Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, we are talking about taking privacy rights away from individuals if we suddenly eliminate this rule. Do you want a large company that is an internet provider, that has all the personal, sensitive information because of what you have been doing on the internet--do you want that company to be able to use that for commercial purposes without your consent? That is the issue. If you want to protect people's privacy, I would think you would want to require that an individual who has paid money for the internet provider to provide them with the internet--you go on the internet, and you go to whatever site you want. You do business. You do personal business. You do banking. You go on the internet and you buy things. You talk about your children's school, about when you are going to pick up your children, maybe what your children want to wear to school. You want to talk on the internet about anything that is personal. Do you want that internet provider to have access to that information to be used for commercial purposes without your consent? If you ask that question to the American people, they are going to give you a big, resounding no. Should the internet provider use that information if you give your consent? Then that is fair game. If you give your consent so that they can alert you before a certain day--you might want to give a certain gift to your wife on her birthday, and they might have all that information, but maybe you don't want them to have the information about where your children go to school. Personal, sensitive information is what we are talking about; therefore, the whole issue here is, do you want the internet provider to be able to use that information without the person's consent, or do you want the person to have to actually effectively opt-in in order to give the internet provider that consent? To me, this is a clear-cut case of privacy. You can fancy it up, talking about FCC rules and so forth--and we have the author of the Telecom Act, Senator Markey, here, and he is going to talk about this and protections that were put in for telephones. But back then, remember, it was just you call from this number to this number on such and such a day for such and such a period of time. Even that was protected. But now--just think about this--we are talking about all the personal transactions that you do every day through the internet. So I rise today in opposition to this resolution brought under the Congressional Review Act to disapprove the Federal Communications Commission's broadband consumer privacy rules. I would think that the distinguished Senator sitting in the Chair, who values privacy as he does--that this is going to be something he would be concerned about, as well as every other Senator in this Chamber, because you know that if you ask your constituents ``Do you want your privacy invaded without your consent?'' you know what the answer is going to be. Americans care about their online privacy. They want to have control over how their personal information is exploited by third parties. In fact, a recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that 91 percent of adults feel they have lost control of how their personal information is collected and then used. That same study found that 74 percent of Americans believe it is very important that they be in control of who can get information about them, and a majority believe that their travels around the internet--the sites they visit and how long they spend in that location--are sensitive information that should be protected. I hope the Senators are going to pay attention to this because we are talking about sensitive, personal information. Do you know that your geolocation is something that you are transmitting over the internet? Do you want your location and where you have been to be in the hands of somebody who could use that for commercial purposes? I don't think so. That is why this past October the FCC provided broadband subscribers with tools to allow them to have greater control over how their personal online information is used, shared, and then sold. The FCC has been protecting telephone customers' privacy for decades, and it updated its longstanding privacy protections to protect the privacy of broadband customers. In fact, it is safe to say that what the FCC did last October was the most comprehensive update to its consumer privacy and data protection rules in decades. The FCC put in place clear rules that require broadband providers to seek their subscribers' specific and informed consent before using or sharing sensitive personal information and give broadband customers the right to opt out of having their nonsensitive information used and shared if they chose to do so. The FCC also gave broadband subscribers additional confidence in the protection and security of their data by putting in place reasonable data security and breach notification requirements for broadband providers. Simply put, the FCC decided to put American consumers--each one of us who pays these monthly fees for our broadband service--in the driver's seat of how their personal online data is used and shared by the broadband provider to which they have been paying a monthly fee to use their service. Is that too much to ask? I don't think so. Please understand that broadband providers know a lot about every one of us. In fact, it may be startling, the picture that your broadband provider can develop about your daily habits and then sell to the highest bidder. Your home broadband provider can know when you wake up every day either by knowing the time each morning that you log on to the internet to check the weather and news of the morning or through a connected device in your home. That provider may know immediately that you are not feeling well, that you kind of feel sick, assuming you peruse the internet, like most of us do, to get a quick check on your symptoms. In fact, your broadband provider may know more about your health and your reaction to illness than you are willing to share with your doctor. Think about that. Personal privacy? If you let this go to the highest bidder, personal privacy of sensitive information is going to be out the window. Your home broadband provider can build a profile about your listening and viewing habits given that today most of us access music, news, and video programming over broadband. Your broadband provider may have a better financial picture of you than even your bank or your brokerage firm or your financial adviser because they see every website you visit across every device in your home and can build a thorough profile about you through these habits. If you live in a connected home, the home of the future--and the future is now, by the way--they may know even more details about how you go about your day-to-day activities. Your mobile broadband provider knows how you move about through the day, your geolocation. They know through information about that geolocation and the internet activity. All of that is through--guess what--this mobile device. Don't you think this is connected to the internet? And that is not to mention the sort of profile a broadband provider can start to build about our children from their birth. It is a gold mine of data, the holy grail, so to speak. It is no wonder that broadband providers want to be able to sell this information to the highest bidder without the consumer's knowledge or consent. And they want to collect and use this information without providing transparency or being held accountable. Is this what you want to inflict upon your constituents in your State by changing this rule about their personal, sensitive privacy? I don't think so. You better know what you are doing when you vote tomorrow. This vote is coming about noon tomorrow. You better know. As a country, we have not stood for this in the past, this kind of free utilization of information by entities that may want to have a unique look at who we are. We place stringent limits on the use of information by our doctors. We place stringent limits on our banks. When it comes to our children, I mean, that ought to be off-limits. Broadband providers can build similar profiles about us and in fact may be able to provide more detail about someone than any one of those entities can. Passing this Senate resolution will take consumers out of the driver's seat and place the collection and use of their information behind a veil of secrecy, despite the rhetoric surrounding our debate today suggesting that eliminating these commonsense rules will better protect consumers' privacy online or will eliminate consumer confusion. Don't fall for that argument, Senators. In fact, the resolution will wipe out thoughtful rules that were the product of months of hard work by the experts at the agency on regulating communications networks of all kinds. Those rules were crafted based upon a thorough record developed through an extensive multimonth rulemaking proceeding. The FCC received more than one-quarter of a million filings during this proceeding. They listened to the American people. The agency received extensive input from stakeholders in all quarters of the debate, from the broadband providers and telephone companies to the public interest groups and from academics to individual consumers. We are going to wipe all of this away at noon tomorrow with a vote that you can do it by 50 votes in this Chamber? I don't think this is what the people want. On top of this, the rules are based on longstanding privacy protections maintained by the FCC for telephone companies, as well as the work of and the principles advocated by the Federal Trade Commission and advocated by State attorneys general and others in protecting consumer privacy. The FCC rules put in place basic safeguards for consumers' privacy based on three concepts that are widely accepted as the basis for privacy regulation in the United States and around the world: notice, choice--individual choice, consumer choice--and security, those three. They are not the radical proposals that some would have you believe they are. First, the rules require broadband providers to notify their customers about what types of information it collects about the individual customers, when they disclose or permit access to that information, and how customers can provide consent to that collection and disclosure. Second, the rules give consumers choice by requiring broadband providers to obtain a customer's affirmative opt in; in other words, I give you my consent before you can use or share my sensitive personal information. As I mentioned earlier, sensitive information includes a customer's precise geographic location--I don't think you want some people to know exactly where you are--your personal information, health, financial, information about your children, your Social Security number--how many laws do we have protecting Social Security numbers--the content you have accumulated on the web, web browsing, and application usage information. For information considered nonsensitive, broadband providers must allow customers to opt out of use and sharing of such information. Broadband providers must provide a simple, persistently available means for customers to exercise their privacy choices. Third, broadband providers are required to take reasonable measures to protect customers' information from unauthorized use, disclosure, or access. They must also comply with specific breach notifications. In other words, if somebody has busted the internet and stolen all of this information from the site, don't you think you ought to be notified that your personal information was hacked? Well, that is one of the requirements. So then I ask my colleagues: What in the world is wrong with requiring broadband providers to give their paying customers clear, understandable, and accurate information about what confidential and potentially highly personal information those companies collect? What is wrong with getting their consent to collect that information from their subscribers? What is wrong with telling customers how their information is collected when they use their broadband service? What is wrong with telling customers with whom they share this sensitive information? What is wrong with letting customers have a say in how their information is used? What is wrong with recognizing that information about a consumer's browsing history and ap usage, sensitive and personal information, should be held to a higher standard before it is shared with others? What is wrong with all of that? What is wrong with seeking a parent's consent before information about their children's activities or location is sold to the highest bidder? Do we as parents not go out of our way to protect our children's well-being and their privacy? Trying to overturn this rule is what is wrong. What is wrong with protecting consumers from being forced to sign away their privacy rights in order to subscribe to a broadband service? I want your internet service. Do