Mitch McConnell

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 3 p.m., Monday, June 22; 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, and morning business be closed; further, that following leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Wilson nomination. Finally, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, the cloture vote on the Wilson nomination occur at 5:30 p.m.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I have 2 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: Committee on Armed Services The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, June 18, 2020, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing. Committee on Foreign Relations The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, June 18, 2020, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session for the consideration of the following nomination: Executive Calendar No. 702.

Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote on the nomination with no intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on behalf of the entire Kentucky delegation, all Kentuckians and the entire U.S. Congress, I must begin this morning by expressing our deepest condolences to our colleague Representative Andy Barr and his family. His lovely wife Carol passed away suddenly and unexpectedly yesterday. She was only 39 years old. She leaves behind her husband, their two beautiful young daughters, Eleanor and Mary Clay, and an entire community that knew her, admired her, and valued her many contributions. To meet Carol Barr was instantly to like her. Her warm personality filled the room and uplifted everybody. Her faith, her love of family, and her dedication to her community were totally evident. Through her own career and her work with Andy, she poured her time and talents into giving back to her neighbors in the Sixth District. We are so very, very sorry for our colleague's loss. All of our prayers go out to Andy, to their girls, and to the entire Barr and Leavell families at this tremendously difficult hour.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on an entirely different matter, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Over the last several months, our country has been shaken by the killings of more Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement. The people of this country have called for change. The United States of America is not a fundamentally racist country. We are the greatest Nation in world history built on the promise of liberty and justice for all, but our founding promise was stained by the sins of slavery and racial prejudice. Generations of Americans have spent more than a century working to remediate that stain. We fought a Civil War. Black Americans led a movement that won historic Supreme Court wins and landmark Federal legislation. We have squeezed racist lies out of mainstream society and relegated them to a pathetic fringe. But the events of the last few weeks have reminded this country that the stain is not totally gone. We have a lot more work to do. While the far left has tried to exploit America's pain and anger to push insane policies like defunding or disbanding all police or nonsense claims like the assertion that enforcing laws is inherently racist, the rest of the country has been busy uniting around some commonsense truths. When Black Americans tell us they do not feel safe in their own communities, we need to listen. When American citizens lack faith in our justice system from start to finish, we need to respond. When the equal protection of the laws feel to some Americans like a contingency of demographics and not a universal fact of life, we need to act. That is what this Senate Republican majority is doing today. We are acting. Sadly, the junior Senator from South Carolina is no stranger to this subject himself. Senator Scott has led the construction of a strong proposal that will increase transparency, grow accountability, and advance the cause of police reform without lashing out at the lion's share of brave law enforcement officers who serve bravely and well. Later today, he will introduce this new legislation, and it will be the very next bill we consider here on the Senate floor. We will be turning to this bill next week. Senator Scott's JUSTICE Act provides solutions that are as sober, as serious, and as significant as this watershed moment demands. Faced with the fact that policing is primarily a local and State, rather than a Federal, concern, our colleague has nevertheless found a variety of levers that Congress can pull to advance and incentivize and insist on the changes that we need to see. We need to encourage police departments across America to implement practical reforms like ending choke holds, training their officers to deescalate tense situations, and having prior disciplinary records play a greater role in hiring. His bill does that We need to increase accountability so that bad officers are easy to spot and good officers' good names stay clear. This bill does