Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, my colleagues have been very gracious and have gotten a little bit out of the queue, so I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to address the body for 5 minutes; following me, Senator Sullivan will address the Senate for 10 minutes; and following him, Senator Coons will address the Senate for 5 minutes.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise to voice my opposition to the Water Infrastructure Improvement for the Nation Act. In my view, Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe have done a lot of good, bipartisan work on this legislation. Infrastructure is hugely important to our country. I constantly say you cannot have a big-league quality of life with a little-league infrastructure, and this legislation in particular has some very important provisions that I and Senator Merkley have worked on for our home State. It includes assistance to help build homes for displaced Native American families, it provides funding to help restore fish and wildlife habitat in our rivers, and it particularly includes assistance for small ports in Oregon and across the country. The fact is that small ports provide crucial access to commercial and recreation fishing. They are home to ocean science and research vessels. In our part of the world, they are the gateway to the global economy. Year after year, these ports have faced uncertain funding that threatens good-paying jobs. I worked with other Members to make sure the WRDA bill includes stable, permanent funding--over $100 million annually--for small ports in Oregon and across the Nation. I highlight this to say what this legislation does for a number of crucial areas--to the economy and our quality of life. Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe have done very good work, but my big concern is about the rider that was added on California drought, which threatens the west coast fishing industry and has put every single good provision in this legislation at risk. Water issues have never been easy, and I want to compliment my colleague from California for her hard and long work to get a deal on drought that addresses California's serious and ongoing issues. Oregon is no stranger to water challenges, but there has to be a collaborative, stakeholder-driven process, and this rider is not a product of the kind of compromise you get with a true collaborative effort. In effect, an entire west coast industry feels left out of the discussions. Fisheries and hard-working families in coastal communities that depend on a healthy stock of salmon stand to lose the most, and these stakeholders have told us they have had no meaningful seat at the table. The rider is not just about water and agriculture in California; it threatens the health and sustainability of the salmon fishing industry up and down the Pacific coast. The drought provision, in my view, also threatens to undermine bedrock environmental laws, such as the Endangered Species Act, and it certainly would create the prospect of the new administration having power of its own volition to override critical environmental protections. I and my Pacific Northwest Senate colleagues have heard from concerned west coast fishery groups and coastal businesses for days. My constituents are concerned about the implication of pumping water out of the Bay Delta to support a small number--a handful--of very large agribusinesses in California. They believe that hard-working men and women in the fishing industry and coastal businesses are going to pick up the tab for this break for the large agribusinesses. That is not the way to manage water in the West for the long term. The water infrastructure bill, which is meant to provide support for water-dependent communities, doesn't do a whole lot of good if there are no fish in the ocean. If there are no fish in the ocean and no fishing families or fishing boats in the ports and no fish at the dinner table, the water infrastructure bill is going to be something that we regret. I believe we will regret it in this form. At a time when coastal communities need as much help as they can get, this provision threatens to do the opposite. As long as the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act includes this California drought rider, I think it would be a mistake to go forward. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I thank my colleague. I would be happy to yield to our colleague from Oklahoma.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, reclaiming my time, I can't help but note the irony that Senator Boxer, who has done so much to protect special places in California and around our country and who at the same time has consistently worked with our colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Inhofe, on infrastructure--that here they are, after once again coming together--and everybody practically slaps their forehead: How in the world can Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe keep coming together on all of these kinds of issues? It is because they are real legislators. They are people who don't just throw out press releases, they write legislation. It is hard. It is a heavy lift. This bill was not easy. To think that Senator Boxer is here on the last night of her time in public service, after she has protected all of these special places and then worked with Senator Inhofe on infrastructure, and we are still faced with this one last hurdle. I have seen a lot of ironies in the Senate. This is just about as dramatic an irony as I have seen. To me, we have had wonderful statements. My colleague from Oregon laid out very clearly how this rider would compromise good science. That is what this is about. Senator Merkley, who knows much more about these subjects, frankly, than I do, went through the biological opinions one by one, the key sections. But the bottom line is, it is compromising good science. For us in Oregon, you have a water infrastructure bill that is designed to provide support to places like the beautiful Oregon coast. My wife and I were married at Haystack Rock, right in front of the rock, one of the prettiest places on the Oregon coast. Our friend from Michigan has visited the Oregon coast. This is one of the great American treasures, the Oregon coast and Haystack Rock. Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe came up with this terrific bill to provide support to places such as the Oregon coast, where my wife and I were married. You have to say: What is a bill that is designed to provide support for special places really mean when it does not do a whole lot of good if there is no salmon in the ocean, no fishing families or fishing boats in the ports, and no fish at the dinner table? That, colleagues, is what this is really all about. Now, as far as the infrastructure is concerned, Senator Merkley has led this in Oregon and has done terrific work to protect the displaced tribes to ensure that they would have a better quality of life. I think I have already summed it up. You can't have big-league quality of life with little-league infrastructure. So this legislation ensures that we are going to have that kind of infrastructure. Particularly in rural and coastal Oregon, it would be a huge benefit. But at a time when the Oregon coastal communities need as much help as they can get, the provision that my colleagues--Senator Boxer, Senator Cantwell, and Merkley--have been talking about deals with drought and really threatens to do just the opposite of providing the help these communities need. I think that the provision my colleagues have been talking about in effect threatens the very viability of the west coast fishing industry and has literally put so many of the good provisions in this bill at risk. Senator Merkley went into a fair amount of detail--and very eloquently--about the specifics in the drought provisions, so what I would like to do is just highlight a little bit of what I have heard from fishing families on the Oregon coast and what they are concerned about. Their big concern is that this drought provision basically maximizes water delivery to agribusiness without adequate safeguards for the fisheries that depend on that water. By preauthorizing a number of dams across the entire west coast without additional Congressional oversight, it basically turns years of policy with respect to dams on its head. We know those issues are tough. We have been dealing with them as westerners for years. But the way we deal with them is collaboratively. That is how Senator Boxer has managed to protect all of these special places. That is how she has managed to work with Senator Inhofe to promote infrastructure at the same time--because we work collaboratively. That is sure not the case here because all of these small fisheries and the fishing families don't feel they have been consulted. They make a very good case that this really gives the upcoming administration the authority to determine whether or not salmon is being harmed by maximizing water delivery to big agribusiness. Water issues for us in the West are never a walk in the park; I think we all understand that. I want to commend our other colleague from California for her hard work. She has put in a tremendous amount of time. I can tell colleagues that she has spoken with me again and again on this issue in order to get an agreement on drought that helps California. Suffice it to say that Senator Merkley and I know our State is no stranger to water challenges, if you just think about the amount of time we spent on the Klamath and the whole host of issues around our State. But, as I touched on, you have to have everybody at the table. It has to be collaborative. This rider we have been discussing is not a product of compromise. A small west coast industry has been left out of the discussions because the deck was stacked in favor of these very large agribusinesses. Even though those hard-working families in small coastal communities know that a healthy stock of salmon is a lifeline, these stakeholders in the debate not only got short shrift, their voice really was not heard much at all. So I am going to close by way of saying that we don't think this rider is just about water and agriculture in California; this is going to put at risk the salmon fishing industry up and down the Pacific coast. The drought provision, in my view, threatens to undermine bedrock environment laws like the Endangered Species Act. We have already touched on the power it would give the new administration to override critical environmental laws. But if you are not from the Northwest, we have talked--Senator Cantwell has described so thoughtfully what the stakes are. They are enormous for us in the Pacific Northwest. But no matter how many times the sponsors say they don't think this sets a precedent, I think this is going to be pointed too often in the days ahead as we go forward in this present form as an argument for doing the same sort of thing elsewhere. I and my northwest colleagues have heard a lot from concerned west coast fishery groups and coastal business owners over the last few days. I am very hopeful--I know we are going to vote here in a bit-- that the position my colleagues have outlined against this proposal in its current form is supported here in the Senate. I thank my colleague for her terrific work on this. We have been in public life now a pretty good stretch of time in both the Senate and the House. This is an area, particularly, where Senator Boxer has shown something that I think is going to stand the test of time--the ability to protect special places, the treasures we want our kids and our grandkids to go to. Scarlett Willa Wyden, not 4, is my daughter. We are older parents. She has the brightest red hair on the planet. She is going to be able to enjoy some special places because of the work Senator Boxer has done. She has protected those special places while at the same time defying most of what the political observers thought was impossible by teaming up with Senator Inhofe on infrastructure projects that have paid off so tremendously in terms of jobs and quality of life. So it is possible to do this right, but this drought provision doesn't do it. I am very hopeful that the work my colleagues have done will be supported in the Senate. I thank my colleague for our years and years of friendship.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, in accordance with my policy to put a notice in the Congressional Record whenever I place a hold on legislation, I object to any unanimous consent request to pass H.R. 6438, a bill to extend the waiver of limitations with respect to excluding from gross income amounts received by wrongfully incarcerated individuals. I object not because I disagree with the policy underlying this proposal--in fact, I support it--but because the Senate cannot pass this singular bill ignore the long list of other tax proposals that are outstanding or expiring at end of this Congress; among them clean energy and infrastructure incentives that create good-paying jobs, an education incentive that makes a college degree more affordable, provisions to make homes more affordable to the middle class and protect struggling homeowners from a tax bill if they negotiate mortgage debt relief.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would like to have a colloquy with my colleague. It is my understanding that Senator Carper was interested in 5 minutes, Senator Merkley was interested in 5 minutes, I was interested in 5 minutes, and I think Senator Enzi was interested in 5 minutes. Could I ask my colleague if he would amend his UC so that each of those four Senators would have 5 minutes? I think that would take us to about 3:10, as opposed to 3 o'clock.