Elizabeth Warren

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Stephen McCall, a fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of today's session.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, today I wish to pay tribute to a true American hero, my friend and colleague Senator John McCain. To know John was to know a man who was fiercely devoted to his family, his constituents, and his country. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and loved ones during this difficult time. As a nation, we all share in the sense of emptiness his passing has left behind, but we also share a profound sense of gratitude for the life John lived and the legacy of service and unwavering commitment he has left us to cherish. Many Americans felt a personal connection to John McCain. Our men and women in uniform always knew he was on their side; he was one of them. John understood better than anyone what it meant to send people into combat. So much of his work in the Senate was devoted to making sure our troops got the training, equipment, and pay that they deserved. Last year, I had the honor of traveling with John on one of his final trips to the Middle East. I had the chance to see how deeply revered he was by everyone in uniform. They all knew the story--how John McCain, the war hero, spent nearly 6 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam; how, when offered abrupt release less than a year after his Navy jet was shot out of the air, John McCain refused to be released while his brothers were still in captivity; how he was isolated, tortured, and beaten so badly that he carried the physical consequences of his loyalty to our country with him for the rest of his life; how he could have avoided it all but endured out of love and loyalty to his fellow servicemembers. Yeah, they knew the story and every single servicemember we saw treated John like a celebrity rockstar, and that is because he was. John was a deeply principled man. I had the honor of working with John closely in the fight to reinstate Glass Steagall, and boy, was it a fight. Throughout the entire battle, John would always tease me about pulling my weight in ``getting this thing done,'' as he would say. ``Show some fight, girl,'' ``Don't tell me you're afraid. Get in there--throw some punches.'' That was John's approach in life: If you're going to be in a fight, you had better give it your all. Don't get me wrong: John and I disagreed on many things and sometimes quite forcefully, but even when we disagreed, I always respected that his heart was focused on doing what he thought was best for the American people. I remember expressing to John my views on the most effective strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, that there are simply some problems that cannot be solved through military action alone, we can't simply fight our way to peace and we need to bring our troops home. Respectfully, John would disagree and proceed to energetically walk me through why he believed in the benefits of staying longer. Democrat or Republican, foreign leader or President of the United States, John McCain would go toe-to-toe with anyone to fight for what he thought was right. He applied these principles to his service to our country, in his commitment to the people of Arizona, and his abiding love and defense of the American people. At a time when character and integrity are under siege, the entire Nation mourns the loss of a public servant who lived his life with courage and conviction. John ran the Armed Services Committee with an iron fist, but also with a respect for the importance of bipartisanship and a basic sense of fairness no one could ever ignore. If you came to the table, ready, prepared to work, John made sure you were heard. There were so many occasions where John would jump in while I was questioning a witness because he was listening and hear how my questions were being dodged and disregarded. His admonishment to the witness was like a whip: ``If you can't come up with better answers what are you here for?'' I count it a blessing to have had the honor to serve with Senator John McCain in the U.S. Senate. If there ever was a true American patriot, John McCain was that patriot. I will miss his strength, I will miss his maverick spirit, but most of all, I will miss his kindness.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Whitehouse for his unwavering commitment to elevating the urgent need for all of us to take action on climate change. Since 2012, Senator Whitehouse has given over 200 speeches on climate change--faithfully, passionately, intellectually--and has warned us of what is to come if we don't get our act together. So I thank Senator Whitehouse. I am proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with him in the fight to save this Earth. This is on all of us. The facts are in. The science is irrefutable. Climate change is real. It is real, and it is happening every single day all around us. It is not made up. It is not a Chinese hoax. It is the most existential threat our world has ever known, and we are not doing enough to stop it. That is why I wanted to be here tonight to stand with my friend and my colleague Senator Whitehouse to ring the alarm. It is time for us to wake up. As I think about the consequences of inaction, I can't help but reflect on the financial crisis that nearly destroyed our global economy 10 years ago. Millions of hard-working people lost their jobs, millions lost their homes, and millions lost their savings. The financial crisis nearly tore apart the global economy for a whole variety of reasons, but the failure to act on credible, verifiable data is what nearly destroyed our economy. It didn't have to happen. We could have prevented it. Yet here we are again, ignoring clear and blatant warnings of another financial disaster in the making. The evidence is mounting every single day with fires blazing out of control, extreme storms and hurricanes, rising sea levels, and warming oceans. Our planet is in danger, which means our economy is in danger. Recent data show that a major climate-related disaster could trigger a global financial crisis, the likes of which our economy has never seen. Now, I don't say that to predict some kind of doomsday disaster. This is a real and present threat to our global economy, and here is why: The driving cause of climate change is emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases from humans in their burning of fossil fuels. We are causing this every day. Scientists estimate that humans can only burn so much more carbon before causing a global temperature rise of 2 degrees. A 2-degree rise in temperatures would be devastating--rising sea levels, droughts, famine. Yet, as of today, the worldwide oil and gas industry has carbon reserves that already far exceed the amount of carbon we can burn to stay under the 2-degree temperature rise. So what does that actually mean? All of these carbon resources will become less and less valuable as the environmental costs of burning carbon become more and more severe. That will devastate the global coal, oil, and gas industries. One estimate is that 82 percent of all coal reserves, 49 percent of global gas reserves, and 33 percent of global oil reserves could go unused. Some experts predict that we will cause the value of fossil fuel companies to be cut in half, with the U.S. potentially losing its entire oil and gas industry. That could make the 2008 financial crisis look like a walk in the park. That is what is at stake for our global system. What about here at home? Listen to this: Rising sea levels and spreading flood plains appear likely to destroy billions of dollars in property and to displace millions of people. ``The economic losses and social disruption may happen gradually, but they are likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and Great Recession.'' Who wrote that? Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored company that is responsible for buying millions of mortgages every year. That is not some partisan view; that is a cold-eyed assessment of the likely damage that climate change will cause to our economy and to our citizens. Another recent study, conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, found that over the next 30 years, 311,000 homes will be in danger of being flooded every 2 weeks--311,000. That means more than half a million Americans could have their homes inundated with water multiple times every single month. Think about the financial toll the constant flooding will take on these families and the homes. Well, after being bombarded with saltwater over and over again, a coastal property meltdown would be inevitable. Yet here is what gives me comfort and why I am inspired to work with Senator Whitehouse and why I am inspired by his work and why I had to be here tonight. We can prevent this crisis, but only if we act. It is going to take public-private partnerships, CEOs, and Members of Congress to work together to prepare for the worst. That means companies need to begin including the risk of climate change in their investment and risk management practices. Climate change can be an economic opportunity if we act boldly and decisively, which is something I know Senator Whitehouse will address shortly. If we fail to act, it will be a financial catastrophe as well as an environmental catastrophe, and it will put the 2008 financial crisis to shame. We know it is coming; we need the political will to do something about it. I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, every day I meet all sorts of people-- small business owners, working moms, students, seniors, and servicemembers--and they are concerned about all sorts of things: the growing cost of healthcare, the cost of child care, the cost of college, the cost of student loan debt, stagnant wages, fixing our broken criminal justice system, gun violence in schools--you name it. But in the thousands of conversations I have had, I haven't met a single person who has said they are concerned that Washington doesn't work well enough for big businesses. If you ask any of them, they will tell you that, when it comes to the wealthy and the powerful, Washington works just like a dream, but for everyone else, Washington just isn't working. That is not a coincidence. Powerful interests have been working for years to capture every single branch of government to tilt the scales in their favor and against everyone else. Our courts are no exception in this. Powerful interests have worked for years, pouring incredible amounts of money into capturing our courts. It has been a real one-two punch. The first punch has been working with Republicans to stop fair- minded, impartial judges from sitting on the Federal bench, slowing down or stopping those nominations, holding open a Supreme Court seat, and keeping fair people off the bench whenever possible. Then came the second punch. Whenever they get the chance, it is stacking our courts with judges dedicated to a vision of the law where the wealthy and well-connected get to call the shots--people who are willing to leave behind women, workers, people of color, LGBTQ individuals, students, families, and everyone else who doesn't have money or power. Donald Trump's decision to nominate Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is just the latest example of this. Minutes after Donald Trump announced Kavanaugh's nomination, the White House blasted out a document. To whom? To business lobbyists around Washington touting Judge Kavanaugh's rulings in favor of corporate interests and against the interests of everyone else. They are not even hiding it anymore. Think about that. The first move by the White House is not a memo to the American people talking about the nominee's independence or talking about his commitment to justice for everyone but a memo to business lobbyists highlighting Judge Kavanaugh's loyalty to big business. That is a key part of Donald Trump's public case for Judge Kavanaugh--the promise that Judge Kavanaugh will tilt the playing field even further in favor of corporations and against working people. Take a look at cases the White House included in its sales pitch to corporate lobbyists. In one recent case, Judge Kavanaugh ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was unconstitutional, calling independent agencies like the consumer bureau ``a significant threat to individual liberty.'' Really? That is the consumer agency that a bipartisan group of 60 Senators and 237 Representatives created after the most devastating financial crisis in generations. It is the agency that is a tough watchdog for American families, the agency that in just 7 years has returned $12 billion directly to people who were cheated by big banks, credit card companies, and student loan servicers. But I guess all Judge Kavanaugh saw was a threat to the individual liberty of companies that were looking to cheat people. Judge Kavanaugh's ruling was so out of the mainstream that the rest of his colleagues on the court promptly reversed his decision by an overwhelming vote. But if Judge Kavanaugh becomes Justice Kavanaugh, he could provide the decisive vote on the Supreme Court to strike down the CFPB and leave consumers at the mercy of predatory lenders again. That wasn't the only time that Judge Kavanaugh ruled against consumers and in favor of the giant corporations that squashed them. Last year, he issued an opinion that would have set aside a lower court ruling and allowed a merger of two giant health insurance companies to move forward, despite evidence that the merger could hurt consumers in 14 States. Luckily, once again, Judge Kavanaugh's colleagues disagreed, and they criticized him for applying the law as he wished it were, not as it currently is. Again, Judge Kavanaugh found a way to rule in favor of corporate interests, no matter what the law said. Judge Kavanaugh has also ruled time and again to reverse rules designed to address climate change and to protect the air we breathe. In three separate cases, the Trump administration highlighted for corporate