that. It will get more body cameras on the streets, help ensure they are used properly, and disseminate new best practices for discipline, suspension, or dismissal when necessary. We also need more transparency so communities have greater visibility into local law enforcement. This bill does that too. We will require full reporting to the FBI when a local officer has used force or discharged his or her weapon. In a subject that has tragically become a major focus for my hometown of Louisville, KY, we address no-knock warrants as well. We will require new transparency and new reporting from State and local authorities so surrounding communities and the Federal Government can all better understand how, when, and why this practice is used. These are just some of the major parts of our colleague's legislation. The JUSTICE Act will also finally make lynching a Federal crime. It will close the consent loophole by forbidding law enforcement from taking advantage of people in their custody and more. This legislation is a substantial effort to help our Nation make major headway on substantial challenges. I am grateful to Senator Scott for his leadership. I appreciate the contributions of Chairman Lindsey Graham, Senators Capito, Cornyn, Lankford, and Sasse. The Democratic-led House of Representatives is, of course, out of town. They have had time to issue partisan attacks from long distance but have yet to take up any police reform legislation in the weeks since the deaths of Ms. Taylor and Mr. Floyd. The action is in the Senate. The leadership is in the Senate. Now, over the past several days, some of our Senate Democratic colleagues have undertaken to attack this new legislation before they have even read it and before it was even released--while it was still being compiled, as a matter of fact. Let me make this perfectly clear. Senate Republicans are interested in making a law. We want to enact needed reforms. We want to make policing in America better. We have just demonstrated on the CARES Act and, once again, on the Great American Outdoors Act, that we can act together and achieve bipartisan support. This is another one of those issues that needs to be addressed--needs to be addressed now and can only be addressed in the Senate if both sides are willing to work together. Needless to say, if we are going to make law on this issue in the Senate, it will have to be a bipartisan effort. I hope and expect that there will be opportunities for amendments from both sides. I hope we can step up, stand together, and work in good faith to turn this impressive starting point into law for our country. We will have the chance next week, so let's don't waste it.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, now, on another matter. Every year in Kentucky, nearly 350,000 people take to the great outdoors to go hunting--more than a third of them on public lands. Over half a million head to the Commonwealth's lakes and rivers to fish, and 1.3 million enjoy the open space and the majesty of our wildlife looking for a glimpse of the Bluegrass' native species. And 120,000 Kentuckians earn their living keeping these vibrant traditions of outdoor recreation up and running for everyone else. Public lands are an important part of life across our State. From the Cumberland Gap to the Land Between the Lakes, our parks, our refuges, and historic sites form the backbone of local economies and welcome millions of visitors from across the country and around the world. If you ask any of my colleagues, you would hear similar stories about the landmarks, wilderness, and history that made their own States unique. America's hundreds of millions of acres of public lands are the result of hundreds of years of exploration and conservation. Today, the Senate will act to ensure this inheritance will stand the test of time for generations of Americans yet to come. The Great American Outdoors Act will bring much needed resources to the long-deferred maintenance and upkeep in parks and other public lands all across our country. It will secure permanent support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and its mission of expanding access to national treasures. This major legislation is only before us because of the persistent effort on the part of several of our colleagues. So one last time, I thank Senator Gardner and Senator Daines for their outstanding leadership, and Senators Portman, Manchin, Alexander, and Warner, among other colleagues on both sides, for all their work to bring this bipartisan project to completion. I hope, following our action, the House will take it up and pass it quickly. The President has already said he is eager to sign it. We should not let this historic opportunity pass us by. I look forward to passing this monumental legislation later today.