Jeanne Shaheen

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues on the floor to very strongly support the Congressional Review Act resolution to restore net neutrality and maintain a free and open internet. I applaud Senator Ed Markey for his leadership in introducing this Congressional Review Act resolution. Restoring net neutrality is especially critical to small businesses and startup companies in New Hampshire and across the United States. Small businesses are the backbone of our Granite State's economy. They represent 99 percent of our employers. The internet continues to provide opportunity for these small businesses because it levels the playing field. It makes it easier to find new customers and grow online, but that level playing field is now in jeopardy because of the Federal Communications Commission's decision to end net neutrality protections. Last Thursday, I convened a field hearing of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of New Hampshire. I wanted to hear concerns of our small business owners about what the net neutrality rollback would mean to them. In particular, they are concerned that net neutrality will impede their ability to expand and create jobs. In conversations with small business owners and leaders across my State, they tell me this rollback is a direct threat to their businesses. They say it would be like watching their large competitors take the highway while they are forced to take the slow roads. Without net neutrality, broadband providers could charge more for fast lanes--a cost that many small businesses simply can't afford. This would put them at an even greater competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis large corporations that have the resources to pay for those fast lanes. In the digital age, speed is critical. Witnesses at our field hearing pointed to research showing that even small delays of a second or less--just think about that, a second or less--can lead to the loss of significant sales. Customers today expect a fast, easy online experience. It is clear, small businesses operating at slim margins would lose out to big firms that can afford the fast lane. Josh Cyr, who testified at our hearing, is an executive with Alpha Loft. Alpha Loft is a startup incubator that is based in Manchester and Portsmouth, NH. At the field hearing, he had a stark warning. He said: The repeal of net neutrality protections enables a small handful of very powerful internet providers tremendous control over what is delivered to consumers' homes and the speed with which it is delivered. Without net neutrality, the power and control these internet providers have will allow them to create artificial market barriers. The repeal of net neutrality would pose even greater challenges for small businesses in rural areas. As Senator Klobuchar said, she has a lot of rural areas in Minnesota. Well, so does New Hampshire. A 2015 survey by the University of New Hampshire showed that nearly 40 percent of New Hampshire residents who were polled said they were using their current provider because it is the only option available to them. Many rural small businesses will have nowhere else to turn if their broadband provider decides to charge more or slow down the connection. Our witnesses noted that net neutrality could heighten the rural urban divide, making it more challenging for small businesses and rural communities to reach customers, attract workers, and stay connected. One of the other people testifying at the hearing was Nancy Pearson. She is the director of the New Hampshire Center for Women and Enterprise. She testified that net neutrality is a matter of equality. She said: New Hampshire small businesses and microbusinesses rely on the equalizing force of the internet, and just to put that in perspective, women start businesses at five times the rate of any other entrepreneur-- and for minority women and veterans, that number is even higher. So when we start putting barriers in the way of these entrepreneurs, it can have a significant and, I think, disastrous effect. The FCC's rollback of net neutrality rules is also creating tremendous uncertainty, especially for startup businesses that are looking to plan ahead. It could have major ramifications on sales, marketing, and internet costs that small businesses just can't predict. Participants at the field hearing warned that the FCC's decision will affect not only businesses but also institutions of higher education. It will also negatively impact efforts to provide telemedicine consultations to patients who don't have access to services locally. Again, we have a big rural population in New Hampshire--well, a small population but a lot of rural areas. I am concerned, for instance, about the impact on the Veterans' Administration's outpatient clinic in Littleton, NH. It relies on telemedicine to provide psychiatric care to veterans in remote locations. What will happen if they can no longer provide that service because they don't have the ability to pay for those lanes anymore? Small businesses, consumers, and all Americans who care about a level playing field on the internet have every reason to be concerned by the FCC's repeal of net neutrality protections, but their ill-considered rollback doesn't have to be the last word. We can bring to the floor a bipartisan resolution to prevent the FCC's rollback from going forward. A coalition of more than 6,000 small businesses across the country sent a letter to Congress asking us to protect them by overturning the FCC's decision to repeal net neutrality. Further, at my field hearing last week, Granite State small businesses offered compelling testimony about the importance of net neutrality to their competitiveness and their ability to expand and hire new workers. We must not ignore this groundswell of opposition to the FCC's rollback of rules that ensure equal access to the internet. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the Congressional Review Act resolution. Let's restore net neutrality protections and ensure a free and open internet, with access on equal terms, for all businesses and consumers. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

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

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Menendez, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and my colleagues from the committee to talk about the importance of diplomacy as we look at the many challenges and conflicts that the world is facing right now. From North Korea to Syria to Venezuela, there is really no end in sight for growing tensions and conflict in the world. Our military presence in Afghanistan is growing, we have approved lethal weapons for Ukraine, and we are forging a new partnership with NATO in Iraq. I support these efforts, but without a vigorous diplomatic capability to back our military, these initiatives risk failure. Sadly, instead of providing for a robust diplomatic corps, the administration has laid the foundation for a weakened U.S. hand on the international stage. Ultimately, this places Americans at risk. As Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said, it forces his men and women to buy more bullets. Equally critical is the opportunity this provides for the great power conflicts to continue and to fester. In November, I wrote to then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Senator John McCain, to express bipartisan concern over the administration's State Department hiring and promotion rates. I was told that the statistics we had received from the American Foreign Service Association were wrong and that the redesign of the State Department is not forcing anyone from their jobs. Unfortunately, since that time, the State Department has lost even more precious, diplomatic talent. Congress has received a budget request that cuts even more personnel, and Foreign Service hiring and promotion rates continue to plummet. Last month, the highest ranking senior Foreign Service officer, Tom Shannon, announced that he, too, would be retiring. With his retirement, we will have no senior Foreign Service officers serving in the Department's leadership. To date, we have only one active career ambassador who will serve in the entire State Department, and he is not even working in the building. Aside from the mass exodus of critical talent, we are allowing decades of investments made by our country and our diplomats to dwindle along with their ranks. For the past 2 years, the Senate has also received abysmally low budget requests for the State Department and USAID. Meanwhile, our problems aren't declining. The Kremlin continues to sow chaos across the globe. China increasingly flexes its muscle by buying strategic properties throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. We are facing the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. Our intelligence community repeatedly warns that in this year's midterm elections, Russia will repeat another hybrid operation against the U.S. election. The obvious response to these challenges should not and cannot be to reduce the operational capacity and personnel of the lead agency that is responsible for alleviating global crises and promoting the United States' public face throughout the global outreach. That is the State Department. Just this month, the New York Times revealed that the State Department had failed to spend any of the $120 million allocated to fund the Global Engagement Center, which is aimed at countering state- led misinformation campaigns. While America is under attack and Western democracies are under attack by misinformation campaigns, the State Department's response has been totally insufficient. It has been not to spend any of the money that Congress has allocated. It seems the administration is completely unaware of Special Counselor Mueller's indictment against Russia's Internet Research Agency. I wish to spend a minute to read from excerpts of Mueller's indictment of 13 Russians, which came out last month. If we can look at this through objective eyes, it reminds us all of the threats we face because of Russia's interference. This is stated in Mueller's document: The [Internet Research Agency] is a Russian organization engaged in operations to interfere with elections and political processes. I am quoting now from the indictment. By in or around September 2016, the [Internet Research Agency's] monthly budget for Project Lakhta (its interference operation in the U.S.) exceeded 73 million Russian rubles (over 1,250,000 U.S. dollars). They are spending, on a regular basis, 1.25 million in American dollars on this interference operation. For all of the people out there who think this is a partisan issue, this is not a partisan issue. This is an issue about interfering in our democracy. We can see how much they are willing to spend to do that. Continuing to quote from the indictment: Defendants and their co-conspirators also traveled, and attempted to travel, to the United States under false pretenses in order to collect intelligence for interference operations. In or around 2016, the defendants and their co-conspirators also used, possessed and transferred, without legal authority, the social security numbers and dates of birth of real U.S. persons without those persons' knowledge or consent. Using these means of identification, defendants and their co-conspirators opened accounts at PayPal; created false means of identification, including fake driver's licenses; and posted on Internet Research Agency-controlled media accounts. That is the Russian entity that is doing this. Think about that. We know of the Kremlin's efforts to influence and use the American people to its own advantage. It is laid out pretty clearly in this indictment from Robert Mueller. Yet, somehow, the State Department is incapable of spending $1 of the money that has been allocated by Congress toward countering Russia's most overt, public messages against the United States. This is truly remarkable and, sadly, disappointing. The American people deserve better. Unfortunately, the Global Engagement Center is not alone in its lack of support from the administration. According to an analysis of data from the Office of Management and Budget, last year the State Department spent just 79 percent of the money that Congress had authorized for the conduct of foreign affairs, the lowest level in the last 15 years. Many of us on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would agree that most of our greatest global achievements--the Marshall Plan, the end of the Cold War, and the reduction of nuclear weapons--have been secured through diplomacy. Without it, I fear we will stray far from President Trump's ideal of brokering deals and instead cause irreparable damage to one of America's most precious resources--our diplomatic corps. That will harm this country's standing in the world and will have us viewed as weak by our great power adversaries. The hollowing out of the State Department under this administration will cause irreparable damage to America's diplomatic efforts, and it will harm our country's standing in the world. Congress has to step in and make sure this doesn't happen. