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formal
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terrorists
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Islamophobic
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Mr. McCONNELL. All month, the Senate has been on the job attending to the needs of our country. We legislated, we confirmed nominees, we held major hearings, and conducted oversight on the historic response to COVID-19. Yesterday, we learned that our Senate action will continue to contrast with our absentee neighbors across the Rotunda. While essential workers across the country continue to clock in, the Democratic House of Representatives has essentially put itself on paid leave for months. Since the early days of this crisis, the self-described ``People's House'' has been suspiciously empty of people. I understand they have convened for legislative session a grand total of 2 days in the last 8 weeks. At this point, I am wondering if we should send Senators over there to collect their newspaper and water the plants. It is not just their physical absence; it is House Democrats absent from any serious discussions at all. About the only product to emerge from their lengthy sabbatical has been a 1,800-page, $3 trillion messaging bill that couldn't even unite their own conference. Yesterday, the Speaker announced this arrangement will continue for another 45 days at least, but there is a new wrinkle. House Democrats jammed through a precedent-breaking remote voting scheme that will let 1 Member cast 10 additional votes--1 Member cast 10 additional votes. Actually, 1 person, 11 votes. Remember, these are the people who want to remake every State's election laws. There are several problems with this. One of them happens to be article I, section 5 of the U.S. Constitution,which says a majority of each House shall constitute a quorum to do business. For about 231 years, Congress has managed to fulfill this job requirement. They worked through a Civil War, two World Wars, terrorist threats, and a major pandemic without trying to shirk this duty. The 12th Congress endured the War of 1812, including the occupation of Washington and the burning of this very building that we are in right now without abandoning in-person meetings. The Constitution requires a physical quorum to do business. Normally, both Chambers may presume one. But any House Member has a right to demand an in-person attendance check. The Democrats' new rule says one person may mark himself and 10 others present, even if they are nowhere in sight, which is a flatout lie. There will be enormous constitutional questions around anything the House does if they fail to demonstrate a real quorum, but plow ahead anyhow. They have had 2 normal workdays in 8 weeks and one absurd, unserious proposal. And now they are playing games with the Constitution so they can continue their never-ending spring break well into July. Let's come over here to the Senate. In the past 3 weeks, we have filled crucial posts at the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Department of Homeland Security. Today, we will confirm the next Director of National Intelligence. John Ratcliffe will lead the intelligence community in countering threats from great powers, rogue nations, and terrorists, and ensuring that work is untainted by political bias. The Banking Committee heard from Chairman Powell and Secretary Mnuchin on the workings of the CARES Act and the state of our economy. The Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee has reported the nominee to be Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery Programs. The Special Committee on Aging is examining all the ways this crisis has hurt America's seniors. The HELP Committee has discussed with top experts like Dr. Fauci and Admiral Giroir how schools, universities, and businesses will begin to reopen. Senator Cornyn and I are working on legal protections that our healthcare workers deserve and institutions will need if they want to return to anything reassembling normal. On the floor, we have passed major bills, renewing key national security tools and dialing up the consequences for Communist China's abuse of human rights. In short, the Senate has just followed the lead of the American people. For months now, healthcare workers have been clocking in to help and heal strangers. Every minute on the job is an act of selflessness and bravery. Families have forged new routines and set up home offices and home schools overnight. Community volunteers have found new ways to pitch in and help the vulnerable from 6 feet apart. Tens of millions of workers have kept collecting paychecks instead of pink slips because of our Paycheck Protection Program, which sent hundreds of billions of dollars to keep small businesses alive. COVID-19 has killed nearly 100,000 Americans. It has cost tens of millions their jobs. This is a generational tragedy. But in the midst of it, our country is pulling together. My home State of Kentucky is showing us how it is done. A glass producer transformed its operation to make protective shields for businesses. A high school principal, Evan Jackson, invented a virtual commencement so graduates didn't go uncelebrated. Dr. Erin Frazier, a pediatrician, somehow found the spare time to stand up brandnew food pantries. Restaurants are spreading hope and hospitality by donating meals to first responders. And one group of restaurants headquartered in Louisville called Texas Roadhouse has gone to great lengths to avoid layoffs. The founder gave up his salary and put his own money into a worker assistance fund. So far they have spent $17 million on their workers, covering everything from healthcare premiums to bonuses. These past few months have been trying indeed, but the American people have been truly inspiring. This spring, the Senate wrote and passed the largest rescue package in American history to try to help bridge this period. This Nation of nearly 330 million people put their lives on pause to protect our medical system, and it worked. The American people did what Americans do: They got it done. We kept our healthcare system intact; we did not let this virus break us; and as far as we know, not one single American who needed a ventilator could not get one. We have not yet won the war, but the citizens of this Nation have won an important battle. What comes next? Sustaining this flattened curve will take vigilance. Safely reopening schools, universities, and businesses will take care and leadership. The race for even more testing, therapeutics, and of course a vaccine will be one great national project. Rebuilding the prosperity we had just a few months ago will be another. Life will not go right back to normal. Repairing the damage will take creativity. But the greatest country in world history will find a more sustainable middle ground. Every one of my Senate colleagues should be proud of how we helped our Nation win this battle. Every day, our historic rescue package has continued to push out money and aid. Every day, we are working on ways to smooth the road toward reopening that lies before us. The American people have already been heroes. It is our honor as Senators to stand with them
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-05-21-pt1-PgS2563-8
| null | 700
|
formal
|
single
| null |
homophobic
|
Mr. McCONNELL. All month, the Senate has been on the job attending to the needs of our country. We legislated, we confirmed nominees, we held major hearings, and conducted oversight on the historic response to COVID-19. Yesterday, we learned that our Senate action will continue to contrast with our absentee neighbors across the Rotunda. While essential workers across the country continue to clock in, the Democratic House of Representatives has essentially put itself on paid leave for months. Since the early days of this crisis, the self-described ``People's House'' has been suspiciously empty of people. I understand they have convened for legislative session a grand total of 2 days in the last 8 weeks. At this point, I am wondering if we should send Senators over there to collect their newspaper and water the plants. It is not just their physical absence; it is House Democrats absent from any serious discussions at all. About the only product to emerge from their lengthy sabbatical has been a 1,800-page, $3 trillion messaging bill that couldn't even unite their own conference. Yesterday, the Speaker announced this arrangement will continue for another 45 days at least, but there is a new wrinkle. House Democrats jammed through a precedent-breaking remote voting scheme that will let 1 Member cast 10 additional votes--1 Member cast 10 additional votes. Actually, 1 person, 11 votes. Remember, these are the people who want to remake every State's election laws. There are several problems with this. One of them happens to be article I, section 5 of the U.S. Constitution,which says a majority of each House shall constitute a quorum to do business. For about 231 years, Congress has managed to fulfill this job requirement. They worked through a Civil War, two World Wars, terrorist threats, and a major pandemic without trying to shirk this duty. The 12th Congress endured the War of 1812, including the occupation of Washington and the burning of this very building that we are in right now without abandoning in-person meetings. The Constitution requires a physical quorum to do business. Normally, both Chambers may presume one. But any House Member has a right to demand an in-person attendance check. The Democrats' new rule says one person may mark himself and 10 others present, even if they are nowhere in sight, which is a flatout lie. There will be enormous constitutional questions around anything the House does if they fail to demonstrate a real quorum, but plow ahead anyhow. They have had 2 normal workdays in 8 weeks and one absurd, unserious proposal. And now they are playing games with the Constitution so they can continue their never-ending spring break well into July. Let's come over here to the Senate. In the past 3 weeks, we have filled crucial posts at the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Department of Homeland Security. Today, we will confirm the next Director of National Intelligence. John Ratcliffe will lead the intelligence community in countering threats from great powers, rogue nations, and terrorists, and ensuring that work is untainted by political bias. The Banking Committee heard from Chairman Powell and Secretary Mnuchin on the workings of the CARES Act and the state of our economy. The Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee has reported the nominee to be Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery Programs. The Special Committee on Aging is examining all the ways this crisis has hurt America's seniors. The HELP Committee has discussed with top experts like Dr. Fauci and Admiral Giroir how schools, universities, and businesses will begin to reopen. Senator Cornyn and I are working on legal protections that our healthcare workers deserve and institutions will need if they want to return to anything reassembling normal. On the floor, we have passed major bills, renewing key national security tools and dialing up the consequences for Communist China's abuse of human rights. In short, the Senate has just followed the lead of the American people. For months now, healthcare workers have been clocking in to help and heal strangers. Every minute on the job is an act of selflessness and bravery. Families have forged new routines and set up home offices and home schools overnight. Community volunteers have found new ways to pitch in and help the vulnerable from 6 feet apart. Tens of millions of workers have kept collecting paychecks instead of pink slips because of our Paycheck Protection Program, which sent hundreds of billions of dollars to keep small businesses alive. COVID-19 has killed nearly 100,000 Americans. It has cost tens of millions their jobs. This is a generational tragedy. But in the midst of it, our country is pulling together. My home State of Kentucky is showing us how it is done. A glass producer transformed its operation to make protective shields for businesses. A high school principal, Evan Jackson, invented a virtual commencement so graduates didn't go uncelebrated. Dr. Erin Frazier, a pediatrician, somehow found the spare time to stand up brandnew food pantries. Restaurants are spreading hope and hospitality by donating meals to first responders. And one group of restaurants headquartered in Louisville called Texas Roadhouse has gone to great lengths to avoid layoffs. The founder gave up his salary and put his own money into a worker assistance fund. So far they have spent $17 million on their workers, covering everything from healthcare premiums to bonuses. These past few months have been trying indeed, but the American people have been truly inspiring. This spring, the Senate wrote and passed the largest rescue package in American history to try to help bridge this period. This Nation of nearly 330 million people put their lives on pause to protect our medical system, and it worked. The American people did what Americans do: They got it done. We kept our healthcare system intact; we did not let this virus break us; and as far as we know, not one single American who needed a ventilator could not get one. We have not yet won the war, but the citizens of this Nation have won an important battle. What comes next? Sustaining this flattened curve will take vigilance. Safely reopening schools, universities, and businesses will take care and leadership. The race for even more testing, therapeutics, and of course a vaccine will be one great national project. Rebuilding the prosperity we had just a few months ago will be another. Life will not go right back to normal. Repairing the damage will take creativity. But the greatest country in world history will find a more sustainable middle ground. Every one of my Senate colleagues should be proud of how we helped our Nation win this battle. Every day, our historic rescue package has continued to push out money and aid. Every day, we are working on ways to smooth the road toward reopening that lies before us. The American people have already been heroes. It is our honor as Senators to stand with them
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-05-21-pt1-PgS2563-8
| null | 701
|
formal
|
single
| null |
homophobic
|
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the confirmation of Congressman John Ratcliffe to be Director of National Intelligence. I voted against John Ratcliffe for Director of National Intelligence for three key reasons. First, I do not believe Congressman Ratcliffe is qualified for the position of Director of National Intelligence, DNI. By law, a DNI requires ``extensive national security expertise.'' Past DNIs have been career civil servants or military officers with extensive experience in intelligence and foreign affairs. By contrast, Congressman Ratcliffe has been a member of Congress for 4 years and the mayor of a small town in Texas. His sole intelligence community experience is a single year on the House Intelligence Committee. I am deeply concerned that during his hearings he was unable to demonstrate a sufficient understanding of the most pressing threats and challenges that we face as a nation. Second, I am very concerned with Congressman Ratcliffe's position on torture. During his nomination hearing, he refused to denounce torture. He refused to admit that certain CIA actions following 9/11 were torture. And he refused to agree that waterboarding is torture, regardless of potential changes to U.S. law. Torture is morally reprehensible, and the head of our intelligence community must be willing to say so and prevent it from happening again. Third, the DNI must not be politically motivated. The DNI directs 17 intelligence agencies with a budget of more than $60 billion and is responsible for providing objective intelligence analysis to the President. Congressman Ratcliffe is a vocal defender of President Trump and served on his impeachment defense team. I am concerned that politics would interfere in his duties if he were confirmed. We need a confirmed DNI with the right experience and objectivity to do the job. Congressman Ratcliffe was nominated for this position last year and subsequently withdrew. Nothing has changed since then to qualify him for this role.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mrs. FEINSTEIN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-05-21-pt1-PgS2582-2
| null | 702
|
formal
|
single
| null |
homophobic
|
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I am pleased that earlier this week the Senate passed S. Res. 586, a bipartisan resolution designating this week National Public Works Week. National Public Works Week celebrates the profound impact our public works professionals have on our safety and quality of life. Public works are the shared assets that make up the backbone of our Nation. Public service professionals build, manage and operate our nation's most essential services. Many of us take for granted work that goes into the services we rely on every day. This week provides an opportunity to reflect on the men and women behind those services. Let us consider the way our daily life is powered by public service professionals: We wake up in the morning to turn the tap on and expect water to come out. We place our trash bins on the street and expect it is collected in timely manner. Some of us may drive over bridges built to last generations and follow traffic signals that were carefully planned to keep us safe. The work of public service professionals has a tangible impact on our lives every single day. Consider the employee who replaced the aging pipe that brings water to your home or the scientist that ensured that water is safe to drink. Consider also the sanitation worker who keeps your street clean and healthy. We can also think of the engineer who designed the bridge and the construction worker who started the workday before dawn to ensure the construction minimally impacted your routine. National Public Works Week gives us a formal opportunity to humanize these services and say thank you to the people working behind the scenes to keep our communities running. There is no more important time than now to recognize these individuals. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged our communities in ways previously unimaginable. However, we can count on public works employees to rise to the occasion. Public works employees are often on the frontlines, risking their own health to ensure that services are delivered. While much of public life has come to a standstill, the rhythm of public services continues. Water mains break and require repair and garbage must still be collected. The pandemic has thrust millions of Americans into financial uncertainty, unsure how they will pay for basic services. Many public works agencies, like the Baltimore Department of Public Works are continuing to offer discounted water rates as the pandemic continues. Public works also offer hope for our Nation's economic recovery. From the Great Depression came a formative era in the history of public works in America. President Franklin D. Roosevelt understood the power of transformative projects to jumpstart America's economy and provide a higher quality life than previously known. The New Deal made an indelible impact on the structure of our government and trajectory of America's financial recovery. The projects themselves now stand as a physical representation of our young Nation's capacity to overcome adversity with ingenuity and grit. The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our Nation is profound. However, our Nation is ripe for investment in public works projects that will put people back to work and stimulate our economy, as was done with the New Deal. As the ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, I understand the urgent need to address our Nation's aging infrastructure. That is why I am proud that the Committee reported favorably, on a bipartisan basis, a surface transportation reauthorization bill last year, America's Transportation Infrastructure Act, S. 2303, which authorizes billions of dollars to State and local governments to invest in roads, bridges, and highways, and why I hope my colleagues in the Senate will come together and follow through with important infrastructure legislation. There is no better time than now to invest in our Nation's infrastructure and employ a new class of public works professionals. Public works are central to the American story of resiliency and fortitude, even in the face of despair. This week, and always, we should look to public works professionals with gratitude for their contributions to our lives.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. CARDIN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-05-21-pt1-PgS2582-3
| null | 703
|
formal
|
Baltimore
| null |
racist
|
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I am pleased that earlier this week the Senate passed S. Res. 586, a bipartisan resolution designating this week National Public Works Week. National Public Works Week celebrates the profound impact our public works professionals have on our safety and quality of life. Public works are the shared assets that make up the backbone of our Nation. Public service professionals build, manage and operate our nation's most essential services. Many of us take for granted work that goes into the services we rely on every day. This week provides an opportunity to reflect on the men and women behind those services. Let us consider the way our daily life is powered by public service professionals: We wake up in the morning to turn the tap on and expect water to come out. We place our trash bins on the street and expect it is collected in timely manner. Some of us may drive over bridges built to last generations and follow traffic signals that were carefully planned to keep us safe. The work of public service professionals has a tangible impact on our lives every single day. Consider the employee who replaced the aging pipe that brings water to your home or the scientist that ensured that water is safe to drink. Consider also the sanitation worker who keeps your street clean and healthy. We can also think of the engineer who designed the bridge and the construction worker who started the workday before dawn to ensure the construction minimally impacted your routine. National Public Works Week gives us a formal opportunity to humanize these services and say thank you to the people working behind the scenes to keep our communities running. There is no more important time than now to recognize these individuals. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged our communities in ways previously unimaginable. However, we can count on public works employees to rise to the occasion. Public works employees are often on the frontlines, risking their own health to ensure that services are delivered. While much of public life has come to a standstill, the rhythm of public services continues. Water mains break and require repair and garbage must still be collected. The pandemic has thrust millions of Americans into financial uncertainty, unsure how they will pay for basic services. Many public works agencies, like the Baltimore Department of Public Works are continuing to offer discounted water rates as the pandemic continues. Public works also offer hope for our Nation's economic recovery. From the Great Depression came a formative era in the history of public works in America. President Franklin D. Roosevelt understood the power of transformative projects to jumpstart America's economy and provide a higher quality life than previously known. The New Deal made an indelible impact on the structure of our government and trajectory of America's financial recovery. The projects themselves now stand as a physical representation of our young Nation's capacity to overcome adversity with ingenuity and grit. The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our Nation is profound. However, our Nation is ripe for investment in public works projects that will put people back to work and stimulate our economy, as was done with the New Deal. As the ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, I understand the urgent need to address our Nation's aging infrastructure. That is why I am proud that the Committee reported favorably, on a bipartisan basis, a surface transportation reauthorization bill last year, America's Transportation Infrastructure Act, S. 2303, which authorizes billions of dollars to State and local governments to invest in roads, bridges, and highways, and why I hope my colleagues in the Senate will come together and follow through with important infrastructure legislation. There is no better time than now to invest in our Nation's infrastructure and employ a new class of public works professionals. Public works are central to the American story of resiliency and fortitude, even in the face of despair. This week, and always, we should look to public works professionals with gratitude for their contributions to our lives.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. CARDIN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-05-21-pt1-PgS2582-3
| null | 704
|
formal
|
single
| null |
homophobic
|
Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, with the passing of Willie K, Hawaii has lost a music legend. Through his raw talent and unmatched musicianship, Willie K blazed a trail that redefined music in Hawaii and across the country. Born William Kahaialii--and known affectionately as ``Uncle Willie'' throughout our State--Willie K wouldn't be tied down to any single genre or instrument. Instead, he did it all. Willie could play or sing almost anything. Willie's love for music came from his family. Raised in a family of musicians in Lahaina, Willie started performing at just 8 years old. Taught by his father and renowned guitarist, ManuKahaiali`i, Willie mastered the blues at a young age. He became a virtuoso instrumentalist--learning how to play every instrument that might be needed in a show from a guitar to a bass to a ukulele. And his voice was one of a kind. No style was off limits, even opera. He was able to effortlessly bridge blues and Hawaiian, local and mainstream, music and culture. Over the course of his career, Willie recorded numerous albums and performed with icons like Prince, Steven Tyler, Willie Nelson, and Santana. Always humble, he described himself as ``a working musician''--despite earning 19 Na Hoku Hanohano awards, a Hawaii Academy of Recording Arts Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Grammy nomination. Willie devoted his life to music and understood its power. He went to great lengths to help other local artists in Hawaii succeed and organized his BBQ Bluesfest annually. Even after he began to feel the effects of his illness, he continued to share his music. Willie showed us all so many things. He was talented, energetic, passionate, and authentic. But what really separated him from the rest was his unrelenting zest for life and aloha spirit. My thoughts and deepest sympathies are with his ohana and all those who loved him. He will be well remembered and greatly missed. May his memory be a blessing. May his music live on.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. SCHATZ
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-05-21-pt1-PgS2583-4
| null | 705
|
formal
|
based
| null |
white supremacist
|
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today, in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Every year, throughout the month of May, the people of the United States join together to pay tribute to the contributions and achievements of generations of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, AAPI, who have enriched the history, culture, and traditions of this country. Today, there are approximately 23,000,000 AAPis in the United States, representing more than 45 distinct ethnic groups and speaking over 100 language dialects. As the fastest growing minority population, the AAPI community continues to have an increasing impact on our national discourse. There are now 20 AAPI members of Congress, and a record number of AAPIs are serving in State and Territorial legislatures across the Nation. This year, as we celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month amid a pandemic, we recognize the over 2,000,000 AAPIS working on the frontlines as healthcare professionals, first responders, transit operators, and in supermarkets and other essential service industries. Every day, these heroic individuals risk their lives to protect the health and safety of Americans during the COVID-19 public health emergency. We also reflect broadly on the achievements and contributions of the AAPI community in the areas of politics and government, education and the arts, music, writing and literature, sports, business, medicine, and law. We pay tribute to the leaders before us, who overcame great adversity and paved the way forward. We honor great statesmen like Daniel Kahikina Akaka, the first person of Native Hawaiian ancestry to serve in the U.S. Senate. Throughout his nearly four decades in Congress, Senator Akaka worked to change the public's perception of the AAPI community and helped to preserve and restore Hawaiian language, culture, and traditions. Although he recently passed away, Senator Akaka's spirit as a true champion of aloha endures. We also remember influential labor organizers like Larry ltliong, Peter Velasco, and Philip Vera Cruz, who in 1965, led the Filipino-American farmworkers to strike alongside Cesar Chavez, demanding better pay, benefits, and working conditions. The Delano Grape Strike was one of the most pivotal civil rights and labor movements in American history. It opened doors for immigrants and people of color and inspired countless others to stand together and demand their rights. Around the time that the Filipino-American grape workers began their strike in 1965, Congress enacted the Immigration and Nationality Act, INA, also known as the Hart-Celler Act. This landmark legislation overturned discriminatory race- and nationality-based immigration policies that previously barred immigration from Asia. The INA established new policies based on reuniting families and attracting skilled professionals and helped refugees fleeing violence or unrest, notably those escaping war-torn Southeast Asia. By opening the United States to immigration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the INA's enduring legacy includes diversifying the demographic makeup of our country. This month, I introduced a resolution in honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. While we commemorate the contributions of the AAPI community, this pandemic has tested the strength of our nation. Anti-Asian racism and attacks are on the rise, stoked by those in the highest levels of government. This recent surge in discrimination and hate crimes against the AAPI community demonstrates how much work must still be done to achieve full equality. As a country of immigrants, we must now, more than ever, embrace the rich diversity of our communities, and stand up for the civil rights and equal treatment of all Americans.
|
2020-01-06
|
Ms. HIRONO
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-05-21-pt1-PgS2583
| null | 706
|
formal
|
Reagan
| null |
white supremacist
|
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, it is Thursday, one of my favorite times of the week, because it is the time I get to come to the Senate floor and recognize an extraordinary Alaskan whom we refer to as the Alaskan of the Week. Now, Memorial Day is fast approaching. It is certainly one of the most sacred days in our Nation throughout the year. For this week's Alaskan of the Week, Sharon Long, it is a day that is a particularly profound day. Sharon Long is a Gold Star mother who lives in Anchorage, and she remembers her son, Grant Fraser, every day of the year. For her and her family and for so many people who knew Grant and who served with Grant, Memorial Day is a day when his memory is particularly honored. Before I get into Sharon Long's story, as well as the remarkable story of her son Grant, let me talk a little bit about what is going on in Alaska right now as we, in our country, continue to face the challenges of this pandemic. We are doing pretty well in our State, medically, certainly. Things could, of course, change quickly. We remain vigilant as a State, but the number of people infected by the virus is very low. Businesses are starting to reopen. Life, by no means, is back to normal, and there is much that we are going to need to do to recover from this virus and pandemic, which has very, very negatively impacted so many parts of the great State of Alaska's economy--the energy sector, tourism sector, fishery sector. We will get through this stronger and more resilient, but it is a challenging time. As you know, Memorial Day weekend commemorates many virtues in our Nation: service, selflessness, and, of course, sacrifice. But Memorial Day also commemorates and inspires hope. I know hope can be a bit hard to come by during these challenging times, but I don't think we have to go very far to see signs of hope. In our great Nation and in my great State, hope is in the faces of those we love. In Alaska, it is in our mountains and our glaciers and our clear waters. It is also woven into the fabric of our country and the soul of our Nation. It is at the very heart of who we are, and it has been so throughout our history, often manifesting itself in the battles that have shaped our Nation over decades and over centuries that define so much of the American character and the people who fought those battles and died defending their Nation whom we commemorate this weekend. Hope is what Sharon Long and other Gold Star mothers throughout our State and Nation who have lost a child while defending America have to offer us. So let me tell you about Sharon's story and about her son, Marine Corps LCpl Grant Fraser, who gave his life for this Nation. From Seattle, Sharon moved to our State to live with her aunt and uncle when she was just 16 years old. She graduated from West High School in Anchorage, studied political science at Alaska Methodist University, which is now Alaska Pacific University, and embraced the great State of Alaska with everything she had. It was a heady and exciting time in Alaska. Prudhoe Bay Oil Field on the North Slope was just discovered--the biggest oilfield in North America. This is the late 1960s, early 1970s. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, one of the biggest land claims acts in U.S. history, was being debated and then passed right here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Sharon said: Alaska was a wide open place that wanted the energy of my generation. She got to work. She worked at the Department of Natural Resources, an agency that I had the honor of being the former commissioner of. She worked for the Joint Federal-State Land Use Planning Commission for Alaska, inventorying the abundant world-class natural resources we have in our State. Then she and a girlfriend traveled the world for a year and landed at the end of her tour in DC. She was young, broke, on a friend's couch, and she came here and asked for and got a job with former Alaska U.S. Senator Mike Gravel. Some might remember Senator Gravel here in the Senate. She worked on natural resource issues for him. Eventually, she made her way back home to Alaska and met her husband,an Air Force anesthesiologist, James Fraser, who made his way into private practice. Sharon helped run the office, and they had two wonderful children, Grant and Victoria. So who is Grant Fraser? Her son. He was popular at Service High School in Anchorage, where he graduated. He was an actor who loved the works of Homer and Shakespeare. He was a mountain biker, a skier, a pianist, a scuba diver, a rock climber, and a tennis player. He was lighthearted and mischievous, and according to his marine brothers, the only thing that could really rile him up was when they talked about his sister the way in which sometimes marines, unfortunately, have the habit of doing. He was a fiercely loyal brother. You could not joke about his sister Victoria, who, by the way, now is a professional soprano singer who has performed all over the world. So Sharon and her husband James assumed that Grant would become an athlete, maybe, or a scholar. He was a very, very smart young man. But shortly after 9/11, like so many patriotic young Americans across our Nation, he surprised his family and his friends when he announced he was joining the marines. ``No, no, no, no,'' Sharon told her son. ``That isn't the plan. You are going to school now.'' He told his mom: ``Mom, this isn't my scholarly time of life. I am ready to serve and fight for my country, if need be.'' He knew he would thrive in the Marines, and he did. He planned on coming back home in Anchorage to work as a paramedic with the fire department. Grant and I briefly overlapped in the Marine Corps unit. We both served in Alaska, Echo Company, 4th Reconnaissance Battalion, which was later deployed to Iraq in 2005. On August 3, 2005, in Anbar Province, Iraq, Grant was on a mission, Operation Quick Strike, to avenge the killing of his fellow marines that had happened just a few days earlier. He was riding in an AmTrac vehicle on an attack into the city, hit a massive improvised explosive device, and was 22 years old when he made the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation. Now, I love our military, but let's face it; sometimes it can be bureaucratic and boneheaded. It took 11 years and tenacious work on the part of Grant's amazing mother Sharon to finally get her son an appropriate burial across the street at Arlington. Just 2 days before the funeral, I was sitting next to Gen. Joe Dunford, the Marine Corps Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a dinner. I told General Dunford about Grant's heroism and about Sharon Long's heroic perseverance to get her son appropriately honored with a burial at Arlington. On an overcast day, September 30, 2016, Grant Fraser was put to rest among his brothers and sisters, our Nation's heroes, whom we honor this weekend at Arlington National Cemetery. Family, friends, and especially U.S. marines from all across America came to that service to say goodbye to their friend. I was there, and when I got there, I was honored to see many marines. One, in particular, came to the funeral early and stayed till the very end. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dunford, attended in his dress blues out of respect for this young Marine Corps lance corporal. He later told me that when he read about what happened with Grant, he couldn't sleep. He wanted to be at the funeral to honor Grant's sacrifice and that of his family, especially his mother Sharon. General Dunford stayed after most others had left to talk to Sharon Long, Grant's mother, and his Marine Corps brothers. ``I don't live very far from here,'' the General told Sharon. ``I will be checking in on Grant from time to time.'' Now, I have been to a lot of funerals in my Marine Corps career, but this was the most moving funeral I have ever attended. It was not because of the presence of a four-star general and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dunford, the most powerful U.S. military officer in America--in the world, really--and not because of the serendipitous presence of the Marine captain in charge of the Arlington burial honor guard, whose twin brother was one of the fallen marines whom Grant Fraser had been sent to avenge the day he was killed 11 years earlier. It was so moving on that day because, on that day, rank didn't matter, and medals didn't matter. That day we were all just Americans grieving the loss of one of our own: mischievous, smart, Marine Corps LCpl Grant Fraser, an actor, an Alaskan, a brother, a son. It was so moving because of the dignity, grace, and beautiful determination exhibited by Sharon Long, who epitomizes the love, suffering, and quiet sacrifice of so many Gold Star mothers across our country, especially this weekend. Sharon stays in touch with Grant's Marine Corps brothers. They call her on Mother's Day. They send her flowers, invite her to their weddings and to their kids' birthday parties. Two of them showed up at their family home when Sharon's daughter, Victoria, whom we already talked about, and her date were headed to prom. They needed to make sure Grant would have approved of Victoria's date. I am sure Victoria appreciated that. Grant would have been in the same place in life as these young men are now. As one of them said to Sharon: I came back home from Iraq to live the life Grant couldn't. Sharon is proud of all the men and women who have served, who served with Grant and continue to serve. She understands their calling. She understands their camaraderie. These incredible warriors in our Nation give her hope. With men and women like these, Sharon said: ``How can you not be proud of this country? How can you not be optimistic about this country?'' The lives of hundreds of thousands of America's sons and daughters have been lost in fighting for our great Nation, and on Memorial Day, they are in the hearts of all Americans. They are in the hearts of all Alaskans. They are in the hearts of all Gold Star families, and they are in the hearts of Sharon Long and her family. Like Gold Star mothers all across the country and in our great State, Sharon was fiercely determined to advocate for her son. She sacrificed much but never gave up, and neither will we ever give up on them, on him, or their memory, which we commemorate this weekend. Sharon Long's actions recalled the Memorial Day words of President Reagan in 1985 after placing a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a place that is not far from Grant Fraser's eternal resting place. As President Reagan said: If words cannot repay the debt we owe these men [and women], surely with our actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led them to battle and final sacrifice. Our first obligation to them and ourselves is plain enough: The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper. Their lives remind us that freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden. And just as they whom we commemorate were willing to sacrifice so much, so too must we--in a less final, less heroic way--be willing to give of ourselves [for our Nation]. Thank you, Sharon Long, for your brave sacrifice, for your dignified determination, and for your hope, which gives us hope. As we head into another sacred Memorial Day weekend, thank you for being our Alaskan of the Week
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. SULLIVAN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-05-21-pt1-PgS2610-5
| null | 707