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am speaking in morning business with my colleague and friend Senator Merkley to talk about forestry policy and to give the Senate a little bit of an update on where we are because we have so many resource-dependent communities that have been devastated as a result of a variety of policies. I want to touch briefly, and then yield to Senator Merkley, on what some of those elements are. No. 1 is that our softwood lumber producers are now in a titanic battle with the Canadians, fighting the Canadian system of heavily subsidizing their industry, thereby cutting ours. A group of 25 Senators--a quarter of the Senate--have joined me in an effort so that our trade representative pushes back and continues to fight this unjust, inequitable system until we no longer see Oregon and American jobs destroyed as a result of the Canadians' unfairly subsidizing their industry. No. 2, we feel very strongly about getting the harvest up in a sustainable fashion. We know there is an awful lot of work to do in the woods. We can do it with an environmental ethic, with an ethic of forest health, and I strongly support that. I have introduced legislation to do that in my home State and have been supportive of colleagues' efforts to do it in their parts of the country. The reality is--and the Forest Service has said this--you would have to increase logging on our public lands by 400 percent in order to no longer need a third leg of the forestry stool, which is the Secure Rural Schools program. I want it understood that we are going to push back against inequitable trade practices that are hurting jobs in rural Oregon and rural America. We are going to support increasing the harvest in a sustainable fashion, but there is no realistic increase that might possibly win passage here in Washington and be upheld legally that involves taking the harvest up to 400 percent. You are going to need a safety net. Senator Merkley and I, Senator Crapo, Senator Risch, and many colleagues on both sides of the aisle have fought to get this program, which has now expired, extended for one more year. This program began in 2000 as a result of a bipartisan piece of legislation, which Senator Craig and I authored, called the Secure Rural Schools bill. It now benefits more than 700 counties, and we see it benefiting communities all over the country. This program is depended on for education. It is depended on for roads. It is depended on in many areas for law enforcement. Unfortunately, our colleagues have not been willing to extend it. Senator Merkley and I, and Senator Crapo and Senator Risch, in a bipartisan way, have wanted to work in the Senate to get this extended, but to put these vital county payments on the back burner would be an enormous mistake. I want to yield the remainder of our time to my friend and colleague, but there are really three legs to this stool: fight unfair trade practices, get the harvest up in a sustainable kind of fashion, and understand that you are not going to be able to meet the needs of hard- hit rural communities without the safety net program--the Secure Rural Schools program. Senator Crapo, Senator Risch, Senator Merkley, and I are going to keep coming back here again and again until we get it reauthorized. I yield the remainder of our time to Senator Merkley.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am going to wrap this up simply by saying a program like this has generated a tremendous amount of community involvement. There are advisory committees that bring the industry and environmental folks together. That is what we are going to need to get this job done right. It is called collaborative forestry. The Secure Rural Schools program is something that Senator Merkley and I want to reauthorize. It is a textbook case for what you want to do for collaborative forestry. We didn't even really get into forest health because we all know our forests, particularly in the West, are burning up, so Senator Risch, Senator Crapo, and I went into something called fire borrowing, which is an extraordinarily inefficient policy that discourages prevention with respect to fire. We are going to be back to talk about the nuts and bolts of sensible forest policy. We need to build on this collaborative effort, as we have sought to do in our O&C bill--the bill that Senator Merkley and I have been involved with--which will double the harvest, on average, for the next 50 years, according to the experts. We want it to be understood that we are going to be fighting on a number of fronts. We will fight with respect to the trade policy, which is long overdue, as it relates to getting a fair shake for our softwood lumber producers and value-added forestry. We are going to focus on collaborative approaches and get the harvest up in a sustainable way. Senator Merkley has talked about the promise of Secure Rural Schools, and I feel it is very regrettable that when Senator Crapo and Senator Risch tried to convince the other side of the aisle to accept Secure Rural Schools now, we couldn't get it done. I think anybody who knows us knows we are persistent, and you don't get anything important done without bipartisan support. That is the way we will approach our forestry policy in the days ahead. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, right now, this evening, hundreds of thousands of vulnerable youngsters across America are living in foster care, separated from family and growing up in a constant struggle instead of in a loving home. For years, this body has worked on a bipartisan basis to come up with an alternative--we call it the Family First legislation--in order to give new hope to our youngsters. I am particularly grateful to Senator Bennet because he and I have teamed up on this with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, including Chairman Hatch, Kevin Brady--the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee--and Congressman Buchanan. We have had a bipartisan team working for this. Now, in the waning moments of this Congress, after the legislation passed the House unanimously, after there were a number of hearings in the Finance Committee, and after objections were raised when we used the process in the Senate called the hotline to see if Senators had problems with this legislation and three indicated they had concerns, and we resolved all of them--yet it looks like this Senate is going to go home and end up continuing a policy that causes so much pain to vulnerable children and their families. What our bipartisan bill would do is to say that for the first time, foster care dollars could be used to keep families together instead of ripping them apart. For example, if in a family a parent has bumped up against substance abuse challenges or mental health services and a grandparent or an uncle would like to help out, that is exactly what could be done under our proposal. Now, over Thanksgiving--and I truncated the description of what happened into just a couple of sentences--over Thanksgiving, the Family First Act was included in the 21st Century Cures package. The legislation passed earlier today. And all of us--Senator Bennet, Chairman Brady--all of us said together that it sure looks like we are on our way. After having months to come forward to work out concerns--and I will say to the distinguished Presiding Officer who has been kind enough to talk to me about this, we basically said that if a State is having problems meeting these kinds of opportunities--perhaps there aren't enough families--well, we just give them more time. In effect, we would say: OK. You have made a good-faith effort, we will give you a bit more time. But still, at the last moment, there was opposition that swooped in--opposition that really hadn't registered any specific concerns during those years and months in which we worked on this legislation. At the eleventh hour, the Family First Act was stripped out of the Cures package. That is why I voted no. By dropping Families First, the Senate basically is sending a