feeling the anxiety of some tragedy, that we have to be very careful to make sure the rights of our fellow Americans are not undermined as we try, in our zeal, perhaps with the best intentions, to make sure we do what we can to protect ourselves. We have been addressing a couple of provisions this week. One we voted on earlier today is a proposal brought forward from the senior Senator from Arizona, an individual for whom I have great respect. Nonetheless, his proposal is one that troubles me. His proposal is one that would have given law enforcement officers, law enforcement agencies the power to access Americans' Internet browsing history and email metadata. These are things that can be analyzed to reveal the most intimate details of a person's life, the most intimate details of how a person thinks, a person's thought processes, and to do so, moreover, without a warrant, without probable cause, without any kind of judicial review by a Federal court or any other court, for that matter, is a problem. This interferes with some of our most fundamental rights, and I believe it is incompatible at least with the spirit, if not also the letter, of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which provides that in order for the government to gain access to your papers, your person, your residence, it has to do so in a particular way. For example, if it wants to get a warrant to search through your papers, it has to go to court, and it has to establish what is called probable cause. It has to show evidence demonstrating probable cause that a crime has been committed and a reason to look at a particular thing in a particular place. It can't simply say: Trust us. We have a good reason. A government agency or a group of government agents can't simply say: Trust us. We are doing the right thing here. We have your security interests at heart. No, they have to go to a judge--somebody who is in a different branch of government. They have to show evidence they need it; that they need it based on evidence demonstrating probable cause of a crime, showing some kind of a connection between what they want to search and the crime. This was understood by the founding generation. The founding generation may not have been familiar with the Internet. In fact, it didn't exist. It wouldn't be invented for a couple of centuries after that, but they were very familiar with these same concepts. They were very familiar with the need for privacy, the need to restrain government, and the need to make sure people don't live in constant fear that the government is going to start rifling through their personal effects without some reason, without probable cause. Nor were they unaware of the fact that tragedies would happen. The Founding Fathers fully understood that tragedies arise. They understood that violence erupts from time to time and that people engage in lawless behavior from time to time that threatens not only the lives of individual citizens but also threatens to undermine the very foundations of our society. Yet, notwithstanding this well- developed grasp they had of the existence of tragedy and the risk that people could do harm, notwithstanding the fact that they themselves had been revolutionaries just a few years earlier, and notwithstanding that many of these people who had a hand in the drafting of our Constitution and drafting and ratification of the Bill of Rights had themselves been revolutionaries and had themselves witnessed and in some cases even been a part of the violence that propelled the American Revolution, they understood it was imperative that we constrain the power of government relative to the liberty interest protected within the Bill of Rights, relative for our purposes here to the zone of interest of the Fourth Amendment. They understood that, and they understood it well. They also understood that if someone had papers in their home, those papers would be protected by the Fourth Amendment regardless of whether the papers had been written by the person residing in that home. They likewise understood the possibility that in some instances the papers might not even be kept at home; they might be kept somewhere else. But they understood that there were zones in which people had a legitimate and reasonable expectation of privacy, and it is in those areas where things need to be protected, regardless of who wrote the papers in question or where they might be located. If they were in an area where there was a reasonable expectation of privacy, the government has to follow certain procedures. Here is why I worry about the measure offered by the Senator from Arizona. It is because this would get at the very privacy interest that is supposed to be protected by the Fourth Amendment. If passed, this would give law enforcement agencies the authority to access your Internet browsing history and email metadata, meaning data about whom you emailed, who emailed you, and when the transmissions occurred, without probable cause, without a warrant, without any review by a Federal court and without any review by any court. This is a problem, and it is a problem because, as I think most Americans can appreciate--certainly most Americans outside Washington, DC, can appreciate--the papers referenced in the Fourth Amendment would absolutely have to include electronic papers, such as records regarding your browsing history. Your browsing history is just like papers you might collect in your home for your own reading, and regardless of whether you had authored the papers in question, they wouldn't lose their protection simply because someone else had authored them. The fact that you had them in your home and the fact that you had obviously been reviewing them by virtue of their location in your home says a lot, perhaps, about what your interests are. We understand that your interests are not necessarily the government's business simply because someone in the government arbitrarily decides that is going to be the case. There is another measure that we will be reviewing and that we expect to vote on later this week, and it is an amendment that has been proposed by another one of my esteemed colleagues, the senior Senator from Maine. This amendment would prevent anyone appearing on a particular list, such as the no-fly