Rob Portman

Mr. PORTMAN

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I am here to talk about the pain, frustration, and anger that many Americans are feeling this morning. In the midst of an unprecedented healthcare and economic crisis that is disproportionately affecting our minority communities, we have seen protests spring up across the country in response to egregious examples of injustice and violence against African Americans. Just in the past few weeks, there have been graphic videos of Ahmaud Arbery gunned down while jogging on a street in Georgia; a White woman in Central Park calling 9-1-1 to falsely accuse an African-American man of threatening her; and George Floyd pleading for his life as a White officer pressed his knee onto his neck for nearly 9 minutes in Minnesota, killing him. Joining many others, I have made it clear that what happened to these Americans is outrageous and unacceptable. It was very hard to watch that video of George Floyd, a man whose family described him as a ``gentle giant,'' literally begging for his life. ``I can't breathe,'' he said. ``Don't kill me,'' he pleaded. Those were his final words. This simply cannot be allowed to continue in America. By the way, no one I know in law enforcement believes this behavior should be allowed either. Each of these acts and other acts of injustice against Black Americans is deeply troubling in its own right. The combination of these injustices right now, in the midst of concerns about the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on communities of color, has created a firestorm. Right now, many feel overwhelmed by the sadness, anger, and helplessness. Our hearts are with the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and every American who has experienced injustices in the shadows, away from the cameras, outside of the news headlines, in their daily lives. It is good that Federal, State, and local investigations are underway in the Floyd and Arbery cases and that murder charges have been filed. We must all demand that justice be served fully and thoroughly. We are a nation of laws, and we must work to uphold those laws to protect everyone. But my fear is, like so many other times in our Nation's history, what will happen is that these killings will fade from the public's consciousness and we will move silently back to the status quo. We can't allow that to happen this time. It is past time for us to have a robust and inclusive national dialogue on racial inequities and some difficult but necessary conversations about how we move forward as a country. Over the past couple of days, I have spoken with the mayors of Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus--our three biggest cities in Ohio, all three of which have had peaceful protests and destructive rioting. I commend each of them for their support of citizens demonstrating peacefully and for what they have done to try to stop the violence. We talked about cultivating hope for a better world. I will continue to try to use this podium here in the Senate to foster unity and discussions with my colleagues, my constituents, and leaders across Ohio. We need to work together to find solutions that promote strong families and communities that treat each other with respect and dignity. I believe one place to start is by holding up those police departments around the country that have made substantial reforms in training and accountability and improved relationships with communities of color, all the while ensuring better public safety for their citizens. In my home town of Cincinnati, in the wake of similar racial injustice protests in 2001, I worked alongside local officials to develop a better relationship of shared respect between the Black community and our police officers. It is called the Collaborative Agreement. It is not a perfect system, and it has been tested, but it has also proved to be a valuable tool to ensure continuous and open dialogue between the African-American community and the police force. The data is there. There has been a measurable drop in Cincinnati in cases both where police officers used excessive force and where officers themselves were injured. The Federal Government provided support for this program. A lot of the support came in terms of the computer systems and the data and the transparency and accountability. There is more work to be done, so the Federal role should continue in Cincinnati, but this may be a model for other cities to follow as well. As we look at what actions this body should take, I have been encouraged by some of the good ideas brought forward by some of my colleagues. My colleague from South Carolina, Senator Tim Scott, is introducing a bill that would encourage greater reporting of fatalities that occur while individuals are under arrest or in police custody. When we know more about what is happening and emerging trends, I believe we will be better able to address the right public policy approach Now would also be a good time, in my view, to establish a national commission on race, as was done in 1967 by President Johnson in response to the civil unrest of that era. Perhaps the honorary cochairs of such a commission could be people of standing, like former Presidents Obama and Bush, both of whom have spoken eloquently about racism as a stain on our national character. It would not be a commission to restate the problem but to focus on solutions and send a strong moral message that America must live up to the ideal that God created all of us as equal. Sadly, there are those who are trying to take advantage of the pain and suffering by instigating acts of violence aimed at the police, looting, vandalizing, and setting fires, usually in the very communities that are suffering so much. It pains me to see the disrespect that has been shown by some, including to some of our small business owners and their employees in these communities, who are watching something be destroyed that they have spent their lifetime building. It pains me to see the disrespect being shown to some of the officers who are doing their job in a professional manner. It heartens me to see some of the peaceful demonstrators trying to stop these destructive acts. Violence is not the answer. It will only serve to further divide our already polarized country. George Floyd's younger brother, Terrence, said yesterday: It's OK to be angry, but channel your anger to do something positive or make a change another way because we've been down this road already. The anger, damaging your hometown, is not the way he'd want. We cannot dismiss the anger and frustration that have driven so many to the streets for peaceful protests these past few days. The anger on display is real. It is raw. And it deserves to be heard and respected. This is something we must all learn from, and we mustn't thwart the rights of those who are demonstrating peacefully. But the answer is not violence. The answer is to insist that justice be served. The answer is to listen to those who have felt the sting of racism. The answer is to acknowledge when racial disparities and inequities occur, and the answer is to work together to address these longstanding injustices going forward. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. PORTMAN