message today to the most vulnerable, neglected children in America that it is just fine with us if they just wait a little bit longer. They probably are saying: Well, where else do we look for help? By the way, there aren't a lot of places because Chairman Brady, Chairman Buchanan, Congressman Levin, the other part of the Capitol, did a terrific job coming together. So when those families who have been neglected go looking for somebody else to help, when the House has done its job and the administration is with you, there is only the U.S. Senate. I am curious whether anybody is going to come here tonight and say they are not on the side of the neglected youngsters and families whom Senator Bennet and I want to stand up for. So I am going to just make a couple of additional comments and then turn this over to Senator Bennet. The Family First Act reaches out to the families who are struggling with addiction to opioids or other substances, it helps with programs that fight child abuse and neglect, and it also makes it a special priority to set basic standards for foster care facilities and group homes. I want to emphasize that point just for a moment. Some troubled or abused youngsters have been through such severe trauma that they need the kind of help you can only get in a temporary, high-quality treatment facility. They are kids who are struggling with mental illnesses and behavioral problems, young people suffering from addiction, victims of sex trafficking. The support they need is unique and they need access to reliable care in a safe place. But these kinds of placements shouldn't be a destination; they should really be an intervention. And whenever we can, we need to make it possible for the kids to have the opportunity to reunite with kin or join a foster or adoptive family. For the first time, our bill laid down a roadmap so youngsters don't have to face the prospect of growing up in the kinds of struggling circumstances I have described. There would be standards guided by the States and laid out to protect the kids. They would raise the bar for group homes and make sure the kids aren't sent away and forgotten. In effect, the bill turns the system on its head. I think I shared that thought with the distinguished Presiding Officer. Instead of paying a dollar for families to be split up, the bill says let's find a way to use that dollar to help the families stay together. Let's see if the dollar can keep a youngster safe at home or with kin, where he or she is most likely to be healthy and happy and succeed in school. The bill has 28 bipartisan cosponsors in the Senate. I also want to thank Chairman Grassley because he has been in our corner, along with Senator Bennet and Chairman Hatch, month after month after month. I hope we can work this out overnight so Families First can pass; if not tonight, in the morning. It is the right policy for vulnerable kids. It is the right policy for families, the right policy for taxpayers. What we are doing today isn't helping vulnerable kids and families the way it ought to. Five hundred organizations, led by the pediatricians, nurse practitioners, the Catholic bishops, and the Children's Defense Fund, all agree with our basic premise: try to find ways to keep families together and only look for something else where you have those extraordinary circumstances where you need another kind of care. The status quo is not working, and it seems to me we have a choice. We have a choice tonight and in the morning, with the 114th Congress wrapping up, closing the books, packing up, heading home for the holiday season--let's make sure before that wrap-up is finished that we haven't forgotten vulnerable children and families. With that, I yield the floor. I note by virtue of unanimous consent that Senator Bennet has recognition. He has been an invaluable colleague, a terrific member of the Finance Committee, and I appreciate his leadership.

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

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, in a moment, I am going to ask unanimous consent to pass the bipartisan Family First Act, to help the hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children and their parents stay together and make the biggest improvement in child welfare policy in decades and decades in America. Right now, Federal policy says taxpayer money can be used to split families apart and uproot the family home. With Families First, our bipartisan bill, terrific work has been done by so many Members on both sides of the aisle. Senator Bennet was here and gave an eloquent address about how important this is. With Chairman Hatch, Chairman Grassley, and Chairman Brady, this has been a bipartisan effort for months for a number of Members for close to 3 years. With our reform, the Family First bill, families will finally see that they will get some assistance to stay together and stay together when it is safe to do so. If a parent can get a leg up with some help if they face a drug addiction or a mental health problem, everybody wins because the family stays together. A grandparent can step in. One of the things I am proudest of is that I wrote the kinship care law as part of welfare reform when I was a new Member of this body. So we know that there are hundreds of thousands of grandparents out there who could step in in those situations, or an uncle, and they could get a little bit of help raising a youngster, again, keeping the family together. Sometimes foster care is lifesaving. I think all of us have said that from the beginning. But it should not be the only option. That is what kids who have been in the foster care system came to the Senate this week to tell us. It is our job as policymakers to protect the most vulnerable. Those kids don't have a powerful lobby. They don't have deep pockets. It just seems to me, as we wrap up this session and everyone here goes back to their families and their holidays, that it is not in good conscience to turn our backs on the foster kids and allow this important bipartisan legislation to wither and to die in the last days of the 114th Congress. So in a moment I will make this unanimous consent request. I ask that our colleagues end this standing in the way of providing a new measure of hope for vulnerable kids and their families and that we help lift the weight of this broken status quo--this broken status quo that falls heaviest on the hundreds of thousands of foster kids living in a quiet struggle every single day. So at this time, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 527, H.R. 5456; that the Wyden substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no interviewing action or debate.