Mike Lee

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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, I come to the floor this afternoon to speak in support of my friend Cheryl Marie Stanton, who is well qualified to be the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division within the U.S. Department of Labor. In her previous role as executive director for the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce, she gained valuable experience that will prepare her well for the role she is about to take on within the U.S. Department of Labor. She is also someone who has vast experience in labor and employment law, both in public life and in the private sector. She also served as Associate White House Counsel, as liaison to the Department of Labor. Cheryl currently works at the Social Security Administration as associate to the Chief of Staff. She previously served as the executive director for the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce, to which she was appointed by then-Governor Nikki Haley in 2013. Cheryl is someone I have known for more than 20 years. Like me, Cheryl served as a law clerk to then-Judge Samuel Alito on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Although we never clerked at the same time--she clerked the year before, and I got to know her through mutual friends initially and then got to know her independently through that clerkship experience--she is someone who is well regarded within the Alito chambers as being a hard-working law clerk and someone who everyone enjoyed working with and getting to know. I still remember many years ago, when she was serving at the White House Counsel's Office as Associate Counsel, she took my family and me on a tour of the White House and showed genuine interest in them. This is the kind of person who comes with a lot of academic and professional qualifications. When you add to that this X factor, this intangible factor of being someone who is genuinely interested in people, genuinely interested in their well-being, their welfare, and making sure they are informed and happy, this is exactly the kind of person we would want in a position like this one. Her academic credentials are, of course, impeccable. She received her law degree from the University of Chicago Law School and her undergraduate degree from Williams College. In short, Cheryl Stanton is someone I look forward to voting for and confirming to this position within the Department of Labor. I urge my colleagues to support her nomination. Thank you.

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, this isn't complicated. All we are trying to do here is to say that the United States has and probably should have without interruption an ongoing, special, vitally important trade relationship with the United Kingdom and that the President and the Congress of the United States should work toward an agreement to that end. That isn't rocket science. It is not complicated. It is not even in itself a framework for a specific statute or for a specific trade bill. It is laying out a very broad principle--one that I would hope every one of us would accept and would embrace. We have to remember that one of the reasons we are a country, one of the reasons we don't fly the Union Jack or sing ``God Save the Queen,'' one of the reasons we declared independence nearly two and a half centuries ago has a lot to do with the fact that, as Americans, we understand that what we need access to is not so much proximity to government, proximity to the Crown, as proximity to other people. It is how human thriving occurs. It is how the human condition is able to be elevated. It is a free market system that has elevated more people out of poverty than any government program ever has, ever could, or ever will. Yes, what we need is access to markets. That is part of what prompted the American Revolution, the fact that our merchants, our manufacturers, and our farmers were being excluded from markets and were being discriminated against by the Crown. We understood that would necessarily limit economic mobility within the country and was artificially holding us back. That is why we became our own country. That has a lot to do with why we declared independence. Over time, we have benefited substantially from free markets, from free trade. We have seen the greatest economy--in fact, the greatest civilization the world has ever known--in the United States of America. That occurred not because of a government; it is not a result of who we are; it is a consequence of what we do, the decisions we have made. A lot of those decisions have been based on free markets. With respect to my distinguished colleague, my friend, the Senator from Oregon--with respect to his suggestion that this is somehow weighing in on the merits of a political cause that he might not like in another country, that is really not our business, and this resolution is completely agnostic on that point. This resolution doesn't require us to hold hands with Great Britain. This resolution doesn't require us to say that the United Kingdom can do no wrong. This is not a bill calling for us to make America Great Britain again. No. This is here only to protect and promote free trade because free trade makes us free. Free trade makes us prosperous. We should not walk away from one of the greatest trade partnerships we have on this planet. Thank you. Unanimous Consent Agreement

Mr. LEE. Madam President, as the deadline for Britain's withdrawal from the European Union fast approaches, there is an enormous opportunity before us--an opportunity for free trade with the United Kingdom. Such an agreement would provide tremendous economic and trade benefits to both nations and would strengthen and preserve our special relationship. As this deadline approaches, the United States should stand ready and willing to negotiate a free-trade agreement with Britain, which is the purpose of the resolution before us today. This resolution simply declares that it is the sense of the Senate that, one, the United States has and should have a close and special relationship--one that is mutually beneficial as a trade partnership and otherwise--with the United Kingdom and that that relationship should continue without interruption; and two, that the President, with the support of Congress, should lay the groundwork for a future trade agreement with the UK. Some of my colleagues have raised objections to it. Some have objected, for example, that this resolution didn't go through the Senate Finance Committee. First, it is important to point out here that the vast majority of resolutions expressing a sense of the Senate normally don't go through the committee process at all. Second, a straightforward assertion of friendship, of support, and of economic partnership with one of our oldest and closest allies is not by its nature and should never be controversial. Others have claimed that the point of this measure is somehow to lambast the EU. This misses the point entirely, which is simply to preserve a unique and important alliance and promote America's economic interests. Others have said that by encouraging a free-trade agreement with Britain, we would be ``picking sides'' or somehow affirming Brexit. Significantly, however, this resolution says precisely nothing about whether Brexit should or should not happen. That decision is up to the British people. But it is up to us to decide whether to stand with Britain--the nation that has been one of our greatest partners, not only in trade but also in the fight for freedom, peace, and prosperity throughout the world. We should stand with the UK and strengthen this special partnership by supporting this resolution today. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 137, submitted earlier today. I further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate recess from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. today.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, for the last 3 years, the world has watched with rapt attention as the United Kingdom has debated and negotiated that country's exit from the European Union after the historic Brexit vote in June of 2016. There have been multiple deals proposed since then, and now the deadline for withdrawal fast approaches this Friday. As the special ally of Britain for a very long time--a very close ally for well over 100 years--this is and it ought properly be of great interest to us in the United States of America. Throughout times of change and tumult, the UK has been one of our staunchest and most loyal allies. We stood beside each other through two world wars and throughout the Cold War. Now, in the 21st century, the United States and the United Kingdom have become even stronger friends and partners, both in the fight against global terrorism and for freedom, peace, and prosperity. The United Kingdom, significantly, is the seventh largest trading partner the United States has. In 2017 alone, we are talking about $232 billion in goods that were traded between our two countries. Now, Britain's impending exit from the European Union presents an enormous opportunity to strengthen and to preserve our special relationship. As the Brexit deadline approaches, the United States should stand ready and willing to negotiate a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom, which is the purpose of the resolution that I want to bring before this body today. Prior to this, we haven't been able to have true free trade with Britain, precisely because the UK was a member of the EU and, therefore, had to play by its rules. Yet once the UK leaves, it will reclaim the authority to make its own trade agreements, opening up a window of opportunity for genuine, bilateral free trade with our own country. Such an agreement would advance prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic as an engine of economic liberty. This resolution--the one I would like to bring up and plan to bring up either later today or Monday, based on the schedule I am trying to negotiate with Senator Wyden--is a good deal. It is a good deal for the United States and for the United Kingdom. I think it is such a no- brainer, in fact, that most Americans would probably be surprised to find out that we don't already have a free trade agreement with our friends on the other side of the pond. Yet there are some objections to this resolution. Some of my colleagues have argued that by encouraging a free trade agreement with Britain, we would somehow be meddling in this affair or picking sides, or that we would somehow be affirming Brexit. Yet this resolution that I want to offer and am suggesting that we call up and pass by unanimous consent, itself, says nothing about whether or not Brexit should or should not happen--not at all. That is not a decision that belongs to this body, and it is not a decision that I am even suggesting that this body make. It is not ours to make. It is a decision for the British people to make--the people of the United Kingdom--and they, of course, have made it. They have decided to stand on