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, this week, like most weeks for a month and a half now, has brought a study in contrasts to the U.S. Capitol. Over in the Democratic-led House of Representatives, the lights are off. The doors are locked. There is nobody home. With our country facing a once-in-a-century pandemic, a historic economic disruption, a major discussion of racial justice, and all of the other important business we were already set to tackle this year before all of this, the Speaker of the House has mostly kept her Chamber on the longest running spring break in human history--lots of talk about supposed priorities but few votes; lots of partisan attacks leveled at the Republicans from a distance but little action. Over here in the Senate, the story has been very different. We are holding hearings. We are legislating. We are confirming nominees. With precautions, we are manning our posts for the country. Tomorrow, the Senate will begin considering the President's nomination of Judge Justin Walker to fill a vacancy on the DC Circuit-- the second most important Federal bench in the country. As my fellow Kentuckians and I can attest, Judge Walker is exactly the kind of individual our country deserves to have in such a role. He graduated from Duke summa cum laude and then from Harvard Law magna cum laude. He clerked on the DC Circuit himself for an impressive young judge named Brett Kavanaugh and then on the Supreme Court. He has built a national reputation as a leading academic scholar of the law. It is no wonder that even the ABA rates him ``well qualified.'' He has quickly made a name for himself as a district judge. A few weeks ago, when the mayor of Louisville tried to cancel drive- in Easter services with disparate restrictions that did not apply equally to other parking lots, Judge Walker won national attention for his eloquent defense of religious liberty. This subject becomes more important by the day. The American people deserve to have strong respect for their First Amendment rights, including their rights of religious exercise and conscience, on one of our country's highest courts. So I look forward to continuing to detail our Kentucky pride for Judge Walker as this week unfolds, and I will take great pride in voting to advance his nomination and to confirm him.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, the Senate will first pass the Great American Outdoors Act. It will be a big step in the history of our Nation's public lands and great news for their future. This bill is the product of a lot of hard work by many of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle. It has two clear purposes: It will restore access and function to parks and facilities that have been neglected, and it will secure a stable flow of resources to support recreation and conservation well into the future. I have detailed in recent days just how many Americans rely on our Nation's public lands--from the guides and outfitters who cater to the booming outdoor recreation economy; to the hotel workers, restaurant owners, and gateway communities that welcome hundreds of millions of annual visitors; to the researchers who study historic sites and unique habitats; to the hunters, anglers, sportsmen, and American families who explore millions of acres of open space. It is clear that a bright economic future for America is intertwined with this precious resource, so backlogged maintenance and delayed upkeep are a real problem. Too often, tough budgetary choices have left important facilities worn down and natural treasures inaccessible. I am proud that this legislation before us will tackle these critical missions, but you certainly don't have to take my word for it; you can look to the list of no fewer than 60 cosponsors on both sides of the aisle or to the 80 Senators who voted to advance consideration of the bill last week, or you could sample from the ringing endorsements of an impressive cross-section of American recreation and conservation advocates. Take, for example, the letter the Democratic leader and I received from the last six former Secretaries of the Interior. Men and women who served under Presidents of both parties came together to tell us that ``the Great American Outdoors Act will help ensure a better, brighter future for nature and for all of us.'' Hundreds of advocacy organizations, from the Sierra Club to the American Sportfishing Association, also approve. They say the bill ``will ensure that our parks and other public lands continue to preserve our nation's heritage and recreation opportunities, and that local communities and economies . . . will continue to flourish.'' It is not often that we are presented with the opportunity to take overwhelmingly bipartisan action that will affect a monumental part of American life for so many years to come, and the opportunity in front of us this week comes thanks to the dedicated work of several of our colleagues. In particular, I would like to thank Senator Daines and Senator Gardner once again for their extraordinary leadership. I look forward to seeing their efforts across the finish line, and I urge all Members to join me in supporting this bill and securing our natural wonders for generations of Americans yet to come.