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I will speak now about the Due Process Protections Act, which was sponsored by myself and Senator Durbin from Illinois and which passed the U.S. Senate last night unanimously. I thank my colleagues for their support for this simple but important bill. In fact, the Due Process Protections Act is so simple that it really probably shouldn't be necessary, but believe me, it is necessary. Unfortunately, it is necessary. I was pleased that this body passed it last night. Let me explain. The due process clause of the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark decision, Brady v. Maryland, requires that prosecutors turn over all material evidence favorable to the defense. That is what a fair trial is about. If the prosecutor has exculpatory evidence, as we call it, you need to make sure the defense has it. This is such a bedrock element of our criminal justice system and constitutional due process that the name of this kind of evidence is simply now called ``Brady evidence'' after the case Brady v. Maryland. Now, the vast majority of Federal prosecutors--and, by the way, FBI agents--who work in our criminal justice system are patriots. Many are veterans, and they work day in and day out to keep us safe and abide by their constitutional duties and obligations. They do turn Brady evidence over to the defense, as they are required to do by the Constitution. The sad fact is, some prosecutors don't do this. Some choose instead to win at all costs by taking shortcuts--not justice, but shortcuts. And when I say shortcuts, I am talking about violating a defendant's constitutional rights. The prevalence of these violations is not easy to quantify--these Brady violations, as we call them. One study--and I am not vouching for the accuracy, and this was a study called the National Registry of Exonerations--stated that from 1989 to 2017, prosecutors concealed exculpatory evidence at trial in half of all murder exonerations. If that statistic is even remotely true, it is outrageous and needs to stop. Such potential Brady violations have, once again, been in the news with the prosecution of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn--GEN Michael Flynn. There are all kinds of articles now out there. I recently wrote the head of the FBI on this very issue about the potential Brady violations by Federal prosecutors that appear to have taken place in this prosecution. What that has done in my State is that it has opened old wounds--old wounds--and difficult memories. My colleagues here--every single one of them--remember the late, great Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. As a matter of fact, his portrait is right off of the Senate floor, an incredible new portrait that we just put there recently. He was charged by Federal prosecutors with making false statements and was convicted prior to his reelection, which he lost because of the conviction by prosecutors. Not long after the conviction, it started to become apparent that there was prosecutorial misconduct in that very high-profile case, so the trial judge in that case appointed a special prosecutor to investigate this. There was a report that came out in 2012 by the Justice Department, by the special prosecutor, that was highly critical of the prosecutors' and the FBI's conduct. In particular, they withheld all kinds of Brady evidence. Just 6 months after Senator Stevens' conviction, it was revealed that Federal prosecutors had concealed numerous pieces of evidence that very likely could have resulted in his acquittal. Among the more egregious examples--and there were many--rather than call a witness whose testimony would have supported Senator Stevens, the government flew the witness home to Alaska. That is pretty pathetic. The prosecution also concealed that its star witness, who was testifying against Senator Stevens, had an illegal sexual relationship with an underage woman whom he had asked to lie about the relationship. And to this day--to this very day--there are still questions about whether the Federal Government offered that star witness, in exchange for his testimony, leniency on not prosecuting him for violating the Mann Act. There are still questions to this day. The special prosecutor that the district judge appointed to investigate the prosecutorial misconduct in the Stevens case found that the Justice Department lawyers had committed ``deliberate and `systematic' ethical violations by withholding critical evidence pointing to Senator Stevens' innocence.'' That is the Justice Department special prosecutor determining just how corrupt the Justice Department was in prosecuting and convicting Ted Stevens. Yet the special prosecutor, who investigated all of this also, found that the district court judge was powerless to act against the wrongdoers--the corrupt prosecutors--because the district court had not issued a direct, written court order at the beginning of the trial, requiring the prosecutors to abide by their ethical and constitutional obligations as laid out in Brady v. Maryland. It is a bit remarkable because every law student knows you learn Brady v. Maryland the first year of law school. But somehow these prosecutors across the street over at the Justice Department forgot about it, and they were going to be punished. But the system of justice said that you couldn't punish them because they didn't know because the judge didn't tell them. Again, I am not sure we even need a law to deal with this, but, as I said, unfortunately, we do. As you can imagine, it was maddening to the people of Alaska that those who violated Senator Stevens' constitutional rights--and, by the way, forever changed the political landscape, not just in Alaska but in America; don't get me going about what happened there--these prosecutors couldn't even be held accountable and were not held accountable because they weren't instructed by the district court about the Brady evidence requirements that they learned in law school in their first year. So in response to the Stevens case and due to growing concerns about the unfortunate frequency of Brady evidence violations by prosecutors, a number of Federal district judges began issuing specific local rules or standing orders that explicitly remind prosecutors of what they learned their first year of law school, which is that you have to turn over Brady evidence. But the Federal Judicial Conference's Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure--so, essentially, the judges who advise on the rules--has consistently declined to require all Federal courts to do the same. So right now, all Federal courts don't have to issue instructions on Brady evidence. Well, today, Congress is beginning to change all of this. My bill, which passed last night unanimously--the Due Process Protections Act--codifies this practice and requires it of every Federal judge nationwide by amending rule 5 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to require that a judge ``issue an oral or written order to prosecution and defense counsel that confirms the disclosure obligation of the prosecutor under Brady v. Maryland . . . and its progeny''--that is quoting from my bill--at the beginning of every criminal case. Our bill allows each judicial district flexibility to promulgate their own model rule, but they have to do it. Congress is telling them they have to do it, so they will do it. Having this standing order in place will explicitly remind the prosecution of their obligations--making it a priority to protect the due process of all Americans, including defendants--and it will provide for quicker recourse upon discovering any Brady violations that occur. We obviously can't undo what happened to the late, great Senator Stevens, nor can we undo all the harm it caused to my State, my constituents, and, really, the people across America who have also been victims of these kinds of violations because it undermines trust in our system of justice. But going forward, we can work to stem the corrosive effects to our democracy when prosecutors don't abide by their constitutional obligations. We can work to ensure our system of justice--the foundation of American democracy--is stronger and fairer for all, and that is what the Due Process Protections Act will do. I want to thank chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham, for helping to facilitate this bill's passage; my colleague Senator Durbin, who was my original cosponsor of this bill; and the other cosponsors: Senators Lee from Utah, Booker from New Jersey, Cornyn from Texas, Whitehouse from Rhode Island, and Paul from Kentucky. I say to the Presiding Officer, you know those Senators. That is about as broad a political array in terms of the political spectrum in America and the U.S. Senate--Democrats and Republicans who believe in this issue, and that is why I think it is so important. Our system of justice will be fairer once that bill passes the House and is signed into law by the President. I just want to thank my colleagues--all of my colleagues--who voted for this necessary and important and simple piece of legislation that, unfortunately, we need in America today. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. SULLIVAN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-05-21-pt1-PgS2611
| null | 708
|
formal
|
single
| null |
homophobic
|
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I will speak now about the Due Process Protections Act, which was sponsored by myself and Senator Durbin from Illinois and which passed the U.S. Senate last night unanimously. I thank my colleagues for their support for this simple but important bill. In fact, the Due Process Protections Act is so simple that it really probably shouldn't be necessary, but believe me, it is necessary. Unfortunately, it is necessary. I was pleased that this body passed it last night. Let me explain. The due process clause of the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark decision, Brady v. Maryland, requires that prosecutors turn over all material evidence favorable to the defense. That is what a fair trial is about. If the prosecutor has exculpatory evidence, as we call it, you need to make sure the defense has it. This is such a bedrock element of our criminal justice system and constitutional due process that the name of this kind of evidence is simply now called ``Brady evidence'' after the case Brady v. Maryland. Now, the vast majority of Federal prosecutors--and, by the way, FBI agents--who work in our criminal justice system are patriots. Many are veterans, and they work day in and day out to keep us safe and abide by their constitutional duties and obligations. They do turn Brady evidence over to the defense, as they are required to do by the Constitution. The sad fact is, some prosecutors don't do this. Some choose instead to win at all costs by taking shortcuts--not justice, but shortcuts. And when I say shortcuts, I am talking about violating a defendant's constitutional rights. The prevalence of these violations is not easy to quantify--these Brady violations, as we call them. One study--and I am not vouching for the accuracy, and this was a study called the National Registry of Exonerations--stated that from 1989 to 2017, prosecutors concealed exculpatory evidence at trial in half of all murder exonerations. If that statistic is even remotely true, it is outrageous and needs to stop. Such potential Brady violations have, once again, been in the news with the prosecution of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn--GEN Michael Flynn. There are all kinds of articles now out there. I recently wrote the head of the FBI on this very issue about the potential Brady violations by Federal prosecutors that appear to have taken place in this prosecution. What that has done in my State is that it has opened old wounds--old wounds--and difficult memories. My colleagues here--every single one of them--remember the late, great Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. As a matter of fact, his portrait is right off of the Senate floor, an incredible new portrait that we just put there recently. He was charged by Federal prosecutors with making false statements and was convicted prior to his reelection, which he lost because of the conviction by prosecutors. Not long after the conviction, it started to become apparent that there was prosecutorial misconduct in that very high-profile case, so the trial judge in that case appointed a special prosecutor to investigate this. There was a report that came out in 2012 by the Justice Department, by the special prosecutor, that was highly critical of the prosecutors' and the FBI's conduct. In particular, they withheld all kinds of Brady evidence. Just 6 months after Senator Stevens' conviction, it was revealed that Federal prosecutors had concealed numerous pieces of evidence that very likely could have resulted in his acquittal. Among the more egregious examples--and there were many--rather than call a witness whose testimony would have supported Senator Stevens, the government flew the witness home to Alaska. That is pretty pathetic. The prosecution also concealed that its star witness, who was testifying against Senator Stevens, had an illegal sexual relationship with an underage woman whom he had asked to lie about the relationship. And to this day--to this very day--there are still questions about whether the Federal Government offered that star witness, in exchange for his testimony, leniency on not prosecuting him for violating the Mann Act. There are still questions to this day. The special prosecutor that the district judge appointed to investigate the prosecutorial misconduct in the Stevens case found that the Justice Department lawyers had committed ``deliberate and `systematic' ethical violations by withholding critical evidence pointing to Senator Stevens' innocence.'' That is the Justice Department special prosecutor determining just how corrupt the Justice Department was in prosecuting and convicting Ted Stevens. Yet the special prosecutor, who investigated all of this also, found that the district court judge was powerless to act against the wrongdoers--the corrupt prosecutors--because the district court had not issued a direct, written court order at the beginning of the trial, requiring the prosecutors to abide by their ethical and constitutional obligations as laid out in Brady v. Maryland. It is a bit remarkable because every law student knows you learn Brady v. Maryland the first year of law school. But somehow these prosecutors across the street over at the Justice Department forgot about it, and they were going to be punished. But the system of justice said that you couldn't punish them because they didn't know because the judge didn't tell them. Again, I am not sure we even need a law to deal with this, but, as I said, unfortunately, we do. As you can imagine, it was maddening to the people of Alaska that those who violated Senator Stevens' constitutional rights--and, by the way, forever changed the political landscape, not just in Alaska but in America; don't get me going about what happened there--these prosecutors couldn't even be held accountable and were not held accountable because they weren't instructed by the district court about the Brady evidence requirements that they learned in law school in their first year. So in response to the Stevens case and due to growing concerns about the unfortunate frequency of Brady evidence violations by prosecutors, a number of Federal district judges began issuing specific local rules or standing orders that explicitly remind prosecutors of what they learned their first year of law school, which is that you have to turn over Brady evidence. But the Federal Judicial Conference's Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure--so, essentially, the judges who advise on the rules--has consistently declined to require all Federal courts to do the same. So right now, all Federal courts don't have to issue instructions on Brady evidence. Well, today, Congress is beginning to change all of this. My bill, which passed last night unanimously--the Due Process Protections Act--codifies this practice and requires it of every Federal judge nationwide by amending rule 5 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to require that a judge ``issue an oral or written order to prosecution and defense counsel that confirms the disclosure obligation of the prosecutor under Brady v. Maryland . . . and its progeny''--that is quoting from my bill--at the beginning of every criminal case. Our bill allows each judicial district flexibility to promulgate their own model rule, but they have to do it. Congress is telling them they have to do it, so they will do it. Having this standing order in place will explicitly remind the prosecution of their obligations--making it a priority to protect the due process of all Americans, including defendants--and it will provide for quicker recourse upon discovering any Brady violations that occur. We obviously can't undo what happened to the late, great Senator Stevens, nor can we undo all the harm it caused to my State, my constituents, and, really, the people across America who have also been victims of these kinds of violations because it undermines trust in our system of justice. But going forward, we can work to stem the corrosive effects to our democracy when prosecutors don't abide by their constitutional obligations. We can work to ensure our system of justice--the foundation of American democracy--is stronger and fairer for all, and that is what the Due Process Protections Act will do. I want to thank chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham, for helping to facilitate this bill's passage; my colleague Senator Durbin, who was my original cosponsor of this bill; and the other cosponsors: Senators Lee from Utah, Booker from New Jersey, Cornyn from Texas, Whitehouse from Rhode Island, and Paul from Kentucky. I say to the Presiding Officer, you know those Senators. That is about as broad a political array in terms of the political spectrum in America and the U.S. Senate--Democrats and Republicans who believe in this issue, and that is why I think it is so important. Our system of justice will be fairer once that bill passes the House and is signed into law by the President. I just want to thank my colleagues--all of my colleagues--who voted for this necessary and important and simple piece of legislation that, unfortunately, we need in America today. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. SULLIVAN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-05-21-pt1-PgS2611
| null | 709
|
formal
|
XX
| null |
transphobic
|
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under clause 5(d) of rule XX, the Chair announces to the House that, in light of the resignation of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ratcliffe), the whole number of the House is 431.
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2020-01-06
|
The SPEAKER pro tempore
|
House
|
CREC-2020-05-22-pt1-PgH2274-6
| null | 710
|
formal
|
based
| null |
white supremacist
|
Under clause 3 of rule XII, petitions and papers were laid on the clerk's desk and referred as follows: 96. The SPEAKER presented a petition of Mr. Gregory Watson, a citizen of Austin, TX, relative to requesting passage of legislation which would incentivize American-based manufacturers of medical equipment and medical supplies to produce that equipment and those supplies domestically within the United States so as to eliminate--or at least reduce-- America's dependency upon the fabrication of such equipment and supplies in foreign nations and the concomitant danger of critical shortages of such equipment and supplies to address the healthcare needs of United States citizens; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. 97. Also, a petition of the Morris County Board of Chosen Freeholders, relative to Res-2020-298, urging the State of New Jersey to provide direct stabilization funding to Morris County from the Coronavirus Relief Fund in an amount consistent with the allocation made to counties that have populations slightly over 500,000, by utilizing the formula applied through the CARES Act.; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Reform.
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2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
House
|
CREC-2020-05-26-pt1-PgH2283-3
| null | 711
|
formal
|
XX
| null |
transphobic
|
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the Chairwill postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which the yeas and nays are ordered. The House will resume proceedings on postponed questions at a later time.
|
2020-01-06
|
The SPEAKER pro tempore
|
House
|
CREC-2020-05-27-pt1-PgH2292-6
| null | 712
|
formal
|
XX
| null |
transphobic
|
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 3744) to condemn gross human rights violations of ethnic Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, and calling for an end to arbitrary detention, torture, and harassment of these communities inside and outside China, on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
|
2020-01-06
|
The SPEAKER pro tempore
|
House
|
CREC-2020-05-27-pt1-PgH2311
| null | 713
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 2746) to require the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to provide information on suicide rates in law enforcement, and for other purposes.
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2020-01-06
|
Mr. NADLER
|
House
|
CREC-2020-05-27-pt1-PgH2314-2
| null | 714
|
formal
|
XX
| null |
transphobic
|
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the Chair will postpone further proceedings today on additional motions to suspend the rules on which the yeas and nays are ordered. The House will resume proceedings on postponed questions at a later time.
|
2020-01-06
|
The SPEAKER pro tempore
|
House
|
CREC-2020-05-27-pt1-PgH2314
| null | 715
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Under clause 2 of rule XIV, executive communications were taken from the Speaker's table and referred as follows: 4361. A letter from the Director, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, transmitting the Bureau's interpretive rule -- Application of Certain Provisions in the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule and Regulation Z Right of Rescission Rules in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic received May 8, 2020, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Financial Services. 4362. A letter from the Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, transmitting the Corporation's 2019 Merger Decisions Report, pursuant to Sec. 18(c)(9) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act; to the Committee on Financial Services. 4363. A letter from the Director -- Office of Legislative Affairs, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, transmitting the Corporation's interim final rule -- Regulatory Capital Rule: Paycheck Protection Program Lending Facility and Paycheck Protection Program Loans; Correction (RIN: 3064- AF49) received May 8, 2020, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Financial Services. 4364. A letter from the Executive Director, Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, transmitting the Office's fiscal year 2019 Annual Report to Congress, pursuant to 12 U.S.C. 5452(e); Public Law 111-203, Sec. 342(e); (124 Stat. 1543); to the Committee on Financial Services. 4365. A letter from the Program Specialist, Chief Counsel's Office, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Department of the Treasury, transmitting the Department's interim final rule -- Short-Term Investment Funds [Docket No.: OCC-2020- 0012] (RIN: 1557-AE84) received May 5, 2020, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Financial Services. 4366. A letter from the General Counsel, Investigations, Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Review Board, transmitting the Board's final rule -- Accidental Release Reporting [Agency Docket Number: CSB-2019-0004] (RIN: 3301- AA00) received May 12, 2020, pursuant to 5 U.S.C 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. 4367. A letter from the Department of the Treasury, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, transmitting the Department's final rule -- Modernization of the Labeling and Advertising Regulations for Wine, Distilled Spirits, and Malt Beverages [Docket No.: TTB-2018-0007; T.D. TTB-158; Ref: Notice Nos. 176 and 176A] (RIN: 1513-AB54) received May 1, 2020, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Ways and Means.
|
2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
House
|
CREC-2020-05-27-pt1-PgH2320-7
| null | 716
|
formal
|
based
| null |
white supremacist
|
Under clause 3 of rule XII, petitions and papers were laid on the clerk's desk and referred as follows: 98. The SPEAKER presented a petition of the City of Miami Florida, relative to Resolution R-20-0115, urging the Federal Government and the State of Florida, both at all necessary and appropriate levels, (a) to base all future aid regarding COVID-19 to be distributed directly to each municipality based upon the number of positive cases of COVID-19 in each municipality and not based upon population and (b) specifically to allow aid to be provided to municipalities with populations of less than 500,000 residents for past, present, and future direct and indirect costs and expenses; to the Committee on Oversight and Reform. 99. Also, a petition of the Town Board of the of Town of Yorktown, NY, relative to calling upon the President of the United States Donald J. Trump; Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives; Mitch McConnell, Majority Leader of the United States Senate; United States Congressional Representatives Nita Lowey and Sean Patrick Maloney; and United States Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand to support federal funding related to the coronavirus pandemic that is directly delivered to all municipalities, regardless of population size; to the Committee on Oversight and Reform. 100. Also, a petition of the Legislature of Erie County, NY, relative to INTRO. 9-11(2020), requesting that the Congress and President Donald Trump amend the CARES Act to allow local governments to utilize the federal financial assistance to cover revenue shortfalls created by the COVID- 19 crisis; to the Committee on Oversight and Reform.
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2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
House
|
CREC-2020-05-27-pt1-PgH2322-5
| null | 717
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
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Under clause 3 of rule XII, petitions and papers were laid on the clerk's desk and referred as follows: 98. The SPEAKER presented a petition of the City of Miami Florida, relative to Resolution R-20-0115, urging the Federal Government and the State of Florida, both at all necessary and appropriate levels, (a) to base all future aid regarding COVID-19 to be distributed directly to each municipality based upon the number of positive cases of COVID-19 in each municipality and not based upon population and (b) specifically to allow aid to be provided to municipalities with populations of less than 500,000 residents for past, present, and future direct and indirect costs and expenses; to the Committee on Oversight and Reform. 99. Also, a petition of the Town Board of the of Town of Yorktown, NY, relative to calling upon the President of the United States Donald J. Trump; Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives; Mitch McConnell, Majority Leader of the United States Senate; United States Congressional Representatives Nita Lowey and Sean Patrick Maloney; and United States Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand to support federal funding related to the coronavirus pandemic that is directly delivered to all municipalities, regardless of population size; to the Committee on Oversight and Reform. 100. Also, a petition of the Legislature of Erie County, NY, relative to INTRO. 9-11(2020), requesting that the Congress and President Donald Trump amend the CARES Act to allow local governments to utilize the federal financial assistance to cover revenue shortfalls created by the COVID- 19 crisis; to the Committee on Oversight and Reform.
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2020-01-06
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Unknown
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House
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CREC-2020-05-27-pt1-PgH2322-5
| null | 718
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formal
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urban
| null |
racist
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The Chaplain, the Reverend Patrick J. Conroy, offered the following prayer: God of the universe, thank You for giving us another day. Throughout the country, people mourn those whom they have lost; people lament the loss of businesses, of normalcy. 100,000 have now died of COVID-19. They were Democrats and Republicans. They lived in urban areas, and now, more and more, in rural areas. They were the descendants of men and women who were colonists, or Founding Fathers, and immigrants who had recently become citizens. They were disproportionately people of color, but not only of color, and of every religion and culture in this Nation. When, O Lord, will we come to understand that we are all in this together, that if we do not stand together, we risk falling together? Heal the divisions within our body politic, within this Chamber, so that Your healing power, through our actions and goodwill, can be manifest in our United States. May everything done this day, and in the days and weeks to come, be for Your greater honor and glory. Amen.
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2020-01-06
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Unknown
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House
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CREC-2020-05-28-pt1-PgH2325-3
| null | 719
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formal
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XX
| null |
transphobic
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The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the Chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which the yeas and nays are ordered. The House will resume proceedings on postponed questions at a later time.
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2020-01-06
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The SPEAKER pro tempore
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House
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CREC-2020-05-28-pt1-PgH2327-3
| null | 720
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formal
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XX
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transphobic
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The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Jackson Lee). Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings will resume on the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7010) to amend the Small Business Act and the CARES Act to modify certain provisions related to the forgiveness of loans under the paycheck protection program, to allow recipients of loan forgiveness under the paycheck protection program to defer payroll taxes, and for other purposes, as amended, on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
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2020-01-06
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The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Jackson Lee)
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House
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CREC-2020-05-28-pt1-PgH2339
| null | 721
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formal
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single
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homophobic
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Under clause 2 of rule XIV, executive communications were taken from the Speaker's table and referred as follows: 4368. A letter from the Secretary, Department of Agriculture, transmitting a letter to report a violation of the Antideficiency Act, pursuant to 31 U.S.C. 1351; Public Law 97-258; (96 Stat. 926); to the Committee on Appropriations. 4369. A letter from the Inspector General, Office of Inspector General, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, transmitting a GAO Opinion Regarding FDIC OIG Appropriations; to the Committee on Appropriations. 4370. A letter from the OSD FRLO, Office of the Secretary, Department of Defense, transmitting the Department's final rule -- Service by Members of the Armed Forces on State and Local Juries [Docket ID: DOD-2020-OS-0029] (RIN: 0790-AK35) received May 15, 2020, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Armed Services. 4371. A letter from the Administrator, FEMA, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting a report advising that the cost of response and recovery efforts for FEMA-3392-EM in the State of Louisiana has exceeded the limit for a single emergency declaration, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 5193(b)(3); Public Law 93-288, Sec. 503(b)(3) (as amended by Public Law 100-707, Sec. 107(a)); (102 Stat. 4707); to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. 4372. A letter from the Chief, Publications and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, transmitting the Service's IRB only rule -- Bond remarketing relief (Notice 2020-25) received May 15, 2020, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Ways and Means. 4373. A letter from the Chief, Publications and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, transmitting the Service's notification of relief -- Extension of Certain Timeframes for Employee Benefit Plans, Participants, and Beneficiaries Affected by the COVID-19 Outbreak received May 15, 2020, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Ways and Means. 4374. A letter from the Chief, Publications and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, transmitting the Service's IRB only rule -- Revenue Procedure 2020-21 received May 15, 2020, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Ways and Means. 4375. A letter from the Chief, Publications and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, transmitting the Service's IRB only rule -- Notice Proposing Revenue Procedure Updating Group Exemption Letter Program [Notice 2020-36] received May 15, 2020, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Ways and Means.
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2020-01-06
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Unknown
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House
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CREC-2020-05-28-pt1-PgH2357-3
| null | 722
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formal
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single
| null |
homophobic
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, our Nation is hurting. George Floyd's death was horrific, and justice must be served. The Justice Department has opened an investigation, and the officer has been charged with murder. A single act of violence at the hands of an officer is one too many. George Floyd deserved better. All Black Americans do. Indeed, all Americans do. The last thing we need is more pain, more devastation, and more injustice. As a country, let's strive for compassion and listening to others. The best way to honor George Floyd is to engage with all members of our community, including Members of this body, on how to heal these wounds. This is an opportunity for Congress to discuss what reforms can and should be made to address police use of force. Let's move forward and protect our communities together. I yield the floor.
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2020-01-06
|
Mr. GRASSLEY
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2623-4
| null | 723
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formal
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the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this is an hour of great pain and unrest in our country. Americans from coast to coast have been grieved and horrified by the killings of three African-American citizens: Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, Breonna Taylor in my hometown of Louisville, KT, and George Floyd in Minneapolis. In each disturbing situation, investigations and reviews are ongoing. In Kentucky, I am glad that local authorities are investigating, I am glad the FBI is involved, and I am glad our attorney general is committed to taking any necessary action. We need the truth, and we need swift justice under law. But here is something that requires no investigation: In no world whatsoever should arresting a man for an alleged minor infraction involve a police officer putting his knee on a man's neck for 9 minutes while he cries out ``I can't breathe'' and then goes silent. To me, to a great many of my fellow Kentuckians, and to millions of outraged Americans, these disturbing events do not look like three isolated incidents. They look more like the latest chapter in our national struggle to make equal justice and equal protection of the law into facts of life for all Americans, rather than contingencies that sometimes depend on the color of one's skin. Obviously, this struggle remains incomplete. I have spent decades in the Senate not only as an advocate for civil rights but as a First Amendment purist. So I completely support and fully defend citizens' constitutional rights to speak their minds and engage in peaceful protests. Our Nation cannot deafen itself to the anger, pain, or the frustration of Black Americans. Our Nation needs to hear this. Yet, over the last several days, citizens have watched with horror as cities across America have convulsed with looting, riots, and destruction. On a nightly basis, initially peaceful demonstrations have been hijacked. Americans have watched protests dedicated to ending unjust violence mutate into riots that inflict unjust violence themselves. We have seen small businesses destroyed and public property defaced. We have seen the men and women of law enforcement--the vast majority of whom are not bad actors but brave public servants--threatened and assaulted on our streets. Free speech and peaceful protest are central American liberties. Looting, rioting, assault, and arson are violent crimes that have no place--no place--whatsoever in our society. It is not a display of courageous citizenship to smash and destroy small businesses that had just barely hung on through the pandemic. It is not an act of principled protest to grab expensive merchandise or set fire to a church. It doesnot advance freedom or justice to vandalize the World War II Memorial that stands for those who bled and died for exactly those values. You do not advance peace by committing assault. You do not advance justice by inflicting injustice upon your neighbors. You do not promote the rule of law through anarchy. There is no constitutional right to commit violent crime or to terrorize communities, period. This cannot continue. It has already gone on for entirely too long. I hope State and local authorities will work quickly to crack down on outside agitators and domestic terrorists and restore some order to our cities. If State and local leaders cannot or will not secure the peace and protect citizens and their property, I hope the Federal Government is ready to stand in the breach. In Kentucky, we are already seeing violence and tragedy compound on themselves. Several days ago, seven people were shot in Louisville--none, according to the mayor, by law enforcement. Last night, one individual was shot and killed by authorities after the police were fired upon from within a crowd. We are learning about the incident as fast as we can. I was just briefed by Governor Beshear today, and I support a full and thorough and immediate investigation. But this has to end. These important protests began with the notion that basic physical safety and legal protections must be non-negotiable for every single American, bar none; that American liberty and the rule of law must be universal truths for all, not special privileges for some. That point is absolutely right. That is a righteous and important mission. And it is exactly why these senseless and destructive riots need to end. Not next week. Not tomorrow night. Right now. Right now. We have real work to do to build constructive paths forward between law enforcement and affected communities. More violence and destruction is not just unfair to many innocent people, it also just makes this important work so much harder.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2623-6
| null | 724
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formal
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terrorists
| null |
Islamophobic
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this is an hour of great pain and unrest in our country. Americans from coast to coast have been grieved and horrified by the killings of three African-American citizens: Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, Breonna Taylor in my hometown of Louisville, KT, and George Floyd in Minneapolis. In each disturbing situation, investigations and reviews are ongoing. In Kentucky, I am glad that local authorities are investigating, I am glad the FBI is involved, and I am glad our attorney general is committed to taking any necessary action. We need the truth, and we need swift justice under law. But here is something that requires no investigation: In no world whatsoever should arresting a man for an alleged minor infraction involve a police officer putting his knee on a man's neck for 9 minutes while he cries out ``I can't breathe'' and then goes silent. To me, to a great many of my fellow Kentuckians, and to millions of outraged Americans, these disturbing events do not look like three isolated incidents. They look more like the latest chapter in our national struggle to make equal justice and equal protection of the law into facts of life for all Americans, rather than contingencies that sometimes depend on the color of one's skin. Obviously, this struggle remains incomplete. I have spent decades in the Senate not only as an advocate for civil rights but as a First Amendment purist. So I completely support and fully defend citizens' constitutional rights to speak their minds and engage in peaceful protests. Our Nation cannot deafen itself to the anger, pain, or the frustration of Black Americans. Our Nation needs to hear this. Yet, over the last several days, citizens have watched with horror as cities across America have convulsed with looting, riots, and destruction. On a nightly basis, initially peaceful demonstrations have been hijacked. Americans have watched protests dedicated to ending unjust violence mutate into riots that inflict unjust violence themselves. We have seen small businesses destroyed and public property defaced. We have seen the men and women of law enforcement--the vast majority of whom are not bad actors but brave public servants--threatened and assaulted on our streets. Free speech and peaceful protest are central American liberties. Looting, rioting, assault, and arson are violent crimes that have no place--no place--whatsoever in our society. It is not a display of courageous citizenship to smash and destroy small businesses that had just barely hung on through the pandemic. It is not an act of principled protest to grab expensive merchandise or set fire to a church. It doesnot advance freedom or justice to vandalize the World War II Memorial that stands for those who bled and died for exactly those values. You do not advance peace by committing assault. You do not advance justice by inflicting injustice upon your neighbors. You do not promote the rule of law through anarchy. There is no constitutional right to commit violent crime or to terrorize communities, period. This cannot continue. It has already gone on for entirely too long. I hope State and local authorities will work quickly to crack down on outside agitators and domestic terrorists and restore some order to our cities. If State and local leaders cannot or will not secure the peace and protect citizens and their property, I hope the Federal Government is ready to stand in the breach. In Kentucky, we are already seeing violence and tragedy compound on themselves. Several days ago, seven people were shot in Louisville--none, according to the mayor, by law enforcement. Last night, one individual was shot and killed by authorities after the police were fired upon from within a crowd. We are learning about the incident as fast as we can. I was just briefed by Governor Beshear today, and I support a full and thorough and immediate investigation. But this has to end. These important protests began with the notion that basic physical safety and legal protections must be non-negotiable for every single American, bar none; that American liberty and the rule of law must be universal truths for all, not special privileges for some. That point is absolutely right. That is a righteous and important mission. And it is exactly why these senseless and destructive riots need to end. Not next week. Not tomorrow night. Right now. Right now. We have real work to do to build constructive paths forward between law enforcement and affected communities. More violence and destruction is not just unfair to many innocent people, it also just makes this important work so much harder.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2623-6
| null | 725
|
formal
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single
| null |
homophobic
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this is an hour of great pain and unrest in our country. Americans from coast to coast have been grieved and horrified by the killings of three African-American citizens: Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, Breonna Taylor in my hometown of Louisville, KT, and George Floyd in Minneapolis. In each disturbing situation, investigations and reviews are ongoing. In Kentucky, I am glad that local authorities are investigating, I am glad the FBI is involved, and I am glad our attorney general is committed to taking any necessary action. We need the truth, and we need swift justice under law. But here is something that requires no investigation: In no world whatsoever should arresting a man for an alleged minor infraction involve a police officer putting his knee on a man's neck for 9 minutes while he cries out ``I can't breathe'' and then goes silent. To me, to a great many of my fellow Kentuckians, and to millions of outraged Americans, these disturbing events do not look like three isolated incidents. They look more like the latest chapter in our national struggle to make equal justice and equal protection of the law into facts of life for all Americans, rather than contingencies that sometimes depend on the color of one's skin. Obviously, this struggle remains incomplete. I have spent decades in the Senate not only as an advocate for civil rights but as a First Amendment purist. So I completely support and fully defend citizens' constitutional rights to speak their minds and engage in peaceful protests. Our Nation cannot deafen itself to the anger, pain, or the frustration of Black Americans. Our Nation needs to hear this. Yet, over the last several days, citizens have watched with horror as cities across America have convulsed with looting, riots, and destruction. On a nightly basis, initially peaceful demonstrations have been hijacked. Americans have watched protests dedicated to ending unjust violence mutate into riots that inflict unjust violence themselves. We have seen small businesses destroyed and public property defaced. We have seen the men and women of law enforcement--the vast majority of whom are not bad actors but brave public servants--threatened and assaulted on our streets. Free speech and peaceful protest are central American liberties. Looting, rioting, assault, and arson are violent crimes that have no place--no place--whatsoever in our society. It is not a display of courageous citizenship to smash and destroy small businesses that had just barely hung on through the pandemic. It is not an act of principled protest to grab expensive merchandise or set fire to a church. It doesnot advance freedom or justice to vandalize the World War II Memorial that stands for those who bled and died for exactly those values. You do not advance peace by committing assault. You do not advance justice by inflicting injustice upon your neighbors. You do not promote the rule of law through anarchy. There is no constitutional right to commit violent crime or to terrorize communities, period. This cannot continue. It has already gone on for entirely too long. I hope State and local authorities will work quickly to crack down on outside agitators and domestic terrorists and restore some order to our cities. If State and local leaders cannot or will not secure the peace and protect citizens and their property, I hope the Federal Government is ready to stand in the breach. In Kentucky, we are already seeing violence and tragedy compound on themselves. Several days ago, seven people were shot in Louisville--none, according to the mayor, by law enforcement. Last night, one individual was shot and killed by authorities after the police were fired upon from within a crowd. We are learning about the incident as fast as we can. I was just briefed by Governor Beshear today, and I support a full and thorough and immediate investigation. But this has to end. These important protests began with the notion that basic physical safety and legal protections must be non-negotiable for every single American, bar none; that American liberty and the rule of law must be universal truths for all, not special privileges for some. That point is absolutely right. That is a righteous and important mission. And it is exactly why these senseless and destructive riots need to end. Not next week. Not tomorrow night. Right now. Right now. We have real work to do to build constructive paths forward between law enforcement and affected communities. More violence and destruction is not just unfair to many innocent people, it also just makes this important work so much harder.