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I will be very brief. As I have indicated to our colleague from North Carolina--and he is new to the Senate--he really brings a refreshing openness to these debates. I know this was a new topic for him. He has not had a chance to hear a lot about it over the last few years. He was concerned about what this would mean to group facilities and group homes in his State. I said: Look, if there is a problem in North Carolina in terms of trying to meet these measures, we said we will give States more time. We will give them more flexibility. I would just like to point out that there seems to be enormous support across North Carolina with respect to this bill because in North Carolina they seem to be saying that they understand that what this legislation is all about--what Family First is all about--is just getting high-quality care for these youngsters. All of the providers would be eligible. It does not speak to the type of provider. It is all the providers. So I am just going to wrap up by a few quotes that came into the Finance Committee over the course of this legislation. From the North Carolina Association of County Directors of Social Services, which, as I understand, is the association of entities that administer child welfare programs in the State of North Carolina supports the legislation, we have a letter that reads: ``We go on record as supporting the act and respectfully request your support in passing this important legislation.'' The North Carolina Association of Social Workers supports the bill. They wrote: ``The legislation would strengthen families so that more children could remain safely with their parents and family caregivers and avoid the need for foster care.'' For the overwhelming majority of children, this North Carolina group says: This legislation could be a lifesaver. The North Carolina Pediatric Society writes: The bill is a pivotal opportunity for a major Federal policy shift away from placing children in out-of-home care and toward keeping families together. Congregate care remains one of the options on the continuum, and the bill doesn't impose time limits or restrictions on the use of these settings for children who need them. But the focus is on keeping families together. The only changes this bill makes for congregate care providers is raising the standards for quality so that all children-needs settings benefit from the therapeutic value of the best providers, of which we have several in North Carolina. So the Children's Home Society of North Carolina, Children's Hope Alliance, the Exchange Family Center, Family Preservation Community Services, and FIRST North Carolina--a number of groups, all based there and serving in North Carolina citizens--have come out for this. So I recognize that there has been an objection. It is my intention to keep working through the night, through the early part of tomorrow. I appreciate that this Senator from North Carolina has kept an open mind on this. He has indicated in our conversations that he understands that there is a lot of good in this bill, and for the reasons he has stated, he cannot support it tonight and I gather reasons unrelated to the bill. I look forward to working with him. He has come to the Senate fairly recently, but I have found him open and accessible. That is all you can ask of a colleague. With that I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business, and I ask unanimous consent that our distinguished colleague from Colorado, Senator Bennet, follow my remarks.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I wish to recognize my colleague from Montana, and after my colleague from Montana speaks, my friend from Delaware will address the Senate.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, absent Senate action, at midnight tonight, this Senate will make one of the biggest mistakes in surveillance policy in years and years. Without a single congressional hearing, without a shred of meaningful public input, without any opportunity for Senators to ask their questions in a public forum, one judge with one warrant would be able to authorize the hacking of thousands--possibly millions--of devices, cell phones, and tablets. This would come about through the adoption of an obscure rule of criminal procedure called rule 41. Rule 41 isn't something folks are talking about in coffee shops in Alaska, in Oregon, and in other parts of the country, but I am convinced Americans are sure going to come to Members of Congress if one of their hospitals-- one of their crucial medical programs--is hacked by the government. It is a fact that one of the highest profile victims of cyber attacks are medical facilities, our hospitals. The Justice Department has said this is no big deal. You basically ought to trust us. We are just going to take care of this. I will tell you, generally, changes to the Federal rules of procedure are designed for modest, almost housekeeping kinds of procedural changes, not major shifts in policies. When you are talking about these kinds of rules, they talk about who might receive a copy of a document in a bankruptcy proceeding. That is what the Rules Enabling Act was for. It wasn't for something that was sweeping, that was unprecedented, that could have calamitous ramifications for Americans the way government hacking would. As I have indicated, this would go forward without a chance for any Member of the Senate to formally weigh in. The government says it can go forward with this rule 41 and conduct these massive hacks--large-scale hacks--without causing any collateral damage whatsoever and ensuring that Americans' rights are protected. Oddly enough--again, breaking with the way these matters are usually handled--the government will not tell the Congress or the American people how it would protect those rights or how it would prevent collateral damage or even how it would carry out these hacks. In effect, the policy is ``trust us.'' I think that right at the heart of our obligations is to do vigorous oversight. I always thought Ronald Reagan had a valid point when he said: You can trust but you ought to verify. That is especially important under this policy, where innocent Americans could be victimized twice--once by their hackers and a second time by their government. We are going to have the opportunity to do something about it before this goes into effect in just over 12 hours. I want to emphasize that those of us who would like the chance for Members of Congress to weigh in and be heard--our concern has been bipartisan. Senator Coons. Senator Daines. We have worked in a bipartisan fashion on this for months. This morning we are going to offer three unanimous consent requests to block or delay this particular change in order to make sure our colleagues have an opportunity to do what I think is Senate 101: to have a hearing and have a review that is bipartisan, where Senators get to ask questions, to be able to get public input in a meaningful kind of fashion. I urge every Senator to think, and think carefully, before they prevent this body from performing the vigorous oversight Americans demand of Congress. That is right at the heart of what Senator Coons, Senator Daines, and I will be talking about. This rule change will give the government unprecedented authority to hack into Americans' personal phones, computers, and other devices. Frankly, I was concerned about this before the election, but we now know that the administration--it is a new administration--will be led by the individual who said he wanted the power to hack his political opponents the same way Russia does. These mass hacks could affect cell phones, desktop computers, traffic lights, not to mention a whole host of different areas. During these hacks and searches, there is a considerable chance that the hacked devices will be damaged or broken, and