lobbyists that Judge Kavanaugh argued that the Environmental Protection Agency had acted illegally in taking action to protect the environment and to protect public health. In each case, the EPA had spent years carefully considering the input of scientists, experts, and the industry, but in each case, Judge Kavanaugh found that wasn't enough. He put maximizing polluter profits ahead of protecting working families and the well-being of our planet. The Trump White House and the Republican Congress have gone to bat for corporate interests time and again. They have showered them with $1.5 trillion in tax giveaways, rolling back the rules on some of the country's biggest banks, and reversing rules to protect workers and consumers from corporate abuse. But there may not be a single body in Washington that has delivered more victories for giant companies in the last 2 years--and more losses for everyone else--than the Supreme Court of the United States. In case after case, by 5-to-4 decisions, this Court has limited the rights of working people and expanded the ability of giant corporations to do pretty much whatever they please. It is no wonder that working families are working longer and harder, only to get squeezed between flat wages and rising costs. Judge Kavanaugh would tip the balance of the Court even further in favor of those corporations and special interests. For the next 30 or 40 years, he would be a reliable vote in favor of whatever giant companies and their armies of lobbyists decide that they want, whatever special favors they can't secure in Congress and can get only through the courts. The world's largest companies already throw their money around this place with reckless abandon and try to buy the outcomes they want. They don't need any more help on the Supreme Court. It is time for Washington to start working for the people again, and that starts with defeating Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I want to start by thanking Senator Brown for organizing time for our speeches today and, of course, for his tireless fight on behalf of working people in this country. I rise today to join Senator Brown and my other colleagues in standing with Federal workers in Massachusetts and all around the country--Federal workers who are under attack from all sides by the Trump administration. There are nearly 30,000 Federal workers in Massachusetts alone, and almost a quarter of them are veterans--thousands of men and women who have put themselves in harm's way to protect us and then come home and continue serving their communities in the Federal workforce. These Americans work at agencies like the Social Security Administration, to help older Americans receive the benefits they have earned, and they work at the VA, where they help us fulfill the promises that we have made to our veterans. They help to keep our communities safe, and they help them recover after a disaster hits. They fight deadly diseases and work day in and day out to improve the health of our fellow citizens. Those are just a few examples. But ever since taking office, President Trump has attacked these public servants, attacked their paychecks, attacked their working conditions, and attacked their retirement security in just about every way he could think of--freezing their pay and proposing draconian cuts to their wages and their hard-earned retirement benefits. His latest assault, in the form of three Executive orders, undermines collective bargaining rights that have protected Federal workers' voices in their workplaces since the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 passed this Senate 87 to 1. These orders disrupt the bargaining processes that Federal workers have used for decades, and they interfere with the ability of unions to represent their members. For example, one of President Trump's Executive orders severely cuts down on the time that unions can spend helping their workers navigate the process for filing a workplace sexual harassment claim or getting whistleblower protections in order to report fraud and corruption in the government. President Trump's attacks on these public servants and their rights undermine important government services and the rights of all American workers, and they are part of a clear pattern. Despite his campaign rhetoric from 2 years ago, the President's track record on standing up for workers has been absolutely miserable. From the day he nominated Andrew Puzder, an executive who delighted in mocking and belittling his own low-wage workers, to run the Labor Department, this administration has delivered one gut punch after another to American workers. But that was only the beginning. In the Trump administration, workers in all sectors and all industries and in all parts of the country are under repeated attack. President Trump has signed laws, ended commonsense protections, and nominated anti-union and anti-worker judges--all of which undermine the rights of American workers in more ways than I can possibly count. He has rolled back rules designed to make sure that Federal contractors don't cheat their workers out of hard-earned wages. He has delayed safety standards that keep workers from being exposed to lethal carcinogenic materials, and he has made it easier for employers to hide injuries and deaths that their workers suffer on the job. He has opened the door for shady financial advisers to cheat hard- working Americans out of billions of dollars in retirement savings. He has put anti-worker corporate attorneys on the National Labor Relations Board, which has now mowed its way through a giant wish list of areas where giant companies were begging to be left off the hook for violating workers' rights. For the Supreme Court, he nominated Neil Gorsuch, a union-busting judge who was the deciding vote in the 5-to-4 Janus case, which was also an attack on public servants, nurses, teachers, firefighters, and police--the culmination of a years-long campaign by rightwing billionaires to damage unions. The list goes on. After a year and a half of corporate tax cuts and rolling back commonsense protections for workplace safety, collective bargaining, retirement security, and more, we know that President Trump's promises to fight for American workers aren't really worth much of anything. Like all of the attacks on working families that we have seen from this administration, President Trump's rolling back the rights of Federal workers will lower wages, worsen conditions, hurt retirement security, and squeeze middle-class families all around the country even tighter than before. But that is not all. By attacking the Federal workforce, President Trump is making it harder for them to do their jobs. That means he is undermining services that our seniors, our veterans, and Americans from all backgrounds rely on every single day. In Massachusetts and here in Washington, Federal workers are saying: Enough is enough. So they are joining together, standing up, speaking out, and they are refusing to back down. Like so many Americans, I am grateful for their service to our country and to our communities, and I am proud to stand and fight shoulder to shoulder with these dedicated public servants, with their families, and with their communities all around the country. I am proud to stand with them. Powerful interests have been trying to break the backs of working people and their unions for decades, but we are here to say: We are not going away. We are going to fight, and we are going to win. I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, this week, we hit a milestone, but not the kind of milestone you celebrate. Nearly 1 year ago, the Commission appointed by President Trump to examine the opioid crisis recommended that the President declare a national public health emergency to help combat the epidemic. The Commission, led by former Republican Governor Chris Christie, said: The first and most urgent recommendation of this Commission is direct and completely within your control. Declare a national emergency. Yet the President dragged his feet. While he twiddled his thumbs, thousands of Americans continued to die from drug overdoses--over 115 people a day. Finally, in October of 2017, the President formally declared what we already knew--that the crisis was a public health emergency worthy of Federal action. The first declaration the President issued lasted for 90 days, but during those 90 days, nothing changed. The President didn't take action. Americans continued to suffer, and more people died day, after day, after day. On January 24, 2018, the first emergency declaration expired. So the President had his HHS Secretary sign a second one. Then, before another 90 days ran out, on April 24, the administration signed a third one. Yesterday, another 90 days later, on July 24, 2018, we began the fourth consecutive period of public health emergency due to the opioid crisis--9 months since the original declaration, 9 months during which more than 30,000 people have likely overdosed and died, all while the President and his administration have given us a lot of talk but no action. Our communities are on the frontline of this epidemic, and they are working hard to fight back, but they can't do it alone. They need funding, support, and new tools. I have worked with my Democratic colleagues to make sure that communities have what they need in this fight. Time and again, we have pressured congressional leadership for additional funding to help States and local communities address this epidemic, and the pressure has worked. I have secured millions of dollars, not just for opioid addiction and prevention and treatment but for increased mental health services, including the biggest increase in funding for the community mental health services block grant in history. I have passed bipartisan legislation to reduce the number of unused opioids that sit in medicine cabinets. Since that legislation has become law, I have continued to work across the aisle, with Senator Capito, to make sure it has actually been implemented, and we are still working on that today. I have also introduced legislation to send $100 billion in extra resources to fight this epidemic--right to the communities and Tribes that need the help the most. I am in this fight because communities in Massachusetts and all across this country deserve it. Yet President Trump is not in this fight. The President has made a lot of promises about the opioid crisis, but time and again, this President has broken his promises. Take the first time he declared the crisis an emergency. The President held a big event and talked a big game. Then he produced no tangible plan and no new commitment of Federal money beyond meager funds that were left over from responding to other public health emergencies and disasters. Declaring the crisis a national emergency was the top recommendation of the President's opioid commission, but it was not the only recommendation. The Commission's final report included 56 recommendations that it asked the administration and Congress to implement as soon as possible. Nearly all of those recommendations required the administration's involvement and leadership. So what has come of those 56 recommendations? Who knows. At best, maybe a few have been implemented. The majority seems to have just been ignored. Even members of the Commission itself have called out this administration's shameful lack of action. Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy stated that the Commission's work has been turned into a ``charade'' and a ``sham.'' Why is the Trump administration refusing to take this crisis seriously? Why? To start, it doesn't help that the administration has put people in charge of addressing this emergency who lack the relevant experience in public health or addiction. Apparently, Kellyanne Conway is running the show, but she is also, apparently, running multiple other shows at the same time. Not only is the opioid crisis not Ms. Conway's full-time responsibility, but she has also reportedly pushed aside drug policy experts and made comments about addiction that are not evidence-based. James Carroll, President Trump's nominee to run the Office of National Drug Control Policy, or ONDCP, also appears to have no experience in public or behavioral health policy. Let's not forget that the ONDCP is the agency that President Trump has, essentially, proposed to eliminate by cutting 95 percent of its funding. This is also the agency with such a high staff turnover that, earlier this year, a 24-year-old with no public health experience was promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff while the position of Chief of Staff remained unfilled. This is also the agency that has not released its required annual drug strategy for the last 2 years running. That is a lot, but as if that is not enough, the Trump administration has taken repeated steps to undermine the very programs that are critical to fighting the opioid crisis. The President has tried to slash the healthcare coverage for millions of Americans who have preexisting conditions--conditions like addiction issues. He has tried to cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of Medicaid, which provides coverage for two out of every five non-elderly adults who have opioid addictions. He has proposed slashing funding for health workforce programs, for the Prevention and Public Health Fund, and for mental health programs--all critical in addressing the epidemic. Time after time, I have asked the administration to explain the work it is supposedly doing on this crisis. I have asked John Kelly for clarification about Kellyanne Conway's role--no response. I have asked Ms. Conway directly about her role--no response. I have asked the administration about its progress on implementing the opioid commission's recommendations--no response. To me, it looks like a whole bunch of nothing--just empty words and broken promises. While the President plugs his ears and closes his eyes, Americans are dying. There were 42,000 people who died of drug overdoses in this country in 2016. From July 2016 to September 2017, across the country, emergency room visits for opioid overdoses, on average, jumped 30 percent, but only 1 in 10 individuals in need of specialty addiction treatment is actually able to access it. There is no shortage of steps we could take right now in tackling this crisis. We have confronted large-scale public health crises before, and we have made a difference. Back in the 1980s, the death toll from a poorly understood and stigmatized disease grew larger and larger. For years, the Federal Government refused to act as Americans died. That disease was HIV/AIDS. Yet activists and their loved ones demanded action, and in 1990 the Federal Government finally made a meaningful investment by passing the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act. The AIDS epidemic isn't over, but HIV is no longer a death sentence. Thanks to the Ryan White CARE Act, all who need treatment and support can get it regardless of their ability to pay. With Representative Elijah Cummings, I have introduced legislation that is modeled on the very successful Ryan White CARE Act, and we will apply it to fighting the opioid epidemic. The Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency Act would invest $100 billion over the next 10 years to ensure that every single person who deals with addiction can get the help they need, period. If President Trump wanted to prioritize this problem and make a difference in the opioid epidemic, he could do it. He has the power. He could implement his own Commission's recommendations. He could send meaningful budget requests to Congress. He could appoint qualified, hard-working people to tackle the problem. Yet he will not do any of those things as he is all talk, no action. While he keeps extending meaningless emergency declarations, Americans are dying. People with addictions--and their families--deserve more. Our communities demand more. It is time to stop nibbling around the edges and to get to work on this problem. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Merkley for bringing us here this evening to give us this chance to talk about a Supreme Court nominee and to have us all here to talk about a whole range of issues, because this Supreme Court nominee will affect the lives of every single human being. So I thank Senator Merkley for doing this. Since day one, the Trump administration has been plagued with chaos, corruption, and broken promises. Candidate Trump promised to drain the swamp in Washington, but this administration is teeming with shady, corrupt political appointees using their government service to line their own pockets and to do the bidding of their benefactors. Candidate Trump promised to take care of everyone--to make sure that every American was, in his words, ``beautifully covered.'' Instead, he is trying to rip up the Affordable Care Act, permit insurance companies to discriminate against tens of millions of people with preexisting conditions, and knock millions more off healthcare coverage. Candidate Trump promised to raise taxes on the rich. Remember that one? Yes. Instead, he handed out an eye-popping $1.5 trillion tax giveaway to giant corporations and the superrich. For hard-working American families, the Trump Presidency has turned into a nightmare. Trump hasn't broken his promises to everyone--no, not by any stretch. For millionaires, billionaires, and giant corporations, Trump has kept his promises all the way. Nowhere has that been more obvious than with our courts. ``Equal Justice Under Law''--those are the words inscribed over the top of the Supreme Court. That is what the American judicial system is supposed to be all about--a fair, neutral forum governed by the rule of law; a place where everyone can be heard; a place where individual rights are respected; a place where nobody is above the law. Those are high aspirations, but these ideas never sat well with the wealthy and well-connected. They are used to getting special deals, and a judicial system that protects everyone, no matter their wealth or status in this country, is a challenge to their unchecked power. For years, they have engaged in a concerted campaign to turn our courts into one more rigged game, a place that carefully protects the rich and powerful and kicks dirt in everyone else's face. Billionaires and giant corporations have been working on this plan for decades. Today, the rich and powerful do their best to drown our elections in money and tilt our government in their favor. Every day, they use their money to buy favors in DC. Every day, they deploy armies of lawyers and lobbyists to bend the laws passed by Congress to their will. Every day, they push this government to do just a little more for the rich and powerful and a little less for everyone else. They are doing the same in our courts too. Since Donald Trump was elected, we have seen judge after judge come through the Senate, some barely qualified, some with deeply offensive records. But nearly all these judges have one key quality: a demonstrated willingness to put a thumb on the scales for those at the top at everyone else's expense. This week, we will vote on two more Trump-nominated appeals court judges. If they are confirmed, they will continue to tilt the courts away from equal justice under law. Nowhere is this effort more obvious or more damaging than with the President's Supreme Court selections. During the Presidential campaign, Donald Trump asked one group to draw up a list of acceptable candidates to serve on the Supreme Court--one group, one very influential group, one extremist group--the Federalist Society, a radical, rightwing group deeply committed to overturning Roe v. Wade. Trump promised publicly that if he was elected President, he would select Supreme Court nominees exclusively from the Federalist Society's list. The idea of a Republican President outsourcing the selection of judges has never been so nakedly public. For decades, the Federalist Society has been one of the leading rightwing, billionaire-funded groups working to capture our courts. Their agenda? To impose their extremist agenda on the entire country, undermining critical rights like women's rights, workers' rights, voting rights, and environmental protections. The courts are at the heart of the Federalist Society's plan, so the group has been laser-focused on filling the Federal bench with people who are precommitted to serving the interests of the rich and powerful instead of dispensing equal justice under law. By allowing them to handpick the Justices who sit on the Supreme Court, Trump gave the Federalist Society an unprecedented opportunity to impose their extremist agenda on the entire country. What is at the top of their list? Overturn Roe v. Wade. A top conservative explained that Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society's longtime executive vice president, was the man to get the job done. ``No one has been more dedicated to the enterprise of building a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe than the Federalist Society's Leonard Leo.'' Criminalize abortion, punish women--that is the Federalist Society's plan. Donald Trump has been happy to dance to their tune. During the 2016 campaign, he said: Yes, women should be punished if they try to get an abortion. And if he could appoint two or three Justices, Roe would be automatically overturned. Since taking office, President Trump has made it abundantly clear that he plans to fulfill his promise to select candidates exclusively from the Federalist Society's list. Just days after his inauguration, Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch--one of the candidates on the Federalist Society's list--to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Judge Gorsuch had a long record of twisting the law in ways that favored the interests of large corporations over women, over workers, over consumers, and over just about everyone who wasn't wealthy and well- connected. Republicans were so dedicated to getting Gorsuch on the Court that they actually changed the Senate rules to get him through the Senate nomination. From his powerful perch on the Supreme Court, Judge Gorsuch has continued to make it harder for Americans to find justice. In just 1 year on the Court, he has voted to gut the ability of public sector unions to negotiate for higher wages, better benefits, and improved working conditions for teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, and other public servants; he has voted to undermine workers' ability to hold their employers accountable for breaking the law; and he has voted to uphold President Trump's immoral Muslim ban. The same powerful people who handpicked Justice Gorsuch know they will have another ally in Brett Kavanaugh. Frankly, it is not hard to see why. Like Justice Gorsuch, Judge Kavanaugh's record shows that he will continue to tilt the scales of justice in favor of the rich and powerful and against everyone else. Don't take my word for it; take a look at his record. Judge Kavanaugh voted to limit the ability of women to make their own healthcare decisions. He opposed a ruling protecting women's access to birth control under the Affordable Care Act. He voted to make it harder for agencies to protect public health, safety, and economic security. He ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau--the agency that has returned $12 billion directly to people who were cheated by corporate lawbreakers--is unconstitutional. He suggested that Federal judges might substitute their own personal policy judgments for those of expert Federal agencies that have been directed by Congress to enforce the law. Judge Kavanaugh had a lot of competition to get selected to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. After all, the Federalist Society had pulled together a whole list of people prescreened to overturn Roe v. Wade and help out the powerful corporate interests that are really calling the tune in Washington. Why pick Judge Kavanaugh? Why him instead of someone else on the list? There is something special that makes Judge Kavanaugh a lot more attractive to President Trump. Judge Kavanaugh believes that, while in office, a sitting President should be above the law. He has argued that sitting Presidents should not face personal civil suits or criminal investigations or prosecutions while in office. After the spectacle broadcast live on television around the world of President Trump attacking American intelligence agencies and American law enforcement officers while sucking up to Vladimir Putin, we should all question Judge Kavanaugh's willingness to protect the President no matter what. After Trump's deeply embarrassing performance, Republicans who actually want to stand up for the United States of America and stand up to Trump instead of hiding behind carefully worded tweets could refuse to rubberstamp Trump's Supreme Court nominee. Republicans who believe that no one is above the law could vote no on Judge Kavanaugh. There is a lot more that makes this nominee particularly attractive to President Trump. Judge Kavanaugh has demonstrated incredible hostility toward efforts to rein in public corruption and to break the stranglehold of money on our political system. Substituting your personal views for the will of Congress is not the job of a judge, and it is certainly not conservative. Stripping rights away from women, voters, workers, and immigrants, while expanding the rights of corporations and rich people isn't fair, neutral, or equal. Judge Kavanaugh didn't make this stuff up on his own, no. Judge Kavanaugh is part of a movement to twist the Constitution in ways that are deeply hostile to the rights of everyone but those at the top. He has been a part of that movement for the majority of his professional life, both before and after he became a judge, and now he has a record of 12 years of judicial decisions that demonstrate his loyalty to that radical ideology. All of this makes Brett Kavanaugh a dream candidate for the rightwing, extremist Federalist Society; a dream candidate for rightwing, extremist Republicans; a dream candidate for the rightwing groups and billionaires who want to buy off our political system; a dream candidate for a sitting President whose campaign is under an active, ongoing FBI investigation that eventually could land in the U.S. Supreme Court; a dream candidate for all of them and a nightmare for everyone else. President Trump has made his choice. Here is the thing: President Trump is not a King. The Constitution demands that the Senate have a say in who gets to serve on the Supreme Court, and that means every single Senator has a vote. Think about what is at stake. One Justice, one vote could determine whether women can make their own healthcare decisions. One Justice, one vote could determine whether workers can join unions to negotiate for better pay, better working conditions, and better benefits. One Justice, one vote could determine whether millions of people with preexisting conditions can still get health insurance. One Justice, one vote could make decisions on voting rights, civil rights, immigration, criminal justice, consumer protection, and environmental protection. One Justice, one vote could decide whether everyone or just those at the top can find justice in America. The Justices who sit on the highest Court in the country should not be prescreened by extremist groups whose agenda is to tilt the scales of justice against Americans who are most vulnerable. They should not work to hand our courts over to corporate giants and wealthy individuals. The Justices who sit on our highest Court should be unequivocally committed to one principle: equal justice under law. Judge Kavanaugh's record shows that he is not the right candidate to spend a lifetime making decisions that will touch the lives of every American. Every American who believes that our courts should not be another puppet of the rich and powerful should speak out, and every Senator who believes in equal justice under law should say no to Judge Kavanaugh. Mr. President, I yield the floor to my colleague from Oregon.