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

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

Mr. PORTMAN. I know of no further debate on the bill.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 371, S. 2927.

Mr. PORTMAN

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

Mr. PORTMAN. I know of no further debate on the bill, as amended.

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

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 284, S. 1130.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 591, which was submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S.J. Res. 72.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. PORTMAN

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

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3782, introduced earlier today.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Thursday, May 21; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceeding be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; further, that following leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session for consideration of the Ratcliffe nomination under the previous order; finally, that following disposition of the Ratcliffe nomination, the Senate resume consideration of the Badalamenti nomination under the previous order.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am here on the floor to talk about how Congress can do a better job in responding to the coronavirus pandemic that has gripped our country. I just thought that debate was great, something we just heard a moment ago about what we should do going forward. This crisis is unlike anything we have ever seen. I mean, it has devastated so many families. It has turned our lives upside down. It has put an enormous strain on our healthcare system; and our frontline healthcare workers, our researchers, our first responders are working around the clock to help patients and look for treatments. For the past couple of months, every American has been asked to do his or her part through social distancing, through doing smart things like wearing masks, like being sure that we are doing all we can within our home, within our workplace, and out in public to stop the spread of the dangerous virus. I think these have helped. I think these measures have made a difference, and I think we are in a better place by most metrics on the public health danger. I just saw the numbers from Ohio a moment ago here, and we have fewer new positive cases today than we have had over the past week or the past few weeks on average, and so we are beginning to make progress, but it has come at an enormous cost to our economy, and I would say even at an enormous cost to our culture and our society. Since the crisis began a couple of months ago, more than 36 million Americans have lost their jobs or filed for unemployment. Some estimates show that we could potentially hit a 25-percent unemployment rate before this is over. I think we probably will. By the way, that would match the worst of our country's unemployment that we have ever seen, and that would be during the Great Depression. That is where we are headed. Some small businesses have had to close their doors; others are teetering right on the brink of bankruptcy. Hospitals have been closed for needed procedures like mammograms and cancer screenings. More are being missed every day, and basic healthcare is at risk. So that is one consequence that we don't always focus on, but our healthcare system has had to respond to the coronavirus appropriately. But there is a balance here, and the result has been we have had other healthcare needs that have gone unmet. Without that revenue, by the way, from surgeries--so-called elective surgeries, although some aren't very elective, like they are necessary surgeries for a back or a knee or something like that--many hospitals now are in very deep financial trouble because that is how they make most of their money. Colleges and universities, of course, are losing revenue, and children are out of school, which is not a good thing because our kids, many of whom are not able to get the same help at home that they can get at school are falling behind. We have also got to acknowledge the impacts of isolation on people's mental health, on substance abuse. I talked to an individual earlier today who focuses a lot on human trafficking, an area I have worked a lot in, and he is talking about the increase he has seen in domestic violence and human trafficking and the calls that have increased, the number of suicides. This is all troubling. This kind of a crisis, therefore, requires swift and decisive action to ensure that we have got the resources and the help to be able to respond to both the healthcare crisis, which we have to address on the coronavirus front, but also on the economic and the broader societal issues we talked about here and how it impacts us and the rest of our lives. It is a tough balance. I think, for the most part, Congress and the Trump administration have done that. They have responded swiftly and correctly with major new legislation. We came together here in Congress, on a bipartisan basis, to pass legislation already that has addressed the healthcare crisis the virus has caused. We have also passed legislation that has helped the economic crisis caused by government at all levels effectively pumping the brakes on the economy. The legislation that has been enacted, of course, isn't perfect. It is