Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, while it is perhaps not in line with official and genuine Senate protocol, I also want to use this opportunity to congratulate my good friend in the Chair on the wonderful events of last weekend for his family. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to discuss my colleague Senator Baldwin's resolution that would protect the millions of Americans in Wisconsin and Oregon and all across the land who are faced with preexisting health conditions. This has been an area I have focused on since my days as codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers because preexisting conditions is kind of fancy lingo that people talk about as it relates to healthcare policy, but really what it is all about is, if you have cancer or diabetes or heart disease or asthma or any one of a score of healthcare conditions, before the Affordable Care Act, you were just in a world of hurt, literally and figuratively. In effect, the healthcare system then was for the healthy and the wealthy. If you were healthy, there was nothing to worry about--no preexisting condition. If you were wealthy, you just paid the bills, but if you had preexisting conditions, as millions and millions of Americans have, then you were really out of luck. So then, along came the Affordable Care Act. I had written a piece of legislation, the Healthy Americans Act, with seven Democrats and seven Republicans as cosponsors. It had airtight, loophole-free protection for Americans against discrimination if they had preexisting conditions. That provision from the Healthy Americans Act, to a very great extent, made its way into the Affordable Care Act. That is why millions of Americans were able to go to bed at night with a sense of comfort and a sense that if they did have healthcare conditions, the insurance companies wouldn't be able to just clobber them with higher costs. Unfortunately, we have the Trump administration's wanting to bring back the days when healthcare was for the healthy and wealthy and allow discrimination against people with preexisting conditions. The flip side of the preexisting condition coin is junk insurance-- selling junk insurance that really isn't worth a whole lot more than the paper it is written on. Boy, do I know something about junk insurance because that is how I started my time in public service, when senior citizens were sold 15 to 20 policies. Again, the rip-offs were built in. Back then, if you had one policy and you had another policy that offered similar coverage, they canceled each other out, and the senior got nothing. It was junk insurance. If we go back to the days when they discriminated against people with preexisting conditions, we are going to have junk insurance all over again. I am going to begin with the Trump administration's record on this. First of all, if you are a scam artist who is peddling junk plans, the Trump administration has your back. If you are a person with a preexisting condition, the Trump administration is advancing policies that will make both your health and your wallet in far worse shape. Now, the Trump officials get up and talk about the benefits of short- term plans. They will use buzz words like ``flexibility'' and ``patient-centered care,'' but I want everybody to be clear that it is junk insurance, plain and simple. It is putting a whole lot of lipstick on a frog. These junk insurance plans the Trump administration has revived represent the very worst of industry tricks and abuses. They punish Americans who really need healthcare. If you are young, if you are healthy, and if you are wealthy, as I have said, there is nothing to worry about. With junk plans, you have a glide path to put scams on those with preexisting conditions like heart disease, cancer, and mental illness. They exist to prey on older Americans--on women, on the less fortunate--particularly a group that I have thought was the heart of where healthcare reform ought to go--to the folks between 55 and 65. As I have indicated, junk plans are not new. Congress and the American people have rejected them before. I mentioned my history with the Oregon Gray Panthers. Big, thick stacks of legalese that nobody could understand were always hyped to the seniors. They were going to fill the gaps in Medicare. It was called Medigap. Back then, it was really just A and B. It didn't have D and Medicare Advantage and all kinds of other things. It was just A and B. You had seniors frightened that the gaps in Medicare were going to consume any savings they might have. So every time a fast-talking salesperson came through, a senior would buy a policy. When I was the director of the Gray Panthers, it was common to go to seniors' homes, and they would actually go to a closet and pull out a shoebox full of these worthless policies. I really fear we are looking at going back to those days. The fact is that Congress finally cracked down on those Medigap rip- offs. I had an opportunity to be a part of that effort as a Member of the other body, the House, but a lot of people got hurt in the process. Junk insurance was not just a problem for seniors. A few years ago, the Affordable Care Act was designed, as I mentioned, in terms of the Healthy Americans Act, to make sure that junk insurance would be eliminated across the board. Across the board, we would say in our country, we are going to have ironclad, loophole-free guarantees that no American would ever face discrimination over a preexisting condition. By the way, that used to be a bipartisan proposition. The fact is that still serving in this body are a number of my colleagues on the Republican side who are cosponsors of the Healthy Americans Act, with that ironclad, loophole-free protection for those with preexisting conditions. So it is not as if somebody just kind of brought this up as a partisan issue. It was bipartisan then. Republican Members of this body, distinguished colleagues, were cosponsors of that Healthy Americans Act proposition. Now the Trump administration is trying to turn back the clock. It wants to make junk plans great again--a forced march back to those days that I described that were only for the healthy and the wealthy. The open enrollment plan for health insurance is coming up very quickly. The Trump administration has cut it in half so that it is going to last only a few weeks this year. That means, during the holidays, when Americans are traveling, shopping, and spending time with family, they will also have to make some judgments about health insurance. Because of the Trump administration's actions, these junk insurance policies are going to be peddled at the same time as insurance that would actually cover, meaningfully, the healthcare that our people need. What they are going to be doing with these Trump changes is making life easy for the scam artists but a nightmare for so many Americans who, day in and day out, walk an economic tightrope just trying to pay for essentials. These rip-off artists under the Trump plan are going to have a green light to steal the money Americans pay in premiums and for other expenses. According to a recent study, sometimes as much as $2 out of every $3 is wasted on overhead with these administrative costs and junk insurance profits in these flawed policies that the Trump administration wants to foist off on Americans. The disastrous effects of junk insurance aren't limited to those who get conned into buying it. By bringing junk plans back, the Trump administration, in effect, goes out and swings a wrecking ball into the private health insurance markets in our country. It raises costs across the board, and Americans waste their hard-earned dollars. Senator Baldwin has a resolution, and I commend my colleague from Wisconsin on her effort on this. She came and talked with me about this early on, as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. We have jurisdiction over something like $1 trillion worth of health spending. I really appreciate the expertise and the passion that Senator Baldwin has brought to this issue, and we saw it in her very first presentation on what she wanted to do. Her resolution is the Senate's best opportunity to put a stop to the scams that I have described. It would throw the Trump administration's junk insurance rules out, and with Senator Baldwin's proposal, it would restore the protections that millions of Americans count on each day. The Democrats in the Senate are going to stand up for Americans with preexisting conditions, and I hope colleagues on the other side will join us. I recognize that the Trump administration will not, but my hope is that we will have colleagues on the other side supporting us for Senator Baldwin's resolution. In addition, as if this were not enough of an injury foisted on vulnerable Americans, the Trump administration has put forward a nominee for a seat on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals who made healthcare sabotage one of his top priorities at the Trump Justice Department. Chad Readler, currently the Deputy Assistant Attorney General, in my view, is the wrong choice to be a Federal judge. Earlier this year, the Trump administration decided it just wanted to get out of the business of enforcing the rules that protect Americans with preexisting conditions. In fact, it had to argue in court that it could abandon that essential part of the Affordable Care Act, which was still the law of the land the last time I looked. Who did the administration turn to when it needed to cook up a dubious legal argument that it had no obligation to enforce the law of the land? Chad Readler. In fact, three career attorneys from the Department of Justice looked at his argument, and they actually withdrew from the case. Three career lawyers from the Department of Justice refused to participate. The Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Mr. Readler's nomination earlier this month. His nomination could be sent to the floor of the Senate in the coming weeks, but it ought to be clear that this is a nominee who is not an impartial individual who has the judicial temperament Americans expect. He is not somebody who ought to be handed a seat on the Federal bench and have the power to sign off on the Trump administration's agenda of healthcare sabotage. I close with this. The Senate has an opportunity to stand up this week for the millions of vulnerable Americans who have these preexisting conditions, for the millions of Americans who under the Affordable Care Act can go to bed at night knowing that if they have preexisting conditions, they are not going to lose everything. I am serious when I talk about losing everything. Once you go back to discriminating against people with preexisting conditions, you are going to go back to job lock and all of the problems we saw associated with discrimination. If you were in Montana or if you were in Oregon and had a preexisting condition and you got offered a better job on the other side of town, you couldn't go get it because you would not be able to get coverage because there was discrimination against people with preexisting conditions. This week the Senate is going to have an opportunity to stand up to the Trump administration and go to bat for the millions and millions of Americans who are watching this debate who have preexisting conditions and who are just counting on this body not to turn back the clock and leave them vulnerable again. Senator Baldwin's resolution would prevent the Trump administration from bringing back the worst abuses of junk insurance. If it doesn't pass this week, this will be an issue that, in my view, will come up again and again and again until it is fixed. Finally, the Readler nomination, in my view, ought to be stopped in its tracks. The Senate ought to tell the administration that it is not going to rubberstamp judicial nominees who have proven, demonstrable track records of twisting the law in a way that harms the most vulnerable of our citizens. I note that the majority leader is here. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the deeply misguided vote to move forward on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination has taken the Senate a step closer to a moment that will cause enormous pain for millions of Americans, particularly women and survivors of assault. Some may say that the Senate is rolling back the clock on women in America by confirming Brett Kavanaugh. After seeing what has happened to the women who have spoken out and talking to women in Oregon, I question how much the clock ever ticked forward. Indeed, this process has shone a spotlight on the double standard women across this country face just so they will be believed. On the other hand, Dr. Ford never wanted any of this. The way she has been treated by Republicans in the Senate and the President of the United States is inexcusable. In one of the most un-Presidential speeches I have ever seen or heard, the President belittled a survivor in front of a crowd of thousands. Dr. Ford came to us as a citizen who was doing her civic duty to provide the Senate with crucial information about a nominee before us. She called the front desk of her Congressperson; she didn't run to the news media or the cable shows or try to sell a book. She volunteered to tell her story under oath. She recounted the details of her assault in 18 minutes of testimony that will not soon be forgotten. It was heartbreaking to watch. At times, it was just excruciating. What did Dr. Ford get for her courage? She was put on trial by the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, who actually hired an experienced prosecutor to grill her. The questioning was clearly designed to tar Dr. Ford as a political pawn. It attempted to delegitimize the trauma caused by her assault. It attempted to paint her as a liar. It was stunning how little of the questioning Republicans subjected her to was focused on what Brett Kavanaugh did on the night in question. It is clear now that the focus was on undermining Dr. Ford's story and destroying her credibility. But Dr. Ford's credibility held up. I have said that I can't imagine a more credible witness, nor can I imagine how difficult it must have been for her to relive that experience and maintain such extraordinary composure. What she did took unknowable strength. Her testimony, delivered under what amounted to prosecution, was unforgettable. She is trained in psychology. She was even forced to act as the expert witness in her own trial, diagnosing the lifelong effects of her own trauma. She explained to the committee how memories of traumatic events implant themselves on the brain. At one point, she described what she remembered most about the assault by Mr. Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. She answered, delivering on her training, that ``indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter.'' I believe Dr. Ford when she says she was assaulted in that room in 1982. I believe Dr. Ford when she says that her attackers locked the door, a hand was pressed over her mouth, and she feared for her life. I believe her when she says she remembers them laughing. For all the grueling prosecution the Republicans put Dr. Ford through, it is important to compare that to the treatment of Brett Kavanaugh. When it was Kavanaugh's turn to deliver testimony, he was seething. He was raging in a manner completely unbecoming a Federal judge. He behaved in a manner that directly contradicted what Brett Kavanaugh said in a widely publicized speech a judge should be all about. In his own words, Mr. Kavanaugh said judges need to keep their emotions in check, to be calm amidst the storm. Mr. Kavanaugh failed his own test--his own test--last week. He offered the most partisan testimony I can recall when he talked about the Clintons and said ``what goes around comes around.'' Imagine if a female nominee had snapped at a male Senator about his drinking habits. The President of the Senate is an experienced judge and prosecutor. I am telling you, if a female nominee had done that, game over right there--right there. There again, you have the double standard. When a few questions posed by the Republican prosecutor actually got to relevant questions, the majority side of the committee told her to just take off. For that to be the only hearing on these allegations I think is just plain disgraceful. The committee should not have moved on to the vote. The allegations brought forward demanded a robust investigation. Yet the Senate has ended up light-years away from that. What kind of investigation looks to settle matters and doesn't interview the accuser and the accused? That just doesn't pass the smell test. This is not about tarnishing Brett Kavanaugh's reputation or digging up salacious details from his high school days. The accusations against Mr. Kavanaugh and the possibility of perjury--both of which he denies-- relate directly to his binge drinking and sexual behavior. That is why the FBI background check should have been a robust inquiry into those matters. It is clear now that didn't happen. You ask yourself, why not? It is hard to find an explanation other than the investigation was handcuffed to predetermine the outcome. Dr. Ford has said publicly that the FBI didn't talk to her, and they didn't look at the therapy notes she offered to turn over. They didn't talk to Mr. Kavanaugh. They didn't talk to the dozens of individuals who Deborah Ramirez said could potentially corroborate her story. They closed the investigation a full day ahead of the arbitrary deadline, and it is not clear why. Based on that, in my view, this investigation was a whitewash. It was not legitimate. It was the product of intense political meddling, in my view, by the Trump administration. That means, if Brett Kavanaugh's nomination is confirmed, there are going to be questions about his legitimacy looming large for years to come. I believe Dr. Ford. I have heard the Presiding Officer discussing this this morning on television. I respectfully would say I know the Presiding Officer doesn't share my view. But I felt that Brett Kavanaugh's behavior before the Senate last week ought to be disqualifying on its own. If you compare what he said last week to what he wrote ought to be the requirements for how a judge behaves, there is a very large gap between what Brett Kavanaugh said ought to be expected of a judge's behavior and what we saw last week when he testified. From the time his nomination was announced, Kavanaugh portrayed himself as a trustworthy individual who had the kind of levelheaded temperament Americans expect and deserve from members of the judiciary. My view was that appearance last week before the committee my colleague serves on was a textbook case of raw partisanship. In his afternoon testimony last week, Brett Kavanaugh was disdainful and sarcastic toward the Democratic Senators who questioned him. Brett Kavanaugh responded to what he considered to be unsubstantiated allegations by making truly unsubstantiated allegations of his own. Without any evidence, he declared the credible accusations that had been brought forward a ``calculated and orchestrated political hit'' by the Democrats. He pushed these baseless, conspiratorial comments about how this was all just revenge for the Clintons. And in a tone that just struck me as dripping with menace, he just said: ``What goes around comes around.'' If you look last week at how he presented himself to the chairman of the Senate's committee, I think you have to ask yourself: How can anybody expect that Brett Kavanaugh would offer a fair hearing in a politically charged case? My conclusion, based on what I have described, is pretty simple. You just do not get to behave the way Brett Kavanaugh behaved last week and get to serve on the United States Supreme Court. Finally, my concerns go further than the temper tantrum we saw last week. There is hard evidence that shows that Brett Kavanaugh lied repeatedly and on a variety of subjects. For example, just yesterday, there was new evidence in scores of emails that the nominee lied about his involvement in government wiretapping programs. The Presiding Officer of the Senate has been very gracious over the years in talking to me about these issues. He knows I care deeply, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, about government wiretapping programs. I am here this afternoon to say I am not alone. Millions of Americans care about this issue. As I have said in my conversations with the Presiding Officer of the Senate, security and liberty are not mutually exclusive. You can have both. What these emails--scores of them yesterday--prove is there is new evidence that Brett Kavanaugh did not tell the truth about his involvement in government wiretapping programs. There is hard evidence that shows he lied about using stolen documents, hard evidence that shows he lied about his involvement in the confirmation process of certain Bush nominees, hard evidence about the statements made by the other individuals who were present at the party where Dr. Ford was assaulted, hard evidence the nominee lied about when he learned of the second set of allegations made against him. The nominee even lied about small stuff. When you can't trust somebody to tell the truth, they don't belong on the Supreme Court. It is important, before I wrap this up, to take a hard look at what has happened to the Court over the last few years. In 2016, Senate Republicans blocked a mainstream nominee to the Court--an individual who many Republicans had praised extensively--extensively--in the past. They held a Supreme Court seat open for nearly a year until a Republican President picked someone to their liking. In 2018, the Trump White House interfered with the vetting of a second nominee, hiding key information from the Senate and the American people. The floor debate on this nomination is going to be cut off before all the questions about sexual misconduct can be answered and before the statements I have outlined here today--ones where there is hard evidence--can be examined for perjury. These actions by the Republicans and the Trump White House, in my view, are taking a sledgehammer to the public's trust in the Court as an institution. The Court used to have a healthy separation from the partisan battles that take place here in the Congress. I heard my colleague talking about that this morning on television. That healthy separation doesn't exist today. I just say, we have a lot of heavy lifting to do in the U.S. Senate to revive the vision of the Supreme Court held by the Founding Fathers after what has happened. I am going to close by going back to the question of whether anything has changed since 1991 and the tragedy of Professor Hill. When Professor Hill testified in 1991, she was dragged through the mud. She was called a scorned woman. Perhaps you can say it represents some measure of progress that Dr. Ford wasn't slandered and insulted in quite the same way. But I don't know how much that matters if this nominee is confirmed. The language used during the debate might sound different, but the outcome is the same. The failure by my colleagues on the other side to step back, suspend the partisan warfare, and recognize the seriousness and legitimacy of this information, in my view, will go down over time as a historic disappointment. This was never a smear campaign. It wasn't a political hit job. Dr. Ford came forward out of a sense of civic duty. She knew the sacrifice she faced, and she wondered to herself if it would really make a difference. Why suffer through annihilation if it will not matter, she asked. Over and over again, she told us she only wanted to be helpful. I have never seen a witness--like my colleague presiding today, I have seen a lot of witnesses. She was a textbook case of being courteous, always saying: What can I do to be helpful? Senators ought to consider the dangerous signal being sent to survivors of assault and to young people across the country from this debate. Dr. Ford wasn't on trial; nonetheless, she was prosecuted by the majority party. She got smeared as a political pawn, a liar, belittled, with her accusations dismissed by many almost immediately. I made notion of how, a few days ago, the President mocked Dr. Ford, mocked her in front of thousands. What a cruel and un-Presidential moment. If the mockery and dismissiveness are not bad enough--if they weren't bad enough, there is the return of the sickening old notion that boys will be boys, what happened in the bedroom was ``roughhousing,'' and what happened was just too long ago. Today, survivors from sea to shining sea are asking: How are we going to be heard? How will we find justice? I fear many survivors are going to conclude that coming forward with their story is going to be pointless, and there is very little likelihood of justice--very little likelihood of justice. Even if you are strong, composed, and constantly courteous, it will not help. On the other hand, the signal to boys is this: Even if you engage in violence against women and lie about your conduct, the power structure is going to step up and protect you. The Senate has to be better than this. I hope Senators are going to recognize that it is time to take these horribly outdated attitudes towards women and sweep them out like the cobwebs from an abandoned theater stage and start over. It can begin by rejecting this nomination today. I will be voting no. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, when it comes to Medicaid, there is no question the program is front and center in the fight against the opioid epidemic. Medicaid is the single largest payer of substance use disorder services in the Nation, paying for a third of all medication- assisted treatment across the country and covering millions of Americans currently suffering; yet gaps in the system still exist. The SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act includes a number of policies that will help fill some of these gaps both within Medicaid and across the healthcare system. One such provision focuses on providing States with additional flexibility around Medicaid's so- called IMD exclusion related to inpatient and residential treatment. I view this provision as one piece of a larger approach focused on ensuring patients have access to the care and services they need across the entire continuum of care. It includes early prevention, access to critical outpatient and community-based services, residential and inpatient care when needed, and essential step-down care so individuals can successfully transition back into the community. However, I want to take a moment to note my concern about this particular provision that will leave gaps for young adults seeking care and treatment. Specifically, I am particularly worried about young adults who may not be able to access quality residential substance use disorder treatment services in the same settings as older individuals. Under the Medicaid statute, the IMD exclusion applies to all individuals under the age of 65 with limited exceptions for individuals under age 21 for inpatient psychiatric hospital services. As a result, I am concerned that, because the provision in this bill only applies to those age 21 and older, younger adults below the age of 21 may not have access to the full array of residential substance use disorder treatment options, settings that may be closer to home, closer to support networks, and that more appropriately serve their needs. I am hopeful that my colleagues across the aisle will work with me to address this and other yet to be addressed gaps in our healthcare system to better meet the needs of the millions of Americans, young and old, suffering from the scourge that is the opioid epidemic.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today the Senate passed a preconferenced Federal Aviation Authority bill without amendment offered or accepted by myself or my colleagues. I voted against this bill primarily for three reasons. First, this FAA reauthorization does not include a critical and necessary consumer protection bill, the FAIR Fees Act. The FAIR Fees Act would have limited the amount that airlines could gouge consumers when they wanted to change flights. Now, without this provision, working Oregonians will still have to pay absurd prices, such as $200, to change a simple $80 flight. Second, Senator Merkley and I had introduced legislation to qualify the Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport to receive Essential Air Service funding, and despite our attempts to include it to this 5-year FAA authorization, the legislation was excluded. The airport near Klamath Falls is currently without commercial air service, and Essential Air Service funding would help them recruit an airline to return commercial air service to the region. I was disappointed this important provision was not included by either the House or the Senate because it would have increased economic development and tourism for the Klamath region. I will continue to pursue any and all avenues to help restore commercial air service to the Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport, a must for quality of life and economic development in the Klamath Falls area. Third, this bill includes the Preventing Emerging Threats Act, legislation aimed at empowering Federal agents to prevent drone-based crime. This legislation confronts a clear need and represents careful--but incomplete--efforts to create a narrow program with appropriate congressional oversight. Specifically, this bill allows for broad carveouts to the Wiretap Act, and it is not clear this broad authority is necessary. Additionally, the privacy protections could be interpreted as applying only to information gathered between the drone and the drone operator and not applying to additional information gathered, collected, stored, or analyzed while initially detecting drones. Interpreted this way, the bill represents a massive expansion of the government's warrantless wiretapping authority. I have received assurances from the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and my colleagues from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to work together to address my concerns. Despite that, I voted against this bill while looking forward to remedying this quickly in perfecting legislation. Similarly, I am looking forward to published guidance from the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security making clear that all information gathered, stored, analyzed, or collected under this act are subject to the privacy protections.