Ms. WARREN

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

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in favor of the Reed- Warren amendment. For months, I have been voicing concerns about the Trump administration's dangerous plans to develop new, more usable low-yield nuclear weapons. Specifically, this Defense bill authorizes the Pentagon to begin developing a new low-yield warhead, which the Trump administration wants to put on our Nation's submarine-launched ballistic missiles. I think this decision is strategically unwise for many reasons. I am concerned about discrimination and the risk of rapid escalation into a nuclear conflict. As many experts have publicly suggested, Russia may not be able to distinguish between an incoming Trident missile that poses an existential threat to their nation and a low- yield nuclear missile that is intended to serve as more of a warning. That may be a risk this administration is willing to take, but it is not one I can support. I am also not convinced that additional low-yield nuclear weapons are necessary for deterrence. Let's be clear. Together with our allies, the United States brings overwhelming nonnuclear coercive power to the table, but beyond that, the United States already possesses a significant low-yield nuclear arsenal. In fact, we are in the process of spending billions of dollars to upgrade our delivery systems in order to ensure that our flexible deterrent is capable of reaching anyplace, anytime. I am troubled by the message that developing new nuclear weapons variants sends to the world about America's commitment to nonproliferation. Our credibility to negotiate with other countries, like North Korea, to demand that it reduce its nuclear arsenal, depends, in part, on the fact that we have long been committed to reducing our own. We must not do anything to jeopardize that progress. That is not what this amendment is all about. In fact, I offered an amendment in committee to fence the funding for low-yield SLBM until we can better understand the impact of this new weapon on our Navy and on our obligations as a steward of nonproliferation around the world, but my amendment was not successful. I understand that some of our military leaders, and some Members of my own party, genuinely believe this new low-yield weapon is necessary. I know my colleagues approach this seriously, and I know people with good intentions can disagree, but that is exactly the purpose of this Reed-Warren amendment. The point is, we should be having this debate right here in Congress. That is where the debate belongs. The impact of the underlying provision currently in the Defense bill is that the Pentagon will not need to come to Congress to ask for permission to develop a new low-yield nuclear weapon in the future. Instead, they can merely notify that they intend to do so and then proceed on their own. If this Defense bill passes in its current form, Congress will have lost our best opportunity to have a say in how they will develop it, what it will cost, or how and where it will be deployed. The argument in favor of the existing provision is that low-yield nuclear weapons should be treated ``just like any other weapon,'' but I would say this to my colleagues: That is not the case. As Secretary Mattis has said, there is no such thing as a ``tactical'' nuclear weapon and ``any nuclear weapon used any time is a strategic game- changer.'' The truth is, nuclear weapons are not like other weapons, and we should not treat them that way. We should all be able to agree that nuclear weapons are in their own class, and they deserve special scrutiny by Congress. In fact, we have faced this very question before. Fifteen years ago, there was a similar effort to take Congress out of the debate and out of any question about the use of nuclear weapons. In that case, Senators John Warner and Jack Reed offered a bipartisan compromise proposal that said the executive branch could only go forward in the development of new nuclear weapons with explicit authorization from Congress. That proposal passed unanimously, 96 to 0, including votes from 10 of our Republican colleagues who still sit in the Senate today. The provision in the underlying Defense bill would gut that bipartisan agreement, an agreement that has held for more than 15 years. It was offered at the eleventh hour, behind closed doors, and on a party-line vote. In contrast, the amendment offered by Senator Reed today is consistent with that compromise, and a vote for the Reed-Warren amendment is a vote to sustain that bipartisan consensus. Regardless of what you think about the development and use of low- yield nuclear weapons, as a Member of the Senate, you should vote to have a voice in that process. That is what the American people sent us here to do, and that is what we owe them. I would like to thank Senator Reed for his decades of bipartisan leadership in this area, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the Reed- Warren amendment. I yield back my time. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN. Yes, I do.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise to honor the life and legacy of an American treasure, Bobby Kennedy. Robert Kennedy lived his life with courage and conviction, never afraid to challenge a divided nation to face its moral failings. Bobby challenged us all to take a step back from the stale, cheap politics of the moment and to do better by each other. His service to this Nation will never be forgotten. Today, 50 years after he was brutally assassinated, we pause to acknowledge the brilliance and beauty that rested in his vision of America--a vision that led him to seek the highest office in this land, a vision of love, wisdom, compassion, and justice. Bobby believed we all have a shared responsibility to leave this world just a little bit better off than when we came. ``Few will have the greatness to bend history itself,'' he once said, ``but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.'' History may not repeat, but it often rhymes. Conditions are different now, but a lot of the anxiety and tension that swept through this country in 1968, at the height of Bobby's political career, echoes the anxiety of today, especially the economic anxiety felt by millions of Americans who are working harder than ever but feel opportunity slipping away from themselves and their children. Too often our political and business leaders refuse to see this. Instead, they hide behind macroeconomic statistics, using them as a shield to dismiss the concerns of the American people as faulty, wrongheaded, or even nonexistent. Robert Kennedy understood that America's national economy is not the same as the economic well-being of its people. In a 1968 speech at the University of Kansas, he spoke eloquently about the differences between them, and here is what he said: [Our] Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans. Consider three statistics: corporate profits, the stock market, and unemployment. Today, corporate profits are up--corporate profits that count gun sales from manufacturers whose weapons are used to massacre children in our schools and our streets, corporate profits that count revenues from drug companies when they quadruple prices for the sick and the desperate, corporate profits that count revenues of banks like Wells Fargo as they rip off millions of American consumers. The stock market is up as giant companies pocket trillions in taxpayer money stolen from middle-class families. The market is up as CEOs shut down plants and factories in the United States and move them overseas. The market is up as business leaders, flush with cash, turn their backs on workers while they plow millions and even billions into stock buybacks to goose investors' returns and CEOs' bonuses. Unemployment is down, but wages have barely budged in a generation. Unemployment is down, but for millions of people, the exploding costs for housing, for healthcare, for childcare mean that it now takes two jobs to do what one job covered a generation ago. Unemployment is down, but the numbers fail to count the millions living in rural and urban American communities alike that have given up the search for a job. Corporate profits, the stock market, unemployment--these statistics tell us everything about the American economy, but they tell us very little about the lived experiences of today's Americans. They do not speak to the citizen who fears police violence or the police officer who fears gang violence or the immigrant who cannot speak out about sexual assault at the hands of her boss or the toxic rhetoric flowing through our politics and seeking to turn neighbor against neighbor. They do not account for our devotion to our communities, to our churches, to our children. They tell us virtually nothing about our trials, our challenges, our hopes, or our principles. Robert Kennedy understood this. He knew we cannot simply run our economy for those at the top and assume it will solve America's problems. In the intervening years since his speech, America ran that experiment anyway and watched it fail miserably. It is time to try something different. It is time to challenge each of us to do better by each other, to see the dignity in one another, to put our values first. I believe together we can make that Robert Kennedy's legacy, and I am proud to fight for it. I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

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

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, Donald Trump promised during his inaugural address to fight for ``the forgotten men and women of our country,'' but in Donald Trump's Washington, the Senate sits on its hands as the revolving door spins faster and faster. Brian Montgomery is just the latest in a line of bankers, lawyers, investors, and consultants who cashed in on their big-time public service and now want back in. Mr. Montgomery has just been confirmed to be the Commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration, the FHA, which provides taxpayer-backed insurance that helps millions of Americans buy homes they might not otherwise be able to afford. Lenders make loans to these families because the FHA gives them some protection in case the families default. Like any insurance, there are strict rules about who qualifies. Unless it is managed well, the FHA could expose taxpayers to a risk of billions of dollars in losses. Mr. Montgomery knows something about the FHA. He was the Commissioner from 2006 to 2009 while the housing market was flying high and when it all came crashing down. Since almost the day he left, he has been making buckets of money selling his knowledge to banks who broke the rules and are trying to escape the consequences. Here is what I mean. One month after leaving the FHA, Mr. Montgomery founded and became vice chairman of a new company called Collingwood Group which, according to reports, was known in the housing finance industry as a specialist in helping firms navigate FHA-related penalties and lawsuits. Who better to navigate the rules of the FHA than the guy who used to be in charge of the FHA? One of Collingwood's clients was Wells Fargo. They were in trouble for defrauding FHA, and in 2016 paid HUD a $1.2 billion fine. That is billion with a ``b.'' Wells Fargo admitted that from 2001 to 2008, it had lied to the FHA about whether certain loans were eligible for FHA insurance. Mr. Montgomery was in charge of the FHA from 2006 to 2008 and let that fraud happen. After he left, he went to the other team, giving Wells Fargo the inside scoop on how to beat the rap. Collingwood also represented U.S. Bank. In 2014, U.S. Bank paid $200 million for defrauding FHA. In its settlement, U.S. Bank admitted that ``from 2006 through 2011, it repeatedly certified for FHA insurance mortgage loans that did not meet HUD underwriting requirements.'' The taxpayers paid Mr. Montgomery to manage the FHA for 3 of those years, and he didn't stop the fraud. When he left, U.S. Bank paid him to help them get away with it. I guess it pays to be an inside guy. I have seen some amazing cases of people spinning through the revolving door, but this one might take the cake. First, Montgomery runs an agency that puts taxpayer money on the line. While there, he looks the other way as the banks submit piles of fraudulent mortgages. The government then loses millions and millions of taxpayer dollars. Then, Mr. Montgomery waltzes right out the door and 1 month later starts a company advising the same big banks on how to pay the government back as little as possible for frauds they committed on his watch. Look, he may have the best of intentions, but we can never expect the American people to trust Washington if we approve nominees like Mr. Montgomery. It is bad enough that he put taxpayer money at risk by looking the other way as the banks committed fraud and then bad enough that he got rich working for those same banks. Now the Senate is letting him go back and do it all over again? No way. It is finally time to crack down on the revolving door. Mr. President, 10 years ago, as the economy lurched toward a financial crisis, millions of American families braced for the impact. Over the next few years, almost 9 million families lost their jobs and millions more lost their homes and their savings. Giant banks--pillars of Wall Street for generations--crumbled, bringing communities across this country with it. In the aftermath of the crisis, Congress passed commonsense rules to make sure Wall Street could never again crash the economy and leave American families with the wreckage, but Donald Trump thinks that Dodd- Frank is ``a disaster,'' and he has promised to do a ``big number'' on the safeguards it created. He hired an army of bankers and bank lawyers from Wall Street to do the deed, and now Jelena McWilliams is the latest piece in the puzzle. Here is just one example. In the runup to the crisis, giant banks proved to be terrible judges of risk and ended up sucking down billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts just to survive. To fix this, Dodd- Frank directed the banking regulators to set strong capital standards that limited how much risk the big banks could load up on and required them to hold enough cushion to survive in case their bets went bad. Policymakers and regulators from both sides of the aisle agree that these financial regulations made our economy safer. Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair and former Vice Chairman Thomas Hoenig--both Republican appointees--recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that gutting capital rules ``would weaken system resiliency.'' Current FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg--a Democrat--said that strong capital requirements were ``among the most important post-crisis reforms'' and has opposed joint efforts by the Fed and the Treasury to undermine them. Ms. McWilliams would drop that opposition. In fact, she is not even sure there was anything wrong with the capitalist standards before the crisis. That is not the only rule she would roll back. Donald Trump's Wall Street mercenaries have taken aim at a lot of critical post-crisis rules, and everything we know about Ms. McWilliams suggests she will support those efforts. Here is what is on the agenda. First, there is the Volcker rule, which prohibits bank deposits from gambling with Grandma's checking money. Banks are looking to scrap this rule, even though they are raking in literally record profits, but the FDIC has to agree before there are any changes. As soon as Ms. McWilliams is confirmed, bingo. Sorry, Grandma. Next is guidance that prevents banks from offering abusive, short- term loans similar to payday loan products. The OCC has told the banks it regulates to have at it. With Ms. McWilliams in charge, it is only a matter of time before the FDIC banks get in the game. Third, there is also the Community Reinvestment Act, the CRA, which is designed to make sure a bank serves all credit-worthy customers in its community, regardless of the color of their skin. Lending discrimination is rampant in America, even though 98 percent of banks pass their CRA exams, but banks and the Trump appointees they send to Washington want to make the test for passing even easier. Under Ms. McWilliams, the FDIC evidently will not stand in the way. I could go on and on, but here is the thing. It is not just that I disagree with Ms. McWilliams or think her actions will make consumers and our economy less safe; it is that Senate Republicans are stacking the deck to allow Ms. McWilliams to make these decisions without any discussion. The five-member FDIC Board is supposed to be split between Republicans and Democrats, but the Senate is moving to confirm Ms. McWilliams before the White House has even nominated a Democratic Vice Chair for the agency. If Ms. McWilliams moves forward, the FDIC will be under complete Republican control for an indefinite amount of time. Democrats should oppose the McWilliams nomination on this basis alone. Ms. McWilliams is the latest Trump appointee who thinks the biggest problem with our financial rules is that the government is just too darn hard on the banks. Most Americans don't feel that way. They want tougher rules on Wall Street, not weaker ones. We should listen to them because they are the ones who pay the price when things go wrong on Wall Street. I urge my colleagues to vote no. I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I am here to express my strong opposition to President Trump's nomination of Gina Haspel to be the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. There are two reasons I oppose this nomination: Ms. Haspel's support for torture and her willingness to destroy evidence of the CIA's use of torture. For years, apologists for the CIA's program have tried to redescribe this inhumane practice to make it seem less appalling to the American people. They have even renamed it. Torture has been rebranded as ``enhanced interrogation.'' There is no way to hide the basic facts. The techniques used by the CIA were torture: waterboarding so the person had the repeated sensation of drowning, confining people to small boxes for hours on end, depriving people of sleep for days, forcing people to hold painful stress positions. The CIA did not invent these tactics. Listen to an American war hero describe what he endured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. I was being forced to stand up continuously--sometimes they'd make you stand up or sit on a stool for a long period of time. I'd stood up for a couple of days, with a respite only because one of the guards--the only real human being that I ever met over there--let me lie down for a couple of hours while he was on watch in the middle of one night. Speaking about his captors, this former American POW said: They bounced me from pillar to post, kicking and laughing and scratching. After a few hours of that, ropes were put on me and I sat that night bound with ropes. They beat me around a little bit. I was in such bad shape that when they hit me it would knock me unconscious. They kept saying, ``You will not receive any medical treatment until you talk.'' I was getting about three or four spoonfuls of food twice a day. Sometimes I'd go for a day or so without eating. I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine. . . . I had been reduced to an animal during this period of beating and torture. These are the words of Senator John McCain--our distinguished colleague, the senior Senator from Arizona, a decorated Naval aviator who was beaten, broken, and tortured for 2 years after being captured in North Vietnam. No matter how you dress it up, torture is torture, and it is wrong. It is inhumane, it is infective, and it is un-American. That was the conclusion of the 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program during the Bush administration. The committee drew a definitive conclusion: Torture did not work. In fact, not only does torture not work, it makes it more difficult for other agencies in our government to protect our national security. Surely a person who is seeking to be the Director of the CIA in 2018 should agree with this assessment or be able to give a really good explanation of why not. Someone seeking to be the Director of the CIA should be able to state clearly that torture is wrong, but when repeatedly asked a yes-or-no question by my colleague Senator Kamala Harris: Were the CIA's actions immoral, Ms. Haspel danced around the answer. These are not the answers of a person who can be trusted to administer the powerful CIA. That question of trust goes to my second objection: The Director of the CIA will make many decisions that will be held in secret and never reviewed by the American people. It is critical we trust her judgment and that we have complete confidence in her honesty and willingness to submit to congressional oversight. I do not have that confidence in Ms. Haspel, and here is why. As we now know from the public reports, between October and December of 2002, Ms. Haspel oversaw a CIA prison in Thailand. Under her leadership, at least one detainee was waterboarded and subjected to other torture methods. As far as we know, Ms. Haspel raised no objections. According to news reports, in 2005, Ms. Haspel recommended that the CIA destroy 92 videotapes of interrogations of detainees. CIA officials remember, at the time, Ms. Haspel was one of ``the staunchest advocates inside the building for destroying the tapes''--``the staunchest advocates inside the building for destroying the tapes.'' She went so far as to draft the order for her boss, the Director of the National Clandestine Service, to sign, urging them to use ``an industrial strength shredder,'' just to make sure they were completely destroyed. Ms. Haspel destroyed these tapes despite Federal court orders requiring the preservation of the CIA's records, despite the objections of Members of Congress, and against the order of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA Director, two White House Counsels, and senior Department of Justice officials. In a convenient coincidence for Ms. Haspel, the tapes she ordered destroyed reportedly documented the interrogation of detainees at the very same CIA prison in Thailand that Ms. Haspel previously supervised. Even more conveniently, some of the tapes reportedly documented the interrogation of the very detainee who was waterboarded under Ms. Haspel's leadership. When Senator Angus King asked about her destruction of the tapes, Ms. Haspel could come up with no credible explanation. How can we trust her to be fully forthright with Congress in the future if she cannot acknowledge missteps of the past? Ms. Haspel had numerous opportunities to question the directives she was given during this era. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee report, other CIA officers regularly called into question the effectiveness and safety of the techniques being used but not Gina Haspel. It was happening right before her eyes, and she did nothing to stop it. While her colleagues questioned the legitimacy of the CIA's program, according to public reports, Ms. Haspel vigorously defended it. According to those same reports, the Trump White House reviewed CIA message logs that ``made it clear just how accepting she had been of since disavowed interrogation techniques.'' The fact is, so far as the record indicates, the only action Ms. Haspel has taken with regard to U.S. torture practices has been to do her best to cover it up. Why relitigate the choices that were made during those dark days after 9/11? Because this matters, especially with a President like Donald Trump. As a candidate, Donald Trump said he would ``bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding'' because even ``if it doesn't work, they deserve it anyway.'' As President, Donald Trump pulled back from his plan to reinstate the use of secret CIA prisons overseas only after overwhelming bipartisan outrage. The stakes are high. The use of torture is one of the darkest chapters in our Nation's modern history. We cannot give this President any reason to drag this country back. We cannot allow any room for that mistake to occur again. Gina Haspel has spent 33 years at the CIA. She has a decorated career and has sacrificed for this country in many ways Americans will never know. I have no doubt her current and former colleagues who praise her as a patriot are sincere, but patriotism and judgment are not the same thing. Someone who puts protecting the Agency above following the law cannot be trusted. When announcing his opposition to Gina Haspel's nomination, Senator McCain recently said that ``the methods we employ to keep our nation safe must be as right and just as the values we aspire to live up to and promote in the world.'' I agree with Senator McCain, and I urge my colleagues to reject her nomination. National Police Week Mr. President, I rise to honor the lives of six Massachusetts police officers who lost their lives in the line of duty. On April 12, our Commonwealth suffered a terrible loss when Sergeant Sean Gannon of the Yarmouth Police Department was killed while serving an arrest warrant. He was only 32 years old. A native of New Bedford, MA, Sergeant Gannon graduated from Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth and then earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Westfield State University and a master's in emergency management from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. After college, Sergeant Gannon jumped headfirst into public service, first serving as a public safety officer and later becoming a police officer with the Yarmouth Police Department, where he served for 8 years. Sergeant Gannon loved working with police dogs, and he was the first full-time K-9 narcotics officer at the Yarmouth PD. His loyal patrol dog, Near- Oh, was seriously injured in the incident that claimed Sergeant Gannon's life, but he is expected to recover and return to the Gannon family. Sergeant Gannon had a huge heart and spent his free time volunteering with Big Brothers, Big Sisters, traveling, enjoying the outdoors, and working with his hands. Thousands of mourners, including law enforcement officials from across the country, gathered to pay their respects at Sergeant Gannon's wake--a testament to the high esteem with which his community held him and to the power of his sacrifice. Yarmouth police chief Frank Frederickson calls Sergeant Gannon the ``Tom Brady of our department'' and posthumously promoted him to the rank of sergeant. Last month, I spoke with Sergeant Gannon's wife, Dara, and his parents, Patrick and Denise, to offer my condolences, my thoughts, and my prayers, and I continue to hold them in my heart. Next year, Sergeant Gannon's name will be added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, recognizing law enforcement officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their communities. We owe Sergeant Gannon and all of them a deep debt of gratitude. They died as heroes. I would also like to recognize the five Massachusetts officers whose names were added to the memorial this year. Patrolman Seth A. Noyes, of the Boston Police Department, died on October 18, 1870, from injuries sustained in the line of duty. He was 41 years old. Sergeant John J. Shanahan, of the Revere Police Department, died on November 19, 1928, when he was hit by a truck while directing traffic around the scene of a car accident. He was 54 years old. Patrolman Jeremiah J. O'Connor, of the Lawrence Police Department, died on November 14, 1950, when he had a heart attack after pursuing a subject. He was 61 years old. Patrolman Frederick A. Bell, of the Newton Police Department, died on September 5, 1954, 4 months after he suffered severe injuries in a car crash. He was 39 years old. Sergeant Raymond P. Cimino, of the Chelsea Police Department, died on February 28, 1985, after suffering a heart attack. He was 44 years old. We honor their service, we honor their sacrifice, and most importantly, we honor the lives they led and the legacies they leave behind. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to honor the life and memory of Sergeant Sean Gannon of the Yarmouth Police Department, who was killed in the line of duty on April 12, 2018. This week is National Police Week, a time to honor the brave law enforcement officers who lost their lives in the line of duty. Last month, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts suffered a terrible loss when Sergeant Sean Gannon was killed while serving an arrest warrant in Barnstable. He was only 32 years old. A native of New Bedford, MA, Sergeant Gannon graduated from Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth and then earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Westfield State University and a master's in emergency management from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. After college, Sergeant Gannon jumped head first into public service, first serving as a public safety officer and later becoming a police officer with the Yarmouth Police Department, where he served for 8 years. Sergeant Gannon loved working with police dogs and was the first full-time K-9 narcotics officer at Yarmouth PD. His loyal patrol dog, Nero, was seriously injured in the incident that claimed Sergeant Gannon's life, but is expected to recover and return to the Gannon family. Sergeant Gannon had a huge heart and spent his free time volunteering with Big Brothers, Big Sisters, traveling, enjoying the outdoors, and working with his hands. Thousands of mourners, including law enforcement officers from across the country, gathered to pay their respects at Sergeant Gannon's wake, a testament to the high esteem with which his community held him and to the power of his sacrifice. Yarmouth Police Chief Frank Frederickson called Sergeant Gannon the ``Tom Brady of our department'' and posthumously promoted him to the rank of sergeant. Our hearts are broken by the loss of Sergeant Gannon. Today, we honor Sergeant Gannon's service, we honor his sacrifice, and most importantly, we honor the life he led and the legacy he leaves behind.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, at this very moment, a high school junior is reading a report online for a class paper she has due at the end of the week. Not far from her house, a single mom who recently quit her job to follow her dream of becoming an app developer is online teaching herself to code. In a city thousands of miles away, a small business owner is processing an order online to keep the lights on and the bills paid for another month. Every night in living rooms across this country, grandparents pick up their smartphones to video chat with newborn grandchildren who are hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Let's face it, the internet is intricately woven into the fabric of American society. It is a very important part of our lives, but right now our access to a fair and open internet is under siege. In December, the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, voted to eliminate the net neutrality protections that stop internet providers from blocking access, filtering content, or charging higher fees for fast lanes-- three tactics that giant internet companies want to use to control the internet. The repeal of these protections has corporate greed and corruption written all over it. This may be what the special interests want, but the American people are opposed to the very idea of a restricted internet. Net neutrality provisions are wildly popular. When it comes to a free and open internet, 83 percent of Americans are clear about their position. They want and demand a free and open internet. That is true for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and people from all backgrounds. You have to ask yourself, Why would the FCC vote to eliminate those protections? I will tell you why. Because under this administration, the FCC has become a puppet for giant internet providers. The FCC's current Chairman, Ajit Pai, has made it clear he will work to put special interests over what is good for the American people. The FCC was once an agency dedicated to protecting and promoting the public interest, but it has morphed into an agency that exists solely to do the bidding of giant telecom companies. It is a disgrace. Who can say we didn't see this coming? When Donald Trump won the White House, then-FCC Commissioner Pai said that net neutrality's days were numbered. Once Trump selected Pai to lead the FCC, Chairman Pai immediately got to work getting rid of net neutrality. He opened up a new public comment period, laying out a plan to destroy net neutrality, and he made it clear he would ignore the views of millions of Americans who weighed in to urge him to abandon that plan. The FCC received more comments on Chairman Pai's plan to kill net neutrality than any other rule in the FCC's history. Millions submitted comments opposing Chairman Pai's plan to kill net neutrality, but the FCC said it would ignore those comments unless they were, in its opinion, serious legal arguments. During the comment process, it was revealed that some of the comments had come from bots that had stolen Americans' identities and others had come from Russian addresses, but Pai dismissed those concerns. He demonstrated that, no matter what, he would forge ahead with his plan to hand over the internet to the biggest and most powerful internet providers. If Chairman Pai's plan is implemented, internet companies will literally get to set their own rules governing access to the internet. As long as they put their rules somewhere in the fine print, internet providers can pretty much do whatever they please. That is not the way government is supposed to work. The internet was created by a bunch of government and government-funded workers, and it is the government's job to protect Americans' access to a fair and open internet. The internet doesn't belong to giant internet companies. It belongs to the students striving to build a better future. It belongs to the young women and men working day and night on a new idea that will change the world. It belongs to the small business owner whose success depends on operating her business online. It belongs to the grandmas and grandpas, the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers, and friends who depend on the internet to remain connected to the people they love. It belongs to people who like to watch their favorite shows online or read the news or shop or play video games or just browse the internet. It belongs to all of us. If the FCC will not stand up for the public interest, it is up to Congress to do so, but it will take this Republican-controlled Congress prying itself free from the grip of giant companies and doing what is right for the American people. Today, we can take the first step. I ask every one of my colleagues in the Senate to join me in voting yes on the CRA resolution to restore net neutrality provisions. I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I want to start by thanking my colleague from Rhode Island for both his powerful analysis of the influence of money on the selection of our judicial nominees and also for his point about the blue slip and the implications of what this means for an independent judiciary. He has been a strong voice on this for a long time, and I think his speech on it was extraordinary and something that I hope everyone listens to and pays attention to. We are facing an unprecedented attack on our courts. This week, once again, Senator McConnell has scheduled confirmation votes on a slate of extremist judicial court nominees--nominees who have demonstrated that they are not committed to the principles of equal justice under law. In this administration, Senate Republicans have been working at breakneck speed to jam our courts with pro-corporate, narrowminded elitists who will tilt the scales of justice in favor of the rich and powerful and against everyone else. They are willing to bend and break and change every rule in the book to do it. Their latest strategy is to ignore the blue slip. For over a century, home-State Senators have played a critical role in the judicial confirmation process by using something called a blue slip to determine whether a judicial nomination should move forward. The Senate Judiciary Committee has historically refused to move forward on a nomination without a blue slip from both home-State Senators. In fact, during the Obama administration, Senate Republicans insisted on maintaining that rule, refusing to move forward on any judicial nominee who did not secure blue slips from both home State Senators. They even stretched the rule beyond all reasonable bounds to stop fairminded, mainstream nominees from being confirmed. But now that Donald Trump is in the White House, Republicans have changed their tune. In order to force extremist nominees onto our courts, they are willing to toss the blue slip right out the window. Michael Brennan, President Trump's nominee to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, is just the latest example. Even though Mr. Brennan did not receive a blue slip from both home-State Senators, Senate Republicans moved forward on his nomination. Perhaps the ultimate irony is that when President Obama nominated another candidate to fill this very same seat, Mr. Brennan penned a strong defense of Senator Johnson's decision to withhold his blue slip. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, those principles have magically disappeared. Let's be clear here. There are plenty of reasons for any Senator to be concerned about Mr. Brennan's fitness to serve on the Federal bench. I will just mention a few. Mr. Brennan has mocked millions of hard-working women who have faced sexism and obstacles to advancement. He has dismissed the idea of a glass ceiling. Mr. Brennan has defended a Wisconsin law that added unnecessary barriers to women who were seeking access to abortion, even in the case of rape or incest. Mr. Brennan supports criminal sentencing policies that slap low-level offenders with long jail sentences and exacerbate the problem of mass incarceration in America. And it gets worse. Mr. Brennan believes that it is A-OK for judges to refuse to follow binding court precedent when the judge just thinks it is incorrect. Now, that is extreme. But Senate Republicans have shown that they just don't care. They are willing to do whatever it takes to hand over our courts to moneyed interests.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I rise to express my strong opposition to President Trump's nomination of Mike Pompeo to be the next Secretary of State. There are many reasons to oppose this nomination, but the main reason for me is pretty straightforward. Mike Pompeo is completely unfit to serve as America's chief diplomat. During his time as a public servant, Mike Pompeo has embraced a variety of views that betray America's values. Whether it is his support for interrogation techniques that amount to torture, his preference for war over diplomatic solutions, or his hateful, blatantly discriminatory views about Muslim and LGBTQ Americans, Mike Pompeo's confirmation would degrade America's diplomacy and erode our moral standing on the world stage. Let's start with his evolving position on torture. In 2014, then- Congressman Pompeo praised the interrogators who used torture as ``patriots'' and ``heroes,'' but when seeking confirmation to become CIA Director, Mr. Pompeo suddenly said he would ``always comply with the law'' prohibiting torture. When asked if he would comply with a request from the President to use torture, he said he couldn't ``imagine being asked to do so.'' Never mind that as a candidate Donald Trump boasted about his desire to bring back waterboarding and ``a hell of a lot worse.'' In his later written answers, Mr. Pompeo suggested he could support bringing back waterboarding and other torture techniques if he thought they were necessary. So, first, Mike Pompeo was for torture, but when he wanted to be CIA Director, he miraculously changed his position. Now he thinks the United States should reserve the right to torture people in the future. This position undermines our core values as Americans, and that alone should disqualify him from being America's Secretary of State, but there is more. Mike Pompeo's hawkish views could quite literally lead us into another war. Just look at his views on Iran. The Iranian Government is a bad actor, no doubt about it. That is why the Iran nuclear deal was so important. It is easier to counter Iran's bad behavior if it has no nuclear weapons than it would be to keep Iran in check if it could threaten the region and threaten the world with a nuclear bomb. The deal with Iran imposed strong limits and intrusive inspections on Iran's nuclear program so it cannot develop a nuclear weapon, and our