Mitch McConnell

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3479, introduced earlier today.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the bill.

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

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 147, H.R. 46.

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

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the bill.

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

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following Senate resolutions, which were submitted earlier today: S. Res. 638, S. Res. 639, and S. Res. 640.

Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 87, H.R. 698.

Mr. McCONNELL. 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.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, since the Senate last convened, Hurricane Florence made landfall on our Nation's eastern seaboard. According to the latest estimates, this terrible storm has already claimed more than 20 lives in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. With more than 1 million Americans subjected to mandatory evacuations, many families have been displaced, and the storm surge and historic rainfall have brought communities to their knees with crippling flooding. The Senate stands with all of those affected, and we stand ready to ensure that communities in the storm's path have the resources they need to recover and rebuild, once the time comes. For now, we stand in solidarity with the Americans who are battling this storm and with first responders, who bravely risk their own safety to care for their communities. Patient Right to Know Drug Prices Act Mr. President, on another matter, today, the Senate will take two important actions to help vulnerable Americans. First, we will pass the Patient Right to Know Drug Prices Act, spearheaded by Senator Collins. This legislation would ban so-called pharmacy gag clauses, which prohibit pharmacists from sharing drug pricing information that would save consumers money. In circumstances when the out-of-pocket retail cost of a medication is actually cheaper than the price through insurance, it will allow customers with access to the information they need to choose the more affordable route. After that, we will vote on major, landmark legislation to address the opioid crisis that continues to weigh on our country. My fellow Kentuckians and I are all too aware of how drug abuse and addiction attack families and communities. Overdoses killed 1,500 Kentuckians last year alone. That is more than four fatalities per day. Nationwide, it is more than 115 fatalities per day. The effects of this emergency compound themselves. The crisis can eat away at family ties, at community institutions, at economic opportunities--precisely the things that are necessary to lift Americans out of addiction and into recovery. On the one hand, research suggests that opioid use rose the most in the very communities where employment fell the most. On the other hand, experts blame opioids themselves for a major share of falling workforce participation, to the tune of roughly 1 million missing workers. A comprehensive crisis demands a comprehensive solution. That is exactly what this landmark legislation is. It combines work from 5 committees and input from 70 Senators. First, this legislation will help cut off the opioid crisis at its roots. It will stop more drugs at the border, improve interstate monitoring, and encourage reform of prescription dosing. It will encourage recovery through more resources for State and local responders, better access to care for patients, and more support for the families and caregivers of those affected. This legislation looks to the future by surrounding long-term medical research and economic solutions to get our county past this vicious cycle. I am pleased that two of my provisions are included--the CAREER Act, which expands grants and targets funding for transitional housing and job opportunities to help recovering individuals find their footing and stay sober, and my Protecting Moms and Infants Act, which will refine our Federal efforts to combat the effects of opioids on expecting mothers and their unborn children. The situation facing Americans and communities is urgent. With this landmark legislation, the Senate has risen to the moment. It is no wonder that experts and advocates representing 200 organizations on the frontlines of the opioid crisis have publicly called on the Senate to act. That is exactly what we will do when we pass this landmark legislation later today. Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh Mr. President, on a final matter, it has been 70 days since the President nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court. For more than 2 months, the Senate has pored over Judge Kavanaugh's professional record. We have reviewed the 300-plus opinions he has authored while serving on the DC Circuit, more pages of documents than have ever been produced for a Supreme Court nomination--more than for the past five nominations combined--and testimony from prominent legal scholars and top litigators who have praised the nominee's intellect and his exemplary performance on the Federal bench. We have also considered a wealth of evidence that pertains to Judge Kavanaugh's character and his personal integrity. We have heard testimony or received open letters from literally hundreds of men and women who know Brett Kavanaugh, who have worked alongside him, who have clerked for him as a judge, or who have known him and his family personally over the years. This is what the Senate has considered for the past 70 days. In the Senate and around the country, almost everyone who went into this process with an open mind and who was prepared to give Judge Kavanaugh a fair hearing has come away impressed. But now an accusation of 36-year-old misconduct, dating back to high school, has been brought forward at the last minute, in an irregular manner. It is an accusation that Judge Kavanaugh has completely and unequivocally denied. This is what he said: This is a completely false allegation. I have never done anything like what the accuser describes--to her or to anyone. It is an accusation that the ranking member on the committee of jurisdiction has known about for at least 6 weeks--known about for 6 weeks--yet chose to keep secret until the 11th hour. Neither she nor any of her Democratic colleagues chose to raise this allegation during the committee staff's bipartisan background calls with the nominee. They did not raise it, even with the name redacted, in the 65 meetings--65 meetings--that Judge Kavanaugh held with Senators before his confirmation hearings, including his private meeting with the ranking member. They did not raise it, even with the name redacted, in 4 days of exhaustive public hearings while Judge Kavanaugh testified under oath, even though they chose to raise myriad other matters at the hearing, including sometimes bizarre innuendo. They did not raise it in the closed session, the proper forum where such an allegation could have been addressed with discretion and sensitivity. They did not raise it in the thousand-plus followup questions Senators sent to Judge Kavanaugh in writing. At the 11th hour, with committee votes on the schedule, after Democrats have spent weeks and weeks searching for any possible reason the nomination should be delayed, now they choose to introduce this allegation--not through the standard bipartisan process, not by advising the Judiciary Committee colleagues and committee staff through proper channels but by leaking it to the press, because the chain of custody of this letter runs through the Democratic side of the Judiciary Committee. That is the chain of custody. I can't explain the situation any better than the senior Senator from Maine put it yesterday evening when she said this: If they believed [Judge Kavanaugh's accuser], why didn't they surface this information earlier so that he could be questioned about it? And if they didn't believe her and chose to withhold the information, why did they decide at the 11th hour to release it? It is really not fair to either of them the way it was handled. As the senior Senator from Texas said earlier today, ``that Democrats have so egregiously mishandled this up until now, is no excuse for us to do the same.'' Just because the Democrats have egregiously mishandled this, said Senator Cornyn, is no excuse for us to do the same thing. I am glad that Chairman Grassley is following standard practice and regular order. As he has stated, he plans to pursue this matter by the book, with bipartisan interviews of both Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford. I have great confidence in Chairman Grassley and his ability to proceed through this process.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask that the Chair lay before the Senate the conference report to accompany H.R. 6157.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk for the conference report.