I have to sign away the rights to my private information--private, sensitive information? What is wrong with making companies take reasonable efforts to safeguard the security of consumers' data? What is wrong with making companies notify their subscribers when they have had a breach? Again, I ask my colleagues: What in the world is wrong with giving consumers increased choice, transparency, and security online? Supporters of the joint resolution fail to acknowledge the negative impact this resolution is going to have on the American people. This regulation is going to wipe away a set of reasonable, commonsense protections. I want to emphasize that. Is it common sense to protect our personal, sensitive, private information? Of course it is. But we are just about--in a vote at noon tomorrow, with a majority vote, not a 60-vote threshold, a majority vote here--we are just about to wipe all of that out. It will open our internet browsing histories and application usage patterns up to exploitation for commercial purposes by broadband providers and third parties who will line up to buy your information. It will create a privacy-free zone for broadband companies, with no Federal regulator having effective tools to set rules of the road for collection, use, and sale of that uniquely personal information of yours. It will tie the hands of the FCC because they cannot go back. Once this rule is overturned, they cannot go back and redo this rule. It will tie the hands of the Federal Communications Commission and eliminate the future ability to adopt clear, effective privacy and data security protections for you as a subscriber, in some cases even for telephone subscribers. To be sure, there are those who disagree with the FCC's broadband consumer privacy rules. There is an avenue for those complaints. These same companies that are pushing the joint resolution have filed for reconsideration of the rule at the FCC, and there is a judicial system. That is the appropriate way. Go back and get the FCC to amend--if you all are so concerned--or let the judicial system work its will, but do not do it in one fell swoop in a majority rule in this body tomorrow at noon. In fact, the critics of the FCC's rules have an open proceeding at the FCC in which they can argue on the record with an opportunity for full public participation to change and alter these rules. If the FCC did it--you have a new FCC, a new Chairman, a new majority on the FCC--let them be the ones to amend the rules after all the safeguards of the open hearings, of the comment period, all of that. By contrast, what we are using here to invade our privacy is a blunt congressional instrument called the Congressional Review Act. It means that all aspects of the rules adopted by the FCC must be overturned at once, including changes to the FCC's telephone privacy rules. It would deny the agency the power to protect consumers' privacy online, and it would prevent the FCC--get this--prevent them, the FCC, the regulatory body that now has a new chairman and a new majority--it would prevent the FCC from ever adopting even similar rules. I don't think that is what we want to do because it does not make sense. That is exactly what we are about to do. I also want to address the argument that the FCC rules are unfair to broadband providers because the same rules do not apply to other companies in the internet ecosystem. Supporters of this resolution will argue that the other entities in the internet ecosystem have access to the same personal information that the broadband providers do. They argue that everyone in the data collection business should be on a level playing field. Well, I ask my colleagues whether they have asked their constituents that question directly. Do Americans really believe that all persons who hold data about them should be treated the same? I venture to guess that most Americans would agree with the FCC that companies that are able to build detailed particulars about you and build those particular pictures about your lives through unique insights because of what you do every day in their internet usage-- shouldn't those companies be held to a higher standard? In addition, the FCC's rules still allow broadband providers to collect and use their subscribers' information. The providers merely need to obtain consent from those activities when it comes to their subscribers' highly sensitive information. The FCC also found that broadband providers, unlike any other companies in the internet ecosystem, are uniquely able to see every packet of information that a subscriber sends and receives--every packet of information that you send or receive over the internet while on their networks. So if you have a provider, they are on your iPhone, and you are using them, they are seeing everything. That is not the case if you go to Google because Google sees only what you do while you are on Google. But the internet provider, the pipe that is carrying your information--they see everything that you do. Supporters of the joint resolution also hold out the superiority of the Federal Trade Commission's efforts on protecting privacy. They argue that there should be only one privacy cop on the beat. But, folks, that ignores reality. The FTC doesn't do everything. There are a number of privacy cops on the beat. Congress has given the FCC, the FTC, the FDA, and NHTSA regulatory authority to protect consumers' privacy. You had better get this clear because the FCC is the only agency to which Congress has given statutory authority to adopt rules to protect broadband customers' privacy. The FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, does not have the rulemaking authority in data security, even though commissioners at the FTC have asked Congress for such authority in the past. Given recent court cases, the FTC now faces even more insurmountable legal obstacles to taking action, protecting broadband consumers' privacy. So don't be fooled by this argument that folks are telling you over here that it ought to be the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission. As many have pointed out, elimination of the FCC's rules will result in a very wide chasm, where broadband and cable companies have no discernible regulation while internet ``edge'' companies abide by the FTC enforcement efforts. Without clear rules of the road, broadband subscribers will have no certainty of choice about how their private information can be used and no protection against its abuse--no protection, my fellow Americans, of your personal, sensitive, private data. That is why this Senator supports the FCC's broadband consumer privacy rules. I want to encourage my fellow Senators: You had better examine what you are about to do to people's personal privacy before you vote to overturn this rule tomorrow. I urge my colleagues to vote against the joint resolution. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, there has been a lot of conversation from so many of our fellow Senators about the opioid crisis that has been devastating individuals and families across the country. We heard this particularly in New Hampshire as it was a topic of discussion last fall during the election. It was an opportunity to bring to the Nation's attention--because of the eyes being focused first on the New Hampshire primary--of a real opioid crisis. What we also then discussed was that it was not just affecting a few States, it was affecting most of the States. That is the case with my State of Florida. Addiction to opioids has reached staggering levels, and the situation is only getting worse. In 2015, more than 33,000 Americans died from prescription opioid overdoses. That is 15 percent more people than had died just the previous year. I don't have the figures for last year, 2016. So Florida is right there in that national trend. What Florida saw between 2014 and 2015 was a 22.7-percent increase. It is staggering because in that year, Florida suffered over 2,000 deaths from opioid overdoses. Earlier this month, our office interviewed a woman from Florida for yesterday's Committee on Aging's hearing. She is caring for her 7-year-old grandson because his mother lost custody, was later incarcerated due to her drug addiction. Sadly, this story is all too familiar. The number of grandparents serving as the primary caretakers for their grandchildren is increasing, as was the case with the lady from Florida who testified at the Committee on Aging hearing this week. They are primary caretakers for their grandchildren. It is, in large part, because of the opioid epidemic. In addition to the devastating loss of life and the challenges for the new caregivers, opioid abuse is straining local and State budgets. Just last month, the vice mayor of Palm Beach County sent a letter to the Governor urging him to declare a public health emergency in Florida citing the loss of life and financial impact--in this case to Palm Beach County. Yesterday, several of my colleagues and I sent a letter to the majority leader of the Senate highlighting some of our concerns with the House of Representative's healthcare bill that I call TrumpCare and how it is going to impact those with substance abuse disorders because one of the things we are most concerned about is how the proposed changes in Medicaid that they are going to vote on at the other end of the hall--right down here tomorrow, they are going to vote on the House of Representative's healthcare TrumpCare bill. The changes they make to Medicaid would prevent States from being able to respond to the opioid crisis because Medicaid plays a critical role in the fight against opioids, but changing the Medicaid Program to a block grant or a cap is going to shift costs to the States. The States are not going to pick up that additional cost. It is going to eliminate also some of the Federal protections, and it is only going to hurt our people who rely on Medicaid to help them as we are combating this opioid crisis because with less Federal funding, how are States like mine going to provide the necessary services to help individuals with substance abuse disorders? Congress ought to be doing more to help with this crisis, not less. How many times have you heard a Senator, like this Senator, come to the floor and talk about the opioid epidemic? Yet we are just about to do it to ourselves if we pass this TrumpCare bill. Remember, last year, while so many of us, including this Senator, were early supporters of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016--it was signed into law last year. The law takes a comprehensive approach to this opioid problem. A few months ago, a lot of us, including this Senator, voted to provide additional funding to start implementing this crucial new law to fight opioid addiction. Despite this progress, the House tomorrow-- probably, tomorrow night--is about to pass legislation that would completely undermine last year's bipartisan efforts to respond to the epidemic and to undercut healthcare for millions of people in this country. Opioid abuse is a deadly, serious problem, and we cannot ignore it. We should be investing more resources into helping these people and their families, not cutting them at the time we need them the most. Again, I make a plea. We made progress last year with the law. We passed the new law. We made progress, giving some additional funding. The crisis hasn't gone away. We still need to respond. But at the very same time, what we see happening to the Medicaid Program--eliminating Medicaid as we know it, healthcare for the people who are the least fortunate among us--is that we are about to cut back on all that progress we have made on this opioid crisis. I hope that we will think better of this and not do it to ourselves. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, we have seen TV clips about various Members and Senators around the country having townhall meetings. For example, three of our colleagues this past weekend--Indiana was one of them--had tremendous townhall meetings with a good exchange of information. With this looming House of Representatives healthcare bill, which I refer to as TrumpCare, since the President has endorsed it, I wanted to see a particular group in our society who is extremely vulnerable and those are the older Americans who are not 65--not old enough to be eligible for Medicare. Now, be careful because there are people lurking in these halls and the administration who would like to raise Medicare eligibility from age 65 to 67. But that is not what is confronting the House of Representatives; it is what is going to happen to those people below the age of 65 for their healthcare. Under current law, once they hit 65, they are eligible for Medicare. I reached out to a particular group of Floridians. These are folks whom I did not know that our offices in Florida had become aware of because they had written about the healthcare debate that is going on and, in many cases, had described their circumstances. Yesterday, the group of 8 or 10 whom we had in my Orlando office were all in the age range of 50 to 64. I want to tell the Senate about this group of people because, if approved in its current form, the House healthcare bill, TrumpCare, would dramatically increase healthcare costs for folks in that age group, 50 to 64. Those are folks who either get their healthcare through expanded Medicaid or they get their health insurance through healthcare.gov, which is the exchange, whether it be on the State exchange or the Federal exchange because the State does not participate. According to the Congressional Budget Office, a 64- year-old making $26,500 could see their healthcare costs go from $1,700 a year, which they pay now under the Affordable Care Act, all the way up to $14,600 a year under the House plan, TrumpCare. That is a dramatic jump, obviously. Do we think that is really too much of an extreme example? I want to tell you what these people said. If you look at what the House is proposing, the dramatic rise in cost is due in large part to two provisions contained in the House bill, one that would allow insurers to charge older Americans up to five times as much as younger people; the second one caps the Federal tax credits meant to help seniors pay for the rising cost of health insurance. Federal tax credits is a fancy way of saying ``subsidy.'' So if you are a senior and you are above 138 percent of poverty, which for a single individual is approximately $16,000 a year--by the way, who making $16,000 a year can afford health insurance? That is why we need the remaining 19 States, my State of Florida included, to expand Medicaid up to that 138 percent of poverty. But if someone is between that level and all the way up to 400 percent of the poverty level, which for a single individual is about $46,000, $47,000 a year--in that zone of 138 percent of poverty up to 400 percent of poverty, there are these tax credits or subsidies. The one with the lower income gets more of a subsidy in order to buy private health insurance on the private marketplace through the exchange. As they get up to 400 percent, a person making $46,000 or $47,000 a year--can they really afford health insurance? Not the real cost, unless it is some huge deductible plan that doesn't give them much. That is why these folks need some assistance. That is in place. That is the law. That is the Affordable Care Act, which has been so maligned over the last several years. Aside from health insurance, there is the expansion of Medicaid that has helped a lot of people. There are still 4 million people in this country who would benefit if those 19 remaining States would expand Medicaid up to 138 percent. They are left in the cold. They are not getting health insurance; they are not getting healthcare. They are eligible to have it, and the Federal money is there to draw down to enable them to have that Medicaid, but 19 States, including my State of Florida, have decided not to expand it. With all of that as background, I asked these folks to come in. According to the AARP, there are millions of Floridians in that age group of 50 to 64 who currently receive Medicaid or tax credits to help them pay for the insurance through healthcare.gov; there are millions who are eligible. So the group came in, and here's what I learned. I am going to give you some personal vignettes. Marshall Stern is a 61-year-old heart transplant survivor who lives in Kissimmee, FL. Marshall has had a serious heart condition since he was a young man. Three years ago, his condition worsened, and it resulted in several hospitalizations, after which he was told he would need a heart transplant. Since he is on full disability, he was told that he had to enroll in Medicaid or he would not be eligible for the transplant. Just the medication for the posttransplant operation costs around $100,000 a year, which, obviously, Marshall would not be able to afford without Medicaid coverage. He also is going to have to take this medication for the rest of his life if he is going to live. He worries that the House TrumpCare bill will turn Medicaid into a block grant program, which is a fancy way of saying: We are going to cut it off, and you are not going to get any more money, and you are going to have to finance it from your own State resources. Governors and State legislatures are going to have to share more of the burden of healthcare costs. He is worried that if that House bill passes and Medicaid is threatened as we know it, he is not going to be able to have the medications he needs to stay alive. This is what Marshall told me, and it was very dramatic. He said: ``It is as good as saying that I die.'' For the rest of us who are not facing that, imagine having a fellow tell you that. This is serious business. Let me tell you about Susanna Perkins. She is a 62-year-old living in Altamonte Springs. Susanna's husband lost his job in 2009, and she lost her employer-provided health plan during the recession. The couple blew through their IRA, and they ended up selling nearly everything they had. They eventually moved out of the country to save money, but in 2014, they decided to move back. Why? Because the Affordable Care Act passed, and the ACA made it possible for them to afford health insurance again. This is what Susanna said: If they shred [the ACA] like they're [threatening] to, we're going to be hightailing it out of here, because dealing with the health care [costs] and insurance makes you sick. We're getting by, but if the ACA goes away, and if they make these changes they're talking about, we'll be uninsured again. I was going to show you a picture. These are the folks whom I met with yesterday. I will not point out the individuals, and I am going to talk about some of the others, but you can see almost everybody. There is one person who is outside the photograph. But we sat down for an hour's conversation, and I heard their stories. I wish every Senator and every Member of Congress would go out and talk to people who are real people with real problems and understand how petrified they are. These folks look like our neighbors and our friends. They look like the people whom we go to church with. They look like the people who have children or grandchildren whom we play with, and they are petrified. They are scared to death that they are not going to have healthcare. So let me tell you about another one of these ladies. Terri Falbo is a 59-year-old living in the Orlando area. She moved to Florida back in 2012 to take care of her elderly mother and disabled sister. For 25 years she had good health insurance through her employer where she lived up north, and she rarely used health insurance. After losing her job in 2006, as we went into the beginnings of the recession, she purchased an individual insurance policy that cost her $500 to $650 a month. Prior to the ACA, she had to make withdrawals from her retirement account. She had to max out her credit cards to pay for the premiums. As a result, she depleted all of her reserves and all of her retirement funds. Since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, she has had an affordable policy because she qualifies for the monthly subsidy of over $600, bringing her premium payments to $70 a month with a zero deductible. She could have gotten a policy with a $5,000 deductible for $3 a month. At her age, she needed assurance that she would be able to have the healthcare she needed, so she paid $70 a month because of the subsidy. Yet that is not what is protecting her in the House TrumpCare bill. Under that proposed healthcare plan, her maximum subsidy would be less than $300 a month, which means she would end up paying $4,000 more per year--an amount that she simply cannot afford. That is what she told me: ``I cannot afford it.'' She said she would have to go without health insurance instead. Before the ACA, she was desperately trying to have health insurance, and she depleted all of her retirement funds. There is another lady who is sitting around that table in the picture I showed, Nancy Walker. She is a 51-year-old self-employed actor who is living in Kissimmee. She is active. She is healthy. She chose to pursue a career in the arts. The unstable nature of her profession has often left her unable to afford health insurance. So she has gone without it most of her adult life as an artist, as a performer. Since the ACA took effect, however, she has, finally, been able to afford health insurance, thanks to the subsidies. She told me that it has been a relief for her to be able to go to the doctor not only for checkups but, actually, when she has a problem, to fix it. If Congress passes the House TrumpCare bill, her premiums are going to go up. She has no doubt that she will, once again, be unable to afford health insurance and healthcare. She told me that she fears simple health issues will fester, becoming serious, chronic, and expensive to treat. Remember, I said they were petrified--that they were scared to death. There is an example. Finally, she has health insurance after all of these years of going without because she did not have an employer who paid for her. Let's take another one. Marilyn Word is a 63-year-old retiree living in Orlando. Marilyn lives mainly off of Social Security payments but is not old enough to qualify for Medicare. She is under that magic year of age 65, at which one is eligible. After retiring, Marilyn enrolled in an insurance plan through the ACA exchange, and she is eligible for annual tax credits to help her pay for her insurance. Marilyn told me that she was extremely worried about the increased premiums that she would likely have to pay under the House TrumpCare plan. I will give you another example of a lady who is sitting around that table. Sharon Brown is a 58-year-old widow. She lives in the Orlando area. Since her husband's death, Sharon has been dealing with several medical issues and pulling money out of her retirement account to pay for her current plan. She has a nest egg from her husband's life insurance money, but due to her health condition, she will likely need long-term medical care. This is what she told me: My premium's pretty high because I've got multiple medical conditions that make it so I cannot work. I've done a lot of reading on this . . . and the cost of my healthcare [under the TrumpCare plan] will amount to double what I make right now in income. She looked at me with this pained expression on her face and said: ``It's very scary, and the anxiety that goes along with this happening right now is making it worse.'' Sharon told me that she is a lifelong registered Republican--she volunteered this--and she said that the bill being considered now is forcing her to reconsider her party. She said: I'm changing my political affiliation to independent. I want to vote my conscience. When one puts faces to these stories--to these people about whom I have just talked and about whom we just talked yesterday--the House TrumpCare plan ends Medicaid as we know it because it cuts off the amount going to the States. I understand that in the House, in trying to fix up some things just last night, they filed an amendment in an attempt to address some of the problems. One of the things they were trying to fix would allow States to choose between capping or block-granting the Medicaid Program. Under either proposal, the Federal Government is going to be contributing less to the States, and that means more money will have to be picked up--the tab--by the States. Just ask the Governors how much more they can pick up. I urge our House and Senate colleagues to join all of these people whom I have talked about and vote as Sharon said--with their consciences on what they are going to do to folks like them. Gutting Medicaid and forcing struggling, older Americans to pay more for health insurance is simply not the right thing to do. For a change, we ought to be trying to do the right thing. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield since he has invoked my name?

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I do not intend for the Senator to yield the floor, and he is my friend. The Senator started out by saying he was missing something. Yes, he missed the first part of my speech, during which I talked about these folks in the age category of 50 to 64, who are not eligible for Medicare.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I am about to ask the question. I want to introduce the Senator to these people in that age group of 50 to 64. In fact, they told me stories that had them scared to death. Would the Senator believe that they believe that they are going to lose coverage?

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Texas, and he knows my affection for him. The Senator has stated that he would like, in a bipartisan way, to fix the current law. Would the Senator believe, if there were a genuine, bipartisan attempt to fix what needs fixing instead of repealing and replacing it with something that has people petrified, that he could find that bipartisan consensus?