list or selectee list--these lists are maintained for the purpose of trying to track those who should perhaps not be allowed to board an airplane or, in the case of the selectee list, individuals who have been determined to be candidates for additional screening at airports before boarding a plane--from purchasing firearms, denying Americans their Second Amendment rights based on a mere suspicion that the FBI might have information which shows that the person in question is engaged in terrorist activity. There are a couple of things that worry me about this, notwithstanding the good intentions underlying it. This one implicates not only the Second Amendment, which protects Americans and their right to bear arms, but it also implicates the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees that we won't be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. If this provision, as it is now written and as I have read it in its current formation, were to become law, it would, as I understand it, allow the government to take away your Second Amendment rights--anyone's Second Amendment rights--based on a mere suspicion and not based on probable cause, although I don't believe that in and of itself would be enough either. It would allow that right to be taken away, and it would do so without any opportunity for the citizen affected by this action to challenge this decision prior to the deprivation. It would, to be sure, set up a procedure whereby someone could go into court and challenge the action taken by the government, but, as I read the proposal, the government would end up winning. It would end up winning based on this same reasonable suspicion standard. Let me explain what that means. Reasonable suspicion refers to the relatively low threshold of legal justification required before a police officer may initiate a stop--what we call a noncustodial stop or what lawyers sometimes refer to as a Terry stop--to engage in a conversation with a citizen. Before a police officer pulls you over-- for example, if you are driving in your car, the police officer has to have a reasonable, articulable suspicion that a law has been violated, and that reasonable, articulable suspicion can't be just based on an unparticularized suspicion or a hunch but must be based on some type of objective observation indicative of a possible violation of the law. But it is a relatively low threshold, and for that reason--when reasonable suspicion exists and therefore justifies a brief noncustodial stop--that stop may continue only for as long as it takes for the officer to either confirm or refute the initial basis for the suspicion, and usually that means not very long unless, of course, during the stop they learn more information which may lead to probable cause. That leads us to probable cause. What does that do? Well, probable cause is there. Probable cause is the standard used. It is a higher standard and requires more evidence, more of a showing, and more of a likelihood that some kind of a violation of the law has occurred. I mentioned probable cause a moment ago as being the standard used to determine whether the government can get a warrant. It is also a standard used in deciding whether the police have authority to undertake an arrest, but it is not a permanent thing. Those persons who are convicted and in custody have the right to a trial. At the end of that trial, they have a right to have a jury make a determination about guilt. The jury is supposed to make that determination on the basis of a standard that says that based on the evidence, they can conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime has been committed. It seems odd that we would allow a court to take away a fundamental constitutional right without any review prior to that constitutional deprivation and thereafter purport to allow a challenge to that action by the government but say that the government will prevail if the government can show reasonable suspicion on the part of the person whose due process rights have been deprived. Again, we have to get back to the fact that we have very good intentions that are animating the legislative proposals we have been reviewing. We have an understandable reaction to these tragic deaths that have occurred in Orlando, FL. Yet even in those circumstances--and I would add especially in those circumstances--we have to be especially vigilant and not less vigilant about protecting the rights of each individual American citizen. Those rights are fundamental. They are not to be tinkered with. The dignity of the human soul is at the core of our constitutional Republic. It is the very reason it is so important that we have to balance the government's action and the interest that we pursue in the name of security with liberty and privacy. The two don't have to be at odds with each other; they can be in conflict. And in the end I believe that our security is not at odds with our privacy. Properly understood, our privacy is part of our security. In fact, we cannot be truly secure unless we are secure from unlawful, unwarranted, and unjust actions by the government, and this is why we can't be too quick to jump. This is why we can't be too eager to expand government authority without analyzing the basic constitutional and fundamental liberties that are at stake. I have been inspired by the example of an Englishman named John Wilkes, who was a member of Parliament. John Wilkes found himself living through a very real deprivation of liberty and a very real intrusion into his privacy. He found himself at the receiving end of a general warrant issued by the administration of King George III. His offense was criticizing the administration of King George III in a publication called the North Briton. The North Briton 45 criticized the King and the King's ministers, and for that, John Wilkes had his house aggressively searched. It was effectively ransacked by officers who were searching for something, and they were doing so pursuant to a general warrant, a warrant that basically said: Those involved in the publication of North Briton 45 have engaged in illegal activity. Go find the people responsible for this and search any and all places and things that might contain relevant information regarding this offense. There