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague from Washington to talk about the challenge that women both here in the United States and across the world are facing from the excesses of this administration. What we have seen time and again is that the Trump administration has exhibited a dangerous obsession with rolling back women's reproductive rights here in the United States and abroad. Just in the past 14 months in office, this administration has launched a multipronged and aggressive assault on women's rights. One of President Trump's first acts in office was to reinstate and greatly expand the global gag rule, which prohibits U.S. funding for international women's health organizations that so much as mention abortion. What they did was to say that this is not going to just affect those organizations but any health organization that the United States puts funding into. This action will cause a significant increase in unsafe abortions and maternal deaths across the developing world. The administration has proposed budgets that would eliminate all Federal funding for Planned Parenthood, and, going even further, would prohibit States that on their own would direct Federal funds to Planned Parenthood for those same health services. They would prohibit States from doing that. Most recently, the State Department reportedly removed data on reproductive healthcare from its annual human rights report. So is the idea that if you don't give people access to data, then it doesn't happen? The administration instructed career employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to remove words such as ``fetus,'' ``diversity,'' ``evidence-based,'' and ``science-based'' from their official vocabulary. Well, if we are not basing decisions at the CDC on evidence-based and science-based data, then what are we basing it on? As Senator Murray says, they are basing it on ideology. Well, that is a lousy way to make a decision about where to put our healthcare money. This administration has even attacked women's access to birth control, issuing new rules that allow almost any company to opt out of the birth control benefit in the Affordable Care Act. Simply put, you cannot support women's empowerment unless you support women's access to family planning. Recently, the United Nations Population Fund's ``Family Planning 2020'' report explained why women's access to all healthcare services, including abortion, is so vital both to women's advancement and to their country's economic development. The report says: Every woman and girl must be able to exercise her basic human right to control her own reproductive health. Access to safe, voluntary family planning is fundamental to women's empowerment. It's also fundamental to achieving our global goals for a healthier, more prosperous, just, and equitable world. The report goes on to say: Rights-based family planning programs have a greater ripple effect than almost any other development investment, from saving lives and improving health to strengthening economies, transforming societies, and lifting entire countries out of poverty. It is the surest path to the future we want. Well, I couldn't agree more. Study after study demonstrates that access to comprehensive healthcare services is closely correlated to the economic success of women and their families. By contrast, lack of access to basic healthcare services, including family planning counseling and all birth control options, is a major factor in perpetuating the dangerous, life-threatening cycle of poverty. Now, I think it is really ironic that those who seek to outlaw abortion do so under what they say is the pro-life banner. I think it is ironic because we know from experience that outlawing abortion doesn't end abortion, it simply drives it into the shadows and unsafe conditions. Like many in this Chamber, I remember the days before 1973, when abortion was against the law. An estimated 1.2 million women each year resorted to illegal abortions, typically performed in unsanitary conditions by unlicensed practitioners and often resulting in infection, hemorrhage, and even death. Just about every woman of my generation has a story about a friend or an acquaintance who had to resort to this kind of risky, dangerous abortion or who thought she had to resort to that. Well, I don't think we want to go back to those days. We know that right now in the United States, we have the lowest level of abortions that we have had since 1973. That is a success that is directly attributed to the increased access to contraception that is in the Affordable Care Act. We know that again and again, studies have found that policies to limit or ban abortion outright have the unintended consequence of dramatically increasing abortion overall. Conversely, when family planning services are accessible, the rates of unplanned pregnancies and abortion go down. Again, according to the Guttmacher Institute, we are seeing success in terms of reducing the number of abortions and unintended pregnancies. Now, what we have seen internationally is that the global gag rule has had especially lethal consequences. It denies access to safe abortions and, in doing so, it dramatically increases abortions overall. A Stanford University study of implementation of the global gag rule during the George W. Bush administration found that the number of women having induced abortions more than doubled in countries that were most impacted by the policy. Today, in Nigeria--which is the one country we have data on to date, based on the expansion of the global gag rule in the Trump administration--health workers on the ground estimate that because of the administration's new global gag rule, there will be an additional 660,000 abortions in Nigeria from now through 2020, and that could result in nearly 10,000 additional maternal deaths. The Trump administration claims it wants a smaller government. The President ran on a platform promising to get the government out of people's lives. Yet it is doing everything possible to inject the government and law enforcement into some of the most intimate, difficult, and personal decisions a woman has to make. This is not only insulting, but it is condescending to all women. We don't need guidance from the government for an adult. We need to be able to consult those we choose to consult and make our own decisions about the healthcare we need. To take away women's access to full reproductive health services, including abortion, is demeaning and unacceptable. We cannot allow the Trump administration to turn back the clock and put women's lives at risk. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, the town of Madbury, NH, is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year. Madbury is a classic New England community, proud of its rich history, its tradition of direct town meeting democracy, and its family-friendly quality of life. Admittedly, I am not an entirely objective observer, as Madbury has been my home for nearly four decades. It is where I raised my family and have so many dear friends, and it is where I first got involved in local politics, serving on the town's zoning board. The roughly 1,800 residents of Madbury look forward to a nearly yearlong celebration of the anniversary, beginning with a special observance at our annual town meeting on March 13. Of course, the human history of what is now Madbury--located today in Strafford County in southeast New Hampshire--goes back many centuries prior to the arrival of the first English explorers and settlers. In the 17th century, the Native American Chief Moharimet convened counsels in this area, and today our elementary school is named in his honor. Madbury was originally a part of the settlements of Dover and Durham called Barbadoes, named after the West Indies island of Barbados, where local settlers sent lumber in exchange for sugar and molasses. It was named for the English town of Modbury, the ancestral home of Sir Francis Champernowne, who immigrated to what is now Madbury in the 1640s. Madbury was incorporated as a parish in 1755 and as a town in 1768. One of our early residents was Major John Demerritt, who in 1774 joined with other New Hampshire patriots in storming the King's Fort William and Mary in New Castle, seizing its armory of weapons and gunpower. The ``Powder Major,'' as he came to be known, stored a portion of this armory at his farm, which still sits on Cherry Lane. It was later used by revolutionaries at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Our Madbury town flag--thought to be the first town flag in New England--features an ax, a plow, and a rose. The ax represents forestry, which first attracted settlers to Madbury to supply shipbuilders at Dover, Durham, and Portsmouth. The plow symbolizes our agricultural past. The rose symbolizes the former Elliot rose nursery, which in the mid-20th century boasted the longest greenhouse in the world at 1,400 feet in length. Madbury is proud of its long and rich history, and we entered the 21st century as a forward-thinking community with a vibrant economy. Though surrounded by industrial areas, Madbury has remained largely rural in character, proud of its small town charm, hospitality, and lifestyle. I look forward to celebrations of Madbury's 250th anniversary later this year, including a parade and other festivities on Madbury Day in June and a Revolutionary War reenactment in the fall. I salute my fellow residents of Madbury on this landmark anniversary of our beloved town.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I want to recognize the leadership of Kateri Callahan, who has served as president of the Alliance to Save Energy since 2004. As the honorary chair of the alliance, I have been a firsthand witness to many of Kateri's most recent accomplishments. Before Kateri starts the next chapter of her career, I want take this opportunity to look back upon her 14 years with the alliance and thank her for her contributions to Federal energy-efficiency policy. In 1977, Senators Charles Percy and Hubert Humphrey--a Republican from Illinois and a Democrat from Minnesota--founded the alliance as the leading energy-efficiency coalition of businesses, governments, environmental groups, and consumer advocates. The goal of the Alliance from the start has been simple: ``Use less and do more.'' In the wake of the oil embargoes and energy shortages of the 1970s, that message resonated loud and clear, and it still does. Energy efficiency saves money, improves national security, reduces pollution, encourages innovation, boosts U.S. competitiveness, and creates jobs. Without the economywide improvements in energy efficiency made since 1973, it is estimated that today's economy would require 60 percent more energy than we consume now. In fact, savings from energy- efficiency improvements over the last 40 years have reduced our national energy bill by an estimated $800 billion, all while growing and expanding our economy. Since its establishment, the alliance has taken great care to cultivate and maintain bipartisan support for policies supporting energy efficiency. While doing so, the organization has been led by a distinguished groups of energy efficiency thought-leaders and advocates like Kateri. For my colleagues who have not met Kateri, you need to know she is persistent and tenacious. Once she gets ahold of something, believe me she never lets go and sees it through to the end. I am thankful for Kateri's leadership, and on behalf of my House and Senate colleagues who are also part of the alliance, I am thankful for the coalition's support for my proposals over the years. Highlights abound during Kateri's tenure at the alliance. She was a key negotiator on many of the most impactful energy-efficiency provisions of the 2005 and 2007 energy bills that passed Congress with strong bipartisan support and were signed into law by President George W. Bush. She helped ensure that the 2009 stimulus package provided significant investments in energy efficiency and encouraged states to adopt updated building energy codes. In 2015, she stood with me and my colleagues, Senator Rob Portman and Representatives David McKinley and Peter Welch, as President Barack Obama signed our bipartisan and bicameral bill, the Energy Efficiency Improvement Act, which was the first significant energy-efficiency legislation to pass Congress in nearly a decade. In addition to her work in Washington, Kateri has spurred initiatives to connect directly with energy consumers and educate the public about the economic and environmental opportunities of energy efficiency. She produced a series of award-winning consumer education campaigns, including the Power is in Your Hands, Energy Hog, Drive$marter, LUMEN, and Six Degrees of Energy Efficiency. She also led the establishment of the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance to ensure that American families and businesses in the southeastern States have the knowledge, resources, and opportunities to optimize energy use. The alliance's reach does not stop at our borders. Under the leadership of Kateri, the alliance created the European Alliance to Save Energy and established EE Global, the world's premier gathering of energy-efficiency leaders to discuss new ideas and chart new paths to do more by using less. Serving 14 years as president of an organization like the alliance is its own commendable accomplishment, but Kateri has had a more profound and positive impact on Federal energy-efficiency policy than can be counted just in years. I congratulate Kateri and express sincere thanks for her support over the years. I wish her the best in her future pursuits and good health and good luck. Thank you.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am here with Senator Nelson, Senator Whitehouse, and Senator Cardin because I share their concerns about the rising chorus of partisan attacks, not only on Special Counsel Robert Mueller but also on the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice. These attacks are part of a broader campaign that has been orchestrated by the White House to undermine the investigations into Russia's interference in the 2016 campaign, including possible collusion by the Trump campaign. Unfortunately, if continued, it will have a lasting impact on our security structures, on our democratic institutions, and on our people. Ultimately, it will help the Kremlin achieve its goal of breaking down our country and our democratic way of life. In a report issued in January 2017, the U.S. intelligence community found that Russia interfered in our elections. This was the unanimous conclusion of all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. Indeed, that Russian interference continues to this day, not only in the domestic affairs of the United States but in the affairs of our Western allies. We have seen the Kremlin's hand in Great Britain, in Spain, in France, and in Mexico--all in an effort to determine the outcome and to disrupt elections in those countries. Just last week, in an interview with the BBC, CIA Director Mike Pompeo confirmed Russia's ongoing interference. As Senator Cardin said, when Director Pompeo was asked if Russia would try to influence our midterm elections this year, he replied: ``Of course. I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that.'' In fact, in recent weeks, Russian internet trolls and bots have used Facebook and Twitter to aggressively promote the release of the House Republicans' memo, by Devin Nunes, that attacks the integrity of the FBI. Let's think about that. Russia gave a powerful assist to the successful campaign to release a misleading document, undermining an ongoing FBI investigation. Despite these disturbing facts, President Trump continues to be dismissive of claims of any Russian interference. For 6 months, Congress has expected the administration to impose the penalties in the bipartisan Russia sanctions bill that passed 98 to 2, but the administration has not even issued one sanction through that law. Despite ongoing brazen Russian interference, the White House claims that sanctions are not needed because the threat of sanctions is already ``serving as a deterrent.'' The mere threat of sanctions clearly is not serving as a deterrent. Our national security agencies, NATO systems, and even the Senate have experienced countless cyber attacks since the 2016 elections. Yet Vladimir Putin continues to deny that Russia interferes in anything at all, and for support, Putin can point to President Trump's own denials of Russian interference. President Trump has a penchant for labeling factual reports as ``fake news.'' Again and again, he says things that are obviously false or misleading. He calls responsible mainstream journalists ``the enemy of the people.'' He attacks the rule of law, the judiciary, and our law enforcement agencies. These are all classic hallmarks of the slippery slope toward authoritarianism. Indeed, it is striking how attacks by some Republicans on law enforcement and democratic institutions echo similar attacks by the Kremlin and its mouthpieces. Consider these side-by-side comparisons of statements by Russian officials and statements by Republicans. As we see in this tweet, which is dated January 2, 2018, President Trump has described U.S. Government employees and the Justice Department as the ``Deep State.'' At the same time Russia's propaganda network, RT, has repeated this terminology. So we see this: ``Deep State takedown.'' Just yesterday, RT aired a discussion on how to root out the ``Deep State'' now that its biases supposedly have been exposed by the ``Nunes memo.'' Again, we see these mirrored messages between Republicans, the White House, and Putin. As we see in this panel, allegations that Special