Mr. McCONNELL

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

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to table amendment No. 1628.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to table amendment No. 1626.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, 3 months ago, States were implementing stay-at-home orders as the coronavirus spread throughout our country. Three months ago, George Floyd was still alive, and the killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville had just begun to reignite a national discussion around policing. Our country has confronted what feels like several years' worth of upheaval in just 3 months. Small businesses and childcare centers are trying to figure out how to safely reopen. Schools and universities are trying to plan for the fall. Healthcare professionals and essential workers are continuing to man their posts, help strangers, and keep our country going. Peaceful protesters have continued to express outrage over the killings of Black Americans, and our Nation's police officers--overwhelmingly good, decent, and brave people who put everything on the line for their neighbors--have continued to faithfully serve under trying circumstances. These are the kinds of challenges our Nation should meet with unity, like when the Senate wrote and passed the historic CARES Act unanimously in March. But unfortunately, in some corners of the country, our Nation's strategic reserve of sanity appears to have run a little low. We have seen peaceful protests hijacked by violent riots. Apparently, rioters thought the best way to argue against a strong police force was to terrorize innocent people and small businesses for nights on end. Then, completing the absurd cycle, we have seen the far left hold up these riots as proof that we should defund or disband the police in this country--as though the vast majority of Americans in the country would not interpret the anarchy in precisely the opposite way. As I noted last week, we have seen some big-city mayors use health restrictions to construct constitutionally dubious double standards, where massive protests are blessed and encouraged, but small, careful church services are still banned. In Seattle, we have seen the local officials cede several blocks to a rag-tag band of demonstrators who call themselves the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Fear of the far left has literally caused local officials to let a chunk of their own city devolve into a no-go zone for their own cops. Naturally, left-leaning media outlets have been quick to shower praise on this legacy and slow to amplify reports of arson and other unchecked crimes. One story from the New York Times praised the ``liberated streets''--liberated, as if spray-painting a boarded-up business were the equivalent of the Normandy landings. Amid all this, our Democratic counterparts in the House of Representatives have mostly continued to keep their doors locked and their lights off. But here in the Senate, we came back in over a month ago. We have taken smart precautions, but we have not let the people's business come to a halt. Our committees have been overseeing the CARES Act and working on other essential business, like the National Defense Authorization Act. Our colleagues are considering what else might help the country reopen, like strong legal protections for schools, colleges, employers, and healthcare workers. Under the leadership of Senator Tim Scott, our conference is developing a serious proposal to reform law enforcement in smart ways without lashing out needlessly and counterproductively at the first responders who are a credit to their communities.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, just this week, on the floor, we will complete a major piece of legislation that will benefit generations to come. Thanks to a number of our colleagues--particularly the junior Senators from Colorado and Montana--the Senate is poised to take historic action for the future of the Nation's public lands. I haven't been the only one coming to the floor to highlight how my constituents prize our State's national parks, wildlife refuge, and other managed areas--for recreation and for many livelihoods. We Kentuckians are proud that our Commonwealth is home to one of the National Park Service's crowning jewels at Mammoth Cave. We are proud of our historic sites like Mill Springs Battlefield and our wildlife refuges at the Clarks and Green Rivers. And I am proud that the Senate this week will provide permanent, steady support to maintain these treasures for generations to come. As we have heard, the same is true for Colorado, where entire regional economies are driven by outdoor recreation in alpine wonderlands; for Montana, where Federal and State management work hand in hand with local sportsmen and Native American Tribes to preserve millions of acres of pristine, Big Sky wilderness; for West Virginia, where 54 of 55 counties have benefited from the Land and Water Conservation Fund investment; and for Ohio, where the Cuyahoga Valley puts parkland in the backyards of millions of people. The list goes on and on. Public lands hold a unique place in the life of every State in America--from their natural beauty, to their use for recreation, to their pivotal roles in local economies. In the communities just outside of the gates, public lands drive over $40 billion in economic activity every year, and they play a big part in the entire outdoor recreation industry that creates hundreds of billions of dollars in national prosperity every year Once again, I am grateful to our colleagues who have stewarded the Great American Outdoors Act thus far; to Senator Gardner and Senator Daines for their leadership; and to Senators Alexander, Portman, Manchin, and Warner for their efforts as well to steer this strong, bipartisan product toward the finish line. I look forward to continuing to advance this legislation today and passing it this week.