their own. We should stand with them just as they have stood beside us in conflict after conflict, in cause after cause, defending the dignity of the immortal human soul and the cause of freedom throughout the world. Others have claimed that the point of this measure is somehow to lambaste the EU, but this, too, badly misses the point, which is simply to preserve a unique and important alliance and to promote America's interests in the world. Finally, some have suggested that this resolution that I want to propose and call up and pass before this body did not go through the Finance Committee. First of all, this is not a complicated resolution. It is simple. It is a straightforward, 2-page resolution declaring the sense of the Senate that No. 1, the United States has and should have a close, mutually beneficial trading and economic partnership with the United Kingdom without interruption and, No. 2, that the President, with the support of Congress, should lay the groundwork for a future trade agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom. Also, the vast majority of resolutions that simply specify a general sense of the Senate do not normally go through the full-blown legislative committee process. A straightforward assertion of friendship, support, and economic partnership with one of our oldest and closest allies in the world should not be controversial--not in the least. America's special relationship with the United Kingdom is special because we make it so--our two peoples, our two governments. It is not our job to decide whether or not the UK stays in the EU. It is up to the British people to decide whether to stick with the EU or not. It is up to us to decide whether we stick with the British, and we should. We should do that by supporting this resolution today. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, fear has become an all too prevalent quality in America's political discourse, and, unfortunately, fear is unavoidable when debating the substance of the resolution before this body today; that is, climate change, socialism, and the Green New Deal. On entering this debate, I have a little fear in my heart as well. My fear at this moment may be just a little different than that of some of my colleagues. Unlike some of my colleagues, I am not immediately afraid of what carbon emissions unaddressed might do to our environment in the near term future or our civilization or our planet in the next few years. Unlike others, I am not immediately afraid of what the Green New Deal will do to our economy and our government. After all, this isn't going to pass--not today, not anytime soon, certainly. Rather, after reading the Green New Deal, I am mostly afraid of not being able to get through this speech with a straight face. I rise today to consider the Green New Deal with the seriousness it deserves. This is, of course, a picture of former President Ronald Reagan naturally firing a machine gun while riding on the back of a dinosaur. You will notice a couple of important features here. First of all, the rocket launcher is strapped to President Reagan's back, and then the stirring unmistakable patriotism of the velociraptor holding up a tattered American flag, a symbol of all it means to be an American. Now, critics might quibble with this depiction of the climactic battle of the Cold War because, while awesome, in real life there was no climactic battle. There was no battle with or without velociraptors. The Cold War, as we all know, was won without firing a shot. But that quibble actually serves our purposes here today because this image has as much to do with overcoming communism in the 20th century as the Green New Deal has to do with overcoming climate change in the 21st century. The aspirations of the proposal have been called radical. They have been called extreme, but, mostly, they are ridiculous. There isn't a single serious idea here--not one. To illustrate, let me highlight two of the most prominent goals produced by the plan's authors. Goal No. 1, the Green New Deal calls essentially for the elimination of airplanes. Now, this might seem merely ambitious for politicians who represent the densely populated northeastern United States, but how is it supposed to work for our fellow citizens who don't live somewhere between Washington, DC, and Boston? In a future without air travel, how are we supposed to get around the vast expanses of, say, Alaska during the winter? Well, I will tell you how. Tauntauns is that beloved species of reptile mammals native to the ice planet of Hoth. Now, while perhaps not as efficient in some ways as airplanes or as snowmobiles, these hairy bipedal species of space lizards offer their own unique benefits. Not only are tauntauns carbon neutral, but according to a report a long time ago and issued far, far away, they may even be fully recyclable and useable for their warmth, especially on a cold night. What about Hawaii? Isolated, 2,000 miles out into the Pacific Ocean, under the Green New Deal's effective airplane prohibition, how are people there supposed to get to and from the mainland and how are they supposed to maintain that significant portion of their economy that is based on tourism? At that distance, swimming would, of course, be out of the question, and jet skis are notorious gas guzzlers. No, all residents of Hawaii would be left with is this. This is a picture of Aquaman, a superhero from the undersea kingdom of Atlantis but, notably here, a founding member of the Super Friends. I draw your attention to the 20-foot impressive seahorse he is riding. Under the Green New Deal, this is probably Hawaii's best bet. Now, I am the first to admit that a massive fleet of giant, highly trained seahorses would be cool and it would be really, really awesome, but we have to consider a few things. We have no idea about scalability or domestic capacity in this sector. The last thing we want is to ban all airplanes and only then find out that China or Russia may have already established strategic hippocampus programs designed to cut the United States out of the global market. We must not allow and cannot tolerate a giant seahorse gap. For goal No. 2, the Green New Deal anticipates the elimination of all cows. Talking points released by the sponsors of the resolution the day it was introduced cited the goal of ``fully get[ting] rid of''--and I will paraphrase a little bit here--``[flatulating] cows.'' Now, I share their concern, but honestly, I think you have to remember that if the cows smell bad, just wait until they get a whiff of the seahorses. Back to the cattle, I have a chart to illustrate this trend. As you can see on the left, these little cows represent the bovine population of America today. On the right is the future population under the Green New Deal. We would go from about 94 million cows to zero cows--no more milk, no more cheese, no more steak, and no more hamburgers. Over the State work period last week, I visited some farms to find out for myself what Utah's own bovine community might think about the Green New Deal. Every cow I spoke to said the same thing: Boo. The authors of this proposal would protest that these goals are not actually part of the Green New Deal but were merely included in supporting documents accidentally sent out by the office of the lead sponsor in the House of Representatives. This only makes my point. The supporters of the Green New Deal want Americans to trust them to reorganize our entire society and our entire economy, to restructure our very way of life, and they couldn't even figure out how to send out the right press release. The Green New Deal is not a serious policy document because it is not a policy document at all; it is, in fact, an aesthetic one. The resolution is not an agenda of solutions; it is a token of elite tribal identity, and endorsing it, a public act of piety for the chic and woke. And on those embarrassing terms, it is already a resounding success. As Speaker Pelosi herself put it, ``The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they're for it, right?'' Right. Critics will no doubt chastise me for not taking climate change seriously, but, please, nothing could be further from the truth. No Utahn needs to hear pious lectures about the gravity of climate change from politicians from other States, for it was only in 2016, as viewers of the Syfy network will well remember, when climate change hit home in Utah, when our own State was struck not simply by a tornado but by a tornado with sharks in it. These images are from the indispensable documentary film ``Sharknado 4.'' They captured the precise moment when one of the tornado sharks crashed through the window of Utah's Governor, Gary Herbert. A true Utah hero and a fine American, Governor Herbert--who, by the way, is an incredible athlete and expert tennis player--bravely fought off the animal with the tennis racket that he keeps by his desk precisely for occasions such as these. So let's be real clear. Climate change is no joke, but the Green New Deal is a joke. It is the legislative equivalent of Austin Powers' Dr. Evil demanding sharks with ``frickin' lasers'' on their heads. The Green New Deal is not the solution to climate change. It is not even part of the solution. In fact, it is part of the problem. The solution to climate change won't be found in political posturing or virtue signaling like this. It won't be found in the Federal Government at all. Do you know where the solution can be found? In churches, in wedding chapels, and in maternity wards across the country and around the world. This is the real solution to climate change: babies. Climate change is an engineering problem--not social engineering but the real kind. It is a challenge of creativity, ingenuity, and most of all, technical innovation. Problems of human imagination are not solved by more laws; they are solved by more humans, more people, meaning bigger markets for innovation. More babies will mean more forward- looking adults, the sort we need to tackle long-term, large-scale problems. American babies in particular are likely going to be wealthier, better educated, and more conservation-minded than children raised in still industrializing countries. As economist Tyler Cowen recently wrote on this very point, addressing this very topic, ``by having more children, you are making your nation more populous--thus boosting its capacity to solve [climate change].'' Finally, children are a mark of the kind of personal, communal, and societal optimism that is the true prerequisite for meeting national and global challenges together. The courage needed to solve climate change is nothing compared with the courage needed to start a family. The true heroes of this story aren't politicians, and they aren't social media activists; they are moms and dads and the little boys and girls whom they are at this very moment putting down for naps or helping with their homework, building tree houses, and teaching them how to tie their shoes. The planet does not need for us to think globally and act locally so much as it needs us to think family and act personally. The solution to climate change is not this unserious resolution that we are considering this week in the Senate but, rather, the serious business of human flourishing. The solution to so many of our problems at all times and in all places is to fall in love, get married, and have some kids. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, significant, the very first clause of the very first section of the very first article of the Constitution consists of the words ``all legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and the House of Representatives.'' The Founding Fathers wasted no time in getting right to the heart of the matter, which is to say that the legislative powers within the Federal Government--that is, the power to make law within that Federal system--would themselves be exercised only by the branch of that government most accountable to the people at the most regular routine intervals. This system of government, of course, involved three branches--one that would make the law, one that would enforce the law, and one that would interpret the law. That system of government relied, necessarily, and quite appropriately, on the fact that each branch of government would operate within its domain and would jealously guard the powers reserved to it, neither exceeding the powers granted it, nor accepting a diminution of those powers. It is with that topic in mind that I rise today, reluctantly, in support of the resolution before us. When I speak--and some of my colleagues might even say nag--about our constitutional framework, when I insist that every word, every clause, and every principle does, in fact, matter, that we take oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States--we do so, in fact, right here on these very steps in this very Chamber when we start each term of office--we are dutybound to adhere both to the letter and to the spirit of that document, and we should do everything we can to avoid straying from it. When I say some of these things, I am sometimes accused by some of naivete. I am told the old ``Schoolhouse Rock'' version of how a bill becomes a law works in theory, sounds nice in theory, but it is somehow passe in a vast, diverse, continental nation including about 230 million people today. I am told that given the responsibilities of the United States as now a vast, global, and economic power and Congress's inability to get things done, we have no choice but to accept and even encourage a system of government in which we are relegated to the backseat, to the backseat of the very things we were supposed to be doing in the first place, which is passing law, which is setting policy within the Federal Government. This faux sophisticated analysis gets things exactly backward. It is the advocates of Executive overreach and judicial supremacy who are naive. They believe that given our Nation's size and diversity, only centralized government can rise above partisan, ideological, regional, practical differences, and unite us behind one policy, but this function now strangling this city and strangling this body, toxifying our political discourse, is directly related to this relentless march toward centralization. We think, somehow, that by pulling power into Washington and within Washington to the less-accountable branches of the government--that is, to the other two branches that are not this branch--we are governing. No, that is not governing. It is ruling. With centralization, we empower and enrich the political and corporate classes at the expense of the working and middle classes. Centralization is not unity. It is surrender--surrender to exactly the kind of monarchical and abusive sort of government our Founding Fathers were trying to protect us from. Political elites often reassure us and reassure each other that these deviations from constitutional norms are somehow victimless endeavors. No one cares about the process, they insist, but the Constitution is all process. That is the whole point is process. The Constitution doesn't resolve our political differences. It lays out the processes by which we are to resolve them. Brushing that process aside does not override our disagreement. It intensifies them. It escalates them-- ratcheting up our politics into an all-consuming war of outrage and contempt. My Democratic colleagues, some of them, at least, would have us believe this vote is about President Trump and President Trump alone. It is not. It is about much more than him. It is about much more than them. It is liberal elites' cult-like zeal for centralized power and their furious entitlement to wielding it that has led us to this very vote. Now, I am not sure the Democratic Party cares immensely, as an institution, about Presidential overreach. I will leave that to them to decide and to exhibit. Some simply believe that abuse of constitutional power should be a one-way street. In many instances, we have had Members of this body support previous Presidents of both political parties in engaging in acts of overreach. The real source of outrage here is not constitutionally mandated procedure but simply that we, as an institution, have voluntarily surrendered--we have relinquished our legislative power. In this instance, this happens to be an exercise of power in an area in which many on the other side of the political aisle happen to disagree. To make clear, a border fence--a border barrier is a policy I support wholeheartedly and unequivocally. I agree with the need to secure our border. I agree with the President that there is a crisis unfolding on our border endangering men and women and children and endangering many of those who were most affected by the communities who are themselves in the direct path of these caravans. I support a border wall, and I encourage full congressional funding for it. I think it is a tragedy and really something of an outrage that we haven't done that as a Congress. I support workplace enforcement of immigration laws. I support a biometric entry-exit system. I support the President's new ``Remain in Mexico'' policy that would keep asylum seekers south of the border while they await processing if they come from a noncontiguous country. I support the President's calling up military Reservists to support border agents in their dangerous and underappreciated work. I support the President's invocation of 10 USC section 284(b)(7), which unequivocally authorizes him, in certain instances, relevant here and present here, to authorize funding for the construction of a fence along international boundaries as a means of combating the illegal international drug trade. I support the President's use of up to $601 million from the Treasury Forfeiture Fund and $2.5 billion from the 284 fund I mentioned a minute ago, and I support the administration's work, on a diplomatic level, with Mexico to reduce the flow of migrants to the United States. I have supported all of these things in this administration, and I have for years--during this administration and prior to that--and I will continue to support these policies. An emergency declaration, in accordance with the National Emergencies Act, in this instance, is different. The White House is asserting authority to spend money on projects and priorities in a manner not themselves directly authorized by Congress. Congress directly refused a request to appropriate the specific amount of funds we are dealing with. At the end of the day, it is not the White House, it is not this President, it is not other Presidents who are at fault for this; it is, in fact, Congress. Congress was the institution that chose voluntarily to relinquish this power. Congress, as an institution, adopted and enacted legislation that was so broad as to take basically all the guardrails off the legislative process. Congress, as an institution, in 1976, adopted the National Emergencies Act and said the President may declare an emergency with almost no standards, and then, once a President declares an emergency, there are some estimated 128 different provisions of law that can be looped in and made effective as a result of the declaration of that emergency. At the time Congress did this, Congress left its foot in the door, saying that Congress unilaterally could veto the President's actions by passing a concurrent resolution not itself subject to Presidential veto. For reasons having to do with a subsequent Supreme Court ruling that occurred 7 years after the enactment of the National Emergencies Act in 1983, a case called INS v. Chadha--a case, coincidentally, argued by my late father. If he were here today, perhaps I would half- jokingly acknowledge that maybe he is in some ways to blame for this. After the Supreme Court concluded in INS v. Chadha that the legislative veto was unconstitutional, Congress went through and systematically removed, from about 450 statutes, the legislative veto provisions, replaced them with resolutions of disapproval, replaced them with a procedural mechanism whereby Congress may signal its disapproval, but that disapproval is still subject to signature or veto by the President. This is where we have a problem because that converts, effectively, legislative power by handing it over to the Executive and then leaves the Congress without an opportunity to signal how it feels about this beyond adopting a resolution of disapproval, which is itself subject to a Presidential veto. That is why I am concerned about this. I have concerns about this legal framework. This is not about the President. This is not about my disagreement with or disapproval of the President or his approach to border security or his desire to build a barrier along our southern border. I think all those things need to happen. This law is wrong. It is not President Trump's fault. It is Congress's. We need to change it. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reform the National Emergencies Act. We need to get this done. This is an issue that is neither Republican nor Democratic, neither liberal nor conservative. It is simply an American issue. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Yes, sir.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration of S.J. Res. 7 and that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S.J. Res. 7. I further ask that there be 2 hours of debate, equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, with 10 minutes of the Democratic time being reserved for Senator Menendez; further, that the following amendments be called up and reported by number, Paul amendment No. 193, Inhofe amendment No. 194, and Rubio amendment No. 195; further, that no other first-degree amendments be in order and no second-degree amendments be in order prior to a vote in relation to these amendments; finally, that upon the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed and that following the disposition of the amendments, the joint resolution, as amended, if amended, be read a third time and the Senate vote on passage of the joint resolution as amended, if amended, with 2 minutes equally divided prior to each vote.

