Brian Schatz

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I think it is important to understand what just happened today that makes this debate on Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA so critically important. We call ourselves the world's greatest deliberative body, and that is actually a well-earned reputation. Sometimes we move slowly. Sometimes we move so slowly that it is maddening for both parties and for the American public. There is a reason that the Senate moves slowly. It is because in a lot of instances it has the weightiest decisions that any public official could ever make. In this instance, we are deciding on the person to comply with the Clean Air and the Clean Water Acts, the Endangered Species Act, to discharge their duties as the leader of the EPA. Something happened today that changes this whole debate. In Federal law, there is something called FOIA, the public records law regarding Federal officials. Most State laws have some kind of open records law, and Oklahoma is no different. There was a lawsuit against the Oklahoma attorney general, Scott Pruitt, and it basically said: Listen, you have to disclose the emails between your office and a bunch of energy industry companies. And the context here is absolutely important. Scott Pruitt is not just a person who is bad on the issue of climate; this is a person who is a professional climate denier. This is a person who has made his bones, politically and professionally, trying to undermine all the authorities the EPA possesses. This is a person who is a plaintiff in multiple lawsuits, as the Oklahoma attorney general, against the EPA. This is a person who has not promised to recuse himself when he is running the EPA. So imagine that there are going to be pending lawsuits where he was the plaintiff, and they are going to still be before the EPA. He was asked in committee whether he would recuse himself, because obviously it is preposterous to be both the plaintiff and the defendant in a lawsuit. It just stands to reason. He did not promise to recuse himself. So this is a person who has an incredibly close, uncomfortably close working relationship with the fossil fuel industry. He may have that as a sincerely held belief, but the Oklahoma State law requires that he disclose whom he is working with. Why is that relevant? Well, he actually had a couple of instances where he has taken language given to him, sent to him by email from oil companies, and he just copied it-- select all, copy, drop it, paste it--onto Oklahoma attorney general letterhead, and then transmitted it to the EPA as if it were from the AG's office in Oklahoma. So that is the context. What did this Federal judge say today? An Oklahoma County district court judge said that according to the Oklahoma Open Records Act-- Aletia Haynes Timmons from the district court of Oklahoma instructed Pruitt's office to hand over the emails by close of business next Tuesday. So here we are, trying to jam through this nomination, and now it makes perfect sense why they wanted to run the clock. They had congressional delegation trips to Munich for the security conference. There were Republicans who were planning to meet with NATO allies. There was another overseas trip of great import. Yet they abandon all other obligations, all other objectives, and they are bound and determined to run this clock until 1 p.m. tomorrow because they need to vote before these emails become disclosed. Tuesday is when we will see these emails. Yet we seem to be in a race to get this vote done tomorrow at 1 p.m. Something feels wrong about this. Something feels like they are worried about the contents of those emails. Gosh, I hope I am wrong. I hope on Tuesday that these emails are perfunctory, professional, proper. I hope I am wrong. I hope my fears and suspicions about what may be in those emails are unfounded. But here we are in the so-called world's greatest deliberative body, and we decided we don't even need another 2 business days to deliberate or to gather more information. This is a decision that will stick for 4 years. This is a nominee who will run one of the most important Federal agencies that there is, the one in charge of clean air and clean water. The person in charge of clean air and clean water has been corresponding with oil and gas and coal companies--nothing necessarily illegal or untoward about that, but he seems to not want people to know what the content of that correspondence was. The context here is very, very important, and that is why I am asking that we delay this vote until every Member of the Senate can read and review these emails. I think it is very important that we understand what is in the contents of those emails because there are some things we know about Mr. Pruitt. I am going to try really hard not to impugn his personal motivation. I have no doubt he feels sincerely about the issues we are arguing about. I don't have any reason to believe he has personally done anything improper. But I think it is totally reasonable for us to just see what is in those emails next Tuesday. This isn't that we are trying to drag this out for 6 weeks or 6 months. This isn't that we are trying to cook up an issue. I didn't know about these emails, actually, until Monday. I didn't know there was a court case. I was perfectly ready to say: Look, it looks like they have the votes. We will have our argument. Maybe we can persuade a couple of people--certainly Susan Collins has been a profile in courage here, and there are Members of the Senate on the Republican side who have been on the right side of climate. But you know what, all that gets washed away. All that gets washed away because you don't get to be on the right side of climate and vote for a climate denier for the Environmental Protection Agency. And lest you think I am being a little bit overheated here in terms of who Scott Pruitt is, this is what Scott Pruitt has said about himself. He describes himself as a leading advocate against the EPA's agenda. On the role of the EPA he says: I believe that the EPA has a role to play in our Republican form of government. Air and water quality issues can cross State lines, and can sometimes require Federal intervention. At the same time, the EPA was never intended to be our Nation's frontline environmental regulator. That is kind of a well-put-together statement, but I want you to understand how radical of a statement that is, because the EPA was designed to be the Nation's frontline environmental regulation. The basic premise is that there are certain things that can be done at the local level that ought to be done at the local level. When we configured our governments, we decided we want police forces and firehouses and other municipal services--sewer and water, and trash pickup--certain things get done locally. Some things get done at the county level. Some things get done at the State level. And what we have decided as a nation is that because pollution doesn't recognize municipal, State, or even Federal boundaries, that we actually need Federal law to make sure that if one State is polluting, it doesn't move over to the other State. So the idea that the EPA was never intended to be our Nation's frontline environmental regulator, which is what Mr. Pruitt says, is actually quite radical. It is an intentional misunderstanding of what the EPA is for. It is intended to be our frontline environmental regulator. Here is Mr. Pruitt on climate change: Global warming has inspired one of the major policy debates of our time. That debate is far from settled. Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connections to the actions of mankind. That debate should be encouraged in classrooms, public forums and the halls of Congress. I have to hand it to Mr. Pruitt--he magnificently describes radical policies as though they are not radical. He is very skillful at that. He is very lawyerly at that. He did very well, in my view, in the EPW Committee, but his views are essentially that the EPA is not the frontline in terms of protecting clean air and clean water, and that blows up the mission of the EPA. I see the Senator from Rhode Island is here. I would be happy to entertain any questions he may have in a moment. A couple more quotes from Mr. Pruitt on the Clean Power Plan: The president could announce the most ``state-friendly'' plan possible, but it would not change the fact that the administration does not have the legal authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon emissions. ``[T]hat the administration does not have the legal authority for regulate carbon emissions.'' Wrong. Factually wrong. Legally wrong. This has been settled. Massachusetts v. EPA. I left my law degree in my apartment, but I know Massachusetts v. EPA, and I know this is flat wrong. So what he says is totally radical. He is a skillful guy. I assume he is a good guy, but he wants to undermine the basic authorities of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. I will finish with this quote before I yield for a question from the Senator from Rhode Island on methane regulation. My concern is that the EPA is employing its flawed methodology in order to rationalize new and unjustified federal regulations to solve a methane emissions problem that simply does not exist. That has no basis in fact. I see the Senator from Rhode Island. Before I yield for his question, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with the Senators from Rhode Island and Oregon.

Mr. SCHATZ. Well, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island. I think one of the great challenges is that it is one thing to misunderstand the EPA's role here; that is dangerous enough as the attorney general of a State or the head of the Republican Attorneys General Association. But when you are in the EPA and you have charge to administer the law, to discharge your duties under Federal law, to the degree and extent that you misunderstand the authorities in the Clean Air Act as either weaker than they may be or sort of optional--I mean, this is the issue in Massachusetts v. EPA. For instance, the question around carbon was resolved. There were a couple of questions. First of all, is carbon an airborne pollutant? The Supreme Court and the EPA made their finding, and they determined that it was an airborne pollutant. Once you determine that something is an airborne pollutant, it is not for the EPA, on a discretionary basis, to try to regulate that airborne pollutant. They are then required under Federal law to regulate that pollutant. So part of the misunderstanding here is the question isn't, Is the EPA authorized to regulate carbon? It is, Are they required to regulate carbon? So he has it wrong doubly--first of all, on the law and second of all, on the science. I think the danger of putting someone like that in a position of authority is that they will preempt States, California and others--although California has some pretty significant carve-outs--but they will at least attempt to preempt the States from doing what they want to do to protect their clean air and their clean water.

Mr. SCHATZ. Yes, the Senator is correct.

Mr. SCHATZ. I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Rhode Island, if he is ready.

Mr. SCHATZ. Through the Chair, I would just like to ask the Senator a question. It strikes me that Governor McCall, President Nixon, I am thinking of Governor Schwarzenegger, I am thinking of Susan Collins, although I am almost sheepish to continue to single her out; it may not always be helpful to her to be singled out as the lone pro-climate person on the Republican side of the fence on this issue--but it strikes me that your beginning as an environmentalist was not based on being liberal or progressive, but your community's values, your family's values, your church's values, your Scout troop's values. We had a really interesting lunch today with a preacher from North Carolina talking about framing political issues as moral issues. It really touched me because I am telling you, it breaks my heart to think--I mean, look, for some of these arguments about the size and the scope of the government, we just have different views on what the right size and scope and role of the Federal Government is. Some of these questions about geopolitics--tough stuff. You try to get it right. You try to have a coherent world view. Tough stuff. If you serve in the Senate long enough, you are going to get some stuff exactly right, and you may be wrong a few times. But what really breaks my heart is to see the once-bipartisan consensus, which was based on common sense and morality that we just don't pollute our oceans, our streams, our aquifers, the air we breathe; that we try to preserve our environment for each other and for posterity; and a basic understanding that people who own businesses-- especially once those businesses are incorporated and especially if those businesses are publicly traded--have a different set of imperatives. It is really hard to get each individual business that is in the mining industry or the electricity generation industry or the extraction industry or the transportation industry or the manufacturing industry to voluntarily worry every day about clean air and clean water. It is kind of like not their job. They are supposed to make stuff. They are supposed to extract stuff. They are supposed to make electronics. They are supposed to make this economy work. So one of the ideas of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act is that we have an obligation to creation itself for those of us who are religious and for those of us who are not. That is a moral obligation, not a political obligation. We have a duty that has nothing to do with us being Democrats, and that duty doesn't stop because they decided to run for office as a Republican. I am wondering if the Senator from Oregon could comment on the sort of degradation of the bipartisan consensus around protecting our environment, which used to be a sort of 90-percent issue, a bipartisan issue. I am wondering how the Senator from Oregon feels about that.

Mr. SCHATZ. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SCHATZ. I thank the Senator from Oregon. I have been thinking a lot about the job of the EPA Administrator. It is one of those things we have taken for granted over many, many years, that we are going to get someone who is going to sort of play it right down the middle of the fairway, but now we are forced to sort of challenge all of our assumptions with respect to what we can expect in an EPA Administrator. When I think about the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, they are very important, especially for young people who are so passionate about the environment, as they may not know what life was like and what the environment was like before the Clean Water Act. The majority of waterways in the United States were not swimmable. You had rivers catching on fire. I went to college in Southern California in, I guess, 1990 through 1994, and the success of the Clean Air Act is incredible. I mean, L.A. still has its smog, but because of CAFE standards, because of the Clean Air Act, because of other environmental regulations, you don't have nearly the air quality problems that you had even 20, 25 years ago, and this is a nationwide success story. Kids had to stay home from school because of air pollution. I know everybody understands that is happening in Shanghai and in Beijing, parts of Africa, parts of the developing world, parts of the industrializing world. But 10, 20 years ago, you would have smog alerts, and kids would have to stay home from school in the United States of America. You had kids who couldn't function because of their asthma. So what is at stake is not a bird or a butterfly. I got my start in politics because of conservation issues. I am interested in forest ecology and reef ecology, but I understand a lot of people live a different life than that, and they are not in a position to be worrying about birds and butterflies. But everybody worries about clean air and clean water. So I was wondering if the Senator from Oregon could talk a little bit about the foundation of this debate. I saw the Senator from Rhode Island do this incredible exposition--as I have seen before, and nobody is better at this--in describing the forces behind what is going on. But I would like to talk about the premise that undergirds this debate, which is not about fossil fuel companies versus conservationists; it is about clean air versus dirty air, and it is about clean water versus dirty water. I know that is something that the Senator from Oregon is very passionate about, and I wonder if he might comment on the basic idea of a clean and healthy environment and the bipartisan consensus that we ought to have related to that.

Mr. SCHATZ. Will the Senator from Oregon yield to a question?

Mr. SCHATZ. Yes.

Mr. SCHATZ. Well, I thank the Senator for that question. It is a really important one because essentially what Scott Pruitt is saying is: Hey, let's let the States handle this. But if you are to take him at his word, I think it is not unreasonable to say: Well how did you handle enforcement of either State or Federal environmental law as the top cop in the State of Oklahoma? Right? He did two things that would cause everybody to question his commitment to even local environmental protection. The first thing he did when he came in as Oklahoma AG--a lot of offices the attorney general have environmental protection units. It is like a big law firm. They have different units that handle different kinds of crime. They have a civil division; they have a criminal division. They do lots of things. One of the divisions is to enforce environmental law. He disbanded it. He disbanded the State attorney general's division that enforces environmental law. Then he beefed up this thing that did not exist until he got there, which was essentially a division to undermine Federal authorities. So you are right. He has them coming and going. He is making an argument that the State should be empowered to enforce environmental law. At least we could take that as kind of on-the-level federalism. We have some good Republican colleagues who just really believe that the government that governs least governs best. They think that local problems should be solved at the local level, even though, in my view, when it comes to air pollution and water pollution, that is essentially preposterous because pollution moves. I really believe that for some of these Members it is a sincerely held belief. It is hard to believe this attorney general when he says: Hey, give us the authority to enforce our environmental laws, and then, when the rubber hits the road--which is how many lawyers you put on the job, how many cops you put on the beat--he basically eviscerates the division that enforces environmental law, and he beefs up this division that is basically a little shop that sues the EPA to undermine the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act federally.