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2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
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CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2623-6
| null | 726
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formal
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single
| null |
homophobic
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on an entirely different matter, these events only compound what has already been a historically challenging time for our country. As our Nation continues to combat and contain the coronavirus, the Senate will continue to lead the response. To name one example, I hope and anticipate the Senate will soon take up and pass legislation that just passed the House by an overwhelming vote of 417 to 1 to further strengthen the Paycheck Protection Program so it continues working for small businesses that need our help. Even as we fight the pandemic, we will remember that other challenges face our Nation as well. Foreign adversaries are all too eager to exploit a distracted world. In recent days, agents of the Chinese Communist Party have taken to social media to openly taunt--openly taunt--the United States and defend their violent crackdown on the autonomy of Hong Kong. It has been almost a year since the world watched Hongkongers embark on the latest round of peaceful demonstrations against the repressive grip of the Chinese Communist Party. The world watched as Hong Kong voters, with American flags in hand, dealt crushing defeats to Beijing's preferred puppet candidates in elections last fall. But in recent weeks, as the coronavirus pandemic that China exacerbated has dominated the world's attention, the Chinese Communist Party is trying yet again to tighten their grip. New laws--supposedly related to national security--aim to stifle dissent and curtail Hongkongers' civil liberties. When I authored the U.S.-Hong Kong Policy Act way back in 1992, we wanted to ensure future Chinese regimes would respect the promises made regarding this unique, autonomous region, so we made sure the weight and suasion of the United States of America would stand with Hongkongers if need be. Unfortunately, these years later, such a time is upon us. Among other examples, we received word today that for the first time in 30 years--30 years--authorities in Hong Kong will not allow the annual candlelight vigil that commemorates the Tiananmen Square massacre to occur. For the first time in 30 years, no commemoration of the Tiananmen massacre will occur in Hong Kong. For three decades, Hong Kong has been the only place in China where full-scale remembrances of the massacre are permitted, but now they, too, will be going dark. So I am encouraged that Secretary Pompeo is tapping into that law to formally certify that Beijing's systemic efforts to interfere in Hong Kong have eroded the region's autonomy. I might say this is exactly what we were concerned about back in 1992 when the Hong Kong Policy Act was introduced by me and became law--exactly what we feared. I hope that the administration will soon identify the specific ways it will impose costs on Beijing and, just as important, continue American support for the people of Hong Kong. Under my original legislation, several tools are available. Their primary aim is to be an effective friend and partner for Hongkongers who share values of democracy and freedom and to help preserve the region's unique character, autonomy, and prosperity. Our Nation's commitment to those efforts must remain ironclad, and it must be 100 percent clear that the responsibility for threatening Hong Kong's economic, political, and social climate rests solely and squarely on the Chinese Communist Party--the regime that views free thought as a fundamental evil; the regime that sees peaceful demonstrations as an existential challenge. That is who is to blame for this, no matter what the Communist Party's two-bit propaganda is trying to claim--not the people of Hong Kong, not their friends in the United States, just the would-be tyrants in Beijing. Last year, as Congress passed Senator Rubio's update to my Hong Kong Policy Act, I also secured additional funding to provide legal protections to Hong Kong protestors and support democracy promotion activities. But if China moves in the coming days and weeks to implement its draconian new laws that strangle Hong Kong, there will be no rule of law left for protesters to appeal to. That is why the U.S. response should mirror those of other democracies that open their doors to Hongkongers fleeing oppression. Our Nation has a rich heritage of standing as a beacon of light and freedom, from refugees of war to those escaping the Iron Curtain. We should exercise it again for the people of Hong Kong. Finally, while we address these latest aggressions, we must not miss the broader lessons. The Communist Party of China does not play by the rules. They don't--not the rules of the international economy; not the rules of its bilateral agreements with other nations; not even its own rules, which are increasingly subject to the whims of President Xi. Whether they are cracking down on Hong Kong, trying to cover up a pandemic, or herding ethnic and religious minorities into modern-day gulags, this generation of Chinese leadership is telling the rest of the world every single day exactly who they are--exactly who they are. America and the world have watched China deepen its tyranny at home, assert its hegemony abroad, and undermine basic norms that protect the peace. The question before us is, What will we do to stop it?
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2624
| null | 727
|
formal
|
single
| null |
homophobic
|
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, 1 week ago today, a White police officer in Minneapolis, MN, knelt on the neck of an African-American man named George Floyd, pinning him to the ground for over 8 minutes as he pled for his life. The officer callously refused to heed those calls, standing up only after Mr. Floyd was unresponsive. Mr. Floyd was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. It was 8 minutes--8 minutes--that he was pinned there. Today, 8 days later, our Nation is reeling. It is reeling over the injustice and senselessness of George Floyd's death, reeling over the memory of Ahmaud Arbery, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, and the unimaginable number of innocent lives that were taken in similar circumstances. Our Nation is reeling from centuries of racial injustice, a legacy as old as the Nation itself and one that haunts us to this day. It took two and a half centuries and the Civil War to finally end slavery in America. It was 100 years more until the descendants of those newly freed men and women could fully enjoy the rights of citizenship. Even today, slavery is still with us. Its terrible legacy and evil effects are felt in real and discernible ways every single day. When the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in the 1830s, with amazing prescience he predicted that the United States would become a great nation--the greatest in the world--even though at the time we were a fledgling country, compared to the great powers of Europe. But he also said that the one thing that could doom our Nation was racism and racial prejudice. His words ring true today. The racial disparities in our criminal justice system have been on full display, but these disparities permeate not just the criminal justice system but all of society. There are glaring racial disparities in healthcare and housing, racial disparities in income and in wealth, in the board room and at the ballot box, on our streets and in our schools. These disparities have been with us a very long time, but COVID has placed a magnifying glass on them. Perhaps most evident and immediate, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to infect and kill African Americans at a disproportionate rate. We are confronted by the all too often fatal consequences of those disparities on a daily basis. George Floyd's killing touched off justified protests and demonstrations across the country, driven by Americans of every age, color, and creed who were distressed and upset, frightened and angry by the America they see and feel compelled to change. The overwhelmingly peaceful protests do honor to the generations of Americans who stood up and sat in and shouted at the top of their lungs in the urgent mission to make America a more perfect union. The small minority who exploit the moment for violence and mayhem are wrong and do not advance the cause of justice. I would note that while over 4,000 protesters have been arrested in the last week, only 1 in 4 of the police officers involved in the killing of George Floyd has been arrested. While that statistic does not excuse the violence we have seen, it certainly helps to explain the frustration and anger right now. There is accountability when everyday citizens and protesters violate the law, but that same accountability is far too often lacking when law enforcement violates the law, and we have to fix that. We must work to bring accountability to police departments so that bad actors are not shielded from culpability and those many officers who do the job the right way are incentivized and rewarded. We must reform our laws and our police practices so that events like George Floyd's killing are far less likely in the first place. There are many examples of departments that have made strides at improving community relations, transparency, and accountability, while reducing unwarranted violence and racial bias. We need to build on those best practices and get all of our police agencies to adopt them. We must invest in services and programs necessary to deal with issues unrelated to law enforcement, such as housing and mental health, rather than asking police officers to be responsible for addressing all of our society's challenges. There are many ways to address the broader disparities in our society, the systemic racism, and the injustice that follows America around like a shackle in our laws, in our customs, and in too many of our hearts. We have to make progress on these issues right now--not later, not next year, not after the next George Floyd but right now. Senate Democrats will be confronting and addressing all of these issues this week, and many of my colleagues will prepare legislative plans of action. We will listen to experts on these issues and our constituents who face these challenges on a daily basis. Be sure of this: We will propose and push for bold action. Leader McConnell, however, will decide whether or not the Senate will take any of that action. At the moment, he has reserved the floor of the Senate for the confirmation of several rightwing judges, many of whom will become part of the very problem we are now discussing: a justice system that doesn't work for everyone, a biased system. These are judges who were preselected specifically because of their antipathy to voting rights and civil rights and criminal justice balance and fairness. Time and again, the Republican majority has confirmed judicial nominees who pledge loyalty to an ideological doctrine that would exacerbate the very inequalities that have been laid bare in recent weeks and months. Leader McConnell is doing that this week, once again. At this delicate time, the Senate should lead on these issues rather than aggravate the problem. Leader McConnell should commit to put a law enforcement reform bill on the floor of the Senate before July 4. There shouldn't be hearings on President Trump's wild conspiracies about the 2016 election or a month of rightwing, anti-civil rights judicial nominees. As the COVID pandemic continues to rage and Americans are taking to the streets to express their anger at police violence and racial injustice, the Republican majority in the Senate must focus on the national crisis at our doorstep. Today--just today--the CBO is expected to release an estimate of the damage to our economy caused by the pandemic. If the current trends continue, the CBO predicts a jaw-dropping $16 trillion reduction in economic growth over the next decade--$16 trillion. There are 40 million Americans currently unemployed. Where is the urgency from Senate Republicans to address the economic catastrophe in our country, a catastrophe that, like police violence, will disproportionately affect African Americans and other Americans of color? We should address both these issues--COVID and police violence--this month, not spend time on fringe conspiracy theories and not spend time on putting rightwing judges who have shown no sympathy to civil rights and racial justice and harmony on the floor of the Senate. This is a moment that cries out for leadership, for compassion, for sympathy, for understanding, for action, and for our leaders to bring us together instead of letting events tear us apart. But the leader of our country, the President of the United States, struggles--struggles--to summon even an ounce of humanity in this time of turmoil. The President has reacted to the pain and anger in the country by playing politics and encouraging police to be tougher on protesters by bragging about his reelection prospects and his personal safety inside the White House. A Presidential tweet invoked a Miamipolice chief, who, in 1967 encouraged shooting Black people during riots. The President seems unable even to address the underlying issues that the protests are about. He is unwilling--unwilling--even to speak to the Nation about racial justice. Unfortunately, none of this is remotely new with President Trump. A few years ago, President Trump told law enforcement officers not to worry about injuring suspects when arresting them. His administration stopped investigating State and local police departments for racial discrimination and repealed restrictions on police departments obtaining military-style weapons. The President's policies have worsened racial divisions in this country. His rhetoric has consistently inflamed them. Either the President is too afraid to lead or is simply incapable, but all of us, right now, have to engage in the difficult work of pulling this country together and then forward. We are a nation exhausted and dispirited. In the midst of a once-in-a-generation challenge, we have been reminded of a generation's-long struggle for racial justice and equality. The only way--the only way--for us to move forward is to do it together. It is time for the large majority of police officers who do a very difficult job the right way to be part of a reform effort, for our national leaders in the Senate and the House to take up thorny issues of prejudice and discrimination and begin changing the laws and institutions that perpetuate it, and, yes, for the President to finally start acting like the leader he is supposed to be and the Constitution calls for. We are all engaged in this project to not only recover from a public health crisis and an economic disaster, but to build a society when none of our citizens fear the men and women who are supposed to protect them--a society where Americans of color can live and breathe and watch birds in a park and walk home with a bag of Skittles without fearing for their lives. As millions of Americans take to the streets in peaceful and righteous protest, I hope that this moment--one of pain and sorrow and grief--can also be a watershed moment for action. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. SCHUMER
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2625-2
| null | 728
|
formal
|
Skittles
| null |
Islamophobic
|
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, 1 week ago today, a White police officer in Minneapolis, MN, knelt on the neck of an African-American man named George Floyd, pinning him to the ground for over 8 minutes as he pled for his life. The officer callously refused to heed those calls, standing up only after Mr. Floyd was unresponsive. Mr. Floyd was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. It was 8 minutes--8 minutes--that he was pinned there. Today, 8 days later, our Nation is reeling. It is reeling over the injustice and senselessness of George Floyd's death, reeling over the memory of Ahmaud Arbery, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, and the unimaginable number of innocent lives that were taken in similar circumstances. Our Nation is reeling from centuries of racial injustice, a legacy as old as the Nation itself and one that haunts us to this day. It took two and a half centuries and the Civil War to finally end slavery in America. It was 100 years more until the descendants of those newly freed men and women could fully enjoy the rights of citizenship. Even today, slavery is still with us. Its terrible legacy and evil effects are felt in real and discernible ways every single day. When the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in the 1830s, with amazing prescience he predicted that the United States would become a great nation--the greatest in the world--even though at the time we were a fledgling country, compared to the great powers of Europe. But he also said that the one thing that could doom our Nation was racism and racial prejudice. His words ring true today. The racial disparities in our criminal justice system have been on full display, but these disparities permeate not just the criminal justice system but all of society. There are glaring racial disparities in healthcare and housing, racial disparities in income and in wealth, in the board room and at the ballot box, on our streets and in our schools. These disparities have been with us a very long time, but COVID has placed a magnifying glass on them. Perhaps most evident and immediate, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to infect and kill African Americans at a disproportionate rate. We are confronted by the all too often fatal consequences of those disparities on a daily basis. George Floyd's killing touched off justified protests and demonstrations across the country, driven by Americans of every age, color, and creed who were distressed and upset, frightened and angry by the America they see and feel compelled to change. The overwhelmingly peaceful protests do honor to the generations of Americans who stood up and sat in and shouted at the top of their lungs in the urgent mission to make America a more perfect union. The small minority who exploit the moment for violence and mayhem are wrong and do not advance the cause of justice. I would note that while over 4,000 protesters have been arrested in the last week, only 1 in 4 of the police officers involved in the killing of George Floyd has been arrested. While that statistic does not excuse the violence we have seen, it certainly helps to explain the frustration and anger right now. There is accountability when everyday citizens and protesters violate the law, but that same accountability is far too often lacking when law enforcement violates the law, and we have to fix that. We must work to bring accountability to police departments so that bad actors are not shielded from culpability and those many officers who do the job the right way are incentivized and rewarded. We must reform our laws and our police practices so that events like George Floyd's killing are far less likely in the first place. There are many examples of departments that have made strides at improving community relations, transparency, and accountability, while reducing unwarranted violence and racial bias. We need to build on those best practices and get all of our police agencies to adopt them. We must invest in services and programs necessary to deal with issues unrelated to law enforcement, such as housing and mental health, rather than asking police officers to be responsible for addressing all of our society's challenges. There are many ways to address the broader disparities in our society, the systemic racism, and the injustice that follows America around like a shackle in our laws, in our customs, and in too many of our hearts. We have to make progress on these issues right now--not later, not next year, not after the next George Floyd but right now. Senate Democrats will be confronting and addressing all of these issues this week, and many of my colleagues will prepare legislative plans of action. We will listen to experts on these issues and our constituents who face these challenges on a daily basis. Be sure of this: We will propose and push for bold action. Leader McConnell, however, will decide whether or not the Senate will take any of that action. At the moment, he has reserved the floor of the Senate for the confirmation of several rightwing judges, many of whom will become part of the very problem we are now discussing: a justice system that doesn't work for everyone, a biased system. These are judges who were preselected specifically because of their antipathy to voting rights and civil rights and criminal justice balance and fairness. Time and again, the Republican majority has confirmed judicial nominees who pledge loyalty to an ideological doctrine that would exacerbate the very inequalities that have been laid bare in recent weeks and months. Leader McConnell is doing that this week, once again. At this delicate time, the Senate should lead on these issues rather than aggravate the problem. Leader McConnell should commit to put a law enforcement reform bill on the floor of the Senate before July 4. There shouldn't be hearings on President Trump's wild conspiracies about the 2016 election or a month of rightwing, anti-civil rights judicial nominees. As the COVID pandemic continues to rage and Americans are taking to the streets to express their anger at police violence and racial injustice, the Republican majority in the Senate must focus on the national crisis at our doorstep. Today--just today--the CBO is expected to release an estimate of the damage to our economy caused by the pandemic. If the current trends continue, the CBO predicts a jaw-dropping $16 trillion reduction in economic growth over the next decade--$16 trillion. There are 40 million Americans currently unemployed. Where is the urgency from Senate Republicans to address the economic catastrophe in our country, a catastrophe that, like police violence, will disproportionately affect African Americans and other Americans of color? We should address both these issues--COVID and police violence--this month, not spend time on fringe conspiracy theories and not spend time on putting rightwing judges who have shown no sympathy to civil rights and racial justice and harmony on the floor of the Senate. This is a moment that cries out for leadership, for compassion, for sympathy, for understanding, for action, and for our leaders to bring us together instead of letting events tear us apart. But the leader of our country, the President of the United States, struggles--struggles--to summon even an ounce of humanity in this time of turmoil. The President has reacted to the pain and anger in the country by playing politics and encouraging police to be tougher on protesters by bragging about his reelection prospects and his personal safety inside the White House. A Presidential tweet invoked a Miamipolice chief, who, in 1967 encouraged shooting Black people during riots. The President seems unable even to address the underlying issues that the protests are about. He is unwilling--unwilling--even to speak to the Nation about racial justice. Unfortunately, none of this is remotely new with President Trump. A few years ago, President Trump told law enforcement officers not to worry about injuring suspects when arresting them. His administration stopped investigating State and local police departments for racial discrimination and repealed restrictions on police departments obtaining military-style weapons. The President's policies have worsened racial divisions in this country. His rhetoric has consistently inflamed them. Either the President is too afraid to lead or is simply incapable, but all of us, right now, have to engage in the difficult work of pulling this country together and then forward. We are a nation exhausted and dispirited. In the midst of a once-in-a-generation challenge, we have been reminded of a generation's-long struggle for racial justice and equality. The only way--the only way--for us to move forward is to do it together. It is time for the large majority of police officers who do a very difficult job the right way to be part of a reform effort, for our national leaders in the Senate and the House to take up thorny issues of prejudice and discrimination and begin changing the laws and institutions that perpetuate it, and, yes, for the President to finally start acting like the leader he is supposed to be and the Constitution calls for. We are all engaged in this project to not only recover from a public health crisis and an economic disaster, but to build a society when none of our citizens fear the men and women who are supposed to protect them--a society where Americans of color can live and breathe and watch birds in a park and walk home with a bag of Skittles without fearing for their lives. As millions of Americans take to the streets in peaceful and righteous protest, I hope that this moment--one of pain and sorrow and grief--can also be a watershed moment for action. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. SCHUMER
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2625-2
| null | 729
|
formal
|
urban
| null |
racist
|
Mr. HAWLEY. Madam President, it was 1 week ago today that George Floyd died in the streets of Minneapolis at the hands of Minneapolis police officers exercising and employing incredible, illegal, unconstitutional violence ending in the loss of Mr. Floyd's life. This afternoon, we have a medical report from examiners hired by Mr. Floyd's family. The words are just shocking. The report concludes: George Floyd was killed by asphyxia due to neck and back compression and died at the scene. Sustained pressure on the right side of Mr. Floyd's artery impeded blood flow to the brain, and weight on his back impeded his ability to breathe. Then the report concludes: The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired Mr. Floyd's diaphragm to function. From all the evidence, the doctors said it now appears Mr. Floyd died at the scene. Words cannot begin to describe the injustice that this report puts into plain text: the violation of police procedures, the abuse of the law, the appalling, illegal, homicidal misuse of government authority. Words cannot begin to describe the injustice that this has done to Mr. Floyd, to his family, to his community, and to millions of Americans who feel caught up, who feel judged by, endangered by, imperiled by these actions and too many others like them over too many years for too long in this country. I just want to say as the former attorney general of my State--a role in which I had the great privilege to work day in and day out with law enforcement across the State of Missouri, law enforcement who go to work every day to prevent this kind of illegal violence, to prevent this kind of illicit use of power--that the actions by the police officer and officers here in this case cast an incredible aspersion on those valiant and courageous and law-abiding police officers, Black and White and of every color across our country, who go to do their job every day to protect and uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States and to protect men and women like George Floyd. The actions of these officers in this case are an incredible betrayal of those standards of those officers and of justice itself. I understand why so many Americans have assembled peacefully to witness to this abuse of power and to protest it and to demand that justice be done. They are right to do so, and they are right to demand that this pattern of violence exercised against African-Americans be acknowledged and it be confronted and it be stopped. This is urgent work for us as a nation and for this Congress as we go forward. I also believe that those who would turn this occasion into an opportunity for rioting and for looting and for more violence and for further attacks and for civil unrest do a great disservice to the memory of Mr. Floyd, to his family, and to this cause of justice that we Americans share together, for this is a cause that is ours together as a nation. This is a cause given to us by our common Constitution. This is a cause that should link us together, American with American, and we must resist the efforts of those--all of those--who would set us against ourselves as we seek to pursue that more perfect union, as we seek to pursue justice in this case and in other cases and in the future to come. So I add my voice to those who call for an end now to the rioting and to the looting, to those who would defame and dishonor and disfigure the memory of Mr. Floyd and his cause. I hope all lawful steps will be taken to protect innocent and law-abiding citizens in our cities and in our communities so that the peaceful assembly and its righteous cause can go forward. I just want to say one more thing on this subject. We cannot ignore that these peaceful protests are taking place amid a backdrop of the 20-percent unemployment in this Nation--perhaps higher in the urban centers of our Nation. I think of a line by a former Senator, who once said that ``to be unemployed is to have nothing to do, and that means having nothing to do with the rest of us.'' I hope that as we as a nation and we as a body in the U.S. Senate turn our attention to what we can do to seek that more perfect union, what we can do to better secure the promise of our Constitution, what we can better do to secure that dream we hold together as Americans, I hope one thing we will discuss is the vitality, the necessity of work--work that is meaningful and that is rewarding and that is available for all Americans, from our urban core to our small towns. I hope we will have a discussion about the policies that for too long in this country, for too many decades, have sent too much work out of our country, away from our cities--away from our small towns, for that matter. I hope we can discuss what we will do to bring work back so that those who grow up in our cities--young men who grow up in our cities--will have a sense of a future, will have a sense of possibility, will think that ``there is something for me here. I could build a family here. I could start something here. And yes, I could have a say and a share in our society here.'' For that, they have to have work. They have to have meaningful work. This is a task to which we must set ourselves. It is urgent now in this present pandemic crisis that has seen these unemployment numbers rocket to historic, unimaginable levels. It is vital we address the crisis of work, but it is also vital for our future. It is vital for our urban core. It is vital for the young men and women who struggle there. It is vital for our rural towns and our small areas like the one I am from. It is vital for every part of this country, for every member of this Nation, and it is work I hope we will take up urgently together to provide good-paying, meaningful jobs that can support the social fabric that is the foundation of our democracy. There is much to do in the months and the years ahead. I just hope that the loss of Mr. Floyd will serve as a fresh beginning, an opportunity for a new start, for Americans from every corner of this country, from every political background, from every race and ethnicity, to stand together and to say: We commit ourselves anew to this Constitution that we love, to this Nation that we call home, and we are determined now more than ever to seek and to build a more perfect union. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. HAWLEY
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2626
| null | 730
|
formal
|
bankers
| null |
antisemitic
|
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, on to another matter, I was glad to be able to get back home to Texas this last week, where our communities are slowly coming out of a coronavirus shutdown. Churches have begun safely welcoming worshippers, restaurants are beginning to safely seat customers, albeit with the appropriate social distancing, and retailers are now beginning to safely reopen their doors. After weeks and in some cases months of hunkering down, it is a welcome sign of our progress in the fight against the coronavirus and the first step in our economic recovery. When stay-at-home orders were first put in place, small business were worried--understandably so--about their ability to survive. Many said they couldn't survive more than a couple of weeks under those circumstances. Back in March, Fort Worth chef Tim Love described the situation as ``Armageddon.'' He said: It's worse than a tornado, it's worse than a hurricane, it's worse than a fire. This is going to destroy everything that I have built. But the restaurants weren't alone; I heard similar concerns from countless other small business owners across nearly every sector of the economy--hospitality, tourism, retail, manufacturing, and the list goes on. Keeping our small businesses open means much more than having another restaurant to eat in or a shop to buy from on Main Street; it is one of the most effective ways to support our economy, by protecting those jobs. Across the country, small businesses have employed nearly half of all U.S. workers. They are the lifeblood of our local economies and provide critical services to each of our communities. Without customers coming through the front doors each day, it is hard to cover your business expenses and keep employees on the payroll. In fact, it is not just hard, it is impossible. Whether you are a new business just starting out or a decades-old community staple, the financial squeeze caused by this virus and the mitigation efforts that ensued are unavoidable. As we worked on coronavirus response legislation here in March, we knew that small businesses needed our support. That is why we established the Paycheck Protection Program and initially funded it with $350 billion. This funded loans that were available for these businesses to keep their employees on their payrolls and cover other necessary expenses, and if they did so, that loan would turn into a grant. It was so popular--and it's not hard to see why--and the need was so great that that initial funding ran out in about 2 weeks, so we wisely, in my opinion, decided to replenish it with another $320 billion. An IT and document management company in Sugar Land, TX, called Function 4 was one of the recipients of one of those PPP loans. One of the partners, Bill Patsouras, said that if it wasn't for the PPP, they would ``absolutely have to start letting people go.'' But instead of layoffs, all 89 employees of Function 4 are still employed and still working. This is a familiar story, I am sure, not just in Texas but elsewhere. As of May 23, small businesses in Texas have received more than 350,000 PPP loans totaling more than $40 billion. That is an average loan size of less than $115,000. These are for small and medium-size businesses. In speaking to my community bankers last week, I learned that one bank had approved a loan request for as little as $300. So while the average loan was $115,000, some businesses needed far less than that, including this one loan for $300. No matter how large or small, these loans have allowed businesses, churches, nonprofits, and some of our mostvaluable community institutions to survive. That is not to say, though, it was perfect--at least to start with. When it was first established, no one expected the rollout to be perfect. I think that would be an exercise in hope over experience because no government program this big and created this fast--and we knew both of those were important. We needed to go big, and we needed to deal with the need urgently. We knew there would be some problems. A brand-new loan program drafted and passed in such a short timeframe is bound to have some hiccups. So over the last several weeks, I have been working and talking to my constituents--as we all have--to identify what needs to be fixed or improved, what gaps need to be filled; figure out what is working, what isn't, and how we can make it even more effective. Well, I heard repeatedly that the biggest need was for flexibility in the use of those funds, and that is where they are needed the most. The main goal of the Paycheck Protection Program is right in the name--protecting paychecks. That is why we said that 75 percent of the money needed to be used for payroll; otherwise you were going to have to pay the money back. We said originally that the remaining 25 percent could be used for a range of other expenses, like rent or utilities. But based on the feedback I have gotten--and I am confident that I am not alone--we missed our mark by establishing that 75-percent requirement. For many who had no business because they were shut down as part of the mitigation efforts, their payroll expenses--they couldn't use the three-quarters of the loan for payroll--at least not in the short timeframe we allowed for. They needed to be able to spend more on other expenses, like rent and mortgage. The company owned by Tim Love, whom I mentioned a moment ago, who described this crisis as Armageddon, received a PPP loan and so far has been able to hire back 80 percent of their 490 employees. A couple of weeks ago, he participated in a roundtable at the White House, and he asked for adjustments to give businesses more flexibility. He said: We're not asking for more money. We're just asking for the opportunity to spend it the way that you want us to spend it, the way it was intended; to take care of our employees when we're able to open up. That is precisely what we are working to do, and I hope we can get legislation to the President's desk this week to make those needed changes. Last week, the House passed a bill to provide that flexibility for small businesses to use these funds where they are needed most. This effort was spearheaded by a fellow member of the Texas delegation, Congressman Chip Roy, and it passed by a vote of 417 to 1--a rare feat these days in the House of Representatives. The bill will reduce the level of funds that must be used on payroll from 75 percent to 60 percent. This will make sure that the bulk of the funding continues to protect jobs and support workers, while giving businesses the flexibility they need to stay viable. This legislation also gives borrowers another valuable asset, and that is the asset of time. The PPP as originally written gave borrowers 8 weeks to use these funds, and I have repeatedly heard from my constituents that 8 weeks is simply not enough. For those who received these loans at the outset in early April, their window to use the PPP loan is quickly closing, and although businesses are now just starting to safely reopen, it is going to take some time before we find our new normal. I don't think we want a situation where, after being back at work for 8 weeks, employees are let go because of an administrative policy that makes no sense. It is completely arbitrary, and that is exactly what could happen if we don't act. The bill passed by the House would extend that period of time to 24 weeks for borrowers to use those funds. It will ensure that businesses and nonprofits have the time to safely reopen and rebuild their operations while using the PPP to help cover payroll and other business expenses. This would be a win-win. I rarely have heard from my constituents back home that we have done anything that has been so universally appreciated as the PPP program, or the Paycheck Protection Program. This legislation that has passed the House and I hope we will take up and pass this week extends the benefits of this incredible program and provides more stability for small businesses without spending anymore taxpayer dollars. It doesn't cost us anything. Giving small businesses and nonprofits more flexibility to use this money when and where it is needed is important to our long-term recovery. I have heard very positive feedback about these changes from the small business owners I represent, and I am eager to support the passage of the latest House bill here in the Senate. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. CORNYN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2627-2
| null | 731
|
formal
|
based
| null |
white supremacist
|