that would obviously be a significant matter. Don't take my word for it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have an article that I wrote with renowned security experts Matt Blaze and Susan Landau printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN. In the op-ed, we point out that legislators and the public know next to nothing about how the government conducts the searches and that the government itself is planning to use software that has not been properly vetted by outside security experts. A bungled government hack could damage systems at hospitals, the power grid, transportation, or other critical infrastructure, and Congress has not had a single hearing on this issue--not one. In addition, the Rules Enabling Act gives Congress the opportunity to weigh in, which is exactly what my colleagues hope to be doing now on this important issue. Because of these serious damages, I introduced a bill called the Stop Mass Hacking Act with a number of my colleagues, including Senators Daines and Paul. This bill would stop these changes from taking effect, and I am here this morning to ask unanimous consent that the bill be taken up and passed. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 2952 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration, that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I will still be offering a third proposal, so I ask my colleague if he wishes to speak now or after the third request.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, when the Oregon Ducks go to the NCAA title game in basketball, I will invite my friend to sit with me and he will see Oregon in action.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Senator Cornyn has now objected to passage of the two bills relating to rule 41, and he is certainly within his right to do so. I wish to offer the theory--not exactly a radical one, in my view-- that if we can't pass bills with respect to mass surveillance or have hearings, we at least ought to have a vote so that the American people can actually determine if their Senators support authorizing unprecedented, sweeping government hacking without a single hearing. There is a lot more debate in this body over the tax treatment of race horses than massive expansion of surveillance authority. In a moment, I will ask unanimous consent that the body move to an immediate rollcall vote on the Stalling Mass Damaging Hacking Act which would delay rule 41 changes until March 31. I don't condone Congress kicking cans down the road. This is one example of where, with a short delay, it would be possible to have at least one hearing in both bodies so that Congress would have a chance to debate a very significant change in our hacking policy. Congress has not weighed, considered, amended, or acted like anything resembling an elected legislature on this issue. There have been some who have looked into the issue, but--I call it Senate 101--we should at least have a hearing on a topic with enormous potential consequences for millions of Americans. That had not been done, despite a bipartisan bill being introduced in the House and the Senate, days after the changes were approved. Lawmakers and the public ought to know more about a novel, complicated, and controversial topic, and they would be in a position to have that information if there was a hearing and Members of both sides of the aisle could ask important questions. Since the Senate has not had a hearing on this issue, lawmakers have still been trying to get answers to important questions. Twenty-three elected representatives from the House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans spanning the philosophical spectrum, have asked substantive questions that the Department of Justice has failed to answer, and they barely went through the motions. They spectacularly failed to respond to both concerns of Democrats and Republicans in both the Senate and in the House. I ask unanimous consent that the letter that was sent to the DOJ, signed by myself and 22 bipartisan colleagues from the House and Senate, be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN. I also ask unanimous consent that the response from the Department of Justice, which I have characterized as extraordinarily unresponsive to what legislators have said, be printed in the Record as well.

Mr. WYDEN. Colleagues are going to see that substantive, clear questions, posed by Democrats and Republicans in writing, were not responded to. Because of the lack of genuine answers from the Justice Department to this letter, signed by 23 Members of Congress, and the substantial nature of these unprecedented changes in surveillance policy, I ask now for unanimous consent for a vote on the SMDH Act to give Congress time to debate these sweeping changes to government's hacking authority. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3485, introduced earlier today; that at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Democratic leader, but no later than 4 p.m. today, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to this bill.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, I wish to engage my friend for a moment with respect to his remarks. He is absolutely right that we have been friends since we arrived here, and we are working together on a whole host of projects right now. So this is debate about differences of opinion with respect to some of the key issues. I wish to make a couple of quick points in response to my colleague. My colleague said there had been an inclusive process for discussing this. As far as I can tell, the vast amount of discussion basically took place between the judges and the government. My guess is, if you and I walked into a coffee shop in Houston or Dallas, or in my home State, in Coos Bay or Eugene, people wouldn't have any idea what was going to happen tonight at midnight. Tonight at midnight is going to be a significant moment in this discussion. My colleague made the point with respect to security and privacy. I definitely feel those two are not mutually exclusive; we can have both, but it is going to take smart policies. My colleague has done a lot of important work on the Freedom of Information Act issues. These are complicated, important issues, and nobody up here has had a chance to weigh in. There has been a process with some judges, and I guess some folks got a chance to submit a brief. Maybe there was a notice in the Federal Register; that is the way it usually works, but nobody at home knows anything about that. My guess is, none of our hospitals know anything about something like this, and it has real implications for them because our medical facilities--something we all agree on that have been major sources of cyber hackings--they have been major kinds of targets. Again, this is not the kind of thing where somebody is saying something derogatory about somebody personally; we just have a difference of opinion with respect to the process. To me, at home, when people hear about a government process, they say: Hey, I guess that means I get a chance to weigh in. That is why I have townhall meetings in every county every year because that is what the people think the process is, not judges talking among themselves. The second point my friend touched on