thousands of pages, and it is now four different bills that have been passed already. I think it was necessary for us to act quickly, in a unified manner, and on a bipartisan basis to get stuff done around here. By the way, that bipartisanship has been a welcome change because that is not typical for this place. So far, on each of the 4 pieces of legislation we passed to respond to the challenges of this pandemic, an average of 500 of the 535 Members of both the House and Senate have voted in favor of passage. That is how bipartisan it has been. Five hundred of the 535, on average, have voted yes on these 4 pieces of legislation. These are not small bills. Combined, the funds provided by these first four rescue packages total about $2.8 trillion. That is $2.8 trillion--$2,800 billion. Phase 3 of the CARES Act alone--the most recent one we passed--is about $2.2 trillion in resources. That is an unprecedented amount of spending. It has never been done before. It has certainly never been done in such a short period of time. Now Congress is talking about a fifth rescue package. The fifth rescue package that is being talked about--it has already passed the House of Representatives. It is being talked about even though--and this might surprise you--only about half of the $2.8 trillion in the first four packages has actually been disbursed. Think about that. Only about half of the money in the first four legislative projects that we have undertaken here has actually gone out the door to the intended recipients. Yet we are talking about another package. For example, the Paycheck Protection Program to help small businesses stay afloat still has about 25 percent of its original capacity that hasn't gone out, about $160 billion. Well below half of the funding--the $175 billion that Congress provided to hospitals has yet to be sent out under the Provider Relief Fund. Less than half of the healthcare dollars have even gone out the door. Of the roughly $450 billion that the CARES Act gave to Treasury to unlock the Federal Reserve lending facilities, less than $40 billion of that has been operational. That is right--less than 10 percent of the money designated to provide direct lending to businesses of all sizes so they can stay in business and hire people has been sent out. So even though about half the money from the CARES Act hasn't even been spent--and we still don't have a good handle, of course, on how the money that has been sent out is being spent--Democrats in the House have gone ahead and passed a new rescue package. In many respects, it is a wish list of Democratic priorities that has been talked about here on the floor. Some are related to the coronavirus, and some are not. It passed by a near-party line vote. I think one Republican voted yes and more than a dozen Democrats--more moderate Democrats--voted no. Again, this is a $3 trillion package-- $3,000 billion. That is more than the total spending of all four of the previous coronavirus bills. So all four of the previous combined are less than the spending that the House is recommending for the fifth coronavirus bill. It is actually also a lot more money than Congress would normally appropriate in an entire fiscal year. It is about half of what we just appropriated from the fiscal year we are in, in one bill--in one bill. I am sorry; it is twice as much as Congress appropriated for the current 12-month period we are in. So the appropriations for this fiscal year, 2020, are less than half of what the House is now proposing to spend in one bill. I think, you know, we have to be very cautious, and we have to be sure it is the right amount of money going out because it is a huge and unprecedented spending package. Our annual deficit here in the Congress is already projected to be over $1 trillion. We were already running a large deficit. By the way, it has only been at that level four times in the history of our country. So the $1 trillion was already viewed by many of us, including me, to be an unacceptably high number for our annual deficit. Now the estimate is that this year's annual deficit will be between $3.7 trillion and $4.2 trillion--mind-boggling. We have just never had deficits like these before. Of course, that adds to the $23 trillion national debt, which is already at record levels. We are entering dangerous, unchartered waters here from a fiscal point of view. Most economists agree that this increases the chance of a fiscal and therefore a financial crisis that would follow. Of course, we have to respond to this immediate crisis. Again, I voted for the first four bills. I believe it was necessary to act and act quickly, but I also believe there are real limits as to how much financial risk we should take beyond the, again, $2.8 trillion we have already spent in the first four bills. We have to be sure, at a minimum, that every new dollar is spent as wisely as possible, so it is as targeted as possible. Even overlooking the massive $3 trillion price tag, by the way, the House bill also focuses on some things that just seem unrelated to this crisis. For example, the House spends $136 billion on repealing the cap on the State and local tax deduction. There is a deduction, but it is capped right now. By the way, this $136 billion policy they have in their bill would deliver half of its benefits--50 percent of its tax benefits to the top 1 percent of taxpayers. Tell me how that is related to the coronavirus. To put that in some context, we can use that same amount