Counsel Mueller and the FBI are conducting a ``witch hunt'' are coming from the highest levels of both the American and Russian Governments. We see that Reuters has repeated a line from RIA, which is Russia's state television, saying: ``U.S. scandal over Russian contacts is `a witch hunt.''' That sentiment was repeated by Andy Biggs, a Republican who is calling on Mr. Mueller to ``end the witch hunt,'' and, of course, it was tweeted by Donald Trump, who called all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information a ``total witch hunt.'' In panel 3, we see that both Putin and President Trump claim that there is no way to know for sure who meddled in the U.S. election. You can see the two of them. They blame Democrats for allegations of Russian meddling. Putin said that ``maybe someone lying in bed'' was responsible. Looking at similar language, President Trump famously said: ``It could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.'' It is unfortunate that some Republicans, as well as voices in the conservative media, appear to believe that, in order to support the President, they must attack and discredit not only Special Counsel Mueller but also the Department of Justice and the FBI. These partisan attacks are baseless and reckless. They will not succeed in deflecting law enforcement from its duties and mission. What they may do is that they may well succeed in undermining the American people's faith and confidence in these institutions so vital to a healthy democracy. That is not only unfortunate, but it is shameful. Last summer Members of Congress came together on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis to impose sanctions on Russia because people here believed they were interfering in our elections. Republicans and Democrats spoke with one voice. We said: Our country has been attacked by a hostile power. We will not tolerate it, and we will stand together to stop it. Today, it is critical that we continue to speak with one voice in condemning Russia's interference. This is a really remarkable moment in our country's history. A hostile foreign power has interfered in our Presidential election, and it continues to interfere. CIA Director Pompeo said, in no uncertain terms, that Russia will interfere in this year's midterm elections. Our law enforcement agencies and a special counsel are working diligently to undercover the scope and methods of Russia's interference so we can put a stop to it. Supporting these efforts is not about party and not about partisanship. It is about patriotism. It is about defending America's democracy, which has been attacked and continues to be vulnerable to attack. Make no mistake. Our democracy is being tested, our law enforcement agencies are being tested, and we, as Senators, are being tested. We have a responsibility to come together--Senators of both parties--to defend the independence of the Justice Department and the FBI. We must insist that Special Counsel Mueller be allowed to conduct and complete his investigation without further political interference. We must stand together in opposing Russia's outrageous continuing interference in America's elections and domestic affairs. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I join my colleagues on the floor today to speak in opposition to the pending legislation to outlaw abortion procedures after 20 weeks. This is yet another extreme effort to allow the government to interfere in the healthcare decisions that should be strictly between a woman and her family and her physician. This latest attempt is particularly dangerous. It would impose prison sentences of up to 5 years on physicians who don't fulfill the law's deliberately burdensome requirements for documentation and reporting, and it would even impose a prison sentence of up to 5 years on doctors who fail to inform a law enforcement agency about another doctor who fails to meet the law's requirements. Viewed more broadly, this bill is part of a continuing campaign to take away women's constitutional right to privacy--a right that protects profoundly personal decisions concerning our bodies and our families. I remember very well the days prior to 1973, when abortion was outlawed in most States. An estimated 1.2 million women each year resorted to illegal abortions, typically performed in unsanitary conditions by unlicensed practitioners and often resulting in infection, hemorrhage, and even death. Well, I think women remember those days, and we are not going back. As Governor of New Hampshire in 1997, I signed into law a bill that repealed our State's archaic law that dated back to 1848 and made abortion a felony. Like that 1848 law, the legislation now before the Senate would also threaten physicians with criminal charges and imprisonment. Abortion later in pregnancy is extremely rare. Indeed, almost 99 percent of abortions occur before 21 weeks. When an abortion is needed later in pregnancy, it typically involves very complex, life- threatening, and heartbreaking circumstances--for example, the discovery of a severe and likely fatal abnormality, as described by Senator Hirono. In these difficult circumstances, a woman consults with her doctor and with other people she trusts. A woman needs the freedom to consider every medical option, including serious risks to her own life. The extremely narrow exceptions in the bill before us--exceptions if the pregnancy results from rape or incest--are deliberately designed to impose burdens, complications, and shame on women who have chosen to terminate a pregnancy. The victim must provide written verification that she has obtained counseling or medical treatment from a very specific list of ``medical providers'' who do not provide abortions and who are often strongly anti-abortion. This requirement is a completely unnecessary burden on a woman who is already dealing with a crisis. It is also insulting and condescending to all women. We are not children who need guidance from an adult. We can consult those we choose to consult, and we can make our own decisions. To impose this requirement in this crude manner is something right out of a handmaid's tale. Then, if the rape victim is a minor, she is allowed access to an abortion only if she can provide proof that she reported the crime to law enforcement. Again, this is completely out of touch with the real world. Only a small percentage of sexual assaults and rapes are reported to police. Nearly 80 percent of rape and sexual assault victims know their offender. So let's say this plainly. The reporting requirements in this bill are an outrageous attempt to judge and shame women and girls who have been victims of a violent crime. I heard from Rachel, who is a registered, board-certified nurse in New Hampshire. She told me that bills to impose blanket rules and arbitrary limitations--bills like the one before the Senate today--are out of touch with the reality she sees in her practice every day. Rachel said: While procedures at 20 weeks and beyond certainly comprised a small portion of the care we provided, it was absolutely critical for those that needed it. Many pregnancies are not surveyed with ultrasound until 19-20 weeks, at which time previously unforeseen complications can be detected. Then, there are often further procedures needed to finalize a diagnosis and a prognosis. For people who receive devastating news about a pregnancy after 20 weeks, abortion may be the best option, and they deserve access to that care. The American Medical Association opposes this bill. The AMA says: We ``strongly condemn any interference by the government or other third parties that causes a physician to compromise his or her medical judgment as to what information or treatment is in the best interest of the patient.'' I urge my colleagues to respect the women of this country and their right to make their own healthcare decisions without the unwelcome involvement of politicians and law enforcement agencies. Let's reject this partisan, extreme, and, frankly, unnecessary legislation today. Then, let's focus our bipartisan attention on the urgent business of passing a budget, funding our military, combating the opioid crisis, and the other needs that this country faces. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to pay tribute to George Twigg III, a long-time Granite Stater and former New Hampshire State representative, who passed away last month at the age of 85. Though he was raised in Massachusetts and retired to Maine, George was in many ways a quintessential Granite Stater, with a big personality, a great sense of humor, and a lifetime passion for politics and public engagement. After graduating from Boston University, he served 2 years in the U.S. Navy and later worked as a marketing representative for General Electric and other Fortune 500 companies. In 1968, he left his corporate career behind and moved to Gilmanton, NH, where he became a proud jack-of-many-trades, working in real estate sales, auctioneering, and appraising. George also worked as a justice of the peace, officiating at hundreds of weddings. He once married the same couple twice, though he felt obliged to warn them that, if they divorced again and later decided to marry for a third time, they would have to find someone else to officiate at the wedding. Throughout his adult life, George was active in politics and public service and gave generously of his time as a volunteer in many different capacities. A lifelong Republican, he shared many Granite Staters' fiscal conservatism and distaste for taxes. Indeed, in one campaign for election to the New Hampshire House of Representatives, he crisscrossed his district in a snowplow painted with the message ``No Tax Snow Jobs.'' While always true to his conservative convictions, George was a practitioner of the New Hampshire way in politics, always ready to reach across the aisle in order to advance the best interests of our State. In 1974, then-Governor Meldrim Thomson asked him to chair New Hampshire's eminent domain commission. He went on to serve 21 years on the board of tax and land appeals. George was a man of exceptional generosity. In 2014, he sold more than 85 acres of scenic land in Gilmanton at a price below fair-market value on the condition that it be preserved as open space for future generations to enjoy. He was equally generous in giving his time and talents to a wide range of volunteer activities. For decades, he refereed high school and college basketball games. He served on numerous town and county committees and volunteered his considerable skills as an auctioneer for countless charity auctions, including fundraisers for New Hampshire's public television station. The Granite State, and the Gilmanton community in particular, are grateful for his many gifts and acts of selfless service. Family and friends hope to gather for a memorial service later this year. I will be with them in spirit as they celebrate the life of this good and generous man.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I join my colleagues on the floor to speak in opposition to the nomination of Alex Azar to head the Department of Health and Human Services. I believe Mr. Azar is, first and foremost, a product of the pharmaceutical industry, with a long, consistent track record of sharply increasing drug prices during his tenure at Lilly USA. Furthermore, his nomination makes clear that President Trump did not mean it when he said repeatedly during the campaign that pharmaceutical companies are ``getting away with murder'' and that he as President would dramatically reduce drug prices for seniors and all Americans. Mr. Azar's nomination is yet one more example of the Trump administration putting special interests above the public interest and public safety. Mr. Azar has long opposed any Federal intervention in prescription drug pricing, things like allowing Medicare to negotiate for drug prices. Of course, his former company has profited handsomely from the government's hands-off approach. When Mr. Azar became the president of Lilly USA, he also became the chair of its pricing committee and had a major say in price increases for all domestically sold Lilly drugs from 2012 to 2014. During that time, the list and net prices of Lilly's drugs that were sold in the United States increased by double-digit percentages each year. As cochair of the Senate's Diabetes Caucus, I am especially troubled that during Mr. Azar's time with the company, Lilly more than tripled the price of insulin--jacking up the price from $74 to $269. Much of that increase occurred during Mr. Azar's years as chair of the pricing committee. These price increases are not only exorbitant but have caused real hardship to many of the nearly 30 million Americans who live with diabetes. As Candidate Trump would have put it, Lilly, under Mr. Azar's leadership, was ``getting away with murder.'' I am also concerned that Mr. Azar will continue and even ramp up the Trump administration's across-the-board campaign to sabotage our healthcare system. We are now 1 year into this administration's efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act. Regrettably, it is working. The uninsured rate rose in 2017 by 1.3 percentage points. That was nearly 3.2 million more people who were without health insurance. Already, the administration has eliminated those payments that allow insurance companies to keep down premiums and reduce copays and deductibles, and that has created further hardship on people who desperately need health insurance. Without reason or justification, the administration cut the open enrollment period by half. It slashed the budget for open enrollment ads on TV, radio, and the internet by 90 percent, which shut down most efforts to inform consumers about their enrollment options. Despite these efforts, they were not successful in dramatically reducing the number of people who tried to enroll in the Affordable Care Act because enrollment for 2018 was 8.8 million people compared to 9.2 million the year before. It shows how desperately people want to have health insurance. Of course, we know that since that enrollment period, the Republican leaders in Congress have used the tax bill to repeal the individual mandate. Meanwhile, in an interview, Mr. Azar spoke of his desire to ``hasten [the Affordable Care Act's] demise.'' Apparently, he doesn't appreciate that the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion, in particular, have been absolutely critical tools in the fight against the opioid epidemic. I urge Mr. Azar and President Trump to read the front page story in Sunday's New York Times. The story is about the devastating consequences of the opioid epidemic in my State of New Hampshire. The article is titled ``How a `Perfect Storm' in New Hampshire Has Fueled an Opioid Crisis.'' It was accompanied by an even more compelling article, titled ``1 Son, 4 Overdoses, 6 Hours,'' which profiles the life of Patrick Griffin of Pembroke, NH. In shocking detail, the article documents how Mr. Griffin, who has struggled for years with a substance misuse disorder, overdosed four times within a 6-hour period. Twice within those 6 hours, emergency medical responders came to his house and revived him with Narcan, the antidote that reverses opioid overdoses. In reading that article, some people will ask: Why can't he just control his substance use disorder? They don't understand this is a disease, that it changes people's brain makeups--the chemistry of an individual's