Marco Rubio

Mr. RUBIO

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, we were sitting in the cloakroom between the last two votes that just happened in the Senate, and everybody's phone started buzzing at the same time. That is because everyone receives these alerts from the National Weather Service. The alert said: Flash flood warning until 9:15 p.m. this evening. I thought it was ironic because I was headed to the floor to speak about flooding--and in particular flood insurance--which is a threat to so many different States across the country. It was an ironic moment that reminds us what that means to us here but also what it means to people in the real world who are impacted by this. Earlier today, the House passed an extension of the National Flood Insurance Program, and it extends it for 4 months and will expire November 30 of this year. I am here today to tell you how critical it is that the Senate act on this as soon as possible because this program will expire next Tuesday, July 31--6 days from today--if we do not take action. Let me preface everything I am about to say by telling you that this program is badly broken. It is not financially stable. It is not financially sustainable. It is a program that needs to be reformed. I don't like the way it is designed one bit. I have been working for years to try to reform it and to try to open up space for the private sector to come in and compete with the program and provide more options for people who need it. I want everybody to understand that in many parts of Florida--I am sure it is true in other parts of the country--you can't buy a house in some places if you don't have flood insurance. They will not write it because of the threat of damage to the property and the loss of value. That is widespread throughout the State of Florida. There are many places where that is a fact. While I don't like the way the program is designed, and I desperately want us to reform it to be consistent with market principles and sustainable in the long term, the answer is not to let it expire. The answer is not to let it expire because if we do, we are going to have an economic catastrophe. If we allow flood insurance to expire, there are real estate closings that will stop. I will add one more point to it; that is, we would be allowing this to expire in the middle of the hurricane season. We went through a hurricane season last year that impacted Florida, Texas, and Puerto Rico. The damage that it did, economic and otherwise, was extensive. We don't know what this season holds, but we are right smack in the middle of it. I can't think of anything worse than allowing it not just to expire but to expire in the middle of the hurricane season. I would have hoped the extension would have been for 6 months, the way we got done in the Senate farm bill. I believe a 4-month extension is better than none at all. My biggest fear is that it is going to get lost here in all the other issues we are dealing with. My hope--and I ask you here today--is that the leadership of this Chamber bring this extension for a vote, perhaps as early as Monday evening when we return, because to allow this to drag into Tuesday, Tuesday midnight--I am telling you, it is going to have a dramatic and negative impact on people in Florida and across the country. Let me go back to one of the reforms that need to happen. One of the organizations that I agree with a lot was out there--what they do--key scoring this vote in the House against it. They make great points about how broken this program is. They are absolutely right about that. I personally support reforms that will increase private market involvement in this program. I want to go back to the practicality of it. While I want there to be reforms, I cannot hold hostage and we should not hold hostage real people and families whose homes and lives will be at risk while Congress tries to figure this out. It has to be done. I don't want to be in a cycle of perpetual extension. I am as frustrated about it as anybody else. I wish we could find some permanence to this in a way that didn't wipe everybody out by raising the rates but was also sustainable in the long term. We have to continue to work through that. As a Senator from Florida recognizing that over one-third of the total policies nationwide are in the State that I represent, I have to come here today with a strong sense of urgency and argue on behalf of my neighbors and my constituents and my own family who depend on flood insurance in order not to just protect their homes in the middle of a hurricane cycle but to be able to transact real estate deals--selling a home, buying one, even commercial buildings--all these things that depend on this market being healthy. In terms of the long-term reforms, affordability has to be a key part of any one of those reforms. The last time we extended this for 5 years, in 2012, the premiums in the State of Florida skyrocketed. What it did was it caused a massive exodus from this program, particularly out of Florida. A bunch of people left the program. That is a problem because the key to having a sustainable program is having enough people in it. That is the whole purpose of insurance. You need to have enough people so you can spread the risk. But if people begin to migrate out of the program--and it usually is going to be the safest properties that are going to leave because they are the ones less willing to pay the higher premiums--you are going to be left with adverse selection. We have heard that term used in health insurance debates. If you don't have enough properties and enough safe properties to spread the risk, it drives up the premiums even more, and it makes the program even less healthy. That is why the key to any reforms has to be a program that is affordable enough to have that sort of participation, but we can't expect people to participate in a program they can't afford. I think the one component of flood insurance reform that everyone should agree with is the importance of strong mitigation funding. FEMA and numerous other groups have repeatedly cited statistics confirming that every dollar we spend on mitigation--mitigation against flooding, mitigation against sea level rise, mitigation against all these things--results in $4 or more saved in future disaster recovery. Every single year now, it seems like we are spending millions upon tens of millions of dollars on storm recovery packages. Imagine if we could prevent some of that at the front end by funding mitigation efforts in concert with State and local governments. Flood insurance reform is going to require a proactive approach to a problem that has only been approached in a reactionary way up this point. Simply raising rates without fundamentally changing what plagues the program will only lead to more people, more individuals leaving the program and an even larger disaster supplemental package when future storms occur. Floridians deserve a program that is transparent and that is affordable. Right now, this program is neither. I believe the House and Senate can come to an agreement on a law that will achieve these goals. I think we need to do so in a way that is long term and sustainable. That is why once we pass this 4-month extension--and I say ``once we do'' because I cannot imagine not doing it. I cannot imagine leaving next week at some point for a 1-week recess in early August and leaving this thing lapsed. It can't happen. It is not an option. It has to be dealt with. Once we do that, then we truly need to work on enacting this before November 30, when this extension will expire, and work on the fundamental flaws of the program and allow the Flood Insurance Program to move forward on a path that is responsible, affordable, and sustainable, not one that continues to require the government to bail it out. That is what I hope will happen. In the strongest possible terms--I cannot emphasize this enough--I truly hope we will bring this reauthorization for a vote as soon as possible and that my colleagues will cooperate because Tuesday at midnight next week, if we have not acted, there will be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people across this country--many of them in my home State--who are going to find that their property, in the middle of a hurricane season, is not covered against water damage because they cannot get flood insurance. That would be catastrophic for our economy, and it would be catastrophic for Florida and the impacted States. I am here to repeat and urge as strongly as I can that the leadership bring this up for a vote as soon as we are done dealing with the four appropriations bills that are before us. There is no other option. We cannot allow this to expire. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, the events of the last 36 hours, particularly the issue that now dominates the media coverage in America, and our political debates on the floor cause me to come today to the floor of the Senate to speak for a few minutes to my constituents in the State of Florida but also to anyone else who clearly should care about this issue across our country, for it is one that impacts our Nation in ways that I don't think have been fully vetted or are clearly understood by enough people. The idea that the Russian Federation, at the command of Vladimir Putin, interfered in our election is something that most Americans are now familiar with. It has been a topic of ongoing conversation, discussion, debate, argument, and dispute, pretty much since the fall of 2016 and to the present day. It has morphed into something that has become domestically more of a partisan issue. It is hard to believe. If you were able to get in a time machine and go back just 5 years and tell someone that Russian interference in our election would become a partisan issue, along the lines in which we see it play out now, few would believe you. I will spend very little time today talking about the past and saying ``you guys did this on the other side of the aisle before we did'' and vice versa because it isn't constructive and means nothing to the future. It wasn't long ago, in a major Presidential debate where the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, pointed to Russia as the greatest geopolitical challenge of the United States, that he was roundly mocked not just by President Obama, who was running for election and subsequently won, but by many in the press. I don't say that for purposes of drawing a ``you guys were wrong back then'' kind of argument. I say it solely for purposes of understanding how far we have come and where we are today. By the way, I wouldn't necessarily agree with that statement. I believe, by and large, that the greatest geopolitical challenge for the United States and the world in the 21st century will be whether China's rise is peaceful and productive or not. When the story of the 21st century is written, there will be some chapters in that book about Vladimir Putin and Russia, and it is a topic that increasingly dominates our domestic debate today in ways that I think require more careful examination and understanding if we are to make from it good public policy and good decisions for the country. I think it begins with something that I talked about last week; that is, understanding the nature of this conflict. It begins with a man, Vladimir Putin. I don't know the man, but I know enough about him and have certainly learned enough about him to make some pretty clear assessments that I believe in deeply. The first is that this is a man who was raised in the Cold War Soviet Union, where people were trained to be suspicious about each other, and who then went on to a career in the intelligence agency of that country, the KGB. The result is that he is, by nature and by all accounts, both a suspicious and a paranoid individual, as someone probably would be if they spent their whole life lying to other people. You begin to assume that everyone is a liar. This is a man who made his living by deceiving westerners and manipulating them. He also grew up in a society where neighbors spied on each other and kids turned their parents in, and you never really knew who the other person you were talking to was. But if you were reported as someone who was against the government, your career, your ability to go to school and the quality