Jeff Merkley

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, our Founders recognize that no decision carries more consequences than the decision of whether to go to war. They were well familiar with the carnage of human lives and blood, injuries, and treasure that our initial war, the War of Independence, brought. As we stand here several hundred years later, we recognize the wars in between; that more than 400,000 Americans died in World War II, that more than 50,000 Americans died in the Vietnam war, and that more than 4,000 Americans died in the war in Iraq. Those are just some indications of the enormous impacts and consequences of a decision to go to war. It was an issue that the Founders struggled with in a republic: Where should this immense power rest? Should it rest with one individual--the President--or are the consequences too great to have the judgment of a single person carry the decision to its completion? After intense debate, after many arguments, the Founders became very clear that this power should never rest in the hands of a single person; that it should not just be one body but two bodies--the House and the Senate--that should weigh in on the issue of war. The consequences being so profound, they could not leave it to the idiosyncrasies or the biases or the misjudgment of a single individual. It was in fact one of the defining arguments about the difference between a King and a President. A King could make that decision, with often horrific consequences for the people of the kingdom, but not in the United States of America. This is why it is so deeply embedded in our Constitution. In Article I, section 8, under the enumerated powers of Congress, are simply the words ``to declare war.'' That power is vested in Congress, not the President. The Founders weighed in time and again about this. Turning to James Madison, the father of the Constitution, he commented: The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war to the Legislature. He went on: The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature. Madison continues: The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or not cause for declaring war. He was the father of our Constitution. That led to this document that vests the power to declare war with Congress, not the President. George Washington, the father of our Nation, said: ``The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.'' This was the Commander in Chief speaking. This was the hero of the American Revolution speaking. This was the man most trusted to be the first President of the United States, who was to steer the course and make sure the Presidency did not become a kingship. And his conclusion? ``[T]herefore, no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have . . . authorized such a measure.'' This is enormously at odds with the vision our colleague from Arkansas presented on the floor--dismissing the role of Congress, dismissing the Constitution, and instead saying let the President, as Commander in Chief, do what he will. That was not the vision. George Mason of Virginia--if you stand in DC, you can look across the Potomac River, and you can see a monument to George Mason. He made notes of the Constitutional Convention. George Mason remarked that he was ``against giving the power of war to the executive'' because the President ``is not safely to be trusted with it.'' That was the point, that no one individual, no matter how wise--not even a George Washington--could be trusted with this decision. George Washington, as President, agreed with this completely, that despite his expertise as a Commander in Chief, it was not to be the judgment of one person. Thomas Jefferson, one of the most brilliant minds our country has ever produced, commented: ``We have already given in example''-- referring to the Constitution--``one effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him''--the dog of war--``loose from the Executive to the Legislative.'' So he is commenting on the Constitution and saying: We have put a check on the dog of war by putting that power in the legislative body, not the executive. Jefferson became President. Did he change his mind when he became President? His initial quote I gave you was from 1789, but later he became President of the United States. And what did he think then? He thought the same exact thing, just as President Washington had. Jefferson said: ``Considering that Congress alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force in any degree which could be avoided''--his message to Congress in 1805. He recognized what the Constitution did. Are we going to recognize the constitutional vision? Now, there may be folks in this Chamber who simply disagree with the Founders and say that Congress is too complicated, that the power to declare war and the power to go to war should be vested solely in the Commander in Chief. Well, then, come and present a constitutional amendment on the floor of the U.S. Senate. You took an oath to the Constitution of the United States, and that oath says that power rests in this body. If you want to change the Constitution, then, have the guts to come down here and propose doing so. I guarantee it will be roundly defeated because the wisdom of our Founders that it is a mistake to give the power of war to one person is wise and does stand the test of time. Alexander Hamilton noted the following: The Congress shall have the power to declare war; the plain meaning of which is, that it is the peculiar and exclusive duty of Congress, when the Nation is at peace, to change that state into a state of war. . . . Alexander Hamilton said: ``exclusive duty of Congress'' and ``the plain meaning'' of our Constitution. This viewpoint continued to carry the day far into the future. Abraham Lincoln was speaking in 1848, and he said: The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making powers to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Those are Lincoln's words. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our [Constitutional] Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. In the words of these great leaders of America--Washington, Hamilton, Mason, President Lincoln--all point to the power and wisdom of putting the decision about war with the House and the Senate, not the President. Now, this resolution before us says: Mr. President, there is no foregoing authorization to go to war against Iran. It says: Any authorization has to come after debate specifically on that topic. And why is this? Because we have heard from the administration that they want to use the 2001 authorization for the use of military force, an authorization specifically about al-Qaida in Afghanistan, to authorize war with Iran. Nothing could be more convoluted, and that is why we need to stand up and say: That is wrong. That is not right. Anyone who pays even just a modicum of attention knows that the resolution to take on al-Qaida in Afghanistan is very different than going to war against the Shiite Islam nation of Iran. But we have to say it because the administration has been trying to prepare the case saying this 2001 resolution somehow has a link that authorizes war. And why are we so concerned at this moment? Why are we here on the floor in this debate? Well, it is because the drums of war are beating loudly. It is because the President has deployed the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike force to the Gulf to threaten Iran. It is because the President has preplaced a squadron of B-52 bombers to be ready to bomb Iran. Why are we so concerned--when we have a National Security Advisor who has said that no agreement can ever be reached with Iran and we have to bomb them and when we have a Secretary of State who says that no one has ever stood up to Iran and we have to teach them a lesson, or words to that effect, and we have a President who has proceeded to say that any attack will be met by great and overwhelming force? So envision these preplaced forces. And, in fact, the President has declared that a section of the Iranian military, the Revolutionary Guard is a terrorist force. Add all of that up, and the President is talking about looking for a trigger to apply great and overwhelming force. That is why we are here. A response in proportion to defend a direct attack on the United States is authorized by the War Powers Act. That is honored by the resolution that is before us, the Udall-Paul- Kaine amendment that is before us. That is honored. But as for the use of great and overwhelming force the President is threatening, that is war. That has to come before this body. The President went on and said: ``In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration.'' So for any attack? And we have heard the Secretary of State say if there is a Shiite force in Iraq that we can tie to Shiites in Iran and some communication, we will consider that an attack by Iran--looking for a trigger to go to war. And the President has said any act will be met with overwhelming force. Not under our Constitution. You want that authority? You come here. You want to change the Constitution? Then, come here. I say this to my fellow Senators: Do you want to change the Constitution? Bring your amendment to the floor of the Senate to change the Constitution. The Constitution speaks clearly. The President has no authority to apply overwhelming force or obliterating force and conduct a war against Iran. Make your case here or honor the Constitution. We are in a troubling and difficult time, and I would like to see every Member of the Senate down here talking to each other about this. That is the gravity of the consequences. It is not a few Members who are here to stand up for our Constitution and the vision of wisdom in our Constitution. This is the time, before there is that trigger in which the President responds with great and overwhelming force and before he responds with obliterating force. Now is the time to pass this amendment put together in a bipartisan fashion that lays out the fundamental requirements of our Constitution and the fundamental requirements embraced by the Founders and the fundamental requirements repeated and honored by the greatest Presidents who have ever served our Nation. Let us not allow the vision of our Constitution to be shredded. Let us honor our responsibility when we took an oath in office to defend it, and let us honor the wisdom of holding that debate on the floor, should the President ever ask us for such authorization to go to war against Iran. I yield the floor.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my intern, Tyler White, be granted privileges of the floor for the balance of today.