was no particular area that was required under that warrant. Well, this was incompatible with the rights of Englishmen at the time, and so John Wilkes fought the King's officials in court. He eventually won not only his freedom, but he also secured a civil judgment against the King and was awarded substantial money damages. As a result of this fight, John Wilkes became a hero throughout England and in America at the time. The number 45 associated with North Briton 45, the offending publication, became synonymous with the name of John Wilkes, and both the name of John Wilkes and the number 45 became synonymous with the cause of liberty on both sides of the Atlantic because of the fact that truth resonates with people, particularly with those people who believe in freedom. People on both sides of the Atlantic understood that John Wilkes's cause was a just cause and that he should be congratulated for this. It was the example of John Wilkes that was still well known at the time of the American Revolution. It was still fresh in the minds of the American people at the time the Constitution was drafted in 1787 and took effect a couple of years later and by the time the Fourth Amendment was ratified and amended after that. These early Americans and these patriots on the other side of the Atlantic understood this very same principle: that our liberty and our privacy on the one hand are not inevitably incompatible or irreconcilably at odds with our security and our protection. The two can be balanced, and that balance has been struck. That balance was struck more than two centuries ago. It was struck and put in place in our Constitution. Our Constitution does contain these protections, at least three of which are relevant to our discussions here with the Second Amendment and the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment. We cannot sidestep them just because something bad is happening. In fact, it is especially when something bad has happened that we realize we are not the first generation of Americans to experience bad things, to experience violence. We are not the first generation of Americans who have understood that when we give government too much power in those circumstances, other bad things will happen. We can protect ourselves and at the same time protect our liberty. We can do both. The Constitution requires both. So I say to those who think this is a fool's errand, we can, in fact, do these things. We can, we must, and together I hope and I pray that we will.

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

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, one of the great privileges of representing my fellow Utahns in the U.S. Senate is the annual opportunity to meet the exceptional young men and women from the great State of Utah who have answered the call of service by applying to the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. Under title 10 of the U.S. Code, each year Members of Congress are authorized to nominate a number of young men and women from their district or State to attend the country's service academies. It is my distinct honor to nominate 14 exemplary Utahns this year. But receiving a congressional nomination does not guarantee acceptance. To be admitted, each applicant must meet on his or her own merits the academies' rigorous standards. Well, I have studied the applications of these 14 men and women, and I can say, without hesitation or exaggeration, that you would be hard pressed to find a more accomplished, talented, patriotic group of American citizens anywhere. And so I was not surprised to learn that all 14 applicants have been accepted and will soon be joining the ranks of our Nation's military academies in the summer of 2016. Each of these 14 students is of sound mind and body. This will serve them well in Colorado Springs, West Point, Annapolis, and Kings Point. But to succeed, they will need more than this. The journey on which these young men and women will soon embark requires more than mental and physical aptitude. It demands strong moral character--leadership, courage, honesty, prudence, and self- discipline--and above all, it calls for a steadfast commitment to service and a love of country. Today I would like to recognize and congratulate each of these impressive students, all of whom embody, in their own unique way, the standards of excellence on which America's service academies are built. Joseph Stryker Cooke will be attending the U.S. Naval Academy. Joseph attended Highland High School and graduated from Quince Orchard High School in Maryland, where he was captain of the tennis team, earning a bid to the State tournament, and a member of the National Honor Society. In addition to serving as a leader in his church's youth organization and as a tutor at a local elementary school, Joseph worked as a volunteer and prosthetics intern at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Zachary Kirk Daines will be attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He graduated from Syracuse High School and has been attending the Marion Military Institute to prepare for West Point. Zach is a standout athlete, in football and track and field, as well as an Eagle Scout, a leader in his church's youth organization, secretary of his senior class, and a member of both the Future Business Leaders of America and Health Occupations Students of America. Wyatt Ethan Espell, a North Summit High School graduate, accepted his appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He served as a mayor at Boys State, president of the Future Business Leaders of America, and vice president of Health Occupations Students of America, and he is a member of the National Honor Society. Wyatt played on the football team, wrestled, and ran track and cross country, and he volunteered at the Park City Medical Center. Wyatt spent his summers working with Glaser Land and Livestock. Ian Alexander Hardy will be attending the U.S. Naval Academy after serving for 2 years in Tokyo, Japan, on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He graduated from the Northern Utah Academy for Math, Engineering, and Science where he was captain of the CyberPatriot team. While studying at Weber State University, Ian served as the Ozone Telemetry Specialist