of life for your family would be deeply impacted. There is no way that you grow up in a society like that and in an environment like that and, then, later on, go and work as a spy and it does not somehow frame the way you operate or think for years to come. The other thing that is pretty clear--for reasons I don't fully understand because I don't know him, I don't know his family, and I don't know his upbringing--is that he takes everything deeply personal. Any sort of effort against Russia is not a geopolitical decision or something that he can depersonalize. He seems to absorb all these things as a personal attack on him. As a result, he, I think, has come to view himself as Russia--as the embodiment of the Russian Federation. You add to all of that his views as a leader, and it is interesting because, if you go back to Vladimir Putin 15 years ago, he wasn't nearly as confident or as bold as he is at this moment. There are a lot of reasons for it, but this is a person who accidentally became the leader of Russia. He is kind of almost the guy who stumbled into the role because of a series of circumstances. He was hardly known before he started his career as Prime Minister but went on to the Presidency, nonetheless. He is someone who wound up in this position almost by accident, but since then, he has solidified his hold. There is the Vladimir Putin from the first time around and the Vladimir Putin from the second time around, but one thing is abundantly clear from his public statements, and that is that he viewed the end of the Cold War as a disaster for Russia, and not for the reasons some people think. It is not an ideological rationale, but because Russia, which already has a deep and long history in its geopolitics of feeling ignored by Europe and Asia and disrespected by the world--at the end of the Cold War, Russia was a nation that faced incredible challenges. Imagine for a moment that you are in the government or living in the Soviet Union and you oversee this incredible empire that covers all of this territory and have all these nations within your sphere of influence, and overnight, it all evaporates. Overnight, all of the countries in your periphery begin to join NATO. They start having elections. They start becoming allies of the United States. Your territory shrinks. One day, Ukraine is part of the Soviet Union; the next day, it is its own country. Then add to that, over the next 12 to 15 years, the sort of emergence of the United States for much of that period of time as the world's sole superpower, while Russia was struggling to have an economy or even be relevant in the global discourse. Then you come to see that Vladimir Putin viewed that period of time in world history, up to the present day, as an example of the strong America and strong West abusing a weak Russia, because this is ultimately how he views life and how he views the world. It is a battle between the weak and the strong, where the strong prey on the weak. You know who he wants to be. So because of all of that and because he is paranoid and because he is suspicious, he believes the United States, for example, was behind the protests in 2011 that broke out on the streets against his rule. He believes the United States is behind everything that is happening in Ukraine. All of this leads him to the two goals he has, and there are two goals that have become crystal clear, especially beginning his second time around as President. A lot of people forget that he was President, he left, and his handpicked successor served for a period of time. Then he came back for the second time. It is the second Putin we are now dealing with. Since that time, two things have become pretty clear about his goals. The first is that he wants to reestablish Russia once again as a world power, like the time when the Soviet Union was on par with the United States of America. He can't do that economically. A lot of people don't realize this, but Russia is the 9th or 10th largest economy in the world. To put it in perspective, the Italian economy--Italy is a great country--the Italian economy, with less territory, less oil, fewer people, is bigger than the Russian economy. It is about equal to the Spanish economy. I would dare say--for example, my home State of Florida has an economy now at about $1 trillion. Russia is at $2 trillion. There are States in this country that have a bigger economy than Russia's. So he is not a global economic superpower. The only thing that makes him a global superpower is the fact that they possess thousands of nuclear weapons and conventional military capabilities that are significant and have improved as he has invested in them. He quickly realized: The way I am going to become relevant in the world again is not through my economic or diplomatic prowess; the way I am going to become relevant in the world again is I am going to use my conventional weapons, my conventional capabilities, along with some asymmetrical ones, to inject myself in the discussion in different parts of the world and show people that Russia and Vladimir Putin are strong again. That is what he has done. It actually began back in 2008 with the invasion of Georgia--we now commemorate the 10th anniversary of that-- but it also plays out in his intervention in Syria or the annexation of Crimea. I believe he would have moved forward into Kiev and broader Ukraine had there not been the EU and U.S. sanctions against him as a result. The first objective is to make Russia a world power again. The second objective, which he thinks is tied to the first, is that he has to make America weak. Vladimir Putin is a strong believer in zero-sum propositions--not in the idea that somehow we can both be better off or that there can be a win-win but a true believer in the idea that in order for me to be stronger or us to be stronger, you have to be weaker. It plays out that in order for Russia to be stronger, America, which he views as his greatest geopolitical competitor, has to be weaker. That is why they chose to interfere in the 2016 election. Let me say this: I don't think Vladimir Putin interfered in our elections; I don't believe he interfered in our elections; I know it for a fact. By the way, so does everyone who has looked at this issue and knows anything about it. There is zero doubt about it. What I think we are missing in our debate is the why and the how. The why is not what people think. He may have had a personal preference in an election, but his interference and his efforts to interfere in our elections began well before the President of the United States descended down those escalators in New York in the summer of 2015. They intended to do this long before that period of time. His No. 1 objective was to ensure that no matter who was elected President of the United States, that person would assume office under a cloud of nagging and persistent controversy. He wanted to weaken them internally because, as an intelligence officer, he understood the power of being weakened from within. He understands it so much that he jealously protects his image in Russia, he guards it, disclosing very little about himself or about his personal life. He never puts himself in a position to appear vulnerable. He only shows pictures of things he wants people to see and actually allows no dissent--to the point where a substantial number of the people who opposed Vladimir Putin are not out of politics or even in jail; they are dead. Sadly, the world is littered with story after story of a Russian opposition figure found dead in his hotel room, strangled, fell out of a window, poisoned. It happens over and over again. These things are not a coincidence. He wanted to weaken whoever was the next President of the United States. No matter how this election turned out in November, whether the President was named Trump or Clinton, we would be dealing with a President right now under a cloud of controversy because he had it lined up either way. The second thing he wanted to do as part of the first part is undermine confidence in our institutions--I mean all of our institutions: our elections, the media, our political figures, everything. It has extended to important institutions like the FBI and our intelligence agencies. He undermined confidence so that no one could be believed. And the President is under controversy. Divide us against each other so that there are no authorities in which we trust. Some of this, by the way, was already happening in our country, but they had the nuanced understanding of it to be able to exploit it. The third, as part of the first and second, is to really drive divisions--not just to weaken the President and undermine confidence in our institutions but look for ways to do so by exacerbating preexisting tensions in our society. These were the aims of the Russian interference campaign beyond everything else. It was not about electing one candidate or another; it was about these things. It would be hard to see what happened yesterday and the reaction to it and not conclude that this effort succeeded his wildest expectations. Today, the President of the United States has operated for the better part of a year and a half under a persistent cloud of controversy. On the one side, his political opponents are intimating that his Presidency is illegitimate, that his election was not real. I heard words like ``treason'' thrown around yesterday. On the other side is complete denial that there was any interference and the undermining publicly of important institutions in this our country, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which, by the way, is made up of thousands of employees, the vast and enormous majority of whom are patriotic Americans who keep us safe every single day. Undermining confidence in our institutions is tied to the point I just made, not to mention the fact that, increasingly, Americans get their news and information from someone who tells you what you already believe and confirms your bias even further, which drives our divisions. There is no way you could see what was happening in this country over the last year and a half--which was already happening, by the way, and for which all of us in American politics are somewhat responsible--and not conclude that Vladimir Putin's plan to undermine the Presidency, no matter who it was, to undermine confidence in our institutions, and to drive divisions in our country has been wildly successful, at a very low price. Interestingly, yesterday one of the interviews that he did--I think it was Mr. Wallace at FOX News who asked him about this, and his response was that none of the things that were leaked are untrue, as if to almost say with a wink, even if we colluded--or not colluded--even if we hacked and even if we did all these things and interfered, so what? We didn't lie. These are all true things. So what have I heard in response to some of this? I will not spend a lot of time addressing some of the arguments made by the President's opponents. There is an ongoing investigation being conducted by Mr. Mueller, which I believe should reach its conclusion naturally as he continues to do his work. I have said this, and I will repeat it: It is in the best interest of the President of the United States and of our country for Mr. Mueller to do his work without interference and be able to conclude it. No matter where you line up or whom you voted for, we should all want to know the truth. That truth will ultimately have to be proven in a court of law. From his history, I have no reason to believe that Mr. Mueller will not conduct a full, thorough, and fair investigation. Ultimately, it is truth and the light of the truth that will help us overcome a lot of these controversies we find today. Until that has happened, any accusations are unfair, unwise, and counterproductive. But one of the arguments I have heard from people on my side of the aisle is that this is not a big deal because everybody does it. And if by ``everybody does it'' you mean everybody spies, yes, virtually every nation on Earth has an intelligence agency, and some do a better job than others. But do not be misled--everyone does not do what we saw in 2016. Our problem in 2016 was not that the Russians spied on Americans or that the Americans spied on the Russians or that the Chinese spied on us; our problem in 2016 is