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, the three most important words of our Constitution are the first three: ``We the People.'' That is what our entire vision of our form of government is about. There was a lot of discussion among the Founders about how we make sure we don't end up with the equivalent of a King here in the United States of America because with a King, you get a government by and for the King and the King's circle, the powerful circle at the top, rather than the people. Unfortunately, that vision in America is being challenged--challenged because we have a fundamental concentration of power through dark money in campaigns and gerrymandering through voter suppression and intimidation. The result is a shredding of the vision of our Constitution. We have a responsibility in the Senate to fix that, and that is why we should be considering the For the People Act that takes on gerrymandering, voter suppression, and dark money. If we want evidence of just exactly how corrupted the system has become, go no further than to look at drug companies gouging Americans on drug prices. Today I am introducing the End Price Gouging for Medications Act to stop the pharmaceutical companies' greed and give Americans much needed relief. The average American spends about $1,000 per year on medication. That is 11 times what they spent in 1960. More than half of Americans take at least one prescription medication--about 60 percent of us. One- quarter of them say they or family members have not filled a prescription or have cut pills in half or have skipped doses because of the cost, and those costs just keep going right on up. January through June 2018, there were price increases on 4,412 drugs and decreases on just 46. That is a ratio that approaches 100 to 1. For every 100 drugs that go up in price, 1 comes down a little. We are clearly failing to tackle this problem. I hear it from my constituents back in Oregon. Bonnie Davis from Creswell, who is a senior citizen on a fixed income and has been diabetic for 30 years, was prescribed two new kinds of insulin in December: BYDUREON, which costs $1,927 for a 3-month supply, and Lantus SoloSTAR, which costs $1,952. She will pay more than $5,000 out of pocket by the end of the year. In 1972, insulin cost just $1.49 per vial. What an incredible difference on a product that has been around forever. Her two adult children are living in Germany. They thought about coming back to the United States of America but decided not to for one simple reason: the cost of healthcare in the United States of America and specifically the cost of medications. I come from Douglas County, a little timber county in Southern Oregon. Leslie Rogers comes from that county. She comes from Roseburg, a town where I went to first grade. Leslie shared his daughter Gloria's story at one of my townhalls. Gloria suffers from a rare genetic condition called West syndrome. She lives, therefore, in near constant fear of seizures and cystic fibrosis. It is treatable. It is treatable with a drug called ACTH. It was invented in the 1950s. Previously, it cost $40 a vial--$40--but in 8 years, the cost has grown to $45,000. Yes, you heard that right--from $40 to $45,000. That is more than a thousandfold increase. The company that makes the drug bought the rights to and blocked a $200 synthetic ACTH treatment used in Canada to prevent it from coming to the United States. They are making a lot of money by blocking a generic synthetic competitor. Leslie Rogers says: ``Hospitalization and treatment drove my family to the edge of bankruptcy, and my daughter was left tube fed and suction dependent due to treatment delays fighting with insurance over the drug price.'' How would you feel if your daughter or your son were left in a situation of being tube fed and suction dependent because you couldn't afford the drug because the drug had increased in price 1,000 times? The cost of another drug used to treat the disease, Vigabatrin, has also skyrocketed after makers saw what the first company was able to get away with. It cost about $1,500 a month 3 years ago, and $1,500 is a lot. How much does it cost today? It costs $26,000 per month. That is roughly a twentyfold increase. Leslie Rogers notes: ``This price gouging has led to thousands of children since we first spoke to suffer the same fate as my daughter-- severe brain damage, cerebral palsy, reliance on tube feedings, and many have died.'' Let's be clear. Price gouging in America isn't just about the pocketbook; it is about health, and it is about life or death for many people. This situation doesn't exist in other countries. The whole entire price regime is different. Let's take, as an example, HUMIRA, a common drug for rheumatoid arthritis. Here in the United States, it is about $2,700 per dose. In the United Kingdom, it is $1,362. Why does it cost twice that in the United States of America for this drug, this common drug? Then there is CRESTOR, which is used to treat high cholesterol? It is $216 in the United States, and it is $32 in France. Crudely, that is a sevenfold increase in the United States over France. Why do we pay seven times as much as the people in France? There is also HARVONI that is used to treat hepatitis C. It cost $13,000 in Japan and $30,000 in United States. That is three times as much. Why do we pay three times what they pay in Japan for this drug? There is also JANUVIA that is used to treat type 2 diabetes. It costs $34 in Australia and $331 in the United States of America--a tenfold increase. Why do we pay 10 times as much as people in Australia? There is an answer to the question--the question of why we pay so much for HUMIRA, for CRESTOR, for HARVONI, and for JANUVIA. Very simply, other governments negotiate the price: If you want to sell it in our country, we negotiate the price. We don't. Now, what is the reason why we don't? Why don't we pick up and do for Americans what the Government of Australia does for Australians, or the Government of the United Kingdom does for its citizens, or the Government of France does for their citizens? Why don't we do it for our citizens--the same good work in negotiating the price that other governments do? What is wrong with our government? What is wrong with this Chamber? It is corruption. It is the absolute corruption of money in campaigns. So who are we serving here in this Chamber? Are we serving the people or are we serving the drug companies? That is the question every Member of this Chamber should struggle with. In the United States, drug companies set the price, and we don't negotiate. In fact, the U.S. Government has set a law saying the U.S. Government can't negotiate. Why would we do that? Why would we do that to ourselves? Why would we do that to the people of this country who cannot afford the drugs because we make them far more expensive than anywhere else in the world? Well, we shouldn't. That is why I have introduced the End Price Gouging for Medications Act. On behalf of the people of America, we need to end the drug gouging. Now, I do a lot of townhalls. I do one in every county every year. There are 36 counties in Oregon. It is open hour for people to ask questions. They are blue counties, and they are red counties. Twenty- two of my 36 are about as red as the reddest counties you will find in America. I ask the people: How many people here at this townhall like getting gouged on drugs? Nobody does. How many people like paying 2 or 5 or 10 times more than the citizens of other developed countries? No one likes it. America is united--rural America, urban America, blue America, red America, young America, old America. America is united to end this drug gouging. So why don't we act? I challenge my colleagues: Come here and work for the people of the United States of America rather than the drug companies' profits. It is time to stand up. Stand up against those companies. This plan is quite simple. It says you can't sell the drug for more than the median price of what you sell it for in Australia, Japan, Canada, and the largest European countries. It is that simple. Median price in those markets. If you want to raise your prices in America, you have to raise your prices in those countries. That way we all get a fair deal. This would stop the drug gouging of Americans overnight. This is quite simple, but you may ask how is it enforced? How do you make sure that this happens? Well, it is this. The difference between the reference price, or the median price in those countries, and the price the drug company sells their product at--if they sell it for more than the median price, the penalty is five times the difference. If they sell it for $1,000 more per dose over the median price, the penalty is $5,000. That gets people's attention. Drug companies don't want to be paying massive penalties. And where do the fines go? They go to the NIH for drug research and development. There is all this myth that we are not going to invest in drug development. The basic science is done by NIH, and this would fund NIH. Americans have been ripped off. Americans have been gouged, and it is this Chamber that is allowing it to happen. Who here wants to come and say they are for the drug gouging of Americans? Well, I can tell you that America is not with you if you are supporting the drug gouging of our citizens. So let's have the courage to carry the fight for the people, not the powerful.