Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, our ranking member on the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has always framed the issue of net neutrality and consumer rights appropriately. I am going to speak for just a few minutes. Then, on behalf of our side--on behalf of the Democratic caucus--Senator Markey, our friend from Massachusetts, will propound a unanimous consent request. I note that the chairman of the committee is here, and we will have a bit of discussion. Let me give a bit of history on this. Senator Markey introduced the first net neutrality bill as a Member of the other Chamber, and I introduced the first net neutrality bill in the U.S. Senate. Right out of the gate, I think it is important for people to understand what this issue is all about. Real net neutrality empowers consumers. After they pay their internet access fees, they get to go where they want, when they want, and how they want. What Ajit Pai and Donald Trump want is something very different. They want an internet policy that lets Big Cable get what it wants, when Big Cable wants it, and how Big Cable wants it. That is the difference here. Who is in the driver's seat? Senator Markey, Senator Cantwell, and I say that this is what the beauty of the internet has always been about, which is really simple. The consumer is in the driver's seat. We don't have an information aristocracy with lanes and all kinds of favoritism for the powerful and the influential. It is where the student, the small business, and the person without power and clout gets the same fair shake as everybody else. What we have said is we want to keep the consumer in the driver's seat, and Mr. Pai and Donald Trump want a different notion of internet freedom. What they really want to say is that internet freedom is Big Cable freedom. That is their idea about how we ought to approach the internet. At the end of the day, if the policy here is about letting Big Cable rig the internet in favor of those who can afford to pay more and shake down everybody else, people will have a choice to do that, but that is not the choice Senator Markey and I are going to make. Cable companies are already tricking people into buying so-called unlimited service plans that limit their service. People have uncovered the way they have throttled service for particular users, including for first responders in times of emergency. Megamergers that involve telecom and entertainment companies also limit competition and threaten to balkanize the internet. We are talking about fracturing the internet into small bundles that cost big money. That is the vision the cable companies have--not net neutrality--by which you head in a direction whereby consumers pay a lot more for entertainment and information and small businesses scratch their heads and ask: How in the world am I going to compete with the big guys online? Fortunately, the courts recently said the Trump administration can't overrule States on net neutrality. I look forward to being in my home State of Oregon in a couple of days and having town meetings. What I like the most is when people speak up on issues like fairness and net neutrality, and I am going to hear about it this weekend. Other States have policies like Oregon's as well. Here in Congress, on this side of the aisle--and you will see it when Senator Markey offers his proposal in a moment--we are going to keep up the fight to protect consumers from Ajit Pai and the Trump FCC. We still have that vision of the original internet that Senator Markey and I talked about when he offered the first proposal in the House and I offered the first proposal in the Senate. What could be more simple than putting the consumer in the driver's seat? You can say where you want to go, when you want, and how you want. Now we are talking today-- years later--about the cable companies being able to say they are going to decide those very issues. I am very pleased--and I think it is very appropriate--that after years of leadership on this issue in both the other body and in the U.S. Senate that Senator Markey is going to speak for our caucus on this issue and call for the Senate to pass his legislation so as to have a truly free and open internet for the entire country. If you don't get the Markey proposal, what you are going to see are big cable companies that will, bit by bit, little by little, keep ratcheting up the cost of internet access. By the way, their strategy is to do that little by little because they are hoping nobody will ever complain and that nobody will notice. Senator Markey and I and our caucus have figured out that the cable companies are trying to disguise price hikes and data limits in the end by flashing discounts on bundles of content. What the cable people are talking about is a bad deal for consumers, and it is a bad deal because Ajit Pai and Donald Trump want to put Big Cable profits over the interests of the typical American. With my full support, I appreciate Senator Markey's offering this legislation today. In going forward, we are going to be working with him to keep up this fight, and I look forward to the discussion. I notice that my colleague from the end of the alphabet and my friend, the chairman of the committee, is here, and we will have a little back-and-forth. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, when the Trump administration comes to an end, it is going to leave behind a host of sad and, I would consider, shameful legacies, and right near the top of the list will be the shocking number of children who have lost healthcare coverage under this administration. I am sure folks can't really see the specific numbers here, but this trend line is what is important, taking figures from the Census Department--people who are not political; they are not Democrats or Republicans. What this chart, based on census data shows, is that, for year after year after year, we saw the number of uninsured kids in America go down. That is something I think was important for our country. It said a lot about our values, and it certainly said a lot about our healthcare system. Sure, we are going to spend more than $3.5 trillion on healthcare. If you were to divide that up into 320 million Americans, you can send every family of four a check for $40,000. So we are spending enough on healthcare, but we are not spending it in the right places. In particular, I wanted to come to the floor--and I am glad to see my friend, the Presiding Officer, who has worked with me on a variety of healthcare issues; we have some areas we are going to be talking about in the days ahead. To me, one of the areas of healthcare, until recently, we could all take pride in was this chart, which nobody could really see, but it showed this trend line in which the number of uninsured kids was going down. Unfortunately, in the Trump administration, that trend line of years and years and years of more kids getting healthcare coverage has been reversed, and now more kids are uninsured. How did the Trump people do it? They are not going to stand up in front of a government agency and say: Oh, we just don't like kids. But what they did is hurt those kids and their parents by keeping them in the dark for years while there were efforts, bipartisan ones--my friend, who joined the Finance Committee recently, knows that our previous chairman, Senator Hatch, worked with me for a record-setting extension for the Children's Health Insurance Program. The efforts to expand coverage for kids were all bipartisan--always--going back, really, for decades now, particularly on the Finance Committee. I think of the late Senator John Chafee and the late Senator John Heinz--people whom I admire so much--and they always wanted to find common ground, Democrats and Republicans, working for children. But now the Trump administration, in the dark, has come up with proposals that have made it harder for parents to sign up their kids, harder for them to stay enrolled, and harder for these families--parents with young kids--to even know about their rights, their rights to healthcare. So now, as a result of the Trump administration's reversing this trend of years and years of expanded coverage for kids, we have hundreds of thousands of parents clinging to the hope that their kids don't get hurt on the playground, catch flu in the classroom, or worse. We know that this falls hardest on the families walking an economic tightrope. Every month they are balancing their food against their fuel bill, their fuel bill against their healthcare. One injury, one illness, could be financially devastating for these kids and their families, and it can be a major setback for kids for years, if not for the rest of their lives. How is a sick kid supposed to succeed in school and get ahead if they are unable to see a doctor when they have serious illnesses? I have mentioned that I know the two sides--this side of the aisle and that side of the aisle--can work together to find common ground on children's healthcare. At the end of his service, Chairman Hatch--who, as my colleague the distinguished Presiding Officer knows, cared greatly about kids; he was very involved with the late Senator Ted Kennedy and others in coming up with the children's health plan--said: We want to set a record. We want to get a 10-year extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program. We managed to do it. But if you cut the services for people to find out how to get enrolled, stay enrolled, and if there are changes in programs, those changes in policy, which took place when the Trump administration came to Washington, rippled through very quickly to communities across the country where vulnerable Americans depend on getting good quality healthcare. I just think it is unconscionable. As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, for a country with the resources America has, you wouldn't step in if you saw this trend of progress--fewer uninsured kids--suddenly be reversed. And it really happened very quickly. When the Trump administration took over, you would say: Hey, let's get Democrats and Republicans together, pull out all the stops to fix it, and get the trend line going in the right direction again with more kids getting healthcare coverage. We would have had to take on the Trump administration here in the Congress. We would have had to take on all of those programs in which the Trump administration