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, on to another matter, I was glad to be able to get back home to Texas this last week, where our communities are slowly coming out of a coronavirus shutdown. Churches have begun safely welcoming worshippers, restaurants are beginning to safely seat customers, albeit with the appropriate social distancing, and retailers are now beginning to safely reopen their doors. After weeks and in some cases months of hunkering down, it is a welcome sign of our progress in the fight against the coronavirus and the first step in our economic recovery. When stay-at-home orders were first put in place, small business were worried--understandably so--about their ability to survive. Many said they couldn't survive more than a couple of weeks under those circumstances. Back in March, Fort Worth chef Tim Love described the situation as ``Armageddon.'' He said: It's worse than a tornado, it's worse than a hurricane, it's worse than a fire. This is going to destroy everything that I have built. But the restaurants weren't alone; I heard similar concerns from countless other small business owners across nearly every sector of the economy--hospitality, tourism, retail, manufacturing, and the list goes on. Keeping our small businesses open means much more than having another restaurant to eat in or a shop to buy from on Main Street; it is one of the most effective ways to support our economy, by protecting those jobs. Across the country, small businesses have employed nearly half of all U.S. workers. They are the lifeblood of our local economies and provide critical services to each of our communities. Without customers coming through the front doors each day, it is hard to cover your business expenses and keep employees on the payroll. In fact, it is not just hard, it is impossible. Whether you are a new business just starting out or a decades-old community staple, the financial squeeze caused by this virus and the mitigation efforts that ensued are unavoidable. As we worked on coronavirus response legislation here in March, we knew that small businesses needed our support. That is why we established the Paycheck Protection Program and initially funded it with $350 billion. This funded loans that were available for these businesses to keep their employees on their payrolls and cover other necessary expenses, and if they did so, that loan would turn into a grant. It was so popular--and it's not hard to see why--and the need was so great that that initial funding ran out in about 2 weeks, so we wisely, in my opinion, decided to replenish it with another $320 billion. An IT and document management company in Sugar Land, TX, called Function 4 was one of the recipients of one of those PPP loans. One of the partners, Bill Patsouras, said that if it wasn't for the PPP, they would ``absolutely have to start letting people go.'' But instead of layoffs, all 89 employees of Function 4 are still employed and still working. This is a familiar story, I am sure, not just in Texas but elsewhere. As of May 23, small businesses in Texas have received more than 350,000 PPP loans totaling more than $40 billion. That is an average loan size of less than $115,000. These are for small and medium-size businesses. In speaking to my community bankers last week, I learned that one bank had approved a loan request for as little as $300. So while the average loan was $115,000, some businesses needed far less than that, including this one loan for $300. No matter how large or small, these loans have allowed businesses, churches, nonprofits, and some of our mostvaluable community institutions to survive. That is not to say, though, it was perfect--at least to start with. When it was first established, no one expected the rollout to be perfect. I think that would be an exercise in hope over experience because no government program this big and created this fast--and we knew both of those were important. We needed to go big, and we needed to deal with the need urgently. We knew there would be some problems. A brand-new loan program drafted and passed in such a short timeframe is bound to have some hiccups. So over the last several weeks, I have been working and talking to my constituents--as we all have--to identify what needs to be fixed or improved, what gaps need to be filled; figure out what is working, what isn't, and how we can make it even more effective. Well, I heard repeatedly that the biggest need was for flexibility in the use of those funds, and that is where they are needed the most. The main goal of the Paycheck Protection Program is right in the name--protecting paychecks. That is why we said that 75 percent of the money needed to be used for payroll; otherwise you were going to have to pay the money back. We said originally that the remaining 25 percent could be used for a range of other expenses, like rent or utilities. But based on the feedback I have gotten--and I am confident that I am not alone--we missed our mark by establishing that 75-percent requirement. For many who had no business because they were shut down as part of the mitigation efforts, their payroll expenses--they couldn't use the three-quarters of the loan for payroll--at least not in the short timeframe we allowed for. They needed to be able to spend more on other expenses, like rent and mortgage. The company owned by Tim Love, whom I mentioned a moment ago, who described this crisis as Armageddon, received a PPP loan and so far has been able to hire back 80 percent of their 490 employees. A couple of weeks ago, he participated in a roundtable at the White House, and he asked for adjustments to give businesses more flexibility. He said: We're not asking for more money. We're just asking for the opportunity to spend it the way that you want us to spend it, the way it was intended; to take care of our employees when we're able to open up. That is precisely what we are working to do, and I hope we can get legislation to the President's desk this week to make those needed changes. Last week, the House passed a bill to provide that flexibility for small businesses to use these funds where they are needed most. This effort was spearheaded by a fellow member of the Texas delegation, Congressman Chip Roy, and it passed by a vote of 417 to 1--a rare feat these days in the House of Representatives. The bill will reduce the level of funds that must be used on payroll from 75 percent to 60 percent. This will make sure that the bulk of the funding continues to protect jobs and support workers, while giving businesses the flexibility they need to stay viable. This legislation also gives borrowers another valuable asset, and that is the asset of time. The PPP as originally written gave borrowers 8 weeks to use these funds, and I have repeatedly heard from my constituents that 8 weeks is simply not enough. For those who received these loans at the outset in early April, their window to use the PPP loan is quickly closing, and although businesses are now just starting to safely reopen, it is going to take some time before we find our new normal. I don't think we want a situation where, after being back at work for 8 weeks, employees are let go because of an administrative policy that makes no sense. It is completely arbitrary, and that is exactly what could happen if we don't act. The bill passed by the House would extend that period of time to 24 weeks for borrowers to use those funds. It will ensure that businesses and nonprofits have the time to safely reopen and rebuild their operations while using the PPP to help cover payroll and other business expenses. This would be a win-win. I rarely have heard from my constituents back home that we have done anything that has been so universally appreciated as the PPP program, or the Paycheck Protection Program. This legislation that has passed the House and I hope we will take up and pass this week extends the benefits of this incredible program and provides more stability for small businesses without spending anymore taxpayer dollars. It doesn't cost us anything. Giving small businesses and nonprofits more flexibility to use this money when and where it is needed is important to our long-term recovery. I have heard very positive feedback about these changes from the small business owners I represent, and I am eager to support the passage of the latest House bill here in the Senate. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. CORNYN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2627-2
| null | 732
|
formal
|
terrorism
| null |
Islamophobic
|
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, ours is a nation with a split screen of a battle on two fronts. One is the pandemic that we have been fighting now for many months, and the other is to continue the fight to defeat racial injustice that has sadly divided our Nation since its very inception. One week ago today, George Floyd, a native Houstonian, tragically died in the custody of a law enforcement officer. As the gut-wrenching video of his death has spread, so has the passion and the anger among all of us who wonder, how can something like that happen? Our Constitution guarantees every American the right to protest injustice, and I believe we all have a responsibility to stand up for what is right and condemn what is plainly wrong. People of all colors, backgrounds, and ages are demanding that justice be served in the case of George Floyd. The first step in that process came on Friday when the officer who had him in custody was himself arrested and charged with third-degree murder. Devastating events like the death of George Floyd remind us that we have a long way to go in the fight for equal justice under the law, but we cannot yield to the temptation to fill the void created by this tragedy with violence. Too many protests across our country have turned into riots with looting and vandalism and destruction, hurting innocent people and tearing our cities apart. In response to these escalating protests last night, there were more curfews in place than at any other time since the assassination of Martin Luther King. One man who experienced that period of American history firsthand is our colleague on the other side of the Capitol, Congressman John Lewis. He fought and marched alongside Dr. King, fighting for equal rights, and continues fighting today for equal justice. Over the weekend, he denounced the rioting and looting that occurred and said: ``Be constructive, not destructive. History has proven time and time again that non-violent, peaceful protest is the way to achieve the justice and equality that we all deserve.'' I understand and share the passion and the anger that have spread across the country and support those who are peacefully protesting and demanding that justice be served. There should never be a time in which the color of someone's skin determines whether they live or die, and we have to do everything in our power to prevent these tragedies from occurring in the first place. But that change can't happen when businesses are being looted, when vehicles are being set on fire, or when innocent people are being harmed. It only can happen when we come together and learn to empathize with one another and understand the struggles our neighbors are facing. I would note that there is good evidence that many of these acts of violence are being instigated not by victims of injustice but by outsiders determined to stoke the rage that many feel and thus incite them to that violence. I was glad to hear the Attorney General of the United States say on Sunday that the Department of Justice will treat violence by individuals associated with Antifa and other groups as domestic terrorism and calling some of these protests following George Floyd's death to have been hijacked for another destructive, antisocial agenda. Investigators are also tracking social media posts and looking into whether foreign agents are behind an active propaganda campaign using social media, trying to divide us further, to stoke the anger and rage that many of us feel. Officials have seen a huge surge in social media accounts with fewer than 200 followers created in the last month--a textbook sign of a disinformation campaign by a foreign power, much as we saw in 2016 during the Russian active measures campaign leading up to the election. Righteous rage is one thing; being manipulated by instigators of violence and foreign powers is quite another.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. CORNYN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2627
| null | 733
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, his name was George Floyd, and 7 days ago he was killed on the streets of Minneapolis. He was not the first African American to be the victim of racism and criminal misconduct by the police. This has happened in our history many times, but this was different. This was a killing which we watched in realtime. In fewer than 9 minutes, a Minneapolis police officer, with his knee on the neck of George Floyd, took his life away. Despite Mr. Floyd's begging over and over again, his pleas that he couldn't breathe, even invoking the name of his mother, it didn't stop what happened. That photo is still emblazoned in my mind, as I am sure it is for all of those who have seen it. The look in that policeman's eyes, in the videotape that was being taken of that incident, was cold, hard, distant and unmoved by George Floyd's plea and the plea of those around him. What a tragic moment for our country. What a tragic moment for that family. What does it say about who we are in the United States of America that in the year 2020 this sort of thing can happen with such frequency? The heartbreaking killing of George Floyd follows years of similar tragedies and needless loss. In 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a vigilante as he walked home with a bag of Skittles that he just bought from the local 7-Eleven. His crime? Black in America. In 2014, the words ``I can't breathe'' were seared into our minds when we saw the video of Eric Garner struggling for his life and dying as a police officer held him in a choke hold. His crime? Black in America. Weeks later, Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, MO, despite being unarmed. A couple of months later, on the streets of Chicago, IL, Laquan McDonald was shot and killed by a police officer. The next month, after he was killed, Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a police officer while playing with a toy gun in a Cleveland park. The tragic list of Black individuals whom we have mourned and marched for continues to grow: Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Botham Jean, Atatiana Jefferson, and many more, including Sandra Bland, another resident of Illinois whose life was taken when she drove down to Texas to interview for a new job. I attended her funeral ceremony. The loss of such a wonderful young woman is still unexplained. Now we come together to mourn the lives of two Black men and a Black woman--lives that were cut far too short in incidents of inexplicable and inexcusable violence: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. Once again, those gut-wrenching words--``I can't breathe''--have us to tears. As activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham has pointed out, justice for George, Breonna, and Ahmaud would mean that they would each still be alive and breathing today. What we must now seek is accountability. The arrest of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is a first step in that direction, but there is so much more that must follow. Too often, police officers have crossed the line from lawful protection of our communities to baseless targeting, harming, and killing of unarmed Americans of color. Perhaps an arrest of the officer will be made, but our system of justice rarely leads to real consequences that follow. Howmany more names of Black men and women and children will be crying out in protest before America finally acknowledges the obvious? We cannot call ourselves a land of justice until we address those fundamental issues of racial injustice. That will require an honest, candid conversation with leaders in the law enforcement community about training, inherent bias, the use of force, and the consequences for their unjust action. It will require prosecutors in courts to commit to pursuing true accountability when injustice occurs, and it will require legislators like myself and those I serve with in the Senate and in the House and in State legislatures around this country to continue to undo the damage of a criminal justice system fraught with racial disparities. Most importantly, it will require those of us with privilege and power to step back and listen to Black Americans as they tell us about what a life affected by pervasive and systemic racism is like. If we truly want to reach a new day in America, impacted communities must lead the conversation, and allies must play an active and supporting role in confronting and dismantling racism. We know there are several steps the Federal Government can take right now to begin the process of moving forward. A good place to start is President Barack Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. In 2015, President Obama's Task Force released a report outlining crucial reforms to strengthen community policing and to restore trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Under President Obama's leadership, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division investigated civil rights abuses in multiple police departments across the country--Baltimore; Ferguson, MO; Cleveland; and, yes, Chicago, IL. Unfortunately, the current President dismantled these efforts as soon as he took control of the Department of Justice in 2017. In this heartbreaking moment of crisis, America is pleading with us for leadership. President Trump and Attorney General Barr could demonstrate that leadership by implementing the recommendations of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing and permitting the Civil Rights Division to do its job and vigorously investigate police departments accused of engaging in a pattern of practice of misconduct. We have a role to play here too. We must immediately hold hearings on systemic racism and police misconduct so we can discuss and pursue solutions, including accountability and training. Chairman Graham of the Senate Judiciary Committee has announced that the committee will hold a hearing on police misconduct. I am glad that he made that statement. I hope it is more than just one token hearing. When I chaired the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, I held several hearings on race in America, including my last hearing as chairman in December of 2014, on the state of civil and human rights in the United States. I said then, and I repeat it today, that it is important to recognize and say clearly that there is still a problem with racism in America and we still have so much more to do. We have got to acknowledge the obvious. As one sign said in the demonstration yesterday, ``All Black people are not criminals. All White people are not racists. All policemen are not bad.'' We have to find the problems and solve them, but we cannot ignore the obvious. Since the Republicans took Senate majority control on January 2015, the Senate Judiciary Committee rarely, if ever, addressed these issues of systemic racism in America. In fact, the last hearing on policing was almost 5 years ago. In November of 2015, the junior Senator from Texas held a hearing entitled: ``The War on Police: How the Federal Government Undermines State and Local Law Enforcement.'' It was a thinly veiled attack on the efforts of the Obama administration's Civil Rights Division to improve police integrity, and 4\1/2\ years after that hearing, we still have so much work to do. I am committed to joining with my colleagues to listen to civil rights leaders, activists, and affected communities to work with them to improve life in my State and across the Nation. I hope we can honor George, Breonna, Ahmaud, and all of the Black and Brown lives that have been lost in brutal acts of racial injustice. We need to do this by reforming the system that has permitted these atrocities to occur and dedicate ourselves to bringing about justice and accountability. It was many years ago when I was a law student in this city. The year was 1968. I remember it well. It was a historic year, and much of history was painful. I was sitting in the student library of Georgetown Law School, and a professor opened the door and asked that all students in their second and third year come out in the hallway. I went out in the hallway, and he said: We need your help. As you know, the city of Washington is ablaze with demonstrations in anger over the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The system of justice has broken down in the city. They have run out of attorneys to even stand with the accused defendants before the court. We are preparing to empower you, even as law students, to walk across the street to the DC court and play that role. We need you. I did it, nervous as could be, uncertain of what I was actually doing but realizing that the system of justice in this city had all but broken down. I think we have learned the hard way that to maintain order in a democracy, you need a consensus--a consensus on what is the common good and the belief that we all must stand together to make certain that it is protected. There will always be enemies and outliers, but ultimately, if we are to move together as a democratic nation, we have to understand and work together toward the common good and a common goal, and shouldn't the beginning of that common good and common goal be the end of racism in America? I read so much history about the Civil War and the role of another Illinoian, Abraham Lincoln, in bringing that war to a successful conclusion. The constitutional amendments that followed and the promises that followed as we emancipated slaves across the United States--those promises, sadly, were not kept. The Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, and the discrimination that followed are still with us today. There was one moment--one shining moment in my political life--when I stood just a few feet away from a new President of the United States by the name of Barack Obama, an African American. I thought to myself, finally, finally, Durbin, maybe we have reached that turning point in America when it comes to race. If we can accept an African American as the leader of our Nation, maybe, just maybe, we are moving toward the day we all dreamed of. I am afraid he moved us forward but not far enough, and he would be the first to acknowledge it. We have work to do. It used to be a bipartisan effort when it came to making certain that minorities--especially African Americans--were not denied the right to vote. That used to be bipartisan when I first came to Congress. Now it has become another sad, divisive, partisan issue, and the efforts to restore the Voting Rights Act failed because the Republicans no longer joined the Democrats in that quest. There are so many other areas that lie ahead that we have to address beyond criminal justice. We have to address economic justice. We know from the COVID-19 pandemic that those who are minorities in this country--the Black and Brown--are dying at a much greater rate than others. There are gross disparities--racial disparities and poverty disparities--when it comes to healthcare in America, and the same is true for education and housing and so many other aspects of what being an American is all about. That agenda is before us. If we think coming to the floor and making a speech, having a hearing, and moving on will solve the problem, it will not. It will not. We have to envision, moving forward, rethinking America, and we have to acknowledge that the process will be far from perfect. Just the last two nights in the city of Chicago and across the United States, we have seen incidents occur that I thought I would never see again. They harken back to that 1968 reaction tothe assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King--burnings, looting, confrontations, things that sadly look exactly like they did some 50 years ago. The reality is this: In America, we are given a constitutional right to express our feelings, our free speech, and our free assembly. Those rights are important and should be valued and respected, but those rights to march and demonstrate, as people are doing right outside this building at this very moment, cannot be taken to the point where they have reached an extreme and become destructive. Speaking, assembling, exercising your constitutional right does not include looting. It doesn't include arson, vandalism, or violence. In fact, those actions detract from the underlying message that calls for positive change in America. I am glad that leaders like John Lewis, my dear friend and former colleague from the House of Representatives, has made that point. His voice on the subject is much more articulate and more convincing. He has reminded us that if we are to move America to the place where it must be, then we must do it in a nonviolent fashion within the law, not breaking the law. His name was George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American. He died in the streets of Minneapolis with the knee of a police officer on his neck for almost 9 minutes. He cannot be forgotten. And all the others I have mentioned must also be remembered. It is time for us and it is time for our generation to say: Enough. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. DURBIN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2628
| null | 734
|
formal
|
Chicago
| null |
racist
|
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, his name was George Floyd, and 7 days ago he was killed on the streets of Minneapolis. He was not the first African American to be the victim of racism and criminal misconduct by the police. This has happened in our history many times, but this was different. This was a killing which we watched in realtime. In fewer than 9 minutes, a Minneapolis police officer, with his knee on the neck of George Floyd, took his life away. Despite Mr. Floyd's begging over and over again, his pleas that he couldn't breathe, even invoking the name of his mother, it didn't stop what happened. That photo is still emblazoned in my mind, as I am sure it is for all of those who have seen it. The look in that policeman's eyes, in the videotape that was being taken of that incident, was cold, hard, distant and unmoved by George Floyd's plea and the plea of those around him. What a tragic moment for our country. What a tragic moment for that family. What does it say about who we are in the United States of America that in the year 2020 this sort of thing can happen with such frequency? The heartbreaking killing of George Floyd follows years of similar tragedies and needless loss. In 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a vigilante as he walked home with a bag of Skittles that he just bought from the local 7-Eleven. His crime? Black in America. In 2014, the words ``I can't breathe'' were seared into our minds when we saw the video of Eric Garner struggling for his life and dying as a police officer held him in a choke hold. His crime? Black in America. Weeks later, Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, MO, despite being unarmed. A couple of months later, on the streets of Chicago, IL, Laquan McDonald was shot and killed by a police officer. The next month, after he was killed, Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a police officer while playing with a toy gun in a Cleveland park. The tragic list of Black individuals whom we have mourned and marched for continues to grow: Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Botham Jean, Atatiana Jefferson, and many more, including Sandra Bland, another resident of Illinois whose life was taken when she drove down to Texas to interview for a new job. I attended her funeral ceremony. The loss of such a wonderful young woman is still unexplained. Now we come together to mourn the lives of two Black men and a Black woman--lives that were cut far too short in incidents of inexplicable and inexcusable violence: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. Once again, those gut-wrenching words--``I can't breathe''--have us to tears. As activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham has pointed out, justice for George, Breonna, and Ahmaud would mean that they would each still be alive and breathing today. What we must now seek is accountability. The arrest of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is a first step in that direction, but there is so much more that must follow. Too often, police officers have crossed the line from lawful protection of our communities to baseless targeting, harming, and killing of unarmed Americans of color. Perhaps an arrest of the officer will be made, but our system of justice rarely leads to real consequences that follow. Howmany more names of Black men and women and children will be crying out in protest before America finally acknowledges the obvious? We cannot call ourselves a land of justice until we address those fundamental issues of racial injustice. That will require an honest, candid conversation with leaders in the law enforcement community about training, inherent bias, the use of force, and the consequences for their unjust action. It will require prosecutors in courts to commit to pursuing true accountability when injustice occurs, and it will require legislators like myself and those I serve with in the Senate and in the House and in State legislatures around this country to continue to undo the damage of a criminal justice system fraught with racial disparities. Most importantly, it will require those of us with privilege and power to step back and listen to Black Americans as they tell us about what a life affected by pervasive and systemic racism is like. If we truly want to reach a new day in America, impacted communities must lead the conversation, and allies must play an active and supporting role in confronting and dismantling racism. We know there are several steps the Federal Government can take right now to begin the process of moving forward. A good place to start is President Barack Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. In 2015, President Obama's Task Force released a report outlining crucial reforms to strengthen community policing and to restore trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Under President Obama's leadership, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division investigated civil rights abuses in multiple police departments across the country--Baltimore; Ferguson, MO; Cleveland; and, yes, Chicago, IL. Unfortunately, the current President dismantled these efforts as soon as he took control of the Department of Justice in 2017. In this heartbreaking moment of crisis, America is pleading with us for leadership. President Trump and Attorney General Barr could demonstrate that leadership by implementing the recommendations of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing and permitting the Civil Rights Division to do its job and vigorously investigate police departments accused of engaging in a pattern of practice of misconduct. We have a role to play here too. We must immediately hold hearings on systemic racism and police misconduct so we can discuss and pursue solutions, including accountability and training. Chairman Graham of the Senate Judiciary Committee has announced that the committee will hold a hearing on police misconduct. I am glad that he made that statement. I hope it is more than just one token hearing. When I chaired the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, I held several hearings on race in America, including my last hearing as chairman in December of 2014, on the state of civil and human rights in the United States. I said then, and I repeat it today, that it is important to recognize and say clearly that there is still a problem with racism in America and we still have so much more to do. We have got to acknowledge the obvious. As one sign said in the demonstration yesterday, ``All Black people are not criminals. All White people are not racists. All policemen are not bad.'' We have to find the problems and solve them, but we cannot ignore the obvious. Since the Republicans took Senate majority control on January 2015, the Senate Judiciary Committee rarely, if ever, addressed these issues of systemic racism in America. In fact, the last hearing on policing was almost 5 years ago. In November of 2015, the junior Senator from Texas held a hearing entitled: ``The War on Police: How the Federal Government Undermines State and Local Law Enforcement.'' It was a thinly veiled attack on the efforts of the Obama administration's Civil Rights Division to improve police integrity, and 4\1/2\ years after that hearing, we still have so much work to do. I am committed to joining with my colleagues to listen to civil rights leaders, activists, and affected communities to work with them to improve life in my State and across the Nation. I hope we can honor George, Breonna, Ahmaud, and all of the Black and Brown lives that have been lost in brutal acts of racial injustice. We need to do this by reforming the system that has permitted these atrocities to occur and dedicate ourselves to bringing about justice and accountability. It was many years ago when I was a law student in this city. The year was 1968. I remember it well. It was a historic year, and much of history was painful. I was sitting in the student library of Georgetown Law School, and a professor opened the door and asked that all students in their second and third year come out in the hallway. I went out in the hallway, and he said: We need your help. As you know, the city of Washington is ablaze with demonstrations in anger over the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The system of justice has broken down in the city. They have run out of attorneys to even stand with the accused defendants before the court. We are preparing to empower you, even as law students, to walk across the street to the DC court and play that role. We need you. I did it, nervous as could be, uncertain of what I was actually doing but realizing that the system of justice in this city had all but broken down. I think we have learned the hard way that to maintain order in a democracy, you need a consensus--a consensus on what is the common good and the belief that we all must stand together to make certain that it is protected. There will always be enemies and outliers, but ultimately, if we are to move together as a democratic nation, we have to understand and work together toward the common good and a common goal, and shouldn't the beginning of that common good and common goal be the end of racism in America? I read so much history about the Civil War and the role of another Illinoian, Abraham Lincoln, in bringing that war to a successful conclusion. The constitutional amendments that followed and the promises that followed as we emancipated slaves across the United States--those promises, sadly, were not kept. The Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, and the discrimination that followed are still with us today. There was one moment--one shining moment in my political life--when I stood just a few feet away from a new President of the United States by the name of Barack Obama, an African American. I thought to myself, finally, finally, Durbin, maybe we have reached that turning point in America when it comes to race. If we can accept an African American as the leader of our Nation, maybe, just maybe, we are moving toward the day we all dreamed of. I am afraid he moved us forward but not far enough, and he would be the first to acknowledge it. We have work to do. It used to be a bipartisan effort when it came to making certain that minorities--especially African Americans--were not denied the right to vote. That used to be bipartisan when I first came to Congress. Now it has become another sad, divisive, partisan issue, and the efforts to restore the Voting Rights Act failed because the Republicans no longer joined the Democrats in that quest. There are so many other areas that lie ahead that we have to address beyond criminal justice. We have to address economic justice. We know from the COVID-19 pandemic that those who are minorities in this country--the Black and Brown--are dying at a much greater rate than others. There are gross disparities--racial disparities and poverty disparities--when it comes to healthcare in America, and the same is true for education and housing and so many other aspects of what being an American is all about. That agenda is before us. If we think coming to the floor and making a speech, having a hearing, and moving on will solve the problem, it will not. It will not. We have to envision, moving forward, rethinking America, and we have to acknowledge that the process will be far from perfect. Just the last two nights in the city of Chicago and across the United States, we have seen incidents occur that I thought I would never see again. They harken back to that 1968 reaction tothe assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King--burnings, looting, confrontations, things that sadly look exactly like they did some 50 years ago. The reality is this: In America, we are given a constitutional right to express our feelings, our free speech, and our free assembly. Those rights are important and should be valued and respected, but those rights to march and demonstrate, as people are doing right outside this building at this very moment, cannot be taken to the point where they have reached an extreme and become destructive. Speaking, assembling, exercising your constitutional right does not include looting. It doesn't include arson, vandalism, or violence. In fact, those actions detract from the underlying message that calls for positive change in America. I am glad that leaders like John Lewis, my dear friend and former colleague from the House of Representatives, has made that point. His voice on the subject is much more articulate and more convincing. He has reminded us that if we are to move America to the place where it must be, then we must do it in a nonviolent fashion within the law, not breaking the law. His name was George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American. He died in the streets of Minneapolis with the knee of a police officer on his neck for almost 9 minutes. He cannot be forgotten. And all the others I have mentioned must also be remembered. It is time for us and it is time for our generation to say: Enough. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. DURBIN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2628
| null | 735
|
formal
|
Cleveland
| null |
racist
|