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Over the last several weeks, major challenges have dominated the headlines on a daily basis. Following the sacrifices Americans have made to fight the coronavirus, our Nation is gradually beginning to reopen. Our economy has started adding back jobs. But as some States are seeing their numbers increase, the fallout for American workers remains historic, and schools, universities, and employers are still looking for smart and safe ways to step back toward normal. The Senate is working to ensure that our efforts to treat, contain, and recover from the pandemic can succeed. We have confirmed a Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery. Committees are overseeing the CARES Act, and Senator Cornyn is crafting measures to make sure a second epidemic of frivolous lawsuits does not block schools and colleges from reopening or employers from rehiring workers. At the same time, the killings of Black Americans like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have accelerated important conversations. With the leadership of Senator Scott of South Carolina, the Senate is preparing to add to the conversations surrounding law enforcement with our own serious proposal--policies that would take smart steps without attacking the vast majority of police officers who bravely do their jobs the right way. Of course there is also a long list of legislative priorities which the Senate was going to tackle before these new issues materialized. This week, Chairman Inhofe and the Armed Services Committee have been marking up the 60th consecutive National Defense Authorization Act, which I hope the full Senate will be voting on later this month. Here on the floor, we have also been considering a landmark bill to protect and preserve our Nation's public lands for future generations In my home State of Kentucky, we know all about the important role that public lands play in preserving our physical heritage, providing access for outdoor recreation, and sustaining jobs and prosperity in the process. Across the Commonwealth, outdoor recreation supports 120,000 jobs and drives nearly $13 billion in consumer spending. From natural wonders like Red River Gorge and Mammoth Cave National Park to historic sites like Mill Springs Battlefield and Camp Nelson, Kentuckians have grown up enjoying our public lands, and we intend to protect them for future generations. Let me give just one example. As I mentioned yesterday, when I came to the Senate, Kentucky was the only State without its own national wildlife refuge. We had plenty of history and heritage. We just needed a little help to preserve it. With the support of hunters, boaters, and outdoorsmen in the Jackson Purchase region, I led the establishment of the Clarks River National Wildlife Refuge. It was a huge step to protect local species and our treasured Kentucky pastimes. This refuge has continued to grow over the years. Thanks to the Land and Water Conservation Fund and many willing sellers, it now makes thousands of acres available for appreciation, recreation, and tourism. Like many public lands, these wildlife areas make great neighbors. In a single year, more than 50 million visitors come to America's wildlife refuges nationwide and spend billions in nearby communities. Decades later, another Kentucky community was looking to safeguard its own natural treasure. The Green River, which flows through Kentucky and meets the Ohio River near Henderson County, is one of the most biodiverse waterways on the entire continent. I was proud to take the lead once again, and alongside strong local supporters and a broad coalition of groups, we sent a bill to President Trump, and he signed it into law. We welcomed the Interior Secretary to Western Kentucky last year to cut the ribbon on the Green River National Wildlife Refuge. But Kentuckians know that ribbon cuttings are just the beginning. Our State has newly designated public lands that need attention to get off the ground. We have well-established public lands that have opportunities to grow and improve, and we have places like the Daniel Boone National Forest, established more than 80 years ago, that need our careful attention and upkeep. This legislation before the Senate will help all of them. It will help us repair levees at the Clarks River National Wildlife Refuge. It will also help our two wildlife refuges continue to grow. It will help Mill Springs Battlefield and Camp Nelson continue to teach the history of emancipation and the Civil War to new generations. It will help us make infrastructure upgrades at Mammoth Cave National Park for the safety of 2 million annual visitors. It will help enhance the Land Between the Lakes and its $600 million economic impact. It will fund transportation and structural maintenance in the Daniel Boone National Forest, which supports more than 900 jobs. It will help us rehabilitate the Cumberland Gap and give future Americans the opportunity to literally follow in the footsteps of our early explorers. Kentucky is proud of our public lands. We are proud of the role our natural inheritance plays in our vibrant present and our promising future. Of course, we are only just one State. Every one of my Senate colleagues has parks, forests, refuges, and historic sites they are equally proud of that are equally central in their communities. That is why we voted to advance this legislation earlier this week by an overwhelming bipartisan margin. President Teddy Roosevelt once said this about our Nation's national treasures: ``We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage people ever received, and each one must do his part if we wish to show that the Nation is worthy of its good fortune.'' I want to thank Senator Daines and Senator Gardner for their leadership in making sure that we keep up our end of the bargain with the generations of Americans who came before us and those yet to come. I am also grateful for Senator Alexander, Senator Portman, and our Democratic colleagues, Senators Manchin and Warner, for helping to assemble this bipartisan bill. I will be proud to speak for Kentucky and to vote for it. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. McCONNELL