Mr. SCHATZ. Well, I think the Senator is right. You know, it is fair to look at his record. It is also fair to look at his words. In 2016-- so this is not 10 years ago; this is less than a year ago--he said: Legislation should not be ``we like clean air, so go make clean air.'' It is something that bothers me, that Congress then gives this general grant of authority to EPA. Congress has given a general grant of authority to the EPA. That is what the law says. So, my concern, when it comes to Mr. Pruitt, is that he understands, as a member of the bar, as an attorney general, what the law says. He has been operating in a political context, I think it is fair to say, as the head of the Republican Attorneys General Association. Working with energy companies, he has been very aggressive in cultivating friends across the country who are very enthusiastic about his nomination and potential confirmation. But he totally misunderstands the mission of the EPA. It is granted by the Congress, a general authority to enforce clean air. That is what the EPA is, really; it is clean air, and it is clean water. That is what the EPA is about. The thing I think is especially troubling for me when it comes to the politics of this, is that there was a bipartisan consensus for many, many, many years around the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. I believe the reauthorization of the Clean Air Act came under President George H.W. Bush. This used to be not very controversial because, actually, we can fight about the Iran deal, we can fight about women's reproductive health, we can fight about LGBT rights, we can fight about civil rights, we can even fight about foreign policy and the size and scope of the government, but even if you are an extremely conservative individual, you ought to believe, to the extent that we have government at all, that it should be responsible for keeping us safe and that it is a Federal role to make sure our air is clean and our water is clean. So this person who is very skillful in kind of eluding--you know, he basically dodged punches in that EPW Committee. We have some very skillful members on the EPW committee. They are very knowledgeable, very passionate. It was rough, but he was able to avoid a sort of knockout blow. The reason is that he is a professional climate denier. This is what this guy has been training to do all of his life. So, again: We like clean air, so go make clean air. That is something that bothers me. The Congress then gives a general grant of authority to EPA on the Oklahoma environmental regulations. He said: Federal regional haze standards--if you live in Oklahoma, I understand. You did not vote for Barack Obama, but I don't think you thought you were voting to reduce air quality. So he says that Federal regional haze standards threaten the competitive edge Oklahomans have enjoyed for years with low-cost and reliable electric generation. This low-cost energy not only benefits Oklahoma manufacturers, but gives the State a considerable edge in recruiting jobs. He is the attorney general. He is supposed to enforce the law. I mean, that sounds like a Member of Congress. That sounds like a Member of the State legislature. But it does not sound to me like someone who is prepared to discharge their duties under the Federal law. Another space where Mr. Pruitt has some alarming views is on science itself. I am deeply concerned about what is happening to science, to scientists, to government research. We just confirmed the Director of OMB who, in a Facebook post, wondered out loud--he had some questions about the Zika virus. I am not sure he had any special expertise to be raising these questions. We should all be researching and be as scientifically literate as possible, but the OMB Director put on his Facebook post: I have these questions. I am really interested in this, but the real question is whether we should have publicly funded research at all. So there is a full-on attack on science and facts. There is a full-on attack on reality. But when it comes to environmental science, it is so consequential. I am looking at these pages sitting here. I think about everybody's children and grandchildren. We just have an obligation to get the data right, to really understand what is happening with air quality and water quality. Here is what Mr. Pruitt says about mercury. ``Human exposure to methylmercury resulting from coal fired EGUs is exceedingly small.'' This is, again, the White Stallion Energy Center versus EPA. This is what the scientists say: ``As a result of these long-term mercury inputs, there are hotspots and whole regions, such as the Adirondacks of New York, the Great Lakes region of the Midwest and large portions of the Southeast where the fishery is contaminated with mercury.'' There are more fish consumption advisories in the United States for mercury than all other contaminants combined. I can tell you, just on a personal level, to the Senator from Rhode Island, that I like my ahi. I like my fresh sashimi. I like tuna, and everybody in Hawaii likes fish. So you kind of watch how much marlin you eat, how much ahi you eat because we understand that there is a real mercury problem. This isn't made up. If you talk to ER doctors in Honolulu, they have to deal with mercury poisoning on a weekly basis. That is what the science shows, and that is what the reality shows. Here is what Mr. Pruitt says: ``The record does not support EPA's findings that mercury, non-mercury metals, and acid gas pose public health hazards.'' And here is what the scientists say: ``There is no evidence demonstrating a safe level of mercury exposure.'' So before yielding for a question, I think it is really important for all of us to understand what is at stake here. We have a nominee who is really unique in the history of the EPA because never before have we had a person who has made it their life's mission to undermine the Agency which they wish to lead. You could probably argue that Mr. Puzder, who just withdrew his nomination yesterday, had a similar kind of attitude about the Department of Labor. But even under Republican administrations, we have had Republican Administrators of the EPA who understood: Hey, look, the law is the Clean Air Act, the law is the Clean Water Act, the law is the Endangered Species Act, and I have an obligation, as the EPA Administrator, to accept those premises--right?--and to be the EPA Administrator, to not sort of be on my crusade against Federal law. If he wants to undermine Federal law, he can go litigate that. He can be a private attorney or he could run for the Congress and try to be a lawmaker. But to the degree and extent that he wants to run the Agency with a specific statutory mission, he has to follow those statutes. And I have seen no evidence that he has any respect for or understanding of those statutes. I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. SCHATZ. Well, I thank the Senator for the question. This is what is happening today. It would be enough if we were in the process of debating and confirming a climate-denier to the EPA. It would be enough that this person is a plaintiff in 17 lawsuits against the EPA. It would be enough that he is a plaintiff in these lawsuits against the EPA and he refused to recuse himself if he is running the EPA. As Senator Markey says, he is going to be plaintiff, defendant, and judge in these lawsuits. All of that would be enough, but today a judge is compelling him to release around 3,000 emails that have squarely to do with the debate that we are having, which is this: Is this person a little too close to the industry that he is going to regulate? As I said before, gosh, I hope these emails, as they are disclosed, show nothing. I hope that my suspicions, my fears, my concerns are without foundation. But I think about the Republicans, the good Republicans on the other side of the aisle who are voting for this man tomorrow. Boy, they had better hope there is nothing in those emails. They had better think very carefully about what is in those emails. They might want to delay this vote themselves because, look, if there is nothing in those emails, then we can vote two Mondays from now--no harm no foul. You have career professionals at EPA doing their job. EPA will run for another 5 or 6 business days. It is OK. We are the world's greatest deliberative body. We go slow on almost everything, and we are rushing on this. Why are we rushing? Well, I was trying to figure out all week why we were rushing. Then I understood that the court was going to rule today, and they are jamming this. They are ramming this down the American people's throats. I would just offer this to my Republican colleagues: These emails are going to be disclosed, and maybe you guys and gals know that there is nothing to be concerned about in terms of the content of these emails, where the Oklahoma attorney general is corresponding with a bunch of fossil fuel companies. Maybe it is all good in those emails. But the thing is, if that is the case, why did he refuse for 750 days to offer the emails up? I mean, it literally takes more work to not provide the emails than to provide the emails. You have to lawyer up to not do something. You are going to lawyer up as the Oklahoma attorney general to not comply with an Oklahoma statute. This takes a special effort. Why would somebody want to undertake such a special effort to not comply with State law? I don't know. But I think we may find out on Tuesday. Gosh, I hope I am wrong. But I have a feeling that the people who are most nervous right now about what is in those emails--in addition to the American public who care about clean air and clean water--are the Republicans who are being forced to vote at 1 o'clock without seeing them. They are being forced to vote on this person to run the EPA that they know is unpopular. I mean, I understand that in some States this guy is tremendously popular because it is very easy to blast the EPA. In some portion of the Republican conference, Scott Pruitt is totally popular. I get that. There is a nontrivial number of Members on the Republican side who actually don't want to be on the wrong side of the public when it comes to clean air and clean water, but they are going to be on the wrong side of the public when it comes to clean air and clean water. And it might get worse next Tuesday. I really wonder why you would work so hard to not disclose the contents of 3,000 emails over a 750-day period. I want to quote from Mr. Pruitt again on climate change: Global warming has inspired one of the major policy debates of our time. That debate is far from settled. Here is what the scientists say: ``The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.'' This is from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2005. This wasn't just some sort of recently arrived at conclusion. Here is Mr. Pruitt again on climate: We've had ebb and flow. We've had obviously, climate conditions change throughout our history. That's scientific fact. It gets cooler, it gets hotter. We don't know the trajectory, if it is on an unsustainable course. Nor do we know the extent by which the burning of fossil fuels, man's contribution to that, is making this far worse than it is. I mean, sorry, this is not what the scientists say. This is what I say. That is just bunk. There was a point at which that was a tenable position, even if it was scientifically bunk, easily 15 years ago. It was politically kind of workable 10 years ago--maybe even 8 years ago and, depending on your community, 5 years ago. But there is a majority of Republicans who understand the urgency of climate change. The only place where the reality of climate change continues to be debated fiercely is in the halls of Congress. Local people in every community across the country understand that this thing is settled fact. This thing is upon us. You don't have to be some wonk. You don't have to understand ocean acidification. You don't have to understand exactly what is going on. You just have to, A, listen to experts who know about climate, who know about weather, who know about atmospheric science. Even if you don't believe any of the experts, you just have to believe your own experience. There is not a person out there--whether they are a fisherman on the Big Island or a farmer in the Midwest or a hunter in the Southwest--there is not a person out there who isn't experiencing the weather getting strange. Everybody understands that 1 day of weird weather does not climate change make. But there is just no doubt that severe weather and odd weather is getting more frequent and more odd and more severe. Here is what the scientists say about climate change: The scientific evidence is clear: Global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society. Here is Mr. Pruitt again: Is it truly man-made and is this just simply another period of time where the Earth is cooling, increasing in heat? Is it just typical, natural type of occurrences as opposed to what the administration says?'' I mean, this is so far out of the mainstream that it would be funny if it weren't terrifying. It would be funny if it weren't terrifying to think that the person who is going to run the Environmental Protection Agency, the person who is going to be in charge of administering the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act is saying: Is it truly man-made and is this just simply just another period of time where the Earth is cooling, increasing in heat? I mean, is it just a natural type of occurrence, as opposed to what the Obama administration says? I would be happy to yield to the Senator for a question. I will note that we have a joke where I am the good cop and he is the bad cop, but I think over time, we are merging.

Mr. SCHATZ. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for that question. The Senator is right that he has been delaying because he wants to be confirmed as the EPA Administrator before these emails become public. There is no other reason that I can think of that is so important that we get the EPA Administrator in. Remember, we have the HUD nominee, we have the Department of Commerce nominee, we have the Department of the Interior nominee, and we have the Department of Energy nominee, who has responsibility and stewardship over our nuclear arsenal. We have decided we are not going to run until Friday afternoon getting a person in charge as the Secretary of Energy to take care of our nuclear arsenal, but it is a really big hurry--and we have to literally prevent Members from meeting with NATO allies--to get this guy through. I really didn't understand earlier in the week what the big rush was and why Pruitt and why now. Listen, every Wednesday we are in some kind of negotiation about what kind of legislation and what kind of matters come before the Senate, and both sides sort of puff up their chests and make threats about going through the weekend, and we usually come to some sort of agreement. Yet this week there was no budging, and now I get it. They were afraid this judge was going to do what this judge did. This judge is requiring these emails to come out, and I think they are terrified about what these emails say. Do you know what? There is only one way to prove me wrong, which is to call our bluff and delay. Let's go two Mondays from now. We have a recess, and we will all read the emails. Then it will be great. We will find out that there was nothing untoward, nothing improper, nothing concerning about these 3,000 emails between the Republican attorney general from Oklahoma and these oil and gas and coal companies. I think maybe something is in those emails. Maybe I am wrong. I hope I am wrong. For the country, for the planet, I hope I am wrong.

Mr. SCHATZ. Yes.

Mr. SCHATZ. I thank the Presiding Officer. I don't know if it is disqualifying. I would say it is strange, in the extreme, to have the chief law enforcement officer of a State and the head of the Republican Attorneys General Association not comply with his own State statute. This isn't trivial. Not that it would be OK for the attorney general not to comply with any law, but this isn't a nontrivial issue. This is letting the public know the nature of your correspondence with industry--especially since I think it is fair to say that I think even he would agree that he has distinguished himself among attorneys general as a lead advocate against the EPA and as an advocate for fossil fuel-generating companies. So it is not unreasonable for the public to say: Well, let me understand what the nature of your correspondence was. My very basic question to the Members of the Senate on the Republican side is, Why in the world would we vote at 1 o'clock before we get these emails? I understand that if we had said, give us 6 months so we can see these emails, that would be preposterous. That would be us delaying for delay's sake. Listen, we feel so strongly, I think it is fair to say about this nominee that we might have even tried that, but then in that case the majority would be within their rights to say: We are not going to let you delay for delay's sake. But this is not delay for delay's sake. There is information that is exactly on point.

Mr. SCHATZ. How much time remains?

Mr. SCHATZ. I thank the Senator for the question. I just want to ask the Presiding Officer what the parliamentary situation is; has my 60 minutes expired?