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, his name was George Floyd, and 7 days ago he was killed on the streets of Minneapolis. He was not the first African American to be the victim of racism and criminal misconduct by the police. This has happened in our history many times, but this was different. This was a killing which we watched in realtime. In fewer than 9 minutes, a Minneapolis police officer, with his knee on the neck of George Floyd, took his life away. Despite Mr. Floyd's begging over and over again, his pleas that he couldn't breathe, even invoking the name of his mother, it didn't stop what happened. That photo is still emblazoned in my mind, as I am sure it is for all of those who have seen it. The look in that policeman's eyes, in the videotape that was being taken of that incident, was cold, hard, distant and unmoved by George Floyd's plea and the plea of those around him. What a tragic moment for our country. What a tragic moment for that family. What does it say about who we are in the United States of America that in the year 2020 this sort of thing can happen with such frequency? The heartbreaking killing of George Floyd follows years of similar tragedies and needless loss. In 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a vigilante as he walked home with a bag of Skittles that he just bought from the local 7-Eleven. His crime? Black in America. In 2014, the words ``I can't breathe'' were seared into our minds when we saw the video of Eric Garner struggling for his life and dying as a police officer held him in a choke hold. His crime? Black in America. Weeks later, Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, MO, despite being unarmed. A couple of months later, on the streets of Chicago, IL, Laquan McDonald was shot and killed by a police officer. The next month, after he was killed, Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a police officer while playing with a toy gun in a Cleveland park. The tragic list of Black individuals whom we have mourned and marched for continues to grow: Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Botham Jean, Atatiana Jefferson, and many more, including Sandra Bland, another resident of Illinois whose life was taken when she drove down to Texas to interview for a new job. I attended her funeral ceremony. The loss of such a wonderful young woman is still unexplained. Now we come together to mourn the lives of two Black men and a Black woman--lives that were cut far too short in incidents of inexplicable and inexcusable violence: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. Once again, those gut-wrenching words--``I can't breathe''--have us to tears. As activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham has pointed out, justice for George, Breonna, and Ahmaud would mean that they would each still be alive and breathing today. What we must now seek is accountability. The arrest of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is a first step in that direction, but there is so much more that must follow. Too often, police officers have crossed the line from lawful protection of our communities to baseless targeting, harming, and killing of unarmed Americans of color. Perhaps an arrest of the officer will be made, but our system of justice rarely leads to real consequences that follow. Howmany more names of Black men and women and children will be crying out in protest before America finally acknowledges the obvious? We cannot call ourselves a land of justice until we address those fundamental issues of racial injustice. That will require an honest, candid conversation with leaders in the law enforcement community about training, inherent bias, the use of force, and the consequences for their unjust action. It will require prosecutors in courts to commit to pursuing true accountability when injustice occurs, and it will require legislators like myself and those I serve with in the Senate and in the House and in State legislatures around this country to continue to undo the damage of a criminal justice system fraught with racial disparities. Most importantly, it will require those of us with privilege and power to step back and listen to Black Americans as they tell us about what a life affected by pervasive and systemic racism is like. If we truly want to reach a new day in America, impacted communities must lead the conversation, and allies must play an active and supporting role in confronting and dismantling racism. We know there are several steps the Federal Government can take right now to begin the process of moving forward. A good place to start is President Barack Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. In 2015, President Obama's Task Force released a report outlining crucial reforms to strengthen community policing and to restore trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Under President Obama's leadership, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division investigated civil rights abuses in multiple police departments across the country--Baltimore; Ferguson, MO; Cleveland; and, yes, Chicago, IL. Unfortunately, the current President dismantled these efforts as soon as he took control of the Department of Justice in 2017. In this heartbreaking moment of crisis, America is pleading with us for leadership. President Trump and Attorney General Barr could demonstrate that leadership by implementing the recommendations of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing and permitting the Civil Rights Division to do its job and vigorously investigate police departments accused of engaging in a pattern of practice of misconduct. We have a role to play here too. We must immediately hold hearings on systemic racism and police misconduct so we can discuss and pursue solutions, including accountability and training. Chairman Graham of the Senate Judiciary Committee has announced that the committee will hold a hearing on police misconduct. I am glad that he made that statement. I hope it is more than just one token hearing. When I chaired the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, I held several hearings on race in America, including my last hearing as chairman in December of 2014, on the state of civil and human rights in the United States. I said then, and I repeat it today, that it is important to recognize and say clearly that there is still a problem with racism in America and we still have so much more to do. We have got to acknowledge the obvious. As one sign said in the demonstration yesterday, ``All Black people are not criminals. All White people are not racists. All policemen are not bad.'' We have to find the problems and solve them, but we cannot ignore the obvious. Since the Republicans took Senate majority control on January 2015, the Senate Judiciary Committee rarely, if ever, addressed these issues of systemic racism in America. In fact, the last hearing on policing was almost 5 years ago. In November of 2015, the junior Senator from Texas held a hearing entitled: ``The War on Police: How the Federal Government Undermines State and Local Law Enforcement.'' It was a thinly veiled attack on the efforts of the Obama administration's Civil Rights Division to improve police integrity, and 4\1/2\ years after that hearing, we still have so much work to do. I am committed to joining with my colleagues to listen to civil rights leaders, activists, and affected communities to work with them to improve life in my State and across the Nation. I hope we can honor George, Breonna, Ahmaud, and all of the Black and Brown lives that have been lost in brutal acts of racial injustice. We need to do this by reforming the system that has permitted these atrocities to occur and dedicate ourselves to bringing about justice and accountability. It was many years ago when I was a law student in this city. The year was 1968. I remember it well. It was a historic year, and much of history was painful. I was sitting in the student library of Georgetown Law School, and a professor opened the door and asked that all students in their second and third year come out in the hallway. I went out in the hallway, and he said: We need your help. As you know, the city of Washington is ablaze with demonstrations in anger over the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The system of justice has broken down in the city. They have run out of attorneys to even stand with the accused defendants before the court. We are preparing to empower you, even as law students, to walk across the street to the DC court and play that role. We need you. I did it, nervous as could be, uncertain of what I was actually doing but realizing that the system of justice in this city had all but broken down. I think we have learned the hard way that to maintain order in a democracy, you need a consensus--a consensus on what is the common good and the belief that we all must stand together to make certain that it is protected. There will always be enemies and outliers, but ultimately, if we are to move together as a democratic nation, we have to understand and work together toward the common good and a common goal, and shouldn't the beginning of that common good and common goal be the end of racism in America? I read so much history about the Civil War and the role of another Illinoian, Abraham Lincoln, in bringing that war to a successful conclusion. The constitutional amendments that followed and the promises that followed as we emancipated slaves across the United States--those promises, sadly, were not kept. The Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, and the discrimination that followed are still with us today. There was one moment--one shining moment in my political life--when I stood just a few feet away from a new President of the United States by the name of Barack Obama, an African American. I thought to myself, finally, finally, Durbin, maybe we have reached that turning point in America when it comes to race. If we can accept an African American as the leader of our Nation, maybe, just maybe, we are moving toward the day we all dreamed of. I am afraid he moved us forward but not far enough, and he would be the first to acknowledge it. We have work to do. It used to be a bipartisan effort when it came to making certain that minorities--especially African Americans--were not denied the right to vote. That used to be bipartisan when I first came to Congress. Now it has become another sad, divisive, partisan issue, and the efforts to restore the Voting Rights Act failed because the Republicans no longer joined the Democrats in that quest. There are so many other areas that lie ahead that we have to address beyond criminal justice. We have to address economic justice. We know from the COVID-19 pandemic that those who are minorities in this country--the Black and Brown--are dying at a much greater rate than others. There are gross disparities--racial disparities and poverty disparities--when it comes to healthcare in America, and the same is true for education and housing and so many other aspects of what being an American is all about. That agenda is before us. If we think coming to the floor and making a speech, having a hearing, and moving on will solve the problem, it will not. It will not. We have to envision, moving forward, rethinking America, and we have to acknowledge that the process will be far from perfect. Just the last two nights in the city of Chicago and across the United States, we have seen incidents occur that I thought I would never see again. They harken back to that 1968 reaction tothe assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King--burnings, looting, confrontations, things that sadly look exactly like they did some 50 years ago. The reality is this: In America, we are given a constitutional right to express our feelings, our free speech, and our free assembly. Those rights are important and should be valued and respected, but those rights to march and demonstrate, as people are doing right outside this building at this very moment, cannot be taken to the point where they have reached an extreme and become destructive. Speaking, assembling, exercising your constitutional right does not include looting. It doesn't include arson, vandalism, or violence. In fact, those actions detract from the underlying message that calls for positive change in America. I am glad that leaders like John Lewis, my dear friend and former colleague from the House of Representatives, has made that point. His voice on the subject is much more articulate and more convincing. He has reminded us that if we are to move America to the place where it must be, then we must do it in a nonviolent fashion within the law, not breaking the law. His name was George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American. He died in the streets of Minneapolis with the knee of a police officer on his neck for almost 9 minutes. He cannot be forgotten. And all the others I have mentioned must also be remembered. It is time for us and it is time for our generation to say: Enough. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. DURBIN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2628
| null | 736
|
formal
|
Baltimore
| null |
racist
|
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, his name was George Floyd, and 7 days ago he was killed on the streets of Minneapolis. He was not the first African American to be the victim of racism and criminal misconduct by the police. This has happened in our history many times, but this was different. This was a killing which we watched in realtime. In fewer than 9 minutes, a Minneapolis police officer, with his knee on the neck of George Floyd, took his life away. Despite Mr. Floyd's begging over and over again, his pleas that he couldn't breathe, even invoking the name of his mother, it didn't stop what happened. That photo is still emblazoned in my mind, as I am sure it is for all of those who have seen it. The look in that policeman's eyes, in the videotape that was being taken of that incident, was cold, hard, distant and unmoved by George Floyd's plea and the plea of those around him. What a tragic moment for our country. What a tragic moment for that family. What does it say about who we are in the United States of America that in the year 2020 this sort of thing can happen with such frequency? The heartbreaking killing of George Floyd follows years of similar tragedies and needless loss. In 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a vigilante as he walked home with a bag of Skittles that he just bought from the local 7-Eleven. His crime? Black in America. In 2014, the words ``I can't breathe'' were seared into our minds when we saw the video of Eric Garner struggling for his life and dying as a police officer held him in a choke hold. His crime? Black in America. Weeks later, Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, MO, despite being unarmed. A couple of months later, on the streets of Chicago, IL, Laquan McDonald was shot and killed by a police officer. The next month, after he was killed, Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a police officer while playing with a toy gun in a Cleveland park. The tragic list of Black individuals whom we have mourned and marched for continues to grow: Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Botham Jean, Atatiana Jefferson, and many more, including Sandra Bland, another resident of Illinois whose life was taken when she drove down to Texas to interview for a new job. I attended her funeral ceremony. The loss of such a wonderful young woman is still unexplained. Now we come together to mourn the lives of two Black men and a Black woman--lives that were cut far too short in incidents of inexplicable and inexcusable violence: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. Once again, those gut-wrenching words--``I can't breathe''--have us to tears. As activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham has pointed out, justice for George, Breonna, and Ahmaud would mean that they would each still be alive and breathing today. What we must now seek is accountability. The arrest of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is a first step in that direction, but there is so much more that must follow. Too often, police officers have crossed the line from lawful protection of our communities to baseless targeting, harming, and killing of unarmed Americans of color. Perhaps an arrest of the officer will be made, but our system of justice rarely leads to real consequences that follow. Howmany more names of Black men and women and children will be crying out in protest before America finally acknowledges the obvious? We cannot call ourselves a land of justice until we address those fundamental issues of racial injustice. That will require an honest, candid conversation with leaders in the law enforcement community about training, inherent bias, the use of force, and the consequences for their unjust action. It will require prosecutors in courts to commit to pursuing true accountability when injustice occurs, and it will require legislators like myself and those I serve with in the Senate and in the House and in State legislatures around this country to continue to undo the damage of a criminal justice system fraught with racial disparities. Most importantly, it will require those of us with privilege and power to step back and listen to Black Americans as they tell us about what a life affected by pervasive and systemic racism is like. If we truly want to reach a new day in America, impacted communities must lead the conversation, and allies must play an active and supporting role in confronting and dismantling racism. We know there are several steps the Federal Government can take right now to begin the process of moving forward. A good place to start is President Barack Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. In 2015, President Obama's Task Force released a report outlining crucial reforms to strengthen community policing and to restore trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Under President Obama's leadership, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division investigated civil rights abuses in multiple police departments across the country--Baltimore; Ferguson, MO; Cleveland; and, yes, Chicago, IL. Unfortunately, the current President dismantled these efforts as soon as he took control of the Department of Justice in 2017. In this heartbreaking moment of crisis, America is pleading with us for leadership. President Trump and Attorney General Barr could demonstrate that leadership by implementing the recommendations of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing and permitting the Civil Rights Division to do its job and vigorously investigate police departments accused of engaging in a pattern of practice of misconduct. We have a role to play here too. We must immediately hold hearings on systemic racism and police misconduct so we can discuss and pursue solutions, including accountability and training. Chairman Graham of the Senate Judiciary Committee has announced that the committee will hold a hearing on police misconduct. I am glad that he made that statement. I hope it is more than just one token hearing. When I chaired the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, I held several hearings on race in America, including my last hearing as chairman in December of 2014, on the state of civil and human rights in the United States. I said then, and I repeat it today, that it is important to recognize and say clearly that there is still a problem with racism in America and we still have so much more to do. We have got to acknowledge the obvious. As one sign said in the demonstration yesterday, ``All Black people are not criminals. All White people are not racists. All policemen are not bad.'' We have to find the problems and solve them, but we cannot ignore the obvious. Since the Republicans took Senate majority control on January 2015, the Senate Judiciary Committee rarely, if ever, addressed these issues of systemic racism in America. In fact, the last hearing on policing was almost 5 years ago. In November of 2015, the junior Senator from Texas held a hearing entitled: ``The War on Police: How the Federal Government Undermines State and Local Law Enforcement.'' It was a thinly veiled attack on the efforts of the Obama administration's Civil Rights Division to improve police integrity, and 4\1/2\ years after that hearing, we still have so much work to do. I am committed to joining with my colleagues to listen to civil rights leaders, activists, and affected communities to work with them to improve life in my State and across the Nation. I hope we can honor George, Breonna, Ahmaud, and all of the Black and Brown lives that have been lost in brutal acts of racial injustice. We need to do this by reforming the system that has permitted these atrocities to occur and dedicate ourselves to bringing about justice and accountability. It was many years ago when I was a law student in this city. The year was 1968. I remember it well. It was a historic year, and much of history was painful. I was sitting in the student library of Georgetown Law School, and a professor opened the door and asked that all students in their second and third year come out in the hallway. I went out in the hallway, and he said: We need your help. As you know, the city of Washington is ablaze with demonstrations in anger over the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The system of justice has broken down in the city. They have run out of attorneys to even stand with the accused defendants before the court. We are preparing to empower you, even as law students, to walk across the street to the DC court and play that role. We need you. I did it, nervous as could be, uncertain of what I was actually doing but realizing that the system of justice in this city had all but broken down. I think we have learned the hard way that to maintain order in a democracy, you need a consensus--a consensus on what is the common good and the belief that we all must stand together to make certain that it is protected. There will always be enemies and outliers, but ultimately, if we are to move together as a democratic nation, we have to understand and work together toward the common good and a common goal, and shouldn't the beginning of that common good and common goal be the end of racism in America? I read so much history about the Civil War and the role of another Illinoian, Abraham Lincoln, in bringing that war to a successful conclusion. The constitutional amendments that followed and the promises that followed as we emancipated slaves across the United States--those promises, sadly, were not kept. The Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, and the discrimination that followed are still with us today. There was one moment--one shining moment in my political life--when I stood just a few feet away from a new President of the United States by the name of Barack Obama, an African American. I thought to myself, finally, finally, Durbin, maybe we have reached that turning point in America when it comes to race. If we can accept an African American as the leader of our Nation, maybe, just maybe, we are moving toward the day we all dreamed of. I am afraid he moved us forward but not far enough, and he would be the first to acknowledge it. We have work to do. It used to be a bipartisan effort when it came to making certain that minorities--especially African Americans--were not denied the right to vote. That used to be bipartisan when I first came to Congress. Now it has become another sad, divisive, partisan issue, and the efforts to restore the Voting Rights Act failed because the Republicans no longer joined the Democrats in that quest. There are so many other areas that lie ahead that we have to address beyond criminal justice. We have to address economic justice. We know from the COVID-19 pandemic that those who are minorities in this country--the Black and Brown--are dying at a much greater rate than others. There are gross disparities--racial disparities and poverty disparities--when it comes to healthcare in America, and the same is true for education and housing and so many other aspects of what being an American is all about. That agenda is before us. If we think coming to the floor and making a speech, having a hearing, and moving on will solve the problem, it will not. It will not. We have to envision, moving forward, rethinking America, and we have to acknowledge that the process will be far from perfect. Just the last two nights in the city of Chicago and across the United States, we have seen incidents occur that I thought I would never see again. They harken back to that 1968 reaction tothe assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King--burnings, looting, confrontations, things that sadly look exactly like they did some 50 years ago. The reality is this: In America, we are given a constitutional right to express our feelings, our free speech, and our free assembly. Those rights are important and should be valued and respected, but those rights to march and demonstrate, as people are doing right outside this building at this very moment, cannot be taken to the point where they have reached an extreme and become destructive. Speaking, assembling, exercising your constitutional right does not include looting. It doesn't include arson, vandalism, or violence. In fact, those actions detract from the underlying message that calls for positive change in America. I am glad that leaders like John Lewis, my dear friend and former colleague from the House of Representatives, has made that point. His voice on the subject is much more articulate and more convincing. He has reminded us that if we are to move America to the place where it must be, then we must do it in a nonviolent fashion within the law, not breaking the law. His name was George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American. He died in the streets of Minneapolis with the knee of a police officer on his neck for almost 9 minutes. He cannot be forgotten. And all the others I have mentioned must also be remembered. It is time for us and it is time for our generation to say: Enough. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. DURBIN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2628
| null | 737
|
formal
|
Skittles
| null |
Islamophobic
|
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, his name was George Floyd, and 7 days ago he was killed on the streets of Minneapolis. He was not the first African American to be the victim of racism and criminal misconduct by the police. This has happened in our history many times, but this was different. This was a killing which we watched in realtime. In fewer than 9 minutes, a Minneapolis police officer, with his knee on the neck of George Floyd, took his life away. Despite Mr. Floyd's begging over and over again, his pleas that he couldn't breathe, even invoking the name of his mother, it didn't stop what happened. That photo is still emblazoned in my mind, as I am sure it is for all of those who have seen it. The look in that policeman's eyes, in the videotape that was being taken of that incident, was cold, hard, distant and unmoved by George Floyd's plea and the plea of those around him. What a tragic moment for our country. What a tragic moment for that family. What does it say about who we are in the United States of America that in the year 2020 this sort of thing can happen with such frequency? The heartbreaking killing of George Floyd follows years of similar tragedies and needless loss. In 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a vigilante as he walked home with a bag of Skittles that he just bought from the local 7-Eleven. His crime? Black in America. In 2014, the words ``I can't breathe'' were seared into our minds when we saw the video of Eric Garner struggling for his life and dying as a police officer held him in a choke hold. His crime? Black in America. Weeks later, Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, MO, despite being unarmed. A couple of months later, on the streets of Chicago, IL, Laquan McDonald was shot and killed by a police officer. The next month, after he was killed, Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a police officer while playing with a toy gun in a Cleveland park. The tragic list of Black individuals whom we have mourned and marched for continues to grow: Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Botham Jean, Atatiana Jefferson, and many more, including Sandra Bland, another resident of Illinois whose life was taken when she drove down to Texas to interview for a new job. I attended her funeral ceremony. The loss of such a wonderful young woman is still unexplained. Now we come together to mourn the lives of two Black men and a Black woman--lives that were cut far too short in incidents of inexplicable and inexcusable violence: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. Once again, those gut-wrenching words--``I can't breathe''--have us to tears. As activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham has pointed out, justice for George, Breonna, and Ahmaud would mean that they would each still be alive and breathing today. What we must now seek is accountability. The arrest of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is a first step in that direction, but there is so much more that must follow. Too often, police officers have crossed the line from lawful protection of our communities to baseless targeting, harming, and killing of unarmed Americans of color. Perhaps an arrest of the officer will be made, but our system of justice rarely leads to real consequences that follow. Howmany more names of Black men and women and children will be crying out in protest before America finally acknowledges the obvious? We cannot call ourselves a land of justice until we address those fundamental issues of racial injustice. That will require an honest, candid conversation with leaders in the law enforcement community about training, inherent bias, the use of force, and the consequences for their unjust action. It will require prosecutors in courts to commit to pursuing true accountability when injustice occurs, and it will require legislators like myself and those I serve with in the Senate and in the House and in State legislatures around this country to continue to undo the damage of a criminal justice system fraught with racial disparities. Most importantly, it will require those of us with privilege and power to step back and listen to Black Americans as they tell us about what a life affected by pervasive and systemic racism is like. If we truly want to reach a new day in America, impacted communities must lead the conversation, and allies must play an active and supporting role in confronting and dismantling racism. We know there are several steps the Federal Government can take right now to begin the process of moving forward. A good place to start is President Barack Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. In 2015, President Obama's Task Force released a report outlining crucial reforms to strengthen community policing and to restore trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Under President Obama's leadership, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division investigated civil rights abuses in multiple police departments across the country--Baltimore; Ferguson, MO; Cleveland; and, yes, Chicago, IL. Unfortunately, the current President dismantled these efforts as soon as he took control of the Department of Justice in 2017. In this heartbreaking moment of crisis, America is pleading with us for leadership. President Trump and Attorney General Barr could demonstrate that leadership by implementing the recommendations of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing and permitting the Civil Rights Division to do its job and vigorously investigate police departments accused of engaging in a pattern of practice of misconduct. We have a role to play here too. We must immediately hold hearings on systemic racism and police misconduct so we can discuss and pursue solutions, including accountability and training. Chairman Graham of the Senate Judiciary Committee has announced that the committee will hold a hearing on police misconduct. I am glad that he made that statement. I hope it is more than just one token hearing. When I chaired the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, I held several hearings on race in America, including my last hearing as chairman in December of 2014, on the state of civil and human rights in the United States. I said then, and I repeat it today, that it is important to recognize and say clearly that there is still a problem with racism in America and we still have so much more to do. We have got to acknowledge the obvious. As one sign said in the demonstration yesterday, ``All Black people are not criminals. All White people are not racists. All policemen are not bad.'' We have to find the problems and solve them, but we cannot ignore the obvious. Since the Republicans took Senate majority control on January 2015, the Senate Judiciary Committee rarely, if ever, addressed these issues of systemic racism in America. In fact, the last hearing on policing was almost 5 years ago. In November of 2015, the junior Senator from Texas held a hearing entitled: ``The War on Police: How the Federal Government Undermines State and Local Law Enforcement.'' It was a thinly veiled attack on the efforts of the Obama administration's Civil Rights Division to improve police integrity, and 4\1/2\ years after that hearing, we still have so much work to do. I am committed to joining with my colleagues to listen to civil rights leaders, activists, and affected communities to work with them to improve life in my State and across the Nation. I hope we can honor George, Breonna, Ahmaud, and all of the Black and Brown lives that have been lost in brutal acts of racial injustice. We need to do this by reforming the system that has permitted these atrocities to occur and dedicate ourselves to bringing about justice and accountability. It was many years ago when I was a law student in this city. The year was 1968. I remember it well. It was a historic year, and much of history was painful. I was sitting in the student library of Georgetown Law School, and a professor opened the door and asked that all students in their second and third year come out in the hallway. I went out in the hallway, and he said: We need your help. As you know, the city of Washington is ablaze with demonstrations in anger over the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The system of justice has broken down in the city. They have run out of attorneys to even stand with the accused defendants before the court. We are preparing to empower you, even as law students, to walk across the street to the DC court and play that role. We need you. I did it, nervous as could be, uncertain of what I was actually doing but realizing that the system of justice in this city had all but broken down. I think we have learned the hard way that to maintain order in a democracy, you need a consensus--a consensus on what is the common good and the belief that we all must stand together to make certain that it is protected. There will always be enemies and outliers, but ultimately, if we are to move together as a democratic nation, we have to understand and work together toward the common good and a common goal, and shouldn't the beginning of that common good and common goal be the end of racism in America? I read so much history about the Civil War and the role of another Illinoian, Abraham Lincoln, in bringing that war to a successful conclusion. The constitutional amendments that followed and the promises that followed as we emancipated slaves across the United States--those promises, sadly, were not kept. The Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, and the discrimination that followed are still with us today. There was one moment--one shining moment in my political life--when I stood just a few feet away from a new President of the United States by the name of Barack Obama, an African American. I thought to myself, finally, finally, Durbin, maybe we have reached that turning point in America when it comes to race. If we can accept an African American as the leader of our Nation, maybe, just maybe, we are moving toward the day we all dreamed of. I am afraid he moved us forward but not far enough, and he would be the first to acknowledge it. We have work to do. It used to be a bipartisan effort when it came to making certain that minorities--especially African Americans--were not denied the right to vote. That used to be bipartisan when I first came to Congress. Now it has become another sad, divisive, partisan issue, and the efforts to restore the Voting Rights Act failed because the Republicans no longer joined the Democrats in that quest. There are so many other areas that lie ahead that we have to address beyond criminal justice. We have to address economic justice. We know from the COVID-19 pandemic that those who are minorities in this country--the Black and Brown--are dying at a much greater rate than others. There are gross disparities--racial disparities and poverty disparities--when it comes to healthcare in America, and the same is true for education and housing and so many other aspects of what being an American is all about. That agenda is before us. If we think coming to the floor and making a speech, having a hearing, and moving on will solve the problem, it will not. It will not. We have to envision, moving forward, rethinking America, and we have to acknowledge that the process will be far from perfect. Just the last two nights in the city of Chicago and across the United States, we have seen incidents occur that I thought I would never see again. They harken back to that 1968 reaction tothe assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King--burnings, looting, confrontations, things that sadly look exactly like they did some 50 years ago. The reality is this: In America, we are given a constitutional right to express our feelings, our free speech, and our free assembly. Those rights are important and should be valued and respected, but those rights to march and demonstrate, as people are doing right outside this building at this very moment, cannot be taken to the point where they have reached an extreme and become destructive. Speaking, assembling, exercising your constitutional right does not include looting. It doesn't include arson, vandalism, or violence. In fact, those actions detract from the underlying message that calls for positive change in America. I am glad that leaders like John Lewis, my dear friend and former colleague from the House of Representatives, has made that point. His voice on the subject is much more articulate and more convincing. He has reminded us that if we are to move America to the place where it must be, then we must do it in a nonviolent fashion within the law, not breaking the law. His name was George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American. He died in the streets of Minneapolis with the knee of a police officer on his neck for almost 9 minutes. He cannot be forgotten. And all the others I have mentioned must also be remembered. It is time for us and it is time for our generation to say: Enough. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. DURBIN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2628
| null | 738
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Under the authority of the order of the Senate of January 3, 2019, the Secretary of the Senate, on May 28, 2020, during the adjournment of the Senate, received a message from the House of Representatives announcing that the House has passed the following bills, without amendment: S. 2746. An act to require the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to provide information on suicide rates in law enforcement, and for other purposes. S. 3744. An act to condemn gross human rights violations of ethnic Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, and calling for an end to arbitrary detention, torture, and harassment of these communities inside and outside China. Under the authority of the order of the Senate of January 3, 2019, the Secretary of the Senate, on May 28, 2020, during the adjournment of the Senate, received a message from the House of Representatives announcing that pursuant to section 201(b) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6431), and the order of the House of January 3, 2019, the Speaker appoints the following individual on the part of the House of Representatives to the Commission on International Religious Freedom for a term ending on May 14, 2022: Mr. Nury Turkel of Alexandria, Virginia, to succeed Dr. Tenzin Dorjee. Under the authority of the order of the Senate of January 3, 2019, the Secretary of the Senate, on May 28, 2020, during the adjournment of the Senate, received a message from the House of Representatives announcing that pursuant to section 4003(e) of the 21st Century Cures Act (Public Law 114-255), and the order of the House of January 3, 2019, the Speaker reappoints the following individual on the part of the House of Representatives to the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee: Dr. Steven Lane of Palo Alto, California. Under the authority of the order of the Senate of January 3, 2019, the Secretary of the Senate, on May 28, 2020, during the adjournment of the Senate, received a message from the House of Representatives announcing that pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 300jj-12, the Minority Leader appoints the following member to the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee, effective May 22, 2020: Dr. Jim Jirjis of Nashville, Tennessee.
|
2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-01-pt1-PgS2631-4
| null | 739
|
formal
|
single
| null |
homophobic
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, last night, the streets of major American cities were again the scene of looting and violent rioting that serves no purpose except to hurt innocent people and undermine peaceful demonstrations. Every one of us has an obligation to distinguish peaceful protests over the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery from the violent riots that continue to see innocent people hurt, businesses and neighborhoods destroyed, and law enforcement officers assaulted. The former is a cherished constitutional right that every single citizen should support, and the latter is an unacceptable scourge that State and local leaders should have ended days ago. So I want to thank Federal, State, and local leaders who are taking seriously their obligation to restore peace, protect the innocent, and stop this senseless violence. In some places, like my home State of Kentucky and here in Washington, last night was comparatively more calm and safe. But in too many other places, like New York City, it appeared to be open season for lawlessness, looting, and attacking law enforcement for yet another night. And for what? For what? Rioting for the thrill of it? For the chance to steal some expensive items? So people can say they were on social media? This selfish violence takes us further away from any national healing or forward progress. It does not bring positive change any closer; it simply pushes it further away. These rioters need to listen to what George Floyd's brother Terrence said in Minneapolis just yesterday. Here is what George Floyd's brother said: I understand [you all] are upset. I doubt [you're] half as upset as I am. So if I'm not over here blowing up stuff, if I'm not over here messing up my community, then what are [you all] doing? George Floyd's brother. [You're] doing nothing. Because that's not going to bring my brother back at all. So the legitimate and important voices of peaceful protesters will never be heard over the wailing of fire alarms, the smashing of plate-glass windows, and the sirens of ambulances coming for police officers who have been assaulted or shot in the head. Our Nation is united in horror and opposition to the violent killing of Mr. Floyd. We are united. It is well past time that we also unite on the side of peace in our streets and peace in our communities. We need to unite against these violent rioters, who seek only to aggrandize themselves and further damage a nation that needs healing.
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2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
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CREC-2020-06-02-pt1-PgS2635-8
| null | 740
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on a totally different matter, obviously and unfortunately, this turmoil is not the only great challenge before us. Lest we forget, the healthcare fight against the worst viral pandemic in a century is still upon us. Our Nation is trying to smartly and safely reopen. Just as small businesses in some cities are sweeping up broken glass, American workers and entrepreneurs across the Nation are trying to rebuild the shattered prosperity our Nation was experiencing just a few months ago. Meanwhile, beyond our shores, our enemies and adversaries would be only too eager to catch the United States with our guard down. So there is plenty of work before the Senate, and unlike the Democratic House of Representatives, which I understand may next appear here in Washington in about a month--in about a month--the Senate is present and working. We are continuing to conduct oversight of our historic rescue package, the CARES Act, as it continues taking effect. I expect we will soon consider further bipartisan legislation to help the Paycheck Protection Program--the signature policy from Senators Rubio and Collins that has kept tens of millions of Americans employed--continue to work for our country. As we pivot toward reopening, the Senate is also working on significant COVID-related legal protection so our Nation's schools, healthcare workers, and employers are not swamped with frivolous lawsuits and taxpayer dollars do not just stimulate the pockets of trial lawyers. At the same time, critical vacancies remain throughout the Federal Government, and qualified nominees stand ready to fill them. So the Senate will work through two nominees to the Federal district courts and a number of important executive branch positions, including Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities; Deputy Under Secretary of Defense; and the new Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery. What is more, we also have all the important legislation that needed to get done before the pandemic arrived in the first place. This month, we will turn to bipartisan legislation led by Senators Gardner and Daines to provide stable support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and lasting stewardship of our natural resources. Their bill will safeguard our Nation's public lands for recreation and conservation and help generations of Americans continue to access and enjoy these treasures. In the coming weeks, our colleagues on the Armed Services Committee will begin marking up the 60th consecutive, annual National Defense Authorization Act. I know our colleagues need no reminder of how important that task is; neither do our men and women in uniform. The COVID-19 crisis makes it more urgent, not less urgent, that we continue to authorize investments in our servicemembers and their families and in advancing and accelerating our national defense strategy. From honing our competitive edge against would-be rivals on land and sea to expanding our reach in the air and space, achieving our Nation's strategic priorities begins right here this month with the NDAA. So Congress's to-do list is clear, and the Senate is manning its essential post, working to get the American people's business done.