that the Russian Federation, under the command of Vladimir Putin, weaponized information. One thing is to gather information; another thing is to strategically leak it in an effort to influence the domestic politics of another country. And that is what Vladimir Putin ordered done for purposes of undermining the next President, whoever it was, and undermining confidence in our elections and our institutions. They hacked into emails. They released these emails through a third party. It was picked up in the media, it was reported, and then we fought about it. That is what they have done. They have done it in other countries for years. They did it somewhat in the Cold War. They did it in 2016. And they will do it again. Let there be no doubt--they will do it again. Then after they released all this stuff, they used their army of bots and trolls to drive this information online, on platforms, particularly trying to drive it to certain groups and people to divide us even further against each other. One of the most dangerous things they did, which is now open record in the indictment issued last week by the Mueller investigation, is they probed the electoral systems of our States and counties. A lot of people are saying: They didn't get in the ballot box. Absolutely. I tell you with full confidence that the reason President Trump won had nothing to do with Vladimir Putin--nothing. But I think we are wrong if we think all we should be worried about is the ability to change votes at the ballot box because if they can somehow change people's registration and enough people on election day go to vote and are told ``You aren't allowed to vote,'' their trolls will be ready to drive that news out there on election day. Then come election day, no matter who won, the other side will say that there were these weird things that happened down there in some county or some State, so the election is not valid. Imagine that for a moment. Imagine an election in 2000 in my home State that was decided by less than 600 votes. Imagine that in a Republican county, a bunch of Democrats went to vote on election day and were told: You can't vote today because you are not registered. If that happened to enough people, the Russian trolls would jump all over it. They would start driving it on the news. It would be featured on cable news that day. That night, if they lost, they would be arguing ``The election was rigged. The electoral officials in the Republican county rigged the elections''--all driven by the Russians, and vice versa, by the way. That is the danger, that we can one day potentially elect a President of the United States who swears into office with a substantial number of people believing that the election was stolen, undermining not just the President at that point but our very system of democracy. That is what they did. Anyone who tells you that everyone does that is lying. Everyone does not do that. The United States does not do these things. I am a big critic of the Chinese, but the Chinese don't do these things. I have other problems with them. The Belgians don't do this, and the Japanese don't do this. Only one country in the world has weaponized information in this way in order to interfere in an adversary's election, and that is the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin. The other argument I have heard is: What is wrong with better relations with Russia? Nothing is wrong with better relations with Russia. I will tell you right now that the world would be a better place, a more peaceful place, and our lives would be a little easier. We would be stronger if, somehow, we had a partner in the Russian Federation with whom we could work to deal with things like terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons and Iran and all sorts of issues--North Korea. We all wish we had that. The reason that isn't happening, frankly, is not because of us. It is because of Vladimir Putin. For Vladimir Putin, better relations are not what he is interested in. He is not seeking a partnership with the United States. What he is seeking is geopolitical, perceptional equality. He wants to be viewed as being on par with America, both as a leader and his country as a whole, and he believes the only way he can do that is to pull himself up and tear us down. I, frankly, have to tell you that it is very difficult to have better relations with someone who believes that the only way for him to be better off is for you to be worse off. As long as the Russian Federation is led by someone who has total control of his government and has these views, it is going to be very difficult to have better relations. That does not mean we don't meet with Vladimir Putin. Anyone who says that the meeting, alone, is wrong is not being wise and is being disingenuous. As 90 percent of the nuclear weapons on this planet are possessed by the United States and the Russian Federation, that alone is reason for us to engage with Vladimir Putin. We have to. We have no choice. Yet we should engage with him with clear eyes and a clear understanding of what he is up to and what he is trying to do. We should engage with a very clear understanding that this is a man who, throughout his life as leader of the Russian Federation, has never passed up an opportunity to exploit the weakness of an adversary or a competitor. Every time he sees weakness and the opportunity to gain an advantage, he will take it, and any engagement with him in which that is not understood is a dangerous one. So I have no problem with having better relations with Russia. Frankly, I am not one of these people who is over the top on Russia to the extent of the threat it poses. It does have nuclear weapons, but we have bigger threats than Russia. Yet it is a very significant one that needs to be addressed. Our moving forward is what, I hope, we will focus on. Mueller will continue his work, and the Intelligence Committee, which I sit on, will continue its work. Yet we are going to have an election in a few months. We are going to continue to have elections every 2 years, hopefully, forever, and there is no reason to believe that they will not try to do this again. That is why, earlier this year, along with Senator Van Hollen, I proposed the DETER Act, which is the only thing that Vladimir Putin understands--deterrence. The DETER Act says here is a list of sanctions, and these sanctions will go into effect immediately if the Director of National Intelligence, after an intelligence assessment, determines that Russia is, once again, interfering in our elections so that before he even does it, he has a very clear understanding of what the price is going to be. Men like Vladimir Putin operate as cost-benefit analyzers. They weigh the costs against the benefits, and then they decide what action to take. There is no doubt, in 2016, he saw that the costs of what he did were very low. He thought he could hide it. He thought, by the time we would have figured it out, it would have been too late. He thought that America would be in such disarray that it wouldn't be able to get its act together and actually impose any additional sanctions. He saw the benefits as extraordinary, so he took action, and he will do it again if he doesn't think the costs are high enough. My hope is, over the next few days and in a short period of time, we will figure out a way, in working together as Americans on this issue, to set aside all of the stuff about yesterday--that probe will continue, and our work on the Intelligence Committee will continue--and focus on the future. No matter how you feel about 2016, who among us would say that if Russia interferes in 2018--or in any year for that matter--it shouldn't be punished? Who among us would say, if we had the opportunity to put into law strong consequences for interference that could deter such an attack, we wouldn't want to do it? That is why I hope that no matter how you may feel about the other things that are going on that the Senate can come together and work together to pass this law, because, otherwise, we are leaving our Nation vulnerable. I will close with something I said back in October of 2016, which is that Vladimir Putin is not a Republican, and he is not a Democrat, and he is not a conservative, and he is not a liberal. Do not ascribe to him any of the attributes of American politics. He interfered in 2016 in order to create chaos and controversy, not to elect any particular party or individual. By far, that was his strongest motivator, and he will do it again. I believe, if left unchecked, he will target Members of the Senate who he thinks are his opponents. He will target Members of Congress. Eventually, he will even target our debates outside of elections. I believe, if left unchecked, he is going to take the next step and not just leak information but will make it up. He is going to come up with 9 emails that will be real and will embed a 10th that will be fake. It will be reported, and it might cost one an election or might cost someone enough heartache that one has to resign. Information is a very powerful weapon. If you go online, you will already see the ability to produce these deepfake videos that look real, videos that only an expert could tell are fake. They are of people saying or doing things they never said or never did. Imagine those being in the hands of a nation-state and being leaked 2 days before an election. A nation-state is going to do these things. It is going to happen if we do not deter it from happening and if we do not prepare our Nation and the American people. If you think this is chaotic, then allow that to happen without informing us and preparing us and strengthening us and putting in place a deterrent against that. Then you will know chaos--a chaos that will shake us to our core. I hope that we can take this small but important step of coming together as Americans and protecting our elections for years to come against an adversary who is determined to tear us down in order to build himself up. This is reality. This is the world and the threat we face. The sooner we address it the safer our Nation and our people will be. I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. 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. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of and the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 558.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. 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.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 3 p.m., Monday, July 16; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. I ask that following leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Executive Calendar No. 936, Scott Stump; that the time until 5:30 p.m. be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees and that the Senate then vote on confirmation of the nomination with no intervening action or debate; further, that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. RUBIO

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

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 575, submitted earlier today.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. 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. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 574, submitted earlier today.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote on the nomination with no intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; that no further motions be in order; and that any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the Record.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the following nomination: Executive Calendar No. 912.

Mr. RUBIO

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

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote on the nomination with no intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; that no further motions be in order; and that any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the Record.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the following nomination: Executive Calendar No. 924.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote on the nomination with no intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; that no further motions be in order; and that any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the Record.