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Senate has just cleared the most sweeping package of bills to address the opioid epidemic to date. These fresh policies will make a difference on the ground. In my view, there are promising ideas dealing with some key important priorities: helping people steer clear of addiction from the get-go and knocking down barriers that prevent people from getting help when they need it. These policies were crafted on a bipartisan basis in practically half of the committees in Congress. The Finance Committee passed its own bill in June with more than two dozen policies that at least one member from each side of the aisle sponsored. For example, Senator Bennet led the way on a provision that will help root out fraud by requiring prescriptions to be sent electronically from doctors to pharmacies. It is too easy to fake a script on old- fashioned paper and get a bottle of pills, so this policy would make electronic prescriptions the norm in Medicare's drug program. Senators Brown and Stabenow have important provisions that will help make sure new mothers and infants have access to the care and treatment they need. Senator Menendez and Senator Scott worked on provisions that will help parents get treatment and find smart, safe ways to reunify families. Since homelessness and addiction often go hand-in-hand, Senator Cardin and I have worked on a bipartisan provision that is about uncovering innovative opportunities in Medicaid to provide housing- related supports and services to individuals struggling with substance use disorders including for those transitioning out of residential treatment and for those who are experiencing homelessness. Senators Warner, Cardin, and Thune have also brought forward an important provision that would expand access to telehealth services in Medicare for older Americans struggling with substance use disorders. That will expand this promising technology so seniors who don't live in rural areas can also remotely connect with their doctors to get substance use disorder treatment. When it comes to ensuring a substance use disorder is being correctly managed, frequent and convenient check- ups can make all the difference in the world. These are only a few of the ideas the Finance Committee has been able to bring forward in this bipartisan package. This legislation represents a measured but important step towards ensuring Federal and State policies are working towards a resolution of this crisis, not making it worse. I view this legislation as an early step in dealing with the epidemic. Nearly 70,000 Americans are dying every year due to drug overdoses. This is one of the most serious issues of our time, and the work will need to continue, especially when it comes to identifying how the crisis began in the first place and holding those responsible accountable. Congress is going to keep at it until pain policy in this country is back on track. I think of how this has progressed as a ``prescription pendulum.'' Years ago, when I was the director of the Oregon Grey Panthers, I would get calls from the families of older people coping with pain. They would say, ``My dad is 93 years old, he's in agony, but he can't get a prescription because they say he'll get addicted.'' More recently, the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. If you broke a bone, came down with a bout of back pain, or had a root canal, getting a script for a bottle of opioids became routine. Millions of Americans got hooked. No community has been spared from the consequences--mothers, fathers, babies, sons, daughters, grandmothers, relatives, friends, coworkers--I would challenge any American to claim someone in their social network has not felt the effects that opioid addiction have had. Congress has a responsibility to stay on this issue until no family is torn apart just because of a misused or inappropriate prescription after an accident, until no parent has to spend day after day wondering if they will receive a call that their child has overdosed again, until no baby has to spend days or even weeks after they are born recovering from opioid withdrawal. The bill before the Senate today will start to turn the tide, and I am proud so many of my colleagues supported it.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, through the Wilderness Act of 1965, Congress reserves the authority to designate as Wilderness Areas certain Federal lands with remarkable natural and ecological values. Over the last 53 years, the Wilderness Act has been referred to as the gold standard of conservation, providing the highest level of protections for some of America's most treasured public lands. In addition to congressionally designated Wilderness Areas, the Wilderness Act gave the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture the authority to study and evaluate the wilderness characteristics of public lands under their respective jurisdictions. Once identified, the Forest Service manages lands with wilderness potential as an ``inventoried roadless area,'' and the Bureau of Land Management manages lands with wilderness potential as ``wilderness study areas.'' These designations are not always without controversy but are critical in providing a measure of interim protection for wilderness-quality lands while Congress deliberates on further, permanent protections. The Crooked River Ranch Fire Protection Act, which the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee reported yesterday, adjusts the boundaries of the Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area in Central Oregon, removing over 600 acres of land from interim protection under the Wilderness Act. The Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Areas contains cultural and historical artifacts, provides drinking water for thousands of Oregonians, and provides critical habitat for fish and wildlife species, some of which are threatened or endangered. Proponents of this legislation argue that the release of the acres from interim protection under the wilderness study area designation is necessary. According to the proponents, the ``release'' language was necessary to allow Federal land managers greater flexibility in conducting hazardous fuels reduction projects to better protect the adjacent community, Crooked River Ranch, from the threat of wildfires. In truth, hazardous fuels reduction projects technically could have taken place under existing land designations. Adding insult to injury, the Crooked River Fire Protection Act originally gave no direction on how the BLM should manage the released lands. In addition, the original bill fell short in addressing the wildfire concerns while allowing for the release of wilderness study area acreage from interim protection without any corresponding lands protections. This is just a lost opportunity for compromise and comity. In an attempt to provide local landowners some measure of certainty over how the released lands will be managed, I worked to clarify that the released lands will be managed in a way that improves fire resiliency and forest health, while preventing off-road recreational vehicle use, which could actually increase the risk of wildfires. While these changes do not address the future management of the entire Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area, it does provide management direction for the released lands and pushes the BLM to meet the goals of the legislation: to promote fire resiliency and forest health. I am committed to finding a path forward for a solution for the entire wilderness study area in line with the traditions of compromise and doing things the Oregon way.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am submitting two letters into the Congressional Record in order to clarify the application of the Congressional Review Act, CRA, to the recent rule Rev. Proc. 2018-38, issued by the Treasury Department and the IRS, to dramatically weaken the disclosure rules for large contributions to certain tax-exempt organizations, including many that engage in political activity, what I and others call the dark money rule. In doing so, I also want to take the opportunity to comment on the rule itself and on the inappropriate and irresponsible approach that the administration is taking to the application of the CRA to the dark money rule. By way of background, in 1971, as part of a general effort to improve the ability of the IRS to assure that tax-exempt organizations are complying with the tax and election laws, the Treasury Department promulgated a legislative regulation requiring certain tax-exempt organizations to disclose to the IRS, as part of their annual filing, the identity of those who contribute $5,000 or more to the organization. This information is not made available to the public, except in certain cases, but it is can be used by the IRS, State tax administrators, and other Federal agencies. In recent years, this disclosure requirement has become controversial. Some, particularly conservative groups, have called for the rule to be repealed in an attempt to keep donor information out of the hands of State tax administrators and law enforcement. Others have urged that the disclosure rules be strengthened. I am one of them. Following the 2010 Citizens United decision, more and more dark money has flooded into secretive tax-exempt organizations and into election campaigns in the form of such things as anonymous ``issue ads.'' I have urged that the contributor information be made available to the public and, further, that the IRS improve its application of the rules designed to prevent tax-exempt organizations from engaging in excessive political campaign activity under false pretenses of ``social welfare.'' For example, I have been particularly concerned about reports that a group that is tax exempt under Tax Code section 501(c)(4) that is associated with the National Rifle Association, which has engaged in extensive political activity, may have received large contributions from foreign sources. In the midst of all of this controversy, on July 16, without any public notice and comment or any consultation with me as ranking Democratic member of the Finance Committee, the Treasury Department and the IRS issued Rev. Proc. 2018-38, which invokes a narrow provision that allows the Treasury Secretary to waive particular reporting requirements in appropriate situations, to effectively repeal the entire 1971 regulation requiring the disclosure of large contributions. Perhaps coincidentally and certainly ironically, this was done late in the evening of the day in which the Justice Department arrested an alleged Russian agent, Maria Butina, for attempting to influence American political discourse through a ``gun rights organization,'' later revealed to be the National Rifle Association, a 501(c)(4) dark money political organization. This was an outrage. It was terrible policy and a terrible process. As I said at the time, the political brazenness of this action shocks the conscience. At a time when the U.S. intelligence community is warning that foreign actors are actively working to interfere in American elections, the Trump administration has decided to tie the hands of the only Federal agency with visibility into financial flows of foreign funds into dark money political organizations. When the administration proposed the dark money rule, it submitted the rule to Congress for review under the CRA, which allows Congress to disapprove rules after they have been issued. The administration's submission to Congress explicitly states it was a ``Submission of Federal Rules under the Congressional Review Act.'' Senator Tester and I were determined to invoke this process in order to overturn the dark money rule. There was, however, a procedural problem. The CRA includes a ``clock,'' limiting the period for challenging a new rule, and, under the terms of the CRA, that clock begins on the later of the date the rule is submitted to Congress, and the date it is published in the Federal Register, ``if so published.'' In this case, apparently for the first time, we were dealing with a rule that had been submitted to Congress for review under the CRA but not published in the Federal Register because this is the sort of material that the IRS publishes in the Internal Revenue Bulletin IRB, rather than in the Federal Register. This created a technical question about how to apply the CRA time clock to the IRS rule. To be clear, the question was not whether the CRA applied to the dark money rule, but rather, when the clock for congressional review began. After consulting with the Parliamentarian, who advised that the CRA process would be clarified if the IRS would confirm, in writing, that the rule would not be published in the Federal Register, I sent Acting IRS Commissioner David Kautter a brief letter asking him to do so. This seemed to me to be a very straightforward request. The IRS's own internal procedure manual makes clear that matters that are issued as ``revenue procedures'' are published in the IRB rather than the Federal Register. Further, an IRS official had informally confirmed by email that would be the case here. On top of that, the dark money rule was in fact published in the IRB on July 30. I ask unanimous consent that my August 21, 2018, letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, my letter went unanswered for almost 5 weeks. Eventually, the Parliamentarian indicated to both Democratic and Republican staff that she was prepared to allow Senator Tester and me to move forward with a disapproval resolution under the CRA without an IRS response to my letter, so that we would not lose our right to challenge the rule on a timely basis. Based on this, on Monday, September 24, Senator Tester and I submitted our disapproval resolution, S.J. Res. 64. That same day, I finally received a reply from Acting Commissioner Kautter. In it, he confirmed, at long last, the elementary proposition that the dark money rule would not be published in the Federal Register. In addition, he went on to discuss an issue I had not raised in my original letter. He stated that, despite the fact that the administration had formally submitted the rule to the House and Senate for review under the CRA, understanding now that Senator Tester and I intended to challenge the rule under the CRA, the Treasury Department intended to reverse its previous decision and argue that Rev. Proc. 2018-38 was somehow not subject to congressional review.