intelligence community tells us it is working. That is very important to the security of our allies and the security of the whole world. The Iran nuclear deal is a negotiated solution designed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and it was accomplished without resorting to military action. The deal is the product of putting diplomacy first. That is good for the security of the United States, good for our allies, and good for the world. Mike Pompeo doesn't seem to understand that. He has called the Iran nuclear deal a ``surrender,'' and he has said the United States should walk away. Pompeo has even publicly contemplated regime change. How can we expect countries to trust America's word when our chief diplomat believes we have the right to break our word and violate international agreements at any moment? Think for a minute about what it would mean for negotiating any deal with North Korea about their nuclear weapons if Mr. Pompeo is in charge. He said we can tear up our agreement with Iran, even though they have followed through on their part, just because Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo have decided they don't like it. Who would negotiate with a United States that has so little respect for the standing of its promises? I cannot in good faith vote in favor of Mr. Pompeo for the reasons I have outlined, but there is another reason I cannot vote for him, one that is deeply personal to me. Shortly after the Boston Marathon attack, then-Congressman Pompeo accused Muslim leaders of being silent about the bombing and even said they were potentially complicit in the attack. After the marathon bombings, all of Boston grieved together, including our Muslim leaders. Our Muslim communities helped Massachusetts emerge stronger and more united. To suggest otherwise is insulting to the Boston Marathon bombing victims and to our Muslim American brothers and sisters. When he was shown to be wrong, Mike Pompeo refused to apologize. His comments were ignorant, offensive, and just plain wrong. They certainly aren't the words of someone who is fit to be America's chief diplomat. But there is more. Mike Pompeo's longstanding attacks on the LGBTQ community also make him unfit to serve as Secretary of State. He supported legislation in Congress to allow States not to recognize equal marriage, and he relied on financial contributions from hateful groups like the Family Research Council. His public record paints a deeply disturbing world view. The risk posed by this nomination is magnified because Mike Pompeo would be teaming up with John Bolton, President Trump's new National Security Advisor. John Bolton has never met a war he didn't like, and Mike Pompeo supported Bolton's disastrous Iraq War. Together, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton will fan the flames of war in President Trump's foreign policy because they both embrace military solutions first. I hope that, if confirmed, Mr. Pompeo will take real steps to prioritize diplomacy, to improve morale at the State Department, and to fill key diplomatic positions that have been vacant for far too long. But at a time when we are facing enormous global challenges, the State Department needs a leader who will put diplomacy first to solve problems and to protect our national security. Mike Pompeo is not that leader. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against his nomination. I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

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

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I wish to take a moment to thank Senator Whitehouse for his bold leadership and continuing the fight to rid our political system of dark money. All across our country, teachers are taking to the streets to demand what no teacher should ever have to ask for: fair pay and decent benefits. In State after State, education has been cut to the bone. They have even cut the bone. Kids are crammed into overcrowded classrooms. They are handed tattered textbooks. Their teachers are paid so little that some qualify for food stamps. In fact, salaries are so low in some States that teachers are working two, three, and sometimes four jobs just to make ends meet. Many people don't know this, but teachers have always had a very special place in my heart. As a little girl growing up in Oklahoma, there was one person I admired more than anyone else in the world--my second grade teacher, Mrs. Lee. I will never forget the day that Mrs. Lee took me aside and explained that if I worked hard, I could become a teacher too. Those words changed my life. Today, I am the daughter of a maintenance man, who became a teacher, a professor, and a U.S. Senator because America invested in teachers like Mrs. Lee, and that meant investing in the thousands of students she reached through the years. I am grateful to that America. I believe in that America. But I will be honest--I am scared to death that our children and grandchildren may never know that America. Right now, in one of the richest nations on the planet, American teachers are getting crushed. I want to tell you about one of those teachers--Jonathan Moy, or Mr. Moy, as his students call him. He is a teacher in Oklahoma. Every week, Mr. Moy juggles six jobs in addition to teaching. Mr. Moy coaches two sports teams, drives for Uber and Lyft, drives a schoolbus, and umpires a Little League team so that he can provide for his two daughters. Sadly, Mr. Moy's story is becoming all too common. According to one estimate, teachers are five times more likely than other workers to have a second job. No wonder teachers are taking to the streets in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Arizona. They have had enough. I am standing shoulder to shoulder with teachers across the country because they deserve better, because our children deserve better, and because investment in teachers is an investment in our kids and ultimately an investment in our future. Like many of my colleagues in this Chamber and fellow Democrats across the country, I am in this fight for the long haul, but if we are to be successful, if we ever hope we can prevail, we should be clear-eyed about what it is that we are up against. The perilous state of affairs for education funding in our States is not the simple result of a bunch of legislatures who, after listening to their constituents, decided against supporting public education. No, the movement of teacher protests sweeping the country has revealed corruption--corruption that Republican-controlled States have been sweeping under the rug for decades. The steep cuts to education are the product of an all-out assault on our teachers and our schools that has been launched by a handful of billionaires. One of the principal tools rich and powerful people use is dark money. They have created an invasive enemy that slithers out of sight, with only a glimpse here or there, but make no mistake--this dark money has helped shape the anti-teacher, anti-worker agenda that undermines our democracy. For decades, billionaires have been pouring unlimited, secret money into the hands of carefully picked candidates who will do their bidding. We often talk about the influence dark money has right here in Washington, but the truth is, the real battle is being fought at the State and local level. Consider the State Policy Network, SPN. It is an umbrella alliance of over 60 member organizations covering nearly every State in the United States. Their member organizations hide behind deceptively apolitical names, such as the Platte Institute for Economic Research or the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. These organizations are anything but apolitical; these groups are the propaganda arm of rightwing billionaires. The State Policy Network, for example, is bankrolled by the Koch brothers through organizations like DonorsTrust, one of the Kochs' favorite investment arms. In 2016 alone, DonorsTrust made $20.3 million in grants to State Policy Network members. In addition to affiliates, the State Policy Network has over 80 associate members. It is a who's who of rightwing Koch-funded groups, such as the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the Heritage Foundation. Their funders also include an array of the biggest and most powerful corporations, including tobacco giant Philip Morris, food giant Kraft, and pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline. The goal of the State Policy Network and its myriad affiliates is to trick the public into thinking they are genuine, unbiased think tanks researching public policy issues--think that, instead of rightwing, billionaire-funded groups dedicated to hijacking every legislature in America and passing laws that work for their corporations while they leave everyone else behind. With friends like the aggressively anti-union Koch brothers, it should come as no surprise that one of the State Policy Network's top priorities is dismantling public sector unions. In a 2016 fundraising letter, the State Policy Network stated that its goal was to ``defund and defang'' government unions, and it bragged about the work of its affiliates to supply ``intellectual ammunition'' to weaken unions in States across the country. It touted its work in West Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, in shepherding passage of laws that make it harder for unions to collect union dues that cover the costs of collective bargaining. Although it focuses on State policy, the State Policy Network's agenda can have nationwide effects. Just look at the Supreme Court case Janus v. AFSCME, which will determine whether public sector unions that represent teachers, nurses, firefighters, and police officers in States and cities around this country will actually be able to collect fees from workplaces they represent--fees that allow them to negotiate for better pay, better wages, and better working conditions. The Illinois Policy Institute, a State Policy Network affiliate, works closely with the groups pushing the Court to cut off unions' funding and force them to represent workers who do not pay dues. The State Policy Network's attack on the workers is just one prong of a much larger campaign to hand government over to the rich and powerful. As one of the many tentacles of the Koch network, the State Policy Network also works to gut environmental protections that prevent big corporations from poisoning our water, our food, and our air. It works to dismantle Medicaid and other healthcare protections that provide vulnerable, low-income individuals with basic healthcare. It works to slash income and other State taxes that provide critical funds for basic government services. It works to weaken public pensions that provide government workers with financial security and retirement. Billionaires and special interests are conspiring to buy our political system. We cannot allow this to happen. That is why I am proud to join my colleagues in support of bills like the DISCLOSE Act to shine a light on the dark web of billionaires who have their hands tightly gripped around the neck of our democracy. Our government should belong to the people, not to wealthy special interests. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

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

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, it is no secret that powerful interests are working to undermine our government. Giant companies and rightwing billionaires have been pouring unlimited sums of money into making sure our government works for those at the top and leaves everyone else behind, and a key part of their strategy is to capture our courts. During the Obama administration, those powerful interests and their Republican allies in Congress executed an unprecedented campaign to stop fairminded, impartial nominees from filling judicial vacancies. Nominees weren't blocked because they were unqualified. They weren't blocked because they were inexperienced. They weren't blocked because they were out of the mainstream. They were blocked for one reason and one reason alone: because they didn't demonstrate a sufficient willingness to bend the law in favor of the rich and the powerful. With Donald Trump as President, these same interests sense a once-in- a-lifetime opportunity to reshape our courts for years to come, and they are working to stack our courts with narrow-minded elitists and rightwing radicals. Stuart Kyle Duncan--President Trump's nominee to sit on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals--is one of those nominees. Mr. Duncan has spent his career working to restrict--not to expand, but to restrict--civil rights in the United States. Over and over again, he has sought to tilt the scales of justice against women, against LGBTQ Americans, against people of color, and others. Mr. Duncan's record of supporting discrimination and injustice is quite lengthy, so I will focus on just a few of the most disturbing examples. Let's start with his record on women's rights. Mr. Duncan has worked to make it harder for women to access contraceptive coverage and abortion services. He was the lead attorney for the arts and crafts company Hobby Lobby in the Supreme Court case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. In that case, he argued that business owners should be allowed to refuse to provide female employees access to contraceptive care based on those employers' religious views. Mr. Duncan also filed briefs in many other Supreme Court cases, petitioning the Court to restrict women's access to birth control and abortion services, ignoring the fact that access to contraceptive care can help women