of money--the $136 billion--to provide almost 2 million more PPP loans to small businesses that need it most: movie theaters, bowling alleys, restaurants, bars. There are also provisions that would force States to adopt broad changes in their election laws regardless of whether they want to. Election law has always been in the province of the States, but that is in this legislation. They also want to raise taxes on employers. Bad time to raise taxes. We want employers to stay in business because they are the ones who create the jobs. They also want to help cannabis growers, which I think is interesting. Cannabis is mentioned dozens of times in the legislation. They also want $50 million, as an example, for environmental justice grants. What does that have to do with the coronavirus Once more of the existing funds are delivered--in other words, as I said earlier, of the first four bills, only about half of it has even gone to the intended recipients. Once more of these existing funds are delivered and we know more about what is working, what is not working, and where the needs are, I suspect more funds will be needed. They will probably be needed for the healthcare side of this--for testing, as an example--and that is probably money well spent. There probably needs to be more flexibility, as the Senator from Louisiana just talked about. I believe there does need to be more flexibility. I also believe we need to find out, once the money goes to the local communities, what their budgets look like. Do they need more money to be able to continue to provide police protection, firefighters' salaries, and EMS services? We don't know that yet. How can we know it when the money hasn't even gone down yet? In Ohio, not one penny is gone except for the amount that went directly to the largest five counties and the one large city. But the part that went to the State hasn't even gone down to the local communities, and that is happening all over the country. We need more information to be able to know how much of this new spending is necessary. But again, even with all the new spending, this new $3 trillion House bill does very little to do something else really important in the next bill, which is help get the economy moving. Again, it raises taxes on businesses. It does some other things that have nothing to do with the coronavirus. What it doesn't do is it doesn't provide the stimulus you would hope would be in the next bill we are going to pass because that is what everybody is looking for right now. How do you do something here in Washington to make it easier to create jobs, make it easier to invest, make it easier for small businesses to get back on their feet? Much of what we did in the first four bills was really a rescue package, and it was necessary. People had lost their jobs for no reason that they could do anything about. It wasn't their fault--36 million Americans. We had to do something to shore that up--the direct payments, unemployment insurance, and other things. We had to help small businesses with the PPP program to ensure they weren't going to close their doors, some forever. Those were more rescue packages to get us through the storm, to weather the storm. Now we have to figure out how we do something to actually get this economy moving. That ought to be the goal because there is a limit to how much Federal tax dollars can be relied on to subsidize the economy. The better way is to get the economy moving, get revenues flowing again, and reopen, therefore, our hospitals and schools. Hospitals can get more revenue if they can reopen and do more procedures, and they can keep from either shutting their doors or relying on the Federal taxpayer for more and more subsidies. Getting back to work is critical, and we have to do it in a safe way, and we can. We have to use social distancing smart practices. We have to be sure we have the testing. I agree with all that. But any new legislation that Congress considers has to include measures that are going to help get people back into the workforce safely and get this economy moving again. I think that should include some tax incentives for investment and jobs. I think it should include some targeted infrastructure investments to create good jobs and also economic benefits that come from the right kind of infrastructure. I think one place to start is Federal highway projects. We need to pass that bill around here. Also, there are a bunch of State highway projects that would normally be funded by the State gas tax. Because we aren't driving nearly as much, the State gas tax has plummeted. In the State of Ohio, for instance, there are a lot of great projects out there that have gone through all the process. They have been vetted, and they have gone through a merit-based process. They are ready to go. In other words, they are shovel-ready. Yet the State is not going to have enough money to pay for them. So rather than sending the money to the States, how about sending some money directly to these infrastructure projects? Good jobs. Economic benefits. The analysis is, in the right kind of infrastructure investments, you spend a dollar and you get back more than a dollar in terms of revenue from the economic benefit. That is the sort of thing I think should be in this next package to help get the economy back on its feet. Right now, I am told by small businesses that one of the biggest barriers to getting the economy going is the unemployment insurance provisions that were passed