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. But Mr. Pruitt did more than close Oklahoma's Environmental Protection Unit. He also started a new unit solely dedicated to suing the EPA. He closed the Environmental Protection Unit and set up a unit to sue the EPA. That is all they do-- the other unit that people in Oklahoma might count on to investigate water contamination or illegal dumping. Mr. Pruitt's new unit has been quite active. Their office has filed more than a dozen lawsuits against the EPA. He has sued the EPA because of the way it tackles cross-state air pollution and the Agency's limits to oil and gas pollution. He sued to allow air pollution when facilities start up, shut down, malfunction, and to stop plans to address air pollution in his home State. He sued the EPA because he disagrees with the Clean Power Plan, which will prevent an estimated 90,000 asthma attacks every year while saving American families money on their electric bill. He sued EPA to end protections against carbon pollution from new powerplants, even though these protections will cost companies very little to implement, and he challenged the clean water rule, which the EPA says protects the streams and wetlands that form the foundation of our water resources. This is not a comprehensive list. I think there are 17 lawsuits he has filed. Guess what. Some of them are still pending. Mr. Pruitt was asked: Will you recuse yourself from the lawsuits in which you are the plaintiff? And he refused. So he is going to be the plaintiff and the defendant. I am sure Mr. Pruitt is a good person, I am sure he is good to his family, but he also needs to be good to the American people and faithful to the law: the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act. This is the foundation of what the EPA does. He doesn't get to have an opinion about those laws. He gets to implement those laws. If he wants to run for office, he can run for office and change those laws. If he wants to referee what authorities exist on those lawsuits, he can litigate, but if he is going to be the EPA Administrator, he has to check his ideological baggage at the door, and there is only one way we can be sure that he will not take his biases to the EPA. I don't understand why in his confirmation hearing he didn't say: Look, anywhere I brought suit, anywhere I am a plaintiff, I am out. It is not unusual for a nominee to say on certain issues: I will recuse. There is ample precedent. It was done this year. It is also just plain common sense. It is the moral thing to do, the ethical thing to do, and it is politically smart because it is a problem that this person wants to remain plaintiff and defendant. So it is disappointing and it is worrying. The agenda needs to uphold the Agency's mandate not to dismantle what the EPA has already done. Senator Booker asked Mr. Pruitt how many kids in Oklahoma had asthma. Fair question to ask when you consider how many lawsuits Mr. Pruitt has filed against the EPA that if he wins will increase air pollution, and you can bet that more air pollution will hurt those kids who already have trouble breathing. Mr. Pruitt did not know how many kids in his home State have asthma, but here is the answer: 1 in 10--1 in 10 kids have asthma. If Mr. Pruitt takes over the EPA, he is no longer responsible for just the kids in Oklahoma who have asthma. He is also responsible for the kids across the country and in my home State of Hawaii. There are millions of people in the United States who suffer from asthma, and for each and every one of them, not to mention the countless others at risk, Scott Pruitt guarantees that it will become harder to breathe. Scott Pruitt is going to guarantee that it becomes harder to breathe because he has sued the EPA to end the regulations that keep our air clean enough for us to breathe. Never before in the history of the Environmental Protection Agency has a President nominated someone so opposed to the mission of the EPA. Look, this administration has made it very clear where it stands on climate, on science, on protecting clean air and clean water. We have seen climate change called the Chinese hoax. We have heard rumors that scientists will be muzzled and research stopped. We have seen the President sign a law that allows oil companies to hide what kinds of payment it is making to foreign governments in exchange for extracting oil. So there is no question that dirty energy is preferred by the current administration, but that doesn't mean the Senate has to be a rubberstamp here. We are the Senate, and the United States Senate has a specific role under our Constitution and in our history. There comes a time where issues related to party have to be subsumed by issues related to the health and welfare of the country, and we have strayed from the bipartisan consensus that existed for decades and decades and decades, the basic premise that it is an American value in every small town, in every urban place from coast to coast, and everywhere in between, everybody likes clean air and clean water. Everybody at some point on a weekend wants to drive someplace or walk someplace and just be outside and be able to take a deep breath, enjoy your family, enjoy your friends, enjoy not having to work for 2 or 3 hours--go fishing, go hunting, go hiking, go surfing, go snowboarding, go skiing, whatever it is that people like to do to kind of restore themselves, that depends on our commitment to a legacy, and it depends on a commitment to these statutes. It really does. It depends on our commitment to the Clean Air Act and to the Clean Water Act and to the Endangered Species Act. I will just close with this. I have never seen the Senate in such a rush when there is not an actual deadline. I mean, we hurry when the government may shut down--and sometimes we screw that up too--but usually when we are in a hurry like this, when we are doing all night, there is a reason for it. I think it is just weird that congressional delegation trips overseas were canceled, multiple Members on a bipartisan basis were supposed to be meeting with NATO allies about 2 hours from now, but all of that got canceled. Normally our vote is on a Thursday afternoon or a Friday morning, and this vote is at 1 p.m. on Friday. That is because somebody is bound and determined to get this vote done before those 3,000 emails between Scott Pruitt and a bunch of energy companies are disclosed. It is not a theoretical thing anymore. There was some talk about whether this was going to be disclosed. Now a judge is ordering that these emails get disclosed. Now everybody seems to be in an incredible hurry to make sure that we conduct this vote before those emails are disclosed. I was talking to Senator Whitehouse and Senator Murphy about the content of those emails. I don't know what is in those emails, but here is what I know. I know the attorney general spent 750 days trying not to disclose those emails. I know they are between him and a bunch of energy companies. I know there seems to be a strong motivation on the Republican side to conduct the vote before we get the emails. And in the world's greatest deliberative body, it seems absolutely reasonable and consistent with our constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent on nominees and especially for a Cabinet position as important as this. It just seems like we should probably wait to see what is in those emails. If I were a Republican on the other side, I would be very uncomfortable casting a ``yes'' vote, and I would be waking up Tuesday morning, probably at 1 a.m., and checking on the Internet and hoping there was nothing explosive in those emails. I hope there is nothing explosive in those emails. I don't want to know that we just confirmed someone who is inappropriate for the EPA, but we are going to know by Tuesday. If my concerns are not well-founded, great. We can vote two Mondays from now, and we will have a new EPA nominee, but why not wait to find out what is in the emails. So I urge a ``no'' vote tomorrow, but more than that, I urge that we give ourselves the time to deliberate and to be a Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, in late October, people who lived in a place called Donora shrugged off the thick, yellow smog that had covered their small town. It was 1948. It wasn't unusual to see a smog blanket the town, thanks to the zinc plant and the steel mill that smoked endlessly into the Pennsylvania sky. It wasn't unusual to see people coughing as they went about their day. As one reporter put it, ``People are always coughing in Donora.'' What was unusual is that the smog did not clear as the day went on. It lingered, hanging around the town, wreaking havoc for the next 5 days. At first, life seemed to go on. The Halloween parade went on as planned, even though no one could really see the people marching. The high school football game went on as planned, although the quarterbacks avoided passing plays since the wide receivers couldn't see the ball. But then someone died. People couldn't breathe. As the local hospital started to fill, the town hotel set up beds for overflow patients. By the fourth day, the hotel had to set up another emergency section--this time, a temporary morgue. The town's three funeral homes were overwhelmed. On the fifth day, the stacks of a zinc plant stopped their endless streams of smoke, and the smog that would become known as the Donora death fog finally lifted but not before nearly 7,000 people fell ill and 20 died. This is one of the many stories that show us what life was like in the United States of America before the EPA was created. In the early 1960s, millions of freshwater fish and rivers around the country were poisoned by insecticides--hurting consumer trust and the countless fishermen and their families who relied on the fish to make a living. Pollution was so bad that debris floating in the Cuyahoga River actually caught on fire, causing thousands of dollars in property damage. The water in Lake Superior, one of the most beautiful lakes in the United States, became so toxic from companies dumping asbestos- laden waste that local communities had to start filtering their water. Think about that. People could drink the water from local reservoirs, unfiltered, until pollution came along. This was the path our country was on. Pollution was destroying some of the most beautiful places in this country--on the planet, in fact--putting the health of the public and the health of our economy at grave risk. There was another event in the early 1960s that helped our country to see clearly that the path we were on would only lead to destruction. Rachel Carson, scientist, public servant, and author, published a book called ``Silent Spring.'' This book laid out in simple, beautiful prose the threats that pesticides and pollution posed to our environment or what Carson called a ``Fable for Tomorrow.'' She wrote: ``The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers and sea, with dangerous and even lethal materials.'' Carson's book made clear that we were contaminating the environment and that this could not go on. Her book sounded a call for change, as millions of Americans began demanding that the government take action, but there was also a backlash. Here is what one industry spokesman said as public opinion began to coalesce around addressing pollution: The major claims of Miss Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring are gross distortions of the actual facts, completely unsupported by scientific experimental evidence and general, practical experience in the field. Her suggestion that pesticides are in fact biocides destroying all life is obviously absurd in the light of the fact that without selective biologicals, these compounds would be completely useless. This is how the controversy went on for the next few years. The public, the science, and the reality all pointed toward the truth, but a few loud voices persisted. They did not want the movement to go forward. This continued even after Rachel Carson passed away, tragically and prematurely, of cancer in the year 1964. Here is what the New York Times published in her obituary: The most recent flare-up in the continuing pesticide controversy occurred early this month when the Public Health Service announced that the periodic huge-scale deaths of fish on the lower Mississippi River had been traced over the last 4 years to toxic ingredients and three kinds of pesticides. Some persons believe that the pesticides drained into the river from neighboring farm lands. A hearing by the Agriculture Department of the Public Health Service's charges ended a week ago with a spokesman for one of the pesticide manufacturers saying that any judgment should be delayed until more information was obtained. The line of argument captured in the New York Times is familiar to anyone who has watched our Nation struggle to come to a shared set of facts around a number of difficult issues, but even in the face of so much controversy, the country did the right thing. In addressing the threats to our environment, the U.S. Government--with substantial and commendable support from Republicans--began to lay the foundation for a new America, one that would preserve and protect our country and its resources for the next generation. I would like to highlight three of the critical cornerstones in the foundation: the EPA, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act. Let's start with the EPA itself. It was established in 1970 by President Nixon. He united several offices and bureaus already in the Federal Government into a single agency--one that would oversee all of the laws, protections, research, and policies about the Nation's environment. The mission of the EPA was clear from the start, to protect human health and the environment. Almost immediately, something really exciting happened. There was a feeling of hope and anticipation for what this Agency could do for the country. Within the first few months, tens of thousands of resumes came flooding in from across the country as people clamored to work for the EPA. Here is how one man who worked for the Agency described it: There was a palpable sense of excitement that we were about to do something big. We had to do things big because the newspapers and news magazines were filled with stories about Lake Erie dying. I think it was a year or two before that the Cuyahoga had indeed caught on fire. I believe the Houston Ship Channel had the same issue. We knew we were there to really deal with substantial problems, and we were going to meet with immediate pushback. For the next 40 years, the EPA would build a legacy of preserving and protecting the country's air, water, and natural resources, working to make our country a better place to live. I just want to say that whatever the final disposition of this nomination ends up being--and I know we will push as hard as we possibly can for the delay of this decision, until we are able to see the contents of Mr. Pruitt's emails as directed by the court this afternoon--but whatever the decision is of the Senate under advice and consent, it is really important that this be said: EPA employees still have an obligation under Federal law to do their job, to protect air and water, to administer the Clean Air and Clean Water Act, to enforce the Endangered Species Act. We are confirming a head of an Agency, but this new head of an Agency is not the Emperor of the Agency. This new head of an Agency has obligations under the statute to enforce the laws on the books, and he has a current role as the lead of the Republican Attorneys General Association and as a plaintiff in multiple lawsuits against the EPA, and that is a reason many of us object to his confirmation. If he is confirmed, every EPA employee has rights. They have whistleblower rights, they have protections, and they have obligations under the statute so that if this EPA tries to do anything unlawful, anything that contravenes the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, then all of the EPA employees are dutybound under the law to follow the law. No one in the Federal Government should be forced to do anything unlawful, and we support the EPA employees, in particular, who we know work so hard and are so dedicated to such an important cause. We know they are under intense scrutiny and pressure, and I think it is worth saying that we support them but also that the law supports them. One of the first actions of the Agency was to ban DDT, a pesticide used in World War II. At first, DDT seemed like a dream chemical. It was used to protect soldiers from pests and then to protect crops like cotton, but soon it became clear--thanks to Rachel Carson and others-- that this chemical was creating far more harm than good. Public health was really in danger. The bald eagle and other wildlife were being poisoned, and the pests that were supposed to be put off from bothering the crops were adapting, becoming more resistant, even as the chemicals became more potent and ultimately more dangerous. Thanks to the EPA, the use of DDT came to an end. The health of children, families, and wildlife immediately improved. The bald eagle slowly recovered, to the point where it is no longer a threatened or an endangered species. The Agency also found a solution to acid rain, which was a major problem that killed fish, hurt American farmers, and caused damage to forests and infrastructure alike. After studies showed how high concentrations of lead were hurting our kids, the EPA took action to remove it from gasoline and from the air. Because of that action, lead levels in both kids and adults have dropped by more than 80 percent since the late 1970s. We have a lot more work to do on lead, but that is one of the many EPA success stories. The EPA then took on secondhand smoke, banning smoking in indoor public places. It pushed the auto industry to design technology that would reduce the amount of pollution created by cars, a step that would reduce the amount of pollution per mile emitted by cars by up to 90 percent. It provides technical assistance to State and local governments that otherwise don't have the resources or the know-how to tackle problems on their own. The Agency has also empowered the public through right-to-know laws that give people access to information about chemicals, toxic substances, and pollution in their own communities. After studies show how low-income and minority communities face greater environmental risks, the EPA formed an Office of Environmental Justice, dedicated to making these communities as safe as any other in the country. As is so often the case, this Federal Agency set the bar for the rest of the world on how governments can protect and preserve the environment. One leader of the EPA who served under President George H.W. Bush recalled that the Agency worked with countries as varied as Morocco and Mexico to battle fires or spills. After the EPA sent people to help with a Russian spill that was impacting Estonia, the Prime Minister wrote the EPA a letter, saying their visit was the most important visit of any American's since Charles Lindbergh had flown from Russia to Estonia in 1933. So the EPA has had incredibly important impacts, from boosting diplomacy around the world to protecting the lungs of little ones right here at home. The second cornerstone of our efforts to protect the environment is the Clean Air Act. Before the EPA opened its doors, States set their own standards for clean air, and most States had weak standards because they were in a race to the bottom to attract companies that didn't want to have to deal with the damage they caused. Imagine you are in a State and have three or four adjacent States and someone wants to cite a factory. Well, it is very difficult to have a strong environmental standard because that factory is no doubt going to find the place where they are allowed to pollute the most, which is why you have Federal standards. Not surprisingly, these low standards were fueling air pollution. Every day, the average American takes between 17,000 and 23,000 breaths. If the air we are breathing is filled with toxic chemicals, we are at risk for cancer, birth defects, and damage to our lungs, our brain, and our nerves. That risk is even higher for people with asthma and for senior citizens. Remember, humans are not the only ones that rely on clean air. Trees, crops, wildlife, lakes, fish are all at risk of damage when we have dirty air. So eventually the American public demanded that something be done to clean up our air. In 1970, Congress on a bipartisan basis, passed the Clean Air Act. This law, along with later amendments, makes up the complete Federal response to air pollution. It is a beautifully written law. It gives the EPA the authority to limit air pollutants and emissions from industry plants. It empowers the Agency to research and fund different approaches to keeping the air clean. It creates partnerships between Federal, State, and local governments to reduce air pollution. Who could argue with that? As soon as it was passed, people knew that this law was a game changer. President Nixon said: ``I think that 1970 will be known as the year of the beginning, in which we really began to move on the problems of clean air and clean water and open spaces for the future generations of America.'' That is exactly what happened. The impact was actually felt very quickly, starting with the auto industry. The Clean Air Act called on the auto industry to drastically reduce the amount of nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, and other harmful chemicals that came out of the tailpipes across the country within 5 years. Consider that today there are more than three times the amount of cars on the road than they were in the 1970s. Now imagine that the chemicals coming out of each of those car's tailpipes were 90 percent more harmful. That is where we would be without the Clean Air Act. It was not so long ago that communities would cancel high school for kids because the air pollution was so bad, not in Beijing but in California. That is no longer the case, not for numerous reasons, not for a dozen or so causes but because of the Clean Air Act. This law has literally saved millions of lives. It has improved the health of millions of others. Because the EPA has been there to enforce it, air pollution has fallen by 70 percent since 1970. Smog levels in Los Angeles have fallen from their peak by two-thirds. Nationwide, lead in our cars is down 98 percent, carbon monoxide is down 85 percent, sulphur dioxide is down 80 percent, acid rain is down 50 percent, and all at a fraction of anticipated costs. Let me make two points here. First of all, it is actually rare that a law works this well. I mean, it is hard to make a good law. Everybody talks about it as a sausage-making process; you don't want to see what goes into it. But not all laws work over time. This law actually worked. This law actually cleaned up our air. That is a really important thing to remember. If you undermine this law, if you undermine the agency that enforces it, the air does not clean up itself. This is not an automatic thing. The air is clean because the government protects the air. I understand that, including the Presiding Officer and many Members of the Republican Party, we have tough debates about how big the government should be, what its responsibility should be. But if you go from Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist, to Rand Paul, the sort of Republican libertarian--and I am not sure if you just sat down and had a cup of coffee with either of them or everybody in between on the political spectrum, in terms of their view of what the Federal Government ought to do, gosh, I can't imagine that anybody--if you kind of get them in a private moment--does not think that it is a Federal role to keep the air clean. There are moments where I see a program within a Federal agency and I might love it, right, because of my political persuasion. But I can understand how a Ben Sasse or a Rand Paul or a Marco Rubio might object to it because they might say: Well, that sounds like a good idea, but my goodness, if that is so important, why don't we let communities decide whether or not to do that? This is not one of those issues. Go and talk to your constituents about whether they want clean air. I don't know that you are going to find too many Republicans out there--I mean voters, not elected officials--voters, who think clean air is, take it or leave it, not a Federal role. The truth is, that first of all, clean air is important enough to make a Federal law about in the first place. But there is also a technical reason, not a very complicated technical reason, but a technical reason that you need a Federal law that is about clean air as opposed to a State-by-State patchwork, and that is because the air travels. You cannot pollute in one State and expect that it will not impact the other State. So one State having tough clean air standards doesn't really function in terms of the ecology because pollution knows no boundaries. The same study that I referred to found that air pollution has improved in the United States, thanks to environmental protection. But