for the High Altitude Reconnaissance Balloon for Outreach and Research team. Ian is an Eagle Scout, Boys State attendee, and played on the varsity rugby team. Stephen Hunter Lee, a graduate from the Intermountain Christian School, will be attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. An Eagle Scout, with three Eagle Palms, he served as president of his junior class, editor of the yearbook, and captain of the soccer team. Stephen is a member of the National Honor Society and a scholarship recipient from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge. An avid rock climber, Stephen is active in a local climbing club. Michelle Chanmi Lee will be joining her brother at the Air Force Academy. She attended Northridge High School where she was vice president of the National Honor Society. Michelle challenged herself academically by graduating from the Medicine, Science, and Health Professions Academy, and she was a member of Health Occupations Students of America. Michelle served others in her role as a group leader in her vacation bible study and as a tutor in the Davis School District. She spent several years with her family on the Yongsan Garrison Army Base in South Korea. Angela Ayame Marsh will be attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point after graduating from the American School in Japan, where she served as the student body vice president. She was a member of the varsity debate team and was president of the Shine On Cancer Victims Support Group. A member of the National Honor Society, Angela cofounded and served as president of the Premedical Society and was the grand prizewinner in the poetry slam competition. She participates in CrossFit competitions and runs with the cross-country team. Izaac Adam Polukoff will be attending the Merchant Marine Academy. He graduated from Park City High School and sharpened his academic and military skills at the Milton Academy. He was an Academic All-Star for the Utah High School Hockey League and was captain of his Ultimate Frisbee team. He found many ways to serve others by organizing the Park City Memorial 5K, volunteering with the Kimball Arts Center and with Boston Area Youth At Risk, and participating in the Environmental Club. Izaac is a member of the National Honor Society. Xavier Ray Price will be attending the Air Force Academy. He is a graduate of Judge Memorial Catholic High School where he was captain of both the track and field and the football teams. Xavier's outstanding play on the football field helped his team win two State championships and earned him a spot on the First Team All-State selected by the Salt Lake Tribune. An honor roll student, he also volunteered with the Carmelite Monastery of Salt Lake at their annual Carmelite Fair fundraiser and with the Lady of Lourdes School. Jacob Abraham Rice, from Morgan High School, will be attending the Air Force Academy. An attendee of both Boys State and Boys Nation, he also served as president of the National Honor Society, president of Empowering Youth to Prevent Suicide, and captain of the track and field team. Jacob was cocaptain of his speech and debate team, and in 2015, he was named the Forensics School Sterling Scholar. He used his music skills to play violin for patients at Primary Children's Hospital and the Pine View Transition Rehab Facility. Jacob serves as a board member of the Young Democrats of Utah. Mitchell Charles Weller, a graduate of Layton High School, will be attending the Merchant Marine Academy. He was captain of his soccer team, and he served fellow students as a Layton High School student ambassador. A member of the National Honor Society, Mitchell was involved with the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement organization and served as a group leader for the Technology Student Association, where he excelled in engineering contests at the State level. He also worked diligently to obtain his pilot's license. David Sperry White will be attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. A graduate of Uintah High School, where he served as student body president, David also was vice president of the National Honor Society and captain of the basketball and cross-country teams. He earned his Eagle Scout award and received a scholarship from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge. David was honored to attend Boys State and sit on the Vernal Youth City Council, where he served as president of the Vernal Youth in Action and organized the collection and distribution of 500 blankets for the Women's Shelter and Turning Point Shelter. Autumn Eliza-Anne Wolfgramm, a West High School graduate, accepted an appointment to the Air Force Academy. She served as the student body secretary and captain of the swim team. She was a mentor for the Freshman Mentoring Society and volunteered with the Panther Pals, a service organization working with children with disabilities. She was also a leader in her church's youth program and a member of Health Occupations Students of America. Autumn is fulfilling her grandparents' dream when they emigrated from the Kingdom of Tonga to seek out better educational opportunities for their children. Tyler James Wright will be attending the Air Force Academy. A graduate of Springville High School, Tyler was president of the debate team and Health Occupations Students of America. He was an active member of the track and field team, Model United Nations, Boy Scouts, and the Springville Youth City Council. An avid outdoorsman and reader, Tyler volunteers with Rocky Mountain Rescue Dogs and the Brookside Elementary reading program, as well as local art and air shows. Tyler serves as a cadet in the Civil Air Patrol. It has been an honor and an inspiration to meet and to nominate each of these exemplary young men and women. Doing so has given me an unshakeable confidence in the future of this great Nation and the future of our Armed Services. But to these 14 students and to all their future classmates from around the country, do not forget: this is but the beginning of your journey. You would not have arrived at this point were it not for your hard work and sacrifice. But now what matters most is not your accomplishments of the past, but what you have yet to achieve in the future. Thank you.