as part of the CARES Act back in March. This is what I am hearing from small business owners all around Ohio-- that the additional unemployment insurance benefits in the CARES Act, which allow individuals at or below the average income to receive more in unemployment than they could get at work, is a disincentive to work Of course, again, we needed to act to make sure people who lost their jobs through no fault of they own could get by while government at every level effectively pumped the brakes on the economy to better withstand the health crisis. In other words, people lost their jobs because the government said: You can't go to work. At the same time, it was not the best solution to provide a flat $600 increase in benefits to everybody, which is on top of the State unemployment insurance benefits, and that is what we did. That was the proposal here that was passed. That continues, by the way, until July 31. Wage replacement for people making at or below the average income level would have been a good and generous approach--in other words, saying: If you make up to whatever the wage average is in your State-- $52,000 a year, $48,000 a year, or $58,000 a year--you get full wage replacement. But that is not what this is. The $600 on top of the State benefit, which is, on average, $360 probably, puts you up near $1,000 a week. That is more than wage replacement for people who make less than the average wage. Regardless of how you feel about the $600-per-week Federal increase, we are in a very different situation now than we were 2 months ago when we passed it. Back then, remember, we were encouraging people to stay home and not to go to work because that was the time period when we were shutting things down and we were giving stay-at-home orders. So it made much more sense to have an unemployment insurance system that actually would encourage people to stay home. Now we are reopening all around the country, and, small business people are telling me: I would like to get started again, but I can't get the employees. Some say: Well, you can go to that unemployment insurance office and say ``I have a job,'' and then, under the State's rules, they have to tell these people ``You are no longer under UI, and you have to go back to work.'' That is true, but, one, the unemployment insurance systems are overwhelmed. They tell me that really is not something they have the capability of doing right now. They are overwhelmed. They have never seen these kinds of numbers ever. Secondly, a lot of employers don't want to do that, and I get it. Their employees are making a lot more money, in some cases, on unemployment insurance than they can in their place of business, and they are just hesitant to tell them to come back and make less money. I do think there is a role for us to help make that happen and do it in a smart way. Things are different in other respects too. Not only is the economy starting to reopen around the country, but it is being done in a much safer manner. Why? Because we have a lot more testing, and that is good. We need to do a lot more, by the way. Ohio has gone from about 3,700 tests per day a few weeks ago to over 10,000 tests a day now. Soon it will be over 20,000 tests a day in a couple of weeks, they say. That is good. We also have more PPE, personal protective gear, and that is important because if you reopen--say you run a factory. You want people to have the protective gear they need to keep them safe. Also, we finally have some anti-viral medications coming online, thank goodness. Remdesivir is the first one approved by the FDA. It is now in Ohio, my own State, and other States. People are using it. That is great. That gives people more comfort in being able to go back to work more safely. It is time to start to transition from thinking about helping people get by and helping to encourage them to stay home through unemployment to thinking about how we can get people back into the workforce safely so we can get this economy, our small businesses, our hospitals, our colleges and universities, back on track. We should also want to help people get back to work because that is good for everybody. It is where most people get their healthcare--from work, from their employer. We want to get them back to that. It is where most people get their retirement, their 401(k). Not everybody offers it, but if you have one, you are probably getting it from work. It is good to get people back to work and connected with their benefits. It is also good to get people returning to a safe workplace because that is what most people want to do. They want to go back to work. They don't want to stay on unemployment insurance. Yes, it pays more for many Americans, but they would rather be at work. The dignity and self-respect for work is real. It gives meaning to your life. I think we need to take a hard look at this flat $600 increase in the unemployment benefits and ask ourselves whether it is really in the best interest of those workers, of our businesses. Is it really the best system to have it in place when we are trying to get people to get back to work? Again, this additional $600 benefit on top of the $360 average the States have means that unless you are making more than $50,000--or in some States, $60,000 a year--it is more advantageous to be on unemployment insurance than to go back to work. A recent study by the American Action Forum and the University of Chicago says that between 60 and 70 percent of individuals on