brain. Just like heart disease or diabetes or any other chronic illness, there is a physiology that is involved with that that affects a person's ability to get better. One of the things that saves people like Patrick when one is overdosing is the drug Narcan, or naloxone, which is the official name. It has been used so much in New Hampshire that most people refer to it as Narcan. We have seen that the pharmaceutical industry has dramatically increased the price of Narcan as this epidemic has spread. The price of the drug that is needed by so many to save their lives has increased dramatically. A two-dose package of Narcan, manufactured by Evzio, cost $690 in 2014. It is $4,500 today. Generic doses of Narcan have increased between 95 and 129 percent since 2012. Bear in mind, it often takes multiple doses to revive people who have overdosed, so this has an impact on our healthcare system. In New Hampshire, it has had an impact on families, on municipalities, on first responders--all of those people who are trying to save people who have overdosed. As we all know, the opioid epidemic is a nationwide crisis, with some 63,000 Americans having been killed by drug overdoses in 2016. New Hampshire has been especially hard hit. The demise of the Affordable Care Act, which Mr. Azar says he wants, would mean that thousands of Granite Staters would lose access to treatment, with there being devastating consequences. That is true not just in New Hampshire but in States across this country. I think it is unconscionable that a Secretary of Health and Human Services would take away one of our most valuable tools for combating substance use disorders and that he would actively oppose access to healthcare for millions of Americans. For me, between Mr. Azar's coziness with the pharmaceutical industry and his disdain for the Affordable Care Act, which is the law of the land and which Mr. Azar would be charged with administering as Secretary, I think he is the wrong person to serve in the critically important post of Secretary of Health and Human Services. I intend to vote against his confirmation, and I hope my colleagues will do the same. I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, like I assume most of the rest of the Members of the Senate, I am very disappointed that today we have not reached a bipartisan agreement to reopen the government. I think it is important to note that there is a lot of shared frustration on both sides of the aisle about how we got here. Leader McConnell, Senator Graham, and other Republicans have expressed their exasperation at the fact that for weeks President Trump hasn't stuck to a position for longer than a couple of hours and that he has derailed several proposals which would have addressed the concerns that have been expressed by Democrats in this body about how to move forward to keep the government open. Thankfully, there is also a lot of bipartisan consensus in the Senate that we need to work together to fix our situation, to get the government up and running again, and to address some of the long-term challenges that have led to this moment. However, in order to do this, we need the President and we need Republican leadership to provide some leadership so we can move forward. I am committed to negotiations that will allow us to address certain key issues: first and foremost, I believe, is a long-term budget agreement that will go through the remainder of this fiscal year. That will put our defense on solid footing, yet not shortchange our domestic needs. Congress has to set aside the short-term funding bills--this is the fourth one in just the last 3\1/2\ months, since the beginning of this fiscal year--because these bills inflict real damage on our domestic needs and also on our Armed Forces. We also need the necessary Federal resources to help communities and first responders across the country effectively combat the national opioid epidemic. We need long-term funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program, for community health centers, and for other health issues we are facing. I have rural hospitals in New Hampshire that if they don't get the disproportionate share payments, they could be in real financial trouble. We need to address these challenges that are facing States across the country. We also need a solution that will give Dreamers the path to citizenship they deserve so they can live and work without fear of deportation. A bipartisan deal that will provide long-term budget certainty is absolutely critical for our national security. It can't be overstated how much damage continued short-term funding causes our military. We have been repeatedly warned by the Pentagon of the damaging impacts of budget uncertainty. We heard from Secretary Mattis. In just the last couple of weeks, he came to the Democratic and Republican Caucuses and said: Please don't give us another continuing resolution. Army Chief of Staff GEN Mark Milley has cautioned that the Army's combat readiness is significantly hampered as training cycles are disrupted and sometimes completely discontinued. Just recently--in fact, on Friday, I believe--the Pentagon's spokeswoman echoed the sentiment, saying that operating under years of continuing resolutions is ``wasteful and destructive'' and that what is needed is a ``fully funded'' budget. When we had our first Navy caucus--I know the Presiding Officer can identify with this because we met with Admiral Richardson, and Admiral Richardson said: We tell everybody in the Navy not to count on doing anything in the first quarter of a fiscal year because we have been operating under continuing resolutions for so long. As we continue working toward a bipartisan compromise, it is critically important that we ensure our military servicemembers, as well as Department of Defense civilians and contractors who support them, receive the pay they have earned. I was disappointed when Senator Kaine and Senator Duckworth made that unanimous consent request, and when Senator McCaskill made it on Friday night, that it was objected to. The fact is, there is an effort to get this done by unanimous consent, running what is called the hotline on both sides of the aisle, and the majority is objecting to allowing us to go ahead and make the commitment that we are going to pay our men and women of the military and their civilian support. Our men and women in uniform, as well as Department of Defense civilians, work tirelessly to protect our national security, and they and their families should not have to worry about whether they are going to receive a paycheck. We urgently need to pass the Pay Our Military Act legislation. This is legislation that will allow our men and women in uniform to focus on their critical missions across the globe that are paramount to protecting this Nation. They need the peace of mind to know they will be compensated. I believe that is what everybody in this Chamber thinks we should do. Importantly, that legislation would ensure that death benefits will be funded should a servicemember be killed overseas. Again, I think this is something that all of us agree needs to happen and that we can agree it should happen now because whether you are stationed in Afghanistan, on the Korean Peninsula, or deterring Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, our servicemembers should not have to worry about whether they will be able to provide for their families and loved ones back home. We passed similar legislation in 2013 during the last government shutdown, and I urge swift passage of this important legislation again so our men and women in the military can continue to protect our country without worry. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, the Senate and the House right now are struggling to pass yet another short-term continuing resolution to avoid a Federal shutdown at midnight on Friday. For nine consecutive years now, since I have gotten to the Senate, we have begun the fiscal year without regular appropriations bills being enacted into law. If we pass another continuing resolution this week, it will be the fourth continuing resolution for fiscal year 2018. There were three CRs, or continuing resolutions, for fiscal year 2017. This ``government by CR'' is chaotic and it is disruptive. It is inflicting real damage on our Armed Forces, as well as on critical domestic programs that benefit people across this country. I live in a very small town in New Hampshire called Madbury, and if our board of selectmen in Madbury committed this kind of budgetary malpractice, we would get rid of them. The fact is that the frantic scramble to pass a new CR by midnight on Friday is yet another manufactured crisis here in Washington. It is a crisis that is completely unnecessary. The Appropriations Committees in both Houses of Congress have completed their work in a thoughtful, timely manner. In this Congress, the House passed all 12 of its appropriations bills out of committee. In the Senate, the Appropriations Committee passed 8 of our 12 bills, and we did that with overwhelming bipartisan support. The only reason we didn't report the other four bills out of committee is because the leadership directed us to stop. So let's be very clear. This is not about appropriators not being able to get our work done and not being able to agree on what we want to do. This is about the leadership in Congress--the Republican majority--which has refused to allow us to go forward with a regular order budget process. The House, the Senate, and the White House are all controlled by Republicans, and if they wanted to complete the appropriations process in a timely manner, we could have done so, and we could have done it with bipartisan support. Now, I am especially concerned about the damage that government by CR is inflicting on our Armed Forces and national security. Those of us who serve on the Armed Services Committee were disturbed by testimony from the Chief of Naval Operations, ADM John Richardson, in September of 2016. He said: ``Our ability to achieve true effectiveness and efficiency has been undermined by budget instability, workforce limitations, and eight--now likely nine''--and it was nine--``straight years of budget uncertainty and continuing resolutions.'' I remember when Admiral Richardson came and spoke to the Navy caucus, and we were asking him what his concerns were. He said: Well, you know, my biggest concern is budget certainty, and what we tell everybody in the Navy now to figure on is to figure that they can't do anything in the first quarter of a fiscal year because they are going to be operating under a continuing resolution. He pointed out: ``This compromises our mission, and drives inefficiency and waste into all that we do.'' In a similar vein, the Army Chief of Staff, GEN Mark Milley, has repeatedly warned us of the damaging impacts that budget uncertainty has on the Army's combat readiness. Training cycles are disrupted, and sometimes they are discontinued. All non-mission-critical maintenance is postponed for the length of a CR. Now, I share the views of many in this Congress that we need to increase support for our military. We live in an uncertain world, where we are facing security threats from ISIS to Russia and North Korea, and we could go down a long list. We must be prepared to respond, but we can't increase military spending at the expense of funding our domestic needs. When it comes to funding domestic needs, no challenge is more urgent and frightening than the nationwide opioid epidemic. In my State of New Hampshire, nearly everyone has a heartbreaking story of a family member, a friend, or a colleague whose life has been destroyed by opioids. We can just look at these headlines and see what the challenge is. This is on August 16, 2017, from our State newspaper, the Concord Monitor, in the capital: ``N.H. drug overdose deaths--mostly from fentanyl--continue at a high rate.'' The CDC recently said that New Hampshire has the highest overdose death rate from fentanyl, the third highest in the country. Nationwide, in 2016, more than 63,000 Americans died from overdoses--more than 63,000 people. If we were losing that many Americans to a disease outbreak, to a war in the Middle East or elsewhere, there would be an outcry in Congress and we would pass legislation to address the crisis in a matter of days. Well, this current funding crisis is an opportunity for us to address the opioid epidemic. In recent weeks, along with my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Hassan, I have urged the Senate to make an immediate emergency $25 billion Federal investment in treatment and prevention--a down payment on a sustained, reliable funding stream to support efforts by States and communities. At long last, we could provide a response that is commensurate with the magnitude of this public health crisis. There is bipartisan support in this body and throughout Congress to address the opioid epidemic. President Trump promised when he was campaigning, and since he became President, that he was going to work to end this epidemic. Yet we are still waiting to see the resources that States and communities need. Now, last week many of us watched with great anticipation when President Trump invited bipartisan representatives from both the House and Senate, and the television cameras, to talk about how we were going to address the funding situation that we are in, and how we were going to address DACA--those young people who were brought to this country through no fault of their own and are now in a situation where they don't have citizenship and they don't have a way forward. Senators Graham and Durbin spent four months negotiating an excellent, bipartisan agreement to strengthen border security and to give Dreamers the path to citizenship that they deserve. The President, in that meeting that we all watched said: Bring me a solution, and I will sign it. Well, they reached an agreement that would likely pass in the Senate with at least 60 votes. Last week, President Trump applauded the deal. He invited Senators Graham and Durbin to the White House to finalize it. And when they got there, they were shocked to find that the President had completely reversed himself. This morning, Senator Graham was stating the obvious when he said: ``We do not have a reliable partner in the White House.'' Well, we do have reliable partners in this body. Give us that bill. Let us vote on it. Let's send it to the President, and let the President veto it if he doesn't like it. Yesterday, Majority Leader McConnell said: ``As soon as the President figures out what he is for, then I will be convinced that we are not just spinning our wheels but actually dealing with a bill that can become law.'' Well, again, we have a bipartisan deal on DACA. Let's vote on it. There are very real consequences to the constant chaos, turmoil, and policy reversals that have become the new normal under this President. We must commit ourselves on a bipartisan basis to restoring order to the appropriations process. It is time to fulfill our constitutional responsibility to pass full-year appropriations bills that address the needs of the American people. As we work to resolve this current fiscal impasse, any agreement should include a number of basic provisions. We should fund government for the remainder of this year--no more short-term continuing resolutions--enough. It is enough. We need to stop that. The majority of Members in this Chamber and throughout Congress understand that we can't keep doing this. Any deal should increase support for our military, and it should provide parity for our domestic needs: to address the opioid epidemic; for our veterans; for the Children's Health Insurance Program and community health centers; for those Medicaid payments that are so critical to our rural hospitals; for disaster relief in Florida, Texas, California, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands; and for pension relief for people who have worked their whole lives and who are facing old age without the pensions they paid into. We can get this done. There are enough people of goodwill on both sides of the aisle in this body and in the other body so that we can do this if we are allowed to work together. So Democrats and Republicans, let's get this done. Let's keep the government funded, and let's show the American people that we can work together in the interests of this country. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