made it harder for kids to get enrolled and to stay enrolled, but it would have been the right thing. It would have been the right thing for Democrats and Republicans in the Congress to step in and take on the Trump administration and say: Look, we understand there can be debates and differences of opinion, but you don't score points by attacking the services for children available under the Affordable Care Act. I am going to keep working to reverse this crisis. My colleagues have been coming from this side of the aisle all through the day to talk about this scourge: the reversal of the trend in this country with respect to healthcare coverage. We used to be expanding it for kids. Now it is going the other way. The amount of coverage is being reduced. I just want to say, as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over many of the healthcare programs that are most important for kids and families on an economic tightrope, I and I know my colleagues on the Finance Committee--several of whom have spoken over the last few days on this subject--would be glad to work with any Republican in this Senate who wants to turn this around. If any Republican is listening to this and wants to come to the floor and say: I am interested. I am interested in turning around this ominous trend. I am interested in turning around this trend where healthcare coverage for kids is going down, and I want to work with Democrats to do it, I will commit, as the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, to say: Thank goodness. We have to get on this. This is too important to our country and to our future to just sit idly by and say we are going to reduce the number of kids who are getting healthcare coverage because we are not going to give parents the opportunity to find out how to get enrolled and stay enrolled and know what their rights are. A country as strong and good and rich as ours ought to be looking for every possible opportunity to help kids get ahead in life. That, in my view, starts with access to healthcare. Right up at the top of the list, it starts, in my view, by saying that this trend line, which after years and years of showing more kids were getting covered, is now going the other way, and fewer kids are getting covered. We are going to say, as a body in the U.S. Senate: We are going to change that, and in a country that is as strong and good and rich as ours, those vulnerable families are going to be able to get healthcare again. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that two members of my team, Whitney Wagner and Brian Webster, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Congress.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I along with Finance Committee member Senator Cassidy are introducing a bill to make a common-sense, low-cost change to the law that will help American workers help themselves when preparing for retirement: The Know Your Social Security Act. This bill is simple: it clarifies the law about Congressional intent so that every worker over 25 receives a Social Security statement in the mail each year, unless the worker has accessed their statement online or declined to receive the statement in the mail. The history of the Social Security statement runs right through the Senate and the ``powerful'' Committee on Finance. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan summed up the intent very well: ``All of us pay into Social Security but rarely, until we become beneficiaries, do we ever hear from Social Security . . . . in every paycheck, we see money withheld for Social Security, but we hear nary a word from the Social Security Administration. Let us take this simple step [sending statements] to reassure Americans that Social Security will be there for them.'' The Social Security statement has three goals: to provide workers with information about their Social Security benefits, to help workers plan for the future, and enable workers to review their earnings records. After enactment and once fully phased in, every worker aged 25 and older received an annual statement from Social Security starting in the year 2000. After a few years, Social Security's website allowed workers to obtain a Social Security statement online. At the time, the online option was a good step forward in customer service. But as sometime happens, advances in technology shortchanged good intentions. Due to tight budgets, SSA came to view the online option as ``providing'' the worker with a statement and fulfilling their responsibilities under the law. SSA stopped mailing the statements in 2011 in order to shift resources towards other priorities. Currently, only individuals over the age of 60 who are not receiving benefits receive statements through the mail. Paper statements delivered through the mail are desirable because no action is necessary by the worker and the statement is a yearly reminder to the worker to think about the future. Research has shown that workers provided with statements are significantly more likely to save, more certain about their retirement income, and have higher satisfaction with their finances relative to those who are not provided with any type of financial planning materials. Providing Social Security statement through the mail is a simple policy that could help many workers, hopefully leading to better decisions about their financial future. Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman John Larson and Ways and Means Committee Member Vern Buchanan are introducing the companion bill in the House of Representatives. We have received letters of endorsement from AARP, the Coalition for Paper Options, Justice in Aging, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Social Security Works, The Arc of the United States and The Senior Citizens League. I ask that the letters be included in the Record following my remarks. I hope my colleagues in the Senate will join us and cosponsor the Know Your Social Security Act. Together, we can work towards better retirement outcomes for all Americans.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I along with Finance Committee member Senator Cassidy are introducing a bill to make a common-sense, low-cost change to the law that will help American workers help themselves when preparing for retirement: The Know Your Social Security Act. This bill is simple: it clarifies the law about Congressional intent so that every worker over 25 receives a Social Security statement in the mail each year, unless the worker has accessed their statement online or declined to receive the statement in the mail. The history of the Social Security statement runs right through the Senate and the ``powerful'' Committee on Finance. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan summed up the intent very well: ``All of us pay into Social Security but rarely, until we become beneficiaries, do we ever hear from Social Security . . . . in every paycheck, we see money withheld for Social Security, but we hear nary a word from the Social Security Administration. Let us take this simple step [sending statements] to reassure Americans that Social Security will be there for them.'' The Social Security statement has three goals: to provide workers with information about their Social Security benefits, to help workers plan for the future, and enable workers to review their earnings records. After enactment and once fully phased in, every worker aged 25 and older received an annual statement from Social Security starting in the year 2000. After a few years, Social Security's website allowed workers to obtain a Social Security statement online. At the time, the online option was a good step forward in customer service. But as sometime happens, advances in technology shortchanged good intentions. Due to tight budgets, SSA came to view the online option as ``providing'' the worker with a statement and fulfilling their responsibilities under the law. SSA stopped mailing the statements in 2011 in order to shift resources towards other priorities. Currently, only individuals over the age of 60 who are not receiving benefits receive statements through the mail. Paper statements delivered through the mail are desirable because no action is necessary by the worker and the statement is a yearly reminder to the worker to think about the future. Research has shown that workers provided with statements are significantly more likely to save, more certain about their retirement income, and have higher satisfaction with their finances relative to those who are not provided with any type of financial planning materials. Providing Social Security statement through the mail is a simple policy that could help many workers, hopefully leading to better decisions about their financial future. Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman John Larson and Ways and Means Committee Member Vern Buchanan are introducing the companion bill in the House of Representatives. We have received letters of endorsement from AARP, the Coalition for Paper Options, Justice in Aging, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Social Security Works, The Arc of the United States and The Senior Citizens League. I ask that the letters be included in the Record following my remarks. I hope my colleagues in the Senate will join us and cosponsor the Know Your Social Security Act. Together, we can work towards better retirement outcomes for all Americans.