unemployment are making more than they did in their prior job--60 to 70 percent. Further, for about 20 percent of wage earners, they say, on average, they are making double on unemployment insurance what they made in the workforce. So they say that for the bottom 20 percent of wage earners, on average, they are making double on unemployment insurance. Again, people needed the help. They needed direct payments, and they needed the UI help. A lot of people lost their jobs and had no income coming in just to put food on the table, pay the rent, and pay their car payment. Some people used this UI, even though it was more than they were making before, to help with healthcare. That is important. But isn't the best thing to do is to get people back to work? We need to continue to help people during this time who have lost their jobs, no question. Not every business is ready to reopen, by the way, and the employees who had to be let go by some businesses certainly shouldn't be punished for that. At the same time, we have to ask ourselves whether there is a way we can combine that need with the need to actually get people back to work as we reopen. I think there is. Specifically, I would propose that instead of keeping in place the additional $600 of the Federal benefit for people on unemployment between now and July 31, let's shift some of those Federal dollars to a back-to-work bonus--a program where you let people take some of that $600 with them to work. I propose $450 a week. Others have different numbers, probably. They think that is too much, or they think it is too little. I chose $450 per week because that represents the amount that would be needed to make a person making the average minimum wage better off in the workforce than on unemployment. When you take the minimum wages around the country, on average, you take $450 a week with you to work. That means that you would be making a little bit more in the workforce than you would be on unemployment. What is more, this return-to-work bonus would put additional cash in the hands of individuals who lost their jobs due to the health crisis, which would provide additional stimulus to the economy, which is experiencing historic declines in consumer spending. This incentive for people to get back into the workforce to get our economy running again is exactly the kind of policy we should all want. Instead, I will tell you that as for the $3 trillion House bill we talked about earlier, all it does is to propose extending the $600 per month from the end of its expiration at the end of July into the beginning of next year. We talked earlier about how the next package--whatever it is--ought to encourage the economy to get moving again, right? The House bill doesn't do that in a lot of respects we talked about. But, specifically, on unemployment insurance, what it says is, let's continue this policy of making it harder for people to get back to work. It will ensure that that 60 or 70 percent of the workforce that the study showed are making more on unemployment insurance would be better off staying on the unemployment rolls. By the way, it is also another $300 billion of taxpayer spending in this $3 trillion bill. I don't think it is going to move our country forward. It is going to make it even harder to get back on track. By the way, our back-to-work bonus also benefits taxpayers. So instead of $300 billion in additional funding that is going to go into the House bill for unemployment insurance, if we assume that States would have trouble enforcing their UI laws, which we talked about earlier, and that individuals would choose unemployment over returning to work, even if 25 percent of those who were on unemployment insurance today chose to take advantage of this $450 bonus--and I think a lot will; I think a lot more than that will, but let's be conservative, and let's say that just 25 percent take advantage of it--that will result in tens of billions of dollars of savings to the taxpayer. Think about it. For the State, they will not have the unemployment insurance benefit that they are providing because the person will be at work. That is good. And for the Federal Government, the $600 is reduced to $450. So that enables savings to the taxpayer. It enables people to get back to work. It allows our small businesses to be able to reopen. It is a solution that I think Republicans and Democrats alike can get behind. Let's continue to help the people who can't return to the workplace through no fault of their own, but let's also remember that the American people right now are looking to us here in Congress to come together on a bipartisan basis to put in place policies that will actually help move us forward in this crisis, get back to normalcy, get back to work safely, and get our economy back on the historically strong footing it had here only a few months ago. Back in February, we had the 19th straight month of wage increases of over 3 percent, most of which was going to lower income and middle- income workers. We had unemployment tied with the 50-year low. Unemployment was low then. It is incredibly high now. To get back to that, we have to put some more policies in place, and I believe the back-to-work bonus is exactly that. It will not solve everything, but it will help people get back into jobs, and it will send a clear message that Congress is looking forward and providing a positive path forward for workers, for small businesses, and for taxpayers. Thank you. I yield the floor