was essentially the warrant policies and that he supports the Fourth Amendment and this is about the Fourth Amendment. I think that is worth debating. To me, at a minimum, this is an awful novel approach to the Fourth Amendment. One judge, one warrant for thousands and potentially millions of computers which could result in more damage to the citizen after the citizen has already been hit once with the hack. So my colleague said this is what the fourth Amendment is about. I think that is a fair point for debate. I would argue this is an awful novel approach to the Fourth Amendment. This is not what I think most people think the Fourth Amendment is. Hey, this is about me and somebody is going to have to get a warrant about me. It is about individuals. To me, the Senate has now--and we still have officially 12 hours to do something about it--but as of now, the Senate has given consent to an expansion of government hacking and surveillance. In effect, the Senate, by not acting, has put a stamp of approval on a major policy change that has not had a single hearing, no oversight, no discussion. In effect, the Senate--this is not even Senate 101. That is what everybody thinks Senators are supposed to be about. When we are talking about search and seizure, that is an issue for Congress to debate, and the Justice Department shouldn't have the ability to, at a minimum, as I indicated in my conversation with my colleague from Texas, come up with a very novel approach to the Fourth Amendment without elected officials being able to weigh in. Now I will close by way of saying that when Americans find out that the Congress is allowing the Justice Department to just wave its arms in the air and grant itself new powers under the Fourth Amendment without the Senate even being a part of a single hearing, I think law abiding Americans are going to ask: So what were you people in the Senate thinking about? What are you thinking about when the FBI starts hacking the victims of a botnet attack or when a mass attack breaks their device or an entire hospital system, in effect, has great damage done, faces great damage, and possibly puts lives at risk? My hope is that Congress would add protections for Americans surrounding the whole issue of government hacking. I have said again and again and again that the smart technology policy, the smart surveillance policy from the get-go is built around the idea that security and liberty are not mutually exclusive, that a smart policy will do both, but increasingly, policies coming out of here aren't doing a whole lot of either. In this case, I think the Senate is abdicating its obligations. Certainly, in the digital era, Americans do not throw their Fourth Amendment rights out the window because they use a device that connects to the Internet. So I am going to close by way of saying that I think this debate about government hacking is far from over. My guess is that Senators are going to hear from their constituents about this policy sooner rather than later, and we will be back on the floor then, looking to do what should have been done prior to midnight tonight, which is to have hearings, to involve the public--not just Justices and maybe a few people who can figure out how to find that section of the Federal Register so they can weigh in. Americans are going to continue to demand from all of us in the Senate policies that protect their security and their liberty. They are right to do so. That cause will be harmed if the Senate doesn't take steps between now and midnight. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, now more than ever, we need strong leadership at the FCC to protect consumers from consolidated powers in the telecommunications industry. Noncontentious issues should be passed and implemented so Americans have access to wireless broadband and voice services in their communities and access to video programming for the blind and visually impaired can be expanded and consumers can be protected from excessive cable and internet costs. I was given the assurance that Commissioner Rosenworcel is committed to working toward consensus on all items before the Commission this year, including the Mobility Fund that provides support for wireless and voice service in rural America. For that reason, I lift my hold on her nomination.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I wish to express my frustration with the inaction of the Federal Communication Commission due to political reasons. The FCC's Chairman, Tom Wheeler, was forced to cancel a vote during their open meeting due to the inaction of one acting commissioner. That vote would have implemented a program to help rural Americans receive wireless broadband internet. I see no reason for the Commission to delay a vote, on a noncontroversial policy that would infuse universal service funding to the most high-cost rural communities across the country. I regularly hear from Oregonians in rural counties that it is clear high costs are preventing private sector broadband investment in parts of rural Oregon. The FCC must fulfill its responsibility to provide a lifeline to rural communities and a connection to the global economy. Wireless cell service and broadband internet spur economic opportunity, improve public safety, and increase educational outcomes for rural Americans. Any delay causes these rural communities to wait even longer for help. For these reasons, I am putting a hold on any confirmation vote for Jessica Rosenworcel to be a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Coons for his work, his very thoughtful statement, and I particularly appreciate his emphasizing the fact that this effort began long before November 8. This has been a bipartisan effort for some time, with Democrats and Republicans across the political spectrum saying: Look, the country wants policies that make us safer and protect our liberties, and if we are not careful, we are going to get policies that don't do much of either and in fact set us back. I very much appreciate what my colleague is doing. It is a simple proposition that Senator Coons advances today; that is, when you are talking about a monumental change--one judge with one warrant making it possible to hack thousands of computers--this is not just a modest alteration in the way business is done in Washington, DC, this is an enormous public policy shift. The idea the Congress--without even one hearing, without even one debate, without even one opportunity for Members to weigh in formally, in my view just defies common sense and our responsibilities. I very much appreciate what my colleague is doing. Suffice it to say, this was important before the election, but right now, when we have scores of Americans wondering about the very future of the core constitutional protections they rely on, the bill Senator Coons is offering makes it clear those basic values and the sanctity of the courts and due process and the rule of law are not going to be values that are going to be set aside because of what happened on November 8, and there are going to be Democrats and Republicans working together in the Senate. I remember when Senator Paul, who has made very valuable contributions on this and other issues, began to discuss some of these matters with me on the Select