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

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, let me applaud my colleague from West Virginia, Senator Capito, for her work in addressing the opioid epidemic. It is something that I know, in a bipartisan way, we care about in this Chamber, and it is one place in which I think we could come to some agreement about increasing resources as we come to an agreement on the budget for the upcoming year. So I thank the Senator for her comments.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, yesterday President Trump and congressional Republicans went to the White House to celebrate the passage of tax legislation that was partisan and that was rammed through the Senate earlier this week without one public hearing. Debate on this bill in the Senate is over, but I think we must not lose sight of the impact this legislation will have on so many families and on our economy. Make no mistake--this tax bill is not tax reform. Instead, it asks middle-class families and future generations to foot the bill for massive tax breaks for large corporations and the wealthy. By adding over $1 trillion to the national debt, this tax plan will undermine our ability to address so many of the real challenges that face this country and middle-class families in America. Indeed, Republicans have already made clear that this tax bill is just step No. 1. What we have already heard from Members of the House is that step No. 2 is going to be next year, and that includes deep cuts to Social Security, to Medicare, and to Medicaid. They are saying we are going to have to do that to address the deficits that have been made far worse by this bill. Meanwhile, the majority's headlong rush to ram through this tax bill has meant they jeopardized access to healthcare for tens of millions of Americans. My colleague from Ohio just talked about so many families in his State who are worried about losing their children's health insurance. We are seeing that in New Hampshire, as well, and across this country. By considering only stop-gap, short-term reauthorizations of critical healthcare programs, fear and uncertainty have been created for countless American families. Because the Congress has failed to enact a long-term reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program, health coverage for nearly 9 million children across the United States is at risk. Congress has failed to enact a long-term reauthorization of the community health centers, which more than 25 million Americans rely on for essential healthcare. And according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the tax bill's repeal of the individual mandate means that nearly 13 million fewer Americans will have health coverage in the next year, and many millions more are going to pay increases in their rates. In addition, the majority has also failed to enact a long-term reauthorization of the Special Diabetes Program. That is a devastating blow to nearly 1.25 million Americans who are living with type 1 diabetes. All of these programs have earned strong bipartisan support. That is what is so hard to understand about this. All of these programs should have been fully reauthorized for the long term because I know my colleagues in the Senate support these programs. Once again, we have missed a prime opportunity to address the opioid crisis. We desperately need a Federal response to the opioid epidemic that includes robust, sustained resources that match the scale of this epidemic. Just this week, we learned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that because of soaring overdose mortality rates, life expectancy in the United States has declined for the second year in a row. For the first time since the early 1960s, we have seen the second year of decline in life expectancy because so many people are overdosing because of substance use disorders. In 2016, 63,000 people died from overdoses. If we were losing that many people to a war in the Middle East, there would be an outcry in this country. I want to know where the outcry is, and when is this body going to act? On Tuesday, the University of New Hampshire released a study that cited a fivefold increase over the past decade in our State of babies who were born addicted because of their parents' substance use disorders. Yet, in the face of this uncontrolled national public health emergency, the majority has once again failed to find appropriate funding. Again, this is an issue that I know has bipartisan support. I worked with my colleagues here on the other side of the aisle to try to address this issue. Yet it has not been a priority, just as funding children's health insurance and the community health centers and other healthcare initiatives--the Special Diabetes Program--have not been a priority for funding. This is an enormous lost opportunity. We could have written bipartisan legislation to address all of these issues, and we could have fully authorized, in a timely manner, critical health programs on which tens of millions of Americans rely. We could have addressed the opioid emergency, which is ravaging communities across this country. But instead, what did we get? We got a tax bill that makes a mockery of reform. It makes the Tax Code more complex, not less. It will grow the deficits and our national debt. And instead of helping the middle class in reducing the complexity of our outdated Tax Code, it creates a bonanza of new loopholes for the large corporations and the wealthiest in this country. The majority here in the Senate had no problem coming up with $1.5 trillion in unpaid-for tax cuts for the biggest corporations in this country. In the final days before passing the tax bill, they had no problem creating a new $700 million loophole for oil and gas partnerships that will benefit oil giants, such as Shell and Valero. They had no problem creating a new loophole for wealthy individuals with large real estate holdings--a loophole that has been described as a jackpot for the Trump family and for several Members of Congress. They had no problem retaining the carried interest loophole at a cost to the Treasury of $20 billion. I remember during the campaign when Candidate Donald Trump railed against the carried interest loophole as a giveaway to Wall Street that was unfair to American workers. Again and again, Candidate Trump promised to kill this loophole, but President Trump now enthusiastically supports keeping it in the tax bill. Yesterday at the White House, Republican leaders and President Trump celebrated the tax bill, while at the same time, many in the majority party insist that the Federal Government can't afford to help 9 million children who depend on the CHIP program and tens of millions of working Americans who rely on community health centers or the Affordable Care Act for access to healthcare. Well, according to a study by the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation released this week, by the time many of the provisions of this tax bill expire in 2027, large corporations and the wealthiest Americans will continue to enjoy the massive permanent tax cuts because those cuts are not set to expire, but almost every income group below $75,000 will see tax increases by 2027. Make no mistake--this tax bill is a betrayal of middle-class Americans, and it is especially a betrayal of tens of millions of Americans who placed their faith in President Trump. This tax bill is also a case of sadly misplaced priorities. The majority in Congress have been single-mindedly focused on passing this bill at every step, adding more and more giveaways to large corporations, instead of working across the aisle to focus on the needs of the middle class. Meanwhile, they have shortchanged the Children's Health Insurance Program, they have shortchanged community health centers, and they have shortchanged the Special Diabetes Program. They have caused hospitals and clinics across my State and across America to begin the process of reducing their services. This really demonstrates a lack of understanding and a total disregard for the needs and priorities of so many Americans. Yesterday, Republican leaders and the President celebrated the passage of their misguided tax bill, but Senators who care deeply about regular order and bipartisanship in this body are not celebrating. Americans concerned about our national debt and our children's future are not celebrating. Americans who see growing income inequality as a threat to our democracy--a threat made far worse by this tax bill--are not celebrating either. And parents of the 9 million children who rely on the Children's Health Insurance Program are dreading notifications from their States that their children will no longer have health insurance. These families aren't celebrating during this holiday season either. As I said earlier, the debate on this bill is over, but I intend to continue to speak out against this very damaging tax legislation. I pledge to continue to speak out in support of the real needs of working people across America, including the need for affordable healthcare. In the new year ahead, I certainly hope to be able to work with Senators on both sides of the aisle to address these urgent needs. The American people deserve better than this legislation. They also deserve a Senate that values bipartisanship, that values cooperation and compromise and the service of all Americans, not just the largest corporations and the wealthiest in this country. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, New Hampshire takes pride in its many firsts among the States, including our first in the Nation Presidential primary. This year, Granite Staters have been celebrating the 300th anniversary of the New Hampshire State Library, the first State library in America. It all began in Portsmouth on January 25, 1717, when the 27th General Assembly directed ``ye Law books be distributed among ye severall towns of this Province in proportion according to their last Prov. tax, except two books which shall be for ye use of ye Govr & Councile and house of representatives.'' Three centuries later, the original books are surrounded by a modern collection of more than 600,000 items, housed across from the State house in Concord. The State Library is one of our most handsome public buildings, built in 1896 of New Hampshire granite, American steel, and Italian marble. We Granite Staters love our libraries, and we have led the Nation in making books available to all citizens. As State librarian Michael York told New Hampshire Public Radio: ``We often use the term `anchor institutions.' There are 234 communities in New Hampshire and there are 234 public libraries. Nobody else can make that claim. Not McDonald's, not 7-11, not Dunkin' Donuts.'' In 1833, Peterborough established the first tax-supported public library in the world, a central collection of books owned by the people and free to all residents of the town. In the early 1800s, so-called social or parlor libraries sprang up across our State--places where dues-paying members came together to share books. A century later, wealthy philanthropists built free public libraries all across our State, including nine impressive Carnegie libraries. Phillips Exeter Academy, a private school in Exeter, NH, is home to the largest secondary school library in the world. Today every city and town in New Hampshire has a public library, and a key mission of the State library is to provide professional development for local librarians to keep them abreast of the latest developments in library science and technologies. The State library serves as a centralized location for State and government documents, and its collection specializes in New Hampshire newspapers, authors, and books on New Hampshire history and culture. It includes an archive of Granite State political history, including posters, buttons, and bumper stickers from New Hampshire Presidential primaries dating back to 1952. One of its most prized possessions is a 20-foot, floor-to-ceiling ``Hitchcock map'' of New Hampshire, with the State's mountains, valleys, and lakes carved in relief by Dartmouth College--students in 1877. During my years as Governor, I had the daily pleasure of looking out on our beautiful State library from my office windows in the State capitol. Both the building and its collection are among our State's most prized cultural treasures. I am grateful to State librarian Michael York and his professional staff for their dedicated service to our State and for their loving stewardship of this special building. I join with people across the Granite State in celebrating the first 300 years of America's first State library.