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, the three most important words of our Constitution are the first three: ``We the People.'' That is what our entire vision of our form of government is about. There was a lot of discussion among the Founders about how we make sure we don't end up with the equivalent of a King here in the United States of America because with a King, you get a government by and for the King and the King's circle, the powerful circle at the top, rather than the people. Unfortunately, that vision in America is being challenged--challenged because we have a fundamental concentration of power through dark money in campaigns and gerrymandering through voter suppression and intimidation. The result is a shredding of the vision of our Constitution. We have a responsibility in the Senate to fix that, and that is why we should be considering the For the People Act that takes on gerrymandering, voter suppression, and dark money. If we want evidence of just exactly how corrupted the system has become, go no further than to look at drug companies gouging Americans on drug prices. Today I am introducing the End Price Gouging for Medications Act to stop the pharmaceutical companies' greed and give Americans much needed relief. The average American spends about $1,000 per year on medication. That is 11 times what they spent in 1960. More than half of Americans take at least one prescription medication--about 60 percent of us. One- quarter of them say they or family members have not filled a prescription or have cut pills in half or have skipped doses because of the cost, and those costs just keep going right on up. January through June 2018, there were price increases on 4,412 drugs and decreases on just 46. That is a ratio that approaches 100 to 1. For every 100 drugs that go up in price, 1 comes down a little. We are clearly failing to tackle this problem. I hear it from my constituents back in Oregon. Bonnie Davis from Creswell, who is a senior citizen on a fixed income and has been diabetic for 30 years, was prescribed two new kinds of insulin in December: BYDUREON, which costs $1,927 for a 3-month supply, and Lantus SoloSTAR, which costs $1,952. She will pay more than $5,000 out of pocket by the end of the year. In 1972, insulin cost just $1.49 per vial. What an incredible difference on a product that has been around forever. Her two adult children are living in Germany. They thought about coming back to the United States of America but decided not to for one simple reason: the cost of healthcare in the United States of America and specifically the cost of medications. I come from Douglas County, a little timber county in Southern Oregon. Leslie Rogers comes from that county. She comes from Roseburg, a town where I went to first grade. Leslie shared his daughter Gloria's story at one of my townhalls. Gloria suffers from a rare genetic condition called West syndrome. She lives, therefore, in near constant fear of seizures and cystic fibrosis. It is treatable. It is treatable with a drug called ACTH. It was invented in the 1950s. Previously, it cost $40 a vial--$40--but in 8 years, the cost has grown to $45,000. Yes, you heard that right--from $40 to $45,000. That is more than a thousandfold increase. The company that makes the drug bought the rights to and blocked a $200 synthetic ACTH treatment used in Canada to prevent it from coming to the United States. They are making a lot of money by blocking a generic synthetic competitor. Leslie Rogers says: ``Hospitalization and treatment drove my family to the edge of bankruptcy, and my daughter was left tube fed and suction dependent due to treatment delays fighting with insurance over the drug price.'' How would you feel if your daughter or your son were left in a situation of being tube fed and suction dependent because you couldn't afford the drug because the drug had increased in price 1,000 times? The cost of another drug used to treat the disease, Vigabatrin, has also skyrocketed after makers saw what the first company was able to get away with. It cost about $1,500 a month 3 years ago, and $1,500 is a lot. How much does it cost today? It costs $26,000 per month. That is roughly a twentyfold increase. Leslie Rogers notes: ``This price gouging has led to thousands of children since we first spoke to suffer the same fate as my daughter-- severe brain damage, cerebral palsy, reliance on tube feedings, and many have died.'' Let's be clear. Price gouging in America isn't just about the pocketbook; it is about health, and it is about life or death for many people. This situation doesn't exist in other countries. The whole entire price regime is different. Let's take, as an example, HUMIRA, a common drug for rheumatoid arthritis. Here in the United States, it is about $2,700 per dose. In the United Kingdom, it is $1,362. Why does it cost twice that in the United States of America for this drug, this common drug? Then there is CRESTOR, which is used to treat high cholesterol? It is $216 in the United States, and it is $32 in France. Crudely, that is a sevenfold increase in the United States over France. Why do we pay seven times as much as the people in France? There is also HARVONI that is used to treat hepatitis C. It cost $13,000 in Japan and $30,000 in United States. That is three times as much. Why do we pay three times what they pay in Japan for this drug? There is also JANUVIA that is used to treat type 2 diabetes. It costs $34 in Australia and $331 in the United States of America--a tenfold increase. Why do we pay 10 times as much as people in Australia? There is an answer to the question--the question of why we pay so much for HUMIRA, for CRESTOR, for HARVONI, and for JANUVIA. Very simply, other governments negotiate the price: If you want to sell it in our country, we negotiate the price. We don't. Now, what is the reason why we don't? Why don't we pick up and do for Americans what the Government of Australia does for Australians, or the Government of the United Kingdom does for its citizens, or the Government of France does for their citizens? Why don't we do it for our citizens--the same good work in negotiating the price that other governments do? What is wrong with our government? What is wrong with this Chamber? It is corruption. It is the absolute corruption of money in campaigns. So who are we serving here in this Chamber? Are we serving the people or are we serving the drug companies? That is the question every Member of this Chamber should struggle with. In the United States, drug companies set the price, and we don't negotiate. In fact, the U.S. Government has set a law saying the U.S. Government can't negotiate. Why would we do that? Why would we do that to ourselves? Why would we do that to the people of this country who cannot afford the drugs because we make them far more expensive than anywhere else in the world? Well, we shouldn't. That is why I have introduced the End Price Gouging for Medications Act. On behalf of the people of America, we need to end the drug gouging. Now, I do a lot of townhalls. I do one in every county every year. There are 36 counties in Oregon. It is open hour for people to ask questions. They are blue counties, and they are red counties. Twenty- two of my 36 are about as red as the reddest counties you will find in America. I ask the people: How many people here at this townhall like getting gouged on drugs? Nobody does. How many people like paying 2 or 5 or 10 times more than the citizens of other developed countries? No one likes it. America is united--rural America, urban America, blue America, red America, young America, old America. America is united to end this drug gouging. So why don't we act? I challenge my colleagues: Come here and work for the people of the United States of America rather than the drug companies' profits. It is time to stand up. Stand up against those companies. This plan is quite simple. It says you can't sell the drug for more than the median price of what you sell it for in Australia, Japan, Canada, and the largest European countries. It is that simple. Median price in those markets. If you want to raise your prices in America, you have to raise your prices in those countries. That way we all get a fair deal. This would stop the drug gouging of Americans overnight. This is quite simple, but you may ask how is it enforced? How do you make sure that this happens? Well, it is this. The difference between the reference price, or the median price in those countries, and the price the drug company sells their product at--if they sell it for more than the median price, the penalty is five times the difference. If they sell it for $1,000 more per dose over the median price, the penalty is $5,000. That gets people's attention. Drug companies don't want to be paying massive penalties. And where do the fines go? They go to the NIH for drug research and development. There is all this myth that we are not going to invest in drug development. The basic science is done by NIH, and this would fund NIH. Americans have been ripped off. Americans have been gouged, and it is this Chamber that is allowing it to happen. Who here wants to come and say they are for the drug gouging of Americans? Well, I can tell you that America is not with you if you are supporting the drug gouging of our citizens. So let's have the courage to carry the fight for the people, not the powerful.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, this Chamber has the responsibility to debate tough issues that face our Nation. It has been devoid of such tough debates now for a very long time, essentially failing to perform its responsibilities to the American people under the vision of our Constitution. I am more troubled at this moment about this failure than any previous moment because, at this moment, the drums of war are beating, and this Chamber stays silent. At this moment, we have a bill before us to address security issues. Yet we are being denied the chance to debate the most important security issue of all--whether or not the United States goes to war. The question before us in the amendment put forward by Tom Udall of New Mexico and Tim Kaine of Virginia is this: Has there already been an authorization by this body for the President to go to war against Iran? Their amendment answers this question. It says with great clarity that the answer is no. The President does not have authority to go to war. The power to make that decision is vested with Congress, and no bending and twisting and contorting of any previous authority can be used in this situation. That is what their amendment says. It says: Mr. President, if you want to go to war, you have to come to Congress to get authority--authority voted on after the date of their amendment. It is a fundamental question: Are we going to follow the Constitution or not? When our Framers were working on the Constitution, many feared that a President would become a King, and many feared that Kings take countries to war to the benefit of their treasure and their power but to the disadvantage of the people. But we are supposed to be a country with a different vision--not government by and for a King or by and for the powerful, but by and for the people. They debated this at great length and decided with clarity and authority that Presidents in the United States would not have that power. Hamilton wrote about this in his Federalist Paper 69 in 1788: The President is to be the commander-in-chief of the army and navy. . . . In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces . . . while that of the British king extends to the DECLARING of war. This declares a huge difference between a kingship that can decide on war, but here in America, it is the power vested in this body-- Congress. At another point Hamilton wrote that the President of the United States ``would be an officer elected by the people for FOUR years,'' again, describing the difference between a President and a King. ``[T]he king of Britain is a perpetual and hereditary prince. . . . The one would have a right to command the military and naval forces of the nation''--the one being America, the other being the King of Britain-- ``possesses that of DECLARING war,'' very much emphasizing how important this distinction is. President Lincoln addressed this when he was in office: Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose--and you allow him to make war at pleasure. . . . If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, ``I see no probability of the British invading us,'' but he will say to you, ``Be silent; I see it, if you don't.'' Then Lincoln brings to bear that our Constitution doesn't allow this. The provision of the Constitution that gives the war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, for the following reason: that Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. Our Convention understood this to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and it resolved to so frame the Constitution of the United States that no man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. These were powerful words from President Lincoln in his describing the Founders' vision to make sure that no one man, including the President, holds the power to bring that oppression, the oppression of war, upon us. James Madison's notes of the debate of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 revealed that when Pierce Butler, of South Carolina, urged the President be given the power to initiate a war, the delegates overwhelmingly rejected his proposal. Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, said that he never expected to hear in a republic a motion to empower the Executive to declare war. George Mason, of Virginia, remarked that he was ``against giving the power of war to the Executive'' because the President ``is not safely to be trusted with it.'' Leader after leader said this power must reside in Congress, not in the President. This list of the Founders' vision goes on and on, all to this fundamental point: No one man--certainly not a President--is given the power to declare war. While we are here on the Defense Authorization Act, shouldn't we debate this issue? We have a President who, regardless, claims he has complete power to declare war. We have asked members of his Cabinet: Do you respect the Constitution? Will you come to Congress and ask for authority if you want to wage war against Iran? They have refused to answer that question time and again. So we demand here on this floor that we hold a debate on Tom Udall and Tim Kaine's amendment that states, very clearly, we have not authorized war. You cannot take any prior authorization and bend and twist and contort it to somehow say Congress has provided you this authority. I expect, under debate, if we were here listening to each other, this would have broad, bipartisan support. All of us took an oath to the Constitution. It does nothing but restate the fundamental principle written into the Constitution. The drumbeat of war against Iran has been steady--a continuous demeaning of its every move. For sure, it does many things that bother us a great deal. Yet it is more than just being concerned about its current activities when I speak of the drumbeat of war; I am talking about the fact that we exited an agreement that we made with Iran, the JCPOA agreement, which had it dismantling all of its nuclear programs in exchange for some loosening of economic restrictions. We exited it. When we did that--when President Trump pulled us out of it, he did exactly what the rightwing said, what the hard-liners in Iran said, which was that America was not to be trusted, that America will not stand by the agreement. President Trump showed Iran that it was right. Then, in this tightening of the economic restrictions by us that has ensued, we have made life difficult all across the spectrum of Iranian civilians, and we have created more support for the rightwing, for the hard-liners, for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in Iran--the folks who are the least interested in negotiating with the United States of America, the folks who are most interested in pursuing a nuclear program. We have strengthened Iran, within its country, with this action. Then we deployed the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf. One of our carrier strike forces is immensely powerful. It is able to rain down bombs on a vast number of cities in short order with there being massive destruction that symbolizes and embodies that power. It is not just that. We deployed a B-52 squadron to the region, and it has an immense, heavy lifting, bombing capability as well. It is not just that. The Iranian economy, while it suffered under quotas, still had some ability to sell some oil and therefore an ability to alleviate some suffering within its country economically. We cut off those waivers. Now they are really hard-pressed. So we empowered the rightwing. We strengthened the citizens of Iran to support the hard-liners, and the hard-liners then did something like shoot down an American drone, and we came this close to going to war. Our President's--President Trump's--inner Cabinet recommended our bombing Iran in retaliation. It was at the last moment that President Trump apparently recognized that Iran had shot down an unmanned drone and that we were going to conduct a bombing campaign that might kill 150 people, but that would not have been proportional. His observation was right. Yet where were his advisers when talking about proportionality--his advisers who had been beating this drumbeat of war, who had looked for a trigger, an opportunity to unleash the forces that had been pre-positioned in the gulf by the United States of America? Shouldn't we demand the President follow the Constitution? We must debate this amendment--the Udall-Kaine amendment--on this floor. Let people vote no or yes according to their opinions, but let us listen to each other. Let us argue about one of the most important issues a nation can ever argue about--the power to go to war. I hope my colleagues here in the Senate will read the commentary by the Founders and by those who came later. I was struck that Jefferson, who was very involved in the structuring of the Constitution, talked about putting a leash on the dogs of war by transferring the power from the executive to the legislative. Yet he didn't just talk the talk; he walked the walk. He wrote a message to Congress in 1805: ``Considering that Congress alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force.'' Jefferson talked the talk, and he walked the walk. Are we going to walk the walk? Are we going to stand by and not even debate the issue? Let us have the Senate be the Senate and put amendments before this body on issues that are important to this Nation. We are on a bill about the security of the Nation. There is no better time in the future than now. Are we to come together after war has been unleashed and then hold a debate on whether it was authorized? Can we not send clarity now or at least debate as to whether to send clarity now that, indeed, it is not authorized and that the President must come to Congress, as envisioned--as laid out in article I, section 8 of the Constitution? Shouldn't we have that debate now, not after a conflict has started? The answer is, yes, we should have the debate now.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, each year we have a debate on the National Defense Authorization Act. In the past, it was a real debate-- a debate for which people brought significant issues to the floor related to American national security. Their amendments were considered. We argued pro and con. We took votes. We lobbied our colleagues within our caucus or across the aisle with the wisdom of our viewpoint. That is a tradition; that is a practice; that is what this Chamber is all about--to take on the issues that we face as a Nation, wrestle with them, explore the pros and cons, find their strengths or weaknesses, sometimes come to compromises that take several viewpoints, and merge them together into an even stronger point of view. But I am deeply disturbed that the U.S. Senate is quickly losing the ability to consider the issues facing our Nation. My colleague just spoke about the challenge of climate pollution, and I appreciate his doing so. But we have had few determined efforts to address the ideas different Members have for taking on that challenge, despite its devastation to so many ways and different parts of our country. When it comes to the security of our country, no issue is more important than the question of going to war. Our Founders realized this is a decision that should never be vested in a single person, not even the President. They knew that a single individual might find political cause or corrupt purposes to make the decision to go to combat against a force and that such a decision should be debated in a Chamber like this and a Chamber like the House. That is why the Constitution gives to this body, the legislature of the United States of America, the power to go to war. It is a question that came up early in our history. There was a challenge that we had off the Barbary Coast with corsairs, who are often referred to as pirates, taking charge of American brigs and holding them hostage. Jefferson embraced the idea of going to war. He became President in 1801. Alexander Hamilton wanted to remind him what the Constitution said. As he said, ``It belongs to Congress only to go to war.'' Any one of us should be able to pull out our pocket Constitutions, read article I, section 8--that deliberate delegation to this Chamber and the House to make that decision. Well, right now we are in the drumbeat of war with Iran. There has been a lot of animosity between our two countries for a long period of time. The United States mounted a campaign through the Central Intelligence Agency to take out the directly elected leadership of Iran in 1953--a CIA-staged coup--and to install a leader, the Shah of Iran, who operated with great, shall I say, violence against the people. He had a secret police that was as feared as any in the world. There were other points of animosity when the people of Iran rose up against that Shah and took hostage Americans. They kept them hostage for a great length of time during the Carter administration. They did not release them until President Reagan came into office. Then there was the Iraq-Iran war, a war in which hundreds of thousands of people in Iran died, and the United States assisted the Iraqis in that war against Iran. Well, we have had often no love lost between our two nations over this period of time. I mention these few points of history to say that each side nurtures its grievances against the other, but something remarkable happened under the last administration. They worked to coordinate pressure from the entire world to strike a deal with Iran, to end their nuclear program, end the risk of Iran becoming a nuclear power. This