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, here is what the Senate and the American people need to know before the next vote coming up on the nominee to be the Secretary of Energy. First, Mr. Rick Perry--who until yesterday was the Energy Secretary-- has refused to comply with the subpoena to testify about his involvement in the Trump-Ukraine scheme. Second, Acting Secretary Dan Brouillette--nominated to replace Mr. Perry--has failed to provide substantive answers to key questions about Mr. Perry's dealings with the Ukrainian state-owned energy company Naftogaz. Third, since I have been raising questions on this matter, Naftogaz executives have reportedly been coming forward to cooperate in a Federal investigation into the Ukraine scheme. Mr. Perry has virtually skipped town, leaving his job after insisting for months that he was determined to stay while the Ukraine scheme is front and center in the House impeachment inquiry. Now, with the vote on Mr. Perry's replacement just minutes away, the Senate is truly in the dark, lacking answers to important questions. Those questions include issues pertaining to Mr. Perry's role in a campaign to change the leadership of Naftogaz; questions about what Mr. Perry, his donors, and certain crooked associates of Rudy Giuliani's stood to gain from those changes; questions about Mr. Perry's role in the Ukraine scheme, which Trump administration officials have admitted was about withholding critical military aid in a face-to-face meeting until the Ukrainian President agreed to do for Donald Trump what he described as a political favor. These are serious issues closely tied to ongoing investigations. This goes way, way beyond the well-documented waste we often see in the Trump Cabinet--private jets, soundproof booths, $30,000 desks; this is about the administration using its full might to push a foreign leader into helping Donald Trump's reelection campaign. The Senate ought to know about Rick Perry's involvement, especially since he was described by Mr. Holmes and others as one of the ``three amigos'' who were right in the center of all this. What exactly is the rush on confirming his replacement? This isn't the first week of a new administration. Nothing is going to happen to the powerplants or nuclear facilities if the Senate takes the time to get answers to these central questions. Dan Brouillette is already the Acting Secretary. No American interest suffers if the Senate insists on getting answers that go right to the heart of the Senate's oversight responsibilities. I briefly want to recall what this is all about. The ``three amigos'' basically seized control of our country's ties with Ukraine under the direction of the President and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Secretary Perry led the American delegation that attended President Zelensky's inauguration in May after the Vice President was told to stay home. The Vice President and President Zelensky held private meetings. It has been reported that Perry pushed President Zelensky to fire members of the board of Naftogaz and replace them with Mr. Perry's own political donors. At a subsequent meeting with the Ukraine Government and energy sector officials, Perry reportedly said that the entire board ought to be replaced. The Associated Press reported that at that meeting--and I am going to quote here--the Associated Press said that one of those people who attended that meeting where Perry was in attendance ``said he was floored by the American requests because the person had always viewed the U.S. government `as having a higher ethical standard.''' The changes Mr. Perry was seeking lined up with changes sought by a pair of now-indicted men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were apparently friends of Mr. Giuliani's. They, too, wanted different leadership at Naftogaz. Here is what the Associated Press had to say about that: As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukraine officials last spring to investigate Donald Trump's main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic. Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Mr. Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine's massive state-owned gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans. Federal prosecutors are investigating the role of Mr. Giuliani. At least one Naftogaz official is reportedly cooperating in the investigation. Some of Mr. Perry's political donors did score a lucrative energy deal in Ukraine after Perry got involved there. Perry admits he was in contact with Giuliani about Ukraine. It was also revealed in impeachment testimony that Perry was seemingly made aware in July of the Trump scheme and Ukraine. Unlike Fiona Hill, unlike David Holmes, unlike Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, Rick Perry has refused to testify and share what he knows with the public. For nearly 3 weeks, I have been trying to get answers. At Mr. Brouillette's nomination hearing on November 14, I asked him really basic questions. I had plenty of time--to a great extent, courtesy of my good friend the ranking minority member, who is always fair. I had plenty of time. I asked basic questions. It came down to this: Who did Secretary Perry meet with regarding Ukraine and Naftogaz? He was the head of a powerful department. He was one of the self-styled ``three amigos.'' Who else was in the loop? What did they talk about? Acting Secretary Brouillette only acknowledged--he wasn't willing to say anything. This was a full court stonewall. He wasn't willing to say anything other than that there were meetings--no other information and nothing substantive on the questions I asked. So I just kept asking him. Who took part in the meetings with Secretary Perry on Naftogaz? When and where did they take place? What materials were produced? I don't think Secretary Perry just went to those meetings all by his lonesome with maybe a bag lunch or something like that. My guess is that he had staff from the Department of Energy with materials produced by the Department of Energy. Who outside of the Department did Secretary Perry speak with regarding changes in Naftogaz, and what was the substance of those communications? It is not like Secretary Perry would have paid his own way and freelanced a ``three amigos''-Ukraine policy in secret. This is the head of the Energy Department. It looks like he was right in the center of the Trump corruption scheme in Ukraine. I am just going to close in this way. I don't understand the rush. Mr. Brouillette is at the Department of Energy now. He is the acting chief. Western civilization is not going to end if the Senate insists on getting some answers to the questions that I have presented this afternoon. We are still going to have our powerplants and nuclear facilities running, and all of the national security activities that go on at the Department of Energy will still go forward if the Senate takes the time to require that there be substantive answers to the questions that I have asked of this nominee. I believe it is malpractice for the U.S. Senate to rush this debate before getting answers from this administration, Mr. Brouillette, Secretary Perry, and those who, I believe, could answer these questions if they didn't want to, in effect, say to the U.S. Senate: We are just going to pass here. You might want to hold us accountable, but we have a chance to just skip out, and we are going to take it. This is not the way the Senate is supposed to work. That is why I cannot support moving forward with this nominee, and I will be voting no this afternoon. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN

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

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I think we are running a few minutes behind. We have had a real crush of business here in the last hour. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, every Senator knows the House is now in the middle of an impeachment inquiry. Here in this Chamber, the Senate has been considering the nomination of Dan Brouillette to be Energy Secretary, replacing Rick Perry. In my view, questions about Secretary Perry's conduct in Ukraine--and what Mr. Brouillette may know about that conduct--tie this nomination to the impeachment inquiry in an important way. I have come to believe there are several significant unanswered questions about Secretary Perry's role in changing the board of a state-owned energy company called Naftogaz. What Secretary Perry, his campaign donors, and certain crooked associates of Rudy Giuliani stood to gain from those changes is something the Senate ought to be digging into. We have been hearing about Secretary Perry's role in Donald Trump's scheme with respect to withholding a meeting and military aid until Ukrainian President Zelensky agreed to interfere in the 2020 elections in the United States. The investigations seem to be piling up. Every time a new piece of information comes to light, it raises yet more and more questions about schemes that sure look, based on the facts, to be corrupt. Somehow, Secretary Perry seems to be making his way out the door without facing much, if any, scrutiny. Now the Senate is trying to fast-track his replacement. I will put it simply: Enough, enough. It is time for the Senate to get some answers instead of just saying everything is A-OK at the Energy Department. I am going to take just a few minutes to explain what this is all about. Mr. Perry is famously one of the ``three amigos'' who took control of U.S. ties with Ukraine under the direction of the President and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Secretary Perry attended President Zelensky's inauguration in May. They held a private meeting. It has been reported that Secretary Perry pushed President Zelensky to fire members of the board of Naftogaz--a Ukrainian energy giant--and replace them with Secretary Perry's own political donors. At a second meeting with Ukrainian government and energy sector officials, Secretary Perry reportedly said the entire board ought to be replaced. The Associated Press reported that one person who attended the meeting said that ``he was floored by the American requests because the person had always viewed the U.S. government `as having a higher ethical standard.' '' The changes Secretary Perry was seeking lined up with changes sought by two shady characters named Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, associates of Rudy Giuliani's. They also wanted different leadership at Naftogaz. I am going to read now from an Associated Press report. As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump's main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic. Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine's massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans. Federal prosecutors are now investigating Rudy Giuliani's role. A Naftogaz official is reportedly cooperating in the investigation, and some of Rick Perry's political donors did get a lucrative oil and gas deal in Ukraine after Perry began pressuring the Ukrainian President for changes. Perry admits he was in contact with Giuliani about Ukraine. It was also revealed in impeachment testimony that Perry was seemingly made aware in July of the Trump scheme where it seemed like everybody was involved in Ukraine. To get it straight, I think this is the bottom line: Secretary Perry has somehow managed to stay on the fringes of this whole scheme, but it sure looks to me like he was right at the heart of serious ethical compromises. President Trump has claimed he made the call to Ukraine's President that prompted the whistleblower's complaint at Perry's request. Everywhere you look in the Ukraine scandal, it looks like there is crooked behavior all over. I have a hard time believing that Secretary Perry booked his own flight for these meetings, sauntered out the back door of the Energy Department, and freelanced his own shady Ukraine policy without anybody knowing about it. That brings me back to the Brouillette nomination. Dan Brouillette is currently the Deputy Energy Secretary. He is the No. 2 person at the Department. He is the Deputy to the ``amigo.'' At his confirmation hearing, sitting on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which I at one time chaired, I thought it was important to ask Mr. Brouillette some basic questions about what I have outlined here. What I wanted to know wasn't real complicated: Whom did Secretary Perry meet with regarding Ukraine and Naftogaz? He was a powerful guy, and he wielded major influence over a nation that is dependent on aid from the United States as it resists aggression by Russia. Who else was in the loop with Secretary Perry? Deputy Secretary Brouillette acknowledged in my questions only that there were meetings but provided no further details about who took part in them. In followup written questions, again, he just wasn't forthcoming. He wouldn't provide any answers. I am sending a letter to Deputy Secretary Brouillette to give him yet another chance to answer basic questions: To whom was Mr. Brouillette referring when he acknowledged Perry held meetings on seeking changes at Naftogaz; when and where did those meetings take place; to whom outside the Department did Secretary Perry speak regarding changes in Naftogaz and the substance of those communications; and then, whether Department staff were involved in meetings at which changes to Naftogaz leadership came up, who the staff were, and what materials were produced. I will make it clear, I find it implausible the Secretary of Energy was unstaffed on all this. I would think, for an important meeting like this, Secretary Perry would have individuals from the Department of Energy who were involved in these discussions that Mr. Brouillette has now acknowledged took place, but we can't get any names. We can't get any answers at all. I think it is seriously an error for the Senate to just rush to this nomination without getting answers to the questions I have outlined. Indictments are flying. Investigations reveal major wrongdoing. Every stone that gets overturned in this process reveals a lot more generally about a rotten scheme. It just seems to me that Secretary Perry is a significant figure in this scandal, and he is just trying to get out of dodge. To me, this ought to be an opportunity for this body, the U.S. Senate, to stand up and demand accountability from the Trump administration and all of those in the administration who can provide information that, I think, provides a modest amount of information--a modest amount of information--about discussions that could very well be relevant to this whole Ukraine scheme. Mr. Giuliani already had associates indicted. Just yesterday, there were differences of opinion in the testimony about what Mr. Perry's involvement was all about. Practically every day there are unanswered questions about this matter. Because I believe the Senate deserves to have answers to the questions I have raised, because I think this is just accountability 101 to have this information, I will be voting no today on cloture. My understanding is that no matter how the Senate is recorded today, there will be some opportunity over the holiday break for Senators, staff, and those who are doing investigative work on this to get more details. I certainly think that without the question I have been asking and the modest amount of information they would disclose-- information, frankly, I think Secretary Perry, the Energy Department, and the Trump administration could produce quite quickly if they didn't want to spend the time stonewalling--I think given that, it is not responsible to advance this nomination through an affirmative cloture vote today, so I will be voting no. My hope is that over the next week or so, we can start to get some answers to these basic questions. I will tell you, I have just gone through five townhall meetings at home in rural and urban areas. Everybody I represent at home thinks there ought to be more accountability in Washington, DC, rather than less. Without answers to the questions I have outlined today, there is no question that with respect to accountability, the Senate, by voting cloture today, would be settling for less. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, I can tell the Senate this morning that there is no higher priority for Senate Finance Democrats than the well-being of healthcare patients in this country and how strongly we feel about their having a right to good quality, affordable healthcare coverage. Right now, too many of those folks are getting ripped off by an insurance lobbyist's dream--taxpayer-funded junk insurance--or by Big Pharma, which is always, always looking to engage in price gouging for one reason: They can get away with it. Take insulin. Insulin prices are up thirteenfold in recent years. The drug is not 13 times better. It is the same insulin that has been around for decades. But the reason the pharmaceutical companies do it is because they can get away with it. This morning, I am going to take a few minutes and talk about what this really means for patients because I can tell you, this fall, there are a lot of families across this country who would rather be prepping for holidays than worrying about their healthcare. Unfortunately, the Trump administration is refusing to provide that kind of security for our patients. To begin, let me tell you about a youngster in Oregon named Jasper. Jasper is 3, full of energy and love, and a big fan of playtime with cars and trucks and trains. He was born, however, with huge medical challenges--cystic fibrosis, cardiac and pancreatic problems, hearing loss. He needs a variety of treatments multiple times a day. It is so hard on Jasper's family. It is so hard on Jasper. And, of course, the costs of Jasper's care are in the stratosphere. The family is fortunate to have health insurance through a parent's employer. They know how absolutely vital it is to have what they consider to be a lifeline--the protection of the Affordable Care Act. At the heart of the Affordable Care Act are bedrock, ironclad protections for people like them--no discrimination by insurance companies against preexisting conditions. That was something we used to have some support for from the other side of the aisle. I know about that because I wrote a bipartisan bill that had airtight, loophole-free protection against what essentially was discrimination against those with preexisting conditions, and we got it into the Affordable Care Act. Yet now we see the other side of the aisle trying to unravel those protections. They are trying to unravel the protection that we see for patients with respect to big expenses. Our approach has no annual or lifetime limits on coverage, no coverage denials that dragged people into bureaucratic nightmares, has young people covered on their parents' plan until age 26, and lots more. Those protections saved people's lives and made healthcare affordable for millions of Americans. Unfortunately, with the support of my colleagues here on the other side in the Senate, the Trump administration wants to eliminate those protections that are so important to Jasper and families like his. My colleagues on the other side are standing by and basically doing nothing while the administration and Republican-led States are out there maneuvering in the courts to get the entire Affordable Care Act wiped out. The so-called Texas case, which is an absurd lawsuit based on an absurd argument--an argument that wouldn't pass the smell test in a middle class school mock trial--somehow rightwing, ideological judges have kept it alive. Because this lawsuit keeps hanging around, tens of millions of Americans might lose their healthcare with hardly any warning and no fallback options to protect them. Now Republicans have claimed they have fix-it bills they could pass in the event their allies took down the Affordable Care Act. They do read like they were written by the lawyers and the lobbyists on the payroll of the big insurance companies. If insurance companies can hike up the cost of treating a preexisting condition so high that it becomes unaffordable, it is no different from being denied coverage at the outset. While the Texas case moves forward, the Trump administration is continuing to allow junk insurance scam artists to defraud Americans into buying worthless plans that aren't worth really the paper they are written on and certainly don't cover the healthcare Americans need. I want to be very specific about it. This is an insurance lobbyist's dream. You have tax breaks for junk insurance. That is on every insurance lobbyist's wish list for the holidays. I think it is federally funded fraud, plain and simple, but unfortunately it has the support of a lot of Republicans here in the Congress. It is now the middle of the open enrollment period for health insurance on healthcare.gov. The Trump administration's support for junk plans has created a whole new burden for families across the country who are shopping for insurance. I am particularly troubled by this because I remember what junk insurance used to be like. I was director of the senior citizens at home for almost 7 years before I was elected to the Congress, and those were the days when you could go around the country, whether it was Montana or Oregon or anywhere else, and fast-talking salesmen would sell 10, 15, sometimes 20 policies to supplement a senior's Medicare. They were called Medigap policies, and they were useless. Seniors should have saved that money to pay the rent and maybe make sure they had heat in their houses. Finally, we got rid of those Medigap rip-off policies. When I came to the Congress, it was my top priority. We got it passed. It was a bipartisan proposal. But now