lead better, healthier, or more financially secure lives. He is the man who is seeking a Federal judgeship. Let's take a look at his record on LGBTQ rights. Mr. Duncan has complained about what he calls the ``general acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual practices'' in America, and he has worked very hard to convince courts to adopt his narrow-minded view of the world. In the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, Mr. Duncan filed briefs, asking the Court to reach the opposite result. After the Supreme Court handed down those historic decisions, Mr. Duncan, who, today, expects to be confirmed as a Federal appellate judge, claimed that the decision would jeopardize civic peace and openly questioned the Supreme Court's legitimacy. Mr. Duncan also represented the Gloucester County School Board in its effort to deny Gavin Grimm, who is a transgender high school boy, the ability to use the boys' bathroom. He represented North Carolina's General Assembly in a lawsuit that challenged the assembly's bathroom bill banning transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals from using restrooms that are consistent with their gender identities. In his asking courts to allow government-sanctioned discrimination in these cases, Mr. Duncan has completely ignored scientific evidence and medical expertise. Instead, he has asserted that transgender individuals are mentally ill. In one case, he argued that there was no sound scientific evidence proving that individuals who identify as transgender are not delusional. In case after case, Mr. Duncan has defended discrimination and injustice. On voting rights, he defended North Carolina's discriminatory voter ID law that a Federal court concluded targeted African-American voters with almost ``surgical precision.'' On immigration, he filed briefs that opposed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, DACA Program, which allowed Dreamers to contribute to our schools, our communities, and our economy without their having the constant fear of deportation. On criminal justice, he fought to block the retroactive application of the Supreme Court's decision that ruled it is unconstitutional to sentence kids to life without parole. Time and again, Mr. Duncan has been on the wrong side of justice and has worked to undermine the civil rights of groups that have historically faced discrimination. Federal judges have one job and one job only--to dispense equal justice under law. That means everyone--man or woman, gay or straight, Black or Brown or White--should have confidence that the judges we hand lifetime appointments to will put fairness and fidelity to the law over their personal feelings or political ideologies. Stuart Kyle Duncan has made it perfectly clear that he cannot and will not meet that standard. That is why I will be voting to reject Mr. Duncan's nomination, and I urge every Senator who believes in the principle of equal justice under law to do the same. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Ms. WARREN

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

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, just weeks after making it harder to stop discrimination in mortgage lending, the Senate is now on the verge of voting to make it harder to stop discrimination in auto lending. About 40 years ago, Congress passed the important civil rights law called the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. That law said companies couldn't discriminate when offering a loan. It was a simple idea: Loan terms should be based on creditworthiness, not on the color of someone's skin. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one of the Federal agencies responsible for enforcing that 40-year-old law. The CFPB found out that when auto dealers were helping customers get financing for a car loan, minority customers were often given worse loans than their White counterparts. The underlying reason was something called a dealer reserve, where the lenders providing the financing for a car loan gave the dealer discretion to mark up the interest rate on the loan and the dealer could keep some of the additional profit from the markup. The problem was the growing evidence that dealers marked up loans higher for minorities than for Whites with similar credit profiles. In 2013, the CFPB issued guidance to these lenders about how they could make sure they were complying with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. They could institute more rigorous oversight of their auto financing process to get rid of these discriminatory practices or they could stop using the dealer reserves that facilitated these discriminatory practices and just pay dealers a flat fee per loan instead. After issuing the guidance, the CFPB found that a few auto lenders were not following the guidance. It entered into settlements with Fifth Third and the financing arms of both Honda and Toyota. These settlements returned millions of dollars to people who had been charged more for car loans simply based on the color of their skin. A lot of auto dealers and auto lenders don't like the CFPB's guidance, which brings us to today, when the Senate is about to vote on reversing this guidance and prohibiting the CFPB from ever issuing similar guidance again. This is part of the broader Republican attack on the efforts to fight economic discrimination. House Republicans have passed multiple bills that would make it harder to enforce fair lending laws. Since assuming control of the CFPB, Mick Mulvaney has taken steps to undermine the agency's Office of Fair Lending. The vote today is also a troubling followup to the recent bank deregulation bill that just passed the Senate. That bill reduced data reporting requirements for 85 percent of the banks in this country, making it harder for Federal agencies to monitor mortgage lending, uncover discrimination, and enforce the law. Now the Senate is considering rolling back guidance that explains how lenders can avoid discrimination when providing auto loans. Let's be clear. Discrimination in auto lending is alive and well. The National Fair Housing Alliance recently sent two people--one White, one non-White--to eight car dealerships in Virginia. Even though the non- White person had better credit than the White person in each instance, the non-White person ended up with a more expensive loan half of the time. Think about that--better credit and paid more for the loan. In fact, in those cases, the non-White person would have paid $2,500 more over the life of their loan than the White person with worse credit. The last thing we should be doing is making it harder to crack down on that kind of discrimination. As a wide array of civil rights and consumer groups recently wrote, ``Discrimination in auto lending continues to extract billions of dollars a year in extra loan payments from borrowers of color; Congress should be taking action to end this injustice, not interfering with efforts to enforce fair lending laws.'' A vote in favor of the resolution today is a vote to support the Trump administration's systemic dismantling of fair lending laws in this country. It is a vote in favor of Mick Mulvaney's efforts to leash up the CFPB's Office of Fair Lending. It is a vote in favor of allowing some auto lenders and dealers to continue to charge African Americans and Latinos hundreds and thousands more just because of their race. I urge all of my colleagues to oppose this resolution. Thank you. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. WARREN

Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I am here today to urge my colleagues to oppose the confirmation of two Trump nominees--John Ring, who has been nominated to the National Labor Relations Board, and Patrick Pizzella, who has been nominated Deputy Secretary of Labor. These two nominees have been selected to hold critical jobs to protect workers. That is what these jobs are about. I will be blunt. I start with a pretty high bar here since, despite his campaign rhetoric from 2 years ago, the President's track record on standing up for workers has been absolutely miserable. From the day he nominated Andrew Puzder--an executive who delighted in mocking and belittling his own low-wage workers--to run the Department of Labor, this administration has delivered one gut punch after another to America's working people. The National Labor Relations Board is responsible for protecting the rights of workers to organize and bargain for better wages and benefits, so as we consider President Trump's latest nominee for the Board, it makes sense to look at what his nominees so far have already done. Look at the new Republican majority's very first week back on the job back in December. In just 5 days, the Board mowed its way through a giant wish list of areas where giant companies were begging to be let off the hook for violating workers' rights. Allowing employers to shirk their collective bargaining obligations by contracting out workers? Check. Making it easier for employers to control the outcome of union elections. Check. Opening the door for workplace rules that chill workers' ability to join together on the job. Check. Allowing cases to be ``settled'' without input from the workers whose rights are affected by the settlement. Check. Just as troubling as these anti-worker decisions themselves are the egregious conflicts of interest behind them. From the moment he was nominated by President Trump, I have repeatedly raised concerns about Board Member William Emanuel's history of representing big corporations that have abused their workers and about his mile-long list of potential conflicts of interest. Sure enough, after just a few months on the Board, NLRB's inspector general determined that Mr. Emanuel participated in not one but two important decisions involving his former law firm, which directly violated his ethics pledge. In response, the Board vacated one of its most consequential decisions of the last year, and Member Emanuel lost any remaining credibility that he could be an impartial Board member. So I called on him to resign. Now the President wants us to put John Ring on the Board. I have asked Mr. Ring to provide a list of clients and cases that might require his recusal. To his credit, he has done so. But Mr. Ring's long list of clients is a huge red flag. Either he will ignore the ethics rules when they are inconvenient--like Mr. Emanuel did--or he will likely have to recuse himself from important cases. A large number of potential conflicts of interest isn't the only thing Mr. Ring has in common with Mr. Emanuel. Like Emanuel, Mr. Ring has also spent his career representing large employers against workers, and his few public statements on the NLRB express a belief that the Board has been too friendly to workers and that corporations have gotten the short end of the stick. After decades of stagnant wages and skyrocketing corporate profits, does anyone other than insider lobbyists and lawyers think that Washington is working for middle-class families and that big corporations are the ones under attack? I don't think so. That is exactly why an NLRB that looks out for workers is more important than ever. President Trump's NLRB is failing miserably at that mission. Working Americans deserve Board members with a demonstrated record of fighting for workers, not against them. They deserve Board members who aren't ethically and legally constrained from doing the job. Mr. Ring does not meet those qualifications. Workers need an NLRB that works for them, and they need leaders at the Department of Labor who are going to be on their side, not on the side of giant employers and extreme, rightwing donors. Patrick Pizzella has been nominated to the No. 2 job at the Department of Labor, and nothing in Mr. Pizzella's resume tells us that he meets the description of being on the side of workers. In the 1990s, Mr. Pizzella lobbied with Jack Abramoff to exempt the Northern Mariana Islands from Federal labor laws. Do you know what that did? That allowed companies to run sweatshops while slapping ``Made in America'' labels on their products. Later, when Mr. Pizzella was in charge of data management and other operations at the Labor Department, the Government Accountability Office found that the Wage and Hour Division was egregiously mishandling wage theft complaints, consistently leaving vulnerable low- wage workers out to dry, because of faulty data systems and other operational failures. After leaving the Department, Mr. Pizzella went to work for secretive, far-right donor groups, such as the Conservative Action Project, which secretly planned out the 2013 government shutdown to sabotage the Affordable Care Act and undermine many workers' access to healthcare, all while Mr. Pizzella was its highest paid employee. The Deputy Secretary position should be filled by someone who has defended worker rights, not undermined them, someone who will make government work for the American people, not hamstring it for political purposes. Mr. Pizzella is the wrong man for this job. President Trump talked a big game during his campaign about fighting for workers, but after a year of corporate tax cuts and rolling back commonsense protections for workplace safety, retirement security, and more, we know that those promises have turned out not to be worth much of anything. The Senate should send a clear message to this administration that we expect agencies like the NLRB and the Labor Department to stand up for working people, not to suck up to corporate lobbyists. Rejecting these two nominees would be a good first step. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.