agreement was something bought into by Russia and China, the European powers, and the United States. They did many concrete things, things that their rightwing did not like: dismantling their plutonium reactor, shipping enriched uranium out of their country, shutting down their centrifuges, allowing a massive amount of inspectors into their country to watch everything that they were doing. In return, the deal was we would help them economically find a better standard of living. This is a moment of potential turning point in the relationship--this long animosity between the two countries-- potentially a win-win, but then comes in a new administration, the Trump administration, and they don't like this possibility, this deal. The President says it is the worst deal ever struck. We, the United States, pulled out of the deal on May 8, 2018--just over a year ago. Since then, we have heard the drumbeats of war echoing on Capitol Hill. The administration designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and then proceeded to tighten the economic sanctions in order to pressure the economy of Iran. So we had the end of the Uighurs, who are partners of ours, to be able to buy Iranian oil, greatly starving the economy of that nation. Then we deployed, in recent weeks, the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike force to the Gulf. Then we deployed a B-52 squadron to the Gulf. Then we heard the advocates in the administration saying: If anything happens with a connection with Iran, we will show them the ferocity of our forces. We will respond and show them not to mess with the United States of America. Different officials cited different examples, but one was: If an Iranian militia in Iraq should happen to harm an American, that could be a trigger or if Iran were to disrupt the movement of oil from the Gulf, that could be a trigger. When you deploy forces and then start looking for triggers, you can find one for war, if you want, but I stand here today to quote the Constitution of the United States of America, and that Constitution says the power of war rests with this body--not the Oval Office. As we have pressured Iran, we have had incidents occur that have been highlighted in recent days. Some mines were put on the side of a couple ships--blew a hole through the side, didn't sink the ships. The administration is pretty sure, they say, that Iran did this. Well, I always exercise some caution. We all remember the Iraq war. We remember that the administration then--the Bush administration--built what they said was a powerful case of weapons of mass destruction being cultivated by Saddam Hussein and the Iraq Government. We went to war on that evidence, and we were wrong. Here we are at this moment and an administration that has predeployed forces, is squeezing the Iranian people as powerfully as possible. What happens in this situation? What is the goal? Some in the administration say the goal is negotiations. Now, let me get this straight. The United States broke the deal, strengthening the far right in Iran which said don't trust the Americans. We strengthened the Revolutionary Guard because the Revolutionary Guard did not like the deal to begin with. Then we economically squeezed the people of Iran, creating great hardship throughout the land--meaning we have moved the entire population in the direction of supporting the far right in that country. Now, take these two things. We have strengthened not the moderates who want to see the nation on a different course but the far right. Then we have alienated much of the country and increased their support for the far right, and we have shown that when we sign a deal, we don't stand behind the deal because this administration broke the deal. How is that a foundation for negotiation? We are saying to Iran: We negotiated. You agreed, but we are breaking the deal, and now we want to negotiate again. People don't tend to want to negotiate with folks who have broken the previous deal. So we here see that we have a challenge in which we stand on the precipice of potential war. My colleague from New Mexico has an amendment that restates the fundamentals of our Constitution, and he has teamed up with my colleague from Virginia who is here on the floor as well, and I am certainly completely supportive of their effort. They are saying that while we are on this bill, on security, on Defense authorization, this is a moment we should be debating whether the President has the authority to go to war, and their amendment says: No, he does not. He must follow the Constitution, and he must come to this body for authorization. That is an important message for us to send. We must not leave the debate on Defense authorization without debating the Udall- King amendment. My colleagues are here to speak to it in greater detail. I so much appreciate their work. This is a moment that this Chamber must rise to the challenge of being a force that can wrestle with great issues before us, and there is no more important security issue at this moment than debating whether the President has the power to go to war. I stand with the Constitution. I hope my colleagues will all stand with the Constitution in this Chamber. Thank you.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, Ernest Hemingway said that the world is a fine place and worth fighting for, and I couldn't agree more. My colleague from Delaware and I are here on the floor to fight for that world, to fight for our planet. If you breathe in a lung full of air right now--and I invite anybody following this to do so--hold it for a few seconds, and breathe it out, the air that you will have just taken into your body, into your lungs, will have had 33 percent more carbon than when I was born. That is a dramatic transformation of the atmosphere on this planet. It doesn't matter where you go. You could be doing this exercise here in DC, back home in Oregon, or in Japan. It is still 33 percent more carbon in a single lifetime. Because that extra carbon is blanketing our entire globe, it is having a huge impact--an impact we see in all kinds of ways. Back home in Oregon, there has been a huge impact with the forest fires. We had forest fires this year that started in March. Perhaps you have seen some pictures of walls of flames and fires in Montana, in Washington, in Oregon, and in California in the last couple of years-- smoke that has blanketed our cities and our States for weeks on end. This is not the norm. This is the result of changing climate chaos, and it is not good. We see extreme weather across the country. We see more powerful hurricanes assaulting the Southeast. We see more Lyme disease in the Northeast and fewer moose because the ticks kill the moose and ticks carry Lyme disease to humans. We see the slowest planting season in four decades--too much rain, flooded farms. As of June 3, the Department of Agriculture told us 40 million acres of corn that would normally have been planted haven't been planted. Climate chaos is the greatest threat humans have ever seen on this planet, and it is happening for one simple reason: We discovered fossil fuels. We discovered that burning them could create a lot of energy, and we could transform the globe with that energy, but every single time you use those carbon sources, you put carbon in the air, and now we have started to really damage our own planet. So what is the national response? Well, under President Obama, we had the Clean Power Plan--the CPP. The CPP laid out a pretty ambitious vision, an example for the world to follow, but, quite frankly, it wasn't enough. It doesn't accelerate enough our transition to renewable energy. Just think about it this way: We have been gifted with a fabulous source of fusion energy. We don't have to recreate fusion reactors here on the planet because we have it safely stowed millions of miles away in the Sun. That is a fusion reactor. All we have to do is capture the energy that shines on planet Earth, and we are in pretty good shape. That Sun heats up the air and creates wind, and we can capture that same energy by capturing the wind. We have geothermal energy, potential wave energy. We have to transition to these sources and quit burning carbon, and we need an ambitious plan to do so. We need a turning point. Future generations will either celebrate the moment when we committed ourselves to saving our planet or they will ask why we failed, and right now we are looking at failure. The rate of carbon pollution isn't going down; it is accelerating upward. We are accelerating into oblivion. When I was born, it took about 2 to 3 years to increase a single point of carbon pollution, parts per million. You can see how this curve is now accelerating upward. Now we are at about 2.5 points per year. That is a huge difference. We are kind of lulled into this false sense of comfort. Well, don't we have more insulation in our buildings? Aren't we blessed with cars that get greater mileage? We have appliances that use a little less energy. Well, yes, those things are true, but they are not enough. Even with that, the curve is accelerating upward. So we are in trouble, but we do have some blessings in this battle. Solar and wind electricity have plunged in cost, and the result is they are now cheaper than or competitive with fossil fuels. That is before you take into account the massive subsidies granted by legislative action to fossil fuels. So they are actually cheaper, and that is before you take into account the externalities--the damage that fossil fuels are doing to our planet. So now we can really see that renewables are a complete win except for the greed manifested through our political campaigns to keep burning fossil fuels. It means more dollars in a few corporations' pockets, pockets of a few really rich people who say that their generational need for wealth--which they can't take with them to the grave anyway--that generational need, they are willing to sacrifice our planet for all. Now, they are not willing to bear the costs. They are not willing to pay for the damage to all the homes destroyed by those more powerful hurricanes. They are not willing to pay for all the forests destroyed by the forest fires in Oregon. They are not willing to pay for the structures destroyed by those fires. They are not willing to pay the farmers whose crop is going to produce less because they had to plant so late. In other words, they want the private profit while planet Earth and the rest of us bear the consequences of their greed. So we need a strong plan, and we need it now. We need to have a clear, robust response to transition to renewable energy quickly. So let's build on the foundation of the Clean Power Plan. Let's make this the turning moment in history that future generations can celebrate because we really do have a very fine planet, and it is worth fighting for.