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the following nomination: Executive Calendar No. 913.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, if you are like me, a Member of the Senate in the hallways this week, I think the two questions that have come up over and over again were about the NATO meeting that just transpired in the last couple of days and the upcoming meeting on Monday between Vladimir Putin and President Trump. I had intended to come to the floor and speak about policies toward China on trade. There is a lot to cover. There was an article this morning in the Associated Press about how the Chinese Government has turned the American business class into lobbyists. They are basically telling these guys that are doing business in China: You should go back to Washington and lobby your government to stop imposing tariffs on us or you guys are going to pay a price. But I will have time to talk about that next week. That was really my intent. I want to focus on the meeting on Monday between President Trump and Vladimir Putin because there is a lot of hyperbole. Someone came up and asked: Are you concerned that the President will meet one-on-one with Vladimir Putin and nobody else in the room? I said: First of all, I guarantee someone else will be in the room because Putin doesn't speak English and President Trump doesn't speak Russian. It will not be a productive meeting if one or two other people aren't there. That should be the least we should focus on. We should take this stuff seriously. It is an important and serious meeting. I don't take a back seat to anyone in terms of being clear- eyed about Vladimir Putin, and I want to talk about that today a little bit. I want to start out by saying: Let's all take a deep breath and be reasonable. It is not unusual for the President of the United States to meet with the President of Russia because, of the 16,000 nuclear weapons on this planet, 90 percent of them are possessed by these two countries--almost equally divided. This is the reason other Presidents have met with President Putin or whoever the leader is of the Russian Federation. And that is why those meetings are important and will continue. That said, it is important--when we analyze these meetings, what we hope they are about, and what we hope they will produce--to understand not just who you are meeting with and what they do but to understand why they are doing it. If you do not understand what the other side wants and what motivates them, then the meetings are not nearly as productive, and neither is our analysis or the suggestions we make about our policy toward that country. First is understanding Vladimir Putin. I have never met the man. I don't think you need to meet him to believe a couple of things about him. First, is he is a very suspicious human being himself--suspicious of others. I think his KGB background has probably influenced that. He also grew up in the Cold War in Russia in the Soviet Union when Russians didn't even trust each other. Imagine growing up in a society where people spy on each other, and you don't know, if you say something to your friend in school, if he will report you to the authorities--not to mention the authorities themselves looking at you all of the time. Then imagine actually being a product of their intelligence services. I think when you grow up in that era, in a place like that, you are naturally going to be suspicious of other people, and you are going to ascribe to them attributes. So that is the first thing. By the way, I think that also informs his view of the United States. It is impossible, I believe, for someone like this to grow up in that era, in that place, working where he did, and not have deep suspicions and views--negative views--about the United States and the West at- large. The second thing that is pretty apparent just by watching him, is this guy is competitive. He views everything as a personal thing. Personal-level dominance is important to him, but, more importantly, his relationship with the United States is a competitive one. I think, by and large, he views the world as a zero-sum game, but he most certainly views the relationship between the United States and Russia as a zero-sum game--meaning that in any sort of interaction we are having with Vladimir Putin, there is no scenario in which he envisions that we both do well. He believes there is only so much success in the world, and the more we have of it, the less he has of it. I do believe it informs all the decisions he makes. There can be only one winner. I think he is also deeply driven by his personal image. I will tell you that he probably wouldn't last 2 weeks in American politics where people are habitually mocked, and if you run for public office or you are a public figure--whether it is social media or the like--everyone gets ridiculed, mocked, and attacked. I am not sure he could ever put up with that sort of scrutiny. He is probably sensitive about it. The one thing you can tell by watching him is that this is a person who works very hard to control his emotions. He never wants to look angry. He never wants to look as though he is afraid of something or worried about anything. He never wants to look as though he is in doubt about anything. He is very image-driven, and that drives a lot about how he controls his emotions. But the other thing that I think is common sense is, if you grew up as a spy in the KGB, you know how valuable personal information is and how personal information about you can be weaponized. So that is why we know very little about him as a person--his personal life, his health, or any of these things. You would never know about it other than what he allows us to see--photos of him on a horse without his shirt on or whatever else he wants to show us that day--because he wants to control the personal information that is available. He also wants to be able to control how his image is portrayed. The image he wants to portray is twofold. No. 1, he wants an image that portrays Vladimir Putin as an important world leader, an indispensable world leader; he is the guy that matters, and in every major crisis on this planet, he is a person whose opinion, views, and positions have to be taken into account. That drives a lot of the decisions he makes. It is the reason they are in Libya right now. It is the reason they are in Afghanistan right now. It is the reason he is trying to figure out how he can finagle his way into the talks with North Korea. It is because he wants to be an indispensable world leader, and there should not be any major discussion on the planet that he is not in the middle of. So oftentimes he injects himself into these things for that reason. That is tied to his second end goal, and that is the one that drives most of what he does. He wants to restore Russia as a great world power, equal to the United States of America. He cannot do that economically. The Russian economy's GDP is $2 trillion, which makes it roughly the size of some of our States here in the United States and also roughly the size of Italy, Spain, and other countries. So he is not an economic superpower; therefore, he can only be an asymmetrical superpower, meaning the use of things that are not traditional, such as cyber warfare, his role on the security council, and the military--the ability to project power and to threaten with nuclear weapons and also with their conventional capabilities to invade neighboring countries or to intervene in places like Syria. Ultimately, what drives him most of all--in addition to being, personally, an indispensable leader--is that he wants Russia and the United States to be viewed as equal powers on the world stage. I think it is pretty clear from what he has said publicly that he views the 1990s as an era of humiliation for Russia. He looks at the end of the Cold War until the time he took over just in the last few years, and he sees that Russia was weak and America was strong, and we were preying on a weak Russia. By the way, that is probably how he views the world. He views the world as a zero-sum game, a place where the weak are preyed on by the strong. Therefore, they must be strong, and they must be seen as equal to us. Understanding all of that and any interaction with him is critical to having a positive, productive, or, at a minimum, not damaging interaction. If we go in with any illusions that this is, somehow, someone who, if we just get along with him better or if we work on some things together, then he is going to change behavior and be less problematic, that is a fool's errand. At the end of the day, if you believe the world is a zero-sum game and if you believe that the competition between the United States and Russia is one in which every time we win, they lose, and vice versa, then it is going to be very hard to find areas of interest that we can truly work on for the mutual benefit of both countries. That does not mean that you are unnecessarily antagonistic. The bottom line is that the United States is both economically, militarily, and diplomatically superior to the Russian Federation Government in terms of our influence and our ability to do things in the world. When you are stronger--not an image, necessarily, but in reality--it should give you a level of security to be able to figure out ways in which we can work on things that are good for our country but also not lose the wisdom of understanding that you can often fall into traps. What we do not want is to fall into traps. By the way, on this whole point of strong versus weak, I know a number of my colleagues had the opportunity to travel to Moscow during the last recess. It is interesting how it was covered in the American media--how they portrayed the visit--and how the Russian media portrayed it. I know many of them are frustrated by this. The Russian media basically portrayed them--again, it is state-controlled media, so they are going to portray it any way they want. But they almost made it look as though weaklings from America had gone over there. They were very frustrated by this. It just tells you--it gives you insight into the way they view things in the world. That is why you will very rarely see an interaction that they couch as a meeting that is respectful. They always want to put Putin in a dominant position, and they always want to put Russia in a dominant position. By the way, one of the tactics Putin uses to accomplish this is before meetings even happen, he announces ahead of time that a deal has been struck, almost as if to trap you into the deal. Obviously, since he is announcing the deal, it sounds as if it is something he came up with. All of these are interesting points, but where do these conversations lead us? There are a few things I think we need to keep in mind. The first is invitations to work together. They will probably happen, and he will probably announce them before the visit. One, he will say: Why don't we work together on counterterrorism? A lot of people would say: Well, that makes a lot of sense. They don't like the terrorists; we don't like the terrorists. So why can't we work with Putin to go after the terrorists? Ideally, the answer would be: Yes, we have strong disagreements about a lot of things. Whether it is an ISIS element or an al-Qaida element, if we have a chance to work together on it, then we should pursue it. There is a problem, though, and this what I hope everyone is clear- eyed about. They are not very good counterterrorism partners. To begin with, their capabilities are just not very good. We have seen that in Syria. They are not targeting terrorists. They are bombing schools and hospitals, and they are--not only have they committed war crimes, but they have assisted Assad in committing war crimes. If you were going after terrorists, you would go to the places where the terrorists are. For much of that conflict, they have largely spent their time going after nonterrorist rebels--or at least non-al-Qaida, non-ISIS rebels. They are going after those rebels instead. So they are not very good at counterterrorism. They are not very capable. The other thing is they use that as an opportunity to spy on us. When you are cooperating together militarily, you are embedded alongside each other and sharing information, so that gives you a lot of opportunity to spy on the people you are working with. We need to be wary of that. Any effort to work together on counterterrorism has to be real. It has to be truly about terrorists, and it has to protect the United States and our information. The second thing they love to talk about is: Well, why don't we work together on arms control? There are two problems with arms control. It sounds good on paper. The first is they cheat and they violate it. They deny it, but they violate it. The other is that they are for arms control as long as the arms that are being controlled are the ones we have more of or as long as the arms that are being controlled are the ones we are technologically superior in. They seek to use that as an advantage. It is difficult because if you go out and you talk to people and say ``Hey, the Russians want to work together on arms control,'' everyone says ``Well, that is a great idea.'' I understand. It sounds very good on paper, but the reality of arms control is something very different. It means this: We are going to look for opportunities to cheat on our end, and we are going to try to strictly enforce it on your end. Remember, it is a zero-sum game. If they enter into a counterterrorism relationship with us, it will be one in which they win and we lose because Vladimir Putin does not foresee a cooperative agreement with anyone, especially the country he is in direct competition with. If it is an arms reduction agreement, remember, it is a zero-sum game. He is motivated by the desire to win at our expense, and he will use arms control as an opportunity to do that if he can structure it appropriately. The other thing we hear him talk about is cyber. People chuckle about that. Imagine a cyber deal with