our work is not done. Nearly 90,000 people every year in the United States are at risk of a premature death because of air pollution. That number will rise if we chip away at this basic foundation. The third and final cornerstone of that foundation is the Clean Water Act. It is really important to remember how bad things were before the Clean Water Act. I mean, we are not where we need to be in terms of protecting our water resources. But it is kind of unfathomable how bad it was before this law was passed. Water in communities across the country was dirty. You could not swim or fish in two-thirds of the lakes, rivers, and coastal waters in the country. You couldn't swim or fish in two-thirds of the lakes, rivers, and coastal waters in the country. That is a data point that you would expect in a country that is still industrializing, that just doesn't have the pollution controls. When you go to certain parts of the planet and you see essentially a very dirty environment, you would assume two-thirds, maybe more, of those lakes and streams and waterways are too polluted to fish or swim. But this is the United States. It was allowable to dump untreated sewage into open water. You could dump untreated sewage into open water before the Clean Water Act. But that changed in 1972, when what is now known as the Clean Water Act became law and cleared the way for the Federal Government to restore and protect the health of our water. According to a study by the Aspen Institute, the Clean Water Act stopped billions of pounds of pollution from fouling the water and dramatically increased the number of waterways that are safe for swimming and fishing. Twenty years ago, you would have had to have a death wish to go swimming in Boston Harbor. Today, you don't have to think twice. That is because of the Clean Water Act. But this is not just about enjoying the beauty of the water that it provides to so many communities, although not is not a small thing. Look, a lot of people--left, right, and center--people who are not political, people on the progressive side, people on the conservative side, people like lakes. People like the beach. People like the ocean. It is not unreasonable, whoever you voted for, to think that there are a few things that government should do: They should probably have some kind of transportation infrastructure. There should probably be a law enforcement function. Make sure that the water is clean, the air is clean, and we have some national defense. Right? That is some basic stuff. Even if you are a libertarian, if you are not nuts, you think that the government should do a couple of very basic things, and among them is to keep the water clean. I wanted to share some interactions I have had with the craft beer industry. They wrote a letter this week about how important clean water is to them. Here is a section of it: Beer is about 90 percent water, making local water supply quality and its characteristics such as pH and mineral content, critical to beer brewing and the flavor of many classic brews. Changes to our water supply--whether we draw directly from a water source or from a municipal supply--threaten our ability to consistently produce our great-tasting beer, and thus, our bottom line. Protecting clean water is central to our business and our long-term success. Not only does great-tasting beer we brew depend on it, but so do the communities in which we operate. Some of the largest and best craft breweries in the country signed onto this letter, from the Allagash Brewing Company in Maine to the New Belgium Brewing Company in Colorado. They are right to be concerned because it will not take much for our water to go back to where it was in the 1970s. So it is in the interest of many industries for our country to have clean water, but not all of them. Publicly traded companies will do the minimum. In a lot of ways, the way these companies are set up, they are actually obligated under the law to do the minimum. They have to maximize shareholder profit. They have boards of directors, they have earnings reports, they have quarterly obligations. Whether you like it or not, that is the way our system works. So, if you have a fiduciary obligation to maximize profits, then you may give short shrift to environmental concerns. Compliance costs money. So most companies will comply only if they have to. If they are good companies, they feel that their obligation is to sit down with their lawyers and have the lawyers explain to them what they must do to comply. But it is a rare company that says: Hey, I want to do much more than that. I mean Patagonia is great. There are other companies that do good work in the environmental space. But let's be very clear: There are a handful of companies that are so motivated, either as a brand strategy or a mission-driven approach, that they are going to exceed their obligations under the law. Most companies are going to do what is required under the law and not much more. We can count on someone saying on a board of directors in some corner office or someplace on Wall Street: Hey, we can save 3 percent here if we don't clean the water. That is why we need a Clean Water Act. That is why we need the EPA. It is not a matter of left or right; this is a matter of right or wrong. This is a matter of clean or dirty. This is especially important because our work is not done. We still have a ways to go. We still can't swim or fish in about one-third of our waterways. So these three cornerstones--this foundation of more than 40 years of progress--have prepared us to tackle what is the challenge of our lifetime, climate change. There was a time when this was primarily the concern of the conservation minded among us, people like me: hikers, swimmers, surfers green groups, bird and butterfly people. Right? I understand that. There was a time where this was mostly an ecological concern. You had science people, you had hiking types who said: Hey, this thing is happening. I read Al Gore's book. This is a big deal. They were 10 years ahead of the curve. But climate change is no longer just an ecological issue; it is an economic issue. It is a quality of life issue. It is an American way of life issue. It is causing real harm to people and costing us billions of dollars now--not in the future, but now. In recent years, the United States has experienced a record number of devastating storms, extreme temperatures, severe floods and lasting droughts. It is not a coincidence. As the climate changes, normal weather patterns are altered, and this affects our environment, our health, and our economy by influencing everything from the price of produce at the grocery store to our home insurance rates. So we know that climate change is real. The science makes that clear. In fact, our own personal experience makes that real. A lot of people fish or hunt or hike or surf or snorkel or go to the lake or just go outside and experience something that seems to be changing. There is a difference between weather and climate. The weather is tomorrow morning's temperature and whether it is raining or not and whether it is windy or not. The climate is the conditions that create the weather. It is not arguable anymore by anybody credible that the climate has changed and, therefore, the weather is getting absolutely more volatile. Now we can, unfortunately, rely on our own experience and our own eyes to confirm that the climate and the weather are getting weirder-- in some cases, more dangerous and certainly more unpredictable. Make no mistake, this is caused by humans, and that means we can do something about it. Climate change deniers need to know that they are on the wrong side of history. They can't just cite the cost of transitioning to a clean energy economy--a cost that continues to decline, I should point out-- while ignoring the cost of doing nothing, because the cost of doing nothing on climate change is absolutely astronomical, whether in storm aid, infrastructure mitigation, private property loss, or disruption in financial and insurance markets. It is much less expensive to move toward a clean energy economy than to allow severe weather to drain our economy as a whole. As a Senator from the State of Hawaii who has led the way in building a clean energy infrastructure--producing clean, renewable energy and cutting our dependence on fossil fuels--I know that we can achieve meaningful change across our Nation, but we need the EPA and an Administrator to achieve this. By law, the EPA has the authority to take steps to cut any pollution that threatens human health and welfare, including carbon pollution. Even the Supreme Court agreed that if EPA found carbon pollution to be a danger, the Agency was obligated to act to reduce the threat. So EPA has begun undertaking efforts to rein in those emissions. Every protection that the EPA creates is the result of years of scientific inquiry, stakeholder involvement, public comments, and technological feasibility studies. For all the talk of Federal overreach, EPA gives an enormous amount of authority to the States. For instance, in the Clean Power Plan, EPA sets emissions targets--that is true--but it was up to each State to develop a plan that is best suited to its unique circumstances. The State of Hawaii has a really unique situation because we have lots of clean energy opportunities. But in terms of baseload power, we get all of our fuel from Asia, and it is LSFO. It is low sulfur fuel oil. So what we do is we bring in oil on tankers, which is costing three and a half times the national average for electricity, and we light it on fire, and that creates electrons. That is not smart. So we are in a transition. But there are other States that have geothermal resources or biofuel resources. So the EPA said: Hey, carbon is a pollutant. You have to reduce carbon pollution because, under the law, under the Clean Air Act, any airborne pollutant must be regulated, right? You have to reduce the airborne pollutants. The EPA said: You have to do this over time, but we understand you are going to have your own energy mix and your own challenges. All you have to do is submit a plan that is kind of like thought through. So West Virginia's plan is different from California's plan and is different from Hawaii's plan. They empowered the States to endeavor to come up with their own energy mix. Here is the good news about EPA's rules. This news is on the Clean Air Act. It is on the Clean Power Plan. This is always the case. It always comes in below the estimated cost because what happens is, if you tell industry to innovate, even if they don't want to, frankly, even if they complain about it, even if they tell you that it is going to crash the American economy, which they often say, they end up driving innovation in the private sector. In the case of electricity generation and transportation, the Clean Power Plan and the CAFE standards, the fuel efficiency standards for cars, accelerated the technological transition that was already underway. Here are a couple of examples. When the auto bailout came in, President Obama negotiated very hard for an increase in fuel efficiency standards. You can imagine that the American auto industry was basically on the ropes. It was about to die without a major bailout. So they got the bailout, but there were also some strings attached, which were that they bring up fuel efficiency standards. They freaked out. And you know what happened? They met the standards. And you know what happened after that? The American auto industry has never been stronger because people like fuel-efficient cars, right? What has happened with the Clean Power Plan and with the Paris climate accord and the investment tax credit and the production tax credit is that the cost of solar and wind energy is declining. But when utilities began thinking about long-term investments in a carbon- constrained world, the increased demand for clean energy drove down these costs even further, which is good for both consumers and the environment. In fact, more solar capacity was added in 2016 than any other energy source, by far. Solar and wind combined to make up almost two-thirds of the new capacity last year. I want people to understand that the clean energy revolution is underway. The only question is whether we are going to have to take a 4-year break from this clean energy revolution and give the keys to the car to China and other countries, which would be pleased to let the United States abdicate its role as the leader of the clean energy revolution. We are going to lose all of those solar jobs, we are going to lose the innovation opportunities, and we are going to lose all of those wind energy opportunities. The question is not whether we are going to make a transition to clean energy. The question is how quickly and whether the United States will drive it or not. Consumers loved the first generation of hybrid vehicles so much that there were waiting lists to buy them. CAFE standards, along with similar fuel economy standards around the world, drove the automotive industry to innovate even further. Now we have unprecedented numbers of hybrid and hybrid electric vehicles on the road, and we stand at the precipice of a new age of electric vehicles. So we find ourselves at a crossroads. If we continue down the path President Obama set us on, I have no doubt that American ingenuity and innovation will allow us to continue to lead the world in the clean energy economy, but if we turn back the clock and hand our future back over to the dirty fuels of the past, we will cede economic leadership to China, India, Germany, and the rest of the world. Those countries are moving toward clean energy so quickly that we may never catch up; we may never be able to take full advantage of the economic opportunities that clean energy represents. It is sad, but it is true, that this is the path that our country will go on if Scott Pruitt is confirmed to lead the EPA. I know for the public, after so many troubling nominees, that it is hard to wake up outraged for yet another nominee. But the reason to freak out about this one is very simple--clean air and clean water. Ask anyone who lived in L.A. or in Boston since the 1970s, and they can tell you that our country has clean air and clean water because of the laws that were put in place and the Agency that has done its job to implement them. All of this will be in jeopardy with Scott Pruitt at the helm. He made his political bones trying to shred the EPA's ability to enforce the laws that protect clean air and clean water. Now this administration wants to give Mr. Pruitt the ultimate opportunity to lead the Agency that he has worked so hard to undermine. And he hasn't hidden the fact that he is utterly opposed to the EPA. Let me highlight four statements that he has made that illustrate this point. He said: ``The EPA was never intended to be our Nation's frontline environmental regulator.'' The reality is that the opposite is true. The EPA was created for exactly that reason. Before the EPA existed, there were a number of offices and bureaus across the Federal Government that worked on protecting the environment, but the government saw--Congress saw--that it wasn't enough. Our Nation's waters were polluted, and the air was not clean. People were getting sick and even dying because there wasn't enough being done to protect the environment. So the intention behind the EPA was absolutely to put a single Agency on the frontlines of protecting and preserving clean air and clean water. Not only does Mr. Pruitt disagree with the very mission of the EPA, but he also doesn't seem at all interested in the work being done by this Agency. He was asked during the confirmation process to name a single protection on the books at the EPA. Here is his answer: I have not conducted a comprehensive review of existing EPA regulations. As attorney general, I have brought legal challenges involving EPA regulations out of concern that EPA has exceeded its statutory authority based on the record and the law in that matter. I mean, just as a parent--forget my job as a Senator--as a parent and as a citizen, this really concerns me. I don't want to see the EPA led by someone who is basically given a softball question in the confirmation hearing: Name something you like about the EPA. But he declines to go on the record supporting clean air or clean water. I mean, you would think that he could just say: Well, I like the Clean Water Act; I like the Clean Air Act. He could even offer caveats, saying: I think there has been overreach, and I think there needs to be a recalibration. Say whatever you want, but he couldn't even bring himself to say he supports the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act. That was the second comment that he made that was disturbing. The third one relates to a Federal standard that targets pollution that decreases visibility. Mr. Pruitt had this to say about these standards: [They] threaten the competitive edge Oklahoma has enjoyed for years with low-cost and reliable electric generation. This low-cost energy not only benefits Oklahoma manufacturers, but gives our State a considerable edge in recruiting new jobs. What Mr. Pruitt is referring to is actually another reason why the EPA was created in the first place. When States were in charge of environmental protections, it was often a race to the bottom. Everyone would try to lower their standards so that companies would move plants and factories to their State. And the result is exactly what you would imagine. Companies were happy to meet the lowest standard possible, leaving huge messes for the State to clean up, and that is not a good use of our taxpayer dollars. It isn't the government's job to allow companies to make a huge mess and say: Hey, we will clean that up for you. There is no need to clean it up. We have it. Let's look at how this has worked out for Oklahoma. I would like to read an article by journalist, author, and climate expert Eric Pooley, which was published by Time magazine: Mercury is a deadly neurotoxin that damages the brains of the ``developing fetus and young children,'' according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. It is spewed into the air from coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources before settling into lakes and waterways and contaminating the fish we eat. But Pruitt's challenges against the EPA's mercury standards include a tidy piece of scientific denial, claiming ``the record does not support the EPA's findings that mercury . . . pose[s] public health hazards.'' After that legal challenge failed, Pruitt sued a second time to block the mercury rules--even though virtually all power plants had already complied with them at a fraction of the expected cost. Thanks in part to the EPA rules Pruitt opposed, mercury levels in Atlantic Bluefin tuna are rapidly declining. This isn't an abstract thing. If there are high mercury levels in fish and people eat the fish, they actually get the mercury poisoning. This happens in Honolulu all the time. We like our fish. And people go to the ER all the time. They don't know what it is, and it turns out that it is mercury poisoning. But Oklahomans aren't so lucky. While Pruitt was busy trying to kill national mercury rules, the number of Oklahoma lakes listed for mercury contamination was climbing. This year, the state lists 40 lakes with fish consumption advisories due to mercury levels--up from 19 listed in 2010. Eight lakes were added just this year. Another Attorney General might have been trying to identify the sources of the pollution. But Pruitt was apparently too busy suing the EPA. Pruitt also attacks limits on ground level ozone. The ground level ozone--better known as smog--despite the fact that ozone problems are huge and worsening in Oklahoma. The latest American Lung Association report gave all Oklahoma counties surveyed an ``F'' for ozone problems and found that the number of high ozone days had increased in most counties as compared to 2010 to 2012. The argument in this article can be boiled down to a single phrase: With Mr. Pruitt leading the EPA, we can bet that as goes Oklahoma, so goes the Nation. I can't speak for the people of Oklahoma, but I can say that when it comes to these kinds of statistics on polluted air and water, we would like to pass. If you ask most people in this country, they would agree that this is not the kind of environment they want their kids to grow up in. The fourth disturbing statement Mr. Pruitt has made is about lead. Because of the EPA we have seen lead levels in both kids and adults drop by more than 80 percent in the past few decades. This is one of the legacy achievements of this Agency. This is something the next leader of the EPA should understand, but the senior Senator from Maryland, Mr. Cardin, raised this during a confirmation hearing. The Senator asked Mr. Pruitt if ``there is any safe level of lead that can be taken into the human body, particularly a young person.'' Another softball question. Here is how Mr. Pruitt answered him: ``Senator, that is something I have not reviewed nor know about.'' This is pretty alarming because clearly he does not understand that in just 30 years this is an issue that the EPA has taken on as a high priority. This is an issue that we need the next leader to take seriously so we don't see any kind of backsliding. If you look at Mr. Pruitt's actions, they do, in fact, speak loudly about his approach to the EPA. Here is another news report: The new administration is reportedly looking to close the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, and instead let individual program offices handle enforcement. The outlet inside EPA quoted ``a source familiar with the plan'' who says the Trump administration intends to ``disassemble the enforcement office . . . take it, break it up, and move it back into the program offices.'' Environmental advocates were quick to point out that Scott Pruitt--the Oklahoma Attorney General Trump picked to lead the EPA--made almost the same move back home. Pruitt closed his office's Environmental Protection Unit not long after he took office in 2011. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, the Senate is preparing to vote on Congressman Mick Mulvaney to lead the Office of Management and Budget. This nomination may seem like it doesn't deserve a lot of attention because we don't hear much outside of Washington about the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget. It is kind of a wonky, obscure office, with fewer than 500 staff members. At a time when there are so many looming questions about this Republic, about this administration, it is easy to overlook the Congressman's nomination, but it actually matters very much, particularly at this moment, and that is because the person who controls the budget, the person who has the final say on fiscal and financial priorities for the administration has immense power. This position controls the President's budget, and that means that this person can give the green light to programs and policies across the Federal Government or stop them in their tracks. And because he has a long track record as a legislator, Congressman Mulvaney has already shown what kind of decisionmaker he will be if he is in charge of the Office of Management and Budget, OMB. I will be blunt. His record and his ideas are worrisome. It should concern every Senator who is worried about some of the biggest issues facing Americans, from Social Security, to public health, to the basic, uninterrupted operations of the government itself. So this vote is a moment of truth. It will determine where we really stand on the issues that shape both individual lives and our country's future. Let me highlight just four issues to show why this person is the wrong person to run OMB. The first is Social Security. More than 80 years ago, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. In doing so, he created a national plan to provide economic security for American workers. Since then, Social Security has proven to be the most successful anti-poverty program in our history. Each year, it lifts more than 20 million Americans, including 1 million children, out of poverty. It is hard to imagine a world without Social Security, but I want everybody to understand that pre-Social Security, we had tens of millions of Americans--more than we do now--who would be in poverty upon retirement. So this program has actually reduced poverty among the elderly more than any other program could possibly have accomplished. Nowhere is Social Security more important than in Hawaii. More than 200,000 people receive Social Security benefits. For more than one in four Hawaii seniors, Social Security is their only source of income. And the money just isn't enough; it is about $14,000 a year. Just to give folks an understanding of Hawaii, we are considered the second or third most expensive housing market in the United States. We are after New York and sometimes in second place or third place, depending on where San Francisco is, but we are one of the most expensive places to live in the United States. For one in four Social Security recipients, that is all they get--$1,200 a month. Usually that will cover your apartment. That will not cover your electricity, it won't cover your utilities, it won't cover your food or clothing, and it won't cover your healthcare. Today, most working households have little or no retirement assets at all, and many rely entirely on Social Security. This is partly because employer-provided pensions are becoming a thing of the past. So Social Security is more important than ever. It has become a pillar of our retirement system that continues to work well. It is a universal guaranteed source of income that workers earn and depend on when they retire, but it is just not enough. I will just add that it is only in Washington, DC, where entertaining the idea of cutting Social Security is considered moderate or mainstream or conservative, even, or adult. I mean, there is this sense that the way we ought to fix the challenges we have fiscally as a country is to take it out of the hides of people who get $1,200 a month to live. Instead of strengthening the program, Mr. Mulvaney's ideas are very radical. He has said he wants to systematically alter Social Security by raising the retirement age to 70 years old. He wants to raise the retirement age to 70 years old. This is not an obscure person being appointed to an obscure post; this is a Member of Congress being appointed to be the head of the Office of Management and Budget. We are going to vote on him tomorrow, and everybody who says they are for Social Security is about to vote for a person who wants to raise the Social Security retirement age to 70 years old. He has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. When he worked in the South Carolina State Senate, he voted to declare Social Security unconstitutional. Again, he voted to declare Social Security unconstitutional, and I predict he will get all of the Republican votes. And all of these folks who say they wanted to protect your Social Security, after they put Tom Price at the head of HHS, they are about to put someone who is dedicated to undermining the most successful anti-poverty program in American history. When asked in his confirmation hearing--because, look, you are a Member of Congress; you represent a certain constituency; you have certain views. Some people are able to sort of pivot from their role as a legislator, as a politician, and into a role as an appointee, a Secretary, a nominee. So when he was asked in this confirmation hearing if he would recommend that the President break a campaign promise to leave Social Security alone, the Congressman said that he would recommend that the President make cuts to the program. So this isn't something he has recanted; this is something he stands by--up until and including through his confirmation and his service at OMB. But why make cuts to the most successful anti-poverty program in American history? Why would we make cuts to a program that is financed by its own revenue stream and by law does not add $1 to the deficit? Why would we cut benefits now just because we may have to cut them in 20 years? If we are going to change Social Security, let's do it in a way that expands benefits for generations to come. Let's lift the cap on taxable earnings. Let's remove the wage cap that unfairly shelters the highest earning Americans from paying into the Social Security trust fund that the majority of hard-working Americans do. Here is how it works. The cap is roughly $120,000. So you pay Social Security--almost everybody pays Social Security tax, up to $120,000 in income. That is mostly everybody, right. But if you make $120,000, all of that is taxed up to $120,000. If you make $70,000, it is taxed up to $70,000. If you make $120 million in income, your first $120,000 is taxed for Social Security purposes; everything else is taxed at zero for Social Security purposes. My view is that every dollar of income should be taxed for Social Security purposes, and that does two things: First, we are going to be in a position to increase benefits--not massively, but every little bit counts. Second, we will be able to increase the solvency of the Social Security trust fund to the year 2049. Most every family has a Social Security story, whether it is a grandmother who relies on the program's benefits to pay for groceries, a father who suffered a debilitating injury after decades of hard work and receives much needed Social Security disability benefits, or a widowed mother who relies on Social Security survivors benefits to bring up her children. In my own home, we have three generations living together--my wife Linda and me; our kids, Tyler and Mia; and Linda's parents, George and Ping Kwok. George Kwok lived the American dream. He ran a chop suey house, a Chinese restaurant in Honolulu, Kwok's Chop Suey, and worked hard all his life to give opportunities to his kids, until his eyes gave out. Like 200,000 seniors across Hawaii, he now relies on Social Security--SSDI--Social Security disability. I tell you about my family not because we are unique but because we are not, because we are like so many families in Hawaii and across the country. And with the number of retirees growing, we need to do everything we can to strengthen this program, not to weaken it. After a lifetime of hard work, seniors deserve to retire with the dignity and the benefits they have earned. This is a promise from the Federal Government. The current generation of Americans must keep our promises to seniors, but given his record, I am convinced that Congressman Mulvaney will try to do the opposite. The second issue I am concerned about is the basic operations of government. Whether you are a member of the military, a visitor to a national park, or a worker looking to retire in the near future, we all need for the government to fulfill its basic obligations. But Congressman Mulvaney voted to default on the U.S. debt several times, and he did it in the face of warnings from the U.S. Treasury that this would be unprecedented and catastrophic for our economy and that it could drive the world deep into another recession just as we were finally recovering from the last one. Think about how markets would react if the U.S. Government declared that it would not make good on its financial obligations. The stock markets would go crazy, and not in a good way. That would be terrible for the millions of people who invest their savings in the market for their retirement. The Congressman has also voted several times to shut down the Federal Government, all in the name of getting his way. I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous his approach to government is. It is one thing as a Member of the House Freedom Caucus, as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives--there are 435; you can take positions--but it doesn't have quite the direct impact that the Office of Management and Budget does. He has put party and partisan views over some of the most fundamental and basic principles of our government. To close the government, to stop paying our bills, to make people across the planet question the full faith and credit of the United States is beyond comprehension. It should take a real crisis to pull Congress away from the negotiating table and all the challenges in front of us. But it actually wasn't a crisis that led the Congressman to vote to close our government; it was Planned Parenthood and the ACA. While we may disagree about the best approach on healthcare and even on reproductive choice and women's health, those disagreements should never get in the way of the U.S. Government going about its business. Yet Congressman Mulvaney's actions went against that basic principle. With respect to our Democratic institutions, the procedural violence that was done to the U.S. Congress is hard to overstate in this case. The idea that a faction of a party would demand concessions--and I think we remember this--would demand concessions in exchange for satisfying their infliction of pain on the United States is unbelievable. And why? Because we are all Americans here. We all want to do right by our country. So the idea that one party would be willing to inflict terrible pain on the country, or else, was so beyond the pale that there is no rule against it, there is no law against it. And do you know why there is no rule and no law against it? It is because nobody contemplated that a major political party would behave in such a way. The assumption has always been that elected leaders would find a better way to stand up for their strongly held beliefs than by threatening to bring the American economy to its knees. Up until the shutdown led by the Congressman, that had been a safe assumption. In 2011, Congress's delay in raising the debt limit forced the Department of Treasury to take what they call extraordinary measures to ensure that our government could pay its bills. GAO estimates that this raised Treasury's borrowing costs by about $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2011. That is $1.3 billion in added government costs just for coming close to defaulting. The Bipartisan Policy Center projects that the full cost of that crisis to the Federal Government alone--not to the private sector economy, just the Federal Government-- was around $20 billion over the maturity of that debt. There is nothing conservative about defaulting on what we owe. It cripples free markets. It is Russian roulette playing, with a bullet in every chamber. There is nothing conservative about that. When the government closed in 2013, we paid Federal workers to stay home. I want everybody to understand what we ended up doing. Listen, it wasn't their fault. These government employees are not the ones who screwed up; it was the Congress that screwed up. We paid dedicated Federal workers who want to do their jobs, not to do their jobs. We forced them to stay home and paid them anyway. I defy you to find a conservative outside of the Halls of Congress who finds that to be a conservative proposition. It is one thing to shut down the government for a couple of weeks and accrue the savings. I think that is inhumane, I think that is bananas, but at least you would save the money. These folks ended up paying all the money out and just forcing government workers to not do their jobs. This is not the left or right; this is upside down. We prevented Federal workers from doing their important work, like assisting small businesses and combating terrorism. Ultimately, the 2013 shutdown was a bad move for our economy and for our budget. It cost us money instead of saving us money. In just the first week, it cost the economy $1.6 billion in lost economic output, and it cost about $160 million a day on the private sector side. Worst of all, the Congressman has not seen the error of this. There were a lot of Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who--in the heat of the battle, you sort of think the other side is going to back off and listen. We all learn lessons. We all make mistakes. There are a lot of Republicans who went through that shutdown and said: We never want to do that to the country again. But Congressman Mulvaney has not seen the error of his ways. He still believes the government shutdown was a good idea, and he said so at the confirmation hearing. Senator McCaskill asked if he still thought the shutdown was the right way to go about things, and he answered yes. He answered yes. This kind of budget brinkmanship is not good for our government, to say the least, but it is certainly a bad fit for the person running the OMB. The third issue I want to talk about is the Congressman's rejection of the role of public health and science. If we look at some of the biggest issues our country faces, it is clear that we need an OMB Director who understands the value of science, research, and public health. But the Congressman has said that climate change is based on ``questionable science'' and ``baseless claims.'' He has asked if we need government-funded research at all. These are not the views we should see from the person who directs the budget of the executive branch. In September of last year, Congressman Mulvaney posted a statement about Zika on Facebook. He said: I have received all sorts of email and Facebook comments this week on Zika. Some people want me to pass a ``clean'' bill (which I suppose means not paying for it with spending reductions elsewhere.) Other folks want us to fund more research if we can find a way to pay for it. No one has written me yet, though, to ask what might be the best question: Do we really need government research at all? Do we really need government funded research at all? In his statement, he goes on to ask questions that many have asked about what we are seeing in Brazil, as opposed to other countries affected by Zika. But that is exactly why you do the research. It is not for a Member of Congress to referee how much money should go to CDC and play amateur scientist. We have expert agencies. The CDC did an extraordinary job, not just on Zika but on Ebola. They have done extraordinary work over the decades in keeping people safe. If he is saying there are some scientific mysteries remaining around Zika, that is absolutely true. That is why we need to give the CDC and the National Institutes of Health money to try to figure this out. Those questions are the very reasons we need government-funded research, not an excuse to get rid of it. I want to be clear as to why this matters so much. I am not trying to catch him saying something that is a little off. There is a foundational, bipartisan consensus around public health research, and the person who has been nominated to run the Federal budget doesn't appear to believe in that research. This isn't just out of the political mainstream. People will die if he implements his point of view. Look at some of the diseases where government-funded research has had a significant impact on saving lives: Ebola, HIV/AIDS, malaria, polio, to name a few. We have made the advances we see today because the government stepped in and invested in the research, and that has to continue. Right around the time we debated funding for Zika, I visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, in Atlanta to learn more about their efforts to combat Zika, dengue, and other diseases. I left Atlanta feeling totally confident that the CDC will help our country with challenges like Zika. Millions of Americans are counting on the government to maintain that confidence. But that can happen only if CDC has the strongest funding possible so they can continue to do their good work. Taking money away from the Prevention and Public Health Fund would strip the CDC and other important agencies of the funds they need to protect our country from within and from without. That is what happened in Congress. The legislative branch did not fully step up to the plate and do its job in addressing Zika. Because of that, we forced the Obama administration to pull money from the CDC to address Ebola or from States to address other public health risks. Doing so disrupted public health infrastructure planning across the world that we still need to make sure that Ebola never ravages communities again. Regardless of your side of the aisle, we can all agree this is the one thing that government has to do; that is, to keep us physically safe. Investing in CDC and other agencies that protect our citizens from diseases shouldn't depend on your philosophy of government. Unless you believe in, literally, no government, this is money well spent. This is the kind of thing the government does. We cannot walk away from our country's legacy of funding good research that saves lives, but that is exactly what Congressman Mulvaney suggests we do. He has also made deeply disturbing comments about the science behind climate change. There can be no doubt that climate change is real, that it is caused by humans, and that we have a responsibility to take action. We ignore the science that shows us this at our own risk, and it is a risk our country cannot take. The fourth and final issue I want to touch upon is healthcare-- specifically, Medicare and Medicaid. I am a little worried that people feel reassured because of the rhetoric they heard last year from the President. He did reassure his voters that he was going to save Medicare and Medicaid and protect it from cuts. He promised several times that he wouldn't make any cuts whatsoever to Medicare and Medicaid. But when a Senator reminded Congressman Mulvaney about this during his confirmation hearing, he did not say he would support the administration's promises to the American people. He said that he would advise the President to break that promise. He said that he would advise President Trump to break his campaign promise and change Medicare and Medicaid. Why are we voting for this person? He said that he would advise the President to break the promise and change Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. He wants to cut Medicaid--a program that millions of people rely upon. More than 50 years ago, when Medicaid was created, Congress made a really smart decision and designed the program so that if and when healthcare costs rise or the economy starts to struggle, Medicaid would be there for the American people, no matter what. Now the counselor to the President says that as part of the ACA replacement plan, Medicaid will be converted to block grants. I worry a little bit about the phrasing ``block grants'' because that doesn't sound that bad. I used to work in the not-for-profit sector. I like grants, and I used to pursue Community Development Block Grants, Community Services Block Grants. I like grants; I like Medicaid. I am not sure whether ``block'' means anything positively or negatively, but I want everybody to understand what block-granting Medicaid means: It means cutting Medicaid. That is exactly what it means. It is a euphemism. People in this administration and people nominated to be part of this administration share that view, and they have a long history to back it up. The term ``block grants'' is a euphemism. It is not quite a lie, but it is a way to describe something so that you don't know what it is. They are calling it a block grant because they don't want to say they are cutting Medicaid. That is what they are doing; they are going to cut Medicaid, and these cuts will hurt millions of people. They will hurt working families. Everybody understands Medicaid is there for the economically indigent, in the case of an emergency. But the thing that people also don't realize--and that is a really important aspect of that program-- but it is also really important for nursing home care. That is not just an issue for people who are down on their luck financially or while they are young or while they are parents. When people get older, it is really difficult to afford nursing home care. For most people who are not extraordinarily wealthy, Medicaid is the way to handle nursing home care. It is reimbursable. I know that nursing home care in Hawaii costs $8,000, $9,000 a month. I don't know anybody who can run through $8,000, $9,000 a month for very long. I know a couple of people, but most people I know can't do that without Medicaid. Certainly, Medicaid is an issue that affects the very poor, but it also affects the rest of us. It affects people who aren't just lying on a pile of cash to take care of their grandmother or their mother or their father or their spouse when they are in their golden years. These cuts will hurt women who need Medicaid for maternal health services, as well as seniors and people with disabilities. These people have nowhere else to turn. Medicaid is their only option. Some people point to expanded local control as a reason to move forward with block grants. That is just nonsense. They are basically going to flatten out or cut the amount a State gets, and then they can sit there and divide up an increasingly smaller pie. I am not sure if that is even a euphemism. That is just nonsense. That will not help any State to meet their needs. That is why Republican Governors--anybody with responsibility for actually governing, delivering services to their constituents--don't want to cut Medicaid. They don't want to reduce Medicaid expansion under ACA, and they certainly don't want a block grant because they know what that will mean. Even if you are a fiscal conservative, if you are in charge of a State, you understand exactly what is going to happen to your constituents if Medicaid is cut. This is another instance of a party that promised not to touch Medicaid. But here we are, debating a nominee to lead the OMB who wants to make cuts to this program. This is a deal breaker for me and for many others, and it will be a disaster for millions of Americans. That is why today we have to stand up for seniors, for women, for children and fight any cuts to Medicaid. That starts with voting no on this nomination. I have heard about Congressman Mulvaney from hundreds of people from the State of Hawaii. I want to share a few of the messages that I have received from people in Hawaii. Here is what one man from Oahu wrote: As a researching scientist, I recognize the very significant damage these appointees will have on US health and competitiveness in the world. A break in research funding, or politically-directed and censored research, impacts long term research. A brief hiatus can result in many years set-back of programs and resulting societal benefits. A woman from Volcano Village on the Big Island sent me this message: [This administration's] agenda lies in [the] nominees for the department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Management and Budget who have spent their congressional careers trying to destroy [Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid]. Another woman wrote me with this: [The] nominees for HHS and OMB are walking disasters for the department they'd lead. Both have spent their congressional careers trying to destroy [Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid]. Oh, yes, and the ACA/Obamacare, which has proven to be resoundingly popular. We are hearing from so many people on these issues because they understand how this works. They understand that personnel is policy. You don't get to say you are for protecting Social Security, and then vote for someone who wants to eliminate Social Security as we know it. You don't get to say you are for protecting Medicare and Medicaid, and then vote for someone who has dedicated their career to eliminating or at least seriously undermining this program. If you want to increase the Social Security retirement age, then this is your nominee. If you aren't opposed to seeing our country go through a series of precipices with the shutdown of the Federal Government-- from the huge drops in the market to the closing of our National Parks--then this is your nominee. If you think Federal investments in public health, disease control, and prevention should be eliminated, then this is your nominee. If you want to see cuts to Medicare and Medicaid by 25 percent or more, then vote yes. But if, like me, you know that this is not the right approach to governing, that this is not how we should go about caring for our people and preparing for the future, then you need to vote no. At the end of the day, the leader of the Office of Management and Budget will need to understand how to build a budget for our country and make sure U.S. Government agencies have the resources they need to pursue the mission. This person will need to understand why diplomacy matters, why Medicare and Medicaid matter, why job training and education programs matter, and why financial and fiscal stability matters. Ultimately, he needs to know that government matters and that it can make a difference in people's lives. It determines how bright tomorrow can be for our kids and grandkids and how safe of a world we can create for them. Congressman Mulvaney does not have that record or a confirmation hearing record that can convince any of us that he understands the potential we all have--the obligation we have--to make the right investments that reflect who we are and the future that we want as a country. That is why I will be voting no on this confirmation, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. I thank the ranking member of the HELP Committee, the senior Senator from Washington. You can trace the history of public education in America to the Original Thirteen Colonies. In 1635, boys in Boston could get a free education, and by 1647, the Massachusetts Bay Colony required every town to provide boys a basic education. Some 340 years later, our public education system has come a long way, but some things don't change. Our communities still understand how public education lays a foundation for success. It is still the great equalizer. Senator Murray, during Betsy DeVos's hearing, you asked a very important question. You asked: Can you commit to us that you will not work to privatize public schools or cut a single penny from public education? Mrs. DeVos responded by saying she would work to find common ground and give parents options. I am wondering whether you were satisfied with her answer and her commitment to the basic premise of public schools and public education.