Mr. LEE. I yield back time.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Menendez's time be reserved; that all other remaining time be yielded back; and that the Senate begin voting on the amendments, as under the previous order.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I want to be very clear about a couple of things. No. 1, the fact that the word ``hostilities''--

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I need to make a few points, and I say these with great respect for my distinguished colleagues on the other side of this issue, with great respect for my colleagues, the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from Idaho, from whom we just heard. I must nonetheless insist on a couple of points being made. No. 1, this tortured definition of the word ``hostilities'' that we have heard over and over and over again is itself, No. 1, ridiculous and, No. 2, utterly at odds with and irrelevant under the War Powers Act. The War Powers Act itself, in title 50 of the United States Code, section 1547(c), states in pertinent part that ``For purposes of this chapter, the term `introduction of United States Armed Forces' includes the assignment of members of such armed forces to command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany the regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country or government when such military forces are engaged, or there exists an imminent threat that such forces will be engaged, in hostilities.'' There is absolutely no question here that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia-led coalition is involved in hostilities. No one doubts that. No one tries to dress it up in ridiculous language amounting to anything other than what it is, which is a war. It is also beyond dispute that our U.S. Armed Forces are, in fact, involved in the commanding, the coordinating, the participating in the movement of and the accompanying of those forces, as they themselves are engaged in hostilities. Therefore, the War Powers Act is itself implicated, and that matters. Why? Well, because in the absence of an act of Congress authorizing this, it is unconstitutional for us to send our brave young men and women into harm's way. It is unconstitutional and unlawful for us to be involved in a war, and, make no mistake, we are involved in a war. Next, we hear a lot about Iran--Iran this and Iran that. I get that. I get that some people in this Chamber really like war or at least really like this war. I get that some people in this Chamber really distrust the regime in Iran, and of that latter group, I count myself among them. The regime in charge of Iran is not a friend of the United States and is, in fact, an enemy. I do not understand--for the life of me, I cannot comprehend how the fact that the Iranian regime is an enemy to the United States in any way, shape, or form authorizes an unconstitutional war effort, an undeclared war by the United States in a civil war half a world away in Yemen. It makes no sense. It is a complete non sequitur. So, look, if somebody wants to bring a resolution declaring war on Iran, let's have that conversation. If somebody wants to use military force in Iran or anywhere else in the world--in Yemen--let's have that conversation too. Remember a few years ago, when President Obama decided he wanted us to go to war in Syria. At the time he made that point, Congress reconvened. I believe it was during a summer recess. Congress came back. We had a lot of discussions. A lot of us received classified briefings in the SCIF, and, ultimately, Congress concluded: Let's not do that. We didn't authorize that, but that is, in fact, for Congress to decide. That is, in fact, Congress's decision. The fact that Iran or the regime of Iran may be an enemy of the United States does not justify our going to war in a civil war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. To suggest otherwise makes no sense and shouldn't carry the day here. Third, experts--we hear a lot of talk about ``experts.'' I don't care whether general this, that, or the other or civilian this, that, or the other in the Pentagon or elsewhere in the executive branch of the government thinks that our going to war in somebody else's civil war half a world away makes sense. I really don't care. They don't hold this office. I care in the sense that I will listen to them; I care in the sense that their opinion might be informative to us as we exercise our constitutional authority to decide whether we should go to war. But it is a complete non sequitur to suggest that general this, that, or the other or somebody or other at the Pentagon who is an ``expert'' thinks that we should be in that war or that we should somehow be able to circumvent the Constitution and the law in order to go to war. Finally, with respect to the suggestion that this would somehow hinder our involvement in international humanitarian aid, that is completely incorrect. That is not at all what this resolution does. This resolution wouldn't do that. What this resolution does is very simple. It says that short of the U.S. Congress's declaring war or authorizing the use of military force in the civil war in Yemen, half a world away, we shouldn't be there, and we should get out. I strongly urge my colleagues to support this resolution. Thank you.

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I stand with Senator Sanders and with Senator Murphy as a cosponsor of the legislation before us, S.J. Res. 7, which would remove U.S. Armed Forces from Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen. There were 56 Senators who voted in favor of this resolution just a few months ago, in December, or at the end of the last Congress. That vote was, of course, a victory for the Constitution and for the separation of powers, to say nothing of prudence, of peace, and of justice. The House of Representatives passed its own version of this resolution earlier this year. Now it is back to us. Now it is our turn. Now it is our job to get this passed. We have the opportunity today to reassert Congress's constitutional role over declaring war and over putting American blood and treasure on the line. In this particular case, the evidence is clear that we ought not be involved in this unconstitutional, unjustified, and, ultimately, immoral war. The Yemeni war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, including those of countless innocent civilians. It has created countless refugees, orphans, widows, and it has also displaced countless families. The numbers are nothing short of staggering. Since 2015, more than 6,000 civilians have died, and more than 10,000 have been wounded. The majority of these casualties--over 10,000 of them--has been as the result of airstrikes led by the Saudi-led coalition. In one attack last year, the Saudis dropped a U.S.-made bomb on a schoolbus that killed 40 young children on a school trip and wounded another 30 children in addition to that. Yemen is now facing rampant disease and mass starvation. An estimated 15 million people do not have access to clean water and sanitation, and 17 million don't have access to food. Photographs from Yemen depict malnourished children who have every rib in their tiny bodies exposed and jetting out as manifestations of their starvation. Over 85,000 children have died of starvation since 2015. In short, the situation in Yemen has become the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, and the United States has been abating the horrors of this war. Indeed, our country has actually made the crisis worse by helping one side bomb innocent civilians. I don't say that lightly. It is with great soberness that I raise this very real and very serious accusation. So it begs the question: How did we get entangled in this crisis to begin with? How did we get involved? Why and how and under what circumstances did this become our war to fight? In March of 2015, Saudi Arabia launched a war against the Houthi rebels. Shortly after the Houthis ousted the Saudi-backed government in the capital city of Sanaa, the Obama administration--without consulting Congress, of course--authorized U.S. military forces to provide logistical and intelligence support to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting that war. U.S. military support has continued ever since then, for the last 4 years, including with midair refueling, surveillance, reconnaissance information, and target selection assistance. In other words, we have been supporting and, in fact, have been actively participating in the activities of war. We are involved in this conflict as, no less, cobelligerents. Some of my colleagues have argued to the contrary and have suggested that we are somehow not involved in this war in Yemen. Yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we know that isn't true. We know that this argument falls dead flat on its face. As Defense Secretary Jim Mattis himself acknowledged in December of 2017, just a little over a year ago, our military has been helping the Saudis with target selection assistance or with ``making certain they hit the right thing.'' In other words, we are helping a foreign power bomb its adversaries in what is, undoubtedly, indisputably, a war. Previously, we were helping them even with midair refueling assistance--that is, helping Saudi jets that were en route to bombing missions and other combat missions on the ground inside of Yemen. If that doesn't constitute direct involvement in a war, I don't know what does. Other opponents of our resolution claim somehow that our involvement in Yemen is constitutional, that it is lawful under the War Powers Act of 1973. It is true that under the War Powers Act, the executive branch is authorized to use Armed Forces in cases of emergencies and in other certain, rigid, well-established time constraints. Yet, you see, the conflict in Yemen does not constitute a threat to the safety of American citizens, and our involvement has far surpassed any emergency time allotted under the War Powers Resolution. The Houthis, while, perhaps, no friends of the American people, make up a regional rebel group that does not itself threaten American national security. In fact, the longer we fight against it, the more we give reason to it to hate America and to embrace the opportunists who are our true enemies in the region--those who make up the regime in power in Iran. The more we prolong the activities that destabilize this region, the longer we harm our own interests in terms of trade and broader regional security. The War Powers Act also states that the assignment of U.S. Armed Forces to coordinate and to participate in the hostilities of a foreign power, of a foreign country, itself constitutes a conflict of war. Some have argued that we have not been engaging in hostilities and, therefore, somehow, have not violated the War Powers Act. This claim falls flat in several respects. First, the claim itself is categorically untrue. As we heard before, we are literally telling the Saudis what to bomb, what to hit, and what and whom to take out. Second, these opponents are relying on an old, 1976 memorandum that is internal to the executive branch and internal to the Department of Defense itself that was written by a lawyer within the Department of Defense. Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse. It defers to a Department of Defense lawyer's memorandum from 1976 that uses an unreasonably, unsustainably, indefensibly slim definition of the word ``hostilities.'' This definition may or may not have been relevant then. I don't know. I was only 5 years old at the time it was written. Yet we no longer live in a world in which ``war'' means exclusively two competing countries that are lined up on opposite ends of the battlefield, in two columns, and that are engaged in direct exchanges of fire across the same ground. That is not how war is waged anymore. War activities, of course, have changed dramatically since 1976. Like bell-bottoms and so many fads of that era, this is a dynamic that has changed today. Our war in today's America increasingly relies on high technology and on high-technology solutions. Our wars have involved cyber activity, reconnaissance, surveillance, and high-tech target selection. These, by the way, are the precise activities that we ourselves are undertaking in Yemen. It is not just that we are involved somehow on the sidelines. These activities themselves constitute war. Even aside from this overly narrow, cramped, and indefensible definition of the word ``hostilities'' and separate and apart from the definition of the word ``hostilities,'' under the War Powers Act, we ourselves do not have to technically be involved in hostilities in order to trigger the responsibilities of the Congress under the War Powers Act in order to make sure that the legislative branch actually does its job to declare war or to authorize the use of military force under the War Powers Act and under the Constitution. The War Powers Act, in fact, is triggered so long as we are sufficiently involved with the armed forces of another nation when those armed forces of another nation are themselves involved in hostilities, which they indisputably are. The Saudi-led coalition directing the activities in the civil war in Yemen against the Houthis is undeniably involved in hostilities. We are undeniably assisting the coalition in those movements, in those activities, in those acts of war. We, therefore, by definition under the plain language of the War Powers Act itself, are subjected to the terms of the War Powers Act. The Saudis are, without question, involved in those hostilities. We can't doubt that. No one here can credibly claim to the contrary. Finally, some argue that this resolution might somehow harm or undermine or hurt our efforts to combat terrorism in the region specifically with regard to al-Qaida and ISIS. Importantly, however, this resolution explicitly states that the resolution would not impede the military's ability to fight these terror groups. In fact, U.S. involvement in Yemen has, arguably, undermined the effort against al- Qaida's affiliates. The State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism for 2016 found that the conflict between the Saudi-led forces and Houthi insurgents has actually helped al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, as it is often described, and ISIS' Yemen branch to ``deepen their inroads across much of the country.'' It appears that our involvement in Yemen accomplishes no good at all, only harm--and significant harm at that. Recent events are bringing that into an even clearer light. In October, there was the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Then, just the week before last, news broke that the Saudis tortured a man while he was detained there in 2017. He had dual citizenship in the United States and Saudi Arabia. Shortly before that, a report also came out that suggested that Saudi Arabia had transferred American-made, American-manufactured weapons to al-Qaida-linked fighters and to other militant groups. In other words, the Saudis are likely using our own weapons in violation of our own end-user agreements with them, by the way, to commit these atrocities of war. That is not OK. It is becoming clearer and clearer that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not an ally that deserves our unwavering, unquestioning, unflinching support. It is not an ally that deserves our support or our military intervention, especially when our own security--the safety of the American people--is not on the line, and I haven't heard anyone in this body maintain otherwise. Indeed, perhaps we ought not be supporting this regime at all. At a bare minimum, we ought not be deferring unflinchingly to this regime, and we ought not be fighting an unjust war on its behalf half a world away, putting at risk not only U.S. treasure but also, potentially, U.S. blood and the blood of countless innocent civilians who are in the line of fire as a result of this. To the contrary, to continue supporting them in this war would be bad diplomacy and would undermine our very credibility on the world stage. Look, regardless of where you stand on this war, these decisions matter, and we ought to take them seriously. In fact, each and every one of us has sworn an oath to take things like this seriously. The Constitution puts the war-making power--the power to declare war--in the hands of Congress. There was a good reason for this. It has everything to do with the fact that Congress is the branch of the Federal Government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals, and our Founding Fathers wisely understood that it was dangerous to allow the powers of government to accumulate in the hands of the few or in the hands of one person. One of the reasons they put the war-making power in the hands of Congress is they wanted to make a strong break away from the system that had evolved in our old system of government, the one involved in our old capital based in London, where the chief executive himself had the power unilaterally to make war. This was a decided break from that tradition. There were other traditions that we continued, that we adopted. Many of our rights, our liberties, our processes in government were patterned after the British model. This one was not. It was deliberately the choice of the Founding Fathers not to continue with that tradition, and that is why we and only we can declare war. You see, it is not that we are flawless. It is not that we are any smarter than people in other branches. Quite to the contrary, it has only to do--and everything to do--with the fact that we are more accountable to the people at more routine intervals. When you put the power to declare war or authorize the use of military force in Congress, you guarantee that this decision will be made carefully and deliberately in full view of the American people. Public debates have a way of bringing the American people into the discussion, into the deliberation. You see, there is no such thing as a clean war. There is no such thing as a war that is detached from moral peril, from moral consequences, from grave and heartbreaking results in which innocent men, women, and children lose their lives or are subjected to the worst privations known to human beings. It is for that very reason that we owe it to those affected by war-- not just the brave men and women who fight for us and protect us but for people all over the world and for the good name of the United States to be protected--that as we publicly debate the moral consequences of war, the grave implications that war has for our country and others involved in the conflict are the business of all of the American people and should never be reserved for one person. We need to carefully weigh the risks and merits of engaging in any conflict in an open and in an honest manner. So instead of placing this power in the hands of a King or even just in the executive branch generally where it can be used unilaterally to declare war, the Founders placed it here in Congress, knowing that we are more accountable to the people than the other branches, and the power would be less likely to be abused here. There is a lot at stake. There is a lot at stake whenever the lives of American military personnel are placed on the line and whenever the lives of innocent men, women, and children are on the line, too-- precious lives, each of immeasurable worth. These decisions result in the shedding of blood, the shedding of blood that will be on our hands if we fail both to exercise our constitutional prerogatives and to take that very responsibility very seriously. Over the last 80 years, we have tragically seen what happens when the muscle of the legislative branch begins to atrophy as a result of the failure of those who occupy these very seats to exercise their legislative muscle. When we fail to exercise that power that the Constitution entrusts to us, entrusted to us in that document to which each of us has taken an oath, we imperil the entire system and the safety of our country. We also cheapen the moral certainty with which our Armed Forces need to be able to proceed in order to make what they do right and legally and morally justifiable. So today, I respectfully and with all the passion and energy I am capable of communicating urge my colleagues once again to vote to end our involvement in this unauthorized, unjustified, unconstitutional, and immoral war.