the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin. But, again, Vladimir Putin knows that the U.S. private sector and government have cyber capabilities that are superior to his. So if he could come up with some sort of cyber agreement that would create rules which take away our advantage but allow him to continue to cheat and deny they are cheating--zero-sum game--he would be able to jump on top of us. These are things we want to keep an eye on. The other thing to keep an eye on moving forward in this relationship is the unexpected. One of the things you have seen in his behavior and the zero-sum game sort of analysis of our relationship with them is that any time he sees an opportunity to do something because we are distracted or because the world may not act, he takes advantage of it: 2007 in Georgia; 2013 and 2014 in Ukraine. We could see the Ukrainian hostilities resume. The world is focused on North Korea. We are focused on the arguments regarding NATO. We are focused on the trade situation with China, Canada, Mexico, and everyone else. Everyone is talking about something different, and Ukraine is falling off the headlines. You could wake up one morning and all of a sudden realize that hostilities have resumed or maybe it will be a massive cyber attack. Maybe it will be ramping up their involvement in places such as Libya or Afghanistan or one morning we will wake up and realize they have deployed significant military assets to one of those two countries--or both, for that matter. It would be very reminiscent of what we saw him do in Syria, when he saw the--and the excuses would be: The Russians were already there. We are working with the government. They have invited us to come in and bring more people to help them. You would have to foresee that. The one thing I think we should anticipate Putin will push very strongly on is to get the United States to completely pull out of Syria. What he ideally, probably, wants is some sort of ``international process'' to resolve it but an international process in which Russia not only is a key player, but they get to stay in Syria; they get to keep their naval base; they get to keep their air assets; they get to keep a unified government in Syria that is friendly to them, all supervised by the international community. But the United States has to leave first. He would love nothing more than an opportunity to set up that sort of scenario because in a zero-sum game situation, he foresees a world in the next 5 years in which Russia has significant military and other assets in Syria permanently, potentially in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, and all of a sudden, the countries in the Middle East are saying to themselves: You know, Russia's Vladimir Putin is a guy who can be an interlocutor, a mediator of the disputes in this region. This is a person we should be working with. This is a person who actually is more reliable to work with in the Middle East. He would love nothing more than that, and he would be able to do it without committing 100,000 troops or 50,000 troops or a large loss of Russian personnel. It is a zero-sum game, great power politics, the notion that he wants to be equal to the United States. Imagine if he could create a scenario in which--if he hasn't done so already--Russia and the Middle East, under Vladimir Putin, are at least as important as, if not potentially more important than, the United States, a situation in which they have permanent military assets and a friendly regime in Syria, potentially in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and other places, and the United States is pulling out of Syria, being forced to reduce its presence in Iraq and in other places. They become de facto more important in the Middle East, and he takes one step toward achieving the goal of reaching parity with the United States of America as far as being an influential global power. By the way, these efforts to increase their influence would not be limited just to the Middle East. You could foresee them doing this in the Western Hemisphere. I read an article a few days ago. It was a big fanfare. They opened up what they call a counterdrug school in Nicaragua. I can only tell you that while it may very well be called a counterdrug school, anytime a country welcomes an unlimited number of Russian military personnel and others, they are welcoming in spies and influence agents and the ability to project power. They have long wanted permanent--or at least semipermanent--basing opportunities in the Western Hemisphere like those they had during the Cold War. They already have intelligence facilities. They already have a presence in Cuba. They would love nothing more than to get into a place or to expand their presence in a place like Nicaragua and even potentially Venezuela, for that matter. We need to keep an eye on all of these things. This is an important conversation, but it oftentimes gets lost in all of the rhetoric that is going on around the elections and American politics. We have to understand very clearly that we are not dealing with Belgium here. We are dealing with Vladimir Putin, who has used the world as a zero-sum game, the strong versus the weak, and who is trying to position Russia and himself as the strong versus others whom he hopes he can weaken. There is no interaction between us and them in which he does not want to come out ahead. He does not feel there is such a thing as a mutually good deal. The only good deals for him are deals in which they win and whomever he is dealing with loses, especially if it is the United States. I will wrap up by saying that, with all of this in mind, I would not diminish the threat that Russia continues to pose to our electoral system, to our society, and to our politics. The No. 1 objective of Russian efforts in 2016--and it would be their No. 1 objective moving forward--is encouraging infighting in our politics. They have a clear understanding of American politics and its nuances--our societal divisions, the things we like to fight over, how we fight over them, and where we fight over them, and they have figured out and have gotten even better at being able to drive those narratives. When people ask ``What was the real goal of those efforts in 2016?'' beyond anything else, it was not electing one person or another. His No. 1 objective--No. 1 objective--was to leave a country, the United States, deeply divided, at each other's throats, constantly fighting. No matter who won that election, that is the result he wanted, and that was the result we were going to get. Those efforts continue. The second effort that I think they have as a priority, by the way, is to create pro-Russia constituencies in the United States. What I mean by that is there are people in American politics who actually take the Russian side or the Putin side of a debate. You have already seen the early phases of that in some places. It is still a minority thought process, but it is not unusual in many cases these days because it has gotten wrapped up in other things that are going on. It is not outside the realm of the possible that you could see the growth of some pro-Putin element. It is maybe not like what you see in Europe or in Russian-speaking parts of Europe--but some pro-Russian types of constituencies in the United States. Whether that is somehow wrapped up around partisanship or the like, these remain their goals. Remember what I told you earlier. They cannot compete with us economically, but if they can divide us from within, it weakens us, at least in his mind. It is one of the things he can point to and say: Look how weak America is. All they do is fight with each other. Their democracy is a fraud, and look how strong we are because there is no dissent, there is no infighting going on in my Russia. Obviously, what he doesn't tell you is that whoever fights against him winds up dead or in jail and that there is no press by which people can fight with him anyway. So these are the things to keep in mind as we move forward because the tools that remain at his disposal are still very significant. For example, I could foresee the time or day where--a lot of times there is a lot of focus in America about what if they go into the ballot box and change the votes. That is probably much harder to do because of the way we conduct elections in this country--so decentralized. Here is what a cyber actor could do. They could change party registration. They could go into the database and suddenly erase a bunch of voters. Imagine if they do so by being able to use analyticals to identify here are the people in this town who we think are likely to vote for this candidate or that candidate. We are going to knock out a bunch of them so that on election day, a bunch of people who support certain candidates go vote, and they are told they are not registered. If you get enough people to do that and enough of those people complain to the press, we are going to see stories saying: Guess what. Supporters of candidate X or Y were not allowed to vote in the election. Fraud. Democracy is dead. We could foresee that at some point in the future. It is a real threat. We could see Vladimir Putin taking the next step and doing here what he has done in parts of Europe; that is, creating an enemies list, politicians he believes are anti-Russia and targeting those individuals, targeting them with information he steals by hacking their emails, disclosing documents, even doctoring fake documents; perhaps doing something like deepfake, which is something we will be talking a lot about next week. That basically is off-the-shelf technology you can buy right now where you can produce a video that without the proper technology, you could not tell it is fake, where a person is saying something they never said or is doing something they didn't do--a doctored video that looks real. Imagine that, on the eve of an election, a video pops up online--and the media starts to report it--of a candidate saying something offensive they never said or taking a bribe because of a doctored video that looks real, and unless you are a technical expert, you can't tell. It is called a deepfake. They are not that hard to make, and they are not that hard to make for someone with off-the-shelf technology. Imagine if a nation state decides to use it. You could foresee them targeting specifics races. They have, as I said, a pretty good understanding of American politics. You could foresee where they would say: There is a congressional race or a Governor's race or a Senate race somewhere in the country that is going to be a really big deal. It has an outsized influence on American politics, and that is the race we are going to interfere in. We are going to do something to impact the outcome of it because we think that will further our narrative one way or the other. We have to be clear-eyed on all of these things as we go into this. I would say, perhaps, the greatest goal Vladimir Putin would have in the short term is weakening NATO, not just limiting its expansion but weakening its resolve. NATO, at the end of the day, beyond military hardware that is a part of it, is no better than the true commitment of a nation to a member of NATO to live up to the organizing documents and commitments we make to one another; meaning that we have a commitment, along with our partners in NATO, that if one of us is attacked, we have all been attacked. That has only been invoked one time in its history, and that was after September 11, 2001. If he somehow could not just keep us from expanding NATO but begin to undermine it from within, it would be an enormous victory because, again, for him, it would be a sign that America is diminishing, that the threats against him are diminishing, and his influence and Russia's role in the world has increased. So this is an important meeting. It probably will not be the last time they meet, but more important than the meeting are the issues at play between the leader in Russia who views everything as a zero-sum game, in which either he wins or America wins, but it can't be mutually beneficial. We have to deal with him. He possesses a significant percentage of the world's nuclear weapons. Between the United States and Russia, we have 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons in these two countries. We do have to talk to him, but we need to be very clear-eyed; that is, that it is a complicated but important relationship, and we should clearly understand what motivates him and what motivates his decision making and what their ultimate goals are in any conversation we have. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, my home State of Florida is once again experiencing an environmental and economic catastrophe--a real crisis. It is a crisis that was caused extending back decades--decades of bad decisions, decisions made on things people didn't think about, neglect, and myopic water management. Nowhere is that crisis more acute and more apparent than at Lake Okeechobee, the liquid heart of the Everglades, and our surrounding communities, including the city of Stuart, which is on the verge of seeing conditions very similar to what they experienced in the year 2016. That is what this picture here is about. What we see on this photo is algae--thick, toxic algae--that was gathering underneath that bridge back in 2016. This really goes back decades. The historic Florida Everglades--the head waters began in Lake Okeechobee. This massive lake, this reservoir, is right in the center of our State. What would happen is when rainfall would come in and when water would overflow, it would just continue to flow south into the Everglades and down into the Florida Bay. But then people began to move in and develop Florida, and therefore there was a need for the Army Corps to step in and carefully script the flow of water in the southern half of Florida. This all began since the construction of something called the Herbert Hoover Dike and then, subsequently, the development beginning in 1948 of the Central and South Florida projects to manage flood risks. Unfortunately, this flood control system that was designed to keep the water from coming out of Lake Okeechobee and flooding communities to the south of it has significant limitations and neglects to use the Everglades' natural flow wave. That is why Everglades restoration is something that, apart from ecosystem and wildlife benefits, is so critically important for our Nation and for my State of Florida. Everglades restoration is not simply about restoring a national treasure, it is also about allowing much more flexibility for water management at greatly reduced costs and at reduced harm to coastal communities. The best way to understand it for those who are new to this issue is that we have this massive lake. The lake used to overflow, and when it did, the water would flow down. Communities and agriculture moved into the southern part of the State, just south of that lake; therefore, there was a need to construct a dam to hold back the water and prevent the flooding and loss of life, which is natural, and then a canal system to allow the waters to flow east and west. The problem that has developed over the years is what we are dealing with now, and that is that as of today, when water levels in Lake Okeechobee rise too high, that water must be released in massive quantities. Today, the water levels are over 4\1/2\ feet deep--a full 2 feet higher than the Corps would prefer at this time of year as the rainy season kicks in. So they look at the dike and they look at its capacity and they worry that, knowing it is going to continue to rain throughout the summer, if the water levels get too high, we could have the dike compromised, and we could have flooding and loss of life. Therefore, they are forced to release water. Last year, as an example, we saw large amounts of water and rainwater. Among other causes, of course, was Hurricane Irma, which caused Lake Okeechobee to rise to record-high levels. Again this year, Florida has experienced large amounts of rain. This rainfall carries nutrients into the lake from upstream. The lake is in the center part of the State. Just north of it are areas such as Kissimmee and Orlando and population. People move in and fertilize their lawns, and all kinds of nutrients get into the groundwater. It rains, and it flows into Lake Okeechobee. The more it rains, the more it flows out. So the water level of the lake gets higher, and the nutrient flow into the lake also gets higher. As we can see from these time-lapse images, when that nutrient-rich water flows in on top of the nutrient-rich water that is already there--and heat comes into play--the result is algae blooms. That is where it was on the 12th of June. This is where it was on the 20th. All of that red represents algae. This is where it was on the 21st and then on the 24th. If you looked at an image of this today, almost the entire lake is covered by thick, toxic algae. To make sure there is no damage or threat to the dike, which itself is being worked on in order to strengthen it, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers releases water from the lake to the east to the St. Lucie River and to the west to the Caloosahatchee River. We remember it used to flow south, and now it has been diverted into these canal systems to the east and to the west. So if you are living to the west or if you are living to the east, what you know is that when these releases happen, all of that algae you see here and all of that green algae I just showed you in that picture, which is toxic and kills life, not to mention--it is harmful to people who come into contact with it, potentially even breathe it in, and all of that stuff is headed your way when those releases happen. Unfortunately, those discharges have a catastrophic impact on the environment and on the Floridians living along our coastal ecosystems. They are especially destructive when these releases export, as I said, nutrient-rich waters with toxic blue-green algae blooms from the lake to the waterways and the estuaries that are downstream because there, those blooms--that algae, which kills fish, fouls the water, and shutters all sorts of small businesses along the coast, has a tremendous negative impact on property values, the real estate market. It creates respiratory irritation for people as well as contact dermatitis for residents who get too close to it. Imagine you live in this area. Maybe you are a small business that depends on visitors. Maybe you invested a lot of money to retire near the water. Maybe you grew up there or lived your entire life there or spent summers there, or maybe your greatest memories are of times your family spent on the water, and this is headed your way. I assure you that this does not increase your property values; it collapses them. I assure you that it does not encourage visitors to come to your area. It not only discourages them from coming now, but the reputation gets out, and all of these small businesses that depend on access to the water are now being threatened by that as well. We see this picture here, this green. That is all toxic algae--all of that--on one of the waterways. That is not Chicago on St. Patrick's Day. That is not food coloring. That is toxic algae in the Caloosahatchee River. Images like this are becoming all too common for the residents in this area. The picture does not do it justice. This is not just the color of the water; this is thick algae of a kind that is inches deep. You can imagine that everything underneath that is not just being cut off from sunlight and oxygen, but it is toxic. It is killing everything underneath it as well. You can't go underneath that water, you can't touch it, and everything that is in it is going to struggle to survive. Over the weekend, particularly on Sunday morning, I began to raise concerns and the concerns of our coastal communities that were on the receiving end of this. Imagine if you live in one of these communities. You see the pictures of the lake that is basically all green, and you know that on Monday morning, they are going to open it up, and all of this stuff is going to come pouring down in your area. They are frightened. It is like impending doom. We reached out to the President. We reached out to the administration. Thankfully, they acted quickly. They called the Army Corps, and the Army Corps paused the discharges that were scheduled for Monday. So on Monday--Sunday night, early Monday morning--people woke to the positive news that these releases were not going to start on Monday. By the way, if you go over to the release points where the water is let out, it is all backed up with this algae. All you have to do is stand there and see it, and you know that as soon as they open it, all of this stuff is coming out and come at you. They gave us this 3- or 4-day reprieve--however long it takes to allow water managers to conduct a full assessment of system conditions and to look for other available options for moving water. While this was a positive response, it is not a long-term answer to this problem. At some point over the next few days, this is going to have to be released. It is going to happen. It is just a matter of time. And the result is that 2018 is shaping up to be another lost summer along the Caloosahatchee and Indian River Lagoon estuaries, just as it was in 2013 and just as it was in 2016. I want to be frank. Over the last 20, 30, 10, and 5 years, the Federal Government has not done enough for anyone to expect that anything will change in the next 5 years. Here is full candor. There are really no good, viable, short-term options that will fix this overnight. That is a fact. We know that. Ultimately, no matter how much we push the Army Corps to hold back releases, at some point they will have to because we are in rainy season, and there comes a point where the risk of flood and loss of life compels them to release some of it. You hope they pulse it. You hope they spread it out. You hope they don't release more than they need to. You hope they stretch it as much as possible. But in the end, you know it is going to happen, and so do the residents in this region. What is frustrating is that not only is the release coming, but nothing seems to be happening to prevent this from continuing on forever. That is why it is so important for us that while we work to try to spread out these releases to minimize to the extent possible the impact they have, we have to begin to work on the things that ultimately will solve this. What ultimately will solve this are the issues that we are committed to continuing to work on. It is multipronged, and it will take a number of years to get it done. The Senate will soon take up the water infrastructure bill. That bill is going to allow us to move forward with the Everglades agriculture area reservoir. This project, by the way, is connected to the broader project called the Central Everglades Planning Project, which the Congress authorized in 2016's water resources bill. That reservoir is vital to ensuring that more water is sent south through the Everglades as nature intended. This reservoir will basically be at pace for some of that water-- instead of having to go east and west, it can go into this reservoir south of the lake; it can be cleansed of many of those nutrients; and then, instead of being released east and west, that cleaner water could be released south into the Everglades, the way some of it once was back in the historic Everglades. That project, that piece of it--the agriculture area reservoir--was at the Office of Management and Budget. That is why we worked with them and really spoke to them a number of times to get them to quickly approve the Army Corps' review of the storage reservoir project. I am happy for the residents of Florida and particularly these impacted areas that these efforts succeeded. Yesterday, the administration and the Office of Management and Budget approved the Corps' review of the project so that its design and construction can now be authorized by Congress. We also must continue to move with expediency to finish the rehabilitation of the dike. We fought hard to include appropriations in the most recent disaster supplemental that would provide enough funding to, once and for all, ensure this is made a priority for completion. So I appreciate the administration's heeding this request. Just last week, the Army Corps allocated more than $514 million for the dike. That means that with all the money needed to complete the project now allocated, the money is now available, and the dike can be finished by 2022. What we hope that means is that now that the dike is repaired and stronger, they will be able to hold back more water for longer periods of time. But that alone isn't going to solve the problem. It will have some impact and it certainly is important, and we certainly need to do it. We never want to see the dike compromised, but, ultimately, that alone will not be enough. We have to continue to do all the other things, including the reservoir I spoke about a moment ago. We also have to remain focused on bottlenecks at the southern end of the flow management system to allow for increased flow of water. This includes ensuring our partnership with the State of Florida, the Army Corps, and the Department of the Interior--that we all continue to work together to meet the important timelines and project funding targets. I have spoken to President Trump about this. I recall at some point in the summer of last year, as we flew to Miami for an event, we had a chance in our flight path to fly over part of the Everglades. The President is a part-time resident of Florida; he knows the area well. Palm Beach in particular is one of the areas impacted by all this. We talked about the opportunity the President had to be the infrastructure President and, when it comes to Florida, to be the President who actually gets this done for the Florida Everglades. I have asked him and talked to him about doubling Federal investment in Everglades restoration infrastructure, like the Central Everglades Planning Project, to clean and store and move water into South Florida's natural flood plain and away from where people live along the coasts. In 2000, Congress authorized the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. It was a complete framework for everything that needs to happen, and we have to continue to move forward on finally getting it done. There were too many delays. It took too long. There wasn't enough of a Federal commitment. Hopefully now--just in the last couple of years--we have begun to make headway on it because these infrastructure projects aren't just about restoring the Everglades. This is not just an environmental project. If it were just an environmental project, that alone would justify it, but it is not just an environmental project. It is about economic development. It is about water quality and about water supply. It is about the value of property. It is about quality of life. It impacts millions of our residents and visitors. We have to finish the projects. We have to stay focused. If we take our eye off the ball, if we divert attention somewhere else, if we interrupt the work of these projects--every one of these delays just makes more and more of these events. If Congress in 2000 had moved at the speed we are moving now, some of this would have been avoided, and with every year that we delay--not acting--these are the real world consequences; it only gets worse, not better. That is why I remain committed, and among my highest priorities for the State of Florida is to get this done in a timely fashion, with the Federal support and the Federal commitment necessary to match what the State has already done with great urgency. I hope we can continue to make progress on all of this. Otherwise, we are going to have more loss, and the lives of millions of people will continue to be impacted in catastrophic ways. I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, in this farm bill, when it was considered in committee, there was an amendment added that allows for American agricultural interests to promote American agriculture on the enslaved island of Cuba. In an effort to be accommodating, I have said: Well, that is fine. It is not a very large market, and, frankly, as long as we are not lending them money--because they are never going to pay us back--I am not going to object to the ability of American farmers to market our products to a market. In the end, it is food. What I do think we should not allow, however, is the ability to spend American taxpayer money in properties and in other places on the island that are owned and controlled by the Cuban military. Last year, President Trump issued an Executive order that prohibited American citizens who traveled to Cuba from staying at hotels or frequenting businesses or anything of this nature that is controlled by GAESA, which is a holding company controlled by the Cuban military. So what I have proposed as a way forward on this is to basically say: That is fine. You can promote American agriculture in Cuba. But while you are there and doing your activities, you can promote it, but you just can't spend any of these taxpayer dollars at any of the facilities or businesses controlled or owned by the Cuban military. The list is detailed and provided by the State Department via Executive order. That is the amendment I offered. To date, we have not been able to get it considered as part of any of these vehicles that are moving. Therefore, procedurally, I am wanting to protect my right to ensure this gets included in something that is incredibly important from my perspective, so I object.