Committee on Intelligence. We, in effect, said: It is almost like we have a Ben Franklin caucus around here. Ben Franklin famously said: Anyone who gives up their liberty to have security doesn't deserve either. It seems to me my colleague is picking up on those principles. Mr. President and colleagues, I will be brief. The Coons bill addresses the cold fact that without urgent action this month, the government is going to have unprecedented authority to hack into the personal phones, computers, tablets, or whatever devices Americans use. This would be a massive expansion of government hacking and surveillance powers, a vast expansion of Executive power. To do it without even a congressional debate would be just a monumental mistake. What ought to be done, as Senator Coons has suggested, is allowing the Congress and the American people to have a chance to weigh in on the very substantial constitutional questions surrounding government hacking. I sit on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. I think having joined before 9/11, I am now, I believe, the longest serving member in history, along with Senator Feinstein, and we can tell you there is no question it is a dangerous world. Go into the Select Committee on Intelligence, and it becomes pretty clear there are a lot of people out there who do not wish the people of our great country well. It is obvious, as my colleague from Delaware has noted, that law enforcement faces very substantial challenges because technology is constantly evolving. So we want to make it clear, those of us who are supporting the Coons bill, that we don't take a backseat to anyone in giving our agents the tools they need to demonstrate that security and liberty are not mutually exclusive. We can have both. That is why I wrote section 102 of the Freedom Act, which actually expanded the government's ability to move when there was an emergency. We have had a lot of discussions about our ability to protect our country in the event of an emergency situation. That was a provision that I added and I felt particularly strongly about because I wanted to amplify on what my colleague has said; that we are interested in both liberty and security and in coming up with policies that are compatible. What we have seen, and why the Coons review is so important, is that too often government agencies have cast too wide a net and swept up information from millions of Americans instead of focusing on the real threats--the criminals, the terrorists, the hackers. Our point with respect to this review bill is that our job consists of more than just having a ``trust us'' policy from the Justice Department. Our job is to ask the tough questions. My late father was a journalist. That is what he said. Nobody wants to ask the tough questions. It takes more time and it makes people uncomfortable, but that is what we are supposed to do, and particularly right now, when so many Americans are concerned about the threats to their liberty and the security of our personal information. What Senator Coons is talking about this morning is a more important check on the executive branch than we have had to debate in the past. That is why my colleague's work is so timely this morning. This change would also effectively--if it were to go through in its current form, Rule 41--turn innocent victims of computer attacks into the victims of additional government hacking. Again, this was alarming before November 8, but now we need to consider the prospect of an administration led by someone who openly said he wants the power to hack his political opponents exhibited by the Russians. It is troubling how little the Congress knows about how the government currently uses its hacking authority and what it plans to do with expanded powers under Rule 41. Is it going to clean all the botnets in the world, like the one that recently attacked the Internet backbone company? If that is the case, what is the software going to look like? This kind of good-guy hacking is risky, incredibly risky, even when you have individuals with the best of motivations in your corner. As Senator Coons indicated, we put together a letter late in October, before the election. This is a theme Members are going to hear. Before the election, many of these concerns were raised, and we said to Attorney General Lynch that we have some basic questions, such as: How does the government intend to prevent forum shopping by prosecutors seeking court approval to hack into Americans' devices? How is the government going to prevent collateral damage to innocent Americans' devices of electronic data when it remotely searches devices such as smartphones or medical devices? What the latest numbers indicate is that a major source of cyber attacks are our wonderful medical facilities. The questions we asked in that October 27 letter speak to that. We want to know whether the government intends to use its new authority to search and ``clean'' American computers? How is the government going to maintain a chain of custody when searching or removing evidence from a device? How is the government going to notify Americans who are the subject of remote government searches? I am very troubled by the language in the current proposal, which suggests the notice process will be very different than what Americans have traditionally thought about in kind of the physical world with respect to notice. The Coons bill is important business because we have not yet, our bipartisan group of 23, gotten answers to these questions. We are going to keep trying to learn more about why it might or might not be necessary for the government to have the authority. I will wrap up this discussion with Senator Coons--which I thank him for leading--by way of saying that I have issued warnings before on the floor and have seen what happens when those warnings aren't heeded. I just want to say this morning that I believe if the Senate fails to stand up for our constituents now and do what Senator Coons is talking about, which is our job--vigorous oversight, asking the hard questions, getting the facts about new technological questions that are evolving-- I believe there are going to be problems with Rule 41. I believe there are going to be problems at hospitals, at power grids, at major American institutions and that if we do nothing, except what Congress does best--which is nothing--and let this go through, I think our constituents are going to come back when there are problems, and they are going to say to each of us: What were you thinking? Why did you vote to allow policies that would permit hacking in this fashion? Colleagues are going to say: Gee, we didn't vote at all. They are going to say: You didn't vote at all? You must have had some meetings. Well, we didn't have any meetings. We didn't have any debates. We didn't have any discussion. Then they are going to say: You allowed mass hacking by just kind of dropping the ball and saying you have other stuff to do? I think the American people are going to react very badly if that is, in fact, what happens. So I commend Senator Coons. He consistently comes to the floor and appeals across the aisle. I so appreciate it. I hope we will see action on the Senator's very thoughtful bill. I am proud to be a cosponsor. I yield the floor.