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I come to the floor because I am losing a key member of my foreign policy team who has wrestled with the issues of the Middle East and who has been engaged in the dialogue and conversation about a smart policy to end nuclear proliferation. I can tell you that it is always, for any Senator, a moment that one has a conflicted heart when a man or a woman on their team who has contributed so much and has become part of the family, the Senate family, is ready to take on a new challenge away from these Chambers to develop their skills and to take their experience to a new extended conversation. It is a bittersweet moment. We are proud of what our team members have contributed and proud of what they are going to contribute as they go off to a new responsibility. Today, that member of my team is Louie Reckford. Louie, seated behind me, first came to my office in the fall of 2013 as part of that semester's intern class, and it wasn't long before he stood out, distinguished himself, and thus, when we were hiring a deputy scheduler the following March, Louie's name was at the top of the list, and he formally became a part of our team. So for more than 5 years now, he has contributed. He has never stopped distinguishing himself, taking on one task and one position after another and excelling at every one of them. In his 2 years as deputy scheduler, Louie fielded thousands of requests for meetings, from constituents, from nonprofits, from local businesses and more, making sure that every detail was right. His attention to detail and to turnaround time made a very positive impression with all who contacted our office. Over the last 3 years, he has been an invaluable member of my correspondence and foreign policy team, first as legislative correspondent and later as legislative aide. On top of sending out 181,000 pieces of constituent mail, mail from my office to my constituents, an average of 251 per day--on top of that, he has used his considerable leadership skills and subject-matter experience and strategic negotiating abilities to help pass a host of bills and resolutions in committee and here on the floor. When our foreign policy top staffer was transitioning into a new role as legislative director, he stepped up to fill the gap, helping to manage a team with two foreign policy fellows at that time. I could spend quite a lot more time extolling his list of accomplishments--his instrumental role in planning several international congressional delegations, his role in helping me carve out a new role on the Foreign Relations Committee, and, of course, that vital role of leading our office softball team. I will just say that Louie will be deeply missed by all members of Team Merkley, and we wish him well in his new adventure with Foreign Policy for America, where he will continue to be an invaluable leader of a myriad number of pressing foreign policy issues confronting our Nation today. Louie Reckford, we here in the Senate wish you all the best in your next chapter of contributing to solving the complex international issues that face our Nation. Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I give heartfelt thanks to my colleague from Illinois for bringing the experience of his service in the Senate and his deliberate study of the challenges of international affairs to bear on the gravity of the current situation where a policy has brought us to the brink of conflict and we have no confidence that there is wise judgment being exercised at this moment to ensure that there is not a war. I thank him for sharing the journey that he has been a part of and that this Chamber has been part of and ringing the alarm bell that at this moment, we have two key foreign policy advisors--our Secretary of State and our National Security Advisor--who prefer weapons over agreements, who have driven a strategy of maximum pressure designed to make life extraordinarily difficult in Iran, to undo all the international work of the previous years to end the nuclear program in that country, and who are talking as if a conflict somewhere--maybe an Iranian militia in Iraq--should be a trigger to a massive war, which is why we are so worried about leaving this Chamber for even a day. I thank him for raising his voice and sharing his experience.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, today, I would like to honor Keanon Lowe's heroism and bravery in tackling a gunman at Parkrose High School on May 17, 2019. Mr. Lowe is known for being a top wide receiver for University of Oregon's football team and now as a popular coach of football and track and field at Parkrose High School. He also works as a security guard at the school. On Friday, May 17, a distraught student entered a Parkrose classroom with a shotgun. Already this year, our Nation has watched children die at the hands of their armed classmates, including two young men who sacrificed their lives to stop gunmen and save their fellow students. To prevent such a tragedy, Mr. Lowe, in a tremendous act of courage, tackled the armed student and wrestled away the gun before anyone could be injured. Mr. Lowe put his life on the line to protect our students. Mr. Lowe has not only guided students on the field, but now he has also protected them in the classroom. He will no doubt be remembered by those students for the rest of their lives as an example of selflessness and courage. On behalf of all Oregonians, I express our deepest gratitude and admiration to Mr. Lowe, and thank him for his service to Parkrose students, every Parkrose family, and all Oregonians.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, the most important words in our Constitution are the first three. We all know them: ``We the people,'' written in supersize font so we don't forget what our Constitution is all about--government, as Lincoln put it, of, by, and for the people, or, as Jefferson put it, government designed to produce laws that reflect the will of the people. We don't see that now. We don't have a government of, by, and for the people. Instead, we have a system that has been profoundly corrupted. It has been corrupted by gerrymandering. It has been corrupted by voter suppression and intimidation. It has been corrupted by dark and dirty money that has flooded our campaigns and wiped out the voice of millions of Americans. That is where we are now in this corrupted state. We have debates on the floor that are all about helping a small group of people within a circle of power and privilege rather than having bills that help the citizens of the United States of America. In fact, we have a President who just this week said his goal was to tear down healthcare for 30 million Americans, to wipe out the expansion of Medicaid, to wipe out the tax credits that assist so many Americans with being able to afford insurance, to wipe out the protection to be able to get healthcare if you have a preexisting condition, and to wipe out the ability of your children to be on your policy until the age of 26. That is government by and for this very little circle of privilege and power instead of the people of the United States of America. We saw it in other ways too. In 2017, we saw a bill that reached into the Federal Treasury, took $1.5 trillion, and gave almost all of it to that small group of people inside that circle of privilege and power while it ignored the rest of the country. That is what happens in corrupt countries. The power elite reach in, take the Treasury for themselves, and ignore the will of the people. Every Member of this body took a pledge to the Constitution of the United States--a Constitution not founded on we the powerful but on we the people. So I ask: Are we going to honor that oath? If we are going to honor it, it means we have to stand up and end this deep and vast corruption. Yesterday, Senator Udall and I and all of my colleagues on this side of the aisle introduced a bill that is designed to take on gerrymandering, to take on voter suppression, and to take on dark money. Let's talk about gerrymandering. The Supreme Court has never done a thing about it even though it is clearly all about having the powerful choose its voters rather than having the voters choose their Representatives. It is a complete shredding of the vision of the Constitution. The Supreme Court utterly failed to act. It has a case before it now, and it will have another opportunity, but don't hold your breath. The time to address gerrymandering is before it is done. How do you do that? You do that with independent commissions. Independent commissions have been adopted in States like Iowa, and they have been widely received by the citizens as an issue of fairness. Yet, across so many States, we have congressional districts that are deliberately gerrymandered to favor the parties in power. It has happened in Democratic States, and it has happened in Republican States. You see it sometimes by the crazy configurations of the map. Sometimes you see it when a State that is essentially equally divided between the parties produces congressional Representatives heavily leaning to one side. It is hard to remedy after the fact, but you can remedy before the fact by having independent commissions across this country. The way you take that on is you have a group of six individuals. They take two from the Democrats and two from the Republicans and two of whom are Independents, and they may select a broader set of participants--maybe an additional three for the Ds and three from the Rs and three from the Independents. Then, when they take votes, there has to be a vote from each of those three sectors. That is sort of the design that forces cooperation and sets up a condition of fairness, and that is what the For the People Act does that we introduced yesterday. Now, I will tell you that State by State, and in my State, people ask: Why should I fix gerrymandering when that State over there still favors the other party? It is like waving the white flag on my turf while they are ripping us off over there. That is why it should be done at the Federal level. That is why we should pass the For the People Act. This act takes on the issue of voting fairness. If you really believe in the vision of a democratic republic, you believe in voter empowerment, not voter suppression. Yet what have we seen this last November 6? We have seen strategies to keep college students from voting, strategies to keep communities of color from voting, strategies to keep the poor from voting, strategies to prevent Native Americans from voting. Those strategies are born from people who don't believe in the vision of our Constitution. They don't believe it is the foundation for what