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to talk about TrumpCare. In my State of Florida, there are nearly 2 million people who are covered through the Affordable Care Act, through healthcare.gov. The State of Florida leads the way with the highest ACA marketplace enrollment numbers. In my State, there are another 9 million people who get their health coverage from their employers. This group also benefits from the ACA's protections, like prohibitions against lifetime limits on insurance and discriminating against people with preexisting conditions. In our State, almost 8 million people have preexisting conditions, which includes something as common as asthma. Before the ACA, people undergoing lifesaving cancer treatments were being told by their insurance companies they would no longer cover those treatments. Now, under the current law, the ACA, insurance companies can no longer discriminate against preexisting conditions, and your children are going to be able to stay on your family policy until they are age 26. By the way, that is another 4 million people in the United States. Four million young people up to age 26 now get health insurance who didn't get it before the ACA. What has come out of the House of Representatives--what I will refer to as TrumpCare--called the American Health Care Act--has some very troubling provisions. The House plan would mean 14 million people would lose coverage next year. That number, according to the CBO, would rise to 24 million people who have healthcare coverage now and would lose it--24 million people. TrumpCare would also mean an end to Medicaid as we know it because it comes in and caps Medicaid. It shifts the cost of Medicaid from the Federal Government to the State governments. If you happen to be a State that has not expanded Medicaid--as is allowed under the ACA, expanding it up to 138 percent of poverty--and if you are one of the 16 States, like my State, that hasn't expanded it, you are going to get a double whammy. You are going to have your Medicaid amount from the Federal Government, called the block grant, capped, and it is going to be capped at your level instead of the higher level because you hadn't expanded your Medicaid. The TrumpCare out of the House of Representatives is going to get rid of the financial assistance that has helped so many get health coverage. The bottom line is--and this is what the CBO says--folks are going to pay more, and they are going to get less. They are going to get less coverage. What else does TrumpCare do? In fact, it cuts the taxes for the wealthy, and it shifts the financial burden of healthcare more to the poor. It would allow insurance companies to charge seniors up to five times more than younger Americans. Now, the existing law--the ACA--has age done in three groups. You can only charge an older person on their premiums, according to their age, three times more than you can charge a younger person. Under TrumpCare, out of the House of Representatives, they will be able to charge seniors five times more than young people in their health insurance premiums. It would scrap Medicaid expansion and fundamentally change the Medicaid Program. According to CBO, the Republican House TrumpCare bill will cut Medicaid by $880 billion over 10 years. They are saying it will reduce the deficit by some $330 billion over 10 years. That is a good thing. But, oh, by the way, it cuts Medicaid by $880 billion over 10 years. It is my understanding that as to the capping of Medicaid, you have to pay for it someplace. If the Federal Government is not paying for it, as it is under the ACA, it is going to shift the cost to the States, or else the State is not going to provide the Federal-State Medicaid. And what does that mean? That means poor people go without healthcare. I don't think we want to do that. Obviously, the ACA isn't perfect. Instead of its being repealed, it ought to be fixed. But there doesn't seem to be an appetite over in the House of Representatives. They want to repeal it and create something new called TrumpCare, all of which I have just described. The problem before was that poorer people could not afford health insurance, or they couldn't get it because of a preexisting condition. If you did have coverage and you got sick, your insurance company just could drop you. People who didn't have coverage were avoiding going to the doctor until their condition got so bad that, when they were in an emergency, they would end up at the most expensive place--emergency rooms--at the most expensive time. So they hadn't done the preventive care and, therefore, the emergency occurred. The ACA isn't perfect, but it was needed to fix a system that was broken. We need to focus on fixing things that need to be fixed, while preserving so many of the parts that are working--that now 24 million people in this country get healthcare who otherwise will have it taken away from them. That is not right. That is not the right thing to do. We don't want to treat our fellow human beings that way. To recapitulate, what does the House of Representatives' TrumpCare plan do? It cuts Medicaid. It has higher costs and less coverage. It cuts taxes for the wealthy, and it increases costs to seniors. I think we want to do exactly the opposite of what it does. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I come to the floor with a heavy heart because 10 years ago today, Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent, was detained in Iran on the tourist island of Kish Island in the Persian Gulf. Bob is a very respected, long-time FBI agent who had served his country for 28 years and had since retired. He is the longest held civilian in our Nation's history. He is a husband, a father of seven, and now a grandfather of six, and he deserves to be reunited with his family. Since Bob's detention, American officials have sought Iran's cooperation in locating and returning Bob to his family. Of course, Iranian officials have promised over and over their assistance, but after 10 long years, those promises have amounted to nothing. Bob still is not home. The bottom line is, Iran is responsible for returning Bob to his family. If Iranian officials don't have Bob, then they sure know where to find him. So today we renew our call on Iran to make good on those promises and return Bob, return him to where he ought to be, with his family. Iran's continued delay in returning him, in addition to the very serious disagreements the United States has with the Government of Iran about its missile program, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its human rights abuses, is just another obstacle Iran must overcome if it wants to improve relations with the United States. We also urge the President and our allies to keep pressing Iran to make clear that the United States has not forgotten Bob and will not forget him until he is home. Obviously, we owe this to Bob, a servant of America, and we certainly owe it to his family. To Bob's family, we recognize your tireless efforts over those 10 long years to bring your dad home, and we offer our sympathies. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I rise today to express serious concern about reports in the press that the administration is considering deep cuts in funding to crucial aspects of our Nation's national security and our homeland security to pay for the construction of a border wall and also for a crackdown on illegal immigration. The first target that alarmed me was America's maritime guardian, the U.S. Coast Guard. Even as the administration says it plans to secure the borders and increase funding for our military by $54 billion, which, in fact, may be a good thing, it is reportedly considering cuts on the nondefense side--and that includes the Department of Homeland Security--with a cut of $1.3 billion, or 12 percent, to the very military service that secures our vast maritime borders, and that is the Coast Guard. That plan just doesn't make any sense, especially when it comes to securing our borders. You would be putting a bunch of money in a wall, but you are losing the security of the border over here on the oceans. The 42,000 member-strong Coast Guard plays a vital role in protecting our Nation from narcoterrorism, combating human smuggling, preventing and responding to maritime environmental disasters, and protecting lives and property at sea. By the way, in other foreign parts of the globe, the U.S. Coast Guard is assisting the U.S. military in our military operations. If securing our borders and supporting our military is a true priority for the administration, then it ought not be slashing the Coast Guard's budget. Instead, we should be supporting the Coast Guard's ongoing and much needed fleet recapitalization program, including the design and construction of the new offshore patrol cutter and the continued production of the new fast response cutter. These are desperately needed assets for the Coast Guard. This Senator has personally visited dozens of Coast Guard units all around, not just in my State of Florida but in Alaska, the Great Lakes. The job the Coast Guard does is amazing. What I have witnessed firsthand is what they do in service to our country. The constant theme I have heard from my visits is the need to modernize and become increasingly more nimble, given the host of threats that could be delivered from our maritime borders. Let me give just one example. In the Caribbean, it is a Coast Guard admiral who heads up the task force that has all agencies of government participating as we look to protect the southern borders in the Caribbean, as well as the southern Pacific, from anything that is coming to our borders--drugs, migrants, terrorists, whatever. It is all agencies involved, but if, for example, there are U.S. Navy ships in the area or Air Force assets in the air that might pick up one of these threats coming toward America, they work hand-in-glove with the Coast Guard because it is the Coast Guard that has the legal authority as a law enforcement agency to stop, apprehend, and board that vessel. We are doing all of this border protection with cutters that have an average age of 45 years old. The average age of a Coast Guard 210-foot medium endurance cutter is 48 years old. The Coast Guard's high endurance cutter average age is 45 years. These are just two classes of ships that the Coast Guard uses for interdiction and rescue missions, and they do it worldwide. As you may expect, with assets this old, the Coast Guard struggles with major, mission-debilitating casualties, which result in severe losses of operational days at sea and drastically increases maintenance costs. To correct that, the new offshore patrol cutters and the fast response cutters will give the Coast Guard an effective coastal and offshore interdiction capability in order to meet objectives. What are they? Combating transnational organized crime networks, securing our national maritime borders, safeguarding waterborne commerce, and safeguarding life and property at sea. Looking at the administration's second target to pay for the wall, what is the second target? Believe it or not, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration. That agency comes to the aid of millions of Americans during any kind of natural disaster, and they are singling that out for cuts? That doesn't make common sense, and it certainly is not going to be a popular thing to do in the eyes of those who have to turn to FEMA after a natural disaster to try to get their lives back on track. Last year, just taking 1 year as an example, two major hurricanes hit Florida, in addition to many other devastating natural disasters that struck nationwide and resulted in many deaths and billions of dollars of damage. FEMA was critical to people's survival and recovery in each of those events. Just think of what we hear on the news all the time. There are storms, tornadoes, earthquakes. Remember the mountain that erupted out in the State of Washington decades ago, not to mention hurricanes. For the sake of people's safety and that of our country, we simply cannot use FEMA as a piggy bank to pay for the administration's trillion-dollar spending programs. The administration's third target--this has just been reported. What is the third target? You are not going to believe this. It is TSA, the Transportation Security Administration. If we target TSA for budget cuts--is that really what we want to do in a threat environment? Every time we go through an airport, TSA is on the frontlines of protecting our country from terrorist attacks. That is its security mission at airports across the country--and, by the way, with the air marshals who fly on our flights. Need I remind the administration why TSA was created? It was after the September 11 attacks in 2001. Funding is vital to ensure the success of TSA's mission. In fact, just last year Congress responded to concerns over insider threats and security at airports, such as the bombings in Brussels and Istanbul, with the most extensive security-related measures in years. Specifically, what we did, particularly in the Commerce Committee when we formulated the FAA bill, is we included bipartisan provisions enhancing the background and vetting requirements for airport employees and expanded the random and physical inspection of airport employees in secure areas. Remember the case at the Atlanta Airport? For several months, people had a gun-running scheme going from Atlanta to New York. They didn't drive up Interstate 95 to take the guns; they had an airport employee in Atlanta who could get into the airport, without being checked, carrying a sack of guns. That airport employee would go up into the sterile area where passengers are, go into the men's room, and would exchange knapsacks with a passenger who had come through TSA clean, and that passenger took the sack of guns on the airplane flight from Atlanta to New York. The New York City Police Department couldn't figure out how they were getting all those guns on the streets of New York. That was a gun- running scheme over several months. Thank goodness they were criminals and not terrorists. And you want to cut that kind of security? Do you want to cut the strongest security we have at an airport when screening passengers who are going through? It is the nose of a dog, the VIPR teams. The trained dog teams and their handlers are the most efficient way to screen passengers. It is amazing what those dogs can sense. When we did the FAA bill last year, we doubled the number of VIPR teams, the dog teams, and you want to cut this? That was all done in a bipartisan manner. We doubled the number for the protection of the American public. In that bill, we also expanded the grant funding to assist law enforcement in responding to mass casualty and active-shooter incidents, which is very important. Another tragic example of that is the recent shooting in Fort Lauderdale at the airport. To counter the issue of long lines, which I know we all had to go through last spring, the legislation included provisions to expand TSA Precheck and require the TSA to evaluate staffing and checkpoint configurations in order to expedite passenger security screening. Does that sound like a bunch of administrative mumbo jumbo? Perhaps. Let me tell you that it works and that all of it is designed to protect Americans going to airports and getting on airplanes. None of this is possible without continued funding and, in fact, even more funding. Any cuts are certainly going to impair the TSA's ability to keep our country safe. The bottom line here is that we must do whatever is necessary to keep our country safe and our citizens secure. Slashing the budgets of the U.S. Coast Guard or FEMA or the TSA is only going to make us less secure. Need I say more about these proposals to pay for some of these other things, like a wall, by slashing these kinds of budgets? Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, America lost one of our best friends, well-known to us in the Washington, DC, area. Doug Coe, a disciple of a fellow named Abraham Vereide, over a half century ago came from Oregon to minister the Gospel to the Government of the United States. He has been doing that for over a half a century. Doug, well-known to us in the Congress for so many years, always was bringing other people to the fore, and he always stood in the back. He encouraged so many of us to have fellowship together, to meet with each other, especially to have a meal together, to enjoy each other, and to do this in the Spirit of the Lord, and particularly the Spirit of Jesus. Because of that, he made so many friends all over the world. This was a man whose religion brought people together across religions, not dividing us, as is so often the case. In Doug's spirituality, he could bring people of all faiths together in unity and understanding through the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. I have just come from the cemetery where Doug has been laid to rest. He is so well-known around here in the spirit of President Eisenhower's suddenly calling up a couple of his friends in the Senate and saying: Please come down here and visit with me; this is the loneliest house in America. That started the annual Prayer Breakfast, and, of course, that Prayer Breakfast has been held ever since, once a year, with the President, the Congress, the President's Cabinet, the Vice President, the Joint Chiefs, the diplomatic corps. Now over 150 nations attend that annual National Prayer Breakfast. It is really an international Prayer Breakfast. Just this past one that was held in the first week of February indeed had a couple of heads of state, including His Majesty King Abdallah of Jordan. You wonder, how could a Muslim, who traces his roots all the way back--his lineage--to the Prophet Mohammed come to a group celebrating a Prayer Breakfast that generally identifies with the Christian faith? Well, that is the unique unity of all of these Prayer Breakfasts that are handled and held all over the world. The Abrahamic faiths coming from the original single God, from which the seed of Abraham had not only the Jewish religion, the Muslim religion, and the Christian religion--in that, Doug Coe found unity. So all of these years he spent organizing the National Prayer Breakfast. Doug lived through this last one. He wasn't able to attend, but he was holding court over in Northern Virginia as so many of the international guests came to Washington for that annual celebration. We just laid Doug to rest today. Tomorrow, there will be a memorial service for him at a huge megachurch to try to accommodate the size of the audience that will be there out in Northern Virginia. When this Senator first came to Congress many, many years ago, Doug Coe was the one who came to me and said: What I want you to do is I want you to get two Democrats and two Republicans, and I want you all to come together each week--breakfast or lunch--meet faithfully, read the Scriptures, enjoy each other's company, and then pray together. We did that faithfully for 10 of the 12 years I was in the Congress. One of our Members was elected to the Senate at the time, and therefore he arranged for us to have one of the hideaways. As a matter of fact, it was Senator Mark Hatfield's hideaway that we would meet in and have the luncheon so that if we had to go vote, we were close to the Senate Chamber for him or close to the House Chamber for us. Over the years, what has happened is these little groups that meet in the House on Thursday morning and the Senate on Wednesday morning, faithfully, they have gone across the globe and started other Prayer Breakfasts. That is why there are over 150 nations that now come annually to the National Prayer Breakfast. That is all because of our friend Doug Coe. Doug Coe was never up front speaking. It was the President and a guest speaker who was not a religious person. This year, we made an exception. The Senate invited the Senate Chaplain Barry Black to give the main address, other than the President's address. You never saw Doug Coe at the dais. Doug was always quietly in the background meeting, extending the hand of friendship, extending his love, representing the values he spoke. The Good Book tells us a lot of stories about those values. It also indicates that as someone put it in the street language of today, I would rather see a sermon than hear one any day. By the example Doug Coe lived, he taught us how to live. God bless you, Doug Coe. You have done so much for so many. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I, too, support Wilbur Ross. I know him. He lives in Palm Beach. I think he is a very good selection to be our next Secretary of Commerce. He is certainly qualified to do this job. He gave extensive answers during his confirmation hearing before the Commerce Committee. He has accumulated significant experience in dealing with the international business community, and he has detailed to the committee--in our examination of him, he detailed many of his ideas. There have been some questions that have been raised about some of his business ties, particularly involving some of his foreign activities. One example is the Bank of Cyprus, which has significant levels of Russian investment. In the wake of the former National Security Advisor, General Flynn's resignation and under the overhanging question of the unlawful Russian involvement in a U.S. election, I certainly thought that it was prudent to get Mr. Ross's assurances on this matter in his dealings with the Bank of Cyprus and certain Russians who were involved in the Bank of Cyprus, so on February 16, I sent him a letter, along with four other members of the Commerce Committee, requesting information on any contact Russian investors in the Bank of Cyprus may have with officials from the Trump campaign or the Trump organization. I have spoken with Mr. Ross on at least two occasions since sending him the letter, one of those being today. He has verbally reiterated to me that he only had one meeting, approximately an hour, with one of the bank's Russian investors and that it occurred in 2014. The timing is important--2014--because that was before the Presidential campaign. He also assured me that he knows of no loans or interaction between the bank and anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign or organization. Mr. Ross has been forthcoming with me, and I believe him in what he has told me, that it is true to his belief. But I want to say that at the same time, the White House and the way they have handled this matter is not doing Wilbur Ross any favors. There are a number of Senators on the Commerce Committee who are extremely troubled and frustrated that the White House has chosen to sit on Mr. Ross's written response to the questions I and other Senators have posed, and they have refused to provide them to the Senate prior to tonight's vote. This is despite repeated phone calls to the White House--repeated phone calls. It is also despite repeated phone calls from me to Mr. Ross to ask him to get the White House off the dime since he has told me he has already filled out the answers in writing--they are just sitting in the White House. So there is someone in the White House who is making the decision that they don't want the Senate to have, in writing, what Mr. Ross has told me verbally in a private conversation. If that is any indication of the level of transparency Congress and the American people can expect from this White House, then it appears that there is going to be a lot left on the floor and there is going to be the appearance of being in the dark on a lot of important matters. That is not the way you do confirmations. You do it in a collaborative fashion, especially when you have a good nominee like Wilbur Ross. The President proposes, the Congress disposes. The President nominates, the Congress confirms. Not only is this lack of transparency unsettling, it is behavior that everyone in this Senate should agree is unacceptable and should not be tolerated. I do not want this to be taken out on Wilbur Ross because of the administration's secretive behavior. Instead, as I said at the outset, following my colleague, the chairman of the committee, I am going to urge our colleagues to support his nomination, but the problem is that Wilbur Ross is going to get fewer ``yes'' votes than if the White House would release his written statements to all of those Senators' questions. As I said, I know Wilbur Ross. He is a good man. One of the reasons, aside from this problem of communication with the White House, is that Wilbur Ross brought forth candid answers about the work of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. That agency, which is a part of the Department of Commerce, impacts the daily lives of every single American. NOAA provides the satellite data that is critical to observing hurricanes and severe weather and everyday forecasts that we have now come to rely on, that we pull up on our smartphones to find out what the weather is going to be. Where do you think that comes from? A lot of it comes from data from NOAA satellites. Through the National Weather Service, NOAA provides the weather forecasts that drive this economy, answering questions like whether a farmer's crops are going to get rain today or warning of dangerous tornadoes, particularly plaguing the State of the Presiding Officer. Of course, we remember the ones that just devastated parts of Georgia and Florida just a few weeks ago. The National Ocean Service tells us if ships will have enough clearance to get their cargo into a port on time because it often depends on the tide as to how much depth there is with that heavy load of cargo, if they can get in the channel. NOAA also provides world-class science regarding atmospheric conditions, including climate change and its impacts. My State of Florida, the impacts of climate change--we are ground zero. It is not unusual now that at seasonal monthly high tides, the streets of Miami Beach are flooded, and city wellfields have now had to be moved further to the west away from the Atlantic Ocean because of the rise of sea level and therefore the saltwater intrusion into the freshwater aquifer. Since 2006, Miami Beach has flooded significantly more often than it used to. Rain-related flooding events in southeast Florida have increased by 33 percent, and tide-related flooding has increased by a whopping 400 percent. That is not good for business. We simply cannot afford to deny what is happening. The impacts of climate change are affecting Florida. They are also affecting a lot of other places around the world, read: Bangladesh. NOAA quite literally saves lives and property, so naturally I fully expect any nominee for Secretary of Commerce to unequivocally support the ability of the experts at NOAA to do what they do best: collect the data, do the research, and provide critical products and services to the public free from political interference and free from censorship. The Department of Commerce has three Nobel laurate scientists who are employees. While some of the nominees for other key administration posts have either been less than forthright, less than committal, or less than knowledgeable about the very real threat posed by climate change, Wilbur Ross candidly and explicitly assured me during his nomination hearing in our Commerce Committee that he believes--and I will quote him--that ``science should be left to the scientists.'' I urge his fellow Cabinet nominees to follow suit. Don't do what we have seen--the intimidation techniques of saying that you can't use the term ``climate change'' or ``sea level rise.'' Let the scientists do their work. Wilbur Ross also assured me that he would work collaboratively ``to address the impacts of changes in sea level and ocean temperatures on coastal communities and fisheries.'' So I want to say to the Senate that I appreciate Wilbur Ross's candor, his commitment, and his recognition that the important weather and climate work being done in NOAA directly benefits commerce. I am confident he is going to follow through. I also want to thank him, at his age, for offering himself for public service. This is a very schooled, experienced individual. I hope this hiccup with the White House not being transparent and not returning what he has already written as answers to the Senator's questions--this problem--is going to disappear and, that rather than hinder him, as they have, they will instead support him, as they should. For that reason, I am here to ask my colleagues to vote yes on Wilbur Ross's nomination. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to Harry Knight, a detailee from the Department of Commerce, during the pendency of the first session of the 115th Congress.