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SCHATZ

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

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I wish to tell a story about Evelyn, a young woman I met from Molokai, which is a small rural island in the State of Hawaii. It is the kind of place that has one radio station, one high school, and everybody knows everybody. Of course, everyone in town knows Evelyn. They were all so very proud of her when she invented a pH sensor that can detect even small changes in the ocean's environment. Her device is nothing short of groundbreaking. It is actually more accurate than the devices that marine scientists at our Federal agencies have been using, and it is way less expensive. It is an estimated \1/42\nd of the price, and it requires half the maintenance. This invention makes Evelyn an accomplished scientist, an innovator, an entrepreneur, and a passionate ocean steward, but she is also a junior in public high school, Molokai High School. She is proof that our public school students can compete and innovate at the highest levels and that public schools can be a path to just about anything, which is why public schools and public education are to be held up and supported and understood as the great equalizer, the bedrock of our democracy, our civil society, our country. You can trace back the history of public education in America to the Original Thirteen Colonies. In 1635, boys in Boston could get a free education, and by 1647, the Massachusetts Bay Colony required every town to provide boys a basic education. Some 340 years later, our public education system has come a long way, but some things don't change. Our communities still understand how public education lays a foundation for success. It gives every American the chance to pursue their dreams. But the nominee for Secretary of Education doesn't seem to understand that, which is why we see constituents flooding the phone lines, Facebook and Twitter, faxes, and the in-boxes of U.S. Senators. In terms of pure volume, this last week has been the highest point for American interaction with the U.S. Congress in our history. Think about that. Think about what we have been through as a country together, and yet, this week and last, more people have called their Members of the Senate than literally ever before because that is the level of passion people feel for public education and because Americans across the country are concerned and worried about what will happen to public education under Betsy DeVos. My office alone has received thousands of messages about her nomination. I just want to be clear about this. There are certainly advocacy organizations that make it easy for you to contact your Member of Congress. They have form letters. They have Web forms. They make it easy. They populate the thing. They pop off an email, and you just sign at the bottom. That isn't what I am talking about. These are organically generated, individual letters from across the State of Hawaii. Talking with colleagues, that is what is happening. People are, on their own, calling because everybody has a story about public education. Everybody has a reason to be passionate about public education. Let me share a few of these concerns. A parent on the Big Island of Hawaii wrote: As a mother of two, and as a woman who went back to graduate school in her 50s, I understand the importance of free education in public schools as a fundamental American right, one which can create a lifelong love of education and learning. A constituent from Kihei, Maui, wrote: Public schools are not failing. We, as in our American culture, are failing them. Another one from Kahului, Maui, wrote: Children are not a business, they are not a commodity. Public education has its issues (of course it does), but privatizing teachers and turning education into an opportunity for the rich to get richer on one of the last social services we provide to everyone in this country is not the answer. Here is one from a teacher on the island of Molokai: The nominee for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has zero experience serving in public schools and is not qualified for the job. I do not believe she understands the needs of our students and what effort it has taken to move our schools as far along as we have. Public education is a great responsibility and cannot be left to those who have never worked directly with children in need. These are children who experience school as a safe place when they are valued, fed and educated. This serious responsibility of public education in no way can be left or replaced by a voucher system. Here is another message from a constituent on the Big Island: My family has very strong ties to the education community-- many of which are or were educators. My husband is an English as a second language teacher, and my mother-in-law is currently a third grade teacher, so this issue cuts deep in our beliefs. We at a minimum deserve a leader with some experience and who knows at least some of the laws already in place as well as how to enforce them. Mrs. DeVos has never known what a child from Milolii has to do just to get a good education. She has never had to make the choice to go to college or to stay home, try to save money while also helping to support her household. Neither her nor her children had to question if she can afford out of state tuition. She does not represent our plight and she does not know our challenges. I ask you from the pureness of my heart as a mom who wants what is best for not only my child, but for every mother's child, to please demand an educational representative with experience and our values in mind. Here is a message from another parent: This is not about which side of the political arena you fall upon. I believe there are many Republicans and Democrats who are far more qualified and knowledgeable than Mrs. DeVos. Our kids deserve better. She is right--our kids do deserve better. But right now, not all of them are getting the education they deserve. A 2016 report found that half a million 15-year-old students in the United States haven't mastered the basics in any subject--not math, not reading, not science--and more than a million scored below the baseline level in science. U.S. News and World Report noted that if we could pull those kids up to a basic understanding, our economy could grow by an estimated $27 trillion over the time period that these students are in the workforce. Set aside the human impact for a moment. Set aside the family impact. If all you care about is economic development, we are leaving $27 trillion on the table because we are not lifting up every child to learn as much as they possibly can and reach their potential. In too many places, we are failing these kids. The impact is both negative and far reaching. Our failure impacts their ability to go to college or learn a trade, to make a decent paycheck, to provide for their family, and to pursue the American dream. But we don't have to fail these children. This Congress can make choices that will improve education for all. We can make, instead of break, the future for our kids. We can decide to increase funding for disadvantaged students. We can decide to protect our students from bullying, sexual harassment, and gun violence. We can decide to set up children for success with universal access to early childhood education. There is abundant brain science now that confirms every parent's instinct, which is that the first 5 years of a child's life--of an infant's life into being a toddler, then to being a little kid--those first 5 years are the most important years for a child. Now we don't have to just use our instincts because there is abundant brain science and data that have come in that have shown, in terms of the efficacy of a Federal dollar spent, there is nothing that has a greater impact in terms of reducing social service spending, in terms of economic development, than investing in early childhood education. We can decide to adhere to commonsense accountability standards to ensure a high-quality education to all children, regardless of who your parents are or where you live. We can decide to invest in wage-boosting apprenticeship careers and technical education. We can make college more affordable so our students can access higher education without taking on crushing debt. But to accomplish these goals, we need an excellent Department of Education to make it happen because the agency is responsible for implementing Congress's decisions. It is up to the executive branch to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the Nation. That is literally the mission statement of the U.S. DOE--to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence. And that is the way I look at the Secretary nominee. Is she committed to ensuring access--equal access to education and promoting educational excellence? The Secretary of Education is responsible for the mission of overseeing a $36 billion budget in K-12 and about $150 billion in higher education funding. This person is responsible for enforcing key civil rights protections for our students. This person advises the President on all things education in the United States, whether it is a policy that will affect a local public school or a policy that will impact millions of student borrowers. Up until this moment, every Secretary of Education who has served in the President's Cabinet has had the resume required to take on these responsibilities. Shirley Hufstedler was the first Secretary of Education to be in the Cabinet, serving under President Carter. As the daughter of a schoolteacher and a part-time teacher herself, she was also a trailblazing lawyer who was considered a favorite to be the first woman nominated to the Supreme Court. Terrel Bell was a teacher, a professor, and then a superintendent of a school district in Utah before he served under President Reagan. William Bennett was a professor at three universities who released research about higher education curriculums before heading the Department to serve under President Reagan. Laurel Cavazos was dean of Tufts Medical School before becoming president of Texas Tech University. He would go on to be the first Secretary of Education for President George H.W. Bush. The esteemed Senator Alexander served as Governor of Tennessee and president of the University of Tennessee before becoming President Bush's Secretary of Education. Richard Riley championed funding and support for education as Governor of South Carolina before leading the Department of Education under President Clinton. Rod Paige was a professor, a dean, an innovator in education, and the superintendent of the Houston school district before he served under President George W. Bush. Margaret Spellings advised then-Governor George Bush on education in Texas before becoming his second Secretary of Education. Arne Duncan served as the CEO for Chicago's public school system before joining the Obama administration as Secretary of Education. John King, Jr., was the commissioner of education for New York and Deputy Secretary of Education before he led the Department as Secretary for President Obama. Every Secretary who has led the Department came to the job with a history in government or in the classroom. They served as elected officials or as policy advisers in the executive branch or worked as administrators or educators. But now this administration is asking us to make an exception by confirming someone who really doesn't have any relevant experience. She has never served in the government, never taught in the classroom, never managed a school district. One woman from Oahu wrote me to say: She is supremely unqualified to lead the department. As a retired public school teacher--30 years both in regular and special education--I am aghast that she is even being considered. When one is being nominated to uphold Federal education laws and is ``confused'' by what IDEA entails, it becomes very apparent that this person is a poor choice for this position. Another letter I got from an educator reads: I taught in both public and private schools for 10 years on the mainland before moving to Hawaii and teaching for more than 15 additional years. Watching video clips on the news of her Senate hearings, it is appalling to see how little she knows about the topic of education. I worry for all of our children. I worry for our country. Please, if you can, do what you can do to see that we get someone more qualified to help guide our children and our country. HELP! Everything that has happened since Mrs. DeVos has been nominated has unfortunately only confirmed the concerns I heard from constituents. Because her hearing was so short, Senators followed up with written questions, and in some cases, her responses lifted language from other sources without citing them. In one response, she wrote, ``Every child deserves to attend school in a safe, supportive environment, where they can learn, thrive and grow.'' Fine. Well, an Obama official used the exact same language in a press release regarding the rights of transgender students, but she did not cite that official or the press release. In another example, she answered a question about title IX investigations in the following way: ``Opening a complaint for investigation in no way implies that the Office of Civil Rights has made a determination about the merits of that complaint.'' That is the exact language the Department of Education uses in its own guidance. There is nothing wrong with citing a source, especially when that source is the Department you want to run, but it has to be cited. That is one of the first things you teach a child in seventh and eighth grade when they are trying to learn how to do research--cite your sources. But the central issue isn't the lack of a seriousness of purpose during the hearings and in the questions for the record, although I think that was what caused the Nation to kind of wake up and rise up about the challenge in front of us when it comes to public education. This was not part of some master strategy on the part of Democrats. What happened in those hearings is that Michael Bennet, Al Franken, Chris Murphy, and Elizabeth Warren just did their jobs and asked questions. If you told me that a clip about the distinction between proficiency and growth--I mean, that is the wonkiest thing in the world. But what happened was 2 million people or more saw that on Facebook. This wasn't part of our political strategy. What happened was that people saw the hearing and got very worried that we will have the wrong person in charge of public education policy at the Federal level. So you have people left, right, and center. You can ask the Senate Republicans whether they are getting phone calls too. They are getting phone calls too. This is not a Democratic strategy. What is happening is that we have the wrong person who may be confirmed as the Secretary of Education. The central issue is that there remain concerns around Mrs. DeVos's basic understanding of education policy. During her confirmation hearings, there were several moments when she didn't seem to fully grasp the important parts of Federal law on education. The Washington Post actually published an article called ``Six astonishing things Betsy DeVos said--and refused to say--at her confirmation hearing.'' DeVos refused to agree with a Democrat that schools are no place for guns, citing one school that needs one to protect against grizzly bears. When Senator Chris Murphy asked her whether she would agree that guns don't belong in schools, she said, ``I will refer back to Senator Enzi and the school he was talking about in Wyoming. I think probably there, I would imagine that there is probably a gun in the schools to protect from potential grizzlies.'' This would be hilarious if it weren't so serious. This would be hysterically funny if this weren't the person who is about to become our Secretary of Education. When asked whether she would support President Trump if he, as promised, moved to end gun-free zones around schools, she said: ``I will support whatever the President does,'' even if that means moving guns into schools, allowing guns in schools. She added: ``If the question is around gun violence and the results of that, please know that my heart bleeds and is broken for those families that have lost any individual to gun violence.'' DeVos refused to agree with Senator Tim Kaine that all schools that receive public Federal funds--traditional public, charter, or private schools that receive voucher money--should be held to the same standards of accountability. A little background on this issue. I have a great charter school movement in the State of Hawaii, but the deal we have struck--and it is imperfect, and they are always arguing about fixed costs and capital costs and all the rest of it, but the basic bargain when charters work is that they are legitimately a public school. What does that mean? That means they are held to the same standards as traditional public schools because to the extent that you have two categories of public schools with different metrics, then you are basically playing a game, trying to divert money from one to the other. OK, so Tim Kaine's question was exactly right. If public money is involved--whether it is vouchers to a private school, school choice to a charter school, or a traditional public school--shouldn't we measure each school's success in the same way, just to be fair? Kaine said: If confirmed, will you insist upon equal accountability in any K-12 school or educational program that receives taxpayer funding--whether public, public charter, or private? DeVos said: I support accountability. Kaine said: Equal accountability? DeVos: I support accountability. Kaine: Is that a yes or a no? DeVos: I support accountability. Kaine: Do you not want to answer my question? DeVos. I support accountability. This is someone who either did not prepare for the hearing or is basically walking into this hearing saying: I have the votes. I don't have to answer your questions. I don't have to reassure the parents, teachers, and students who are desperately worried about what is going to happen to public education because I have the votes. Kaine said: Let me ask you this. I think all schools that receive taxpayer funding should be equally accountable. I mean, he is so polite, but he is also very lawyerly. So he asked the question 14 different ways, trying to get the answer. Do you agree? DeVos: Well, they don't. They are not today. Kaine: Well, I think they should. Do you agree with me? Well, no. Kaine, interrupting her, said: You don't not agree with me. And then he moved on to another topic. DeVos appeared to have no idea what Al Franken was talking about when he referred to the accountability debate about whether to use test scores to measure student proficiency or student growth. I mean, there is a debate about student proficiency and student growth, and I won't bore you with the details except to say that I don't expect regular folks out there to be into the weeds about the difference between proficiency and growth. I get how wonky that is. I absolutely expect the Secretary of Education nominee to know about this. I mean, even if you are brand new to the topic, if you just have smart people in the room who briefed you on it--10 hours maybe--you would be ready to talk about proficiency and growth. This is what I am talking about when I talk about a lack of preparation, a lack of humility around what advice and consent means, and the Senate has an obligation to take every nomination seriously. Franken noted that the subject has been debated in the education community for many years and said, when she didn't weigh in and just looked at him without much of an expression on her face: It surprises me that you don't know this issue. But it is not just issues like accountability or guns in schools that concern me. On a whole host of issues, Mrs. DeVos's views are far out of the mainstream of education policy. I want to highlight four policy areas where Mrs. DeVos's views are beyond my line in the sand. Let's start with K-12 education. I think we can all agree that this country has work to do when it comes to public education. But I am worried that Mrs. DeVos would prefer to privatize our public schools instead of improving them. Take a look at her track record. She has fought to strip away protections around K-12 education and introduce a profit motive into our education system. She has lobbied for vouchers and for for-profit schools. She has been relatively successful in her lobbying efforts. In her home State of Michigan, she had an enormous influence on the State's approach to education. Now, I would point any Senator on the fence about her nomination to look at this case study because it speaks volumes. In 2000, Michigan fourth and fifth grade students had higher than average test scores in math and English. Fifteen years later, students now perform below average. Last spring, the Atlantic published a fascinating article about Detroit's education system, which has been most influenced by the policies that Mrs. DeVos champions. I would like to read a few excerpts from it. Three months into her son's first pass at third grade, Arlyssa Heard had a breakdown. Judah was bright, but had begun calling himself stupid. The chaos of Detroit's precarious education landscape had forced him to switch schools every few months, leaving him further and further behind. There was no central system to transfer Judah's records when he moved, and according to Heard the school where he started the 2014-15 academic year had a single teacher assigned to 44 third-graders. Heard was virtually alone in trying to deal with the fact that her boy, then 8, could write only the first two letters of his name. Heard says she was one of the parents Detroit Public Schools turned to when it needed a strong family showing at a rally or community members to serve on a task force. She was running for the Detroit School Board. But when she needed help, she had nowhere to turn. ``Here I was this advocate for education, and I couldn't find a place for my son,'' she says. ``I was crying in the principal's office and I said, `I don't know what to do.' The principal said, `I don't either.''' The scope of the problems plaguing Detroit schools--both traditional district schools and charters--is almost unfathomable. According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 4 percent of Detroit's eight grade students can read and perform math at grade level, the lowest rate among the nation's big cities. Schools aren't located where families need them-- Think about this-- and campuses often open and close with no coordination or notice. Over the last six years, most schools in the city have either opened or closed--or both. In one neighborhood in the city's southwest quadrant, home to a large Latino population and a number of industrial zones, a dozen schools opened or closed in the span of 18 months. And when a parent shows up to find a child's classroom abandoned, good luck finding a new one. There are more than 200 schools with roughly 50 different enrollment processes and almost no standard for performance. Some 44 percent of the Detroit students are enrolled in charter schools, the second-highest rate in the Nation, behind New Orleans. One of those schools is the Detroit Leadership Academy, which two years ago was solidly at the back of a flagging pack. Abutting a crumbling freeway access road in the city's working-class Castle Rouge neighborhood, several grades at the school's elementary campus did not boast a single student reading or performing math at grade level. During the summer of 2015, a network of three charter schools called Equity Education Solutions--which unlike most of the city's charter operators is a nonprofit--was tasked with turning the school around, a restart required under law because of its consistently poor performance. Central Michigan University, the authorizing entity that granted the school permission to exist, told the fledgling network it had 8 months to fix things. In reality, the operators of Detroit's charter schools almost never close them because of poor academic performance. So even a school where no child is achieving at grade level can continue enrolling new students. That is school choice for you. That is the charter school movement for you--not in every instance, but this is how it manifested itself in the State of Michigan, where Betsy DeVos played a major role. And the higher-education institutions that authorize them, often have financial incentives to keep the schools open; charter networks give authorizers a percentage of the funding. So the agency, which is often a university or some other institution, actually gets a cut of the revenue for authorizing. So they have a problem saying: This charter must be shut down--because that costs them money. In some States in exchange for that revenue, charter authorizers are encouraged to provide support and accountability, but not in Michigan, where the trustees of the colleges doing the authorizing are appointed by the governor. ``Not even the governor has the authority to shut down chronically low-performing charter authorizers in Michigan,'' Education Trust-Midwest noted in a report released last week, ``despite the fact that such authorizers serve nearly 145,000 Michigan children--and their charter schools take in more $1 billion annually.'' Critics say this is especially problematic because almost all of Detroit's charter schools are run by for-profit companies. Think about that. This is public education. Right? These are public dollars. Suddenly, they are going to for-profit companies. It would be one thing to have the old talk from Members on the other side of the aisle: We should run government like a business. Well, if the point is to run things efficiently to do more innovation, fine. If the point is to try to suck as much revenue out of the taxpayer as we possibly can and deliver a minimal service, you know, I don't think we should run the public education system like that kind of a business. In this case, it is not running it like a business; it is running a business with Federal and State tax dollars. The private businesses aren't required to disclose their earnings, but a 2014 investigation by the Detroit Free Press suggests profits are huge. During the 2012-13 school year, the paper found, traditional Detroit public schools spent an average of about $7,000 per student in the classroom. Charter schools spent about $2,000 less per pupil. They are getting the same amount of money, and they are spending $2,000 less per kid. Yet they spent double that rate on per-pupil funding on administrative costs. That is their skim. That is their profit. Meanwhile, the oversupply of seats in for-profit schools has arguably kept nonprofit charter networks with better track records out of the market. So they really are operating like a business, like an airline; right? They are operating like a credit card company, a financial services company. I mean, this is the private sector at work in public education. There are some private sector models where I think: Hey, let's have a partnership with the Department of Education to try to see how much clean energy we can develop. Let's work with the Department of Commerce on export promotion. But there are some aspects of what the government does that are not a good fit with the private sector. This is one of them. This is not some ideological test. It is just not working. We are ripping off our taxpayers, and we are giving a bad value to the students who deserve better. The Senate bill under consideration at the Michigan statehouse would have created a Detroit commission with the power to change all of that. The leaders of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, the main charter lobby association, and some of Michigan's for-profit management companies have long lobbied against policies that would have tightened accountability. The most influential of them is Betsy DeVos, a major player in Michigan's Republican Party and in the efforts to widen the for-profit sector. They have argued that proposals such as that put forward by the Senate bill disregard the needs of Detroit's children. ``Legislators should not give in to this anti-choice, anti- parent, and anti-student agenda aimed at protecting and maintaining the status quo for deeply entrenched adult interest groups,'' Betsy DeVos opined in the Detroit News. ``After all, since DPS has lost 75 percent of their enrollment in the past decade, haven't Detroit parents already voted resoundingly by fleeing for higher quality and safer schools elsewhere?'' But critics, including Stephen Henderson, the Detroit Free Press's editorial page editor, says it's groups such as the DeVos foundations that have an agenda. ``House Republicans, for instance, are also standing in the way of [a bill] which would, quite simply, slow the spread of mediocre or failing schools.'' The article ends with a few paragraphs about Arlyssa Heard, the advocate described in the beginning of the story. After enrolling her son in two more schools that didn't work, she found a small startup school that has strategies for helping Judah compensate for his ADHD. He had to repeat the third grade, but has rocketed ahead. Now he talks about becoming a scientist. The realization that better is possible has redoubled Heard's willingness to make the trek to Lansing as often as parent voices need to be heard. ``Who are these people who are making the decisions and why aren't they in the schools,'' she asks. ``Why can't we know? Why can't you just be accountable to the people you are serving?'' Now, during the confirmation hearing, Senator Bennet, whom I greatly admire, and who is a former superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, asked Mrs. DeVos how the policy failures in Detroit might inform her leadership at the DOE. She replied: I think there is a lot that has gone right. Senator Patty Murray, a former school board president, asked if Mrs. DeVos would promise not to privatize public education or cut funding. A pretty straightforward question. A pretty mainstream question, right? I mean, if you get sort of a mainstream Republican nominee for Secretary of Education, they know how to answer this question. They may have a different view of common core. They may have a different view of the teachers' unions. They may have a different view on charter school choice. But everybody knows it is the third rail; you do not talk about privatizing public education. Here is her response: I look forward, if confirmed, to working with you to talk about how we address the needs of all parents and all students. We acknowledge today that not all schools are working for the students that are assigned to them. I'm hopeful that we can work together to find common ground and ways that we can solve those issues and empower parents to make choices on behalf of their children that are right for them. I don't know what that means. It is not a complicated question, right? I mean, certainly in the United States Senate, you get a lot of complicated questions, right, on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on