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

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, yesterday, I explained that we cannot let the First Amendment become another casualty of this troubled moment. No matter how charged the issue, peaceful protests must be protected, from suppression by governments or hijackings by violent mobs. In the United States of America, people get to protest. In our country, people also get to worship. As I explained yesterday, local officials cannot selectively enforce health restrictions to privilege some First Amendment gatherings over others. If mayors are posing for photographs in massive demonstrations, there is no reason why small, careful church services should stay banned These are formal constitutional questions, but our American culture of free expression and open debate is not only threatened from the top down by the government, it can also dry up from beneath. If we are to maintain the civic discourse that has made us great, American citizens and American institutions need to want it. In the last several years, the New York Times has published op-eds from Vladimir Putin, the foreign minister of Iran, and a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. They have published an essay arguing for greater normalization of pedophilia. As far as I know, none of those decisions occasioned public revolts from the paper's staff, hand-wringing apologies from the editors, or an overhaul of the masthead. Presumably, it was understood that pushing the envelope and airing disagreements are necessary in a free market of ideas. But 1 week ago, the Gray Lady finally met her match. Vladimir Putin? No problem. Iranian propaganda? Sure. But nothing could have prepared them for 800 words from the junior Senator from Arkansas. Senator Cotton wrote an op-ed explaining a position which one survey found 58 percent of Americans agreed with. He argued that leadership in several cities had proven they either couldn't or wouldn't stop the riots, so President Trump should use Federal troops to secure the peace, as several Presidents have in our history. His view was controversial, no question, but there is also no question it was a legitimate view for a Senator to express. Looting and arson were crippling cities nightly. Some local authorities seemed to be functionally sacrificing their cities' small businesses to appease the mob. In Chicago, we have since learned, even Democratic aldermen were literally crying and pleading with their Democratic mayor to do something, they said. So a U.S. Senator wrote about it. Immediately, his idea was met with strong criticism. Now, that ought to be par for the course. In a free and open society, speech begets speech. Arguments beget counterarguments. We discuss and debate as fellow citizens. But that is not quite what happened. Instead of trying to win the argument, the far left tried to end the discussion. By now, we all know the routine. We have seen this movie before. Rather than actually rebut speech, the far left tried to silence the speaker with a mixture of misrepresentations, sanctimonious moralizing, and bizarre, emotional word salads that nobody else could have standing to question. This silencing tactic has escaped from the ivory tower and is spreading throughout American life. This sounds like Mad Libs mixture between a therapy session and a university's H.R. department. So, sure enough, instead of attempting to defeat Senator Cotton's ideas, the left set out to ban him from polite society. Some New York Times employees flooded social media to claim their bosses have risked reporters' physical safety with the Senator's scary words. Outside leftists blasted the paper for airing the argument. The Times itself began lying about what Senator Cotton had said. The paper's own Twitter account has claimed he had called for a crackdown on peaceful protests, when he specifically distinguished them from violent rioters. One of the Times' own opinion writers devoted her own column the next day to calling his view ``fascist'' and proclaiming him outside ``the bounds of legitimate debate.'' Remember, this is a sitting Senator discussing a proposition that had the majority of support from the American people, discussing a power that Congress gave to Presidents 213 years ago and which Presidents in the past have exercised. Oh, but the facts couldn't hold a candle to the hurt feelings. The New York Times erred grievously by making people confront a different viewpoint. They had hurt their feelings by making them confront a different viewpoint. They had to atone. So when the dust settled, a top opinion editor was gone. His deputy was reassigned. The piece was pulled out of the print edition, and a wandering multiparagraph apology now precedes it online. We are talking the New York Times. I understand the new editor has made it clear that staff should notify her immediately if any published opinion makes them uncomfortable--if any published opinion makes them uncomfortable? One of our Nation's most storied newspapers just had its intellectual independence challenged by an angry mob, and they folded like a house of cards. A jury of people on Twitter indicted them as accessories to a thought crime, and instead of telling them to go take a hike, the paper pleaded guilty and begged for mercy. Their readers' comfortable bubble was reinflated. Their safe space was safe again. Now, our colleague from Arkansas has a unique job. The far left cannot write angry emails to a university president or a publisher to get him fired. He cannot be silenced by professions of outrage or the use of magic words like ``problematic.'' His only bosses are his constituents. This broader, leftwing obsession with banning heretics from the public square will be poison for this country if it persists. Our Republic can survive a pandemic, it can survive civil unrest, but ideas and deliberation are our very foundation. America cannot be America if civil disagreement becomes a contradiction in terms. The liberal tradition in this country used to pride itself on being broad-minded, but we have spent years watching major universities slowly exchange debate for uniformity and rigor for psychological comfort. Now, we see the free press repeating that error. Let's hope we look back on this as a silly anomaly and not a sad turning point for our democracy