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2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-02-pt1-PgS2636
| null | 741
|
formal
|
safeguard
| null |
transphobic
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on a totally different matter, obviously and unfortunately, this turmoil is not the only great challenge before us. Lest we forget, the healthcare fight against the worst viral pandemic in a century is still upon us. Our Nation is trying to smartly and safely reopen. Just as small businesses in some cities are sweeping up broken glass, American workers and entrepreneurs across the Nation are trying to rebuild the shattered prosperity our Nation was experiencing just a few months ago. Meanwhile, beyond our shores, our enemies and adversaries would be only too eager to catch the United States with our guard down. So there is plenty of work before the Senate, and unlike the Democratic House of Representatives, which I understand may next appear here in Washington in about a month--in about a month--the Senate is present and working. We are continuing to conduct oversight of our historic rescue package, the CARES Act, as it continues taking effect. I expect we will soon consider further bipartisan legislation to help the Paycheck Protection Program--the signature policy from Senators Rubio and Collins that has kept tens of millions of Americans employed--continue to work for our country. As we pivot toward reopening, the Senate is also working on significant COVID-related legal protection so our Nation's schools, healthcare workers, and employers are not swamped with frivolous lawsuits and taxpayer dollars do not just stimulate the pockets of trial lawyers. At the same time, critical vacancies remain throughout the Federal Government, and qualified nominees stand ready to fill them. So the Senate will work through two nominees to the Federal district courts and a number of important executive branch positions, including Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities; Deputy Under Secretary of Defense; and the new Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery. What is more, we also have all the important legislation that needed to get done before the pandemic arrived in the first place. This month, we will turn to bipartisan legislation led by Senators Gardner and Daines to provide stable support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and lasting stewardship of our natural resources. Their bill will safeguard our Nation's public lands for recreation and conservation and help generations of Americans continue to access and enjoy these treasures. In the coming weeks, our colleagues on the Armed Services Committee will begin marking up the 60th consecutive, annual National Defense Authorization Act. I know our colleagues need no reminder of how important that task is; neither do our men and women in uniform. The COVID-19 crisis makes it more urgent, not less urgent, that we continue to authorize investments in our servicemembers and their families and in advancing and accelerating our national defense strategy. From honing our competitive edge against would-be rivals on land and sea to expanding our reach in the air and space, achieving our Nation's strategic priorities begins right here this month with the NDAA. So Congress's to-do list is clear, and the Senate is manning its essential post, working to get the American people's business done.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-02-pt1-PgS2636
| null | 742
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formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
The following communications were laid before the Senate, together with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as indicated: EC-4609. A communication from the Federal Register Liaison Officer, Office of the Secretary, Department of Defense, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Indebtedness of Military Personnel'' (RIN0790-AK33) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 19, 2020; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-4610. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to Sudan that was declared in Executive Order 13067 of November 3, 1997; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4611. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to the situation in or in relation to the Democratic Republic of the Congo that was declared in Executive Order 13413 of October 27, 2006; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4612. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to significant foreign narcotics traffickers centered in Colombia that was declared in Executive Order 12978 of October 21, 1995; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4613. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to Yemen that was declared in Executive Order 13611 of May 16, 2012; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4614. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to the situation in and in relation to Syria that was declared in Executive Order 13894 of October 14, 2019; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4615. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to Syria that was declared in Executive Order 13338 of May 11, 2004; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4616. A communication from the President of the United States, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report on the continuation of the national emergency that was originally declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, with respect to the stabilization of Iraq; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4617. A communication from the Secretary of Energy, transmitting, pursuant to law, a legislative proposal entitled ``Authorization for the Disposal of Waste by the National Nuclear Security Administration''; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. EC-4618. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Community Right-to-Know; Corrections to Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Reporting Requirements'' (FRL No. 10007-23-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 21, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4619. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Implementing Statutory Addition of Certain Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances; Toxic Chemical Release Reporting'' (FRL No. 10008-08-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 21, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4620. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Ocean Dumping: Cancellation of Final Designation for an Ocean Dredged Material Disposal Site'' (FRL No. 10009- 39-Region 4) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 21, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4621. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Significant New Use Rules on Certain Chemical Substances (19-4.B)'' (FRL No. 10008-71-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 21, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4622. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Georgia; 2010 1-Hour SO2 NAAQS Transport Infrastructure'' (FRL No. 10009-69-Region 4) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 19, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4623. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Minnesota; Revision to the Minnesota State Implementation Plan'' (FRL No. 10007-92- Region 5) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 19, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4624. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; New Hampshire; Negative Declaration for the Oil and Gas Industry; Withdrawal of Direct Final Rule'' (FRL No. 10010-00-Region 1) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 19, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4625. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Texas; Approval of Substitution for Dallas-Fort Worth Area Transportation Control Measures'' (FRL No. 10009-40-Region 6) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 19, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4626. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Wisconsin; Redesignation of the Newport State Park Area in Door County to Attainment of the 2015 Ozone NAAQS'' (FRL No. 10009-61-Region 5) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 19, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4627. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Approval and Promulgation of Air Quality Implementation Plans; Pennsylvania; Regulatory Updates to Allegheny County Nonattainment New Source Review (NNSR) Permitting Requirements for 2012 PM2.5 National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS)'' (FRL No. 10009-51-Region 3) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 19, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4628. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Flonicamid; Pesticide Tolerances'' (FRL No. 10009- 26-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 19, 2020; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-4629. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Florida; Final Authorization of State Hazardous Waste Management'' (FRL No. 10008-85-Region 4) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 19, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4630. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Indoxacarb; Pesticide Tolerances'' (FRL No. 9995- 89-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 19, 2020; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-4631. A communication from the Director of Congressional Affairs, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``American Society of Mechanical Engineers 2015-2017 Code Editions Incorporation by Reference'' (RIN3150-AJ74) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 19, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4632. A communication from the Chief of the Publications and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Guidance on Application of Section 305 to Stock Distributions by REITs and RICs'' (Rev. Proc. 2020-19) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 20, 2020; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4633. A communication from the Chief of the Publications and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``The Treatment of Certain Interests in Corporations as Stock or Indebtedness'' ((RIN1545-BN68) (TD 9897)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 20, 2020; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4634. A communication from the Assistant Secretary, Legislative Affairs, Department of State, transmitting, pursuant to the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, a report relative to new cultural property agreements with Belize, Bulgaria, Egypt, and Libya and the extension of existing agreements with Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Cyprus, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Mali, Nicaragua, and Peru; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4635. A communication from the Chief of the Border Security Regulations Branch, Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Period of Admission and Extensions of Stay for Representatives of Foreign Information Media Seeking to Enter the United States'' (RIN1651-AB38) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 20, 2020; to the Committee on the Judiciary. EC-4636. A communication from the Chief Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Federal Bureau of Investigation National Crime Information Center (NCIC)'' (28 CFR Part 16) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 20, 2020; to the Committee on the Judiciary. EC-4637. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to section 1705(e) (6) of the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, as amended by Section 102(g) of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996, a semiannual report relative to telecommunications- related payments made to Cuba during the period from July 1, 2019 through December 21, 2019; to the Committee on Foreign Relations
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2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-02-pt1-PgS2648-3
| null | 743
|
formal
|
terrorism
| null |
Islamophobic
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Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I rise today with difficulty. I admit I am like so many other Americans who are hurting right now and frustrated right now and feeling a torrent of emotions that I wish I could say it was the first time I felt like this. I want to begin my remarks in a different way because the names that we are hearing shouted on streets--George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor--are like so many other names of people that we did not know as a Nation. They were not household names. Their names now are mixed into names that we have heard throughout my entire lifetime. But their names--and the way we say them mixed with horror and sadness and tragedy--it does not speak to their beauty, their humanity, the fullness, the texturedness of their lives. I just want to say that Ahmaud Arbery was a man, and he was 25 years old when he was murdered. He went out jogging where he was hunted by two White men who walked free for weeks after killing him. This man, this child of God, his loved ones talked to his humanity. They said he was a loving son, a brother, an uncle, a nephew, a cousin, and a friend. He was humble. He was kind. He waswell mannered. He always made sure that he never departed his loved ones without saying ``I love you.'' Breonna Taylor, before we knew her name--an extraordinary American, an extraordinary servant--she was a first responder. In a pandemic, like so many of our first responders, she showed a courage and humble heroism. She was 26 years old when she was shot and killed by police, asleep in her home. She was an emergency medical technician in Louisville. Her loved ones, too, shared the truth of her spirit. They said Breonna Taylor was full of life. She loved social gatherings with her friends and especially her family. She loved life and all it had to offer. She continued to find ways to better herself and all of the people around her. George Floyd, he was a man that was raised in Texas. He was a Houston man. To his friends and loved ones, he was known as Floyd. In high school--I know this--he was an athlete, playing both basketball and football. He played the position I played; he was a tight end. He went on to play basketball at South Florida State College, a pathway I know to college ball. His girlfriend called him ``an angel that was sent to us on Earth.'' His family remembered him as being family oriented, loving, and godly. Floyd was a loving father. He was a devoted brother. He was a partner, and he was a friend. He is dead at 46 years old, on May 25, 2020, when he was restrained, pinned by his neck, and killed by law enforcement officers. The killings of George Floyd, of Breonna Taylor, of Ahmaud Arbery are singular in their pain, are singular in their particular details in the anguish and the horror, but this is a terror that is familiar. It is a fear that is baked now, cemented into our culture. For so many Americans, especially Black Americans, this has not just not been a tough few weeks. It has not just been an emotional time because of what we are seeing, the protests all around the country. This has been a tough life. This is the story of day after day after day that punctuates our consciousness only when someone captures on videotape what is a regular part of the fabric of our country. We have a long and wretched and disturbing history in this country of Black people being murdered by law enforcement. Our systems of accountability, our systems of transparency, our ability to end this has improved impotent and feeble. These killings for so many Black Americans today are searing reminders that Black people in this country, as I have heard from dozens of people in my life, as we hear from people on our media, that this could have been me; that this even would have been me in the same circumstances. To hear people at all stations of life--African-Americans saying--``I am alive,'' but questioning for how long, slipping into the savage reality of despair for your life and your safety. To be Black in America is to know that a misunderstanding, that an implicit racial bias, that an interaction that should be everyday and routine can become a moment where your life is turned upside down, where your body becomes broken or when you are killed. It is a common experience. This has been a stretch where bird watching in a park, to jogging in your neighborhood, to going to a corner store, it is a jarring reminder that is reinforced by personal experiences that it could be you. I was born to two civil rights activist parents. I was a big kid. I was over 6 feet by the time I was in seventh or eighth grade, and it was a time in my life that is a coming of age for so many people and cultures across our Nation. But something began happening to me in that period, and it was marked by the fear of my elders. Family members with jarring personal stories for a preteen or a teen would tell me what it meant to be Black, to be male in America. They were instilling fear in me as a survival mechanism. They were trying to make me aware of my surroundings. I have difficult memories of trips to the malls with elder Black men in my family and being lectured about what I couldn't do, what I shouldn't do, and what the consequences could be. I remember that talk with my parents where I tried to joke about it, but they got chillingly angry with me about what it meant to have a driver's license in America and what could happen to me. They told me stories of friends, of family members, of others and their experiences with the police. I spent those years of 12 and 13 in an America in the '70s and '80s where the words of my parents and elders were backed up with tragic and terrible stories of their experiences in generations before and were reinforced by my own experiences: being followed by mall security guards, being accused or stopped, being looked at with suspicion, and experience after experience after experience with police. I remember as a college student--and it all came to a head where I wrote a column in Stanford's newspaper: Why have I lost control? I remember that night writing that column like it was yesterday. I was so overcome with emotion and rage, and I would like to submit for the Record that column and read right now pieces of what I wrote that night that when I look at young men on the streets of America today and I see their anger and I see their rage, it brings me back, not to that moment, but to the own feelings that have churned within me for years. I will read from the column: Why have I lost control? How can I write, when I have lost control of my emotions? Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not shocked. Why not? Turn off the engine! Put your keys, driver's license, registration and insurance on the hood now! Put your hands on the steering wheel and don't even think of moving. Five police cars. Six officers surrounded my car, guns ready. Thirty minutes I sat, praying and shaking, only interrupted by the command, ``I said, don't move!'' Finally, ``Everything checks out, you can go.'' Sheepishly I asked, why. ``Oh, you fit the description of a car thief.'' Not guilty. Not shocked. Why not. In the jewelry store, they lock the case when I walk in. In the shoe store, they help the White man who walks in after me. In the shopping mall, they follow me--in the Stanford shopping mall. Last month I turned and faced their surreptitious security: ``Catch any thieves today?'' Not guilty. Not shocked. Why not? I am a black man. I am 6 foot 3 inches tall and 230 pounds, just like Rodney King. Do I scare you? Am I a threat? Does your fear justify your actions? Twelve people [a jury] believed it did. Black male: Guilty until proven innocent. Reactions to my kind are justified. Scrutiny is justified. Surveillance is justified. Search is justified. Fifty-six blows justified. Justice? Dear God. I graduated from Stanford last June. I was elated. I was one of four presidents of my class--I was proud. In the fall, I received a Rhodes Scholarship. I approached arrogance. But late one night, as I walked the streets of Palo Alto, as the police car slowed down while passing me, as his steely glare met me, I realized that to him and to so many others I am and [may] always be-- And I substitute now-- --I am and may always be the [N-word]: Guilty until proven innocent. I am struggling to be articulate, loquacious, positive, constructive, but for the first time in so long, I have lost control of my emotions: Rage, frustration, bitterness, animosity, exasperation, sadness. Emotions once suppressed, emotions once channeled, now are let loose. Why? Not guilty. Not shocked. Poverty, alienation, estrangement, continuously aggravated by racism, overt and institutional. Can you leave your neighborhood without being stopped? Can you get a loan from your bank? Can you be trusted at your store? Can you get an ambulance dispatched to your neighborhood? Can you get the police to come to your house? Can you get an education at your school? Can you get a job? Can you stay alive past 25? Can you get respect? Can you be heard? No! Not until someone catches on video one small glimpse of your everyday reality and even then, can you get justice? Why have I lost control of my emotions? Why do my hands shake as I write? Tonight, I have no answers. Dear God, help us to help ourselves before we become our own undoing. That was three decades ago. That was me as an early 20-something, writing about another one of those names that has become household. We remember it decades later. I wish I could stand here and tell you that much has changed for the experience of that young Black man. I wish I could tell you that that was the end of names becoming household words, but it has not. This is a cycle of violence in our country; these spasms jerk us from our comfort and pull us into the world that is faced by so many African-Americans and then we go back. So many of us go back to what is now normal in America, what has been normal in America. This cycle--I hear people now talking about the violence, the rioters. I condemn it in the same way that the other99 Members are. It is awful, it is despicable, it is contrary to the aims of this Nation and the movements of our past. But to condemn the violence of those out there doing such awful, destructive, condemnation-worthy actions, but to only condemn them and not to condemn the fullness of that cycle of violence because there is violence going on even when we don't see it in the streets. Peace, even, is not just the absence of violence; it is the presence of justice. This is an unjust cycle in our country that we seem to be stuck in that makes the names of children like Tamir Rice household names. It is connected with the violence that is pervasive in our Nation that demands all of us to speak out against with the same fervor and enthusiasm and energy that people are condemning the violence we are seeing in America today. To fail to do that leaves us in a state of imbalance. To fail to condemn the totality of violence in our country leaves us far from the beloved community. We need to somehow find a way out of that cycle. There is violence in our Nation seen and our environment, that we still are a Nation where a person's race is the single biggest factor of whether they live near a toxic site or not. Ask the mother of a child who drank lead water for months and months and has had their brain permanently damaged if that was not violence. It is violence to not have access to quality care. Ask the woman who has lost her child because of lack of prenatal care. Ask the Black woman in America, who today is four times more likely to die, herself, in childbirth if this isn't a violence in our society that needs condemnation. It is violence we see from our healthcare system, to our criminal justice system, to environmental injustice, to the denial, as one author says, of the savage inequalities within our education systems. It is why so many Black Americans scream out: Do you see me? I do not have your equal justice under law. Do you see me? I do not have justice for all. Do you see me? I matter. I matter. Black lives matter. Black bodies matter. America, I love you. Do you see me? Do you know my experiences? Do you see the failings of our ideals? The murder of a Black man by multiple cops who knew they were being filmed in broad daylight is not the extent of the problem of racism in America. It is a final and deadly manifestation of that racism of a nation where everything about us is interwoven, it is interconnected, and we are in relationship with each other. This ideal that we are one Nation is not a quaint ideal. It is an inescapable fact of American society. The pain and the hurt of our brothers or sisters is our pain. I can show you that economically. I can show you that by every ideology that is expressed here on the floor of this Senate. The cycle of violence has to stop, the cycle of wretchedness and hurt. Our ancestors scream out at us now. Millions of Americans scream out right now, and I know we have an obligation in this body to do something. I have heard words from people on both sides of the aisle speaking toward the injustice of racism that exists in our country. I have heard words. But for generations what they sought from this body--greater men and women that any of us--what they sought on the streets, what they sought in front of the White House, from Alice Paul, the first person to protest out there, was legislative changes. That is what they sought. The march on Washington. Disability activists were throwing themselves out in front of buses. They fought for tangible legislation. Martin Luther King said: While it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me. It is on us. The cries for justice in the street, it is on us. The pain being made manifest for all America to see, it is on us. Those who have been comfortable for too long are now pulled from their seats as they stare at a television that shows them a window into a nation that is not at rest. It is on us in this body to do something, to change the law. We can do that. In the coming days, Senator Kamala Harris and I have partnered together on a comprehensive police reform proposal that takes into account the incredible work of Congressional Black Caucus members, many of them who have been in this congressional body much longer than I have. They have been working on these issues much longer than I have. It takes the work of so many people in both of the bodies that make up our Congress and pulls them together. There are so many injustices, but this comprehensive package is about police accountability. It is an answer to the pain, to the hurt, and the agony. It speaks to the young children whose parents right now are teaching them fear as an art of survival, teaching them not to be a threat to anyone who could kill you, to try to shrink from the fullness of your body so that they don't take your body, they don't harm your body, and they don't kill your body. It creates accountability and transparency and practices that can repair police community relations. It can give faith back to those who have lost it. It can rescue people who are slipping into a deeper despair about this Nation and perhaps cobble together some semblance of hope. This is a moment in American history where we must recognize the hurt and the pain and do something about it where this body that has so nobly acted in past years to pass legislation--the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the spasms of 1968. Fair housing laws were passed. I said I come to you today torn up inside. As so many Americans, the soil of our souls have been plowed up in pain, hoping for seeds of possibility, hoping that somehow, borne out of agony and despair, can sprout a new harvest for America. As a man who believes in this country and believes in the ideals of hope and love and faith and charity and kindness, I want to confess to you something, that right now hope is essential, but it is not enough. I confess to you, right now, words of kindness and grace are essential to America, but they are not enough right now. I confess to you even something that is hard to admit, that the spirit of courage and grit being shown by people on the streets--not in the comfortable hallways of the Senate--who in one of the most noble traditions of our Nation are protesting, are petitioning their government, are peacefully gathering, I want to tell you, right now, that that is not enough. It is essential, but it is not enough. These things are necessary, but not sufficient. So how? How do we go forward? In Washington, the people talk about being so savagely broken. How? At a time that I worry about King's ideal of a beloved community, how do we create that out of this moment? I do not know. But I want to tell you this: When I find myself disturbed and sad, when I find my heart that, on most days, has an invincible hope for our Nation, I turn to our history, but I don't need to turn too far. I know the heroes whose names are hailed from generations past. I don't know how Harriet Tubman, Ella Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer mustered their strength and courage. They were marvelous magicians that could turn the most wretched of times into progress. So at a time that I need hope, I tell you I turn to the spiritual alchemists of our day. I met them. I have been to a church in South Carolina where White supremacists stormed in and murdered nine blessed souls. I have watched on a TV screen this spiritual alchemist who somehow turned the most unimaginable grief into forgiveness and a lesson for our Nation. I visited a church just a few months ago in Tulsa, OK. It was the last structure that was left standing out of one of the greatest acts of domestic terrorism we had ever seen--the torching, the bombing of Black Wall Street--and I met a pastor there, Pastor Turner. He is a great spiritual alchemist, who somehow turned the only remaining structure--after horrific violence--he somehow turned it into a symbol of struggle. I have talked to mothers of the movement. These are these great Black women whose sons were murdered and are names we now know. I learned from them this unbelievable demonstration of spiritual alchemy, that somehow they turned their tragedies into a grit and guts and a determination to neverstop fighting as long as they have breath in their body and blood in their veins. They will fight for this Nation, even when it so savagely lets them down. I get strength from those in our Nation today who demonstrated alchemy greater than any power I can possess, that somehow, in our darkest of times, we still are a Nation that can find a way to ignite the world, in a Nation where so many people have been so thoroughly failed, that they can still manifest the ability to fight for the ideals that have been denied for them. They are the ones right now whose spirit we all must try to summon. We will come up short, but we must try to summon it. It is the only way forward that, somehow, this Nation that shares one spirit can find a way to put enough indivisible into this one nation under God, that somehow this great country can find a way in this time of our generation's great crisis--that we, like those before us, those magicians, those alchemists of love and spirit and sweat and struggle--that out of this time of crisis, we can make this Nation truly one of liberty and justice for all. Madam President, I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. BOOKER
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-02-pt1-PgS2652-5
| null | 744
|
formal
|
single
| null |
homophobic
|
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I rise today with difficulty. I admit I am like so many other Americans who are hurting right now and frustrated right now and feeling a torrent of emotions that I wish I could say it was the first time I felt like this. I want to begin my remarks in a different way because the names that we are hearing shouted on streets--George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor--are like so many other names of people that we did not know as a Nation. They were not household names. Their names now are mixed into names that we have heard throughout my entire lifetime. But their names--and the way we say them mixed with horror and sadness and tragedy--it does not speak to their beauty, their humanity, the fullness, the texturedness of their lives. I just want to say that Ahmaud Arbery was a man, and he was 25 years old when he was murdered. He went out jogging where he was hunted by two White men who walked free for weeks after killing him. This man, this child of God, his loved ones talked to his humanity. They said he was a loving son, a brother, an uncle, a nephew, a cousin, and a friend. He was humble. He was kind. He waswell mannered. He always made sure that he never departed his loved ones without saying ``I love you.'' Breonna Taylor, before we knew her name--an extraordinary American, an extraordinary servant--she was a first responder. In a pandemic, like so many of our first responders, she showed a courage and humble heroism. She was 26 years old when she was shot and killed by police, asleep in her home. She was an emergency medical technician in Louisville. Her loved ones, too, shared the truth of her spirit. They said Breonna Taylor was full of life. She loved social gatherings with her friends and especially her family. She loved life and all it had to offer. She continued to find ways to better herself and all of the people around her. George Floyd, he was a man that was raised in Texas. He was a Houston man. To his friends and loved ones, he was known as Floyd. In high school--I know this--he was an athlete, playing both basketball and football. He played the position I played; he was a tight end. He went on to play basketball at South Florida State College, a pathway I know to college ball. His girlfriend called him ``an angel that was sent to us on Earth.'' His family remembered him as being family oriented, loving, and godly. Floyd was a loving father. He was a devoted brother. He was a partner, and he was a friend. He is dead at 46 years old, on May 25, 2020, when he was restrained, pinned by his neck, and killed by law enforcement officers. The killings of George Floyd, of Breonna Taylor, of Ahmaud Arbery are singular in their pain, are singular in their particular details in the anguish and the horror, but this is a terror that is familiar. It is a fear that is baked now, cemented into our culture. For so many Americans, especially Black Americans, this has not just not been a tough few weeks. It has not just been an emotional time because of what we are seeing, the protests all around the country. This has been a tough life. This is the story of day after day after day that punctuates our consciousness only when someone captures on videotape what is a regular part of the fabric of our country. We have a long and wretched and disturbing history in this country of Black people being murdered by law enforcement. Our systems of accountability, our systems of transparency, our ability to end this has improved impotent and feeble. These killings for so many Black Americans today are searing reminders that Black people in this country, as I have heard from dozens of people in my life, as we hear from people on our media, that this could have been me; that this even would have been me in the same circumstances. To hear people at all stations of life--African-Americans saying--``I am alive,'' but questioning for how long, slipping into the savage reality of despair for your life and your safety. To be Black in America is to know that a misunderstanding, that an implicit racial bias, that an interaction that should be everyday and routine can become a moment where your life is turned upside down, where your body becomes broken or when you are killed. It is a common experience. This has been a stretch where bird watching in a park, to jogging in your neighborhood, to going to a corner store, it is a jarring reminder that is reinforced by personal experiences that it could be you. I was born to two civil rights activist parents. I was a big kid. I was over 6 feet by the time I was in seventh or eighth grade, and it was a time in my life that is a coming of age for so many people and cultures across our Nation. But something began happening to me in that period, and it was marked by the fear of my elders. Family members with jarring personal stories for a preteen or a teen would tell me what it meant to be Black, to be male in America. They were instilling fear in me as a survival mechanism. They were trying to make me aware of my surroundings. I have difficult memories of trips to the malls with elder Black men in my family and being lectured about what I couldn't do, what I shouldn't do, and what the consequences could be. I remember that talk with my parents where I tried to joke about it, but they got chillingly angry with me about what it meant to have a driver's license in America and what could happen to me. They told me stories of friends, of family members, of others and their experiences with the police. I spent those years of 12 and 13 in an America in the '70s and '80s where the words of my parents and elders were backed up with tragic and terrible stories of their experiences in generations before and were reinforced by my own experiences: being followed by mall security guards, being accused or stopped, being looked at with suspicion, and experience after experience after experience with police. I remember as a college student--and it all came to a head where I wrote a column in Stanford's newspaper: Why have I lost control? I remember that night writing that column like it was yesterday. I was so overcome with emotion and rage, and I would like to submit for the Record that column and read right now pieces of what I wrote that night that when I look at young men on the streets of America today and I see their anger and I see their rage, it brings me back, not to that moment, but to the own feelings that have churned within me for years. I will read from the column: Why have I lost control? How can I write, when I have lost control of my emotions? Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not shocked. Why not? Turn off the engine! Put your keys, driver's license, registration and insurance on the hood now! Put your hands on the steering wheel and don't even think of moving. Five police cars. Six officers surrounded my car, guns ready. Thirty minutes I sat, praying and shaking, only interrupted by the command, ``I said, don't move!'' Finally, ``Everything checks out, you can go.'' Sheepishly I asked, why. ``Oh, you fit the description of a car thief.'' Not guilty. Not shocked. Why not. In the jewelry store, they lock the case when I walk in. In the shoe store, they help the White man who walks in after me. In the shopping mall, they follow me--in the Stanford shopping mall. Last month I turned and faced their surreptitious security: ``Catch any thieves today?'' Not guilty. Not shocked. Why not? I am a black man. I am 6 foot 3 inches tall and 230 pounds, just like Rodney King. Do I scare you? Am I a threat? Does your fear justify your actions? Twelve people [a jury] believed it did. Black male: Guilty until proven innocent. Reactions to my kind are justified. Scrutiny is justified. Surveillance is justified. Search is justified. Fifty-six blows justified. Justice? Dear God. I graduated from Stanford last June. I was elated. I was one of four presidents of my class--I was proud. In the fall, I received a Rhodes Scholarship. I approached arrogance. But late one night, as I walked the streets of Palo Alto, as the police car slowed down while passing me, as his steely glare met me, I realized that to him and to so many others I am and [may] always be-- And I substitute now-- --I am and may always be the [N-word]: Guilty until proven innocent. I am struggling to be articulate, loquacious, positive, constructive, but for the first time in so long, I have lost control of my emotions: Rage, frustration, bitterness, animosity, exasperation, sadness. Emotions once suppressed, emotions once channeled, now are let loose. Why? Not guilty. Not shocked. Poverty, alienation, estrangement, continuously aggravated by racism, overt and institutional. Can you leave your neighborhood without being stopped? Can you get a loan from your bank? Can you be trusted at your store? Can you get an ambulance dispatched to your neighborhood? Can you get the police to come to your house? Can you get an education at your school? Can you get a job? Can you stay alive past 25? Can you get respect? Can you be heard? No! Not until someone catches on video one small glimpse of your everyday reality and even then, can you get justice? Why have I lost control of my emotions? Why do my hands shake as I write? Tonight, I have no answers. Dear God, help us to help ourselves before we become our own undoing. That was three decades ago. That was me as an early 20-something, writing about another one of those names that has become household. We remember it decades later. I wish I could stand here and tell you that much has changed for the experience of that young Black man. I wish I could tell you that that was the end of names becoming household words, but it has not. This is a cycle of violence in our country; these spasms jerk us from our comfort and pull us into the world that is faced by so many African-Americans and then we go back. So many of us go back to what is now normal in America, what has been normal in America. This cycle--I hear people now talking about the violence, the rioters. I condemn it in the same way that the other99 Members are. It is awful, it is despicable, it is contrary to the aims of this Nation and the movements of our past. But to condemn the violence of those out there doing such awful, destructive, condemnation-worthy actions, but to only condemn them and not to condemn the fullness of that cycle of violence because there is violence going on even when we don't see it in the streets. Peace, even, is not just the absence of violence; it is the presence of justice. This is an unjust cycle in our country that we seem to be stuck in that makes the names of children like Tamir Rice household names. It is connected with the violence that is pervasive in our Nation that demands all of us to speak out against with the same fervor and enthusiasm and energy that people are condemning the violence we are seeing in America today. To fail to do that leaves us in a state of imbalance. To fail to condemn the totality of violence in our country leaves us far from the beloved community. We need to somehow find a way out of that cycle. There is violence in our Nation seen and our environment, that we still are a Nation where a person's race is the single biggest factor of whether they live near a toxic site or not. Ask the mother of a child who drank lead water for months and months and has had their brain permanently damaged if that was not violence. It is violence to not have access to quality care. Ask the woman who has lost her child because of lack of prenatal care. Ask the Black woman in America, who today is four times more likely to die, herself, in childbirth if this isn't a violence in our society that needs condemnation. It is violence we see from our healthcare system, to our criminal justice system, to environmental injustice, to the denial, as one author says, of the savage inequalities within our education systems. It is why so many Black Americans scream out: Do you see me? I do not have your equal justice under law. Do you see me? I do not have justice for all. Do you see me? I matter. I matter. Black lives matter. Black bodies matter. America, I love you. Do you see me? Do you know my experiences? Do you see the failings of our ideals? The murder of a Black man by multiple cops who knew they were being filmed in broad daylight is not the extent of the problem of racism in America. It is a final and deadly manifestation of that racism of a nation where everything about us is interwoven, it is interconnected, and we are in relationship with each other. This ideal that we are one Nation is not a quaint ideal. It is an inescapable fact of American society. The pain and the hurt of our brothers or sisters is our pain. I can show you that economically. I can show you that by every ideology that is expressed here on the floor of this Senate. The cycle of violence has to stop, the cycle of wretchedness and hurt. Our ancestors scream out at us now. Millions of Americans scream out right now, and I know we have an obligation in this body to do something. I have heard words from people on both sides of the aisle speaking toward the injustice of racism that exists in our country. I have heard words. But for generations what they sought from this body--greater men and women that any of us--what they sought on the streets, what they sought in front of the White House, from Alice Paul, the first person to protest out there, was legislative changes. That is what they sought. The march on Washington. Disability activists were throwing themselves out in front of buses. They fought for tangible legislation. Martin Luther King said: While it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me. It is on us. The cries for justice in the street, it is on us. The pain being made manifest for all America to see, it is on us. Those who have been comfortable for too long are now pulled from their seats as they stare at a television that shows them a window into a nation that is not at rest. It is on us in this body to do something, to change the law. We can do that. In the coming days, Senator Kamala Harris and I have partnered together on a comprehensive police reform proposal that takes into account the incredible work of Congressional Black Caucus members, many of them who have been in this congressional body much longer than I have. They have been working on these issues much longer than I have. It takes the work of so many people in both of the bodies that make up our Congress and pulls them together. There are so many injustices, but this comprehensive package is about police accountability. It is an answer to the pain, to the hurt, and the agony. It speaks to the young children whose parents right now are teaching them fear as an art of survival, teaching them not to be a threat to anyone who could kill you, to try to shrink from the fullness of your body so that they don't take your body, they don't harm your body, and they don't kill your body. It creates accountability and transparency and practices that can repair police community relations. It can give faith back to those who have lost it. It can rescue people who are slipping into a deeper despair about this Nation and perhaps cobble together some semblance of hope. This is a moment in American history where we must recognize the hurt and the pain and do something about it where this body that has so nobly acted in past years to pass legislation--the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the spasms of 1968. Fair housing laws were passed. I said I come to you today torn up inside. As so many Americans, the soil of our souls have been plowed up in pain, hoping for seeds of possibility, hoping that somehow, borne out of agony and despair, can sprout a new harvest for America. As a man who believes in this country and believes in the ideals of hope and love and faith and charity and kindness, I want to confess to you something, that right now hope is essential, but it is not enough. I confess to you, right now, words of kindness and grace are essential to America, but they are not enough right now. I confess to you even something that is hard to admit, that the spirit of courage and grit being shown by people on the streets--not in the comfortable hallways of the Senate--who in one of the most noble traditions of our Nation are protesting, are petitioning their government, are peacefully gathering, I want to tell you, right now, that that is not enough. It is essential, but it is not enough. These things are necessary, but not sufficient. So how? How do we go forward? In Washington, the people talk about being so savagely broken. How? At a time that I worry about King's ideal of a beloved community, how do we create that out of this moment? I do not know. But I want to tell you this: When I find myself disturbed and sad, when I find my heart that, on most days, has an invincible hope for our Nation, I turn to our history, but I don't need to turn too far. I know the heroes whose names are hailed from generations past. I don't know how Harriet Tubman, Ella Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer mustered their strength and courage. They were marvelous magicians that could turn the most wretched of times into progress. So at a time that I need hope, I tell you I turn to the spiritual alchemists of our day. I met them. I have been to a church in South Carolina where White supremacists stormed in and murdered nine blessed souls. I have watched on a TV screen this spiritual alchemist who somehow turned the most unimaginable grief into forgiveness and a lesson for our Nation. I visited a church just a few months ago in Tulsa, OK. It was the last structure that was left standing out of one of the greatest acts of domestic terrorism we had ever seen--the torching, the bombing of Black Wall Street--and I met a pastor there, Pastor Turner. He is a great spiritual alchemist, who somehow turned the only remaining structure--after horrific violence--he somehow turned it into a symbol of struggle. I have talked to mothers of the movement. These are these great Black women whose sons were murdered and are names we now know. I learned from them this unbelievable demonstration of spiritual alchemy, that somehow they turned their tragedies into a grit and guts and a determination to neverstop fighting as long as they have breath in their body and blood in their veins. They will fight for this Nation, even when it so savagely lets them down. I get strength from those in our Nation today who demonstrated alchemy greater than any power I can possess, that somehow, in our darkest of times, we still are a Nation that can find a way to ignite the world, in a Nation where so many people have been so thoroughly failed, that they can still manifest the ability to fight for the ideals that have been denied for them. They are the ones right now whose spirit we all must try to summon. We will come up short, but we must try to summon it. It is the only way forward that, somehow, this Nation that shares one spirit can find a way to put enough indivisible into this one nation under God, that somehow this great country can find a way in this time of our generation's great crisis--that we, like those before us, those magicians, those alchemists of love and spirit and sweat and struggle--that out of this time of crisis, we can make this Nation truly one of liberty and justice for all. Madam President, I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. BOOKER