the Education Committee. I happen to be the ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee on the Commerce Committee, and half of what I say is totally unintelligible to people who don't work in tech and telecom. But this is a very straightforward question. The question is, Do you promise not to work on privatizing public education? And the answer is basically: No, I don't promise. I mean, it is a word salad, but it doesn't mean anything. And she was given a very easy opportunity to disavow her intent to privatize public education. Privatization is not the answer. We should not be funneling taxpayer money into unregulated and unaccountable private schools. We need to champion access to public education and the accountability measures that give all of our students a chance to succeed. But in Michigan, Mrs. DeVos lobbied to block accountability standards for charter schools and lift the cap on charter schools. These actions pushed the number of unregulated, for-profit operators of charter schools from 255 to 805. Now, this doesn't mean that charter schools are the boogeyman here, right? I mean, there may be some disagreements between people who support charter schools and people who support traditional public schools, but at the end of the day, the legitimate, mainstream charter school proponents will always want to be able to look you in the eye and say: Look, this is not about vouchers, and this is not about privatization. This is about the flexibility to innovate. They understand the basic bargain in the charter movement has to be: OK. It is public education dollars, and there are a couple of things that are mandatory, right? You have to comply with Federal and State law. You have to be subject to the same accountability standards, and you have to take all comers. So it is very important to the mainstream charter people-- I was interested to know because I have a good relationship with education reformers and with the charter movement, so when I heard about Mrs. DeVos, I was interested to hear what they had to say. They were, in a lot of ways, more alarmed than anyone because they believed this would be the death knell for real charters because, to the extent that charters are just cover for privatizing public education, well, now it is going to be a fight. Now it is going to be a fight. We have some great charter schools in my home State of Hawaii. They are doing innovative things for their students, and that is something we should all support, but when Mrs. DeVos talks about charter schools, she is not talking about those schools. She is talking about privatization. The rallying cry behind privatization is often school choice, but choice doesn't work as a practical matter in many places across the country. In a lot of communities, particularly in rural areas, school choice is not a practical response to the problems. There is no school down the road, right? There is no little Catholic school. There is no private charter school. There is no public charter school. There is just the school, right? Because the town is too small to have multiple options. So when you talk about taking--and I heard a figure of $20 billion out of the K-12 budget which is not that--I mean, it is $20 billion out of $36 billion--and providing it for school choice and for charters, well, what about Alaska, right? What about Nebraska? What about the Dakotas? What about parts of Hawaii, where if you give a parent and a student a voucher, and they say: Well, I have this voucher for private education, for charter schools, and yet there is only one school left, all you did was eviscerate the budget of the only school in your neighborhood. That is how this is going to work as a practical matter. I don't know if that is the intent or not. I honestly don't know if that is the intent or not, but that is how it would end up working. To drain money from traditional public education hurts people in small communities, in rural communities, and places where there is no possibility of multiple schools. School choice can drain resources. When a charter school opens up, the public school has to divert resources from its students, and that is something I have heard about from people in Hawaii. One teacher whom I heard from who has worked for two decades in both Hawaii and Michigan wrote this to me: Ms. DeVos would be a disaster for public education. She has never been a teacher to know what current educational practices consist of. Her advocacy for more unaccountable (often for-profit) charter schools and greater use of vouchers so that students could attend private or religious schools would take needed resources away from local public schools. Her mission, in short, is to privatize public education. I've witnessed firsthand in Michigan what happens when schools privatize. DeVos should be opposed not only for what she could do, if confirmed, but for what she's done in Michigan. The DeVos family set up the Great Lakes Education Project, which has played a leading role in thwarting efforts to regulate charter schools in Detroit and, for the most part, failed to deliver on their promises of a better education for students. I just want to pause for a moment and thank all of the people who write my office every day but in particular the people who have been writing my office on all of these nominees because it wasn't that difficult to pull these incredibly insightful, passionate, individually written letters, and this is happening across the country. You know, you get the pundits as you leave the Senate. If it is the middle of the day and not 2:30 in the morning, the media kind of comes to you, and they stick the microphone in your face, and they ask you about: Is there a new tea party on the left? All I can tell you is, there are millions and millions and millions of people who are rising up. I don't think they are all on the left. I mean, when I saw those marches, there were lots of progressives, lots of people who believe in liberal and progressive causes, but I also saw some people who have never marched in their lives. I also saw some people who just care about public education. They don't even know what their politics are, except they saw Betsy DeVos, and they said: No, this is not what I voted for. This is not what I want for my son or for my daughter or for my niece or my nephew. This is not what I want for the country's future, which brings me to the second policy area that I think we ought to consider and that is for-profit colleges. What is happening with some for-profit colleges is nothing less than a national scandal. Students are being hurt, and we are wasting tens of billions of dollars. So here are the facts: Almost 2 million students are enrolled in for-profit programs, and they have collectively taken on $200 billion in debt to attend, but they often leave with little to show for it. More than half drop out within a few months. At some colleges, fewer than 5 percent of their students ever graduate. For those who leave without a degree, repaying loans is an incredible struggle. Students at for-profit colleges default on student loans at double the rate of students at nonprofit colleges. This is morally outrageous on its own, but it is particularly egregious to the American taxpayer because these substandard programs are financed almost entirely by the Federal Government, and the amount is staggering. In total, for-profits receive over $32 billion a year in Federal financial aid. That is 20 percent of the total aid, and they serve 12 percent of the students--20 percent of the aid, 12 percent of the students, $32 billion in Federal funding. There are several for-profit companies that each take in more than $1 billion in Federal aid a year and graduate fewer than 10 percent of their students. Think about that. We taxpayers are paying most of the bill a year, and these kids are not graduating. They take in more than $1 billion, and they are graduating fewer than 10 percent of their kids. Not only are the education metrics on student performance awful, but many of these for-profit colleges are also under investigation for fraud and deception. Essentially, they have been lying to students and to State and Federal agencies to cover up how bad their record is. Even while prosecutors go after these schools for fraud, they remain accredited, and they continue to rake in Federal funds. Here are a few examples. Education Management Corporation faces charges of fraud and deception brought by prosecutors in 13 States and the Department of Justice and was facing a lawsuit to recover $11 billion in Federal and State funds. Yet EMC is still accredited and still received $1.25 billion from the U.S. DOE last year. Ultimately, the Department of Justice secured a $100 million settlement, and a separate coalition of State attorneys general reached another settlement for $102 million in student loan debt relief for former students. ITT Educational Services was investigated and sued by 19 States, the SEC, the CFPB, and the DOJ. It is also under scrutiny from U.S. DOE for failure to meet financial responsibility standards. They remained accredited until the day they shut their doors. Think about that. They were still accredited by the U.S. DOE, right, until they were shut down by the U.S. DOJ. The year before, they received just under $600 million. Their closure has left thousands of students in the lurch, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Another 152 schools are under investigation by a working group of 37 State attorneys general. They too are still accredited. Collectively, they received $8 billion in Federal financial aid last year. So what do these schools have in common? They never lose their accreditation, even when there are ongoing investigations of fraud and deceptive practices that harm students. Accreditation is the key to the castle for accessing the spigot of Federal financial aid. It is supposed to signify that a program provides a quality education for its students, but here is the thing. This accreditation doesn't mean much. The Government Accountability Office released a study on accreditation in 2014, and its findings were shocking. Over a 4-year period, the GAO found that accreditors sanction only 8 percent of the institutions they oversaw and revoked accreditation for just 1 percent. They revoked accreditation for just 1 percent. So 99 percent of them, even if there is nothing wrong, they keep those Federal funds flowing in. Even more troubling, GAO found that there was no correlation between accreditor sanctions and educational quality. In other words, schools with bad student outcomes were no more likely to be sanctioned by their accreditor than schools with good student outcomes. Our accreditation system is totally broken. According to the Higher Education Act, accreditation agencies are supposed to be the ``reliable authorities as to the quality of education or training offered'' by institutions of higher education. That is the reason for making accreditation a core criteria for receiving Federal funds. How are we following the law when accreditation reviews find that 99 percent of these institutions are providing an education of value? How can we say with a straight face that accreditors are acting as reliable authorities on educational quality? Here is the problem--money. Incentives are lined up against being critical and against setting high standards. The problem can be traced back to the funding and the governance of the accreditation agencies themselves. First, accrediting agencies are funded by the same institutions they accredit. Colleges pay an additional fee to become accredited and annual dues after that. They pay for site visits and other services. Second, accrediting agencies are run by and are overseen by the institutions they accredit. The member institutions elect their own academics and administrators to serve on the board of the accreditation agency. So everyone is in on it, right? Everyone makes money pretending this is fine. We have a system that is dysfunctional, if not corrupt, in which it is far too easy to become and remain accredited. This is a very similar system to what we had with S&P and Moody's and all of these rating agencies that had financial incentives to determine that all of these derivatives and credit default swaps and crazy financial instruments that were clearly not creditworthy were getting AAA ratings. Why? Because the financial incentives over time had enmeshed the accreditors with the accrediting. This is supposed to be a sort of independent relationship because they are supposed to be certifying to the consumer that everything is all good, right? And what happened? The system came crashing down. I don't think the system will come crashing down, except that the system is already coming crashing down on the students who are getting ripped off. You ask schools that are taking in more than $1 billion of Federal funds. There are several schools, every year with Federal funds in excess of $1 billion, and 5 percent of the kids are graduating. For the sake of students and taxpayers, the Department has to make this a top priority, but I am not convinced that Mrs. DeVos will do that. She has no experience in higher education, a fact that does not bode well for the 6,000 colleges and universities in this country. When Senator Warren questioned her about this in her confirmation hearing, her response was concerning. This is what the transcript says: Ms. WARREN. How do you plan to protect taxpayer dollars from waste, fraud, and abuse from colleges that take in millions of dollars in Federal student aid? Mrs. DeVOS. Senator, if confirmed, I will certainly be very vigilant. Ms. WARREN. How? How are you going to do that? You said you are committed. Mrs. DeVOS. The individuals with whom I work in the department will ensure that federal moneys are used properly and appropriately. Ms. WARREN. You are going to subcontract making sure that what happens with universities that cheat students doesn't happen anymore? You are going to give that to someone else to do? I just want to know what your ideas are for making sure we don't have problems with waste, fraud, and abuse. Mrs. DeVOS. I want to make sure we don't have problems with that as well. If confirmed, I will work diligently to ensure that we are addressing any of those issues. Ms. WARREN. Well, let me make a suggestion on this. It actually turns out there are a whole group of rules that are already written and are there, and all you have to do is enforce them. What I want to know is, will you commit to enforcing those rules? Mrs. DeVOS. Senator, I will commit to ensuring that institutions which receive federal funds are actually serving their students well. Ms. WARREN. So you will enforce the gainful employment rule to make sure that these career colleges are not cheating students? Mrs. DeVOS. We will certainly review that rule. Again, this goes back to somebody who is kind of walking into a hearing saying: Look, I got the vote. I don't have to learn about public education. I don't have to listen to Democrats' concerns. I don't have to listen to teachers' concerns or students' concerns or the concerns of experts in education. I don't have to learn about higher education, which is, by money spent, about three-quarters of the U.S. Department of Education. Ms. WARREN. You will review it? You will not commit to enforce it? Mrs. DeVOS. And see that it is actually achieving what the intentions are. Ms. WARREN. I don't understand about reviewing it. We talked about this in my office. There are already rules in place. And so on--Senator Warren's exchange there is very revealing. I know Republicans care very deeply about waste, fraud, and abuse. I hear about it all the time, and I hope they will consider this nominee's tepid commitment to this issue as they talk with their constituents about how they are going to vote. The third issue I am concerned about is college affordability. The rising cost of college is one of the biggest middle-class issues of our time, if not the biggest issue of our time. No generation escapes this problem. If you are a student or a parent, you worry about paying for college. I know plenty of grandparents who are worried about their children who are still paying off their college loans and are now trying to save up for their students. The Federal Government is giving $140 billion in Federal aid to institutions of higher learning in grants and loans. That is a good thing, not a bad thing. That is Federal policy. We decided we wanted to make college affordable because higher education is the straightest line for us to develop the workforce we need and for people to move up the economic ladder. But with that $140 billion, we need to be making college more affordable, and we are actually getting the opposite result. Both in raw dollars and inflation-adjusted dollars, we are spending more in Federal grants and Pell grants, and the cost of college goes up and up and up. Average Pell grant awards have increased by almost 20 percent in the past 10 years. In the same period, Pell grants covered 25 percent less. We are officially paying more and getting less. This is because college costs are growing faster than the cost of all other consumer goods--twice as fast as health care costs. It is impossible to get ahead nowadays without a college degree, but the growing cost of college is preventing some from getting a degree in the first place and leaving others with unmanageable levels of debt. It is clear that our system isn't working. If we are subsidizing higher education with Federal dollars, we have a responsibility to incentivize institutions of higher education to become more affordable, provide access to lower income students, and deliver quality education. We want to reward those schools that are focused on affordability and give incentives for the rest to make affordability part of the mission. But based on Mrs. DeVos's testimony, it is unclear whether or not she agrees. In 2011, the Department of Education sent colleges and universities a letter that made clear that sexual assault is prohibited under title IX. It advised schools to be responsive to reports of sexual violence and gave guidelines on how schools should process those reports. But during Mrs. DeVos's hearing, she had an exchange with Senator Casey that indicates she would roll back this progress. Let's take a look at the transcript. Mr. CASEY. Would you agree with me that the problem, and that's an understatement in my judgment, that the problem of sexual assault on college campuses is a significant [one] that we should take action on? Mrs. DeVOS. Senator, thank you for that question. I agree with you that sexual assault in any form or in any place is a problem. Mr. CASEY. I ask you, would you uphold the 2011 Title IX guidance as it relates to sexual assault on campus? Mrs. DeVOS. Senator, I know that there's a lot of conflicting ideas and opinions around that guidance, and if confirmed I would work with you. And so on. My concerns about Mrs. DeVos go to policy, to preparation, but most of all to a basic understanding of what public education is about. It goes to a basic commitment to the mission of public education. Every Senator's office has phones ringing off the hook with people telling us that Mrs. DeVos is not the right choice. So, to my Republican colleagues, you don't have to take my word for it; you don't have to take the word of the other 49 Senators who know that Mrs. DeVos will not be the leader of the Department of Education that we all need. You only have to take the word of the people in your own State and the groups whom we look to and trust when it comes to our country's education system. These are the people whom we are here to serve. They are the parents, the grandparents, the teachers, the faculty, the school board members, and the students who count on us to make the right decision. We may not agree on who would make the perfect Secretary of Education, but we can agree that people across the country are speaking out against Mrs. DeVos, and it is up to us to listen. I will be voting no on her nomination, and I ask Republicans to follow the advice of their constituents and join me. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I am an institutionalist. I believe in this place. I love this place. People don't always like the rules or how they are interpreted, how they are administered, but the rules have historically differentiated the Senate from any other legislative body in the world, and I believe in that. But what Senator Warren did earlier tonight was not over the line. And here we are worrying about decorum and rule XIX, which says that ``No Senator in debate shall . . . impute to another Senator . . . any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.'' And let's be really clear here. This would not be a problem if Senator Sessions were not a Senator. In other words, anytime a Senator is nominated for a Cabinet position, you can be as positive as you want, but if you want to be as tough on a Senator who has been nominated as we have been on Rex Tillerson or Betsy DeVos, you run the risk of breaking the rules. Now let's pause a moment to understand how divorced from reality this is. While debating Jeff Sessions as the next Attorney General, Elizabeth Warren crossed an invisible line, and a rule almost never used was invoked. The rule was not invoked when somebody called another Member a cancer. The rule was not invoked when somebody called another Member a liar. Now, this is ridiculous, but it is actually not the main point. Here is the point. Lots of people--almost everybody in the world--everybody in this country does not have the luxury of worrying about decorum. What a luxury we have to debate if a stray comment crossed some theoretical line. This place, this place of privilege, this place, the dome next door built by slaves, this place, where there were hardly any women or people of color or gay people out of the closet until very recently, yet we spent hours worrying about whether Elizabeth hurt Jeff's feelings or broke a sense of decorum. What a luxury it is to worry about that. In the meantime, Muslim families in America are terrified. In the meantime, DACA kids are worrying about whether they have to go into hiding. In the meantime, LGBT youth are bullied in school. In the meantime, anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise across the country. And we are here worrying about whether it is impolite to quote in full the statement of the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Look, I am for this body. I am old-school. I like the rules. I spend a lot of time talking with the Parliamentarian at this desk so I can better understand it. But this body and its rules have to be in service to the country. The country is not in service to the rules and the body of the Senate. Before I go on, I just want to thank the stenographers who are such a critical aspect of the Senate and have been running marathon sessions-- literally marathon sessions. We rotate through. There are at least 30 of us doing about 30 hours of debate, but there are only seven of you, and your wrists are sore, your legs are sore. This is incredibly challenging. Yet without you, we have no Senate Record. So thank you for your service and your contributions to the world's greatest deliberative body. In his final speech as Attorney General, Eric Holder gave us a warning and one that remains relevant in the Senate today. He said: Beware those who would take us back to a past that has really never existed or that was imbued with a forgotten inequity. Our destiny as Americans is always ahead of us. Today our country faces a stark choice. Do we want to pursue an imaginary past or do we want to continue to follow the path toward progress? Do we continue in our struggle to form a more perfect union, to secure the blessings of liberty? It is hard to believe, but these are the dramatic choices before us as we consider the Cabinet nominations of this administration. And that choice is perhaps most clear in the nomination of our colleague Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General. The Attorney General is the highest law enforcement official in the country. He or she is the defender of American values, of human rights, and of civil rights, and this person needs to have an unbreakable commitment to fight for what is right and to lead that pursuit in making America more free and more just. That is the kind of approach we need because that is what the job demands. The Attorney General leads the No. 1 watchdog for civil rights in our country. It is the Department charged with protecting voting rights and prosecuting human trafficking and hate crimes. They determine and defend the constitutionality of U.S. policies. Our next AG will face critical challenges that will test our justice system and our values. We need a leader committed to protecting the rights of every American regardless of race, religion, gender, national origin, or sexual orientation. While I do like him as a colleague, Senator Sessions is the wrong person to serve as our Nation's Attorney General. In my judgment, his policies, priorities, and overall philosophy fall short of the standard our country has for the leader of the Justice Department. Throughout Senator Sessions' career, he has been on the wrong side of history. If you look at the key issues that this Attorney General will work on, it is clear that Senator Sessions' views fall outside the mainstream of America. That is certainly true when it comes to criminal justice. Look at Senator Sessions' opposition to the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act. This bill was a big deal. It would have reduced mandatory minimum sentencing for low-level, nonviolent crimes, while keeping tougher penalties for serious or violent crimes; it would strengthen drug addiction, rehabilitation and mental health treatments, and improve our efforts to help people who were leaving prison to settle into their communities and get back on track. Everybody liked it. Senator Grassley introduced it with cosponsors from both sides of the aisle. The bill had support from the House Speaker, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Major Counties Sheriffs' Association, the National District Attorneys Association, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, among many others. Even the Koch brothers liked this piece of legislation. That is because it tackled problems we all agreed needed to be solved. No one wants to see excessively punitive sentences that expand the Federal prison population, which has grown by 734 percent between the year 1980 and 2015. No one wants to see unnecessary barriers that make it harder for formerly incarcerated people to stay out of jail. No one wants to see taxpayer money spent needlessly. So we had a thoughtful, bipartisan bill, but we were not able to enact it into law. Senator Sessions personally blocked the bill from being considered after it passed the Judiciary Committee last Congress. And he said: ``Federal drug and sentencing laws have already been considerably relaxed.'' The failure of reform impacts the lives of people who are hurt by unfair and outdated sentencing rules. It especially affects the families and communities of color who have been ravaged by the overincarceration of minorities. The ACLU reports that sentences imposed on Black men in the Federal system are almost 20 percent longer than sentences imposed on White men with similar crimes. Think about that--the same crime, and you get 20 percent more time if you are African American. And while people of color are just as likely as White people to sell or use illegal drugs, they are more likely to be arrested. Think about how preposterous that is--equal for justice for all, equal application of the laws, right? People of color and Caucasians use drugs and distribute drugs in the same percentages, yet they are more likely to be arrested. African Americans make up 14 percent of regular drug users but 37 percent of people arrested for drug offenses. This raises the question of bias in law enforcement. Senator Sessions opposes holding State and local law enforcement accountable for racial bias and policing or the excessive use of force. He has called the approach the Justice Department took to this accountability an end run of the democratic process. He has attacked bipartisan efforts to reduce the sentences of nonviolent, low- level drug offenders, and he opposed President Obama's initiative to address racial disparities in our criminal justice system and restore fairness by granting clemency. Senator Sessions was critical of a Justice Department initiative that reduced overcrowding in Federal prisons by 20 percent over just the last 3 years. Senator Sessions' views on drug policy are maybe even more out of the mainstream. He has been one of the most outspoken advocates against the legalization of marijuana, both recreational and medicinal. In an April 2016 hearing, he suggested that the Federal Government must send the message that ``good people don't smoke marijuana.'' This is 2016. This isn't 1975. This is 2016. Our Attorney General nominee says ``good people don't smoke marijuana.'' Tell that to the cancer victim. Tell that to my good friend John Radcliffe, who has stage 4 liver and colon cancer. But Senator Sessions supports aggressive Federal intervention in States that have legalized medical or recreational marijuana. He criticized the Federal Government's guidance on Federal marijuana regulation, which directed the Justice Department to respect the decisions of States to determine their own criminal laws. Because of this guidance, Federal prosecutors stopped targeting patients who rely on medical marijuana products for relief. They stopped targeting local dispensaries that are operating squarely within State law. Instead they went after criminal drug traffickers and violent drug crimes. That seems like a smart prioritization of resources within the Justice Department--not going after people who want to utilize marijuana to alleviate pain but rather going after violent drug crimes. That seems smart, but Senator Sessions opposed that. The respect for federalism reflected in the Justice Department's guidance should be right in line with conservative values. Under the guidance, as long as States are preventing the distribution of marijuana to minors, if they are preventing the growing of marijuana on Federal lands, and if they are stopping State-authorized marijuana activities being used as fronts for other illegal activities, then the Justice Department doesn't interfere. I would like to quote from Senator Sessions' argument against this policy. He said: I think one of Obama's great failures that is obvious to me is his lax treatment and comments on marijuana. . . . It reverses 20 years almost of hostilities in drugs that began really when Nancy Reagan started ``Just Say No.'' But here's the thing. There is a bipartisan consensus now that the drug war is a failure. The drug war did not work. The drug war did not decrease the percentage of people utilizing illegal drugs. Every time the government succeeded in shutting down a drug trafficking ring, another would pop up. And a harsh penalty