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, now on to an entirely different matter. Thanks to the bipartisan leadership of colleagues like Senators Daines, Gardner, Portman, Alexander, Manchin, and Warner, we are attending to legislation that will shape the future of the great American outdoors for the better. It is fitting that the legislation before us comes with support of such a broad bipartisan coalition because our national parks, forests, and other public lands are treasured in every State of our Union by the hunters and anglers who look forward to the morning stillness of the Black Hills and the Big South Fork of the Cumberland, by the hikers who camp and plot weekend escapes in Shenandoah and Joshua Tree, by the school groups and researchers who connect with history at Gettysburg and Mesa Verde. Every year, hundreds of millions of our people--our fellow Americans and visitors from around the world--share the gift of our Nation's public lands. Even more Americans in surrounding communities benefit from the jobs and the prosperity that are supported by tourism and recreation. This country's public lands comprise a tremendously diverse array of landscapes, wildlife, historic sites, and natural resources. They are spread out across 419 parks, 568 refuges, and hundreds of millions of acres of managed space. They didn't pop up overnight. It has taken more than a century of dedicated work to designate, acquire, and maintain the public lands Americans enjoy today. It is the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which this legislation will give permanent support, that makes them accessible for generations to come. Today, more than 5 million Americans rely directly on outdoor recreation for their livelihood. They contribute to $778 billion in economic activity. In recent years, their industry's growth has outpaced an economy that was red-hot in its own right. A bright future for our public lands is a bright future for our Nation, and a predictable, consistent support provided by the LWCF will play a critical role in these efforts. Take my home State of Kentucky, for example. For years, I have been proud to advocate for LWCF funding to conserve some of the Bluegrass's precious wilderness and historic sites. Back in 1996, Kentucky was the only State without a national wildlife refuge, and it was my legislation that helped secure the creation of one at Clarks River. Last year, additional legislation I authored helped create another sanctuary for wildlife and recreation at the confluence of the Green and Ohio Rivers. Already, the Fish and Wildlife Service has marked the Green River Wildlife Refuge as the LWCF's top funding priority for the coming year. The dedicated resources in this legislation would be instrumental in the growth of Kentucky's newest national treasure, along with other areas like Clarks River. As the LWCF drives the preservation of more national wetlands, forests, and battlefield space in Kentucky, I suspect every one of my colleagues is equally proud of similar efforts in their own States. This bill advances a noble cause that has added benefit of being a sound investment. According to one recent analysis, every dollar spent through the Land and Water Conservation Fund turns out $4 in economic benefit. Every $1 million directed toward the LWCF in turn supports as many as 30 American jobs. So I am extremely proud to be a cosponsor of the Great American Outdoors Act, I am proud of the work our colleagues have put in to get it this far, and I look forward to seeing it passed.

Mr. McCONNELL

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

Mr. McCONNELL

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1617.

Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with.

Mr. McCONNELL. I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk for the substitute amendment.