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. 1380.

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

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 590, submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, last week I came to the floor of the Senate to talk about how the tragic spread of the coronavirus around the world underscored the need for us to focus on the persistent challenge of China not playing by the rules. In the case of coronavirus, that was about China not telling the World Health Organization, not telling other countries, and not telling their own people what was happening in terms of the coronavirus and not taking steps to stop international travel early on. That wasn't playing by the WHO rules--the World Health Organization rules--and the result has been devastation. It has meant the spread of the virus. So much of that devastation we have seen around the globe, in my view, could have been avoided had they played by the rules. Unfortunately, not playing by the rules applies to China in many other areas too. We have talked a lot about trade on the floor of the Senate, to be sure that there is a level playing field between China and the United States and making sure they play by the international trading rules. But here is another one where China and the Chinese Communist Party have not played by the rules, and that is with regard to obtaining our intellectual property, our innovation, and our research. In the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair, we found not playing by the rules to be the case when we conducted a bipartisan, yearlong investigation into how China has used so-called talent recruitment programs--most notably its Thousand Talents Plan--to steal U.S. taxpayer-funded research to help fuel the rise to both the Chinese military and the Chinese economy over the past 20 years. It has been going on for two decades. You might ask, how has this happened? How could this be possible? This is how it happens. Every year, Federal grant-making agencies, like the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy and their National Labs, the National Science Foundation, and others, give out more than $150 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds for research. That is quite a bit of money. For the most part, this system works well. American taxpayers send the money to these Federal grant-making agencies here in Washington, which then give it out to the best researchers and the best research labs in the country. It has resulted in important new breakthroughs in science, technology, healthcare, energy, military equipment, and more. The NSF helped fund the creation of the internet. The NIH has funded research into very successful and innovative treatments for cancer and other diseases. So there is a lot of good stuff coming out of these research dollars. It has made America really the leader in the world on innovation and new ideas. For the most part, this Federal research funding has enjoyed broad bipartisan support here in the Congress. But guess what. It has also attracted interest from researchers around the world who want the chance to take a part in this cutting-edge research. That is good, too, as long as they play by the rules. What we have learned and we proved through our report is that this system is very vulnerable to theft by other countries. That is exactly what has happened in the case of China. China has made no secret that its goal is to surpass the United States as the world leader in scientific research. They have seen an opportunity to get ahead by exploiting this system of taxpayer-funded grants and the open and collaborative research enterprise that we have in this country. They have taken advantage of that. Specifically, the Chinese Government has systematically targeted the most promising U.S. researchers. So they find out somebody is doing some research on something interesting to them, and they systematically target that person. They have been paying these grant recipients to take their research--remember, research paid for by U.S. taxpayer dollars--and apply what they have learned here in labs over in China at Chinese universities affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party. The research they are taking over to China isn't just going toward academic purposes. That wouldn't be right, either, because our taxpayer dollars are going in to fund this research. They are then leapfrogging us by getting that research. But it is not just for academic purposes. Often, the research ends up going directly into things like advancing China's military, which has made great strides in the last two decades, advancing its technological growth, its economy, its manufacturing processes, and so on. A State Department witness at one of our Senate hearings on our report said this: ``The Chinese Communist Party has declared the Chinese university system to be on the front line of military-civilian fusion efforts for technology acquisition.'' So there is a clear link here between the research going to these Chinese university labs and that same research being used to allow China to effectively leapfrog us in terms of their military improvements and their economic growth. Part of the reason it has gone on so long, frankly, is because we have been asleep at the switch. We haven't been focused on this. We do have an open, collaborative research system in this country, and we haven't been effective at cracking down on this intellectual property theft. That is starting to change, and I am appreciative of that. It started to change, frankly, in the wake of our subcommittee investigation. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearings also helped. Our report also helped. During one of our hearings, the FBI actually acknowledged what has been happening. This is what the FBI said: ``With our present-day knowledge of the threat from Chinese talent plans, we wish we had taken more rapid and comprehensive action in the past, and the time to make up for that is now.'' I appreciate the candor. I appreciate the fact that the FBI was willing to say: Now that we have learned all of this, we should have been acting on this a long time ago. We are going to do it now and make up for lost time. They have been much more aggressive. Since our hearing and detailed report last November, we have seen a number of high-profile arrests of academics in this country who have consistently hidden their participation in China's Thousand Talents program and have taken research over to China. You may remember hearing about this issue earlier this week when a Harvard professor named Dr. Charles Lieber, who was the chair of Harvard University's chemistry department, was accused of secretly taking money from China and sharing his U.S. taxpayer-funded research with the Chinese Government. It was really a shocking example of this. But he is not the only case. In March, we received news of another arrest of a professor who used to work at West Virginia University who participated in Thousand Talents. In this case, the Justice Department found that he had convinced his employer--a U.S. public university--to give him paid parental leave funded by American taxpayers while he went to China to work at a university there to continue his work on specializing molecular reactions used in coal conversion technologies. This is from West Virginia University. These two cases would be bad enough on their own, but since the start of this month, we have actually had three more cases announced by the Department of Justice and the FBI in relation to this Thousand Talents program. I commend the DOJ and the FBI for their work to continue to crack down on this program and to go after these problems, but they need better tools to do it. About 2 weeks ago, a former Emory