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, acting Commissioner Kautter's response is deeply troubling, for several reasons. First, why did it take so long? Every bureaucracy has its problems, but almost 5 weeks, on a time-sensitive matter, the answer to which should be clear in 5 minutes? As I said on the Senate floor last week: ``It looks to me like the administration has a policy on their hands that they know is corrupt--that they know is undemocratic. And so they're playing hide the ball. Because the more the public hears about this dark money rule, the less they like it.'' Further, the argument Acting Commissioner Kautter makes in the letter is utter nonsense. In the first place, he mischaracterizes the CRA, in a way that would render the entire law unworkable. For over 20 years, here is how the CRA has worked: If the administration submits something to Congress under the CRA, that is that; it is subject to congressional review under the terms of the CRA. In the Senate, that means the clock starts, and the period for the consideration of a disapproval resolution begins. If, on the other hand, the administration does not submit a matter under the CRA, but a Senator or Representative believes that the matter nevertheless should be subject to the CRA, that Senator or Congressman can ask the Government Accountability Office to review whether the CRA applies. This has happened about 20 times since 1996. Congress has never required the GAO to opine on the applicability of the CRA to a rule formally submitted by an agency to the Congress for review under the CRA. In Acting Commissioner Kautter's letter, he fabricates out of whole cloth a new requirement for congressional review, which runs counter to precedent established over the past two decades. Acting Commissioner Kautter takes the position that the administration's submission of the rule under the CRA is not dispositive. It is, instead, just a starting point, to, as he writes, ``allow[ ] Congress to consider whether a revenue procedure is subject to the CRA by requesting advice from GAO.'' This is unprecedented because all previous requests to GAO related to matters that had not been submitted under the CRA. It is inconsistent with the plain text of the CRA and with longstanding practice, in which we only resort to a GAO opinion for matters that have not already been submitted under the CRA. It also is completely unworkable because it would require GAO to review every rule submitted under the CRA, to confirm that it is indeed subject to the CRA. Said another way, it would require the Senate to look behind all 4,271 rules submitted by agencies to the Senate in this Congress under the CRA to determine if the CRA, in fact, applied. We cannot have ``do-overs'' here. Second, Acting Commissioner Kautter's position is inconsistent with administration practice. In submitting the dark money rule to the Senate, the administration was not simply trying to be courteous and transparent, making sure the Senate was aware of the latest developments at the IRS. It was, instead, complying with the CRA, based on a determination that the rule was subject to the CRA. This is reflected in the process established in the Internal Revenue Manual, IRM. One section of the IRM relates to ``Congressional Review of Rules.'' After describing the CRA general rule and three exceptions, the IRM says, ``Revenue rulings, revenue procedures, notices, and announcements that are rules under the [CRA] must be submitted for congressional review before they can become effective. Whether a revenue ruling, revenue procedure, notice, or announcement is considered a rule subject to reporting is determined on a case-by-case basis. Ministerial revenue rulings and revenue procedures; notices and announcements relating to error corrections, personnel matters, or proposed rules; and press releases generally will not be considered rules under [the CRA].'' Thus, the IRS's own process requires the agency to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether a document issued by the IRS constitutes a rule for purpose of the CRA. The IRS in fact exercises judgment about whether to submit a revenue procedure as a rule under the CRA: As of September 10, the IRS had issued 45 revenue procedures in 2018, only 27 of which were submitted to the Senate. Specifically, in this case, on July 26, over the signature of the Chief of the IRS Publications and Regulations Branch, the IRS and the Treasury Department submitted, to Vice President Pence, as President of the Senate, a copy of Rev. Proc. 2018-38, entitled a Submission of Federal Rules under the Congressional Review Act. The submission was docketed in the Senate as EC-6097, and it was referred to the Finance Committee. Finally, even if the administration had not submitted the dark money rule under the CRA, there is no question the rule is subject to the CRA. The CRA applies to rules as defined under the Administrative Procedure Act, which states in relevant part that a rule is ``the whole or part of an agency statement of general . . . applicability and future effect designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy,'' with three exceptions: rules of particular applicability; rules relating to agency management or personnel; and rules of agency organization, procedure, or practice that does not substantially affect the rights or obligations of nonagency parties. The dark money rule is clearly a statement of general applicability and future effect. The only real question, then, is whether it is subject to one of the exceptions, particularly the exception for ``rules of agency organization, procedure, or practice that [do] not substantially affect the rights or obligations of non-agency parties.'' Here, it is clear that the rule has a substantial effect on nonagency parties. Under the provisions of IRC section 6103, State tax administrators may obtain from IRS tax-exempt donor information for State tax administration purposes. As a result of Rev. Proc. 2018-38, State tax administrators will no longer have the right to obtain donor information from the IRS, undermining States' ability to enforce tax- exempt rules on organizations operating within their borders. Further, as the Treasury Department clearly stated in a July 16 press release, Rev. Proc. 2018-38 will reduce the burden of disclosure and filing obligations of tax-exempt organizations because they no longer will be required to disclose the identifies of large donors. This is a big deal. It will significantly inhibit IRS enforcement efforts, and it will make it easier for dark money to continue to flood in. Indeed, that is why so many groups have been urging that the disclosure requirement be repealed. As a final note, the IRS may argue that repeal of the disclosure rule is insignificant because the IRS doesn't systematically cross-check this data against other sources of tax information. This is a large part of the problem of IRS failing to enforce existing laws relating to political activity of tax-exempt organizations. To my mind, the IRS should be using this information in order to maintain the integrity of our tax-exempt rules and election laws. If, for example, an organization named Russian Oligarchs, LLC made large contributions to a tax-exempt organization, it seems to me that this is something the IRS should want to know. At a time when foreign actors are actively attempting to interfere in American elections, law enforcement, the IRS, and State tax administrators need to have visibility into the financial flows of political nonprofits. The argument that we should no longer collect this information because the IRS is failing to use the information to enforce the law gets things precisely backward. I urge my colleagues to support Senator Tester and me as we work to overturn this outrageous dark money rule.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, another giant has fallen. I rise today to recognize the passing of James William Ratzlaff. As a conservationist, an avid outdoorsman, a philanthropist, and, most of all, a dear friend, Jim was one of Oregon's great civic leaders. He passed away on August 26 at home on his beloved ranch surrounded by love. Jim is survived by Jane, his loving wife of 54 years, and their children, Jim, Jr., and Susan, as well as Jim, Jr.'s wife Leinani and her sons, Lowell and Larkin, and Susan's son, Marcus James. For decades, Jim and Jane have exemplified and renewed our sense of what it means to be outstanding community leaders: patiently listening and learning, actively seeking equitable solutions, and, above all, leading by example. Jim's legacy of good deeds extends far beyond mere philanthropy. He threw himself headlong into the complex challenges facing communities in and well beyond his home in Roseburg, OR. His abiding love for nature and healthy watersheds always went hand-in-hand with his deep concern for the well-being of our communities. Jim always believed and worked to prove that community health, ecology, and economy are inseparable and that, together, we can strengthen all three. Jim's notable success in business served merely as a means to an end much bigger than himself. Those that knew him well would agree that he saw his good fortune as a blessing allowing him to expand his ability to do good in the world. Always with humility, always with deference, always true to his core values, Jim taught us once again how to lead by example. Jim and Jane moved to Oregon, to the beauty of Crane Creek Ranch, and exercised their good fortune to make the world a better place. Through his work with the Oregon Community Foundation and service on boards across the Pacific Northwest--including Pacific Rivers Council, Wild Salmon Center, the North Umpqua Foundation, Oregon Public Broadcasting, and Mercy Medical Center--Jim was tireless in his efforts to maintain healthy forests and rivers and to elevate the lives of those around him. Jim's great love of his family and the land stood as an inspiration to everyone around him. While, yes, a giant has fallen, a forest will rise in his place, growing from all those whose lives he has touched with his love, friendship, generosity, wisdom, and lifelong commitment to building a better future.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Throughout its half century, this landmark conservation law has played a critical role in maintaining the natural, free-flowing qualities that make the country's wild and scenic rivers so special. The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, signed October 2, 1968, by President Lyndon B. Johnson, has protected rivers across the United States for recreation, salmon and fish habitat, important geology and cultural values, and countless other important benefits. This bedrock environmental law is especially important for Oregon where, in 1968, the remarkable wild Rogue River received protection as part of the first eight rivers protected by the Act. Since then, Congress extended Wild and Scenic designations to many of Oregon's most iconic rivers, including important segments of the Chetco, the Deschutes, the Elk, the John Day, the Lostine, the Owyhee, and over 50 other rivers and streams in every corner of my State. In total, Oregon has more river segments designated than any other State in the Union, with over 1,900 miles in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. A free-flowing, unencumbered river is truly a sight to behold, which is why I am working now to add even more miles to Oregon's already impressive list of Wild and Scenic rivers through passage of the Oregon Wildlands Act. The Oregon Wildlands Act adds a total of nearly 200 miles, including many of the important tributaries to the Rogue River and the Elk River--home to one of North America's healthiest salmon, steelhead, and cutthroat trout populations along the Pacific Coast--and the Molalla River, to name a few. Over the last 50 years, Congress designated 209 units of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, totaling nearly 12,600 miles of Wild and Scenic rivers and streams in 40 States and Puerto Rico to protect and provide remarkable habitat for endangered salmon and steelhead, drinking water for millions of Americans, and recreation opportunities for countless recreation enthusiasts who come from all over the world. This is precisely what makes the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act so important after all these years as a tool to protect, for this and future generations, the very qualities that make America's and Oregon's natural treasures so unique and wonderful. As Henry David Thoreau noted in his book, ``A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,'' ``He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.'' Fifty years ago, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act started as a novel idea to protect and enhance the Nation's waterways from pollution, dams, and construction that could interrupt their free-flowing condition. By 2018, it has become a remarkable success story deserving of celebration and commemoration. As climate change and other environmental factors continue to threaten the health of America's rivers, it is important to build on the successes of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and continue to protect rivers across the county. It is in our best interest to do so, and I remain committed to continuing the legacy of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and to work to further its protections throughout the Nation.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I am placing a hold on the nomination of Michael Faulkender to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, which was reported favorably from the Finance Committee on September 18, 2018. I will maintain that hold until the Treasury Department provides the Senate Finance Committee sufficient information and documents related to Russia and its financial dealings with President Trump and his associates, as well as outside organizations Russia used to help elect him. I originally asked for these documents on May 10, 2017, and, to date, have still not received satisfactory responses to these important matters. I have stated repeatedly that we must follow the money if we are going to get to the bottom of how Russia has attacked our democracy. That means thoroughly reviewing any information that relates to financial connections between Russia and President Trump and his associates, whether direct or laundered through hidden or illicit transactions. The Treasury Department for which Mr. Faulkender is nominated to serve is responsible for much of this information. The Treasury Department authorities include intelligence and enforcement functions to combat financial crimes and threats, including money laundering. For these reasons, I will object to any unanimous consent request concerning the nomination of Mr. Faulkender until these issues are resolved.