Mr. LEE

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

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 187 to amendment No. 112.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, a little over a month ago, I stood before this body to object to the massive public lands package that it was poised to pass. This bill, some 680 pages long, was released at 10 a.m. that morning--that very morning when they first wanted us to pass this. My staff and I had not seen it beforehand, and we had been given no time to read it. This is, of course, really bad process--terrible process. This is not the way legislation should be written. It is not the way legislation should be debated. It is, of course, never ever the way legislation should be passed. In addition to the bad process, I objected at the time because I suspected that it also contained bad policy--bad policy that would disproportionately and negatively affect my State of Utah. Now we find ourselves today, more than a month later, at a moment at which we are considering the bill. During that time period, I have, of course, had time to read the bill. Unfortunately, those suspicions that I had about the bill have since been confirmed. This bill perpetuates a terrible standard for Federal land policy in the West, particularly for the State of Utah. To give one some background, the Federal Government owns more than 640 million acres of land. This is a staggering amount of real estate-- an amount of land that in its totality is larger than the entireties of France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands combined--all of them. I don't mean the national parks of those lands combined. I don't mean the government lands owned by those respective nations. I mean the entirety of those countries combined. That is how much land the Federal Government owns just within the United States. That is a problem, especially because of the way it is distributed. Do you see this? Federal public land is not distributed evenly across the entire country. It is distributed in such a way that the West bears a disproportionate burden. In fact, my home State of Utah is a place that itself bears a disproportionate burden, a disproportionate share of that land, with two-thirds of the land being owned by the Federal Government. You will see, on this map, we have Federal land marked in red, and land that is not owned by the Federal Government is marked in white. You will see there is a big difference, as you move from west to east, in the amount of Federal land that exists. I remember when Eliza, my daughter, was about 8 years old. It was the first time I ever showed her this map. As best I could, I explained it to her, an 8-year-old. At the time, she looked at the map and said: Look, Daddy. They own Utah. I said: Yes, Eliza, you're right. They own Utah. In every State east of Colorado, the Federal Government owns less than 15 percent of the land. In many of those States, it is in the low single digits as a percentage of the total land in a State that is owned by the Federal Government. In Colorado or in every State west of Colorado, the Federal Government owns at least 15 percent of the land, and in many of the States, like mine, it is a lot, lot more than that. This is, of course, an enormous amount of land. Make no mistake--it imposes an enormous burden on my State. In light of this, what are my objections to this bill? Well, there are a few. First, this bill permanently reauthorizes something called the Land and Water Conservation Fund, or the LWCF, as it is sometimes abbreviated. Passed in 1964 by Congress, the LWCF was enacted to promote and preserve access to recreation opportunities on public land--to promote and preserve access to recreation opportunities. This is an admirable and worthy goal, so the fund was set up to be the principal source of money for new Federal land acquisition and to assist the States in developing recreation opportunities. As originally conceived and passed by Congress, it directed 60 percent of its funds to be appropriated for State purposes and 40 percent for Federal purposes. Unfortunately, the program has since drifted from its original intent and from its original wording, and it has been a program that has been rife with abuse. I understand that in some States, people like it, and I understand that in some States, this is a program that is well regarded. It is not the case in every State. To be clear, in 1976, the law was amended, and it was amended to remove that 60-percent State provision, stating simply that not less than 40 percent must be used for Federal purposes. Then it was silent on whether a State would, in fact, receive a penny. The result? Well, it has been used for more Federal land acquisition than to actually care for, access, and manage the land that we already have, and 61 percent of funds have historically been used for acquisition, compared to the 25 percent that has historically been allocated to State grants. So millions of acres of land have been added to the Federal Government's already vast estate solely through the LWCF program. Not surprisingly, the Federal Government has not always been a good steward of this land, and that is putting it mildly. Look, the sheer magnitude of unfunded needs on Federal lands is itself staggering. Now, this shouldn't be surprising. The Federal Government is run by human beings, and the Federal Government owns an enormous amount of land--a staggering amount of land. So for any one entity to own and manage that much land is going to be a daunting task, and I am not just talking here about neglect of garden variety BLM lands--those managed by the Bureau of Land Management or one of the other land management agencies of the Federal Government. A lot of those lands that comprise what we might describe as the crown jewels, even of our National Park System-- those parts of the Federal public lands that the American people know and enjoy the most and identify most closely with what they like about Federal land management--even many of those have been neglected. Take, for example, Grand Canyon National Park. We have deferred maintenance costs there of over $329 million. Yellowstone National Park has deferred maintenance of over $515 million. That is an enormous amount of land that is not being properly maintained. So in Yellowstone, here you have a picture of a road going through the park, and that road is completely pockmarked and made dangerous--in some places almost unusable--by potholes that haven't been repaired. No American would necessarily want to drive down a road that looks like that. This is some of what happens when you continue to acquire more when you can't manage what you have. Here in the Grand Canyon, we have a picture of a pipe that has sprung a leak and is leaking quite dangerously. So what we have is a situation that, according to a 2017 CRS report, has resulted in a maintenance backlog of Federal lands totaling $18.6 billion. Wildfires have run rampant in parts of the country, especially in the West, which the government has failed to prevent, and it is not just that they have failed to prevent those wildfires. It is not just that the Federal Government is not always well equipped to either prevent them in the first place or to fight them because of the vast inventory of lands that it has. In many instances, poor land management processes have resulted in severe environmental degradation that has itself been the predictable cause of widespread environmental catastrophe within Federal public lands. To cite one of many examples, there is an infestation of a certain type of bark beetle within a certain area of federally owned forest. Locals understand that it is coming and ask the Federal Government to abate the nuisance, to address the infestation. The Federal Government refuses. The State and local authorities come back and say: OK, will you at least let us deal with the nuisance, get rid of the bark beetle so it doesn't destroy the trees, because if it destroys the trees, it is going to create a local environmental and economic catastrophe for our people. The Federal Government says no. So the bark beetle does its damage and destroys hundreds of thousands of acres of wooded area. It kills the trees. The trees then die. The local populations go back to the Federal Government and say: These trees are dead. Will you cut them down so that we don't have this massive tinderbox of forest fire waiting to happen? The Federal Government says no. The people come back, those who live around the area, and say: Can we cut them down because, otherwise, this is going to be a tinderbox. There is going to be a fire. People are going to get hurt, and it is going to wreak havoc on our local environment. The Federal Government still says no. Then, guess what happens. Those trees catch on fire. They burn down, creating environmental catastrophe, disrupting the watershed, and this, in turn, leads to floods. All of these things connect back up to poor Federal land management processes, and those poor Federal land management processes are the result of the fact that we have too much Federal land in the inventory to begin with. Meanwhile, we have ill-kept roads and trails that, in some cases, have actually kept people away from our national treasures rather than allowing them to access them. Furthermore, none of the current LWCF funds--not any of them--are directed toward maintenance or upkeep of these lands, including within our national parks. But for years now, Congress has perpetuated the status quo of this broken, dangerous, and environmentally reckless program by reauthorizing it in giant omnibus spending bills or continuing resolutions without even the slightest incremental, modest reform. Worse still would be making reauthorization permanent. Indeed, it would deny us any regular opportunity as a Congress to actually reform and improve the program. Second, the bill creates another 1.3 million acres of wilderness in the West--half of that being in Emery County, UT. Now, at the outset, I want to say that wilderness designations might sound like a good thing, and sometimes they are. But this highly restrictive designation limits far more activities than is necessary in many, many instances to actually protect the land. In fact, a wilderness designation prohibits almost all human activity. This land usually cannot be used for any commercial activity or any infrastructure. It cannot be developed for recreational purposes or traveled across by car, bus, automobile, or even a bicycle--even a bicycle made for that specific purpose--to say nothing of any type of agricultural development or timber harvesting. In a State like Utah, where the Federal Government owns more than two-thirds of the land, these designations have big consequences, especially for the poor and middle