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, few issues have bedeviled our country and our political process more than immigration. It is well known by now how difficult it is to get anything done on the topic. Later today, the House will have a vote. I don't know how that will turn out, but we have seen how difficult it is to even get to that point. The reason it is a difficult issue is multifaceted. The first is, it involves people. It is easy to throw around numbers--100,000, 1.1 million a year, 2,000, but these are human beings who, by and large, want to come to America because it is the best country in the world. That is one of the things that makes it difficult; we are talking about human beings. It is not trade. It is not dollars. It is people. The other reason it is difficult is because we are a nation in which few, if any of us, are but a few generations removed at most from someone who came here from somewhere else. The closer you are to that reality, the more you identify with those who want to come here. I was blessed to be born in the United States, but I didn't do anything to earn that. I happen to have benefited from the fact that my parents lived 90 miles away from the greatest Nation on Earth. They could have been born somewhere else. They could have made a different decision in their lives. I am not sure what would have happened, quite frankly, since my parents had me in their forties, and I am not even sure I would have been born. I am a beneficiary of that incredible blessing. The flip side of it is, I am also a lawmaker, and I understand that every Nation on this planet has immigration laws. Mexico has immigration laws. Canada has immigration laws. Canada, earlier this week, sent out a statement to TPS recipients in America that if your TPS expires, don't come to Canada because we are not going to let you in. I have personally witnessed the immigration laws in places like Honduras--one of the source countries of some of our migration. I was there 2 years ago, and I visited a migration place. Basically, Honduras's policy is this: We detain you, we feed you, and we give you 48 hours to get out of the country. Every country in the world has immigration laws, and anytime those laws are challenged by large numbers of people who want to enter outside of those laws, it creates friction and problems. It has throughout the history of this country, and it is doing it all over the world right now. The governing coalition in Germany could collapse over the issue. Multiple elections in Europe have been decided. In fact, the very future of the EU itself is under duress over the issue of migration and a common border. So this is not just a difficult issue in America. It is a difficult issue around the world. One of the reasons that it is so difficult here is that we have long prided ourselves on being a nation of immigrants, and we remain that. One of the things that isn't repeated enough--and you will never get this if you listen to some of the ways this issue is covered on either side of this debate--is that every single year, over 1 million human beings enter the United States legally, and many of them, within 3 to 5 years, swear an oath to become American citizens. I believe, with all of my heart, that that strengthens our country. With all of this noise that you are hearing, just remember the baseline, which is that every single year over 1 million people come to this country legally. That has happened, and it will happen again this year. I will tell you that no other nation on Earth even comes close to extending that level of generosity. The problem we have is that in our region there are countries of incredible instability. This ebbs and flows. I live in South Florida, a majority minority community that is deeply influenced by migration waves of Cubans who have come in multiple waves to flee communism; of Haitians who have come through during different periods of instability; of people who fled instability in Nicaragua, for example, in the 1980s and called this home; of Colombians who fled in the 1990s because of violence there; or of Venezuelans who seek asylum now because of the situation there. Every time there is a hemispheric problem, people in these countries seek to go to the greatest Nation on Earth, which is the closest to them, by the way. That is the United States. So this is not new for us. Our challenge is how we can accommodate that and accommodate our legacy as a nation of immigrants but also do it through a system of law. There is nothing wrong with having ordered compassion. We have safety net programs in America that provide people who come upon tough times with healthcare and housing and money for food, but there is a process by which to get it. There are qualifications that you have to meet, there is an application that you have to fill out, and there is a limit as to how long you can use it. That is true with most charities as well. So you can be generous, and you can be ordered. Yet every time there is any sort of instability in a region, it places migratory pressure on the United States. One of the ones that has arisen lately over the last few years is the instability in Honduras, in Guatemala, and in El Salvador. You can watch the documentaries. You can read the books and the articles. You can interview the people. I can tell you that I know people personally. I don't know them like I met them at an event. I know them. I know their families, and I know their stories because they live in South Florida. I know. I know people who have left because some local gang, thug, or organized crime group went to them and said: Unless you pay us 10 percent of what you make this month, we are going to kill your daughter; we are going to kill your wife; and we are going to burn your store. When people are told that, they leave. I know people who have left because they can't feed their families. So they come because they are going to work and send back money so that their kids can eat. I ask everyone: If you are a parent and your children are hungry and if you are fearful that your children or your wife or your family could be killed by a gang, would you not do almost anything to help them? We understand that part. Yet that has to be balanced with the reality that America is a country that is proud of its heritage of being a nation of immigrants that continues to be generous in welcoming them but that it also has to have a system. It can't be disordered because, otherwise, it strains our capacity. It also overlooks another obligation we have, and that is the obligation to our own people. No nation on Earth, not even one as wealthy and as great as America, can welcome every single human being on the planet who wants to come here. That is not harsh. That is true. What other country does? Canada doesn't do that. Mexico doesn't do that. No other nation on Earth, including the ones that are criticizing us, has a policy like that, and many are much more restrictive than the United States. In most of the nations in Europe, you can go there, but they don't ever let you become a citizen. Every country has its own set of rules, and our rules have fluctuated. There have been times in our history when we have been much more restrictive than now in terms of immigration. So we have this situation. We have this incredible instability in places like Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. One of the responses to it, which I strongly support--we will fund it again this year--is something called the Alliance for Prosperity. In the long term, it is probably the best thing we can do to deal with the problem we have right now. What that does is to build the capacities of the governments in those countries to deal with those gangs that are threatening people. It creates economic opportunities so people don't have to leave. By the way, this migration isn't good for those countries. If you are the country of Honduras and your youngest, hardest working people are leaving, how are you going to build your economy in the future? It doesn't like it either. We need to help Honduras. We are trying to, and we are doing that, but it takes time for it to work. If you don't think that will work, then, I ask you: Why don't we have migratory crises from Peru or Chile or Uruguay or Colombia or Brazil or Argentina or Costa Rica or Panama? We don't have migratory crises from those countries because, while they don't have America's wealth, you can find a job and you are not being threatened every day by a gang. The more we can do to help countries reach that point, the less migratory pressure we will have. That is, by far, the most effective border security measure we could take, if it works. We have to make sure that it works. So now we have this situation, and it is a difficult one. I hear these people on television, and I have to tell you that I don't know where some people get their information or even care about how they get their information, but they just say things that aren't true, and they make it sound like it is so simple. Here is the bottom line. Imagine, for a moment, that a family arrives unlawfully at the U.S. border, meaning that the family doesn't have a permit to enter and it doesn't have a visa. The family just unlawfully crosses the border. You are now apprehended. You have children with you, and you are an adult. The law says--something called the Flores settlement, which is binding, which the White House is challenging with this Executive order--that you can hold the children for 20 days. You can detain the adults. They violated the law. It could be a misdemeanor. If it is a repeated offense, it is a felony. It could even be a civil offense, potentially. You can detain the adults if you need to, but you can't detain the children. This is the dilemma because, if you don't detain people, we know that a substantial percentage--and I mean a very high percentage of people-- once apprehended and released, never shows up for the hearing. People are scheduled for hearings before immigration judges, but it could take a couple of years. When the hearings come, we don't even know where they are to even notify them of the hearings. They just don't show up. They don't show up at all. If you let them go, you will never see them again. You are basically passing them through. Yet you can't detain the kids they came with. So you are left with this choice: I can't detain the kids; therefore, I can't detain the family together. So either I let them all go and never hear from them again or I detain the adults and separate them from their children. That is the decision the administration made along with saying: We are going to enforce every single one of these cases. Yet I already told you that if you let them go, your chances of ever having them show up again are virtually nil in many cases. That has led to the problem because, even though we are a nation of laws, we are also a nation with deep Judeo-Christian principles. You are watching it on television, and you are seeing kids who are crying. Forget about being a Senator now. You are a parent, and you are thinking to yourself: This is horrifying that this is happening in America. It has to end. So the administration says: We are going to end it, and we are going to detain them together, and someone is going to sue us under the Flores settlement, which is why Congress must act. I watched some of the speeches on the floor last night by some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and the best way I can describe the argument is that I understood it, and, if I am wrong, then somebody should tell me. I listened to the arguments carefully because I was thinking that there has to be a way to deal with this because it is a tough issue. This was their argument: No. 1, do not detain the children at all. Keep the Flores settlement in place, and don't detain the children. No. 2, don't separate the families. That means, not only can you not detain the children, but don't detain the parents. Let them go. No. 3, if they don't show up for their hearings and you eventually run into them, don't deport them either. If we are not going to detain children and if we are not going to detain parents and if they don't show up for the hearings and we are not going to deport them unless they are violent criminals, then, the de facto policy is this: If you come to the United States alone, you will be detained and returned, but if you