we have. They see this as just a game to produce a result, which is a government for that small group of people inside that circle of power and privilege. I am a little more patriotic than that. I believe in the vision of our Constitution, so let's take on these efforts to obstruct voting. We did have a bill that had vast bipartisan support. It was called the Voting Rights Act, and we reauthorized it with vast bipartisan support because not so long ago, both sides of the aisle believed in the vision of our Constitution but not now. Unfortunately, now we are hearing that our colleagues across the aisle like voter intimidation. We see the Republican States engaging in it on a massive scale. It is increasing their power. They want to hold onto it--to clutch it to their chests and not let go. Yet, if you believe in the Constitution, if you believe in our country, you would let go. You would say: Let's appeal to all of the voters with our vision and not try to stop them from voting. That is why we need to take down the barriers for voting. That is why we need automatic voter registration and internet registration and same-day registration--so people can sign up to vote. It means we need better access to voting so there isn't manipulation at the precinct places and so there is early voting nationwide and the right to choose to vote by mail. Now, of course, I am a little biased on this because my home State of Oregon led the Nation in automatic voter registration, and we led the Nation in voting by mail. For those who are worrying about people voting who shouldn't be voting, nothing is more secure than to vote by mail, and those who are worried about electronic machines being hacked and not having a paper ballot, there is nothing more secure than voting by mail. When polls do occur and people go to those polls, shouldn't we make sure they are adequately staffed? The whole strategy of moving polling places at the last minute in order to confuse people and the whole strategy of understaffing polling places in the neighborhoods that you don't want to have vote is really evil--evil in that it takes away the vision of our Constitution. Voter empowerment is the vision; voter suppression is not. So that takes us to those polls and to our making sure we have a polling protection act. That is why we need the For the People Act--to take that on. Then we come to dark and dirty money--money flowing in from corporations and all kinds of overseas, foreign participants. Nothing is being done here about that. Of course, the vision laid out by Thomas Jefferson called it equal voice. It meant distributed power among the electorate, not concentrated power, only with equal voice. He said it was the mother principle. Only with that do you get bills that reflect the will of the people. We are getting bills that reflect a small circle of power and privilege, not the people, because of this dark money concentrating power. When the Koch brothers' cartel puts hundreds of millions of dollars into our campaign, the ordinary voter asks: Where is my equal voice? I don't have hundreds of millions of dollars. I will be lucky if I can give $10 to this candidate and $15 to that candidate. So the American people know the system is rigged--rigged in a profound way by this dark money. Where does this come from? It comes from that same Supreme Court that gutted the Voting Rights Act, from that same Supreme Court that failed to take on gerrymandering. It is the Court that has flipped our Constitution on its head and has replaced we the people with the vision of government by and for that small group of people in a circle of power--people like the Koch brothers, who, in 2014, spent hundreds of millions of dollars to change the makeup of this Chamber. Nobody in my blue-collar neighborhood has hundreds of millions of dollars. They know the system has been rigged. That is why we need the For the People Act--to restore the vision of our Constitution. I encourage all red-blooded, patriotic Americans to stand up for their Constitution, to fight for the vision embodied in Jefferson's mother principle of equal voice, distributed power, and to remedy the dark money flowing through our campaigns. Not only is it vastly corrupting, but it drives vast cynicism because the people see what is going on. Let's fix the gerrymandering on the front end. It is hard for the courts to do it on the back end even if they had the will to do so. Let's fix fair voting on the front end and not argue about it afterward when we can't even count the ballots because there are electronic machines and people didn't have a fair chance to get to the polls. Let's fix the dark money and embrace equal voice. I am concerned that time is short to save our Republic because the money has so piled up under this strategy of government by and for the powerful that over the last decades, while the wages and benefits of ordinary people have been flat or declining, the wealth of that small circle of power has gone through the roof. In the first three decades after World War II, everyone participated. It was the spirit of the war. We were all in it together. Let's make our government work for all. In the midseventies, it ended--vast wealth for the wealthy and only struggling opportunities or struggling conditions for those ordinary Americans. We have to save our Constitution. Let's do it. Let's pass the For the People Act. Let's have a full and robust debate on this floor so we will all be accountable to our citizens and to our pledge and our oath to the Constitution of the United States of America. I yield the floor.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Reserving the right to object, I will, in fact, make this the last time I reserve the right to object, simply to make the point that there are many ideas for improving this Chamber that have not had due consideration. My colleague has expressed a lot of frustration over executive nominations. I put forward an amendment in the minority establishing a 100-day clock for amendments to be voted before this floor once the paperwork is complete. Others have other ideas, including the ability to have a time at the start of every 2 years to be able to have an open debate on amendments--on how we work. Others have other ideas for improving this Chamber. I think such a debate is way overdue, but if it is the majority leader's intent to allow just the one issue that he is bringing forward, then that is not turning the clock back to historical norm. I was here in this Chamber in 1976 and during the eighties, seeing this body debate issues. I would ask, if my colleague brings this to the floor as he is planning to do, that he open it up for amendments. Get a time agreement. I will certainly encourage my side to agree to such a thing. I take your point about it not just being a delay. I think there are serious possibilities for improving how we work that should be debated. I hope my colleague will open the floor for amendments. I withdraw my objection.

Mr. MERKLEY. Reserving the right to object, I didn't actually get clarity on whether he will open the floor for amendments when he will bring this rule change to the floor--whether it will be open in the sense that when one amendment is completed, a Senator can ask for another to be considered or only the amendments he approves will be allowed to be considered.

Mr. MERKLEY. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. MERKLEY. Referring to historical norms, it has been a historical norm to allow amendments on the floor of this Chamber so that they could be debated, and I recall very well listening to you complain a great deal about Harry Reid's blocking of amendments, blocking the tree, and he did, in fact, do that as the majority leader. Then he would negotiate with that whole set of amendments on both sides. It took some time, but there were amendments. We have had a historic lull in amendments, and now we are proposing a rule change on how this Chamber operates. So isn't it the right thing to do, before returning to historical norm or trying to restore that sense of making this a functioning Chamber--

Mr. MERKLEY. The majority leader has said he is going to put a rule change on the floor, and we are going to return to historical norm. The historical norm has been that when such issues are on the floor, amendments will be allowed. Does the majority leader intend to allow amendments?

Mr. MERKLEY. Yes.--to allow amendments when this comes to the floor? I am asking if he would allow such amendments.

Mr. MERKLEY. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, this month, Women's History Month, we recognize and celebrate the contributions that women have made to the betterment of our Nation. Today, I want to talk about one such remarkable woman from my home State of Oregon: Delores Pigsley. In 1991, Delores Pigsley said, ``You never quit being an Indian just because your tribe has been terminated.'' Delores--Dee to her friends-- ought to know. As a young child, Delores witnessed the termination of her Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, in 1954, and just over two decades later, in 1977, she was the driving force behind the Siletz becoming the first Tribe in Oregon, and just the second tribe in the entire United States to have its Federal status as a sovereign government restored. For over four decades now, Delores has never slowed down or wavered in her commitment to serving the members of the Siletz Tribe, 32 of those years as Tribal chairman. As chief negotiator for the Siletz Tribe, Delores passed agreements with Congress, negotiated compacts, and testified here on Capitol Hill before Congress. She has worked with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Services on behalf of her Tribal members, and thanks in no small measure to her leadership, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, which was once on the verge of ceasing to exist, now owns and manages a reservation of over 3,500 acres, with a casino, resorts, hotels, a school, and health clinics. Delores is many things to many people: a chairman, a leader, a role model, a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. In spite of all her accomplishments, she remains humble, attributing much of her success to other Tribal council leaders and to many national Tribal leaders who have served as mentors to her. So this Women's History Month, let's take a moment to recognize and to thank Delores Pigsley for all that she has done for the members of the Siletz Tribe, for Tribes across the country, and for the people of Oregon. Thank you.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Will the majority leader yield for a question?

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, will the minority leader yield for a question?