class in my State. The amount of Federal land in Utah already sets out a great disadvantage to the people of Utah to begin with. While private landowners would pay property taxes on this land, and those taxes would go to the State and its political subdivisions, the Federal Government does not. It does not pay property taxes. So Utah is deprived of what should be and otherwise would be a huge source of revenue and of opportunity. What does that mean? Well, as a result, our schools are underfunded, local governments are crippled, fire departments are, ironically, depleted and, therefore, unable to properly take care of the lands they are charged to protect in the first place, and many times strapped in their ability to provide basic services to those most in need. With so much of this land in the grip of Federal bureaucrats, it is again limited in its use, in its opportunity, in its potential for use for development, for infrastructure, and for jobs that are essential to our State's economy--jobs that would be essential to any State's economy. But with further wilderness designations by Congress, this is an even tighter grip. As the LWCF perpetuates the acquisition of even more Federal public land, communities like those throughout my State start to suffer even more. Citizens, you see, in this type of an environment have to go to the Federal Government, cap in hand, to ask permission for the use of any of the land at all, for access to any of the land at all, whether that means to dig a well, to build a road, to bury a cable, or to do virtually anything on it at all. So designating more than 660,000 acres of wilderness in Emery County is of no small consequence. I understand that a lot of people here like the fact that we are doing that. Make no mistake. They are not the people who live in Emery County. They are not the people who live within hundreds or even thousands of miles of Emery County. Finally, this bill does nothing to address the imminent threat that Utah faces from unilateral Executive land grabs through the Antiquities Act. To be clear, anything and everything that is designated as red on this map may be designated as a national monument overnight, at any moment, solely at the discretion of the President. Anything here is fair game to any President, at any time, to say: I now make you a monument. Now, the Antiquities Act, passed in 1906, was intended to give the President of the United States the power to declare land that is already owned or controlled by the Federal Government as a national monument and to do so by Executive fiat. This was done in order to protect specific historic and cultural objects in the case of an emergency where they couldn't otherwise be protected. But instead of reserving the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected, as the law itself requires and as the text of the Antiquities Act itself mandates, Presidents in more modern times have designated enormous, million-acre monuments far beyond the scope of the objects in need of immediate protection. These monument designations--perhaps the most restrictive of all Federal land designations--often do more harm than good. They radically undermine a State's economy by prohibiting energy production, mining, fishing, ranching, recreation, and a myriad of other uses. Furthermore, without allowing Congress or the State legislature any actionable input in a decision like this, they effectively silence and disenfranchise the voices of the people closest to and most affected by and connected to the lands in question, depriving them of any say in the process. This is not fair. It is wrong, and it is something that needs to be addressed. Take, for example, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, designated by President Clinton in 1996. The Clinton administration designated 1.7 million acres of land--or about 67 percent of Kane County, UT, for the monument, all the while claiming that grazing would remain at historical levels. But this promise, of course, was not kept. Since then, the BLM has revoked permits and closed much needed range land. You see, the men and women of the Bureau of Land Management, while well educated, well intentioned, and perhaps hard-working in many instances, are not from Utah. They don't respond to or stand accountable to anyone who is from Utah. They don't come from these parts of the country or from my State, where people's day-to-day livelihood and their ability to access their own land for their own purposes and to make a living--they don't have anything to do with this land. So why would they care? They don't. Today, grazing is down almost one-third from what it had been more than two decades ago when the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was proclaimed by President Clinton--proclaimed and designated as such, by the way, without any advance notice to the people of Utah, without the President even entering the State of Utah to do it. Now, ranchers were hit hard. Many of them lost their ability to fence in water resources and maintain roads around them. In some cases, they could no longer bring water to their cattle, and many families were forced to reduce their herds, sometimes by half. This may not sound like much to someone who doesn't understand ranching or doesn't know anyone who makes their living off of ranching, but this means all the world to those people whose families for generations have supported themselves through ranching and ranching in that area where they are deeply connected to this land. Of course, there was the designation of the Bears Ears National Monument by President Obama. The citizens of San Juan County, UT,-- incidentally, Utah's poorest county--woke up on December 28, 2016, to find out that the Obama administration had unilaterally designated 1.35 million acres for that monument overnight, even though they had specifically pleaded against that. Keep in mind that San Juan County has historically had some divisions--some of them along political lines, between Republicans and Democrats, and some of them along ethnic lines, between those who are Native American and those who are not. This was an issue that united Democrats and Republicans alike in San Juan County. It united Native Americans in San Juan County and non- Native Americans in San Juan County like few issues ever have in San Juan County and few issues ever will in San Juan County. This brought them together because people from all walks of life opposed this if they lived in San Juan County. President Obama, at the time he declared it, claimed this to have had the overwhelming support of Native American populations. What was often left out of that discussion is they were not the Native American populations in Utah. They were not the people who lived in San Juan County. They were people outside of this area, most of them out of State, who supported it. Yes, it is easy to designate something as wilderness or a national monument when it is not in your land, when it is not in your community, when it doesn't affect your way of life. That is what happens when we abuse Federal public land ownership. That is what happens when you take one State and decide the Federal Government is going to own more than two-thirds of the land in that State. Imagine if in your State--or in any other State--any other land owner, whether an individual, a for-profit corporation, a nonprofit foundation, or anything else, owned more than, let's say, 5 percent of the land. People would be understandably, justifiably concerned that that person or that entity or that nonprofit, or whatever it was, could have a disproportionate, outsized impact on that State's economy. Imagine if that number were increased to include not just 5 percent of the land in your State, but 10, 15, 20, 25 percent of the land. As you rounded the corner of 30 percent, people would start to get freaked out. Imagine if that number then soared above that--35, 40, 45, 50 percent--until it got up to nearly 70 percent of the land in your State. Imagine further that, at that point, that landowner declared itself exempt from all forms of property taxation. That would create problems for your State. This is what I beg and plead for my colleagues from around the country, particularly those who live east of Colorado, to understand. It is really easy to support these things when it is in somebody else's State. It is really for people on the northeastern seaboard to look at Utah and say: Well, it is just one of those square States. They have plenty of land out there. They have plenty of room. They don't need to worry about it. Try living there. Try earning a living there for your family. It is not right. This goes against so much of what we believe in, in this country. Federal land ownership is not the only unfair thing about this. Again, Federal land ownership makes possible the designation unilaterally, by one person, of a national monument, and if that one person happens to decide that a particular State ought to be the next victim, that person will make it so. It just so happens that, just as Utah has a disproportionate share of Federal public land in its State, so, too, is it a disproportionate victim under the Antiquities Act. Since the passage of the Antiquities Act, Presidents have designated 77.85 million acres of land as national monuments, and 87 percent of that has been designated in the last 40 years. Of the land that has been designated as a monument over the last 25 years, 3.23 million acres, or 28 percent, are in Utah. All of the land in the United States designated as a monument in the last 25 years, that portion--nearly 30 percent--is in my State. Why is that fair? It is not, especially when you consider the harm done to the economies, the disruption that takes place as a result of these designations, the widespread opposition from Democrats and Republicans alike, and in San Juan County the Native American population and the non-Native American population alike are overwhelmingly against this. What was intended to be an act of cultural preservation has, sadly, deteriorated into a greedy, harmful Federal land grab. As it currently stands, there is always the threat of a decision coming down from on high that will utterly decimate the livelihoods of people in Utah. There is no good reason for this. Already, two other States have felt the abuse of the Antiquities Act within their borders, and they have received relief. In the 1950s, Wyoming and Alaska successfully called on Congress to grant them Antiquities Act protections. Why? Because they had been disproportionately burdened by this law. As a result of their efforts, in Wyoming, any monument designation must be approved by Congress, and, in Alaska, any designation made by Presidential fiat that exceeds 5,000 acres must be approved by Congress. To be clear, in both of