junk plans are back. They are different from those Medigap rip-offs, but, much like what I battled when I was the head of the senior citizens in Oregon, they are still built around the same proposition. They are essentially worthless. They are an insurance lobbyist's dream. In the case of what we are dealing with-- the administration gutting the Affordable Care Act--I think it is essentially Federal tax breaks for junk insurance, and that is why I think it is tantamount to federally funded fraud. The Trump administration's support for junk plans has created a whole new burden for families across the country who are trying to shop for insurance that gives them real value. Those shoppers used to be able to trust that junk plans had actually been banned from the marketplace. Now those shoppers have to wade through Byzantine and manipulative marketing scams and incomprehensible insurance lingo to try to figure out if they are getting coverage that actually helps them or, as I have described too often, just worthless junk. What is worse, the Trump administration actually redirects people looking for coverage from the healthcare.gov website to third-party brokers who can sell unsuspecting customers junk plans. I think it is astounding that the Trump administration has seen fit to heap another burden on vulnerable people. After we have called this administration out on it, they are not willing to do anything to correct it. But unfortunately, since the beginning of the Trump administration-- with the help of too many allies in the Congress--it has been one attempt after another to take healthcare away from vulnerable Americans, from millions of vulnerable Americans, those like 3-year-old little Jasper and his family, that I started talking about at home in Oregon. On a fundamental level, this is a debate about whether this country is going to go back to the days when healthcare was only for the healthy and wealthy. That was the way it worked, if the insurance companies could clobber somebody with a preexisting condition. If you are healthy, it didn't matter. You did not have to worry. If you were wealthy, you just sat down and wrote out a check. That is the way it worked. But when I came to the Senate, we put together a bipartisan bill, airtight, loophole-free protection for those with preexisting conditions. There are colleagues on the other side of the aisle who cosponsored my bill--and by the way, the President of the Senate knows who was the leader of that effort, one of his predecessors in the Utah delegation, the late Senator Bennet. So this idea that we are just going to sit around and go back to the days when healthcare was for the healthy and wealthy, that is not acceptable to Finance Democrats that I have the honor to work with. It is not acceptable to any of us on this side, and it should not be acceptable to my colleagues in the Congress. That is where Donald Trump wants to return to, the days when healthcare was for the healthy and wealthy. They have made it clear by working to eliminate preexisting condition protections in the Congress and the courts, by giving insurance lobbyists Federal tax breaks for junk insurance plans, and by seeking to slash health programs for the vulnerable. I just want to make it clear that, on this side of the aisle, we are about patients. We are about protecting patients. We are about the proposition that in a country as strong and good and rich as ours-- where we are going to spend $3.5 trillion this year on healthcare, if you divide the number of Americans, like maybe 325 million into $3.5 trillion, you could send every family of four in America a check for $40,000. We are spending enough to take care of patients. We ought to be doing more to protect, rather than turning back the clock on young people like Jasper and his family. I just wanted to make it clear, we will be on the floor talking about more patients in the days ahead and on the fight, a fight we are going to prosecute relentlessly, to protect those patients under the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. WYDEN. If my colleague would yield?

Mr. WYDEN. My understanding--and, again, I have listened to my colleague on the Finance Committee. He is a champion on not going back, but going forward with more Medicare-type choices. Like making that person who is really wondering if they are going to make it until 65 in order to get to Medicare, he would like--for example, say an older woman who has been a victim of age discrimination, did not have much money, he would like to make them eligible for Medicare at 60 or 61 or something like that.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to remember the remarkable life of my friend Gert Boyle and her many economic and philanthropic contributions to Oregon. Gert died earlier this month at the age of 95. I am one of the many fans of Columbia Sportswear--and there are an awful lot of us in Oregon--who admired Gert and saw her as synonymous with the iconic Oregon company she led. This force of nature came to Oregon after fleeing Nazi Germany with her family in 1937. It is an immigrant story she shared with my parents, who also fled the Nazis. Like so many other refugees welcomed to America over the centuries, Gert arrived to America ready to work and eager to contribute. She did both in spades, adding her own significant chapter to America's proud history of immigrant successes. She was a pioneer, a woman running a company at a time when that was unfortunately even more rare than women CEOs are today. When Gert's husband Neal died unexpectedly in 1970, she stepped in to replace him as president of what was then a tiny local company weighed down by debt. The challenge was mighty, but so was Gert. She became identified everywhere with Columbia Sportswear as she grew this Oregon business into a national and international brand. It now generates net annual revenue of $3 billion and employs more than 6,500 people. Business school students and Oregon historians alike will always remember Gert for that exceptional run, as will I. And she gave back along the way, generously supporting Special Olympics and the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. She was also was a hell of a lot of fun, as evidenced by her hilarious role spoofing herself in a 1980s Columbia Sportswear ad campaign as ``one tough mother.'' I close by citing two anecdotes about Gert among many in the recent obituaries chronicling her amazing life. I think both capture her toughness and sense of humor perfectly. One of the two anecdotes comes from Kerry Tymchuk, executive director of the Oregon Historical Society. He said, ``When she took over, you know, she was a woman CEO in a business where there weren't many women CEOs, in the sports apparel business. She was discriminated against and there was this famous incident where she picked up her phone and the fellow on the other end said, `I want to speak to the CEO,' and she said `speaking,' and he said, `but you're a woman,' and she said, `you know, I noticed that when I got up this morning.' '' The other anecdote comes from Gert herself. In another obituary, she was quoted as having said, ``After my husband died, I said, `It's the same ballgame--it's just a different coach. I might not know what I'm doing, but we're going to do it my way.' '' Gert certainly did do it her way. And her company, its employees, and our entire State of Oregon are much the better for it.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I will be making a unanimous consent request to move the SAFE Act in just a couple of moments. This is legislation that Senator Klobuchar and I have teamed up on for quite some time. It basically incorporates the three priorities that all of the nonpartisan election cybersecurity experts recommend: paper ballots, routine post-election, risk-limiting audits, and Federal cyber security standards for election systems. I am going to make some brief remarks and then pose a unanimous consent request. I just find it stunning that the Republican Party continues its wall- to-wall campaign of obstruction against election security. Because of this legislative blockade, the Senate has been AWOL when it comes to stopping foreign cyber attacks on our elections. For example, I think most Americans would be stunned to learn that there is not a single mandatory, nationwide election cyber security standard on the books. For example, there are no rules barring connecting voting machines to the internet. I say to the Presiding Officer and colleagues that doing so is equivalent to putting American ballot boxes in the Kremlin. That is what happens when you don't have cyber security standards. Let's remember what happened in the election cyber security debacle of 2016. Russian hackers probed all 50 State election systems. Russians successfully hacked at least one election technology vendor, according to the Mueller report. Russians penetrated two Florida county election systems, according to Florida's Governor. That is just what we know about. People are always saying: Well, no votes were changed. Nobody knows that because you wouldn't know it unless you had a real forensic analysis conducted by cybersecurity experts who broke the systems down, and that hasn't been done. Despite all of the ways foreign hackers have already made it into our election infrastructure, Congress has refused to arm State and county election officials with the knowledge and funding they need to secure their systems. I will just make one additional point, and I thank my colleague for her courtesy because I know everyone is on a tight schedule. This summer, I saw for myself how vulnerable election systems are. I went to DEF CON, which is really the major ``white hat'' hacker convention in Las Vegas. I went because I wanted to see how easy it was to hack e- pollbooks, voting machines, and other key parts of election infrastructure. I sure wish some of my colleagues on the other side, including the distinguished majority leader, could have seen all of these young people in the Voting Village going through a who's who of hackable voting machines and see how easy it was to compromise voting machines to alter votes, disrupt ballot printers, and meddle with registration systems. Teenagers in the DEF CON Voting Village showed me an e-pollbook hacked so completely that young people were playing video games like ``Doom'' on it. I sure wish my colleagues