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Senate is a bit behind in terms of the schedule. I ask unanimous consent, as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee--we will be voting on Mr. Rettig here shortly--that I be allowed to speak for up to 15 minutes at the conclusion of my colleague Senator Bennet's remarks.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Senate is considering tonight the nomination of Charles Rettig to lead the Internal Revenue Service. Let's be clear. This is not a typical IRS Commissioner debate. Over the last several months, the Trump administration has weaponized the Tax Code to punish its political adversaries and benefit shadowy, far-right groups that seek to buy American elections. Two months ago, just hours after Maria Butina was outed as an alleged Russian spy who sought to influence our elections, the Trump administration announced a new rule, opening the floodgates to more dark money and foreign money in American politics. Dark money groups used to be required to disclose their donors to the IRS. With this new Trump rule, they will not be required to disclose at all. To my colleagues, here is what this all means. Over the next 2 months, while political ads flood the airwaves, millions of Americans are going to wonder how much of this stuff is paid for by law-breaking foreigners and special interests. Because of the new rule, the Internal Revenue Service and law enforcement are going to be in the dark as well. There are a few reasons this new rule is unjustifiable and undemocratic. First, it had no debate in the Finance Committee, where we have jurisdiction over the Tax Code. It had no debate on the Senate floor. I do recall my Republican colleagues bemoaning what they considered to be anti-conservative political interference by the Internal Revenue Service even when none was found. Now, with a Republican administration in office, they are changing the tax rules to allow for more political interference by creative outside groups and foreigners. Second, the timing of this announcement could not have more clearly underscored the rotten corruption at the heart of this policy. The new dark money rule was announced on a Monday night--the same day it was revealed that Maria Butina had been indicted for using the National Rifle Association as a conduit to influence our democracy with personal and financial ties. Another administration, in seeing that kind of news come down, might have said: Hey, we ought to hold off on making drastic changes. It might have said: Let's put a little more space between the indictment of an alleged Russian spy and the rollout of our dark money rule that would make the spy's job even easier--not this Trump administration. It was undeterred. It, obviously, decided it could not wait to get this new rule on the books to make it easier for foreign actors and special interests to hide in the shadows while their dollars influence our elections. The tax rules and election laws in America, with respect to who has to disclose political spending, are already badly broken, especially after Citizens United. Now the administration is taking an enormous problem and making it much worse. The Trump dark money rule is only going to mean that individual Americans will have even less faith that they will be in control of our democracy. This takes us even further from the true meaning of one person, one vote. It puts even more power and more influence in the hands of the special interests. The fact is, the arguments for this change do not add up. I have heard members of the Trump administration say, including the Treasury Secretary, that none of this information was public before, so there is no reason to collect it; that there is just no big deal here. To my colleagues, the overwhelming majority of Americans want more disclosure, not less. The administration, in effect, admits it was not using the information political donors used to have to turn over. It sounds to me like the Trump argument for this dark money rule goes pretty much like this: We were not going to enforce the campaign spending laws anyway, so we decided not to bother collecting the special interest information at all. That is going to be cold comfort to the millions of Americans who are going to get clobbered by enormously funded political ads for the next 2 months before our election. The bottom line is, the Trump dark money rule is anti-law enforcement, anti-democratic, and anti-disclosure. It puts a blindfold on law enforcement at the exact moment Congress ought to be coming up with new approaches to shed more sunlight on political spending and defend American democracy from foreign influence. The Finance Committee's vote on Mr. Rettig's nomination was, coincidentally, scheduled to take place during the same week the rule came down. Obviously, this issue was a focal point in the discussion. I raised the issue during the markup. Mr. Rettig had an opportunity to tell the committee he would try to fix it. He did not. He wouldn't even acknowledge the serious problem here for the cause of transparency and openness in our government. In my view, this rule ought to be put up to the same standard of scrutiny the majority has applied to several other rules that were put in place by the previous administration. The Senate ought to use the powers granted to it by the Congressional Review Act, and it ought to vote on whether this rule should stand. Yet now the Trump administration is taking unprecedented steps to hide its dark money policy from that kind of scrutiny. Trump officials are keeping their rule off the official books for as long as they can to prevent the Senate from holding their dark money rule to the same standard that had been applied to the Obama administration. When it publishes the rule in the Federal Register or it confirms that it will not be published there but will be published elsewhere, the rule becomes eligible for a challenge under the Congressional Review Act. So far, the Trump administration hasn't taken either step, even though I asked for a response 3 weeks ago. As a result, in the Senate, we have been unable to get a straight answer as to when it is coming or whether it plans to publish the congressional review issue at all. It looks to me like the administration has a policy on its hands that it knows is corrupt, that it knows is undemocratic, so it is playing hide the ball. The more the public hears about the dark money rule, the less it likes it, and we are going to keep talking about it. I close with one last point, in that there is a lot about the Trump tax policy to be concerned about this evening. Senator Menendez talked about how blue States, like Oregon, California, New Jersey, and others, were hit with a gut punch. Capping the State and local tax deductions to target people in those States reveals the rotten core of the Trump tax policy. Tonight, as we consider the Rettig nomination, I don't know of anything more corrupt in front of this body than to make it even harder for the American people to know where dark money--foreign money--is coming from. For that reason, I urge my colleagues to oppose the Rettig nomination. He was asked to acknowledge that this is a serious problem. He wouldn't go there. He was asked to describe what he would do to correct the problem. He wouldn't go there. This is as corrupt as anything I know of before the U.S. Senate, and I will be working with my colleagues to fix this dark money crisis and undo the damage the Trump tax law has brought on, and I will be opposing the Rettig nomination. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I want to recognize and honor the late Dr. Thomas C. Maness, dean of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University in Corvallis, OR, for his outstanding contributions to forest research and his efforts to grow the wood product industry in my State and nationwide. Dr. Maness served as dean of Oregon State University's College of Forestry from 2012 until his death on July 12. He was a visionary leader in my State and was known around the world for his advocacy of science-based management in the stewardship of our lands and resources. Under his guidance, the College of Forestry earned worldwide recognition for its innovative research and is currently the top-ranked program in the United States and second in the world. Dr. Maness's leadership has improved the health of our lands, people, businesses, and ecosystems by bringing credible, relevant, and timely information and science to our public and private forest land managers. Prior to arriving at Oregon State University, Dr. Maness worked in both the private and public sectors, logging substantial achievements managing lands in the northwest, honing his scholarship in forest science and engineered timber products in both Europe and Canada, even contributing to the research arm of the U.S. Forest Service here in Washington, DC. He spent a decade in the industry as a research engineer and founded the Canadian National Centre of Excellence in Advancing Wood Processing at the University of British Columbia. Working closely with industry, Dr. Maness advanced research in sawmill optimization and real-time quality control systems and believed deeply that his research efforts should be translated into practical use for professional foresters and manufacturers. Dr. Maness built his career on collaboration and believed it was key to effective forest management. He worked tirelessly to bridge the urban-rural divide and bring new economic life to our forest-dependent rural communities by starting what is now a nationwide movement to use mass timber building components such as cross-laminated timber in tall buildings. He called it the Forest to Frame movement. Dr. Maness truly represents what I call the Oregon Way: bringing everyone together, using science, collaboration, and cooperation to foster healthy, working landscapes capable of supporting local economies and our strong stewardship values. Healthy forests, people, businesses, and ecosystems are the heart of the Pacific Northwest, and Oregonians feel a strong connection to these values. Dr. Maness sought balance between these ideals and provided not only Oregonians, but the Nation, with sound guidance on all matters related to one of our greatest natural resources. Dr. Maness will be remembered for his tremendous contributions to forest management and science.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Trump administration is engulfed in scandal. The President has been implicated in at least one felony. His former campaign chief, former deputy campaign chief, longtime personal lawyer, and former national security adviser are all confessed or convicted felons. With every passing week comes a shocking new revelation about Russian interference in the 2016 election, another bombshell report detailing their infiltration of conservative circles, or another story about how woefully underprepared the United States is to defend against another attack. Here in Congress, Republicans have their heads buried in the sand. It sure seems like they are going to keep on pretending it is business as usual. A year ago, I placed a hold on a Treasury nomination--Isabel Patelunas to be Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis-- because of the Department's refusal to turn over documents related to follow-the-money issues and other key investigative questions. Since then, colleagues, Treasury's stonewalling has not changed. In fact, in light of all that has been revealed in the last year, their stonewalling is even more unpardonable. The Treasury Department is participating in the coverup of criminal activity. The least the Congress can do--the very least--is hold nominees until the administration changes its behavior. It ought to happen on a bipartisan basis. Republicans ought to stand up with Democrats and say, ``This is dangerous. This is corrosive to our democracy. This is wrong.'' Leader McConnell has gone ahead, filed cloture, and called votes on the Patelunas nomination without doing any of that. For me, this started a year ago, when I asked the Treasury to provide the Finance Committee with key documents related to follow-the-money and Russia. I am the ranking Democrat on the committee, which has jurisdiction over the Treasury Department. We have a team of skilled investigators who are highly adept at digging into the kinds of questions that had been raised about Russian oligarchs like Alexander Torshin and about shell companies and other forms of money laundering and illicit finance. That is why I requested these documents from the Treasury, but the Treasury essentially blew us off. Russia's interference in our democracy has been thoroughly covered in news reports, and many of those reports get right to the heart of why I have called for investigators to follow the money. I will quote from an article in Buzzfeed about Alexander Torshin, the accused Russian spy Maria Butina, and her American associate Paul Erickson. ``[Butina's] indictment said that she was communicating with Russian intelligence while here and was `acting at the direction of a high- level official in the Russian government.' ``That person, federal authorities told BuzzFeed News, is Alexander Torshin--Butina's former boss, once a member of Russia's upper house of parliament, and a close confidant of President Vladimir Putin. ``In 2015, Torshin was appointed deputy governor of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and Butina was hired as his special assistant. Torshin is believed to have close ties to gun rights activists in the US, and McClatchy reported that the FBI is investigating whether Torshin illegally funneled money to the NRA. ``According to her indictment, Butina worked for Torshin until May 2016, and she came to the US on a student visa later that summer. The same month, Spanish authorities reported that Torshin had been laundering money for [a] Moscow-based . . . crime syndicate. ``This year, Torshin was among the Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for playing a key role in `advancing Russia's malign activities.' Law enforcement sources told BuzzFeed News that tens of millions of dollars in his suspicious financial transactions were flagged by Treasury officials working on the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Russian influence. ``These transactions included large, round-number wire transfers--a hallmark of money laundering--from Istanbul and Dubai, the sources said.'' Elsewhere in the report, Buzzfeed outlined how anti-fraud investigators at a major bank flagged transactions by Erickson and Butina as suspicious. Again, I will quote from the article. ``The two also appeared to use a company, Bridges LLC, to