come to the United States with children, you will be released and, potentially, never be deported. Now, this is not conjecture. I already told you that I know people. I want to tell you the perception that that creates. People can argue about whether dividing families is a deterrent or not. I don't even want to make that argument because I don't think that is a deterrent that we should use as a nation. It is not who we are. We should never say that we are going to punish your kids in order to keep you from doing something. Yet I can tell you that, whether or not it is a deterrent, it is most definitely an incentive to have a policy that says: If you come alone, you will be apprehended, detained, and returned, but if you come with kids, we are going to let you in. It is true that I find it cruel to separate these kids from their parents. I want to tell you what else is cruel, and that is the journey that people have to undertake in the hands of some of the most horrible human beings on this planet who traffic human beings through Mexico and across our border. Let me tell you how horrible it is. It is so horrible that many of the young women who actually make that journey ensure that they get on birth control before they go on the journey because they expect to be sexually assaulted. That is how cruel it is. It is cruel because children disappear on that journey. We don't know what happens, but they vanish. It is cruel because families are often robbed and beaten on that journey. It is one of the nastiest, most cruel journeys anyone could imagine. I will never forget being in Honduras a couple of years ago when we were at a migrant center. Our U.S. Customs and Border Protection people, who were embedded there alongside our Honduran partners, were talking to this young man who happened to be from Cuba and who was on his way to the United States. They warned him. They showed him. They talked him through it. They said: Once you cross this border, you are about to be in the hands of some of the worst human beings on the planet, who make a habit of killing people, assaulting people, trafficking people. This young man was determined. To be honest with you, I don't know what happened to him. I gave him my number. I told him that if he were to make it to the States, we could be helpful, whatever it might be. We never heard from him again. I imagine he made it or something else happened. I, personally, tried to discourage him from making the journey. So, yes, it is cruel to divide families. It is also cruel to have an incentive for people to bring children on this journey, and that is what this is. To go back to the point, unless I am wrong, as I understand it, the policy that we are being asked to support by some is this: Don't detain the kids. Don't detain the parents in order not to separate the families. When they don't show up for the hearings, don't deport them. Well then, basically, your de facto law is that if you come to the United States alone, you will be detained and returned. Yet if you come with kids, you will get to stay. That is irresponsible. If that is, in fact, the policy, then you should admit that this is our policy and that this is what we think the law should be. You can't go around saying you are for border security but then never say what you are for. You can't go around saying that we should only enforce our immigration laws on dangerous criminals. Everyone agrees with that one. The bottom line is, if we want to continue to be a nation of immigrants and of immigration, then we have to have an ordered system of immigration. Otherwise, you have what we have now. You have what we have now in America, and you have what we have now all over the world, which is many people--a nation of immigrants--turning on immigration, not because they don't believe in it but because they think what we have now is unsustainable and wrong. You will never hear me say that these people are animals or terrible people. They are not. Look, any time you take thousands of people and put them together, and, of course, there are going to be bad people among them, but it is my experience and my deep belief that the overwhelming majority of people are just looking for a better life. People are looking to send money back to their families, to live in safer places, and to reunite with loved ones who are already here. Their motives are not wrong, but there has to be a process by which to do it, and our laws put us in this position every single day. I will never forget this. A handful of years ago, the home across the street from ours was occupied by a family. I don't know what happened-- well, I know what happened, obviously. At some point, they didn't pay their rent long enough, and the landlord evicted them, which requires you to go to the courthouse and get a court ruling. The sheriff's office comes and opens the door and takes out all your furniture and puts it on the curb. We drove by and saw that family sitting there on their couch. There were three kids. The mom was on the cell phone calling somebody. All their possessions were sitting in plastic bags on the curb because they didn't pay their rent. They were evicted, and it was painful to watch. We did what we could. We tried to talk and see whether there was anything we could provide to make sure they had a place to stay that evening. But no one suggested that what we should do is just not allow landlords to evict people for not paying the rent. No one suggested that because we realize that if we ever have a law like that, no one will ever rent their property to people again. If we stopped enforcing the right of a landlord to evict people from their homes, if we were to stop enforcing that, then there would be no more landlords. Nobody would ever put anything up for rent. We would have a housing crisis. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't break our hearts to see the images of what that means when we see that applied. I know people who lost their homes in foreclosure. Their homes are their dream. They came across difficult times and couldn't pay the mortgage, and they were out of their homes. It breaks your heart, but I haven't heard anyone suggest that we should make mortgages unenforceable. It is not the same thing, but my point is that our laws always put us in this situation, but the answer can't be to not enforce the law. Every single day, even as I speak to you now, somewhere in this country, some adult is going to be arrested, and this adult is going to go to jail--perhaps for many years--and their children are not going to be able to see them. I am not claiming that someone who commits a horrible crime in America is the same as someone who crosses our border. My point is that it happens every day, and no one should diminish it, but no one suggests that we should no longer arrest anyone or apply the law to people if it divides them from their families, because jails are full of people who have been divided from their families. I make these points not as comparison. I am not saying that being evicted from your home and crossing the border are the same thing. I am not saying that being convicted of a serious crime and spending years in jail and crossing the border are the same thing. What I am saying is that oftentimes the application of our law leads to results that trouble our hearts, but we recognize that if we don't apply the law, the alternative is as bad, if not worse. That is where we are. The reason why a nation of immigrants has a significant percentage of Americans who frankly want to see immigration significantly slashed is not because they have forgotten where they came from but because they think this thing is out of control. They are OK with 1 million people or 800,000 people a year coming into the country legally; what they are not OK with is anyone who wants to come, coming anytime they want, from anywhere they want, and they react against it. It is easy to hear these people on television say: Well, that is something horrible that is going on in America. It is the President's fault. It is this one's or that one's fault. It is happening all over the world. It is happening in every country in Europe. It is increasingly now putting pressure on Canada. It is happening in Mexico, which a few years ago began to crack down on their southern border. So the best way forward is a bill that Senator Tillis and others filed yesterday, and that is one that would allow us to house families together while their hearing is pending. Some will qualify for asylum and get to stay. Others will have to return together. Is it perfect? No. The U.S. Government is not in the business of housing families. We do have an obligation to ensure that we can expedite their hearings so they are not there for a long time. We do have an obligation to say: If you legitimately qualify for asylum, you should be given the opportunity to apply for it. We do have an obligation to say that while we retain families, we are going to provide them safe, sanitary conditions, because that is who we are as a people, and that is who we should be. We do have an obligation to do all of that, and that is why this bill adds 200 new judges to help expedite and why it calls for expediting cases that involve families with children. I know this is a tough issue, but our law cannot be that if you come here unlawfully with children, you get to stay and we are not going to enforce it, because that creates a cruel incentive for more people to do that. If we are basically saying: We have laws, but we refuse to enforce them, then we don't have an immigration system, and people will turn on immigration, and then we can't solve the problem. I say to you in closing, as someone who is by no means an immigration restrictionist--by no means--in fact, I support doing something reasonable with the people who have been here for a long time and are not dangerous criminals and are now part of our country. I support extending TPS for the Haitian community, many of whom are now business owners in Miami-Dade County, where I live. I support extending TPS for the Honduran community who are here legally. TPS makes you legal. Some of them own businesses, and some have graduated and are going to medical school. I support all of that. I support doing something responsible with people who were brought here as children through no fault of their own and who have grown up here. Some of them don't speak any language but English. I support their finding some permanency in this country and a path to citizenship. I support all of that stuff. I also support enforcing our immigration laws so that we can welcome more people in the future. But there has to be a process. Every sovereign country in the world has laws and a process, and most of them enforce their laws in ways that are much more stringent--in many cases, much more barbaric--than anything that you will ever be accused of having done in the United States. That is not what I am advocating, and I don't know anyone who is. So it has been a tough week on a tough issue. I hope we will act. I know how appealing this is as a political issue. I know how much cable news time people get on both sides talking about it. I hope we can make progress at least on this one little piece and then move forward and do the rest of it. But this one little piece--I hope we will deal with it. I think we have a proposal before the Senate that doesn't make the situation perfect, but it sure makes it a lot better than it is right now; it sure is preferable to dividing families; and it sure is preferable to a law that tells people: Bring your children on this very dangerous journey because if you do, you will get to stay. It is my hope that we will act and get something done. I yield the floor.

Mr. RUBIO

Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I recognize Judge Thomas Patterson Maney, who has served his Nation honorably and is retiring. Judge Maney served our Nation in the Army Reserve for almost 37 years, including 8 years of Active Duty, serving in Panama, Haiti, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. As a major and lieutenant colonel, he worked with the military group at the U.S. Embassy in Panama, training the Guardia Nacional/Panama Defense Force in civil affairs and civic action. He commanded a reserve civil affairs brigade in Maryland, as well as the 350th Civil Affairs Command in Pensacola, and later served as the deputy commander of the Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command and deputy commandant of the John F. Kennedy Special Operations School at Fort Bragg. He is the recipient of the Purple Heart and retired as an Army brigadier general in 2007. Judge Maney was appointed Okaloosa County court judge by Governor Bob Martinez and assumed the bench on June 5, 1989. He was elected to the position in 1990 and was subsequently reelected each time he was on the ballot. During his time as a circuit court judge, he served as a juvenile dependency judge, child support judge, and served as the Baker Act/Marchman Act judge for nearly a decade. Judge Maney shares his passion and expertise of the law with colleagues across the district and the State of Florida, delivering educational presentations for the Conference of County Court Judges and the Advanced Judicial College. He also started the Okaloosa Mental Health Court and the Okaloosa Veterans Treatment Court. The act establishing the Okaloosa Veterans Treatment Court was named the T. Patt Maney Veterans Treatment Court Act in his honor. Judge Maney was born in Lexington, KY, and is a graduate of the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville College of Law, Troy State University, and the Army War College. He has been married to his wife, Caroline, for almost 47 years, and they have two daughters and six grandchildren. He is also a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. I thank Judge Maney for a lifetime of devotion to serving our Nation both overseas and on the bench. I extend my best wishes to him and his family on his well-earned retirement.