could have been there. I sit on the Intelligence Committee. I am not going to get into anything classified, but I am going to close simply by saying that, as of today, the threats that we face in 2020 from hostile foreign powers, in my view, are going to make 2016 look like small potatoes. For that reason, I now ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 2238, the Securing America's Federal Elections Act, otherwise known as the SAFE Act; that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am going to be brief because I just think it is so critical to respond to the comments my colleague has made. The first argument was that, on this side of the aisle, people really aren't interested in election security. The fact is, what Senator Klobuchar and I and those on our side of the aisle have been interested in are the three priorities that independent cyber security experts agree are essential to protecting our elections: paper ballots, audits, and cyber security standards. So that ought to dispose of this issue that somehow on this side of the aisle, people really aren't interested in election security. Second, I want it understood that over here, we have been interested in working in a bipartisan way. But our ranking member, Senator Klobuchar, on the Rules Committee said that at one point there was a markup scheduled on these issues, and, essentially, the leadership on the other side of the aisle intervened, and it was canceled. The fact is that here we are, with just a few months until people start voting. They are going to vote in primaries early next year. They are going to go to the polls from sea to shining sea in the fall of 2020. I will just say to my colleagues that we have something like 25 States in America that are nakedly vulnerable. These are the States that are still using hackable, paperless voting machines and States that do not have routine, post-election audits. As Senator Warner, Senator Klobuchar, and I have said, and the distinguished minority leader, Senator Schumer, all we are interested in is working to deal with this issue in an objective way, based on the facts outlined by the experts who aren't at all political. I think it is very unfortunate that there has been an objection to the proposal from the distinguished Senator from Virginia, Mr. Warner, and the proposal from the ranking member on the Rules Committee, who has worked with me on the SAFE Act, and the SAFE Act itself because, as a result of this action, the Senate is missing yet another opportunity to provide an additional measure of security for the 2020 election. I will close with one last response in light of a comment my colleague, our new Senator from Tennessee, has made. She and I have talked about these issues, and I have appreciated it. She said that no votes were changed--no votes were changed in the election. Nobody knows that. Unless you do a forensic analysis and break down the machines, you won't know that. I sure hope that soon we will be back on this floor moving the proposal advanced by the Senator from Virginia and the proposal advanced by the Senator from Minnesota and me because these are measures proposed by independent experts who don't care about Ds and Rs; they care about what is right for America. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I want to make sure the Senate and the country understand what this debate is all about. Senate Republicans have been writing letters to the Department of Treasury saying that the Treasury SALT rule hurts their State charities. Yet they have been unwilling--at least based on what I am told--to be part of an effort to fix this and to support those charities. That is what we would be doing in our effort today to overturn the Treasury Department's flawed--deeply flawed--SALT regulations. My view is that these regulations illustrate essentially what was wrong with the Republicans' 2017 tax law. This was a law that was half- baked and rushed to shovel hundreds of billions of dollars to those at the top of the economic pyramid in our country. Then $1.5 trillion was borrowed so that Donald Trump and his Republican allies could find a way to cover this tax cut for cronies and donors. Then, because they still needed revenue, Republicans deliberately targeted middle-class homeowners in States like New Jersey, New York, Maryland, and Oregon for tax increases. For some communities in Oregon, it is not uncommon for property tax bills alone for middle-class folks to exceed $10,000. But when our Republican colleagues took this flawed approach on the SALT issue, they didn't want to listen to experts. So the Trump Treasury Department stepped in, and without any clear authority to do so, the Treasury Department reversed a longstanding IRS provision that had allowed taxpayers a full deduction for charitable contributions to State tax credit programs. In essence, the Treasury Department created a new rule that extended the $10,000 cap on State and local tax deductions to also include charitable contributions to State tax credit programs. To make matters worse, because Republican Senators began to see what an absurd approach this was, Secretary Mnuchin put together another carve-out for Republican interests, trying to figure out how to manage this flawed regulation. In effect, businesses using these same workarounds to fund private school voucher programs would be exempt from the regulation. Middle-class families pay more; businesses pay less. That is the Republican way. My view is that the Treasury Department shouldn't be putting its thumb on the scale on behalf of Republicans, and it certainly shouldn't be using what amounts to a phony regulatory justification to fix this extraordinarily poorly drafted law. While Donald Trump certainly intended for these regulations to hurt middle-class families in some parts of the country in Democratic States and protect Republican interests, the bad news for my Republican colleagues--and this is why so many Republican Senators are writing the Treasury Department, talking about why their State charities are getting hammered. The regulations produced by the Treasury Department are overly broad, and they hurt the majority of States by effectively eliminating the benefit of those State charitable tax credit programs. These include credits that support priorities like conservation, child care, charitable giving, and access to higher education. This is particularly striking, given that the Trump tax law was already estimated to slash overall charitable giving by as much as $20 million a year. Now on top of that, the regulations that I oppose and feel so strongly about coming from the Treasury Department threaten more than 100 charitable State tax credit programs in 33 States. My Republican colleagues' constituents will be hurt by these regulations, just like my constituents at home. We are talking about childcare centers in Colorado and Missouri; foster care organizations in Arizona; historic preservation groups in Kansas; charities in Iowa, Kentucky, and Mississippi; conservation groups in Arkansas, Iowa, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee; rural hospitals in Georgia, the home State of the Presiding Officer; universities in Indiana, Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota; and volunteer responders in Nebraska. As today's debate proceeds, you are going to hear about these comments against these regulations that were submitted to the Trump administration. There is a rural hospital in Georgia that was able to upgrade its heart monitors, a childcare center in Colorado that helps parents remain in the workforce, and a conservation group that has preserved more than 10,000 acres of land in Florida's gulf coast. In wrapping up, I just hope my Republican colleagues will put their constituents first by shielding them from these unintended consequences of losing their charitable tax credits and supporting this resolution offered by the leader, Senator Schumer, myself, and other colleagues. Senate Republicans have a choice. They can keep writing letters to the Treasury Department, complaining about the regulations that hammer their State charities, or they can join us in voting to reverse this policy. I just hope that Senators move to this vote, and they take the option that I think is the only one you can explain to the folks at home in a townhall meeting. I have had more than 950 of them. I am going to have some more very shortly. There, folks have a chance to really see what your priorities are. The question here is, Are your priorities with folks at home, with these State charities that I have emphasized--everything from conservation to healthcare, to children? Are you going to support the State charities doing that important work or are you going to continue to support the Department of the Treasury with their incredibly flawed regulations to hammer these State charities? I hope Senators from all sides--from those 33 States that I have just ticked off--will vote to protect those charities and join me, Senator Schumer, and a host of other colleagues in voting to get rid of the Treasury Department's rule and stand with us on the CRA. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

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