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to speak about this nomination from the standpoint of our State, our State of Florida, because we are famous for sugar-white beaches, fertile fishing grounds, and unique environmental treasures, such as the Florida Everglades. These precious natural resources need our protection and our stewardship. In fact, Florida's multibillion-dollar tourism industry is driven by the fact that people come to our State to enjoy these kinds of environmental treasures. I have just come from a meeting with the American Hotel & Lodging Association. With multibillions of dollars of investments all over Florida, what happens if the guests don't come? That is a major investment that is lost. And, oh, by the way, a few years ago during the BP oil spill--when the oil got only as far east from Louisiana as Pensacola Beach, and some oil was in Choctawhatchee Bay and Destin and some tar balls were as far east as Panama City Beach, but not any further--the visitors didn't come because they thought the beaches were covered with oil. Well, right now Florida's unique environment is threatened by several environmental challenges, from the threat of fracking in this honeycomb of limestone filled with freshwater that supports the peninsula of Florida to algal blooms that have plagued much of Florida's Treasure Coast this last year, to the red tide in the Tampa Bay area, and to Burmese pythons in the Everglades. And that is just a little bitty partialness of the plagues. To deal with these challenges, States such as ours depend on the EPA as a backstop. I am here to express my concerns about the President's pick to lead this agency. It has been well documented that the President's pick is a friend of the oil industry. There is nothing wrong with that. But this is an industry that has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions to Mr. Pruitt and the PACs supporting him over the years. Ever since I was a young Congressman, I have been fighting to keep oil rigs off the coast of Florida. In the first place, there is not a lot of oil out there, but Florida's unique environment--from what I just told you about, the BP oil spill--its tourism-driven economy, and, oh, by the way, the largest testing and training area for the U.S. military in the world, the Gulf of Mexico off of Florida, as well as all of the testing ranges on the east coast, and how about the rockets coming out of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the rockets coming out of the Kennedy Space Center--because of all of those, you can't have oil rigs down there. For all of those reasons, it makes Florida incompatible with offshore oil drilling. An EPA Administrator with such close ties to the oil industry is deeply concerning for the people of Florida. But Mr. Pruitt's ties to Big Oil aren't the only concern that we have in Florida. During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Pruitt said that he believes that his views on climate change are ``immaterial'' to the job of the EPA Administrator. Whoa, the EPA Administrator is directly involved in things that involve climate change. I can't think of a more relevant issue for our EPA Administrator to be concerned with because Florida is ground zero when it comes to the effects of sea level rise. These are not projections, not forecasts. These are measurements over the last 40 years in South Florida. The sea has risen 5 to 8 inches. By the way, where is three-quarters of the population of Florida? It is along the coast. We are already seeing regular flooding at the mean high tide in the streets of Miami Beach, and they are spending millions on infrastructure in order to get those pumps working to get the water off the streets and raising the level of the streets. We are seeing the saltwater, which is heavier than freshwater, seep into the ground where there is a honeycomb of limestone filled with freshwater, and the seawater is seeping into the freshwater. So cities are having to move their city well fields further to the west because of the saltwater intrusion, and it only gets worse. The threat Floridians face every day is a result of this sea level rise that is very real. It is critical that we have an EPA Administrator that understands that there are things that are happening because of climate change. It is not immaterial to the job of the EPA Administrator; it is very relevant. There is Mr. Pruitt's history of questioning science, especially when the facts conflict with his friends, whom he surrounds himself with, about the effects of science. So whether it is protecting Florida's livestock from deadly parasites or protecting the air we breathe, science informs policy decisions that affect all of us--clean water, clean air. It affects public health, national security, and the environment. Yet we continue to see troubling reports about scientists being muzzled from the State level all the way up to the Federal level in the EPA. So it just seems that this is unacceptable. Our scientists should be free to publish scientific data and not be muzzled. They should be able to publish their reports without fear of losing their jobs or being censored for using phrases like ``climate change.'' That is why I recently sponsored legislation to protect our scientists from political interference. The Scientific Integrity Act would ensure that Federal scientists can communicate their findings with the public. It requires Federal agencies to implement and enforce scientific integrity policies and ensure that procedures are in place so that if those policies are violated, it is known and there is a procedure to deal with that. I conclude by stating that Floridians and the State of Florida cannot risk the health of our environment or our economy on an EPA Administrator who pals around with folks that do all of what I am talking about--they question our scientists, denying the true threat we face from sea level rise and climate change. Floridians can't afford such a risk, and they shouldn't be forced to take this risk. Therefore, I will vote no on Mr. Pruitt's nomination to be EPA Administrator. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my postcloture debate time to Senator Carper.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, we are moving forward now on the consideration of Congressman Mick Mulvaney, the President's nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, which is an enormous responsibility and which often directs the traffic of what is going to happen in all of the agencies and directs traffic as to what legislation the White House is going to be working on and working with the Congress on. This is an enormous responsibility and a very powerful position. When looking for someone to lead this agency, we have to carefully consider the person's record. The Presiding Officer is someone who is practical, who is a military officer, and who understands a lot about human nature, as I hope this Senator from Florida does, and what I suspect that both of us have found is that you can often tell where a fellow is going by where he has been. Let's look at Congressman Mulvaney's record on everything from things like Social Security and Medicare. Let's look at what his record is on climate change and sea level rise, and, oh, by the way, of particular note to the gentleman presiding in the Chair, what is his record on defense spending. Office of Management and Budget is going to have a great deal to say about what is in the budget with regard to any kind of spending, but let's see what he has said with regard to defense spending. Congressman Mulvaney has advocated for raising the retirement age for Social Security to 70. He has also said he wants to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, both of which would require senior citizens to work longer, even though they have worked a long time and have paid into these programs in good faith. Take, for example, Medicare. People have tried to provide for health insurance, if they have enough money, or otherwise through the ACA, getting subsidies to afford health insurance or, if they don't have enough money, having Medicaid, and they are waiting for the day they turn 65 to be eligible for Medicare. It is the same thing with Social Security. Social Security over time has been raised from 65 to 67, but Congressman Mulvaney has talked about raising the eligibility for Social Security to age 70. I don't think this is going to go over too well with a population of senior citizens who have paid into Social Security, who have paid in to finance Medicare and now are being told they are going to have to wait until later. I know how you can dress it up. You can say: Oh, it is not going to affect anybody who is currently eligible, but what about all the young people who are paying in? Well, time flies, and suddenly they find they are approaching that age in their midsixties. I don't think people are going to take very well to Congressman Mulvaney's position. Let's see what else he has said. He called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. He further has said he supports turning Medicare into a voucher system. That, under any independent economist's examination, would lead to big cuts for seniors, many of our senior citizens who have no other options for health coverage. When the President was running for office--remember, he said exactly the opposite. Then-Candidate Trump said he promised there would be no cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Yet the White House has nominated somebody who has taken positions contrary to that because it is clear from Congressman Mulvaney's past positions, that we can't rely on him to keep this promise that the President made. Again, I remind our listeners that the head of the OMB is like a chief air traffic controller. He is directing a lot of the traffic of what the White House will bless, and it is a position--need I remind you--that is also considered a member of the President's Cabinet. Well, the positions Mulvaney has taken are opposite to those stated by Candidate Trump. Let's look at something else. You know the Nation has debt. In fact, U.S. bonds are the strongest investment in the world because they are backed up by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government, the strongest government in the world. So any kind of U.S. debt, backed by the full faith and credit, is the strongest investment in the world, but Congressman Mulvaney has taken an alarming position on our Nation's debt, advocating for shutting down the government and defaulting on the debt--all a part of a political game to gain leverage in budget battles. Anybody who takes a position that you want our government to go into default on its financial obligations--that is a pretty extreme position. So this Senator would merely say we can't have somebody in charge of our budget as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget who is willing to risk a default on our government to meet a personal ideological agenda. Let's look at something else. The Presiding Officer is in one area of the United States outside of the continental United States, and yours truly is in another part of the United States. One is near the Arctic, and the other is near southern climes. Our State, and specifically South Florida, is ground zero for sea level rise. I think most people are familiar with the photographs on television showing seawater washing through the streets during the seasonal high tides of Miami Beach. Most people have heard that in some of the coastal cities they had to relocate well fields further west because of sea level rise and the intrusion of salt water, which is heavier than freshwater, into the interior. Florida sits on top of a honeycomb of limestone that is filled with water. That is what is happening in the southern part of the United States. A NASA scientist testified to the Commerce Committee that--these are measurements, not forecasts or projections but measurements over the last 4 years--the sea has risen in South Florida 5 to 8 inches. Of course, we have heard the projections. This is something we are getting ready for. The city of Miami Beach is spending millions of dollars on very expensive pumps. Other governments in South Florida are planning to do the same. It is not a forecast. It is happening. Three-quarters of our State's population in Florida lives on the coast. Look at the population in the United States. A lot of people live on the coast, and those populations are going to bear the brunt of sea level rise from the flooded streets to tainted drinking water. But during his confirmation hearing, the fellow being considered to be head of the OMB, Congressman Mulvaney, questioned the scientific fact of climate change. We can't muzzle scientists. We can't muzzle science. It is not going to go away. You can attempt to muzzle the scientists as some Governors in the South have done, and alarmingly, as I have found in the last few weeks, some agencies of government are having implied threats that they stop using the words ``climate change.'' You can't muzzle this when the effects of scientifically proven climate change are posing a real threat to a lot of our people. I specifically made it a point to question the fellow whom we will vote on next week--a really good person, Wilbur Ross, who is going to be the Secretary of Commerce. He came out of our Commerce Committee with an overwhelming vote. I specifically said, and it is on the record: What do you think about climate change science? I said: Mr. Ross, Wilbur Ross, do you know you have three Nobel laureates as scientists who are employed in the Department of Commerce? Do you know that you have not only NOAA and all the intricate measurements that are so important for us to protect ourselves, to read in-bound hurricanes, tornadoes, the amount of rain that is going to fall for our agriculture industry, all the rest, but also we have scientists over there in the Department of Commerce, I reminded him, who are doing the delicate measurements of science, of standards and technology that are kneading science to sniff the atmosphere for nuclear explosions by potential enemies. We don't want to muzzle these scientists. We want them to bring forth the best that they can come up with in modern-day techniques. I