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-02-pt1-PgS2652-5
| null | 745
|
formal
|
based
| null |
white supremacist
|
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, let me start by saying to our colleague, the Senator from New Jersey who just spoke on the floor, that we are all thankful for his passion to make sure that this country lives up to its promise and for sharing with this body his personal testimony about racism and the need for all of us to move urgently to address the fundamental inequities at the heart of our society and institutions. I don't think it is an overstatement to say that we are at a pivotal point in our country. It is a moment of reckoning. Historians will carefully examine this moment to see how our country responded to see which path we took, how the Senate responded, how each Senator responded. The immediate spark for this moment was the brutal murder of George Floyd by agents of government. In Minneapolis, a police officer aided and abetted by three other officers--we all witnessed the horror of George Floyd gasping ``I can't breathe'' as a White officer kept his knee on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds; three other officers participated in the crime. All four need to be brought to justice, but the murder of George Floyd was not an isolated event in the United States of America. It is not the first time a Black man has called out ``I can't breathe'' as he was choked or lynched. We can draw a straight line that runs from slavery to Jim Crow to legal segregation to de facto segregation to institutional racism to the killings of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, as well as the vigilante killings of Trayvon Martin and Ahmaud Arbery and others. The White police officer who looked at the video as he kept his knee on the neck of George Floyd thought he would get away with his actions because he and so many others had not been held accountable before. He thought he could get away with it, based on his experience. We must change that. As Senator Booker said, we can have our moments of silence, we can have vigils, but that is not enough. It is not nearly enough. This is a moment that demands real action, real change, and real results, starting with changes in police practices and the systemic racism and institutions that have shielded those who engage in misconduct from accountability. Those changes must include establishing truly independent oversight mechanisms to ensure that those police officers who betrayed the public trust are held accountable. We must ban outright the use of chokeholds unless the officer's life is in imminent danger, and we must use Federal leverage to incentivize deescalatory practices over escalatory ones. We need national standards backed up by real consequences for those who do not comply, and we must establish a Federal databank that tracks reports of police misconduct--not simply unjustified killings by police, but all forms of misconduct. These and others changes are required to ensure the protection of citizens, communities, and an overwhelming number of police officers who are meeting their sworn oaths to protect our communities. Bad cops are bad for good cops, and we need to make sure we have a system in place to punish misconduct and reward those who are upholding their sworn duty. Now, while the murder of George Floyd and others has, again, exposed the need for systemic change in police accountability, it also cries out for systemic change to address racism embedded in our institutions. The need for additional change does not mean we have not made progress in our country on key issues of civil rights and political rights, but it does mean we have a very long unfinished road ahead to achieve the promise of equal justice, equal rights, and equal opportunity in America. The murder of George Floyd comes in the middle of a pandemic that has inflicted disproportionate harm on communities of color, especially the Black community, because of deep underlying disparities in our society that have been well documented. It comes amid a pandemic that has shone a harsh light on deep inequality in our education systems, including the digital divide and the homework gap, but so much more. The reality is we must put all of our systems under the microscope and very intentionally root out racial bias and discriminatory impact. In the city of Baltimore, in my State of Maryland, we have a terrible legacy of housing segregation. Baltimore City had an explicit committee on segregation, which was followed by harsh and restrictive covenants and redlining that blocked our Black community from economic mobility. That may seem like a long time ago, but the harmful impact of those laws is lasting, and you can still trace those red lines separating our neighborhoods today. So let us be very clear here that these disparities can be directly traced to policies that were designed to discriminate. For decades, Federal, State, and local policies covering issues from housing to banking amounted to nothing less than state--sponsored efforts to deny African-Americans the basic equal rights they are owed under our Constitution. While many of these policies are off the books today, their legacy endures and practices endure, and it is our obligation at every level of government to uproot and destroy those embedded policies with the same kind of deliberation that they were put in place in the first place. Now, the protests taking place in Minneapolis and all across the country are an expression of the deep pain caused by the continued death toll and other harms caused by our failure as a nation to address the underlying inequities in our society and in our institutions. That is why people have taken to the streets to protest. It was Dr. King who said: There can be no justice without peace, and there can be no peace without justice. Real justice and real peace is long overdue. Last night, in response to those protests, we witnessed something I never thought we would see in the United States of America. We had the President of the United States call up and order military police to fire tear gas and rubber bullets at peaceful protesters to clear a path for him to conduct a photo op in front of Saint John's Episcopal church, a historic church close by to the White House. Here is what Mariann Budde, the bishop of the Episcopal archdiocese of Washington, had to say about what the President did. She made a statement that outlined the President's abuse of their church for his political purposes, and then the church itself issued the following statement--I should point out that the pastor of the church and many of the parishioners were at the protest and providing water and nutrition to some of the protesters. Here is what the leaders of the church said: We at St. John's Church were shocked at the surprise visit from the President this evening and even more appalled at the violent clearing of Lafayette Square to make the visit possible. St. John's is a community that welcomes all--from powerful presidents to the homeless--to worship God. We fully espouse the words of our Baptismal Covenant, which says, in part, that we ``will strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.'' Living that covenant, we stand with those peacefully protesting the tragic and unnecessary death of George Floyd, and the far too many who came before him. We pray that our nation finally confronts its history of racism and, as a result, can fully embrace the peace of God that passes all understanding. Those are really words that we should have heard from our President. Instead, they came from religious leaders responding to the President's use of their church for political purposes--and, in the process, violating the First Amendment rights of peaceful protesters, the rights of those protesters to peacefully assemble, as the President ordered up military police to clear a peaceful crowd. We also listened in disbelief as Mark Esper, the Secretary of Defense, talked about turning public places into ``battle spaces'' to be dominated. This is the Secretary of Defense, who is charged with defending our country, talking about turning rubber bullets and tear gas against peaceful protesters here in the United States. We witnessed General Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in full military uniform, presiding over the breakup of this peaceful demonstration. I remind Secretary Esper and Chairman Milley that their oath is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and they are not permitted by that oath to follow illegal orders, even from the President of the United States. The President of the United States can give them what orders he chooses, but the Constitution and their oath requires that their first loyalty be to the United States of America and not to any one individual. So I think it is important that we investigate this incident and the role that the Secretary and the Joint Chiefs of Staff played in following the President's illegal orders, illegal because they represented a gross violation of the First Amendment rights of citizens of the United States to peacefully assemble. Let me close with this. I said at the outset that this is a moment when our country has different paths to choose and this Senate is very much a part of deciding which path we will take. Will we take the path that Senator Booker said of not only having moments of silence, but working together to pass true reform to address police accountability, to address other forms of systemic racism? Will we be willing to stand up to the President of the United States when he violates the civil rights and First Amendment rights of American citizens? That is really a test for this institution, whether we are willing to do our job and uphold our oath to the Constitution of the United States. Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. VAN HOLLEN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-02-pt1-PgS2655
| null | 746
|
formal
|
Baltimore
| null |
racist
|
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, let me start by saying to our colleague, the Senator from New Jersey who just spoke on the floor, that we are all thankful for his passion to make sure that this country lives up to its promise and for sharing with this body his personal testimony about racism and the need for all of us to move urgently to address the fundamental inequities at the heart of our society and institutions. I don't think it is an overstatement to say that we are at a pivotal point in our country. It is a moment of reckoning. Historians will carefully examine this moment to see how our country responded to see which path we took, how the Senate responded, how each Senator responded. The immediate spark for this moment was the brutal murder of George Floyd by agents of government. In Minneapolis, a police officer aided and abetted by three other officers--we all witnessed the horror of George Floyd gasping ``I can't breathe'' as a White officer kept his knee on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds; three other officers participated in the crime. All four need to be brought to justice, but the murder of George Floyd was not an isolated event in the United States of America. It is not the first time a Black man has called out ``I can't breathe'' as he was choked or lynched. We can draw a straight line that runs from slavery to Jim Crow to legal segregation to de facto segregation to institutional racism to the killings of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, as well as the vigilante killings of Trayvon Martin and Ahmaud Arbery and others. The White police officer who looked at the video as he kept his knee on the neck of George Floyd thought he would get away with his actions because he and so many others had not been held accountable before. He thought he could get away with it, based on his experience. We must change that. As Senator Booker said, we can have our moments of silence, we can have vigils, but that is not enough. It is not nearly enough. This is a moment that demands real action, real change, and real results, starting with changes in police practices and the systemic racism and institutions that have shielded those who engage in misconduct from accountability. Those changes must include establishing truly independent oversight mechanisms to ensure that those police officers who betrayed the public trust are held accountable. We must ban outright the use of chokeholds unless the officer's life is in imminent danger, and we must use Federal leverage to incentivize deescalatory practices over escalatory ones. We need national standards backed up by real consequences for those who do not comply, and we must establish a Federal databank that tracks reports of police misconduct--not simply unjustified killings by police, but all forms of misconduct. These and others changes are required to ensure the protection of citizens, communities, and an overwhelming number of police officers who are meeting their sworn oaths to protect our communities. Bad cops are bad for good cops, and we need to make sure we have a system in place to punish misconduct and reward those who are upholding their sworn duty. Now, while the murder of George Floyd and others has, again, exposed the need for systemic change in police accountability, it also cries out for systemic change to address racism embedded in our institutions. The need for additional change does not mean we have not made progress in our country on key issues of civil rights and political rights, but it does mean we have a very long unfinished road ahead to achieve the promise of equal justice, equal rights, and equal opportunity in America. The murder of George Floyd comes in the middle of a pandemic that has inflicted disproportionate harm on communities of color, especially the Black community, because of deep underlying disparities in our society that have been well documented. It comes amid a pandemic that has shone a harsh light on deep inequality in our education systems, including the digital divide and the homework gap, but so much more. The reality is we must put all of our systems under the microscope and very intentionally root out racial bias and discriminatory impact. In the city of Baltimore, in my State of Maryland, we have a terrible legacy of housing segregation. Baltimore City had an explicit committee on segregation, which was followed by harsh and restrictive covenants and redlining that blocked our Black community from economic mobility. That may seem like a long time ago, but the harmful impact of those laws is lasting, and you can still trace those red lines separating our neighborhoods today. So let us be very clear here that these disparities can be directly traced to policies that were designed to discriminate. For decades, Federal, State, and local policies covering issues from housing to banking amounted to nothing less than state--sponsored efforts to deny African-Americans the basic equal rights they are owed under our Constitution. While many of these policies are off the books today, their legacy endures and practices endure, and it is our obligation at every level of government to uproot and destroy those embedded policies with the same kind of deliberation that they were put in place in the first place. Now, the protests taking place in Minneapolis and all across the country are an expression of the deep pain caused by the continued death toll and other harms caused by our failure as a nation to address the underlying inequities in our society and in our institutions. That is why people have taken to the streets to protest. It was Dr. King who said: There can be no justice without peace, and there can be no peace without justice. Real justice and real peace is long overdue. Last night, in response to those protests, we witnessed something I never thought we would see in the United States of America. We had the President of the United States call up and order military police to fire tear gas and rubber bullets at peaceful protesters to clear a path for him to conduct a photo op in front of Saint John's Episcopal church, a historic church close by to the White House. Here is what Mariann Budde, the bishop of the Episcopal archdiocese of Washington, had to say about what the President did. She made a statement that outlined the President's abuse of their church for his political purposes, and then the church itself issued the following statement--I should point out that the pastor of the church and many of the parishioners were at the protest and providing water and nutrition to some of the protesters. Here is what the leaders of the church said: We at St. John's Church were shocked at the surprise visit from the President this evening and even more appalled at the violent clearing of Lafayette Square to make the visit possible. St. John's is a community that welcomes all--from powerful presidents to the homeless--to worship God. We fully espouse the words of our Baptismal Covenant, which says, in part, that we ``will strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.'' Living that covenant, we stand with those peacefully protesting the tragic and unnecessary death of George Floyd, and the far too many who came before him. We pray that our nation finally confronts its history of racism and, as a result, can fully embrace the peace of God that passes all understanding. Those are really words that we should have heard from our President. Instead, they came from religious leaders responding to the President's use of their church for political purposes--and, in the process, violating the First Amendment rights of peaceful protesters, the rights of those protesters to peacefully assemble, as the President ordered up military police to clear a peaceful crowd. We also listened in disbelief as Mark Esper, the Secretary of Defense, talked about turning public places into ``battle spaces'' to be dominated. This is the Secretary of Defense, who is charged with defending our country, talking about turning rubber bullets and tear gas against peaceful protesters here in the United States. We witnessed General Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in full military uniform, presiding over the breakup of this peaceful demonstration. I remind Secretary Esper and Chairman Milley that their oath is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and they are not permitted by that oath to follow illegal orders, even from the President of the United States. The President of the United States can give them what orders he chooses, but the Constitution and their oath requires that their first loyalty be to the United States of America and not to any one individual. So I think it is important that we investigate this incident and the role that the Secretary and the Joint Chiefs of Staff played in following the President's illegal orders, illegal because they represented a gross violation of the First Amendment rights of citizens of the United States to peacefully assemble. Let me close with this. I said at the outset that this is a moment when our country has different paths to choose and this Senate is very much a part of deciding which path we will take. Will we take the path that Senator Booker said of not only having moments of silence, but working together to pass true reform to address police accountability, to address other forms of systemic racism? Will we be willing to stand up to the President of the United States when he violates the civil rights and First Amendment rights of American citizens? That is really a test for this institution, whether we are willing to do our job and uphold our oath to the Constitution of the United States. Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. VAN HOLLEN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-02-pt1-PgS2655
| null | 747
|
formal
|
safeguard
| null |
transphobic
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, our Nation is caught within a number of grave problems at the same time. This week, in cities all across America, the pain of racial injustice has been compounded by violent riots that have drowned out peaceful protests and hurt innocent people. Millions of working families continue to face the historic economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, including unemployment levels not seen in decades, and, lest we forget, the actual pandemic itself is still with us. The virus continues to claim hundreds of American lives every day, challenge healthcare professionals, and paralyze schools, universities, and employers that are eager to reopen. Of course, there is also the important business we would have needed to have addressed even before the pandemic. So, for all of these reasons and more, while the Democratic House of Representatives may be absent--with no plans to return for weeks and weeks--the U.S. Senate is here and working for the American people. This week, we are filling more critical vacancies throughout our government. Yesterday, we confirmed the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Response. This is a brandnew position born of immediate necessity and goals shared by Members of both parties. Yet, though our Democratic colleagues said for weeks that CARES Act oversight was a top priority, our colleagues chose to delay this nomination for as long as possible. When the rubber met the road, yet again, picking small fights with President Trump took precedence over urgent work for the common good. At the same time, we also hear from the very same Democratic colleagues that they wish the Senate would spend less time on nominations. Well, the good news is that the Senate Democrats can change that whenever they want, but as long as they continue to visit delays and obstruction on even these lower level executive branch appointments, just for the sake of irritating the White House, the Senate will continue to do our job the hard way. Of course, in the weeks ahead, we will also tackle significant legislationfor our country. We will turn to legislation to strengthen the implementation of the Paycheck Protection Program for the workers and small businesses that are struggling to weather this storm. We will consider a bipartisan bill from Senators Daines and Gardner to safeguard America's abundant public lands. For the 60th consecutive year, we will also take up the National Defense Authorization Act to help guide the strategic and operational priorities of our Nation's Armed Forces in the face of evolving threats
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2659-8
| null | 748
|
formal
|
working families
| null |
racist
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, our Nation is caught within a number of grave problems at the same time. This week, in cities all across America, the pain of racial injustice has been compounded by violent riots that have drowned out peaceful protests and hurt innocent people. Millions of working families continue to face the historic economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, including unemployment levels not seen in decades, and, lest we forget, the actual pandemic itself is still with us. The virus continues to claim hundreds of American lives every day, challenge healthcare professionals, and paralyze schools, universities, and employers that are eager to reopen. Of course, there is also the important business we would have needed to have addressed even before the pandemic. So, for all of these reasons and more, while the Democratic House of Representatives may be absent--with no plans to return for weeks and weeks--the U.S. Senate is here and working for the American people. This week, we are filling more critical vacancies throughout our government. Yesterday, we confirmed the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Response. This is a brandnew position born of immediate necessity and goals shared by Members of both parties. Yet, though our Democratic colleagues said for weeks that CARES Act oversight was a top priority, our colleagues chose to delay this nomination for as long as possible. When the rubber met the road, yet again, picking small fights with President Trump took precedence over urgent work for the common good. At the same time, we also hear from the very same Democratic colleagues that they wish the Senate would spend less time on nominations. Well, the good news is that the Senate Democrats can change that whenever they want, but as long as they continue to visit delays and obstruction on even these lower level executive branch appointments, just for the sake of irritating the White House, the Senate will continue to do our job the hard way. Of course, in the weeks ahead, we will also tackle significant legislationfor our country. We will turn to legislation to strengthen the implementation of the Paycheck Protection Program for the workers and small businesses that are struggling to weather this storm. We will consider a bipartisan bill from Senators Daines and Gardner to safeguard America's abundant public lands. For the 60th consecutive year, we will also take up the National Defense Authorization Act to help guide the strategic and operational priorities of our Nation's Armed Forces in the face of evolving threats
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2659-8
| null | 749
|
formal
|
terrorist
| null |
Islamophobic
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, make no mistake, the foreign actors who seek to harm the United States have not let up while we have attended to other problems. For example, in Afghanistan, despite agreeing just months ago to engage in further peace negotiations with the Afghan Government and sever its ties with al-Qaida, the Taliban has, instead, continued its violent campaign against the Afghan people. President Trump has expressed frustration with the Taliban's failures and is reportedly considering withdrawing from Afghanistan even more rapidly. Yet, as we weigh our options, we must not forget the painful lessons of the last administration's mistakes. Former President Obama and Vice President Biden were intent on beating a hasty retreat from Iraq, conditions on the ground notwithstanding. Just as many of us warned at the time, their recklessness left a vacuum that terrorists and Iran readily filled. ISIS flourished. Tragically, the rest is history. The resulting chaos threatened our interests and drew American efforts back into the region. By contrast, the Trump administration has seen a number of successes in this difficult region. The President's strategy has secured a territorial defeat of ISIS. It has put new pressure on Iran and given the Iraqi people a fighting chance, which their new government seems inclined to take. Yet helping Iraq stand up to Iranian influence will not be an overnight project. Iran wants to drive the United States from the region. China and Russia would also be thrilled with a reduction of American presence and influence there. So, as we struggle to clean up the broken pieces of one rushed withdrawal, we need to avoid repeating those mistakes somewhere else. I applaud the Trump administration for its approach thus far in Afghanistan. The President has taken constraints off U.S. forces. We have helped Afghan forces go after the terrorists. We have ratcheted up the costs on the Taliban, bolstered the Afghan forces that bear the brunt of the violence, and won international support for our mission there. We have done all of this with fewer resources and fewer personnel than during the previous two administrations. The President's strategy and diplomacy have helped create a path for discussions among Afghans--the only thing that could actually secure the country's future. If these qualified successes continue, it would be appropriate to further reduce our American presence as certain conditions are met, but we must retain enough forces and influence to maintain our counterterrorism capabilities. Given recent reports and our longstanding experience, we cannot just trust the Taliban will sever ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist networks. We need to be vigilant. We need to maintain enough presence to judge whether the Taliban complies with agreements and help the Afghan Government impose consequences if it does not. We need to maintain enough presence to preserve our strategic foothold against ISIS, the Haqqani Network, and al-Qaida. We should also maintain enough presence to help prevent a full replay of Iraq or Syria--a bloodbath and a human rights collapse, particularly for generations of Afghan women. Last year, a bipartisan supermajority in the Senate voted for an amendment I authored, which warned against precipitous withdrawals from Afghanistan and Syria in ways that could jeopardize the hard-won progress we have attained, embolden Iran and Russia, and create more pain for us and everyone else in the future. Our enemies would be thrilled if the United States would grow too tired to continue the hard work of standing with our partners, confronting our adversaries, and maintaining measured leadership that projects our security around the world. Our enemies would be delighted if we would grow too weary to act in our own long-term interest. We must not give them that satisfaction.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2660
| null | 750
|
formal
|
terrorists
| null |
Islamophobic
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, make no mistake, the foreign actors who seek to harm the United States have not let up while we have attended to other problems. For example, in Afghanistan, despite agreeing just months ago to engage in further peace negotiations with the Afghan Government and sever its ties with al-Qaida, the Taliban has, instead, continued its violent campaign against the Afghan people. President Trump has expressed frustration with the Taliban's failures and is reportedly considering withdrawing from Afghanistan even more rapidly. Yet, as we weigh our options, we must not forget the painful lessons of the last administration's mistakes. Former President Obama and Vice President Biden were intent on beating a hasty retreat from Iraq, conditions on the ground notwithstanding. Just as many of us warned at the time, their recklessness left a vacuum that terrorists and Iran readily filled. ISIS flourished. Tragically, the rest is history. The resulting chaos threatened our interests and drew American efforts back into the region. By contrast, the Trump administration has seen a number of successes in this difficult region. The President's strategy has secured a territorial defeat of ISIS. It has put new pressure on Iran and given the Iraqi people a fighting chance, which their new government seems inclined to take. Yet helping Iraq stand up to Iranian influence will not be an overnight project. Iran wants to drive the United States from the region. China and Russia would also be thrilled with a reduction of American presence and influence there. So, as we struggle to clean up the broken pieces of one rushed withdrawal, we need to avoid repeating those mistakes somewhere else. I applaud the Trump administration for its approach thus far in Afghanistan. The President has taken constraints off U.S. forces. We have helped Afghan forces go after the terrorists. We have ratcheted up the costs on the Taliban, bolstered the Afghan forces that bear the brunt of the violence, and won international support for our mission there. We have done all of this with fewer resources and fewer personnel than during the previous two administrations. The President's strategy and diplomacy have helped create a path for discussions among Afghans--the only thing that could actually secure the country's future. If these qualified successes continue, it would be appropriate to further reduce our American presence as certain conditions are met, but we must retain enough forces and influence to maintain our counterterrorism capabilities. Given recent reports and our longstanding experience, we cannot just trust the Taliban will sever ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist networks. We need to be vigilant. We need to maintain enough presence to judge whether the Taliban complies with agreements and help the Afghan Government impose consequences if it does not. We need to maintain enough presence to preserve our strategic foothold against ISIS, the Haqqani Network, and al-Qaida. We should also maintain enough presence to help prevent a full replay of Iraq or Syria--a bloodbath and a human rights collapse, particularly for generations of Afghan women. Last year, a bipartisan supermajority in the Senate voted for an amendment I authored, which warned against precipitous withdrawals from Afghanistan and Syria in ways that could jeopardize the hard-won progress we have attained, embolden Iran and Russia, and create more pain for us and everyone else in the future. Our enemies would be thrilled if the United States would grow too tired to continue the hard work of standing with our partners, confronting our adversaries, and maintaining measured leadership that projects our security around the world. Our enemies would be delighted if we would grow too weary to act in our own long-term interest. We must not give them that satisfaction.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2660
| null | 751
|
formal
|
coincidence
| null |
antisemitic
|
Protests Mr. President, the protests around our State, throughout our country, are an expression of fear and grief and frustration and of anger. Black communities led the Nation in mourning the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor over the last week. They are now leading calls for justice and long-term changes to dismantle the systems of oppression that hold them back. Instead of listening to those calls from the people who built this country, instead of offering leadership and rising to meet this moment--as every one of his predecessors of both parties did in times of trouble for our country--President Trump fails yet again. Instead of uniting, he divides. Instead of comforting, he stokes fear. He points fingers. He places blame. Instead of healing, he rubs salt in the open wounds of Black Americans. On Monday night, the President of the United States turned the arm of the state on peaceful protesters--we saw the video--tear-gassing the citizens he is supposed to serve, all so he could walk across the street and stage a photo op at a church he doesn't attend and hold up a Bible that he doesn't read. The timid--you choose the adjective--timid, cowardly, spineless Republican colleagues in this Senate just remained silent. How offended they would have been if a Democratic President had done what this President does and fails to do--the tear-gassing of citizens he is supposed to serve, the photo op at a church, the holding up of the Bible he doesn't read, the excuses, the divisiveness, all of that. People are tired. People are angry: more Black sons and daughters and mothers and fathers killed by police officers--the very people who are supposed to protect all Americans; more death, when many are already grieving--so many in the Black community already grieving the loss of family members and friends for the coronavirus, grappling with the economic stress this pandemic has caused. The pandemic has been the ``great revealer.'' We know Black and Brown communities have been hit hardest by the coronavirus. They are more likely to get sick. They have less access to healthcare. They make up the communities hurt by Jim Crow laws and redlining and now the locking in of those rules and regulations by the Trump administration. Black and Brown communities disproportionately make up our essential workers. It is not because they don't work as hard. It is not because of individual choices. We all work hard. We are all trying to do something productive for our families and our communities. We all want to build a better country for our daughters and our sons. No; it is because of a racist system that is making it harder for their work to pay off and putting at risk their lives for generations, long before this virus appeared. A grocery store worker in Cincinnati said to me: They tell me I am essential, but I feel expendable. I don't feel safe at work, and they don't pay me very much. I feel expendable. Long before this pandemic, millions of Americans knew we had a system that treats them like they are expendable. Their hard work isn't paying off. For some, it feels like the system is broken. For Black and Brown workers, it never worked to begin with. In the midst of the trauma and the grieving, millions of those same Americans still go to work day after day, week after week, in grocery stores, as delivery people, in drugstores, as busdrivers, and the people who do the linen and change the beds in hospitals, the food service workers, the custodians, the security people, the first responders. In the midst of the trauma and grieving, those same Americans--millions of them--still go to work day after day, week after week. Our job is to show the victims of systemic racism at the hands of their own government that the same government can and will protect them from this pandemic. We hear them. We see them. We fight for them. Their lives matter. Our response to this crisis must be to stand behind all the people who make this country work, all workers, whether you swipe a badge or punch a clock, whether you earn a salary or make tips, whether you are raising children or caring for an aging parent; all workers, whether your hard work isn't paying off now or whether it never paid off the way it should. Dr. King said: One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker. For the person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician, for if he doesn't do his job, diseases are rampant. All labor has dignity. It is Black and Brown workers who have too often, far too long, far too often been robbed of their dignity on the job. If we want to be a country where all people have dignity, we need to start by recognizing that all labor has dignity. But so far, our response to the crisis is not the response of a government that believes that. This Senate, this President, can always find trillions of dollars for corporations--for tax cuts, for bailouts. But when hard-working families need help with rent or to put food on the table, President Trump and Leader McConnell say we can't afford it. The President and the administration have already made racial and economic inequality worse and undonecivil rights protections. They have been pretty clear that they are willing to put American workers' lives at risk--to reopen stockyards or just to juice the stock market. President Trump and his administration believe that millions of Americans are expendable. It is not a coincidence that many of the people they consider expendable are Black and Brown workers. Since the President is unwilling to protect people--whether that is protecting their lives or protecting their financial future--we in the Senate must fill the leadership void. As we do that, we work for change. We need to be clear that part of leading is listening. The best ideas don't come out of Washington--the solutions we need to fix the justice system, to address wealth inequality, to reverse disparities in healthcare, to help communities that have been hurt by redlining and Jim Crow laws and so much more. Whenever we talk about this, whenever people bring up the ways the system has failed so many Americans on the Senate floor or at a protest march, there are always naysayers--almost always White, usually men, often pretty well-off--who say: How can you be so negative? Why do you want to dwell on all the worst parts of our history? Don't you love our country? My response to our country's naysayers and sunshine patriots is this: How can you be so pessimistic as to believe that this is the best our country can do? Do you really think the American people, with our ingenuity and our optimism and tenacity--do you really think the American people can't create a fair economy and a more just government? Do you truly believe we can't have a society that works for everyone--Black and White and Brown, women and men--no matter who you are, no matter what kind of work you do? Protesting, working for change, organizing, demanding our country do better--those are some of the most patriotic things any of us can do. I love my country. If you love this country, you fight for the people who make it work, all of them. I yield the floor
|
2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2664-2
| null | 752
|
formal
|
tax cut
| null |
racist
|
Protests Mr. President, the protests around our State, throughout our country, are an expression of fear and grief and frustration and of anger. Black communities led the Nation in mourning the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor over the last week. They are now leading calls for justice and long-term changes to dismantle the systems of oppression that hold them back. Instead of listening to those calls from the people who built this country, instead of offering leadership and rising to meet this moment--as every one of his predecessors of both parties did in times of trouble for our country--President Trump fails yet again. Instead of uniting, he divides. Instead of comforting, he stokes fear. He points fingers. He places blame. Instead of healing, he rubs salt in the open wounds of Black Americans. On Monday night, the President of the United States turned the arm of the state on peaceful protesters--we saw the video--tear-gassing the citizens he is supposed to serve, all so he could walk across the street and stage a photo op at a church he doesn't attend and hold up a Bible that he doesn't read. The timid--you choose the adjective--timid, cowardly, spineless Republican colleagues in this Senate just remained silent. How offended they would have been if a Democratic President had done what this President does and fails to do--the tear-gassing of citizens he is supposed to serve, the photo op at a church, the holding up of the Bible he doesn't read, the excuses, the divisiveness, all of that. People are tired. People are angry: more Black sons and daughters and mothers and fathers killed by police officers--the very people who are supposed to protect all Americans; more death, when many are already grieving--so many in the Black community already grieving the loss of family members and friends for the coronavirus, grappling with the economic stress this pandemic has caused. The pandemic has been the ``great revealer.'' We know Black and Brown communities have been hit hardest by the coronavirus. They are more likely to get sick. They have less access to healthcare. They make up the communities hurt by Jim Crow laws and redlining and now the locking in of those rules and regulations by the Trump administration. Black and Brown communities disproportionately make up our essential workers. It is not because they don't work as hard. It is not because of individual choices. We all work hard. We are all trying to do something productive for our families and our communities. We all want to build a better country for our daughters and our sons. No; it is because of a racist system that is making it harder for their work to pay off and putting at risk their lives for generations, long before this virus appeared. A grocery store worker in Cincinnati said to me: They tell me I am essential, but I feel expendable. I don't feel safe at work, and they don't pay me very much. I feel expendable. Long before this pandemic, millions of Americans knew we had a system that treats them like they are expendable. Their hard work isn't paying off. For some, it feels like the system is broken. For Black and Brown workers, it never worked to begin with. In the midst of the trauma and the grieving, millions of those same Americans still go to work day after day, week after week, in grocery stores, as delivery people, in drugstores, as busdrivers, and the people who do the linen and change the beds in hospitals, the food service workers, the custodians, the security people, the first responders. In the midst of the trauma and grieving, those same Americans--millions of them--still go to work day after day, week after week. Our job is to show the victims of systemic racism at the hands of their own government that the same government can and will protect them from this pandemic. We hear them. We see them. We fight for them. Their lives matter. Our response to this crisis must be to stand behind all the people who make this country work, all workers, whether you swipe a badge or punch a clock, whether you earn a salary or make tips, whether you are raising children or caring for an aging parent; all workers, whether your hard work isn't paying off now or whether it never paid off the way it should. Dr. King said: One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker. For the person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician, for if he doesn't do his job, diseases are rampant. All labor has dignity. It is Black and Brown workers who have too often, far too long, far too often been robbed of their dignity on the job. If we want to be a country where all people have dignity, we need to start by recognizing that all labor has dignity. But so far, our response to the crisis is not the response of a government that believes that. This Senate, this President, can always find trillions of dollars for corporations--for tax cuts, for bailouts. But when hard-working families need help with rent or to put food on the table, President Trump and Leader McConnell say we can't afford it. The President and the administration have already made racial and economic inequality worse and undonecivil rights protections. They have been pretty clear that they are willing to put American workers' lives at risk--to reopen stockyards or just to juice the stock market. President Trump and his administration believe that millions of Americans are expendable. It is not a coincidence that many of the people they consider expendable are Black and Brown workers. Since the President is unwilling to protect people--whether that is protecting their lives or protecting their financial future--we in the Senate must fill the leadership void. As we do that, we work for change. We need to be clear that part of leading is listening. The best ideas don't come out of Washington--the solutions we need to fix the justice system, to address wealth inequality, to reverse disparities in healthcare, to help communities that have been hurt by redlining and Jim Crow laws and so much more. Whenever we talk about this, whenever people bring up the ways the system has failed so many Americans on the Senate floor or at a protest march, there are always naysayers--almost always White, usually men, often pretty well-off--who say: How can you be so negative? Why do you want to dwell on all the worst parts of our history? Don't you love our country? My response to our country's naysayers and sunshine patriots is this: How can you be so pessimistic as to believe that this is the best our country can do? Do you really think the American people, with our ingenuity and our optimism and tenacity--do you really think the American people can't create a fair economy and a more just government? Do you truly believe we can't have a society that works for everyone--Black and White and Brown, women and men--no matter who you are, no matter what kind of work you do? Protesting, working for change, organizing, demanding our country do better--those are some of the most patriotic things any of us can do. I love my country. If you love this country, you fight for the people who make it work, all of them. I yield the floor
|
2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2664-2
| null | 753
|
formal
|
tax cuts
| null |
racist
|