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I understand that several of our colleagues today have been on the Senate floor calling for an immediate vote on the President's new North American Free Trade Agreement. Setting aside the fact that there have not yet been the hearings or the markups necessary to allow that to happen, it would be a major mistake for the Trump administration to seek a vote on a trade deal until it is a good deal. While the new North American Free Trade Agreement includes some improvements to the existing agreement, there is still work to be done to get the best deal for American workers and consumers. Updating NAFTA, for example, means confronting the areas where older trade agreements continually have fallen short: fighting to protect labor rights in the interests of working families, preventing a race to the bottom when it comes to the environment, and making sure there are vigorous enforcements of our trade agreements so that other countries can't treat a trade deal as an empty document that gives them yet more time and more opportunities to rip off American jobs. I do have real concerns about the current trade enforcement because the new NAFTA carries over too much of the weak enforcement system of the old NAFTA. It is too easy on trade cheats, and it is not good enough for American workers, particularly on the issue of protecting our working families and labor rights. Now, I and our colleague Senator Brown have proposed several additional tools to address specific challenges in Mexico. It is my view, in having talked to trade officials and in having gathered information elsewhere, that by all accounts, there has been good progress on this front. Additionally, one of the bigger challenges that has to be confronted is that of identifying the hundreds of thousands of sham labor contracts in Mexico that have exploited workers there and harmed workers here in our country. Mexico must remain on track to get those contracts renegotiated on behalf of the interests of our workers. To my colleagues who say this deal must be passed in the name of certainty, I want to make a point that, I think, is very important. During this overhaul, the original North American Free Trade Agreement remains in place. Workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses should not have to go to bed at night fearing that economic uncertainty is going to rob them of their livelihoods. The uncertainty arises only when the President acts out and makes impulsive threats regarding our trade relationships. When the President threatened new tariffs on Mexico this June over immigration policy, that created far more uncertainty than our taking the time that would be necessary to get this deal right. American workers and farmers have already been hurt by the President's impulses. More are going to get hurt if Trump threatens and produces chaos, causing the Congress to accept a bad deal on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Passing a trade deal that would allow the President to unilaterally change trade rules and jerk around entire industries would be a substantial mistake and would be one that would produce still more uncertainty. That is not how you get trade done right. Based on that, I do have some real concerns about how the administration wants NAFTA 2.0 to be implemented. I am just going to close by mentioning a fact or two about my State. In my State, trade and global commerce are priority business. One in five jobs in Oregon depends on international trade, and the trade jobs often pay better than do the nontrade jobs because they reflect a level of added value. When I am asked at a town meeting what my views are on trade, I always say: Let's grow it in Oregon. Let's make it in Oregon. Let's add value to it in Oregon and then ship it around the world. I don't take a back seat to anybody in talking about the importance of trade, particularly in my State. I sat and listened to a number of my colleagues who talked about their views and that we ought to just have an immediate vote, that we just should vote now. I don't know what they thought with respect to hearings and markups and the kinds of things that are required. They just said that we have to move now. As the ranking Democrat on the Committee on Finance, I just want to make it clear that you go when a trade deal is a good deal. There are issues still to be resolved on that matter, and I am interested in working with both sides in good faith in order to get a good deal. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, our colleagues, Senator Warner and Senator Murray, have come to the floor over the course of the day to speak about the importance of protecting Americans who have preexisting health conditions, and I want to see if I can put this in a bit of context so that people understand why those of us on this side feel so strongly, why I think Senator Warner and Senator Murray were spot-on, and I want to put it in the context of the way I came up. When I got out of law school, I set up a legal aid program for senior citizens. I was codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers, and I saw what it meant when the big insurance companies could just clobber those people with preexisting health conditions. They would just throw all kinds of extra costs on them, heap extra expenses, and pretty much beat the stuffing out of anybody who had a preexisting health condition. We tried as hard as we could to push back. This was all before I was in public life. At the time, I said: If I ever have the opportunity in the Congress, I am going to make this priority business to make sure that everybody in America could go to bed at night knowing that they wouldn't be wiped out in the morning if they have a preexisting condition. So in the course of the whole debate about the Affordable Care Act, I produced a piece of legislation called the Healthy Americans Act. Seven Democrats and seven Republicans were cosponsors. Some of the Republican cosponsors are still serving in the U.S. Senate today. What we had in it was airtight, loophole-free protection for anybody with a preexisting condition. We were thrilled that, by and large, our provision from the Healthy Americans Act became the provision in the Affordable Care Act that ensured that there would be a new generation of consumer protection and security for the millions of Americans who had these preexisting conditions. Now, as my colleagues have said, there is a very real threat to that protection that is now in the Affordable Care Act that really does provide airtight, loophole-free protection for those with preexisting conditions. I just want to make sure that we get on the record, for those who are following the debate, what it means if you roll back these protections for those with preexisting conditions. In a sentence, what it means is America goes back to the days--those days when I was codirector of the Gray Panthers--when healthcare was for the healthy and the wealthy. That is what you have if you allow discrimination against those with a preexisting condition. If you are healthy, you don't have an issue with preexisting conditions. If you are wealthy, you don't have an issue with preexisting conditions. But if you are not healthy and you are not wealthy and you get rid of these protections, you are in a world of hurt. That is what we are looking at should the Republicans prevail. The Republican's official position is ironclad: Preexisting consumer protections ought to be pretty much thrown in the trash can. I am going to spend a few minutes outlining the examples of why that is the case. First, we saw the TrumpCare disaster of 2017. The Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act with its protection for preexisting conditions. They failed, and preexisting conditions lived to fight another day. Enough said there. Second, my colleagues have chosen to stand idly by while Republican- led States and the President tried to maneuver through the courts to toss out the entire Affordable Care Act overall with the protection for people with preexisting conditions. The so-called Texas lawsuit relies on an argument that wouldn't hold up in law class 101 on the Constitution. But thanks to a cadre of ideological judges, it does seem that this case may make its way to the Supreme Court. I do want to be clear for those who are following this. Republican Members of this body are not just some kind of innocent bystander when it comes to this court case. They could, if they wanted to, join Democrats to take steps that would prevent this lawsuit from going forward, and, again, we can have protections for people with preexisting conditions. Instead, all the arguments are about why the Republicans just can't be involved and a lot of excuses and deflection. Third, the so-called ``fix-it'' bills that my Republican colleagues have offered to--what they claim--``protect'' preexisting conditions are just so full of disclaimers that they look as if they might have been written by one of those insurance company lawyers from the old days who was only interested in finding ways in which the insurance company could win and the consumer would lose. Any healthcare legislation that doesn't provide an ironclad guarantee of health coverage, no matter your health status, age, or gender, amounts to a huge loophole that leaves hard-working, middle-class people emptyhanded when they need health coverage the most. If insurance companies can make coverage for your preexisting conditions so expensive that it is unaffordable, it is no different than being denied coverage in the first place. Next, the Trump administration has given the States the green light to use taxpayer dollars to push junk plans that aren't worth the paper they are written on. I will have more to say about that in the days ahead, but not only does this approach amount to federally funded fraud, this is a gross misreading of current law that is going to disproportionately hurt vulnerable Americans with preexisting conditions who need comprehensive healthcare. Under these rules, unscrupulous insurance companies can charge people more if they have a preexisting condition, deny benefits for specific types of treatment, or even deny coverage altogether. This rule change is--and we are going to talk some more about it--a grotesque perversion of the provision I authored in the Affordable Care Act that would let States build on the strong protections in the law but not go out and, basically, completely undermine them. Despite this parade of grim tidings, next Friday, November 1, is the beginning of open enrollment for individual, private health insurance coverage on healthcare.gov, so there is a little bit of encouraging news. Even as the Trump administration has done everything they can to fuel the fires of uncertainty for people about where healthcare is going to be and what is going to be available, millions of families are going to be able to shop for plans that provide them with health coverage. That is because, yesterday, Americans got the news that the average premium for the so-called ``benchmark plan'' for the individual market--part of the Affordable Care Act--is going down by 4 percent. Make no mistake, this reduction is in spite of all of the things the President has done to make it harder to get affordable coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Attributing this reduction to the President is about as believable as saying that Trump University is going to make a comeback any day now. In fact, one insurer who posted a premium decrease