would ask the Presiding Officer to look at the bill we have filed with a number of our fellow Members of the Commerce Committee, the Scientific Integrity Act, which would ensure that Federal scientists can freely communicate their findings with the public and with Congress. It requires Federal agencies to implement and enforce scientific integrity policies and to ensure that adequate procedures are in place to report when those integrity policies are violated. That ought to be common sense. That ought to be the normal course of business around here. Let people speak their minds, speak their expertise. That is what we want. That bill requires Federal agencies to implement and enforce those policies. Let's get to defense spending. The nominee for Office of Management and Budget--Congressman Mulvaney's--record on military spending is concerning. In 2011, in an interview on ABC's ``Top Line,'' Congressman Mulvaney said: Defense has to be cut--it has to be on the table, no question. There is a group of Republicans--myself included-- who think that we should be cutting defense. There's a large portion of folks in our own party who know that you can cut defense and not impact the ability of our troops in the field to be defending us. Why don't we ask the people in Ukraine who are fighting for their lives against the projected arm of Vladimir Putin trying to take over their territory, just like he already did in taking over Crimea? Why don't we ask our NATO allies? Why don't we ask our troops in the hot, sandy regions of Iraq and Syria right now? Yes, our U.S. troops are in Syria--the Special Operations forces advising the combined forces over there fighting ISIS. Why don't we ask them if they want defense cuts? As we see the continuous projection of the ability of Russia to move on to three Baltic States which are our NATO partners, why don't we ask them if they would like our defense budget cut? Why don't we ask our allies in the Pacific region that are so concerned about the testing of these increasingly longer range, intermediate range ballistic missiles by North Korea--why don't we ask them if they want us to cut back on the assets that we have in the region to be able to protect them from the North Koreans if that child dictator suddenly goes off on some crazy tangent and pushes the button? So I will just summarize and state that Congressman Mulvaney has repeatedly demonstrated an unwillingness to face domestic and global realities, and for this Senator, that raises serious concerns as to whether he can be trusted to responsibly oversee our Nation's budget process. For these reasons and others, I will be voting no on Congressman Mulvaney's nomination. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, just like the distinguished Senator from Virginia, I, too, have had so many Floridians reach out to me. And sometime in the next 12 hours--literally in the next 12 hours--we are going to vote on the confirmation of the President's nominee for the Health and Human Services Secretary. The reason so many people are reaching out to us, giving us these personal stories, is that HHS is the primary agency for protecting the health of all Americans as an agency. You could certainly say we ourselves are primarily responsible for our health, or in the case of children, their parents, but when you get to an agency of the U.S. Government, it is HHS. It provides health coverage through Medicare and Medicaid, the Federal marketplace, and the Children's Health Insurance Program. I don't want it to be lost on the Senators--you know a little bit about Florida and that the percentage of our population that is elderly is very high, which translates into 4 million people in my State on Medicare for access to health services, and another 3.5 million Floridians rely on Medicaid and CHIP for care. So that alone is reason to be concerned about this appointment. Another nearly 2 million Americans signed up for coverage under healthcare.gov--specifically 1.8 million in the State of Florida. That is more signing up under the ACA under healthcare.gov than any other State. Nine million other Floridians get their health coverage from their employers and benefit from some of the ACA protections, such as prohibiting insurers from imposing lifetime limits or discriminating against people with preexisting conditions. That is another 9 million Floridians. I am concerned that, if confirmed, Congressman Price would be the President's top adviser on these important issues and that he would be responsible for upholding President Trump's promise to protect Medicare and Medicaid. He would be responsible for upholding President Trump's promise that any ACA replacement plan will ``have insurance for everyone.'' That is what Candidate Trump said. This nominee would be responsible for upholding President Trump's promise to keep in place the protections that prevent insurance companies from discriminating against individuals with preexisting conditions. How many times before the ACA did we have some of our constituents tell us they were denied coverage because they had a preexisting condition--a rash. Because of the law, no one can be denied health insurance now. Yet Congressman Price's record and the policies he has supported throughout his seven terms in Congress are in direct conflict with President Trump's stated goals. In fact, Congressman Price's proposed budget in the House cuts nearly $500 billion from Medicare and turns it into a voucher program. His plan would give seniors a fixed dollar amount--that is the voucher--to buy insurance. Most every economist would tell us that means higher monthly premiums. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, turning Medicare into a voucher program would cause seniors to pay 11 percent more out of their pockets. Is that what we want to do to our senior citizens? I don't think so. We better think about it. I can state that the seniors in my State are petrified when folks start messing with their Medicare. One of my constituents said in a letter that he wrote to me: I hear that Congress is proposing changes to Medicare, which would provide a fixed-dollar amount to purchase medical insurance in the private sector. This monumental shift would put an undue financial burden on fixed income retirees. Linda, another constituent from Tampa, wrote to me back in January and said: I am 68 years old. I am a woman who depends on Social Security and Medicare. My years in the workforce were meant to help cushion my retirement with money I invested from dollars earned, and now my living and my access to health care are threatened. Please, please, do all you can to prevent the loss of these important hard-earned necessities. That is what she wrote to me. These are just two examples of seniors for whom we need to stand up and fight. Half of all Medicare beneficiaries have incomes of less than $24,000, and they have savings of less than $63,000. I want to say that again because that is the condition of many senior citizens. Half of all Medicare beneficiaries have incomes of less than $24,000, and half of those beneficiaries have savings of less than $63,000. Based on these numbers, seniors simply can't afford to pay 11 percent more out of their pocketbooks for benefits. Seniors can't take a chance on Congressman Price as their HHS Secretary by virtue of what he has already said and what his record is in the Congress. The Congressman also supports raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67, forcing seniors to wait for benefits they earned during their working years. They have been waiting patiently until they reach age 65, and now it is being pushed up another 2 years. By increasing the age from 65 to 67, Congressman Price is forcing Americans to work longer to maintain the health coverage they were promised or forcing them to go without insurance. Approximately 92 percent of older adults have at least one chronic disease, and 77 percent of older adults have at least two chronic diseases. Forgoing critical health coverage is not an option for these folks, and who is going to stand up and fight for them? I know Senator Kaine and I will. The Congressman refused to answer my question in the Finance Committee on whether he supports the ACA that saved seniors money on the cost of their prescription drugs by closing the Medicare D gap that we call the doughnut hole. Under the ACA, more prescription drugs were paid for by Medicare than had been the case before. What that translates into in Florida is seniors saved $1,000 a year, thanks to the reduction of the gap in the prescription drug coverage. So why in the world would we want to get rid of something that is saving our seniors money and is doing exactly what it was intended to do--save them money on their prescriptions? We should be looking for ways to lower, not raise, the cost of prescription drugs for our senior citizens. In November of last year, Congressman Price said that he wants to overhaul Medicare in the first 6 to 8 months of the Trump administration using a fast-track procedure known as reconciliation-- getting around the 60-vote threshold requirement that forces us to have bipartisan compromise on the floor of the Senate in legislation. That is what he said he wanted to do to force it through on a reconciliation bill. Well, I don't think that sounds too good. So when you look at all of this, what is the conclusion? The Congressman's record and statements made as recently as 3 months ago do not match President Trump's promises. Our country deserves an HHS Secretary who will uphold those promises, not inflict deep, harmful cuts that fundamentally alter the health and financial security Medicare provides Americans in their later years. For these reasons and others, sometime in this next 11\1/2\ hours when we vote, I am going to vote no on this nominee. There is too much at stake for our seniors to give this nominee control over these programs. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my postcloture debate time to Senator Schumer.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the nomination of Senator Sessions to be the next Attorney General. I believe one of the most important jobs of a U.S. Attorney General is to protect the people's right to vote. In the tumultuous days of the early 1960s, on a hot afternoon, I watched on a grainy black and white TV as Dr. King delivered his memorable ``I Have a Dream'' speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. His soaring, spiritually laced speech challenged us to commit our lives to ensuring that the promises of American democracy were available, not just for the privileged few but for ``all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics.'' ``Now is the time,'' Dr. King urged, ``to make real the promises of democracy.'' He stressed that a central promise made to the citizens in a democracy is the right to vote and to have that vote counted. He said: ``We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.'' Half a century has passed, and our country has changed with the times, but one thing has not changed. The right to vote for ``all God's children'' in America is still under assault. Unbelievably, we are not so very far from the problems of 1963. Despite the passage of time and landmark civil and voting rights legislation, five decades later there is still considerable voter suppression in this country. In fact, several States have recently enacted restrictive laws cutting back voting hours on nights and on weekends, eliminating same- day registration, and basically making it harder for people to vote. Standing in between a citizen and the voting booth is a direct contradiction to the vision of equality put forth by our Founding Fathers. In 1776, they declared that all men were created equal, but many in our country had to wait another 94 years before the 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted citizens the right to vote-- though not all citizens. Ratified in 1870, the amendment states: ``The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.'' It still took another 50 years before women in America were allowed to vote. After her arrest for casting a ballot in the Presidential election of 1872, Susan B. Anthony delivered a number of speeches in Upstate New York on women's suffrage. In those speeches, she noted that the right of all citizens to vote in elections is key to a functioning democracy. Specifically, one line from her speech stands out. ``And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them by providing the democratic-republican government--the ballot.'' After the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the ballot, it took another 45 years before our Nation belatedly enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 intended to guarantee every U.S. citizen the right to vote. Does this principle really hold true in practice? The continued voter suppression of which I speak may not be as blatant as it once was with Jim Crow laws and poll taxes and literacy tests and the like, but it is still very much with us. In recent years, it is obvious that hurdles have once again been placed between the voting booth and the young and minority voters. A devastating blow was dealt by the U.S. Supreme Court when it gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Our Nation's highest Court struck down a central provision of the law that was used to guarantee fair elections in this country since the mid-1960s, and that includes the guarantee of elections in my State of Florida since that time. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to protect our right to vote. It required States with a history of voter suppression to get Federal approval before changing their voting laws. And for nearly five decades, the States had to prove to the Department of Justice why a change was necessary and demonstrate how that change would not harm voters. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court declared that part of the law was outdated. It essentially rendered a key part of the law void until a bitterly partisan and gridlocked Congress can come up with a new formula for determining which States and localities need advance approval to amend their right-to-vote laws. The majority justified its ruling in the Court by pointing out that we no longer had the blatant voter suppression tactics once used to disenfranchise targeted voters across the country. I vigorously disagree because removing much needed voter protections also prevents the Federal Government from trying to block discriminatory State laws before they go into effect. In essence, States and local jurisdictions are now legally free to do as they please. In fact, just moments after the decision, the Texas attorney general said his State would begin ``immediately'' honoring local legislation that a fellow court had imposed ``strict and unforgiving burdens'' on many Texans attempting to cast a ballot. As has been noted, the right to vote was not always given to all American adults, but our laws adjusted as we became a more mature and tolerant democracy. But the reverse is what has been happening in America today and especially in Florida. Since the 2010 election, in addition to cutting back on early voting, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida have approved voting restrictions that according to some experts are targeted directly at reducing turnout among young, low-income, and minority voters who traditionally support Democrats. One study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law reviewed the crop of similar disenfranchisement laws that were enacted after the 2010 decision. All told, the center found that as many as 5 million Americans could be adversely affected by these voting laws, and there is a clear political impact as a result of these disenfranchisement laws. Two University of Massachusetts professors conducted a study that found that there was a clear pattern associated with the voter restrictions in the various States. According to Keith Bentele and Erin E. O'Brien, States were more likely to pass limits on voting that elected those Republican Governors, those States that increased their share of Republican lawmakers, and those States that became more electorally competitive under Republicans. In 2011, the Florida legislature and State officials reduced a number of early voting days. They reduced them from 2 weeks down to 8 days, including very conveniently canceling the Sunday right before the Tuesday election, a day that had historically seen heavy African- American and Hispanic voting. State officials countered that registered voters would still have the same number of hours and that they could still vote early, only in 8 days instead of 2 weeks. Well, it didn't work out that way. Florida also made voting harder for people who had been recently moved to another county and had an address change, such as college students, after it subjected voter registration groups to penalties and fines for mistakes--voter registration, mind you, penalties, and fines if you didn't turn it in within a certain number of hours. They were so burdensome that the League of Women Voters challenged the provision in Federal court and they won but not before Jill Cicciarelli, a Florida teacher, had helped her students preregister to vote and ended up facing legal troubles as the result of her well- intentioned public service. A schoolteacher, teaching a government class, getting her kids preregistered, so when they became 18, they could vote, and she got in trouble with the State of Florida. The New Smyrna Beach High School civics teacher unwittingly ran afoul of the State's new convoluted election law. Cicciarelli, it turned out, hadn't registered with the State before beginning the drive and didn't submit forms to the elections office within that short number of hours. ``You're talking about a high-energy teacher who cares about her kids, cares about her community and cares about her country,'' is how the New Smyrna High School principal, Jim Tager, described the situation. Thankfully, the Voting Rights Act allowed the Federal Government to go before a panel of Washington, DC, judges who found that Florida's 2011 reduction of early voting--which I have just chronicled--here is what the court said, ``would make it materially more difficult for some minority voters to cast a ballot.'' As a result, Florida had to restore 96 hours of early voting. Even with these added protections, the next election in 2012 was a fiasco. Lines outside the polling places were prohibitively long, with some people waiting up to 8 hours to cast their vote. I am not kidding the Senate. There were lines in Dade County, Miami Dade County, 7 and 8 hours. By the way, some of those lines, there wasn't a nearby bathroom. Faced with calls for extending poll hours, the Governor of Florida failed to do what its two Republican gubernatorial predecessors had done: extend voting hours in some of the most swamped polling places to give folks enough time to exercise their right to vote. In fact, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis found that in 2012, Florida had the Nation's longest waiting lines to vote at an average statewide of 45 minutes. More than 200,000 voters in Florida gave up in frustration because the lines were so long. They didn't vote that year. According to another analysis by Ohio State University, in the Orlando Sentinel, they are the ones who came up with that 200,000 figure, and they aren't done yet. As if the 2011 restrictions weren't enough, an elections official in Miami-Dade County, in 2012, said that restrooms would be closed to voters at polling sites in private buildings over a handicap access dispute, even though there were bathrooms in those private buildings where the polling place was. The State's top election official in 2012 also told one of our 67 local election supervisors not to allow voters to submit absentee ballots at remote dropoff sites. She, by the way, is a Republican supervisor of elections. She told the State Department Division of Elections to kiss off; that she was running the elections and she was going to make sure there were enough places around that county where, if they had an absentee ballot, it was going to be convenient for them to go and drop off that absentee ballot than having to take it miles and miles to one place, that the Division of Elections at the State level was telling them to go to that Supervisor of Elections. She knew what she had to do to make it easy for voters to vote, and she stuck to her guns. At the same time, that same Division of Elections in the Department of State, denied a request from the city of Gainesville in a municipal election. They denied the request to use the University of Florida campus building for early voting. A move that was viewed by some--more than some--as an assault on student voting by making it more difficult for students to find a place to vote. By then, I had asked the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, for an investigation into the changes in Florida's voting law. In response, the Attorney General wrote to warn the Governor of Florida that the Justice Department would be ``carefully monitoring'' Florida's elections. ``During your tenure, your State has repeatedly added barriers to voting and restricted access to the polls,'' the Attorney General wrote. ``Whenever warranted by the facts and the law, we will not hesitate to use all tools and legal authorities at our disposal to fight against racial discrimination, to stand against disenfranchisement, and to safeguard the right of every eligible American to cast a ballot.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter from the U.S. Attorney General to the Governor of Florida, dated July 21, 2014.

Mr. NELSON. The Attorney General cited problematic actions of the Governor's chief elections official, including purging from the voter rolls suspected noncitizens--a move that eventually was blocked after outright opposition from county election supervisors. So in light of this evidence and following a widespread public outcry, what do we do now? As we say, it may not be as obvious as poll tactics and all the other blockades to voting, as we have seen in the past, particularly by all of the marches and so forth during the 1970s civil rights era. It might not be as obvious, but there are all these subtle attempts. So what do we do? I submit that though the problem is complex, the answer is relatively simple. As Americans who cherish the right to vote, we must turn to those schemers and say: There is a promise of democracy that we will not allow you to break. We have an obligation to keep this promise of democracy for our children. Congress may be dysfunctional, but we must continue to push lawmakers for a fix to the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court struck down on a 5-to-4 vote, a key provision. We ought to be making it easier to vote, not harder. I believe no one should have to wait more than one- half hour to vote. So I joined with others a few years ago to introduce a bill in Congress aimed at making that standard 30-minute wait time based on the January 2014 recommendation of a bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration. Keep in mind what President Johnson said a half century ago: ``The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.'' Also remember what Dr. King said: So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote, I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind--it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact--I can only submit to the edict of others. Don't we owe it to all our children the right to possess themselves if this is to be a truly free and fair democracy? I believe that two of the most fundamental rights in our democracy are the right to vote and the right to know whom you are voting for and the right to have the confidence that vote is going to be counted as you intended. If that were not enough, just as concerning as the ongoing efforts to suppress certain votes in this country is the amount of undisclosed and unlimited money that is sloshing around in our campaigns. The Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United has opened the floodgates and allowed the wealthiest Americans to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections. Allowing such unlimited, undisclosed money into our political system is corrupting our democracy. I have strongly supported several pieces of legislation, such as the Disclose Act, to require groups who spend more than $10,000 on campaign-related matters to identify themselves. Tell the people who is giving the money by filing a disclosure report with the Federal Elections Commission. But that is not what the Supreme Court decision required. The American people have a right to know whom they are voting for-- not just the name on the ballot but who is behind that name on the ballot. The Supreme Court itself said that ``transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.'' I believe we as a Congress have a moral obligation--a moral obligation--to correct what has happened to our system and to ensure that our voters have the information they need to make an informed decision on election day. So this Senator has spoken on two subject areas--the right to vote and the amount of undetectable, unannounced, undisclosed, and unlimited money in our elections. For these and many other reasons I have stated and have not stated and the reasons mentioned in these remarks, I will vote no on the confirmation for Attorney General.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I would echo what our chairman, Senator Thune, has said about Elaine Chao. She certainly has the qualifications to be our next Secretary of Transportation. Clearly, she is a part of the Senate family; as the spouse of the majority leader, we know her well--and her government experience as the previous Secretary of Labor and Deputy Secretary of Transportation. The Office of Government Ethics, which is the independent agency that vets the nominees, has certified that she is in compliance with all the laws and regulations governing conflicts of interest. This Senator intends to vote for her confirmation, as I did in the committee. Since the Senator from Arkansas, in his objection to the unanimous consent request of the Democratic leader, made note of the absence of Democratic members from the Finance Committee markup of a couple of the Cabinet nominees, I want to bring to the attention of my colleagues that indeed, there was new information that came to light overnight in a publication in the Wall Street Journal of additional information about the nominee for the Department of HHS, which needs to be cleared up before the committee proceeds. So I wanted to put that on the record and make clear one of the reasons that the Finance Committee members objected to proceeding. I think it interesting also that this Senator, as the ranking member of the Commerce Committee, had some additional questions for Secretary Chao--not questions in any kind of defensive or offensive way but additional information. Those questions were proffered Sunday night or early Monday morning. This Senator, not having heard all day from Secretary Chao, called Secretary Chao. She promptly returned the call last evening, and, lo and behold, the transition team for the Secretary of Transportation had not even given her the questions. One of the questions that this Senator had for Secretary Chao was this: Given the chaos in the airports over the weekend, was she as Secretary of Transportation concerned about the orderly administration of those airports when such an unusual order had come down? In addition, what about the lost tickets on getting refunds for passengers and what about the changing of flight crews that might cause extra expenses? These are all items that a Secretary of Transportation would be concerned with going forward. What I found out in conversation was that the nominee to be Secretary of Transportation had not been consulted by the White House--not in advance, during, or after the implementation of those orders having to do with the entry into the United States of refugees and other immigrants. I think we need Secretary Chao as someone who has the experience, who has common sense, and will be in a position to offer level-headed, good, experienced-based advice to the government going forward. It is just the latest example of some of the fallout from this weekend's activities. I recommend to our Senators that we approve the nomination of Secretary Chao, and I hope that upon her confirmation today by the Senate, she will be sworn in forthwith. I yield the floor.