conduct suspicious transactions. Bank officials said they couldn't determine the purpose of the company, which was incorporated in South Dakota in February 2016. Butina was listed as the `sole signer' on its checking account, but Erickson wrote and signed checks from it. He told McClatchy that Bridges was formed to help Butina obtain financial assistance for her graduate studies . . . ``About $89,000 passed between Erickson's US accounts and one held by Butina at Russia's Alfa Bank. In 2014, Erickson received $8,000 from Butina's Alfa account. Between June 2016 and March 2017, Erickson sent a dozen wires to her Alfa account totaling $27,000. About $93,000 was sent or received during a single four-month period--from May to August 2017 . . . Bank officials discovered wires, checks, transfers, and cash deposits totaling that amount, including checks made out to cash, between the duo's accounts last year. ``In June and July 2017, Erickson wired $45,000 to an unidentified law firm in Washington on Butina's behalf. It is not known why Butina retained an attorney at that point, and her current lawyer, Robert Driscoll, told BuzzFeed News that his firm was not the recipient of the money. ``. . . Investigators from Wells Fargo flagged dozens of other suspicious transactions involving Butina and Erickson for FBI agents and the Treasury Department's financial crimes division. Bank investigators told Treasury officials they were suspicious about where the money came from and that they could find no `apparent economic, business, or lawful purpose' for the transactions.'' I am not going to comment on any classified material, and I am not confirming these reports, but these articles are right out in the open. The information reported by Buzzfeed alone ought to have been enough to convince Senators that the administration needs to be forced to comply with oversight requests from the Congress--just that one report--and that is far from the only bombshell that has dropped in the last year since I announced a hold on the Patelunas nomination. Still, Treasury is stonewalling. They are blocking our oversight and our investigations at every turn. It is an outrage that Senate Republicans are apparently A-OK with this stonewalling. So colleagues, here is what I want to know: When does it become too much? How many reports detailing election interference does the Senate need to stand up and take action? How many stories about shell companies and shadowy payments from oligarchs need to come out into the open? Maria Butina is sitting in a jail cell in northern Virginia--how many other spies need to be arrested before Senate Republicans stand up to an administration that is hiding the facts? A year ago, the President's son confirmed meeting with Russians in Trump Tower during the campaign, at least one of them connected to Russian intelligence. Senate Republicans did not try to get answers. On the morning of Monday, July 16, Maria Butina was charged with being a Russian spy. It was revealed she had infiltrated a ``gun rights organization'' and woven herself into prominent conservative circles to manipulate our politics. That same day, the Trump administration announced a pro-dark money rule that would make it easier to get away with this kind of lawbreaking the next time. Republicans did nothing about it. Last Tuesday afternoon, Paul Manafort was found guilty on five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion, bank fraud, and two felony campaign finance violations he said he committed at the President's direction. Again, Donald Trump has been implicated in a felony campaign finance violation. Manafort and Cohen, who are convicted and confessed felons, are both deeply enmeshed in the broader investigation into Russia's interference in our election and potential collusion with the Trump campaign. The very same day, Senator Warner, as part of his questioning on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, had to repeatedly press Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury Department's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes, during a hearing on the effectiveness of Russian sanctions, to be more responsive to bipartisan requests from the Intelligence Committee. Treasury is 8 months behind in their responses to some requests. To her credit, Ms. Mandelker said she would respond in a timely manner, though she noted she would have to consult with people back at her office. The problem is that, pretty much every time anyone from this administration has uttered such a promise, it has been broken faster than it takes a wildfire to spread in the arid West. Regardless of the promises made, the very next day, Leader McConnell went ahead and filed cloture on a nomination I have been holding due to the Treasury's stonewalling over those exact issues. Colleagues, the President is routinely attacking the rule of law in this country. He is attacking the Justice Department, which is run by people he appointed. He has mused about pardoning people who are unquestionably guilty of committing crimes. He said that perhaps it should be illegal for individuals to cooperate with law enforcement by providing information that can bring criminals and coconspirators to justice. When is enough enough? In my view, nobody in this body, in their heart of hearts, could possibly believe that the ties between the President, his associates, the Trump organization, and Russia do not warrant thorough investigation. You could not possibly have kept up with the news over the last 18 months and come to any other conclusion. Everybody can smell the smoke, but you would have to blind yourself not to see the fire. By stonewalling our investigations, the Treasury is complicit in the coverup. They are hiding the facts from the Congress and the American people. The Senate's powers of oversight and investigation are derived from the Constitution of the United States, and the Trump administration is trampling all over it. Every member of this body, Democrat and Republican, ought to be outraged. That is why it is wrong to proceed with the Patelunas nomination. I drew the line here, with this nominee, but Leader McConnell filed cloture against my known wishes, scheduling the vote to collide with Members' plans to attend Senator McCain's memorial. Furthermore, what the Treasury Department is doing to keep this information about follow-the-money hidden in the shadows is wrong. The Senate should not stand for it.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today the Senate confirmed the nomination of Lynn Johnson to lead the Administration for Children and Families. In less chaotic times, she would be running an office that few people outside of Washington would hear much about. In the coming months, however, she will be responsible for undoing a lot of the damage this administration has done with respect to separating immigrant children from their parents. There are a few key matters I want to discuss today as this debate closes. As the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, I voted against sending Ms. Johnson's nomination to the Senate floor. There were far too many unanswered questions and misleading statements from the administration regarding its family separation policy. In the last week, I spoke with Ms. Johnson at length about what she needs to accomplish if she is confirmed. She committed to me that she would change how the Administration for Children and Families, and particularly the Office of Refugee Resettlement, handle several key policies. I want to guarantee that those commitments are laid out on the record. First, Ms. Johnson made several commitments to improve the treatment of the kids in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement or in facilities that receive grants from ORR. Those changes include prohibiting solitary confinement as a punishment or an attempt to change behavior; prohibiting arbitrary restraint policies; prohibiting the distribution of psychotropic medications or sedatives outside of emergency situations; unless the agency or facility has the informed, written consent of a parent or guardian; prohibiting any security measures that are not necessary for children's protection, such as denying children access to drinking water or preventing them from making private phone calls; and guaranteeing the confidentiality of information disclosed by children to therapists and counselors during treatment. Ms. Johnson also committed to ensuring that separated children can call their parents or legal guardians as frequently as they wish. Calls can be monitored if there are documented safety concerns, but otherwise, ORR and private facilities cannot prevent kids from talking to their parents or guardians. If the parent or guardian is in the custody of Homeland Security, the agencies must establish a way to connect them by phone. Finally, Ms. Johnson committed to conducting a full review, within 90 days, of the oversight, staffing, training, medication, and licensing policies for ORR-funded facilities. She will issue a report to Congress describing the oversight of those facilities, as well as the actions the Administration for Children and Families will take to correct any problems. That review will include a stem-to-stern examination of the policies related to services offered to immigrants after their release. That includes legal services and healthcare, including reproductive healthcare. If Ms. Johnson's agency cannot complete that review in 90 days, they will provide a summary of their work to date and give the Congress a new timeline and a guarantee of when the process will be finalized. Let me be very clear: These are not suggestions from me or from the Finance Committee. These are commitments set in stone. The Finance Committee is going to watchdog this every day going forward. We will do everything in our power to hold Ms. Johnson to these commitments. This administration's continuing mistreatment of migrant children and their parents is cruel and inhuman. Separating kids from their parents has harmful, long-lasting effects to these kids' physical and mental well-being. There is a lot of work left to be done reunifying the families that were broken apart as a result of the administration's ``zero tolerance'' policy. I believe Lynn Johnson will be an improvement. I supported her nomination today, but you can bet my colleagues and I are going to go to every length to hold her to the commitments she has made.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Clean Air Refugee Assistance Act of 2018 to help Americans who have been driven away from their homes by choking, hazardous wildfire smoke. Western wildfires are getting bigger, hotter, and more difficult to fight and scientists says it's only likely to get worse. Folks back home in Oregon and across the Pacific Northwest already know what I'm talking about because they're on the front lines of these disasters. With dryer summers and lower snow packs, wildfires rage across the West. They're threatening lives, homes, and businesses and generating so much smoke that they're creating what I call clean air refugees. These are people who can't go outside and, in some cases, who must flee their homes and communities to find pockets of fresh air. I'm talking about children suffering from asthma and other conditions and seniors who need a respirator to breathe. In some cases, Oregonians lacking access to safe, clean air are being told to seek shelter in public places like libraries and government buildings. My legislation would help provide some relief by opening the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Transitional Sheltering Assistance program to people seeking temporary shelter from wildfire smoke. This program already permits FEMA to pay for temporary lodging for people who can't immediately return home following a disaster. My bill would permit clean air refugees to apply if they live in an area where the air quality index is determined to be unhealthy for at least three consecutive days as the result of a wildfire declared to be a major disaster by the President or Governor of the affected state. FEMA-approved applicants would pick from a list of participating hotels and motels and FEMA would pay the lodging costs. Mr. President, the Federal government needs to step up and be a better partner on these wildfires and it can start by helping Americans who have been driven from their homes find some refuge. Passing the Clean Air Refugee Assistance Act would be a breath of fresh air for folks struggling to escape the choking smoke, and I urge my colleagues to support this important bill.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Clean Air Refugee Assistance Act of 2018 to help Americans who have been driven away from their homes by choking, hazardous wildfire smoke. Western wildfires are getting bigger, hotter, and more difficult to fight and scientists says it's only likely to get worse. Folks back home in Oregon and across the Pacific Northwest already know what I'm talking about because they're on the front lines of these disasters. With dryer summers and lower snow packs, wildfires rage across the West. They're threatening lives, homes, and businesses and generating so much smoke that they're creating what I call clean air refugees. These are people who can't go outside and, in some cases, who must flee their homes and communities to find pockets of fresh air. I'm talking about children suffering from asthma and other conditions and seniors who need a respirator to breathe. In some cases, Oregonians lacking access to safe, clean air are being told to seek shelter in public places like libraries and government buildings. My legislation would help provide some relief by opening the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Transitional Sheltering Assistance program to people seeking temporary shelter from wildfire smoke. This program already permits FEMA to pay for temporary lodging for people who can't immediately return home following a disaster. My bill would permit clean air refugees to apply if they live in an area where the air quality index is determined to be unhealthy for at least three consecutive days as the result of a wildfire declared to be a major disaster by the President or Governor of the affected state. FEMA-approved applicants would pick from a list of participating hotels and motels and FEMA would pay the lodging costs. Mr. President, the Federal government needs to step up and be a better partner on these wildfires and it can start by helping Americans who have been driven from their homes find some refuge. Passing the Clean Air Refugee Assistance Act would be a breath of fresh air for folks struggling to escape the choking smoke, and I urge my colleagues to support this important bill.

Mr. WYDEN

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