University professor pled guilty to falsifying his tax returns to conceal his work for the Chinese Government. The professor worked simultaneously and secretly for 6 years for both Emory University and overseas for Chinese universities affiliated with the Communist Party of China, conducting similar research projects at both institutions. Despite this clear conflict of interest, he failed to report any of his at least $500,000 in foreign income on his Federal tax returns. That very same day, a professor at the University of Arkansas was arrested on charges of wire fraud for allegedly failing to disclose his ties to the Chinese Government, despite being required to do so as a grant recipient of money from NASA--NASA. Just this past week, we found out that this problem had reached my home State of Ohio when the Department of Justice announced the arrest of a researcher previously affiliated with the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic. This researcher had received more than $3.6 million in taxpayer-funded grants from the National Institutions of Health--again, taxpayer dollars. To secure that grant, he is accused of lying to hide the fact that he was given a deanship at the university in Wuhan, China. He is also accused of lying about his Chinese Government-funded research directly overlapping with his NIH-funded research. According to the criminal complaint, he received $3 million in funding from China to run a shadow lab in Wuhan to replicate his Cleveland Clinic research, along with free travel and free lodging funded by the Chinese Government. It says he even admitted that he hand-carried samples of biological material from Cleveland, OH, to Wuhan. Those samples are still stored, by the way, in China. It also states that he did not disclose that one of his Chinese grants required that he be in Wuhan for 10 months of the year at the same time he was also employed full time at the Cleveland Clinic, again, working on NIH-funded research. I commend the Cleveland Clinic for working with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office to ensure that we were able to stop this from happening. As a Thousand Talents member, the criminal complaint also alleges that this individual recruited around 40 to 50 other U.S.-based researchers for his Chinese university by hosting events at Harvard and other schools in the United States. This is a big deal, and it needs to stop. I commend the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, John Demers, for his work on this and other cases and also U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman of the Northern District of Ohio, FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric Smith, and all the members of their team for their work on this Cleveland Clinic case. Again, these cases are all positive steps in the right direction, but the problem, as you might notice, is that none of these criminal charges and arrests were actually based on participating in a Thousand Talents program or even hiding that from the U.S. Government research institutions or universities. The criminal charges and arrests were all for other crimes, like perjury, wire fraud, and tax evasion. That is because, amazingly, failing to disclose on a grant application to receive U.S.-taxpayer funds that you are receiving compensation--clear conflict of interest--from a foreign government and giving them your research is not currently a crime. That needs to change. One example: The Emory University professor, according to the law, only committed tax fraud, while the Arkansas professor only committed wire fraud. The fact that these are technically only financial crimes show that we are still just nibbling around the edges of this problem. It is time for us to get at the underlying flaw in our research enterprise of talent programs enticing researchers here in the United States to steal for other countries. We are going to need targeted legislation that will take direct action against this practice, and that is exactly what we have done. Along with a group of colleagues, including Democrat Tom Carper, the ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, we are introducing the Safeguarding American Innovation Act, which is going to build on the recommendations made in our PSI report and address some of these root causes of the ongoing IP theft that is currently going on. First and foremost, our bill is going to help the Department of Justice go after the Thousand Talents participants by allowing DOJ to hold Federal grant recipients accountable for failing to disclose their foreign ties on Federal grant applications. This isn't just about more arrests, either. We should all agree that transparency and honesty in grant applications are critical to the integrity of U.S. research, and this provision will help to promote those principles. Our bill makes other important changes, as well, based on the recommendations in our report. It requires the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, to streamline and coordinate grant-making between these Federal agencies, so there is needed accountability and transparency when it comes to tracking the billions of dollars of taxpayer funds in grant money that is being distributed. We have worked closely with NSF, NIH, Department of Energy, and others on this important piece of legislation. They agree it is important. It allows the State Department to deny visas to foreign researchers who are seeking to access sensitive U.S. research when there is a threat to our economic or our national security. This may surprise you, but they can't do that now. Career Foreign Service officers and employees of the State Department have begged us for that authority. Our bill also requires research institutions to have safeguards in place to prohibit unauthorized access to sensitive research because we found that to be a serious problem. And our bill ensures transparency by requiring universities to report any foreign gift of $50,000 or more, and it empowers the Department of Education to fine universities that repeatedly fail to disclose these gifts. Right now, our No. 1 priority is and should be solving the coronavirus crisis. I get that. By the way, the FBI sent a notice around last week to universities and research institutions saying: Watch out because there are actually Chinese hackers trying to get your research on coronavirus. It just happened last week. I have to tell you that in the context of this crisis, we have to reevaluate how we do business with China. We have to look at this with fresh eyes and realize that in many areas China has not been playing by the same set of rules as the rest of the world. We talked about that earlier, with regard to trade and with regard to reporting on the coronavirus. I think in a fair and straightforward manner, we have to lead in insisting that there be a level playing field, whether it is the WHO or whether it is transparency with coronavirus or trade policy or how research is acquired. My hope is that our PSI report and the legislation we are introducing will let us reset the way we conduct our research. Our goal should be to continue to reward those who come to our shores and discover new breakthroughs in science and technology. We want that. We are very proud of the fact that we are the most innovative country in the world and we are known for our research enterprise. We want to continue that, but we want to do it in a smart way. We want to be sure that we are keeping China and other nations and competitors from stealing that research for its own purposes. I know we can achieve that balance. Our legislation does that. I look forward to getting support from both sides of the aisle because this is a problem we should all be concerned about. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.