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I understand that this week it is the intention of the majority leader to put on the floor of this Chamber a resolution that is related to taking on the enormous challenge of climate chaos. If I just heard that announced, I would say ``well done'' because it is way past time for us to wrestle with this calamity affecting all of our States and all countries around the globe. Temperatures across the planet are going up. All kinds of impacts are being felt. So if the majority leader said, ``Yes, we are going to rise to our responsibilities and have a serious debate on the floor; we are going to take a bill to committee; we are going to wrestle with how we in America cannot only take on carbon pollution here but show the type of leadership that mobilizes countries around the world and mobilizes leadership around the world,'' well, then, I would say ``well done.'' But, unfortunately, that is not what is about to happen. The majority leader says he doesn't want to talk about climate. So he wants to put a resolution on the floor with no debate in the committee, no serious effort to develop a series of policies to take on this calamity, and just to create a farce out of this Chamber. This Chamber, which I love, is being used in this horrific fashion, taking very serious issues that threaten our economy and threaten our natural resources and making fun of them and choosing to do nothing. It was Henry David Thoreau who said: ``What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?'' But I am sure that when Henry David Thoreau spoke he had no inkling of the challenges we would be facing here in the year 2019. The challenge in this year of 2019 is that in a single human lifetime the carbon dioxide in the air has gone up 30 percent--trapping enormous quantities of heat, raising the temperature of our oceans, where 90 percent of the heat is trapped, changing the weather that we experience in all kinds of ways, and driving a huge increase in forest fires in our country. If that alone were the impact, that would be enough to take action. In fact, if we just look at that one issue of forest fires, looking at the Fourth National Climate Assessment, it is estimated that the change in climate has doubled the acres burned by forest fires--just that one issue. In my home State of Oregon, we really see this. In the Northwest there is a beautiful forest. The landscape, particularly west of the Cascades, has the most incredible old-growth forest and timber stands you would ever see, and it is burning at an unprecedented rate. Why is that? Well, for one, we have summers that are hotter and dryer than before. That hot, dry period extends for about 2 months longer than before. Then, we have storms that are more likely to have lightning strikes than before. Combine this very dry forest with lightning strikes, and you have a huge problem on your hands. It isn't just some remote forest that is burning. It is our natural resources, our ecosystems, and our timber stands. It is also having an impact on the commerce of our cities and the recreational industry. That is not the only impact that we see in my home State of Oregon. We also see that the acidification of the Pacific Ocean from carbon dioxide is starting to make it hard for shellfish to make shells. Most significantly, 10 years ago we discovered that the acidity of the Pacific Ocean was killing the newly born oysters as they tried to create a shell and to do so in more acidic water. We have to change the chemistry of the ocean water now. We have to buffer it in order to enable the oyster industry to survive. What kind of canary in the coal mine is that? What kind of warning is it that the shellfish is in trouble because the ocean is becoming too acidic? You may say: Why does that have anything to do with carbon in the atmosphere? It has everything to do with carbon in the atmosphere, because the ocean waves absorb the carbon dioxide, it becomes carbonic acid, and that acid makes the ocean more acidic. I stand on the beach in Oregon and look out at the Pacific Ocean. Of course, you can only look out at about 20 miles of the sea, but all you see is water. It is hard to imagine that you would have to go thousands of miles to hit another continent. Yet, that ocean, as vast as it is, has changed its chemistry in our lifetime, not just becoming more acidic but becoming warmer. In fact, we have a calamity ongoing right now off the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington. The kelp is disappearing. With the kelp disappearing, that is a concern for every fisherman. The kelp forests provide a lot of shelter and food for a lot of species. How do we know what impact that will have on our fisheries, which are so important to our coastal economy? We have the fact that the change in snowpack is affecting our winter sports. The lowered average snowpack just means warmer, smaller trout and salmon streams in the summer. People want to fish. They want healthy streams, not streams that are too tiny and too hot for the salmon and the trout. You see the impact we are having on forests, farming, fishing, and on the cities from smoke and on human health as people inhale that smoke. It is not just an impact on the economy. It is an impact on our health and our children's health. That is just in my State. So I would ask my colleagues across the aisle, every one of them, to say: Do you know what? We have a responsibility to take on issues that are doing great damage. That damage isn't just wildfires. We are seeing more intense weather events across the country. This is in all kinds of places--severe weather storms, droughts, hail, tornadoes, and, probably most significantly, more powerful hurricanes, like Hurricane Michael and Hurricane Florence just last year in 2018. Of course we saw the trio of hurricanes in 2017. You say: Are hurricanes connected to all of this? How can that be? Hurricanes take their energy from the ocean. When the ocean is warmer, it creates a fiercer hurricane. It takes that energy, and it becomes winds that are moving faster and a hurricane that is larger and endures longer when it hits land. It is estimated that extreme weather events cost Americans nearly a half trillion dollars over the last 3 years. In 2017 alone, between the fires and the hurricanes, damages were estimated at $300 billion. That is real damage. That is real economic damage happening here in the United States of America. When talking about $1 billion of damage, that is talking about a lot of families being set back a long way. We are talking about a lot of infrastructure being ripped up, and we are talking about lives lost. Despite this enormous damage and despite lives lost, the majority leader wants to create a farce over an issue threatening our country and our planet? That is just wrong. It is way beyond wrong--to see the face of a calamity and to do nothing. Well, it could go with all kinds of adjectives--none of them complimentary, not a one. We should be the opposite here, taking on the responsibility of addressing these issues that are having an impact--having an impact in the heartland, having an impact on our soy and corn crops, having an impact on the coasts, having an impact in the Southeast, with hurricanes, and the Northeast, with Lyme disease and spreading tick infestations, the loss of the moose, and the lobsters heading north along the ocean into Canada. So we must not bury our heads in the tar sands. We cannot allow the political donations that are present now in our corrupted governmental system to deter us from doing the work we need to do. Yet that appears to be exactly what is happening. We have a broader responsibility here--a responsibility to our sons and daughters. We have a responsibility to our grandchildren and their sons and daughters and their grandchildren. This contamination of our atmosphere cannot be easily undone. Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. So we have to prevent it from being put there in the first place. There is so much we can do together. There is so much we can do to say this challenge is real, to say we will work together as Americans to take this on and to help lead the world in ending this horrific damage that will persist for hundreds of years. There is so much to do. We can create millions of good-paying jobs together for America and export products to the world instead of buying products from the world. We can make sure that as we do that and as we invest in an energy transformation, not only do we create millions of good-paying jobs, but we also make sure that rural America is not left behind, that our former fossil fuel communities are not left behind, and that our frontline urban communities that have so often been left behind are not left behind. We can make an economic renaissance that goes into every corner of our Nation where often economic improvements have not gone before. These elements are the core elements of the Green New Deal. One is to face reality and together say: Yes, we have a big challenge in front of us of devastating consequences and growing consequences. Maybe it was a theory 20 years ago, but today it is a reality in every town across this country. It is a big calamity. We should say we will work together to take it on. That is the second basic principle, coming together, and then there is a surge of activity to develop alternatives and deploy alternatives to the use of fossil fuels. The third piece of this puzzle is that in so doing, we will create millions of good-paying jobs. Isn't that what so many leaders run on? I certainly love the idea of good-paying jobs. My dad, a union mechanic, was able to raise a family and be part of the great middle class of America and be part of the American dream: buy a house, take the family camping on vacations, participate in having a 40-hour workweek, and get paid overtime if you had to work more. Yet that dream is further and further out of reach. Don't we want to create those better paying jobs in the process of renovating our energy economy? Years ago, I undertook tearing the insides out of a house in the 1980s and then rebuilt that house. When you rebuild a house, there is plumbing, wiring, framing, sheetrock, windows, and roofing. I would buy a lot of stuff to renovate that house. That type of construction renovation puts a lot of people to work. If construction renovation puts people to work, think about how renovating our entire energy economy puts people to work. That is the third core principle. The fourth is to make sure those economic gains go to those who have previously been left behind. That is an important message for rural America. That is an important message for urban frontline communities previously left behind. There is so much work to do and so many ways we can make sure these communities participate. When I go out to Oregon, I do a townhall in every county every year-- 36 counties. Twenty-two of them are rural. In political terms, you would describe them as deep red. People are frustrated by the very low wages and the very low number of jobs in those rural communities. Now we have an opportunity to say we have to go to work in an intensive way--a way that can create jobs all across this Nation and all across rural America. Instead, we have the majority leader bringing the issue to the floor as a farce. That is profoundly disturbing. I encourage all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, let us not miss this opportunity before us--an opportunity for America to lead, an opportunity for America to build its economy, an opportunity for America to lead the world. We cannot afford to miss that opportunity. America cannot afford for us to miss that opportunity, and the world cannot afford for us to fail. Thank you.