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, what the Trump administration is doing to sabotage healthcare in our country is a monumental scandal in slow motion. What the President promised was better care for all Americans at lower cost. What he and his officials have delivered is special deals for special interests and rewards for rip-offs. It is almost as if you took the clock above the Chamber and turned it back. What Americans want--and I heard it at townhall meetings last weekend at home in Oregon--is to move forward on healthcare. They want, for example, to have strong measures, not empty rhetoric, to hold down the cost of their medicines--lifting the restrictions so that Medicare can bargain and hold down the cost of medicine and use the smart principles of negotiating power that the private sector uses all the time. They want to move forward on healthcare, not backward. There is no clearer example of the administration's trying to take the country back on healthcare than its efforts to give a green light to junk health insurance. Junk health insurance represents all of the unsavory insurance industry tricks and abuses that the Affordable Care Act sought to eliminate. Junk plans exist, literally and figuratively, so that companies can prey on the vulnerable and the people with preexisting conditions, such as if you have asthma or diabetes, or prey on women, prey on older people, or prey on the less fortunate. They certainly don't exist to cover the healthcare that Americans actually need because that is where they always fall short. The centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act was an ironclad, loophole- free guarantee that no American would ever face discrimination over a preexisting condition. I note that my friend, the President of the Senate, has joined the Chamber. He knows this pretty well because he worked with me on our bipartisan effort to ensure that there would be loophole-free, airtight protection for Americans from discrimination against those with a preexisting conditions. For all practical purposes, we got what we worked on in a bipartisan way, when we had eight Democrats and eight Republicans. We got that into the Affordable Care Act. Essentially, now what the Trump administration seeks to do is to undo that guarantee of airtight, loophole-free protection for people who have these preexisting conditions. I am going to read a question that appears on an application for one of these plans that are being marketed now. Under a bold headline that says ``Important: You must answer the questions below as they apply to You and all other family members applying for coverage,'' the question reads: ``Within the past 5 years, have you or any other person to be insured been aware of, diagnosed, treated by a member of the medical profession or taken [medication] for: cancer or a tumor, stroke, heart disorder, heart attack, coronary bypass or stent, peripheral vascular disease, carotid artery disease, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or emphysema, kidney disorder or disease, neurological disorder, degenerative disc disease or herniation/bulge, rheumatoid arthritis, degenerative joint disease of the knee or hip, diabetes, Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, any eating disorder [or] alcohol abuse or chemical dependency, or does anyone listed on the application currently weigh over 250 pounds (women) or over 300 pounds (men)?'' Another question on the same application asks, ``Have you or any other person to be insured been hospitalized for a mental health condition in the past 5 years or been treated by a member of the medical profession for a mental health condition in the past 12 months?'' Finally, another question asks, ``Have you or any other person to be insured ever been diagnosed or treated for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), AIDS-related complex, or any other immune system disorder such as HIV?'' I would also note that this part of the application contained a number of typos, a mislabeled number, and a mislabeled word. Apparently, the scam artists are as bad at editing their documents as they are at covering the healthcare people actually need. But setting aside the bad grammar, the questions collectively tick through dozens of health categories that include hundreds of various conditions and illnesses, so we are talking about well more than 100 million Americans who would answer yes to at least one of them. Americans need to know and they ought to know that the only reason junk insurance companies ask these probing questions about your health background is to use the information against you and keep you from getting meaningful coverage. That forms the basis of the Trump-era discrimination against those with a preexisting condition. A lot of people have preexisting conditions. What is that? Everybody knows folks in Tennessee or in Oregon who have asthma or diabetes. We are talking about millions of Americans. When my colleague from Tennessee and I were working together--eight Democrats, eight Republicans--I said: You know, it is really going to be monumental if we get airtight, loophole-free protection for those with pre-existing conditions. The reason I said that is that ever since I was director of the senior citizens at home, the Gray Panthers, it has been clear to me that as long as our country allowed discrimination against those with preexisting conditions, healthcare in America would basically be for the healthy and the wealthy. If you are healthy, no sweat, no preexisting conditions, and if you are wealthy, you have no real problems because you can just write out the checks to pay for your treatment. But now we are talking about going back to those days--not the days when the Senator from Tennessee and I and other Democrats and Republicans got together and did something that really was a monumental step forward, protecting millions of people with preexisting conditions--now we are going backward. What are those Americans going to hear in their time of need when their cancer comes back or when they face another bout of medical illness? What they are going to hear, with policies like the one I just read from, is the fraudsters who conned them into buying the junk insurance basically saying: You are on your own. And those Americans are going to be buried under mountains of medical debt. By the way, we are talking about medical debt. I think my friend from Tennessee and I have talked about this over the years. Healthcare is the great equalizer. For example, in a discussion Democrats ran yesterday on healthcare, we had a gentleman who did everything right. He worked hard. He was a professional. He was constantly trying to better himself and contribute--not just supporting his family but the community. He got Parkinson's. All of a sudden, he wasn't able to pay his bills. So healthcare is the great equalizer in America. When I read about the junk plans, I have to tell you, it takes me back to the old days when these scam artists preyed on the seniors who needed insurance coverage above and beyond what they got from traditional Medicare. Mr. President and colleagues, this is something that is very personal to me. When I was a young man, I was codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers. I would go and visit seniors in their homes--very often they would have a small apartment or something--and they would go in the back, and they would pull out a shoebox full of Medigap policies. These were policies that insurance salesmen sold them that the salesmen said would fill in the gaps in Medicare. Frequently, a senior would spend thousands of dollars--this was a number of years ago--on these policies that were worth little more than the paper they were written on. They often contained--we saw this at our legal aid program for seniors--what were called subrogation clauses, which essentially meant that if you had another policy that covered it, the first one didn't have to cover it. The two of them canceled each other out. So vulnerable seniors with serious medical conditions would get conned into buying these plans that were essentially worthless. After years of effort--we began in Oregon in the State insurance commission office. I had the honor of getting elected to represent Oregon in the U.S. House of Representatives. We began there and continued it in the Senate. We acted in a bipartisan fashion to eliminate the junk plans. We did that literally decades ago. We drained the swamp, to use the lingo of today. We really drained the swamp as it related to these rip-off Medigap policies. We got it down to a handful. I would be willing to bet that the Senator from Tennessee, the Senator from Ohio, and my other colleagues on the floor don't have folks at home coming up to them any longer and telling them that they have rip-off Medigap insurance. I haven't had a complaint about that for years and years. Now the Trump administration is trying to bring back junk insurance for an even larger portion of the American people-- more people than just the seniors. The bad news with these junk policies doesn't begin and end with discrimination and debt. The Trump administration is letting the junk insurance companies steal the money Americans pay in premiums and other expenses. According to one recent study, half of each premium dollar and sometimes as much as two-thirds gets wasted on overhead, administrative costs, and profits. The Affordable Care Act had a rule that banned that kind of waste. The Trump administration threw it out so that the rip- off artists can once again pocket unsuspecting Americans' premium dollars. What the Trump administration is doing to undermine healthcare is not only playing out in what is called the individual insurance market; the harmful threat is a threat to the 167 million Americans who get their insurance through their jobs as well. Worse healthcare at a higher cost--a far cry from what people were promised a few years ago--is clearly a growing problem. Worse healthcare. Higher costs. A forced march back to the days when healthcare in America, as I have said--and it has really been my reference point as much as anything--I said: Let's not turn back the clock to the days when healthcare was for the healthy and wealthy. This junk insurance is unquestionably the kickoff of this administration's formal effort to do just that. There was an effort in the Affordable Care Act to build a functional market that didn't trample all over typical Americans and their families. The President and his allies in Congress have done everything they can--starting with an Executive order on day one--to empower the scam artists and powerful companies to have the ability to make healthcare worse and rip off our people. That has been the story from day one of this administration. As I said a few minutes ago, it is a monumental scandal in slow motion. On behalf of those Americans who are hurting, who are not being taken care of, many of us are going to do everything we can to make sure--for those who are getting hurt, who can't afford these kinds of practices, we are going to keep this front and center of the American people until we end this consumer scourge. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, these are incredibly harmful and traumatic times for immigrants and refugees in America. Perhaps there is not greater example of the damaging immigration policies of this administration than the so called zero-tolerance policy that led to the cruel and needless separation of thousands of children from their parents. Separating a child from his or her parents has lasting, harmful, and traumatizing impacts. These separations have been shown to increase anxiety and depression among children that have already experienced significant trauma in their home countries and along their journey to the United States. Best practices in child welfare promote keeping children and their parents safely together, unless removal is in the child's best interest. While the Department of Justice ended the family separation policy after an incredible outcry from the public and experts in children's health and well-being, the damage is far from over. The administration is now undergoing a court-supervised process to reunify separated children and families. Significant and self-inflicted obstacles remain in this reunification process, and I and my Senate colleagues will continue to doggedly press the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services until every child is safely in the custody of a parent, relative, or other guardian and to ensure nothing like this happens again. Hundreds of children still remain in government custody, scared and unsure if they will ever see their parents again. Children who were separated from their parents or arrive on their own are placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which falls under the Administration for Children and Families, ACF, within the Department of Health and Human Services. The President has nominated Lynn Johnson of Colorado to fill the role of head of ACF. If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Johnson has one of the most important jobs in public service, and that is ensuring the safety and well-being of these vulnerable children and working toward their reunification. I voted against Ms. Johnson's nomination when it came before the Senate Finance Committee due to the sheer volume of unanswered questions and false or misleading answers from this administration regarding its family separation policies. Tonight, I had the opportunity to discuss my concerns with Ms. Johnson and secure her commitment to changing the way things are done in the Administration for Children and Families. Ms. Johnson committed to enacting and enforcing policies that prevent Office of Refugee Resettlement grantees and facilities from engaging in activities that are not consistent with best practices for children including prohibiting solitary confinement for punitive purposes or behavioral modification; prohibiting the distribution of psychotropic medications or sedatives absent the informed, written consent of a parent or guardian, except in the case of well-documented emergencies; prohibiting arbitrary restraint policies; prohibiting any security measures that are not necessary for the protection of minors or others, such as denying them access to drinking water or preventing them from making private phone calls; and guaranteeing the maintenance of confidentiality of information disclosed by children to therapists and counselors in the context of a therapeutic/treatment relationship. In addition, Ms. Johnson committed to ensuring ORR and its supported grantees and facilities allow any separated child to call a parent or legal guardian as frequently as the child wishes--if there are documented safety concerns, calls may be monitored by staff with the child, but otherwise, children must be able to contact a parent or legal guardian as they wish. If the parent/legal guardian is in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security, the two agencies must establish a process to accept children's calls and connect them to their parents; and conducting a full review within 90 days of the oversight, staffing, training, medication, and licensing policies for ORR-funded facilities and issue a report to Congress describing the oversight of these facilities and the actions ACF will take to address oversight and program shortcomings. The review must include the extent and adequacy of policies related to post-release services; legal services; and health, including reproductive health, to ensure that they are consistent with constitutional protections. In the event the full review cannot be completed within 90 days, ACF will provide the summary of their work at that point, with a timeline and guarantee that the full report will be soon available. I am grateful for these commitments and will hold Ms. Johnson to them if she is ultimately confirmed by the full Senate.