last year crunched the numbers and said that they could have reduced premiums by over 22 percent if it weren't for congressional Republicans and sabotage by the Trump administration. Americans should still sign up for health coverage if they need it before the deadline on December 15, even if the President hasn't done you or your family any favors on healthcare. One last point on healthcare: While Americans are looking for affordable healthcare plans on healthcare.gov, there are going to be a lot of scam artists on the prowl outside of the official website. These hucksters are going to be trying to pawn what are called junk plans onto unsuspecting families. The junk plans might sound attractive. They always seem to be advertising promotional materials that say: ``Low premiums! Affordable coverage!'' But I just want to make clear that if you or a loved one gets sick, chances are the fine print says that the carrier of this junk plan will not cover what you need. So despite the low premium, the real bill comes due right when you need your coverage the most. I am also struck by how similar these junk plans are that are being offered now by these rip-off insurers--how similar they are to another part of what we dealt with when I was codirector of the Gray Panthers, legal aid for senior citizens. Back then, we saw that fast-talking insurance salespeople would sell older people 10, 15, sometimes even 20 private policies that were supposed to supplement their Medicare, and a lot of them weren't worth the paper they were written on. If you had one, often, the others wouldn't offer you coverage because they would say that you already had coverage. Finally, we outlawed that. We wrote a law that streamlined the Medigap market, and it basically is still the law today. With respect to the law on preexisting conditions, I hope we can protect that. We shouldn't be creating new problems for patients and consumers. And, particularly, when we make progress, such as we did with the Affordable Care Act so that we now have in it airtight, loophole-free protections for those with preexisting conditions, we certainly shouldn't turn back the clock to the days when healthcare was for the healthy and wealthy. I am going to have more to say about these junk plans and how they have really unsavory, historical roots, particularly when the equivalent was sold to the elderly. These junk plans are now just a backdoor to denying care to Americans with preexisting conditions, and people ought to know about the dangers. People deserve to know whether their elected officials are going to fight to protect their rights or whether they are going to let a bunch of con artists weaken the core protections for preexisting conditions that Senators Warner and Murray talked about today that are so important to keeping families healthy. I urge my Republican colleagues to change course and stand with Democrats in defense of the law and real protection for vulnerable patients, against discrimination if they have a preexisting condition. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN

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

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to fight for answers--answers that are long overdue. In 2018, my hometown newspaper, The Oregonian, identified a handful of cases where Saudi nationals accused of serious crimes in the United States, like manslaughter and sexual assault, fled the country and escaped American justice. Since then, The Oregonian has identified numerous similar cases--in fact, almost two dozen such cases across the United States. That includes 19 in just the last 7 years. Today I want to tell the Senate about just one of those cases. Three years ago, not far from my home in Southeast Portland, a young woman had her life taken from her. Fallon Smart was then a rising sophomore at Franklin High School, and she was aspiring to be a teacher. By all accounts, she would have been a terrific teacher. She was 15, and according to everybody who knew her, Fallon was warm and smart and friendly. She had her whole life ahead of her. According to police, she lost her life when she was crossing the street in front of stopped traffic, and a vehicle illegally swerved into the left-hand lane and hit her at 55 or 60 miles per hour. Her mom was in a car half a block away and ran to her daughter. Fallon died in her mother's arms, and the car that hit her just sped away. A Saudi Arabian college student named Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah later returned to the scene and was arrested. He was eventually charged with manslaughter in Fallon's death and then released on $1 million bail. The Saudi consulate posted his $100,000 bond, according to The Oregonian newspaper. In the United States, in our country, there was every expectation that Mr. Noorah would get a fair shake from the justice system. Our justice system was working the right way here until 2 weeks before Mr. Noorah was scheduled to go to trial. His tracking bracelet was somehow cut, and he disappeared. Mr. Noorah has never stood trial for Fallon Smart's death. Eventually, this spring, the State Department confirmed in a letter to me that Mr. Noorah had returned to Saudi Arabia. I felt then, and I do today, this raises an important and a serious question: How does a foreign national charged with manslaughter, whose passport was seized, disappear from the United States without a trace? How does this person escape the country and make it thousands of miles back to Saudi Arabia with there being no record of his doing so? News reports in 2018 suggest that the Saudi Arabian Government knew about Mr. Noorah and these other fugitives and potentially helped them flee justice. I have five children. I cannot imagine the grief I would feel if one of them was taken from me, and the person responsible somehow managed to evade the justice system. It is almost impossible to comprehend the anger and the helplessness and the frustration any parent would feel in a situation like this. I met with Fallon's mom Fawn, and while she and all of Fallon's loved ones have borne this miscarriage of justice with extraordinary grace, they are just heartbroken. In addition to being heartbroken, they are angry. They are outraged by the notion that the person charged with killing their daughter may have just been able to escape scot-free and face no consequences for his action. For some time, I have been demanding information from the Trump administration. In my view, the victims of these crimes, their families, and the American people are owed some essential answers. How did this happen? What is the U.S. Government doing about it? I have written the Department of Justice. I have written the State Department. I have written the U.S. Marshals Service. I have written to the Department of Homeland Security. As far as I can tell, I would have gotten better answers from the Saudi royal family themselves. In fact, when I asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo what he was doing to try to return the Saudi fugitives to the United States, basically what his Department did is that we just got a collective shrug of the shoulders. I sent the Secretary of State a letter last December. He didn't respond. So I sent another letter in February. I said: The State Department needs to use all its resources and all the tools at its disposal to hold the Saudi Government accountable. I asked whether our Ambassador pressed the Saudi Government about this disturbing, shocking pattern of Saudi nationals skipping bail. The State Department finally did respond to my second letter. What I got was a whole bunch of nothing. One of Mr. Pompeo's aides said that without an extradition treaty, there wasn't anything they could do about it. This is from a Secretary who tried to rebrand State as the ``Department of Swagger.'' That swagger was nowhere to be found when it was time to protect innocent Americans. Today, I am not writing any more letters. I am here on the Senate floor asking for action--action today. I am seeking to pass the Saudi Fugitive Declassification Act of 2019. My bill requires the FBI Director, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, to quickly--quickly--declassify any and all information related to a key question: whether the Government of Saudi Arabia helped any Saudi nationals escape the country when those Saudi nationals were awaiting trial or sentencing for a criminal offense. Let me just repeat that so there is no confusion. The bill requires that the FBI Director and what is called the DNI, or the Director of National Intelligence, would quickly--quickly--declassify any and all information on the issue of whether the Government of Saudi Arabia helped any Saudi nationals escape the country when those Saudi nationals were awaiting trial or sentencing for a criminal offense in the United States. I believe what I am asking for today must happen in the name of justice immediately. The American people deserve answers. The people I represent at home in our neighborhoods in Southeast Portland want answers. These are not academic matters. This is not about a series of victimless crimes. This is about manslaughter. It is about rape. It is about a whole array of ugly offenses. This is about real people, real families-- families who have suffered immeasurable pain. They deserve to see justice served. When individuals who are charged with violent crimes-- no victimless crimes here, violent crimes--manage to escape and when the United States fails to do much of anything about it, it undermines public safety and it harms the U.S. justice system. If, as some of the press stories have suggested, the Saudi Government has helped these alleged criminals escape justice, the American people have the right to be doubly concerned. Is the public image of Saudi Arabia a higher priority than the safety of American citizens? Any action by a foreign government to thwart our criminal justice system would be an attack on our national security and our sovereignty. If that is what has happened, then, all Americans deserve to know. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the U.S. Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2635, submitted earlier today.

Mr. WYDEN. I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. With that action, has this bill now been passed?

Mr. WYDEN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.