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I was interested to hear my colleague and friend from North Dakota talking about this tax bill because, sadly, there has not been a lot of bipartisan work on the bill. I really agree there is a consensus that tax reform is it long overdue, but we need tax reform that simplifies the Tax Code, bolsters the middle class, and helps small businesses create jobs. I think those principles could have been the basis for really good bipartisan work here in the Senate, and in Congress, generally, to come up with a bill that would have done all of those things, but, unfortunately, the legislation in front of us does none. The result is a partisan tax bill, written in secret and without public hearings, adds to the national debt, punishes the middle class and small businesses, and gives massive tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy. Last week, I came to the floor to share the concerns of Granite Staters about this legislation. They were amplified at a forum I had on Monday at Southern New Hampshire University, where I heard from students, graduate students, and higher education leaders in the State about the damage this bill would do to our State and to our national economy. I have heard some reports today that there will be changes that come out of the conference committee that may address some of the concerns about the bill's impact on education. I hope that is true. Unfortunately, I haven't heard what those changes are. I don't know if any Democrats here have heard what those changes are. Unfortunately, these negotiations, like the bill, are being done in secret, and the future of students and so many people in New Hampshire and the country hang in the balance. In particular, what I heard at the forum with the students and educators was that the bill as it passed the House would raise taxes on New Hampshire students and would make it financially impossible for many of them to continue their educations. As passed, the House tax bill would eliminate the ability of individuals to deduct the interest they pay on their student loan debt. Nationwide, student loan debt has roughly tripled since 2004 and now totals a staggering $1.3 trillion--more than the total credit card debt in the country. It is particularly burdensome for those of us in New Hampshire because New Hampshire's 2016 graduating class had the highest per capita student loan debt in the country--an average of $36,367. The Republican leader's tax bill would make this crisis far worse not only for current students but for those who graduated many years ago but are still burdened by student loan debt. It would prevent nearly 80,000 Granite Staters from deducting interest on their student loans. The House legislation would also make it far more expensive to get an advanced degree because it eliminates tax-free waivers for tuition assistance. I am hearing recent reports that this provision may be taken out of the final bill. I certainly hope that is the case because as currently written, it would put graduate school financially out of reach for many students. A Dartmouth College student pursuing a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences wrote that counting tuition waivers as earned income would raise his yearly taxes by more than $10,000. He said he would no longer be able to afford rent and groceries and would have to consider dropping out of school. Ken Ferreira, the associate vice president for student financial services at Franklin Pierce University, told me, in no uncertain terms, that tuition waivers are not income, and it is wrong to tax them. I could not agree more. Tyler Kane is pursuing a master's degree in environmental engineering at the University of New Hampshire. He told me he already owes close to $40,000 in student loans and works nearly 60 hours a week. After paying rent and other expenses, his stipend leaves him with less than $200 a month. If his tuition waiver becomes taxable, that would be a tax increase of $2,500, and it would wreck his budget, leaving him in a $33-a-month hole. Along with many of his graduate student colleagues, he would have to consider dropping out of school. It makes no sense to increase the burden of student debt and to impose new taxes on graduate students struggling to get by so we can give the biggest corporations in this country and the wealthiest a tax cut. It is estimated that by 2020, two-thirds of all jobs in the United States will require some form of higher education. Yet today less than 45 percent of Americans have at least a 2-year degree. As I talk with small business owners across New Hampshire, one of their biggest challenges is finding skilled workers. The last thing we need to do is make education more expensive and unaffordable for millions of young Americans. As one New Hampshire businessman told me, it is like eating our own seed corn. For the United States to stay competitive in the global economy, we can't afford to discourage talented young people from going to college or pursuing a graduate degree. I also had the opportunity to talk with Nate Stafford. He is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Hampshire. Because he serves as a teaching assistant, the university provides a tuition waiver of nearly $27,000, which would be taxed under the provision of the House bill. If his tuition waiver were taxed, that would force him to consider opting out of graduate school entirely. I also heard from university administrators, who shared their concerns. Sister Paula Marie Buley, president of Rivier University, pointed out that the proposed new taxes on students is ``a tax on our future.'' Jan Nesbit, the senior vice provost for research at the University of New Hampshire, warned that taxing graduate students' tuition waivers would have a cascading impact that would raise undergraduate tuition across the board because losing graduate students would affect both teaching assistants and research and drive up costs. I heard from Cari Moorhead, the interim dean of the graduate school at the University of New Hampshire. She pointed out that many international students at UNH would be lost and noted that Canada has recently seen more than a 40-percent increase in international students. They are very pleased to be benefiting from the brain drain from the United States because of the financial barriers that we are putting up for graduate students. The other damaging aspect of this legislation, which I think many people are not aware of, is that the tuition assistance that many companies provide to their employees would count as taxable income. Forty years ago, Congress provided employers with the flexibility to offer up to $5,250 in annual tax-free educational benefits to employees. This was designed to advance competitiveness and fill the need for more skilled workers. If we eliminate those benefits, how many of those employees who are looking to advance themselves through education will not be able to do that? In so many ways, this tax overhaul legislation would take America backward, not forward. Tax reform should be about helping Americans prepare for the jobs of the 21st century; it shouldn't make it harder to afford college or graduate school. Tax reform should be about strengthening the middle class, not burdening it with higher taxes. Tax reform should be about growing the economy, not growing the deficits and the debt. Like my colleagues on this side of the aisle, I am eager to work to genuinely reform the Tax Code. Reform is long overdue, but the bill we have before us is not reform. We need a bipartisan bill that puts the middle class first, puts small businesses first, and doesn't leave a massive debt for our children and grandchildren. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I agree with my colleagues that we need tax reform, but we need tax reform that simplifies the Tax Code, bolsters the middle class, and helps small businesses to create jobs. I think we can do that, and we can do that in a fiscally responsible way, but we need to work together, Republicans and Democrats, as we did the last time we did tax reform. Unfortunately, these priorities are not reflected in the bill that is before us. Instead, it is a partisan, fiscally irresponsible giveaway to the wealthy and the largest corporations in this country, and it comes at the expense of the middle class and small businesses. We know that the wealthiest Americans will see massive tax breaks from this bill, including President Trump himself. In fact, the New York Times has estimated that President Trump and his family would save more than $1 billion from this tax bill. How does this legislation pay for these tax cuts? Well, it asks today's middle class and future generations to foot the bill. The nonpartisan analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation has found that the bill will raise taxes on millions of middle-class families making less than $75,000 a year. The bill sunsets any middle-class tax breaks in 2026, and at the same time it makes tax breaks for large corporations permanent. It increases the national debt by $1.5 trillion. I think the headline in the current Forbes Magazine says it all. It says ``The GOP Tax Bill Is The End Of All Economic Sanity In Washington.'' As more people look at this bill, they are beginning to see how it will hurt middle-class families across the country. Over the past few weeks, I have heard more and more concerns from people throughout New Hampshire, and I just want to take a minute to highlight some of these concerns. I met recently with the New Hampshire Realtors and homebuilders. They are major advocates for home ownership in New Hampshire. They told me that this bill is nothing short of an attack on home ownership. In particular, they are concerned about the impact of repealing the State and local tax deduction, which would be a huge hit to middle-class families in New Hampshire. Right now, more than 200,000 Granite State homeowners use the State and local tax deductions so that they are not double-taxed. That is about one-third of taxpayers in New Hampshire. It is particularly important to us where property taxes account for 66 percent of all State and local taxes. That is a higher share than any other State in the country. Homeowners are also concerned about proposals to limit the mortgage interest deduction, including on home equity lines of credit, where homeowners in New Hampshire are going to get hurt more than others because we have approximately 14 percent of homeowners who have a home equity line of credit, compared to 3.8 percent nationally. The result is, according to the Realtors and the homebuilders, that home values will decline significantly. According to the Association of Realtors, this bill will put downward pressure on home values by as much as 18 percent in New Hampshire and 10 percent nationally. If we look at this chart for New Hampshire, we can extrapolate this across the rest of the economy. If we look at this tax bill, this is the impact on homeowners in New Hampshire. Values are going to be reduced by about 18 percent. That is equivalent to what we saw after the financial meltdown in 2008, where, again, we had about that same reduction in property values--about 18 percent. That is a huge hit for us in New Hampshire and for people across the country. I thought the Realtors put it very well when they said: It is simply unfair to ask homeowners, who pay 83 percent of all Federal income taxes, to take a greater tax burden so that the biggest corporations in this country can have steep tax cuts. It doesn't make sense. I also heard significant concern from students, colleges, and businesses that this bill will raise taxes on students trying to get the skills they need to get ahead. That is really crazy because when we do that, we don't create the workforce we need for the future. The House bill, for example, would eliminate the ability of individuals to deduct the interest on their student loans, and it would tax graduate students on tuition assistance. I heard from a graduate student who, right now, is making $20,000 a year on a stipend. That is what he is trying to live on. If this bill goes into effect, he will pay $5,000 of that in taxes. It doesn't make sense. We need to be encouraging our students to get graduate and higher education degrees so that they can take on the jobs of the future. Again, in New Hampshire, it is a particular problem, where student loan debt is higher than the national average. For the graduating class of 2016, New Hampshire had the highest per capita student loan debt in the country. The average debt for New Hampshire graduates was $36,367. We know, nationally, student loan debt has roughly tripled since 2004 to a staggering $1.3 trillion. That is higher than the total credit card debt. What this legislation is likely to do is to make that worse for young people who are trying to get out of college, have their student loans paid, get married, start families, buy a house. If they continue to have this impact, they are not going to be able to do any of those things. The top challenge that faces New Hampshire businesses and so many businesses across this country is finding skilled workers. The last thing we should be doing is making education more expensive. I also serve as the ranking member on the Senate Small Business Committee. Small businesses employ more than half of our workforce. They make up more than 99 percent of all employers. We need to work in a bipartisan way to enact tax reform that supports our small businesses. Again, this bill, unfortunately, doesn't provide meaningful reform for small businesses and the problems they are facing with the Tax Code. First of all, this bill doesn't address the top issue that we have heard from small businesses--tax simplification and the cutting of redtape in our Tax Code. For entrepreneurs, time is one of their most valuable resources. Every wasted hour spent filling out forms or navigating confusing tax rules is an hour they can't spend innovating, marketing, and growing their businesses. The tax system is so difficult to navigate that 89 percent of small businesses turn to outside tax preparers to fill out their forms and file their returns. The compliance burden for small businesses is 67 percent higher than it is for large businesses, and it costs about $18 billion annually. Tax reform should be an opportunity to help us help small businesses focus on what they do best, and that is running their business. Instead, this bill will result in even more redtape and complexity. According to a former Joint Committee on Taxation economist, if this bill becomes law: Treasury will be writing regulations and Congress will be enacting technical corrections for years. There are more ticking time bombs in this bill than in a Roadrunner cartoon. A recent poll of small business owners from Businesses for Responsible Tax Reform found that a majority of them oppose the plan. This is polling that has just been done in the last week or so; 61 percent oppose, and only 28 percent support. Small businesses are even more concerned about the impact this tax bill will have on our debt and deficit. In fact, 61 percent of small business owners oppose raising the debt by $1.5 trillion to pay for tax cuts. Increasing the debt will inhibit our ability to address the real challenges facing small businesses, such as educating a skilled workforce, building out broadband in rural areas, and fixing our broken infrastructure. Then there is the repeal of the individual mandate, which is a part of this tax proposal. According to CBO, repealing the individual mandate, as this bill does, would cause 13 million Americans to become uninsured by 2027. It would sharply raise premiums for those who purchase insurance on the individual market. Now, we have heard from our colleagues that they think that including the Alexander-Murray legislation would help address that, but that is not designed to address the underlying healthcare bill that we have in this country. All that will do is address the uncertainty in the marketplace. Repealing the individual mandate is going to deny health insurance to millions of Americans. It is going to cost middle-income families more, and, ultimately, it is going to have an impact on people's abilities to provide for their families and the long-term health of this Nation. That is not the kind of investment we should be making in the future of this country. There are many more issues with this tax bill, but my time is limited. If we look at who is opposed to this bill, there are so many organizations: the Realtors, the homebuilders, the AARP, and the Fraternal Order of Police. They have all come out in opposition, and that is just to name a few. I have heard from nearly 3,000 Granite Staters who have expressed their opposition to the impact of this bill, and as more and more people have a chance to read it, that number is going to continue to grow. You know I want to work with my colleagues here. I think Republicans and Democrats should genuinely reform the Tax Code. It is long overdue. But we need to do it in a way that is transparent, that looks at where we want to go in the future and what we need to be investing in in this country. We need to work in a bipartisan way that puts the middle class and small businesses first and that doesn't leave a massive debt for our children and grandchildren. If we pass this legislation, that is exactly what we are going to be doing--leaving future generations to deal with a massive debt without the benefits of the investment that we should be making in this country. So it is a sad day for America. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, it is hard to read or to listen to the news these days without hearing about Russia's interference in our American democracy, its influence peddling, and about the misinformation that has been spreading on social media. I have bipartisan legislation that would address an aspect of this. This legislation is cosponsored by Senator Todd Young, and it is legislation that would give law enforcement the tools they need to create greater transparency about foreign individuals and entities that are operating in the United States in the interest of other governments. It would make it easier for the public to better track information they are receiving, particularly from governments that are hostile to the United States. This bill would give the Department of Justice necessary authority to investigate potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which is also known as FARA. We have heard a lot about that. This was legislation that was passed during the thirties, as there was fear about the rise of Nazism and Hitler in Germany and the effort to spread propaganda in the United States. This would allow the American public to clearly trace where information is coming from and who is paying for it. I think, in this age of misinformation, that is especially important to the public. At a time when our law enforcement officials, foreign policy experts, and leaders continue to grapple with the extent of Russia's intrusion into our democratic elections, this legislation is more urgent than ever. The need for this legislation is perhaps most clearly demonstrated by the case of Russian propaganda networks like RT America and Sputnik International. Both networks continually propagate and share content and programming that are designed to very subtly confuse and influence audiences worldwide. If you have ever listened to either of those channels, you will know there is just this subtle difference in how they present information. In the United States, RT America is available on cable TVs across the country. It is considered to be one of the most high-profile assets in Vladimir Putin's vast $1.4 billion propaganda machine. According to an assessment made public by the U.S. intelligence community in January, RT is the Kremlin's ``principal international outlet,'' and it is integral to Russia's information warfare operations across the globe. The Kremlin selects the staff for RT and closely supervises RT's coverage, including disinformation and false news stories designed to undermine our democracy. If you have any question about that, watch RT here. It is on the cable network here in the DC area. RT News has publicly boasted that it can dodge our laws by claiming to be financed by a nonprofit organization and not by the Russian Government. Recently, the Department of Justice asked RT America to, in fact, register as a foreign agent. RT rejected an entirely reasonable request from the Justice Department to respect our laws. They refused to register. How did we respond? Well, we continued to allow RT America to spread its disinformation and false narratives. This is unacceptable. We responded that way because we don't have the teeth we need in the law to be able to enforce it. That is what my legislation with Senator Young will do. That is why it is so important. It would strengthen FARA by giving the Department of Justice authority to compel foreign organizations to produce documentation to confirm funding sources and foreign connections. This new investigative authority was requested by the Department of Justice, and it is supported by the Government Accountability Office, the Sunlight Foundation, and the Project on Government Oversight. This is a good government piece of legislation. In fact, if this authority that we have in our legislation were in place today, the Justice Department could immediately investigate RT America and publicly expose its ties to the Kremlin. In the absence of such authority, all the Justice Department can do is ask RT to voluntarily adhere to FARA regulations and hope the propaganda outlet complies. What are the odds of that? Pretty slim. Clearly, based on RT's refusal to comply with FARA, the Kremlin is well aware of the limitations that are inherent in our law. As we wait for this commonsense legislation to move forward, the Kremlin, RT America, and Sputnik continue to wield their harmful propaganda and attempt to influence the American public. Since the publication of the intelligence community's January report on Russia's interference in our 2016 Presidential election, we have learned that Moscow spent millions of dollars buying ads on social media sites and search engines, often using the very clips that had been aired by RT on its YouTube channel. Last week, representatives of American social media companies testified before Congress and illustrated the lengths the Kremlin went in order to deceptively spread divisive propaganda, all seemingly without a trace or any clear indication about the origins of these ads and RT's news blasts. The misinformation included numerous reports run by RT News on supposed U.S. election fraud and voting. So they spread, and they clearly intended to spread confusion about our elections in 2016 to try and encourage people to believe our elections don't work, to undermine our election process. They talked about machine vulnerabilities. They claimed the results of U.S. elections could not be trusted and did not reflect the people's will. Sadly, too many people saw those stories and believed they were real. These are not just random examples of fake news. These stories are part and parcel of a broader influence campaign designed and directed by the Kremlin's leadership and pedaled by government-funded trolls in St. Petersburg and other front organizations. So in the same way that Russia is building up its military force, its navy, its ability to operate in space, and its missile program, it has also built up its propaganda campaign in ways that are designed to undermine Western democracies. If we don't pay attention to this, then shame on us. We are, of course, a resilient democracy. We are confident that our values and institutions will prevail in the free marketplace of ideas. Our Constitution, unlike Russia's, protects the right of individuals and organizations to spread Russian viewpoints, disinformation, and, even, outright lies. But no organization, including RT America or any other front outlet for a country that is hostile to the United States, has the right to conceal a foreign funding source and thumb its nose at requests from our Department of Justice. The American people have a right to know if RT America is a Russian propaganda organization that takes its direction from the Kremlin. They have a right to know who is funding those programs and what kind of misinformation they are spreading. To that end, I urge my colleagues to put an end to the Kremlin's charade by supporting the Foreign Agents Registration Modernization and Enforcement Act. Let's give the Department of Justice the tools it needs to investigate and expose RT America and to fight back against the Kremlin's interference in our democracy. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague from Washington, Senator Murray, and congratulate her and Senator Alexander on being able to reach agreement to move forward to address the uncertainty in the marketplace. Like Senator Murray, I also want to begin with what we are seeing going on in this open enrollment period. Despite all of the efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act, to shorten the time period in which people can sign up, to make it more difficult by having the site closed for part of Sundays, we are seeing a record number of people enroll in the initial days of open enrollment. According to news reports, on the first day alone, about 1 million people visited healthcare.gov and more than 200,000 people selected a plan for 2018. That is almost double the number who signed up last year on the first day. For anybody who is still thinking about it, you have until December 15, so sign up early. As my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Hassan, says, it is the best Christmas shopping you can do--take care of your healthcare. Go to healthcare.gov and shop around, get the best deal, and enroll during this open enrollment period. This surge in signups is especially remarkable in light of the widely publicized efforts by the Trump administration to depress enrollment. The administration has slashed the advertising and outreach budget by 90 percent, cut the open onrollment period by half, and shut down the marketplace website for 12 hours on Sundays, taking away valuable weekend hours when people have free time to explore plans. I think the healthy volume of enrollments sends two very important messages. First, it shows again that ordinary citizens, faith groups, insurance navigators, and other private organizations have done an amazing job of filling the outreach void that has been created by this effort by the administration to cut back on letting people know about the website and how to enroll. Those folks have spent countless hours getting out the word that the Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land and that those who qualify for financial assistance can purchase high-quality, affordable coverage. The second message that I think is important from this strong enrollment is a message that has been echoed in recent public opinion polls. It is one that we saw in the turnout in the Virginia elections last night. It is that a clear majority of the American people support the Affordable Care Act, that they reject efforts to sabotage it and they want Members of Congress to work together to strengthen it, just as Senator Murray said. I am very pleased that we have come together in the Senate to do just that. We have come together in support of bipartisan efforts led by Senator Murray and Senator Lamar Alexander, the chair and ranking member of the HELP Committee. They have come together to stabilize the Affordable Care Act and the marketplaces and bring down premiums. I am proud to be one of the 12 Democrats who were original cosponsors with 12 Republicans of this legislation. This balanced agreement, which was negotiated by Senators Alexander and Murray over many months, is our best bet for restoring stability to the marketplaces in the short run and giving us the time we need to negotiate longer term to deal with other changes to the health law to make it work better. I am especially pleased that the Alexander-Murray agreement provides for the continuation of cost-sharing reduction payments, or CSRs, which are payments that are necessary to keep premiums, deductibles, and copayments affordable for working families. They are extended for 2 years in this bill. Without these payments, the cost of coverage will skyrocket, insurers will leave the marketplaces--as we have already seen, as the Trump administration has said they are going to discontinue those payments--and millions of people will lose their health coverage. This is an opportunity for us to keep that from happening. Both Democrats and Republicans have recognized that these cost-sharing reduction payments, these CSRs, are an orderly, necessary subsidy that keeps down the cost of health coverage for everyday Americans. In recent months, I have heard from hundreds of people across New Hampshire about the enormous difference that healthcare reform has made in their lives. We are a small State--we have just over 1.3 million people--but nearly 94,000 Granite Staters have gotten individual health coverage through the Obama marketplace, and nearly 50,000 have gotten coverage thanks to the Medicaid expansion, which had bipartisan support in New Hampshire. So that is about a tenth of New Hampshire that is covered either through the Affordable Care Act or through the expansion of Medicaid. And for us in New Hampshire, it has been particularly critical in responding and providing treatment to those people with substance use disorders. Patricia Tucker has written to me. She is a substance use disorder counselor in Northfield, NH, and she talks about how grateful she is for the Medicaid expansion. She writes: I am seeing people come for help that were not able to get help in the past because they couldn't afford it. They are getting help and remaining abstinent. If one mother gets clean, this affects so many others. She goes on to say: [I treat] one mother who has two children. She now cares for these children and has a full-time job. In the past, she lived off the state and did not care for anyone, including herself. Multiply this by thousands, just in New Hampshire, and this makes such a big difference. And think about how across the country we have affected people with substance use disorders because they can now get treatment. I agree with Patricia Tucker and so many others who have contacted me about the Affordable Care Act. We are grateful for the progress, and we refuse to be taken backward. That is why the bipartisan agreement hammered out by Senator Alexander and Senator Murray is such an important breakthrough. This agreement stands on its merits as a good- faith, win-win compromise. But just as important and maybe even more important, these two Senators have given us a template for bipartisan negotiations on other critical matters that lie ahead, including tax reform, reauthorizing the community health centers and the Children's Health Insurance Program, and reaching an agreement on the 2018 budget. The Senate is at its best when we observe regular order, when we honor the committee process, and when we work across the aisle and make principled compromises and get big things done for the American people. In a Senate that is nearly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, bipartisanship is the only productive way forward. This is how the great majority of Americans want us to conduct the Senate's business, and this is especially true on matters such as healthcare and tax reform that impact families in New Hampshire and all across America. I am grateful to people across our country who have gotten out the word about the health insurance open enrollment period that began on November 1 and continues through December 15. I am heartened by the surge in enrollments. I am encouraged by bipartisan progress in the Senate to stabilize the health insurance marketplaces. I certainly hope the leadership in the Senate allows this bill to come to the floor because we know we have the votes to pass it. Instead of partisan efforts to undermine the law and take health insurance away from people, let's embrace the spirit of the Alexander- Murray agreement. Let's work together in a good-faith, bipartisan fashion to build a healthcare system that leaves no American behind. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, my understanding is that Senator Cornyn was about to come to the floor, but I would be happy to have the Senator give the CBO report on this legislation, which I very enthusiastically support.