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Broadband Internet for Small Ports Act to help small ports access broadband loans and grants, which will increase internet service in rural coastal communities nationwide. Nearly a third of Americans lack access to high-speed internet, and there is a considerable digital divide between rural and urban America. Rural communities must be brought up to speed so that all Americans can compete online in a global economy. In rural coastal areas people congregate near inland and small ports, and these harbors act as hubs for commerce and tourism. This bill recognizes the importance of small ports to their rural economies. This bill will help small ports nationwide get Federal loans and grants and improve their broadband coverage, thereby enabling working-waterfronts to order inventory and coordinate deliveries, access real-time weather updates, and grow economically. Broadband loan and grant applications submitted to the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utility Service are assigned different levels of priority before they are awarded. This bill recognizes the importance of small ports, and elevates the priority of applications seeking to boost internet capacity. This bill states that broadband loan and grant applications from small ports will be considered equal in priority to applications that are developed with the participation of a non-profit or philanthropic organization. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Broadband Internet for Small Ports Act to help small ports access broadband loans and grants, which will increase internet service in rural coastal communities nationwide. Nearly a third of Americans lack access to high-speed internet, and there is a considerable digital divide between rural and urban America. Rural communities must be brought up to speed so that all Americans can compete online in a global economy. In rural coastal areas people congregate near inland and small ports, and these harbors act as hubs for commerce and tourism. This bill recognizes the importance of small ports to their rural economies. This bill will help small ports nationwide get Federal loans and grants and improve their broadband coverage, thereby enabling working-waterfronts to order inventory and coordinate deliveries, access real-time weather updates, and grow economically. Broadband loan and grant applications submitted to the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utility Service are assigned different levels of priority before they are awarded. This bill recognizes the importance of small ports, and elevates the priority of applications seeking to boost internet capacity. This bill states that broadband loan and grant applications from small ports will be considered equal in priority to applications that are developed with the participation of a non-profit or philanthropic organization. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Whitehouse not just for today, as we talk about wildfires, but because, year after year, he has been on this floor, prosecuting the consequences--playing out the consequences of the failure of dealing with climate change. Certainly, it is hotter and dryer in the West. What I am going to do is to spend some of this short period we have together in describing these wildfires. They are not your grandfather's wildfires. They are bigger, they are hotter, and they are more powerful. In my home State last summer, we saw a fire leap the Columbia River. The Columbia River has always been a break in terms of fire, and the fire just leaped over it. We are seeing that around the country. It is getting worse. The fires are so bad today and the smoke is so thick that people in my home State are fleeing their communities to find pockets of breathable air. In Portland, residents are being warned against spending time outside and are being advised to wear respirators if they must. Those without homes to provide safe air are being told to seek shelter from the smoke in public places, like libraries and government buildings. So I would say to my friend and to the Presiding Officer, who is also a westerner and a friend, that this is not the stuff of fiction. This is real life--right now--for communities across the West that are just getting clobbered by fire. This is climate change at work. As Senator Whitehouse and I speak today, there are more than 100 large wildfires that are destroying homes and businesses across Oregon and the West, burning almost 1.8 million acres. Farmers have watched as crops have burned to the ground. Families who are located in evacuation zones have fled their homes. Choking smoke throughout my State has left children and seniors afraid to go outside, and schools have canceled sporting events because of the unhealthy air quality. I remember when I began in public service that westerners would prepare for individual fire seasons and that some would be a bit worse than others. Yet now we are basically in a situation in which we have infernos raging throughout the year. In California, for example, the Thomas fire set the all-time record--wouldn't want to have it--as the State's largest recorded wildfire in December. It was not exactly a Christmas gift. The record didn't stand long, as my colleague just mentioned last week's fire in Mendocino. In Oregon, the Taylor Creek fire and the Garner Complex fire led agencies to issue evacuation notices to more than 1,000 people. This is the second year in a row that the air quality in southern Oregon has ranked among the worst in the Nation. When I was driving to southern Oregon recently in order to get a briefing from fire officials, the smoke, in effect, was going north, drifting 100 miles north of Medford. In my hometown of Portland, now--this week--air is at unhealthy levels. Fires have gotten so big that the plumes of thick, choking smoke have shown up on NASA's satellite images from space. My colleague and I served on the Intelligence Committee together, and I think, increasingly, we are going to see folks at the Forest Service and at weather agencies who will be interested in a lot of those kinds of satellite opportunities in order to get a better handle on the dimensions of the problem. A huge portion of my State is blanketed with smoke, and this is taking place when hikers, fishermen, rafters, and guides, along with countless tourists from around the country, ought to be enjoying the outdoors. Talking about economic consequences, recreation has become a big economic engine in the West. I am very pleased to have been the sponsor of a bill with Chairman Rob Bishop, who I think would be pleased if I called him one of the most conservative Members of the other body. Our bill is called the RNR bill, Recreation Not Red-Tape. It is just sensible suggestions for putting permitting information online--those sorts of things. It is pretty hard to recreate in the West, Senator Sullivan, if everything is burning up. It is pretty hard to really cap the potential of this extraordinary new recreation engine, but right now dangerous fires and unhealthy smoke are blocking recreation opportunities for folks in the West to get outside. It is an economic nightmare, in addition to being a danger to life and property. We don't remember wildfires this catastrophic happening 30 years ago, and people want to know why. My view is it is not a coincidence that the megafires now happen routinely and are getting bigger, and a significant factor in this is climate change. According to research by Oregon State University, our average temperature has increased by more than 2 degrees over the past century. Last week, the National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for the Willamette Valley, advising that the heat could touch 100 degrees. This is not Death Valley. The Presiding Officer knows our area. We don't get roasted by triple-digit heat--or we didn't used to. But we are today. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the contiguous United States experienced the warmest July in recorded history. The temperature hikes bake forests and landscapes. They dry out materials, and they are magnets--magnets--for fuel for the infernos. Yet the Trump administration, as Senator Whitehouse has talked about, seems to be working overtime to say that this isn't a problem. For starters, the President pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, which would make us the only country to reject it. Senator Whitehouse knows more about this than any other Senator. What I was particularly troubled about is that the arguments they made weren't tethered to the facts. They kept saying that there were all kinds of mandates in the agreement. As my colleague knows, there really aren't. It is voluntary. There is a wide berth for countries to pursue strategies that make sense for them. It is not just pulling out of the international agreement. At the Department of the Interior, Secretary Zinke is doing everything he can to roll back environmental protections. I say to my colleague: I was one who voted for Secretary Zinke. He said that he was going to be a Roosevelt Republican. The Presiding Officer would be interested in this. He said that nine times in his hearing in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. I thought, he is a Duck; he said he was a football player. I was a basketball player. I would give it a shot. I now consider that one of the worst votes I have cast in my time in public service because he is doing everything he can to roll back environmental protections, giving oil and gas executives free rein to exploit public lands, and he is putting an end to commonsense regulations to curb emissions of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas. The story doesn't get better at the Energy Department. They are there wrapping themselves into a legal pretzel to figure out how to waste taxpayer money to prop up the coal industry, an energy source whose costs are too great for the market to bear. Over at the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, they are rolling back fuel standards for cars. That is a double loser. It is bad for the environment and bad for the consumers who are going to have to pony up $1 trillion more at the pump. While the Federal Government is abandoning leadership, they are also browbeating the States to do the same thing. The Trump administration now threatens California's ability to set its own air quality standards under the Clean Air Act, which affects 12 other States, including Oregon. How many times, colleagues, have we heard Senators come to the floor of the Senate and virtually pound on their chests and say that the States are the laboratories of democracy? Basically, on climate change, Senator Whitehouse, what the Trump administration is saying is that they are for State's rights if they think the State is right. That is their position on climate change. It is clear that we are not seeing any real movement from the Trump administration. Two weeks ago, the President tweeted several times that water from Northern California is being diverted to the Pacific Ocean rather than being used for firefighting. State officials and Republicans-- California veteran Republicans--essentially said that this was nonsense. When the President's press office was asked about the tweet, really, they went completely silent. The megafires are the new normal, so westerners are going to have to embrace new, cooperative, and collaborative ways of dealing with the effects of climate change. Our priority ought to be to work with the States. Government at all levels should continue to develop more efficient, low-carbon energy technologies, renewables, and energy storage. It is a winner all around for Oregon, the West, and our country. Not only are solar and wind cleaner, they are also cheaper than a number of the plants that burn fossil fuels. What we said in our tax reform bill is that there are more than 40 separate breaks in energy, many of them just monuments to yesteryear. We proposed throwing them in the trash can. Out they go, $40 billion worth over a few years, substituting the $40 billion for clean energy, clean transportation fuel, and energy efficiency. That is going to be in line with what Senator Whitehouse has said, which is that America can get more green for less green, or fewer taxpayer dollars. I very much appreciate my colleague coming to the floor today. I want to close with just one point. More than any other factor of my time in public service--I think I have discussed this with both the Presiding Officer and Senator Whitehouse--what I have been interested in finding is what I call principled bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is not about Republicans and Democrats taking each other's dumb ideas. Anybody can do that. Then you can pat yourself on the back and say: Oh, my goodness, we are being bipartisan. What it is all about is finding good ideas. What Senator Whitehouse has done--and, boy, do the fires in the West right now convey the urgency; in effect, he has tried to take markets, marketplace forces, and fuse them together with the best environmental practices we know of. Both sides ought to find that pretty attractive. Conservatives can say: Senator Whitehouse is talking about using marketplace forces--and he has attracted some pretty prominent Republicans to his ideas, as well--and Democrats can say: We are not going to dawdle in terms of trying to improve the environment, and we are not going to turn back the clock on environmental practices. I very much appreciate Senator Whitehouse's leadership. I am going to have to run off to another meeting. I will just say that I appreciate his including me. I say to my colleagues: It might not be that wildfires are happening in your State this morning, but climate change affects every single American in one way or another, and we have to find a way to create a bipartisan path to address this growing harm. With thanks to Senator Whitehouse, I yield the floor.