didn't slow addiction rates, it just incarcerated mostly young men. They didn't slow the flow of drugs; instead, they crowded our prisons, hurt taxpayers, and increased drug-related violence in other countries. Now is the time to shift our strategy and focus on people who struggle with addiction. We also need to respect the decision in many cities and States to decriminalize drug possession. It is up to them as to how to ascribe relief to citizens who could benefit from using medical marijuana. There is another area where I believe Senator Sessions is out of the mainstream, and that is his views on LGBTQ equality. Senator Sessions opposed the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, a bill that I was proud to support that would have ended workplace discrimination for LGBTQ people. Right now there are no Federal laws that explicitly protect LGBTQ individuals from discrimination. That is not because we haven't tried. Last Congress, I cosponsored a bill to prohibit this kind of discrimination, but even without a law on the books, the Justice Department has interpreted the Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity. That could change, however, under the next Attorney General. As head of the Justice Department, Senator Sessions could choose to interpret the law differently, and his record gives us every reason to be concerned. Senator Sessions also voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. He voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act because of a provision that ensures that victims of domestic violence are not turned away because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. That is why he voted against VAWA, because there is a provision that says you have to provide services to individuals regardless of their sexual identity. He advocated for stripping that provision and ultimately voted against the bill. As Attorney General, he could choose not to enforce this nondiscrimination clause. Think about this. If a gay person is a victim of sexual assault, are they not morally and legally entitled to the same humanity, the same protection under the law? Senator Sessions has repeatedly opposed hate crimes protections against LGBTQ Americans, even attempting to insert a poison pill amendment to stop the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act from moving forward. He has argued against Federal prosecution of hate crimes, saying on the Senate floor that there is no need for the Justice Department to get involved. As Attorney General, Mr. Sessions would be in charge of enforcing the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. It is not a stretch to ask whether or not his enforcement would be vigorous. In fact, Senator Sessions has repeatedly supported laws that criminalize the LGBTQ community. In the 1990s, he tried to block an LGBTQ student conference--a student conference for gay kids that ``promoted a lifestyle prohibited by sodomy and sexual misconduct laws.'' He argued against a conference for kids to give each other support and come up with strategies to survive bullying, to understand that what they are going through other kids are going through, arguing that it promoted a lifestyle prohibited by sodomy and sexual misconduct laws. And he sharply criticized the legal decision that put a rightful end to the criminalization of same-sex relationships. He supported don't ask, don't tell, saying that it was pretty effective. And he opposed the repeal of that law. On marriage equality, Senator Sessions has vowed to work again and again to amend the Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. We went through this in 1998 in the State of Hawaii. How unusual it is to enshrine in the Constitution the removal of a right. I want you to just think about that--that you want to amend the Constitution, not to provide additional rights, not to clarify something, but to explicitly prohibit Americans from having a certain right. I don't think there are many families who would agree on Senator Sessions' views here. People don't want their sons and daughters to have to hide their sexuality in order to serve their country. They don't want to go back to the days when our Nation failed to recognize the legitimacy of same-sex relationships. And they certainly don't want to see their friends and family lose a job or even go to jail because of whom they love, but that is the record that we are dealing with. To be clear, these aren't views from the 1970s. These are his views as of last year. These are his current views on these matters. The Senator has a similarly out-of-step approach on immigration. Mr. Sessions was instrumental in defeating the 2007 immigration reform bill, referring to it as ``terrorist assistance.'' He was a strong opponent of a 2013 bipartisan immigration bill, even though the bill had the strongest border security provision ever seen in an immigration bill. It was such a strong security border provision that I hated it. I had to think about whether I was going to vote for this thing because I felt it was too much of a militarization of our southern border. I thought it was a giveaway and a waste of money. But it had a strong border security provision, and it was voted out of the Senate by a wide margin. If it were up to him, we would also limit legal immigrants coming to our country. During the markup in the Judiciary Committee, Senator Sessions offered an amendment to limit legal immigration, which failed 17 to 1. If you are wondering whether it is rhetorical to say his views on immigration are out of the mainstream, the record shows 17 to 1--17 to 1. In addition, he promotes cutting Federal funding for sanctuary cities. Sanctuary cities is a brand. People aren't sure what that means. Let's be clear what we mean by that. Stripping funding from sanctuary cities is wrong because cities have decided that the strength of their relationship between their police and their citizens is more important for public safety than doing the Federal Government's job of enforcing immigration laws. Senator Sessions, of course, is against the right of children born in the United States to be American citizens. He is against helping the many DREAMers in this country. Let's have an honest discussion about immigration. We need to start talking about why people come to this country. Some of them come because they want to escape their own awful circumstances and live in freedom and opportunity. It is my grandparents escaping the Ukraine. It is my wife's grandparents leaving China. It is the Schatz; it is the Binders; it is the Kwoks. It is Albert Einstein; it is Madeleine Albright. This is who we are. We are people from all over the world who are united not by our ethnic extraction or our religious affiliation, but tied together by our love for America and our belief in this country as the beacon of hope, the shining city on the hill. The idea that we would shred that legacy in the face of some imaginary public desire for immigration reductions, frankly, is disturbing. Look at the protests happening every weekend at our country's international airports. Americans are not out in the streets demanding that we shut off the lamp outside the golden door. They are demanding that we stay true to our history and to our roots. That is why we saw close to 100 companies file a legal brief earlier this week against the Muslim ban put in place by the President and implemented by a man who has been mentored by Senator Sessions. The brief they filed notes an important statistic about our country. More than 200 companies currently listed on the Fortune 500 list are founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants, and this stands in direct contrast to the nominee's views. If immigrants are coming to the United States and starting businesses and hiring people, they aren't taking jobs from Americans. They are creating jobs for Americans, and that has been the story of our country since the very beginning. Immigration is one of the cornerstones of our country, and the nominee's policy proposals would chip away at that. The world is watching. History is watching. We have to ask ourselves: What do they see? Do they see Lady Liberty? Or do they see something else, something darker? Our country is asking similarly ominous questions about the basic, most fundamental right in our society, and that is the right to vote. Our country's history books are filled with stories of the struggle for voting rights, of African-American men risking it all to go to the polls and women in white marching through the streets of Washington, DC, demanding to vote. But that struggle and that progress is in danger with the kinds of policies that are being promoted. It is on all of us to honor that history and make sure that whoever is eligible to vote is able to vote. This is the bedrock of all other rights, because it is what gives us the voice when incumbent leaders and our representatives fail to protect the other rights. In his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Sessions said: The Department of Justice must never falter in its obligation to protect the civil rights of every American, particularly those who are most vulnerable. A special priority for me in this regard would be aggressive enforcement of our laws to ensure access to the ballot for every eligible American voter, without hindrance or discrimination, and to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. But his record does not support that view. Senator Sessions supports voter ID laws that will disenfranchise many, many voters. He has called the Voting Rights Act ``intrusive,'' and he has praised the Supreme Court ruling that dismantled a key part of the Voting Rights Act. He has already had his nomination rejected by the Senate because of his views on this issue. This should concern anyone and everyone who cares about our democracy because, at the most basic level, democracy is built on the ability of American citizens to go to the polls. Let's be honest. Our right to vote is being restricted. It is being restricted even though the United States has some of the lowest voter turnout of any developed democracy on the planet, and it is being restricted based on a lie. There is no voter fraud. Voter fraud is not the problem. Voter disenfranchisement is the problem. I talked with a buddy of mine back home who was watching FOX News and he was watching MSNBC, and he said: Democrats are saying there is voter disenfranchisement and Republicans are saying there is voter fraud, and I don't know what to believe. Well, here are the facts. There is a vanishingly small amount of voter fraud. You are more likely to be struck by lightning than to be convicted of voter fraud. This is a made-up problem. Why would you make up a problem such as this? Because it gives you a context and a pretext to do the systematic dismantling of voting rights. This is happening in North Carolina, this is happening in Wisconsin, and this is happening all over the country. The final policy area I would like to raise is women's rights. The nominee's record is very clear on these issues. He opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which lifts the legal restrictions for people who may have faced pay discrimination. That, in itself, is extraordinary, because Lilly Ledbetter is from Senator Sessions' home State. She worked in a factory in Alabama for years, and then one day someone slipped her an anonymous note--what a story. Someone slipped her an anonymous note that said: You are paid way less than everyone else in this same job. But when Ms. Ledbetter tried to address the pay disparities, she hit a brick wall and at every turn. When she turned to the justice system for help, she found that the laws had statutes of limitations that kept her from getting the pay she was denied for years and years and years, working side by side with men, doing the same job, and getting paid less in that factory. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act changes that. It makes it so that if women find themselves in an ugly, unequal pay structure, just as Ms. Ledbetter did--and we all know people, such as sisters, wives, children, and mothers who have a suspicion they are pretty much doing the same thing to them, especially in a factory setting, a blue collar setting, or a clerical setting. This is not impossible to decipher when you have the same job description. Just as Ms. Ledbetter did, they can do something about it. Senator Sessions voted against that law. He also voted against another equal pay bill called the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would go even further and try to close the gender wage gap. On women's health, his record is similarly troubling. He has opposed funding for title X, which would ensure that low-income women have access to contraception, breast cancer screening, and other health services. He has voted time and again to defund Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides health care to some of the most underserved women across the country. Finally, Senator Sessions voted against the Violence Against Women Act, not once but three times. Senator Sessions' voting record should concern everyone who cares about fair pay, reproductive rights, access to health care, and access to services for survivors of domestic violence. The last policy area I want to highlight is our environment and climate change. Just 2 years ago, the nominee voted for a resolution that would kill the Clean Power Plan. He also voted for a bill that would deny protections for streams that are the water source for hundreds of millions of Americans. This is bad news for the world's race to address climate change, which is one of the biggest civil rights battles of our time. This isn't just a battle against fossil fuels. It is a battle to save the air we breathe and the water we drink. It is a battle to save the land we live on. It is a battle for things that we take for granted. I worry that under an Attorney General Sessions, we are going to have a hard time. That is because even if we really don't have great laws on climate--and we don't yet--they are being rolled back as we speak. Even if Senator Sessions does not push back on those laws, he still has the ability to prioritize certain things over others. So it is not just his policies that we need to consider. It is also his priorities. Every AG makes decisions about what problems the Justice Department should move to the front of the line. I have seen lots of reports that leave me wondering if Senator Sessions' priorities might be misguided. The Web site FiveThirtyEight wrote a piece about Senator Sessions' confirmation process, and I wish to read a section of it now. ``I care about civil rights,'' Sessions said. ``I care about voting rights.'' Sessions has cited his record as evidence. In 2009, he said he'd been involved in 20 or 30 desegregation cases as a prosecutor, and this year, he told the Judiciary Committee that four civil rights cases were among the 10 most important cases he'd worked on in his career. Some committee members were skeptical. Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota said Tuesday that Sessions had overstated his role in the anti-segregation litigation. This is an area where the administration's priorities are clearly going to matter. The number of anti-discrimination and voting-rights cases brought by the Justice Department civil rights division dropped sharply under President George W. Bush compared with his predecessor, Bill Clinton. The Voting Rights Act recently moved closer to Sessions' personal beliefs. When a 2013 Supreme Court ruling weakened the law, Sessions said it was ``good news . . . for the South.'' On Tuesday, Sessions called the act ``intrusive.'' So what does this write-up say about what priorities an Attorney General Sessions might choose? Well, to me, it says that voting rights are going to be dealt a bigger blow than we have seen in the past few years. Again, we come back to the sense of being extreme. Senator Sessions' priorities and his policy views are not in the mainstream for the Justice Department. I don't think the American people are comfortable with letting politics about policing trump data. I don't think they are comfortable with overlooking our history and our commitment to democracy. So why are we comfortable with this nomination? The final area I want to touch on is Senator Sessions' philosophy. The Washington Post published a news article about a week ago that looks at the Executive orders we have seen out of this White House. It is called ``Trump's hard-line actions have an intellectual godfather: Jeff Sessions.'' I would like to read a few excerpts from the article. In jagged black strokes, President Trump's signature was scribbled onto a catalogue of executive orders over the past 10 days that translated the hardline promises of his campaign into the policies of his government. The directives bore Trump's name, but another man's fingerprints were also on nearly all of them: Jeff Sessions. The early days of the Trump presidency have rushed a nationalist agenda long on the fringes of American life into action--and Sessions, the quiet Alabamian who long cultivated those ideas as a Senate backbencher, has become a singular power in this new Washington. Sessions' ideology is driven by a visceral aversion to what he calls ``soulless globalism,'' a term used on the extreme right to convey a perceived threat to the United States from free trade, international alliances and the immigration of nonwhites. And despite many reservations among Republicans about that world view, Sessions--whose 1986 nomination for a federal judgeship was doomed by accusations of racism that he denied--is finding little resistance in Congress to his proposed role as Trump's attorney general. Sessions' nomination is scheduled to be voted on Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but his influence in the administration stretches far beyond the Justice Department. From immigration and health care to national security and trade, Sessions is the intellectual godfather of the President's policies. His reach extends throughout the White House with his aides and allies accelerating the president's most dramatic moves, including the ban on refugees and citizens from seven mostly Muslim nations that has triggered fear around the globe. The tactician turning Trump's agenda into law is deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn, Sessions' long time chief of staff in the Senate. The mastermind behind Trump's incendiary brand of populism is chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who, as chairman of the Breitbart website, promoted Sessions for years. Here's a quote from Bannon: Throughout the campaign, Sessions has been the fiercest, most dedicated, and most loyal promoter in Congress of Trump's agenda, and has played a critical role as the clearinghouse for policy and philosophy to undergird the implementation of that agenda. Sessions helped devise the President's first-week strategy, in which Trump signed a blizzard of Executive orders that begin to fulfill his signature campaign promises--although Sessions had advocated for going even faster. The senator lobbied for a ``shock and awe'' period of executive action that would rattle Congress-- I think we got that-- impress Trump's base-- I assume we got that-- and catch his critics unaware-- I don't know about that-- according to the two officials involved in the transition plan. Trump opted for a slightly slower pace, these officials said, because he wanted to maximize news coverage by spreading out his directives over several weeks. Trump makes his own decisions, but Sessions was one of the rare lawmakers who shared his impulses. There are limits to Sessions's influence, however. He has not persuaded Trump--so far, at least--to eliminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, under which children brought to the United States illegally are allowed to stay in the country. Sessions became a daily presence at Trump Tower in New York, mapping out the policy agenda and making personnel decisions. Once former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani was out of consideration for secretary of state, Trump considered nominating Sessions because he was so trusted by the inner circle, including Kushner, although Sessions' preference was to be attorney general, according to people familiar with the talks. Since his nomination, Sessions has been careful to not be formally involved even as his ideas animate the White House. In a statement Sunday, he denied that he has had ``communications'' with his former advisers or reviewed the executive orders. I have no reason to doubt that he established a proper distance while he was the nominee. Sessions has installed close allies throughout the administration. He persuaded Cliff Sims, a friend and adviser, to sell his Alabama media outlet and take a job directing message strategy at the White House. Sessions also influenced the selection of Peter Navarro, an economist and friend with whom he coauthored an op-ed last fall warning against the ``rabbit hole of globalism,'' as director of the National Trade Council. John Weaver, a veteran GOP strategist who was a consultant on Sessions' first Senate campaign and is now a Trump critic, said that Sessions is at the pinnacle of power because he shares Trump's ``1940s view of fortress America.'' ``That's something you would find in an Allen Drury novel,'' Weaver said. ``Unfortunately, there are real consequences to this, which are draconian views on immigration and a view of America that is insular and not an active member of the global community.'' Inside the White House and within Sessions's alumni network, people have taken to calling the Senator ``Joseph,'' referring to the Old Testament patriarch who was shunned by his family and sold into slavery as a boy, only to rise through unusual circumstances to become right hand to the pharaoh and oversee the lands of Egypt. In a 20-year Senate career, Sessions has been isolated in his own party, a dynamic crystallized a decade ago when he split with President George W. Bush and the business community over comprehensive immigration changes. In lonely speeches on the Senate floor, Sessions would chastise ``the masters of the universe.'' He hung on his office wall a picture of He-Man from the popular 1980s comic book series. As he weighed a presidential run, Trump liked what he saw in Sessions, who was tight with the constituencies Trump was eager to rouse on the right. ``Sessions was always somebody that we had targeted,'' said Sam Nunberg, Trump's political adviser at the time. In May 2015, Nunberg said, he reached out to Miller, then an adviser to Sessions, to arrange a phone call between Trump and the senator. The two hit it off, with Trump telling Nunberg, ``That guy is tough.'' The next month, Trump declared his candidacy. In August of that year, Sessions joined Trump at a megarally in the senator's home town of Mobile and donned a ``Make America Great Again'' cap. By January 2016, Miller had formally joined the campaign and was traveling daily with the candidate, writing speeches and crafting policies. That Washington Post article offers a look into the nominee's philosophy. Out of the gate, the President has pushed for all punishment and no mercy. The administration has shown a willingness to trample on rights to satisfy political objectives. This should trouble everybody on both sides of the aisle who cares about Executive overreach. This week, John Yoo--the driving force of enhanced interrogation under the Bush administration, the torture man, the famous John Yoo from the Office of Legal Counsel, the John Yoo demonized by progressives for sort of being the key thinker behind understanding Executive power as more expansive than it had ever been understood before--this week, John Yoo came out saying that he thinks this President has taken Executive power too far. John Yoo is saying that-- not Sheldon Whitehouse, not the ACLU; John Yoo from George W. Bush's administration. If that is what John Yoo is saying, then we should all be worried. Think of what the President might do with an Attorney General in place who shares his philosophy on immigrants, minority communities, gay Americans, voting rights, and women's rights. The NAACP has pulled together a list of facts about the Senator that further flushes out this philosophy, and it is deeply concerning. In July 2015, during the confirmation hearing of a district court nominee from Maryland, Sessions made the nominee answer for her career as a public defender and civil rights lawyer, and invoked Freddie Gray, the teenager unlawfully arrested and killed by Baltimore police in 2015, as a client inappropriate for a lawyer nominated to the bench: ``Can you assure the police officers in Baltimore and all over Maryland that might be brought before your court, that they'll get a fair day in court and that your history would not impact your decisionmaking?'' he asked. ``And I raise that particularly because I see your firm is representing Mr. Freddie Gray in that case that's gathered so much attention in Maryland, and there's lots of law enforcement officers throughout the state and they want to know that they don't have someone who has an agenda to bring to the bench--can you assure them that you won't bring that to the bench?'' In December 2010, Sessions took to the Senate floor to rail against judicial nominees who have what he calls ``ACLU DNA'' or the ``ACLU chromosome.'' The ACLU ``seeks to deny the will of the American people,'' he said, ``and has taken positions far to the left of mainstream American and the ideals and values the majority of Americans hold dear.'' In October 2009, Sessions opposed a district court nominee and former ACLU staff attorney by saying, ``I think we're seeing a common DNA run through the Obama nominees, and that's the ACLU chromosome.'' I know people have mixed feelings about the ACLU. Sometimes I have mixed feelings about the ACLU. But remember what happened when this Executive order was issued: It was the ACLU that took them to court to protect every American's civil liberties, and they were the ones who won in court right away. So I say that we need to have special respect for the lawyers who protect our civil liberties. These events should give us all pause because our country has long associated groups like the NAACP and the ACLU with the mission of the Justice Department, and now we may have an Attorney General who has, at least in the past, relished opposition to these groups. Before concluding, I just want to say that I understand there may be a distinction between politician-elected official representing a certain State and a certain perspective Jeff Sessions, Senator Sessions, and Attorney General Sessions. This sometimes does happen as people move from legislative to executive or as they advance in their careers. It is entirely possible, and I sure hope that there will be an evolution, that he understands he may have his views or he may have been vigorously advocating for the views of his constituents, but now he has a different role as the chief law enforcement officer for the United States of America, somebody who is there to uphold equal justice for everyone. So as critical as I have been of his record, I hope to be proven wrong. There are people on the other side of the aisle and one Democrat on our side of the aisle whom I respect greatly who really love Jeff Sessions. I hope everything they believe about him and the way he will conduct himself as Attorney General ends up being true. I just don't see any evidence for that yet, other than the word of my colleagues. That means a lot, but the record is too decisively against all of the things I care for and all of the things I believe are important in an Attorney General. I know I am not alone in having these concerns. Millions of people have signed petitions, made calls, and posted online in opposition to this nominee. I have received very thoughtful messages from people in Hawaii about Senator Sessions. I wish to quote a few of them. I'm writing as a thoughtful voter and human being that Mr. Sessions is not the right man for the job of Attorney General. He may be a friend of the president and his inner circle, but he does not represent the values of our democracy. Given his approval of the ban on immigration, I believe he will help the president radicalize and destabilize this country. Another person mentioned the former Acting Attorney General, who was fired by the President because she was true to the word she gave Senator Sessions in her own confirmation hearing. Sally Yates said what so many people are thinking, which is that this Muslim ban cannot stand. Here is another letter from Hawaii: I'm writing to express my most heartfelt disappointment at the direction our country is quickly taking with the Trump administration. While I accept that those with more conservative views than mine are now in power, I find the actions being taken a gross and crass disregard of our diverse and tolerant national identity. I want to end by making something very clear: We can respect Senator Sessions as a colleague while still believing that his policies, his priorities, and his philosophy are too extreme for the Justice Department. And there are too many issues that this country cares about to confirm him as Attorney General. If you care about criminal justice reform, if you care about seeing fewer people go to jail for petty crimes, if you care about directing fewer taxpayer dollars to the prison industry, then you have to be opposed to this nomination. If you care about the LGBT community; if you believe that people shouldn't be discriminated against or punished because of whom they love; if you believe that people, regardless of their identity, should be able to get married or wear our Nation's finest uniform, then you have to be opposed. If you care about immigration; if you believe in immigration; if you are a business owner who wants to hire the best and the brightest; if your family came to this country to pursue the American dream; if you are a person of faith who believes in caring for those who suffer, for the stranger in our midst, you have to be opposed to this nomination. If you care about women's rights; if you believe that women are not to be treated like second-class citizens, that our daughters are just as capable as our sons and that they have the right to make their own decisions about their own health care; if you believe they should be paid the same for doing the same job, then you have to be opposed. If you care about our democracy; if you want people to raise their voices and take part in shaping the future of our country; if you are dismayed to know that millions of people are being prevented from voting not because they aren't eligible but because of senseless laws that restrict their rights, then you have to oppose this nomination. The Senate must stand up for civil rights, for voting rights, for women's rights, for immigrants' rights, and that means we must vote no on Jeff Sessions for Attorney General. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this nomination. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.