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am delighted to follow Senator Alexander and was very pleased to hear the news from the CBO that this Alexander-Murray proposal not only doesn't bail out insurance companies, as we all agree we should not do--we want to make sure savings go to consumers--but it also will save taxpayers $3.8 billion. This is a bipartisan agreement. I applaud the work of Senator Alexander and Senator Patty Murray to craft this bipartisan agreement to address the challenges we have in the short term with healthcare. Senators Alexander and Murray have given us a template for bipartisan negotiations not just on healthcare but on other critical matters that are going to come before this Senate--tax reform, reauthorizing community health centers and the Children's Health Insurance Program, reaching an agreement on the 2018 budget. These are all major issues facing this country and issues we should be working on in a bipartisan way. The Senate is at its best when we observe regular order and we follow the committee process, when we work across the aisle and make principled compromises to get things done for the American people. I believe that is exactly what this health insurance bill does. In a Senate that is nearly equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, this is the only productive way forward for us to address the challenges that face this country. Too often we have seen people use bipartisan negotiations as a last resort, but bipartisanship should be the Senate's first resort, not the last resort. It should be the foundation of our work in this body. This is how the great majority of Americans want us to conduct the Senate's business. When I travel around New Hampshire, this is the consistent comment I hear everywhere I go: Why can't you all work together to get things done for this country? This is especially true on matters like healthcare and tax reform, which affect families throughout the country. I am encouraged that the Alexander-Murray bill has earned strong bipartisan support and, as Senator Alexander said, has 24 original cosponsors. That number is equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. This is a balanced agreement that has been negotiated by both parties over many months, and I think it is our best bet for stabilizing marketplaces in the short run so we can continue to work on long-term issues around healthcare. I am especially pleased this agreement provides for the continuation of cost-sharing reduction payments for 2 years. These payments are necessary to keep premiums, deductibles, and copayments affordable for working people. Without these payments, the cost of coverage will skyrocket, insurers will leave the marketplaces, and millions of people will lose their healthcare coverage. I have been working on this issue of cost-saving reduction payments since earlier this year, when I introduced a bill that would permanently appropriate funds for the CSRs. As the CBO said, the language in the Alexander-Murray bill ensures that these CSRs are not a bailout to insurance companies, but they are a way to help people with the cost of insurance. They are orderly payments that are built into the law that will go directly to keeping premiums, copays, and deductibles affordable for lower income Americans. Both Democrats and Republicans recognize that these payments are an orderly, necessary subsidy that keeps down the cost of health coverage for everyday Americans. As Senator Alexander said, we saw that these payments were in the bill the House voted for around healthcare, and they were also in the Senate bill earlier this year. In recent months, I have heard from hundreds of people across New Hampshire about the enormous difference healthcare reform has made in their lives. We are a small State; we have just about 1.3 million people. Nearly 94,000 Granite Staters have gotten individual healthcare coverage through the marketplaces. Nearly 50,000 have gotten coverage thanks to the Medicaid expansion program in New Hampshire. That has been a bipartisan effort, with a Republican legislature and a Democratic Governor, to get that program in place, and it continues to enjoy the support of the Republican legislature and the Republican Governor. Because of the Affordable Care Act's increased access to care, we also have 11,000 Granite Staters who have substance use disorders and who have been able to get treatment for the first time. New Hampshire has the second highest rate of overdose deaths from the heroin and opioid epidemic. Having treatment available through the expanded Medicaid Program has made a difference for thousands of people in New Hampshire and their families. Hundreds of thousands of Granite Staters with preexisting conditions no longer face discrimination resulting in denial or sky-high premiums. These are important achievements, and this legislation will allow us to continue down that road to make sure people have healthcare coverage they can afford. For people across New Hampshire and across this country, healthcare coverage is often a matter of life or death. It is about being able to take a sick family member to a doctor. It is about knowing that a serious illness will not leave a mountain of debt. I am very pleased to be able to join in the bipartisan efforts led by Senators Alexander and Murray to strengthen the parts of the healthcare law that are working and to fix what is not working. The other provisions in this legislation will allow States more flexibility through the 1332 waiver process. The Alexander-Murray agreement expedites waiver approval so States can implement smart fixes to stabilize their marketplaces, for instance, by establishing a State- based reinsurance program. The agreement also includes a restoration of funding for open enrollment outreach in educational activities, and it protects four protections related to insurance affordability, coverage, and plan comprehensiveness. All of these changes are positive steps forward, steps that I hope will set us on a bipartisan path, strengthening elements of the Affordable Care Act that are working well and fixing elements that need to be changed. I am hopeful the Alexander-Murray agreement can gain the bipartisan support it needs to pass in Congress, that it can gain the President's signature, and I am encouraged by Senator Alexander's comments about the President's comments yesterday because we need to restore certainty and stability to the marketplaces. Instead of partisan efforts to undermine the law and take health insurance away from people, we should embrace the spirit of the Alexander-Murray agreement. Let's work together in a good-faith, bipartisan effort to build a healthcare system that leaves no American behind. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, it feels like Groundhog Day again because, once more, we are seeing Republican leadership in the Senate advancing another bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to make radical cuts to the Medicaid Program. As with previous efforts, this new bill--they call it Graham-Cassidy, but it really is TrumpCare 3.0, the third version, and it is strictly partisan legislation, crafted in secret outside of regular order, without hearings or consultation with most Senators or stakeholders. But here is what is different: This bill is even more reckless and more destructive than previous bills to repeal the Affordable Care Act. It would take away healthcare coverage from an estimated 30 million Americans. It would effectively end protections for people with preexisting conditions by allowing insurers to charge exorbitant rates. It would make profound cuts to the Medicaid Program, which is a lifeline for 33 million children, 10 million people with disabilities, and 6 million seniors in nursing homes. It would be a tragic setback in the fight against the opioid epidemic because it would end access to lifesaving treatment for an estimated 1.3 million people with substance use disorders. In New Hampshire, where we are at the epicenter of the heroin and opioid epidemic, it would have a huge and tragic impact. President Trump said that the previous Republican bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act was ``mean,'' and make no mistake, this bill is far worse. As I have said repeatedly, the only constructive way forward is for Democrats and Republicans to come together in a good-faith, bipartisan effort to repair and strengthen the current law. As Senator McCain said to this Chamber in July: ``Let's return to regular order. We've been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from the other side.'' When Senator McCain said that, we gave him a standing ovation on the floor of this Chamber. In the weeks since the vote on the last attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the Senate has actually been acting on his advice. We have been working under the leadership of Senators Alexander and Murray, the chair and ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, on bipartisan legislation to restore certainty to the health insurance markets, to fix problems with the Affordable Care Act that we all acknowledge. This effort includes a version of legislation that I have been working on to make regular appropriations for cost-sharing reduction payments. Those are payments that keep copays and deductibles affordable for low- and middle-income Americans. I have participated, as have so many Senators, in the bipartisan meetings they have held with Governors, providers, stakeholders, insurers, and State insurance commissioners to craft a positive way forward. It is very disappointing that we are here today with another attempt to blow up all of these bipartisan efforts by bringing to the floor yet another divisive, partisan bill. To understand why people are upset and fearful about this latest attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, I would call our attention to the many positive impacts the Affordable Care Act has had across the country--and in my home State of New Hampshire--and the consequences of repealing that law. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, more than 49,000 Granite Staters have been able to get health insurance coverage through the marketplace. Thanks to the Medicaid expansion, more than 11,000 people in New Hampshire have gotten lifesaving treatments. The Medicaid expansion, which has been a bipartisan effort between then-Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan and a Republican legislature, has been a critical tool in our fight against the opioid epidemic, and hundreds of thousands of Granite Staters with preexisting conditions at one time or another no longer face discrimination by health insurance companies. In one fell swoop, this Graham-Cassidy TrumpCare legislation would put all of these gains in jeopardy. I would appeal to my colleagues in the Senate to stop and reconsider what is going on. Listen to the stories. Look at the faces of everyday Americans whose lives would be devastated by this legislation--from children, to seniors, to veterans. Several months ago on Facebook and other social media platforms, I asked people across New Hampshire to tell me their stories--stories about how the Affordable Care Act has made a lifesaving difference or has improved their lives and the well-being of their families. I was overwhelmed by the response. Here in Washington, some seem to think that repealing the Affordable Care Act, no matter how destructive the consequences, is just about politics; it is about notching a win for their team. But for the people in New Hampshire and across the country, repealing the Affordable Care Act and slashing Medicaid isn't about politics. It is about life and death. It is about people being cut off from vital, lifesaving treatment for substance use disorders. It is about families losing affordable health coverage, about seniors being unable to pay for nursing home care, and about millions of vulnerable people with preexisting conditions who would effectively be denied health coverage. It is about returning to the pre-ACA days when simply being a woman was considered a preexisting condition, justifying much higher rates. I urge Republican leaders to stop this latest effort of destructive partisanship. There should be no retreat from the progress we have made in recent years, including the progress against the opioid epidemic. I encourage Senators who support this ill-conceived legislation to listen to the Governors, listen to the insurance commissioners, listen to patient and provider groups, and, most importantly, listen to their constituents. Let's fix what is not working about the Affordable Care Act, and let's not pass legislation to take healthcare away from people. Let's support bipartisan efforts now under way in the Senate to stabilize the marketplaces and to provide access to quality, affordable healthcare for every American. Thank you. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum

Mrs. SHAHEEN

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the achievements of the Alliance to Save Energy over its 40-year history of working with Presidents of both political parties and Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to advance Federal energy efficiency policy. In 1977, Senators Charles Percy and Hubert Humphrey--a Republican from Illinois and a Democrat from Minnesota--founded the alliance as the leading energy efficiency coalition of businesses, governments, environmental groups, and consumer advocates. The goal of the alliance from the start has been simple: ``Use less and do more.'' In the wake of the oil embargoes and energy shortages of the 1970s, that message resonated loud and clear, and it still does. Energy efficiency is America's largest energy resource, contributing more to our Nation's energy needs over the last 40 years than any other fuel source. Without the economy-wide improvements in energy efficiency made since 1973, it is estimated that today's economy would require 60 percent more energy than we consume now. In fact, savings from energy efficiency improvements over the last 40 years have reduced our national energy bill by an estimated $800 billion, all while growing and expanding our economy. Energy efficiency saves money, improves national security, reduces pollution, encourages innovation, boosts U.S. competitiveness, and creates jobs. For 40 years, the alliance has taken great care to cultivate and maintain bipartisan support for policies supporting energy efficiency. Maybe the best example--certainly for me the most personal example--is the alliance's steadfast support and continued advocacy for the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act, bipartisan energy efficiency legislation I have introduced along with my friend and partner, Senator Rob Portman. They recognize, as I do, that to accomplish anything in Washington, you must have friends and supporters across the entire political spectrum. The alliance's commitment to bipartisanship is not simply rooted in their history, but is also as a matter of practicality. In a Congress that is divided along partisan lines on so many issues, energy efficiency is one priority that can bring us together on a bipartisan, bicameral basis to get big things done. The alliance also prides itself on its ability to bring businesses together alongside public and consumer advocates. The business case for energy efficiency is unimpeachable. Energy efficiency is the largest sector within the U.S. clean energy economy, employing nearly 2.2 million Americans nationwide--the majority of whom work for small businesses. American companies are leading the way in innovation and technological advancements in lighting, appliances, and building materials, to name a few. By working collaboratively with businesses and consumer leaders, the alliance is helping to improve energy efficiency across all sectors of the economy and develop new ways to bring new products and services to market. Today the alliance is led by President Kateri Callahan, and the fiduciary board is chaired by Gil Quiniones, who is president and chief executive officer of the New York Power Authority. It is my privilege to serve as the honorary cochair of the alliance. I am joined by Honorary Vice Chairs Senators Rob Portman and Chris Coons, as well as Senators Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, Ed Markey, Lisa Murkowski, Mark Warner, and Ron Wyden, as well as Representatives Michael Burgess, Adam Kinzinger, David McKinley, Dave Reichert, Paul Tonko, and Peter Welch. The alliance is rightfully proud of their storied bipartisan traditions, and this ideologically diverse and talented roster is a testament to the possibilities to make positive change when we listen to one another and work together. I would like to close today by recognizing the past contributions of members who previously served on the alliance honorary board: Senators Jeff Bingaman, Larry Craig, Alan Cranston, Byron Dorgan, John Heinz, Jim Jeffords, Bennett Johnston, Richard Lugar, Mark Pryor, Mark Udall, and Timothy Wirth, along with Representatives Ralph Hall, Steve Israel, John Edward Porter, and Zach Wamp. I had the good fortune of working alongside many of these distinguished public servants. I am proud to be part of the shared legacy of this collection of energy-efficiency champions. I congratulate the alliance on all they have accomplished since it was founded in 1977. Now, the alliance stands at the precipice of the next 40 years, which will undoubtedly usher in unforeseeable challenges and opportunities in the energy sector. I stand with them today, energized by their success so far, and ready for the next set of energy efficiency policies we need to succeed. Thank you.