Mr. McCONNELL

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

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 630, submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Tuesday, September 18; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 6157; finally, that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of Senator Murray and Senator Rounds.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the Nation watched the President's outstanding Supreme Court nominee last week, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, testify before the Judiciary Committee. They saw Chairman Grassley guide the committee with gracious, strong leadership and an incredible amount of patience. The chairman deserves our gratitude, as do all of the committee staff, whose hard work and dedication made it possible for Senators to thoroughly examine Judge Kavanaugh and review more pages of documents pertaining to his career than were produced for the last five Supreme Court nominees combined. The American people also saw an extensive extremely impressive nominee. Judge Kavanaugh was candid and forthcoming, within the ethical constraints that exist for judicial nominees. He demonstrated the intellectual brilliance and thoughtful temperament for which he is so widely known. He showed exactly why he is universally acknowledged as a leading legal mind and exactly why he will make a phenomenal Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, not everyone performed as admirably or as professionally last week. Some of our Democratic colleagues repeatedly interrupted Chairman Grassley, behaved rudely toward the nominee, and hauled out one dishonest partisan attack after another to try to distort his record and smear Judge Kavanaugh. Now, this is a nominee who Lisa Blatt, a prominent litigator and self-described liberal Democrat, testified as ``unquestionably qualified by his extraordinary intellect, experience, and temperament.'' This is a nominee who prominent liberal law professor Akhil Amar praised as ``studious and open-minded.'' This left-leaning academic described Judge Kavanaugh's nomination as ``President Trump's finest hour.'' This is a nominee whose record and reputation have revealed Democrats' partisan attacks to be futile and silly and dishonest. At this point, dishonest attacks and half-truths are all that is left for our colleagues who made up their minds long ago that they were going to oppose Judge Kavanaugh no matter what--no matter what. You don't need to take my word for this. The Washington Post's Fact Checker called out one of our Democratic colleagues and assigned her shameless misrepresentation of Judge Kavanaugh's testimony four Pinocchios--the strongest condemnation. This particular Senator cherry- picked from a sentence where Judge Kavanaugh was paraphrasing one side's argument in a case that came before him, stripped his description of its content, and held up the party's position in that case as though it was Judge Kavanaugh's own personal opinion. But by trying to slime Judge Kavanaugh, the Democrats are only underscoring one of his most impressive skills--his widely acclaimed talent for thinking through all parties' perspectives and engaging fairly with the full range of views, regardless of his personal beliefs. This and all other specious attacks that were trotted out said absolutely nothing about Judge Kavanaugh's actual record. They said a great deal about the Senators who were willing to resort to them in order to appease the far-left special interests, but I suspect that everyone who listened fairly to Judge Kavanaugh and the other witnesses came away seriously impressed with his qualifications for the Court, and I look forward to voting to confirm him here on the Senate floor in the coming weeks.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on another matter, later this afternoon, the Senate will vote to advance the nomination of Charles Rettig to serve as Commissioner of the IRS. Mr. Rettig's nomination comes at a crucial time, as the Federal Government continues to implement once-in-a-generation tax reform. Recent memory reminds us just how important it is that all Americans get a fair shake from the agency that oversees the Tax Code. This historic new law makes it all the more important that the IRS continue to modernize and improve its technological infrastructure. So I look forward to this nominee's getting to work on behalf of the American taxpayers.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on one final matter, the pain that opioid addiction and drug abuse has inflicted on families across America is almost unfathomable. Every day, 115 more American lives are lost to overdose. Synthetic opioid deaths nationwide skyrocketed six- fold from 2014 to last year alone. Sadly, the Commonwealth of Kentucky is all too familiar with these statistics. More than 1,500 Kentuckians died from a drug overdose in 2017, and Kentucky has ranked among the top 10 States for opioid fatalities for several years. The tragic medical trends are only one of the ways this crisis is crippling communities all across our country. These drugs eat away at economic opportunities, they erode our labor market, and they make it even harder for distressed communities to get back on their feet. So this is nothing short of a national emergency, and that is why Congress has already passed major legislation to address it, and very soon we will take significant new action by passing the legislation that has been shepherded by Senator Alexander and his committee colleagues. This landmark package combines work from 5 different committees and 70 different Senators. I am proud that two of my bills are included--the CAREER Act, to help individuals in recovery transition back into the workforce and access housing services, and a second provision that will step up accountability on Federal efforts to combat addiction among pregnant mothers. These are just two pieces of this comprehensive package. It will cut the supply of illegal drugs that pour over our borders, make it easier for communities to invest in recovery efforts, extend a helping hand to families and caregivers, and provide for the longer term medical innovation we need to put this crisis in the rearview mirror. I am pleased to have played a part in developing this landmark response. I am grateful to Chairman Alexander and his colleagues, and I will be proud to vote for this legislation very soon.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on one final matter, it has been a rough week for our Democratic colleagues who claim that the Republican policy agenda wouldn't lay a good foundation for a strong economy, but it has been a great week for America's workers and middle-class families. The evidence keeps piling up. Tax reform and regulatory reform have helped create the conditions for one of the best economic moments the American people have seen in recent memory, and some measures are at their best levels in decades. Here is just a small sample: ``U.S. job growth accelerated in August and wages notched their largest annual increase in more than nine years.'' Another headline reads: ``Job openings hit record high.'' Another: ``Small business optimism surges to highest level ever.'' This economy is literally flying through all-time records faster than I can come to the floor and discuss them. Many of these numbers are unprecedented. They are exactly the opposite of what some gloom-and- doom Democrats insisted would happen if this unified Republican government put our opportunity agenda into effect. Fortunately, my Republican colleagues and I know that getting Washington, DC, out of the way helps make good things happen for the American people, and that is exactly what we will continue to do.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask that the Chair lay before the Senate the conference report to accompany H.R. 5895.