these States, Congress still has the power to designate this. It is just that they are saying, for those States where it has been abused in the past, Congress as a whole--people's elected lawmakers as a whole in Congress--ought to be the ones designating, rather than putting it in the hands of one person. There is no reason why the people of Utah, who have suffered more under the Antiquities Act than any other population in the entire country, should be treated any differently. There is no reason Utahns should live under this constant threat of abuse. That is why we have offered an amendment that would remedy this. With permanent authorization of the LWCF, which will result only in a greater Federal land footprint, and with the roughly 660,000 acres of new wilderness designation in Utah, I fear my State is at even greater risk for yet another monument designation. Thus, at a bare minimum, Utah deserves the same protection Wyoming has received. Our amendment would add just two words: ``or Utah.'' Without it, I simply cannot vote for this bill. With it, it gives us the protection we deserve and protection that other States like ours have already received. In a day and age when we have to deal with 680-page bills dropped on our desks at 10 a.m. on the day we are asked to pass it or a 2,232 page spending bill, as we faced last March for the omnibus spending package, a bill that is not two pages long, but just two words long, should be welcomed. There is much that is wrong with our Federal land policy in the West, and, unfortunately, much of that is something that this bill fails to correct. Utahns, and Americans, deserve better than the stranglehold that the Federal Government is exercising over so much of our country's lands. Yet Washington greedily continues to grab more, year after year, imposing tighter and tighter restrictions, all the while failing to maintain the lands that it already owns. These lands will not be national treasures for everyone if we can't take care of them in the first place. Indeed, they will be treasures for no one if we continue along this same pattern of willful neglect. Let me be very clear. My opposition today is not about whether our national treasures or parks or monuments or lands should be protected. It is not about whether they should be, but how to do that and who is best equipped to do that and who is most knowledgeable to do it well. What I am asking for is for Utah's elected leaders--its elected lawmakers in Congress--to at least be given a chance to weigh in on these matters before they become law, rather than to have those decisions being made from thousands of miles away by just one person. Indeed, the very best way to ensure that these national treasures are protected and recreation available is to empower our States and our local communities, which understand and appreciate their backyards best. They know which land to prioritize, and they know how to make that happen. Just look at the State and local ballot initiatives in the last few decades to see the evidence. Since 1988, these State initiatives have approved over $72 billion in combined expenditures for recreation and conservation. These things matter to States and local communities, and they have already raised huge funds and found ways to preserve and competently manage their public lands. Protection of our lands will happen without the Federal Government's thumb on the scale, and it will happen in a way that actually makes these treasures more available for future generations. We will not be helping them preserve them, however, by denying access to the people who are in the best position themselves to preserve them; that is, the people who live and work and recreate on them, the people whose lives are interwoven with them and have been for generations. And we will not be helping the American people by depriving them of their livelihoods. That is why I have introduced amendments that would make reforms and improvements to the LWCF, the Emery County wilderness designation bill and other provisions in this package--amendments that would steer our lands policy in a better direction, at least as a starting point. These are conversations worth having. They need to be had, and we ought to have them. But at a bare minimum, with the least shred of compromise, we could add just those two words--``or Utah''--to give Utahns justice, to give them a voice in managing and caring for their lands. Amendment No. 187 to Amendment No. 112

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be waived.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the Land and Conservation Fund was enacted for a laudable goal; that is, to promote recreational opportunities on our Federal public lands. But in recent decades, the program has regrettably drifted far from its original intent and has become rife with abuse. Indeed, the Land and Water Conservation Fund--or LWCF, as it is often described--has instead been used as a primary tool for more Federal land acquisition rather than to actually help people access or to help the government care for the land we already manage. Through the LWCF, the Federal Government has added more and more land to its already vast estate, currently totaling 640 million acres of land in this country. To put that in perspective, that is bigger than about seven major European countries combined--and I don't mean their public lands; I mean the entire countries themselves--nearly one-third of all land in the United States. This is 640 million acres. That includes a whole lot of land for the Federal Government, and no single owner, for that matter, could ever be able to take care of it. But the Federal Government is failing to take care of these lands; make no mistake about it. Indeed, the magnitude of unfunded needs on these public lands is staggering. There is an $18.5 billion maintenance backlog on Federal lands, including $11.6 billion in the National Park System alone. Wildfires have run rampant in the West because of mismanagement and neglect. Ill-kept roads and trails have actually kept citizens from accessing these national treasures, and the American people are paying the price. The package before us currently reauthorizes this broken program, denying us any leverage--any real opportunity--to regularly reform the program in the future. Senator Lankford and I have offered several amendments that would help address this program, but at the very least, we ought not to be permanently reauthorizing it without any of these conditions in place. That is why I have offered an amendment that would reauthorize for 5 years the Land and Water Conservation Fund so that we are forced to reassess the program at a later date and can hopefully correct and improve the program to actually empower the States with recreation opportunities. To that end, I encourage my colleagues to vote for this amendment. I call up my amendment No. 162.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, on November 3, 2018, this country lost a true American hero: MAJ Brent Taylor of Ogden, UT, who gave the ultimate sacrifice while deployed in Afghanistan. As North Ogden's mayor, Major Taylor died as he lived: going above and beyond the call of duty to his country, to his State, and his family. Major Taylor, who is pictured here with his family, began his military service in 2003, following the attacks of September 11. He joined the Army National Guard just 3 days after becoming engaged to his wife Jennie. During his time in the National Guard, Major Taylor distinguished himself in multiple specialties, including intelligence and military police. In 2006, he received a commission as a second lieutenant from the Brigham Young University ROTC, while graduating as a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. Major Taylor was continuously ready to take up the call to arms and deployed four times on missions to Iraq and to Afghanistan. He held a variety of roles in those deployments, including platoon leader, combat adviser, and chief of staff to the Special Operations Advisory Group. Throughout his distinguished tours of service, he also received several awards for courage and for leadership, including a Bronze Star in honor of his ability to calmly and safely lead those he was assigned to lead through multiple miles of treacherous territory and a Purple Heart for the wounds he received during an explosives attack on his vehicle. His love of his country and his State was also very evident, perhaps most evident beyond the circumstance in which he wore the uniform. Major Taylor gave his time and his energy to his community, serving tirelessly as a member of the North Ogden City Council, from 2010 to 2013, and then as the mayor of North Ogden, after being elected to that post in 2013. He was known for being a hands-on leader and someone who was attentive to and constantly beloved by every member of his community. After being reelected as the mayor of North Ogden in 2017, Major Taylor took a leave of absence from the mayor's office and headed back to the battlefield, deploying once again to Afghanistan. When he announced his leave of absence to the people of North Ogden, he told them he felt called to serve his country and that ``service is what leadership is all about.'' Major Taylor faithfully served his church and his family too. He had a deep love of God and of his church. He was a devoted husband to Jennie and a loving father to their seven children, pictured here: Megan, Lincoln, Alex, Jacob, Ellie, Jonathan, and Caroline. Following his tragic passing, in an attack on November 3 of this last year, Major Abdul Rahmani, an Afghani pilot with whom Major Taylor worked, sent a letter to Major Taylor's wife Jennie, describing the great impact Major Taylor had on his life. He said: ``Your husband taught me to love my wife [Hamida] as an equal and treat my children as treasured gifts, to be a better father, to be a better husband, and to be a better man.'' Further, he said: Major Taylor ``died on our soil, but he died for the success of freedom and democracy in both our countries.'' In every aspect of his life, Major Taylor was a shining example of patriotism, of sacrifice, and of service. It is only right that we honor his extraordinary life. To that end, it would only be a fitting tribute to rename the Ogden Veterans Center in Utah as the Major Brent Taylor Vet Center Outstation. Today Jennie Taylor is joining Congressman Rob Bishop as his honored guest for the State of the Union Address tonight, to honor Major Taylor's life and to honor his great legacy--the legacy he leaves behind to his family, to his community, and to all who knew him and served with him. I urge my colleagues to pass legislation commemorating that. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 49 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.