Protests Mr. President, the protests around our State, throughout our country, are an expression of fear and grief and frustration and of anger. Black communities led the Nation in mourning the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor over the last week. They are now leading calls for justice and long-term changes to dismantle the systems of oppression that hold them back. Instead of listening to those calls from the people who built this country, instead of offering leadership and rising to meet this moment--as every one of his predecessors of both parties did in times of trouble for our country--President Trump fails yet again. Instead of uniting, he divides. Instead of comforting, he stokes fear. He points fingers. He places blame. Instead of healing, he rubs salt in the open wounds of Black Americans. On Monday night, the President of the United States turned the arm of the state on peaceful protesters--we saw the video--tear-gassing the citizens he is supposed to serve, all so he could walk across the street and stage a photo op at a church he doesn't attend and hold up a Bible that he doesn't read. The timid--you choose the adjective--timid, cowardly, spineless Republican colleagues in this Senate just remained silent. How offended they would have been if a Democratic President had done what this President does and fails to do--the tear-gassing of citizens he is supposed to serve, the photo op at a church, the holding up of the Bible he doesn't read, the excuses, the divisiveness, all of that. People are tired. People are angry: more Black sons and daughters and mothers and fathers killed by police officers--the very people who are supposed to protect all Americans; more death, when many are already grieving--so many in the Black community already grieving the loss of family members and friends for the coronavirus, grappling with the economic stress this pandemic has caused. The pandemic has been the ``great revealer.'' We know Black and Brown communities have been hit hardest by the coronavirus. They are more likely to get sick. They have less access to healthcare. They make up the communities hurt by Jim Crow laws and redlining and now the locking in of those rules and regulations by the Trump administration. Black and Brown communities disproportionately make up our essential workers. It is not because they don't work as hard. It is not because of individual choices. We all work hard. We are all trying to do something productive for our families and our communities. We all want to build a better country for our daughters and our sons. No; it is because of a racist system that is making it harder for their work to pay off and putting at risk their lives for generations, long before this virus appeared. A grocery store worker in Cincinnati said to me: They tell me I am essential, but I feel expendable. I don't feel safe at work, and they don't pay me very much. I feel expendable. Long before this pandemic, millions of Americans knew we had a system that treats them like they are expendable. Their hard work isn't paying off. For some, it feels like the system is broken. For Black and Brown workers, it never worked to begin with. In the midst of the trauma and the grieving, millions of those same Americans still go to work day after day, week after week, in grocery stores, as delivery people, in drugstores, as busdrivers, and the people who do the linen and change the beds in hospitals, the food service workers, the custodians, the security people, the first responders. In the midst of the trauma and grieving, those same Americans--millions of them--still go to work day after day, week after week. Our job is to show the victims of systemic racism at the hands of their own government that the same government can and will protect them from this pandemic. We hear them. We see them. We fight for them. Their lives matter. Our response to this crisis must be to stand behind all the people who make this country work, all workers, whether you swipe a badge or punch a clock, whether you earn a salary or make tips, whether you are raising children or caring for an aging parent; all workers, whether your hard work isn't paying off now or whether it never paid off the way it should. Dr. King said: One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker. For the person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician, for if he doesn't do his job, diseases are rampant. All labor has dignity. It is Black and Brown workers who have too often, far too long, far too often been robbed of their dignity on the job. If we want to be a country where all people have dignity, we need to start by recognizing that all labor has dignity. But so far, our response to the crisis is not the response of a government that believes that. This Senate, this President, can always find trillions of dollars for corporations--for tax cuts, for bailouts. But when hard-working families need help with rent or to put food on the table, President Trump and Leader McConnell say we can't afford it. The President and the administration have already made racial and economic inequality worse and undonecivil rights protections. They have been pretty clear that they are willing to put American workers' lives at risk--to reopen stockyards or just to juice the stock market. President Trump and his administration believe that millions of Americans are expendable. It is not a coincidence that many of the people they consider expendable are Black and Brown workers. Since the President is unwilling to protect people--whether that is protecting their lives or protecting their financial future--we in the Senate must fill the leadership void. As we do that, we work for change. We need to be clear that part of leading is listening. The best ideas don't come out of Washington--the solutions we need to fix the justice system, to address wealth inequality, to reverse disparities in healthcare, to help communities that have been hurt by redlining and Jim Crow laws and so much more. Whenever we talk about this, whenever people bring up the ways the system has failed so many Americans on the Senate floor or at a protest march, there are always naysayers--almost always White, usually men, often pretty well-off--who say: How can you be so negative? Why do you want to dwell on all the worst parts of our history? Don't you love our country? My response to our country's naysayers and sunshine patriots is this: How can you be so pessimistic as to believe that this is the best our country can do? Do you really think the American people, with our ingenuity and our optimism and tenacity--do you really think the American people can't create a fair economy and a more just government? Do you truly believe we can't have a society that works for everyone--Black and White and Brown, women and men--no matter who you are, no matter what kind of work you do? Protesting, working for change, organizing, demanding our country do better--those are some of the most patriotic things any of us can do. I love my country. If you love this country, you fight for the people who make it work, all of them. I yield the floor
|
2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2664-2
| null | 754
|
formal
|
working families
| null |
racist
|
Protests Mr. President, the protests around our State, throughout our country, are an expression of fear and grief and frustration and of anger. Black communities led the Nation in mourning the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor over the last week. They are now leading calls for justice and long-term changes to dismantle the systems of oppression that hold them back. Instead of listening to those calls from the people who built this country, instead of offering leadership and rising to meet this moment--as every one of his predecessors of both parties did in times of trouble for our country--President Trump fails yet again. Instead of uniting, he divides. Instead of comforting, he stokes fear. He points fingers. He places blame. Instead of healing, he rubs salt in the open wounds of Black Americans. On Monday night, the President of the United States turned the arm of the state on peaceful protesters--we saw the video--tear-gassing the citizens he is supposed to serve, all so he could walk across the street and stage a photo op at a church he doesn't attend and hold up a Bible that he doesn't read. The timid--you choose the adjective--timid, cowardly, spineless Republican colleagues in this Senate just remained silent. How offended they would have been if a Democratic President had done what this President does and fails to do--the tear-gassing of citizens he is supposed to serve, the photo op at a church, the holding up of the Bible he doesn't read, the excuses, the divisiveness, all of that. People are tired. People are angry: more Black sons and daughters and mothers and fathers killed by police officers--the very people who are supposed to protect all Americans; more death, when many are already grieving--so many in the Black community already grieving the loss of family members and friends for the coronavirus, grappling with the economic stress this pandemic has caused. The pandemic has been the ``great revealer.'' We know Black and Brown communities have been hit hardest by the coronavirus. They are more likely to get sick. They have less access to healthcare. They make up the communities hurt by Jim Crow laws and redlining and now the locking in of those rules and regulations by the Trump administration. Black and Brown communities disproportionately make up our essential workers. It is not because they don't work as hard. It is not because of individual choices. We all work hard. We are all trying to do something productive for our families and our communities. We all want to build a better country for our daughters and our sons. No; it is because of a racist system that is making it harder for their work to pay off and putting at risk their lives for generations, long before this virus appeared. A grocery store worker in Cincinnati said to me: They tell me I am essential, but I feel expendable. I don't feel safe at work, and they don't pay me very much. I feel expendable. Long before this pandemic, millions of Americans knew we had a system that treats them like they are expendable. Their hard work isn't paying off. For some, it feels like the system is broken. For Black and Brown workers, it never worked to begin with. In the midst of the trauma and the grieving, millions of those same Americans still go to work day after day, week after week, in grocery stores, as delivery people, in drugstores, as busdrivers, and the people who do the linen and change the beds in hospitals, the food service workers, the custodians, the security people, the first responders. In the midst of the trauma and grieving, those same Americans--millions of them--still go to work day after day, week after week. Our job is to show the victims of systemic racism at the hands of their own government that the same government can and will protect them from this pandemic. We hear them. We see them. We fight for them. Their lives matter. Our response to this crisis must be to stand behind all the people who make this country work, all workers, whether you swipe a badge or punch a clock, whether you earn a salary or make tips, whether you are raising children or caring for an aging parent; all workers, whether your hard work isn't paying off now or whether it never paid off the way it should. Dr. King said: One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker. For the person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician, for if he doesn't do his job, diseases are rampant. All labor has dignity. It is Black and Brown workers who have too often, far too long, far too often been robbed of their dignity on the job. If we want to be a country where all people have dignity, we need to start by recognizing that all labor has dignity. But so far, our response to the crisis is not the response of a government that believes that. This Senate, this President, can always find trillions of dollars for corporations--for tax cuts, for bailouts. But when hard-working families need help with rent or to put food on the table, President Trump and Leader McConnell say we can't afford it. The President and the administration have already made racial and economic inequality worse and undonecivil rights protections. They have been pretty clear that they are willing to put American workers' lives at risk--to reopen stockyards or just to juice the stock market. President Trump and his administration believe that millions of Americans are expendable. It is not a coincidence that many of the people they consider expendable are Black and Brown workers. Since the President is unwilling to protect people--whether that is protecting their lives or protecting their financial future--we in the Senate must fill the leadership void. As we do that, we work for change. We need to be clear that part of leading is listening. The best ideas don't come out of Washington--the solutions we need to fix the justice system, to address wealth inequality, to reverse disparities in healthcare, to help communities that have been hurt by redlining and Jim Crow laws and so much more. Whenever we talk about this, whenever people bring up the ways the system has failed so many Americans on the Senate floor or at a protest march, there are always naysayers--almost always White, usually men, often pretty well-off--who say: How can you be so negative? Why do you want to dwell on all the worst parts of our history? Don't you love our country? My response to our country's naysayers and sunshine patriots is this: How can you be so pessimistic as to believe that this is the best our country can do? Do you really think the American people, with our ingenuity and our optimism and tenacity--do you really think the American people can't create a fair economy and a more just government? Do you truly believe we can't have a society that works for everyone--Black and White and Brown, women and men--no matter who you are, no matter what kind of work you do? Protesting, working for change, organizing, demanding our country do better--those are some of the most patriotic things any of us can do. I love my country. If you love this country, you fight for the people who make it work, all of them. I yield the floor
|
2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2664-2
| null | 755
|
formal
|
law and order
| null |
racist
|
Protests Mr. President, in responding to a couple of things that were said a few minutes ago, we all know this is a really trying time for our Nation. I begin with the obvious, which is what happened to George Floyd was a crime. It was a horrible crime, and it has caused a groundswell of people joining together and standing against injustice and hate, not just for George Floyd but for so many others. Protests are meaningful and positive events--standing up for dignity and respect for all people. Protesting is a cherished part of our democratic society that is enshrined in the First Amendment. The rights of peaceful protest should be supported and celebrated, period. We understand that. Yet those protests are not the same as the dangerous, destructive activity we have seen in many of our cities just in the last couple of days. Emotions are high, and tensions are high, which is understandable. We need law and order if we are going to move forward, and I think every reasonable person agrees with that. We are trying to have tough conversations about inequality, but we are facing a lot of misinformation, especially when it comes to our military. If we let this misinformation spread, it will just make things worse. All of the people out there--I am talking about the ``hate Trump'' people--are using this to try to lie to the American people. So I would like to correct the record, and I hope every American here understands and believes these words. This is very important. Here is what is happening. Right now, the National Guard has not been federalized for response. Right now, Active-Duty troops have not been sent into any city, including DC. I was here last night. I was visibly looking around and making sure that this was not the case, and it was not. There were no Active-Duty troops in spite of things you have heard to the contrary. Right now, local and State law enforcement are being supported by the National Guard but only when they are requested by their States. The Department of Defense believes that, and by and large, they are doing a fine job. I agree with that. Our military is prepared to step in if the situation deteriorates dramatically and only if our President finds he has to step in. To be crystal clear, the President hasn't done that yet. I ask my fellow Americans to slow down and understand what will happen if and only if the President does so. It doesn't mean that our streets will immediately be flooded with uniformed and armed troops. There is a process that has to be followed just as it was in 1992 with the LA riots, in 1998 after Hurricane Hugo, and at every other time before that. First, this is the process. What has to happen is the President must issue a proclamation ordering any insurgents to disperse within a set period of time. Now, that is really important because that is the warning shot. He says this is going to happen, but only you can keep this from happening. The President has to issue the proclamation ordering any insurgents to disperse within a set period of time. It will mean that our Nation's military and security leaders, including our Commander in Chief--the President--will have determined that the situation will have deteriorated in a way that local officials will not have managed on their own. In virtually every case, local officials have agreed with that. We are not there now. We are not there at all, and I hope we don't get there. This will only be as a last resort. If we do, I am confident this decision will be made with the advice of the top civilian and military officials who have all been confirmed with wide bipartisan support and margins
|
2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2666
| null | 756
|
formal
|
law and order
| null |
racist
|
Censorship Mr. President, our country was built on the premise of dissent, and we have seen the power that peaceful protests have in their ability to bring change to every level of government. Unfortunately, over the past week, we have also seen what happens when criminals and shadowy professionals exploit these public expressions of frustration and pain. Every single day, Americans are waking up to find that their neighborhoods have been destroyed, and they watch news reports that are dominated by lawlessness. Many activists and members of the mainstream media have attempted to force us into choosing between solidarity and maintaining law and order. This is a false choice. It is one that we ought to reject. Instead, we should fight for accountability, compassion, and understanding. At the same time, we must condemn racism, hatred, and the violence that has torn apart so many neighborhoods this very week. We should also celebrate and defend our right to peaceful disagreement in the streets, in the classroom, and online just as well as in this very Chamber. Unfortunately, too often, this right is not celebrated. Over the years, we have documented Big Tech's history of censorship, particularly the censorship of dissenting conservative voices. During the 2018 election cycle, a series of pro-life ads that I sponsored on social media were taken down for having content the platform labeled as ``inflammatory.'' For years, conservatives have been fighting a losing war against content moderation policies that act as a dragnet for dissenting opinions. Last week, Twitter rolled out a new ``fact-checking'' feature and almost immediately botched a fact check on one of President Trump's tweets. Unfortunately, for Twitter, the President was not afraid to point out how easy it is for private companies to make mistakes that turn moderation into speech policing. We know that social media companies have subjectively manipulated their algorithms to capture conservative opinions and conservative elected officials. They have been doing this for too long for it to just be a mere mistake. These are not unintended consequences. Last week, President Trump signed an Executive order to bring some much needed attention to the issue, and we thank him for that. As head of the Judiciary Committee's Tech Task Force, I look forward to working with the White House and the Justice Department to preserve free speech online for all Americans. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2667
| null | 757
|
formal
|
single
| null |
homophobic
|
Censorship Mr. President, our country was built on the premise of dissent, and we have seen the power that peaceful protests have in their ability to bring change to every level of government. Unfortunately, over the past week, we have also seen what happens when criminals and shadowy professionals exploit these public expressions of frustration and pain. Every single day, Americans are waking up to find that their neighborhoods have been destroyed, and they watch news reports that are dominated by lawlessness. Many activists and members of the mainstream media have attempted to force us into choosing between solidarity and maintaining law and order. This is a false choice. It is one that we ought to reject. Instead, we should fight for accountability, compassion, and understanding. At the same time, we must condemn racism, hatred, and the violence that has torn apart so many neighborhoods this very week. We should also celebrate and defend our right to peaceful disagreement in the streets, in the classroom, and online just as well as in this very Chamber. Unfortunately, too often, this right is not celebrated. Over the years, we have documented Big Tech's history of censorship, particularly the censorship of dissenting conservative voices. During the 2018 election cycle, a series of pro-life ads that I sponsored on social media were taken down for having content the platform labeled as ``inflammatory.'' For years, conservatives have been fighting a losing war against content moderation policies that act as a dragnet for dissenting opinions. Last week, Twitter rolled out a new ``fact-checking'' feature and almost immediately botched a fact check on one of President Trump's tweets. Unfortunately, for Twitter, the President was not afraid to point out how easy it is for private companies to make mistakes that turn moderation into speech policing. We know that social media companies have subjectively manipulated their algorithms to capture conservative opinions and conservative elected officials. They have been doing this for too long for it to just be a mere mistake. These are not unintended consequences. Last week, President Trump signed an Executive order to bring some much needed attention to the issue, and we thank him for that. As head of the Judiciary Committee's Tech Task Force, I look forward to working with the White House and the Justice Department to preserve free speech online for all Americans. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2667
| null | 758
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to talk for a few minutes today about the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the Great American Outdoors Act, and fairness. Let me start with the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act--GOMESA, as you know. Louisianians started drilling off our coast in the Gulf of Mexico in the 1930s. They were Louisiana people, Louisiana companies. There were some other States represented, as well, but they were primarily Louisiana companies. A lot of people laughed at us, said it can't be done: We know you can drill for oil and natural gas and supply the country's energy needs by onshore production, but offshore, man, you are dreaming. We did it. Then we did it again and we did it again and we did it again. All of a sudden, the Federal Government said: Huh, there is money to be had. And the Federal Government came in and said: Louisiana, you can't do that anymore. We own all the land under the oceans and the Gulf of Mexico. Well, predictably, Louisiana disagreed. We went to court. After 30 years of litigation, Louisiana lost. The courts ended up ruling that Louisiana owns the land in the gulf from its coastline out to 3 miles, and the Federal Government owns the rest. And the Federal Government owns the rest. That is a little bit of oversimplification but not much. I always thought that was unfair. For example, Texas, our sister State--I love Texas--owns from its coastline 10 miles out. We only own 3 miles out. More oil and gas wells were drilled in the Gulf of Mexico. It became one of the major--if not the major--sources of oil and natural gas for energy needs of America up to the point that we were producing and still are producing about $5 billion that goes right into the Treasury of the United States of America. In 2006, Congress passed GOMESA. Thank you, Congress, for doing this. GOMESA said that the Federal Government is going to start sharing some of those oil and gas royalties. We are not going to share all of them. We are just going to share the oil and gas royalties from lands under the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico for all future leases after 2006--not past leases, only future leases. Here is the new deal, according to Congress. On all these new leases drilled after 2006, the U.S. Treasury will take 50 percent of oil and gas royalties. The gulf-producing States will take 37.5 percent. By the gulf-producing States, I mean Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama. And 12.5 percent of the oil and gas royalties from these new leases--not old leases, these new leases--will go to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. I will come back to the Land and Water Conservation Fund in a moment. Keep in mind, I said that under GOMESA, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi share in 37.5 percent of all the oil and gas royalties from the new leases, not the old leases. But the amount that we are entitled to receive is capped. To give you an idea of the money we are talking about, in 2019, the four Gulf producing States received about $350 million in offshore oil and gas royalties. Louisiana received $155 million of that $350 million. There is a formula that apportions the money between and among the four gulf-producing States. GOMESA caps, in a fairly complicated formula, the amount the gulf-producing States can receive under GOMESA at $375 million. Our four States will hit that cap in 2024. It doesn't matter how much drilling increases in the Gulf of Mexico, the four gulf-producing States can only receive $375 million, split among themselves, until, I think, 2055. Other States not located on coastlines also have Federal lands on which oil and natural gas and coal and other minerals are produced. I am happy for them. They, as a result of congressional legislation--by ``they'' I mean those other States, 24 of them--get 50percent of the royalties of all the oil and gas and coal and other minerals produced from Federal lands in their States. The Feds get 50 percent; the States get 50 percent. I am happy for them. I couldn't be more pleased for my sister States. I wish we got 50 percent--``we'' meaning the gulf-producing States. It seems unfair to me that we don't. We only get 37.5 percent on certain leases. Our sister States onshore get 50 percent of all leases. Their money isn't capped; ours is. Let me talk about the Land and Water Conservation Fund. As you know, this is a fund that was set up in 1964. It had to be authorized every now and then. We made it permanent 2 years ago--``we'' meaning, of course, Congress. The purpose of the Land and Water Conservation Fund is to take money appropriated by Congress and put it into that fund and use it to buy land and water to make that land and water public so that all Americans can enjoy it. I am supportive of that. I think most of us are. The only money dedicated to the Land and Water Conservation Fund is that 12.5 percent I talked about dedicated to the fund through GOMESA. The other moneys that have been put into the fund through the years, other than the GOMESA moneys, have had to be appropriated by Congress on a year-to-year basis. Once again, I am supportive of the concept, and I am happy as a clam at high tide that my sister States out west get 50 percent. I just think it is unfair that we only get 37.5 percent. As you know, we are going to consider a bill next week called the Great American Outdoors Act. Here is what it would do. No. 1, it will set up a dedicated automatic funding source for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That dedicated source is going to come from oil and gas royalties produced in the Gulf of Mexico. Remember, I told you that under GOMESA, the Federal Government automatically gets 50 percent of the royalties from the new leases. Henceforth, at least half of the 50 percent that is going into the Federal Treasury will now go into the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That is No. 1--permanent source of funding for the fund. Some have argued that we are--I mean, we are not having to borrow this money, and that is a good thing. But this money didn't fall from Heaven. It is coming out of the moneys the U.S. Treasury would receive otherwise from oil and gas production offshore. That means if the Land and Water Conservation Fund takes this money from the share that goes to the Federal Government and uses it for the fund, somebody else is going to get screwed because the money is going to be taken from somebody else and given to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The Great American Outdoors Act also does something else. It sets up another sort of separate fund that a good bit of the oil and gas money is going to flow into for deferred maintenance on public lands that we already own. Of course, we all support that. I do. A lot of our parks are falling apart. I mean, they have roads that have holes big enough for a Mack truck to fall through. They have a backlog of deferred maintenance of $12 billion. And we are going to dedicate some money to try to chip away at that deferred maintenance. That is a good thing too. Here is what we end up with. We end up with a lot of our States getting 50 percent of all of the oil and gas and coal produced in their State with no cap. Now these States that have national parks--again, I am happy for them; I love national parks--they are going to get an extra big slug of money from the Gulf of Mexico. In the meantime, the gulf-producing States--primarily Louisiana, but also Texas, Alabama, Mississippi--we are going to be stuck at 37.5 percent. It is capped. It is capped. It is capped at a weeny $375 million a year from now until 2055. With inflation, by 2055, it will be worth about 7 bucks and 23 cents. That doesn't seem fair to me. It especially doesn't seem fair to me when you consider that basically the Gulf of Mexico is producing the money--actually, oil companies are. But how do the oil companies do that? They do it with Louisiana. Most of the leases and wells are off Louisiana's coast. I am not putting down Mississippi, Alabama, or Texas because there is drilling off their coast as well. But facts are facts. Most of the drilling is off Louisiana's coast. A lot of the workers are from Louisiana. Do you know what makes that drilling possible? Louisiana tax dollars. We pay for the roads that support Port Fourchon, which is vital and located in my State for that oil and gas production. We pay for the schools that educate the kids of the workers. We take all the risk. We know what happened with the BP oilspill. If there is another oilspill in the Gulf, it is Louisiana and Texas and Alabama and Mississippi that are going to get slammed. It is not going to be the inland States. That is where I said I am going to talk about fairness. Senator Cassidy--and I don't see speak for Senator Cassidy. Understand, he is my senior Senator. But he and I are working on a way to improve the Great American Outdoors Act. It is going to make it so much better. I am introducing a bill tomorrow, and I am going to offer an amendment to the Great American Outdoors Act--once again, I don't speak for Senator Cassidy, but I think he will support it--that is going to remove the cap on the amount of oil and gas royalties that the four gulf-producing States can receive under GOMESA. Let me say it again. Right now, nobody else is capped. We are capped. The most that Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas can receive, split among ourselves, is $375 million. We are going to hit that cap in 2024, and it will remain until 2055. We all know with inflation it is not going to be worth $375 million in 2055. It is capped. All I am saying and all Senator Cassidy is saying, and I think--I don't speak for them either, but my colleagues from the gulf-producing States--all we are saying is: Let's be a little fair here. If you don't have a cap onshore, let's don't have a cap offshore. My little old amendment would just remove that cap and make the Great American Outdoors Act even greater. Senator Cassidy and I and other Senators from the gulf-producing States are also working on some other ideas that I don't feel comfortable talking about today, but we have some other ways we think we can improve the Great American Outdoors Act. I wanted to come here today and say, once again, I am not criticizing any of my sister States. I am happy as I can be for all the States that don't have caps and that do get to share in 50 percent of the royalties. I am just asking for a little fairness and equity, just a little bit for the gulf-producing States by allowing us to remove that cap. With that, I either yield the floor or I suggest the absence of a quorum, whichever the Parliamentarian tells me to do. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. KENNEDY
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2687
| null | 759
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Mr. REED. Mr. President, for the past week, our Nation has been engulfed by protests in dozens of cities over the senseless murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police officers. Americans are angry, frustrated, and grieving, not just for Mr. Floyd's and Ms. Taylor's deaths but for centuries of injustice and brutality against African Americans. The instances are too numerous to count. Yet these instances of violence keep happening while meaningful reforms have not taken place. The protests are set against the backdrop of the deadly novel coronavirus pandemic. As our country copes with this crisis, African-American communities have suffered disproportionately high infection and death rates. Compounding this tragedy, we are in the midst of an economic downturn that rivals the Great Depression, with communities of color bearing the brunt of the economic fallout. Millions of hard-working Americans have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. They are struggling to provide for their families, put food on their table, and keep a roof over their head. These protests are not isolated. They are taking place in every State in the Nation and in many other countries. Protesters are of every race and ethnicity and run the gamut in age from high school and college students to parents and grandparents. The people participating in these protests represent the diversity that is the strength of America. The overwhelming majority of these protests are emotional but nonviolent. They embrace a fundamental tenant of civil engagement, which is the American right and tradition of peacefully protesting to make their voices heard and to rectify injustice. On the fringes of these peaceful protests, there are opportunists who are sowing mistrust and division. Their primary goal is to loot and destroy property, that cause chaos that puts innocent lives in harm's way. Let me state clearly, theft and looting are a crime. They are unacceptable and undermine the powerful message of thousands demanding justice and change. They offer an easy way out to those who would rather turn away from this challenge of justice and simply indulge in their own petty objectives of violence, diversion, and destruction. Our Nation is in pain. We need leaders who bring calm, unity, empathy, and aid. Instead, our Nation has a President who treats it as a field of war. He does not even attempt to bring people together, to listen to others, or to accept the reality that leaders in a democracy are neither infallible nor omnipotent. In a tweet on May 30, President Trump said: Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis will never be mistaken for the late, great Douglas McArthur or great fighter General George Patton. . . . Get tough and fight. In a call with our Nation's Governors, Secretary of Defense Esper said: ``I think the sooner that you mass and dominate the battlespace, the quicker this dissipates and we can get back to the right normal.'' These are American city streets that we are talking about, filled with Americans exercising their rights, not battlefields filled with the enemy. Then, in a statement in the White House Rose Garden on June 1, President Trump said: ``If a city or a state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.'' America learned shortly thereafter what actions the President was prepared to take. The U.S. Park Police and others near Lafayette Park used tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and rubber bullets to aggressively push back a peaceful crowd 30 minutes before the DC curfew went into effect. Why was this assault undertaken? It wasn't to step inside St. John's Church and offer a prayer for George Floyd, his family, or the countless other Americans who have been victims of police brutality. It wasn't to reflect on the pain and division that is rife within our country and contemplate what actions he could take to heal our Nation, like President Lincoln often did during the Civil War. The President crossed a street, aggressively cleared of peaceful protesters for a photo op that was meant to say he was strong, and he was in charge. Unfortunately, for him, it had the opposite effect. President Trump's rhetoric and some of the events that have occurred are not ones that many of us ever thought we would see on American streets or hear from an American President. They are the words and actions that happen in authoritarian states, words and actions that past American Presidents have condemned. They are words and actions that violate the democratic norms our Nation has stood for and American servicemembers have died for. While the President does have the authority to call up military personnel under the Insurrection Act, it does not mean he should. It was last invoked in 1992 when California Governor Pete Wilson requested Federal military assistance from President George Herbert Walker Bush to respond to the L.A. riots following the acquittal of police officers for the beating of Rodney King. Before that instance, the act was invoked in the 1950s and 1960s to enforce civil rights laws and end segregation in the South. The Insurrection Act serves as an exception to posse comitatus and to the broad principle embedded deeply in American democracy and history that the Active Armed Forces should not be used to enforce State laws or to exercise police power reserved to the States unless absolutely necessary as a last resort. The act is, by design and tradition, rarely invoked. The Insurrection Act envisions that, when Active military forces are used to supplement State police forces to enforce State laws, they do so only at the request of the Governor or legislature, which is ultimately responsible for the execution of the laws within the States. In the present moment, I am not aware of any Governor or legislature calling for the Federal Government to step in and take control. Put simply, if they need help, I have no doubt they will ask for it. The President's ability to invoke the Insurrection Act without the Governor or State legislature requesting assistance rests on the need to enforce or protect Federal law, which is not the case here. If President Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act today, absent a request from a State, it would only be to further his own political interests. He would be using Active military forces as a political and propaganda tool in contravention of everything our military stands for. Using the Insurrection Act on a whim risks politicizing the military. The military's mission is to defend and serve the Constitution and the American people regardless of who is in office. Bringing the military into domestic politics risks a rupture in the sacred trust between the civilian and military leadership and undermines fundamental American values. As former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff GEN Martin Dempsey stated shortly after the 2016 Presidential conventions, ``If senior military leaders--active and retired--begin to self-identify as members or supporters of one party or another, then the inherent tension built into our system of government between the executive branch and the legislative branch will bleed over into suspicion of military leaders by Congress and a further erosion of civil-military relations.'' Over the last few years, that erosion has increased steadily as recent events have made eminently clear. This erosion is a toxic force that will undermine one of the most essential ethics of the American military. Soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and coastguardsmen serve the Constitution, not the President. That is the oath many of us took as young men and women. That is the oath that defines the military of the United States, unlike many other countries, fortunately, for us. According to press reports, Secretary of Defense Esper told senior military leaders to ``stay apolitical during these turbulent days,'' but I would urge Secretary Esper to heed his own advice. Traditionally, the Secretary of Defense, while a Cabinet member and appointed by the President, has taken a nonpolitical stand--staying away from campaign events and avoiding even the potential of a political photo op. As General Milley discovered Monday evening, once the civilian leader of the military joins the political fray, it is difficult for the military to stay neutral. Our Nation is in crisis, but it is not a crisis that can or should be solved by American military force against its own citizens. I think, if you ask any young man or woman who took the oath to join the forces of the United States--whatever branch--was he or she doing it to go fight Americans, they would answer no. He or she is doing everything they can to protect Americans, to protect the system of government, and, ultimately, the Constitution. That is the oath we take. The strength of this Nation and of the great American experiment in representative democracy goes far beyond our military strength. It goes to our civil traditions, our Constitution, our sense of civic responsibility, and our ability to constantly evolve and improve ourselves even from our earliest days stained with slavery. We need leaders who will listen and commit to change and then implement that change. We need leaders who will not exacerbate the problem but will seek to solve it and bring people together as our greatest Presidents have done throughout history. In short, we need leaders who are builders, not destroyers, and until those leaders emerge, Iam afraid the tumult will continue. It is my fervent hope that this Nation finds a way to peace soon. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. REED
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2688
| null | 760
|
formal
|
identify as
| null |
transphobic
|
Mr. REED. Mr. President, for the past week, our Nation has been engulfed by protests in dozens of cities over the senseless murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police officers. Americans are angry, frustrated, and grieving, not just for Mr. Floyd's and Ms. Taylor's deaths but for centuries of injustice and brutality against African Americans. The instances are too numerous to count. Yet these instances of violence keep happening while meaningful reforms have not taken place. The protests are set against the backdrop of the deadly novel coronavirus pandemic. As our country copes with this crisis, African-American communities have suffered disproportionately high infection and death rates. Compounding this tragedy, we are in the midst of an economic downturn that rivals the Great Depression, with communities of color bearing the brunt of the economic fallout. Millions of hard-working Americans have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. They are struggling to provide for their families, put food on their table, and keep a roof over their head. These protests are not isolated. They are taking place in every State in the Nation and in many other countries. Protesters are of every race and ethnicity and run the gamut in age from high school and college students to parents and grandparents. The people participating in these protests represent the diversity that is the strength of America. The overwhelming majority of these protests are emotional but nonviolent. They embrace a fundamental tenant of civil engagement, which is the American right and tradition of peacefully protesting to make their voices heard and to rectify injustice. On the fringes of these peaceful protests, there are opportunists who are sowing mistrust and division. Their primary goal is to loot and destroy property, that cause chaos that puts innocent lives in harm's way. Let me state clearly, theft and looting are a crime. They are unacceptable and undermine the powerful message of thousands demanding justice and change. They offer an easy way out to those who would rather turn away from this challenge of justice and simply indulge in their own petty objectives of violence, diversion, and destruction. Our Nation is in pain. We need leaders who bring calm, unity, empathy, and aid. Instead, our Nation has a President who treats it as a field of war. He does not even attempt to bring people together, to listen to others, or to accept the reality that leaders in a democracy are neither infallible nor omnipotent. In a tweet on May 30, President Trump said: Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis will never be mistaken for the late, great Douglas McArthur or great fighter General George Patton. . . . Get tough and fight. In a call with our Nation's Governors, Secretary of Defense Esper said: ``I think the sooner that you mass and dominate the battlespace, the quicker this dissipates and we can get back to the right normal.'' These are American city streets that we are talking about, filled with Americans exercising their rights, not battlefields filled with the enemy. Then, in a statement in the White House Rose Garden on June 1, President Trump said: ``If a city or a state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.'' America learned shortly thereafter what actions the President was prepared to take. The U.S. Park Police and others near Lafayette Park used tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and rubber bullets to aggressively push back a peaceful crowd 30 minutes before the DC curfew went into effect. Why was this assault undertaken? It wasn't to step inside St. John's Church and offer a prayer for George Floyd, his family, or the countless other Americans who have been victims of police brutality. It wasn't to reflect on the pain and division that is rife within our country and contemplate what actions he could take to heal our Nation, like President Lincoln often did during the Civil War. The President crossed a street, aggressively cleared of peaceful protesters for a photo op that was meant to say he was strong, and he was in charge. Unfortunately, for him, it had the opposite effect. President Trump's rhetoric and some of the events that have occurred are not ones that many of us ever thought we would see on American streets or hear from an American President. They are the words and actions that happen in authoritarian states, words and actions that past American Presidents have condemned. They are words and actions that violate the democratic norms our Nation has stood for and American servicemembers have died for. While the President does have the authority to call up military personnel under the Insurrection Act, it does not mean he should. It was last invoked in 1992 when California Governor Pete Wilson requested Federal military assistance from President George Herbert Walker Bush to respond to the L.A. riots following the acquittal of police officers for the beating of Rodney King. Before that instance, the act was invoked in the 1950s and 1960s to enforce civil rights laws and end segregation in the South. The Insurrection Act serves as an exception to posse comitatus and to the broad principle embedded deeply in American democracy and history that the Active Armed Forces should not be used to enforce State laws or to exercise police power reserved to the States unless absolutely necessary as a last resort. The act is, by design and tradition, rarely invoked. The Insurrection Act envisions that, when Active military forces are used to supplement State police forces to enforce State laws, they do so only at the request of the Governor or legislature, which is ultimately responsible for the execution of the laws within the States. In the present moment, I am not aware of any Governor or legislature calling for the Federal Government to step in and take control. Put simply, if they need help, I have no doubt they will ask for it. The President's ability to invoke the Insurrection Act without the Governor or State legislature requesting assistance rests on the need to enforce or protect Federal law, which is not the case here. If President Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act today, absent a request from a State, it would only be to further his own political interests. He would be using Active military forces as a political and propaganda tool in contravention of everything our military stands for. Using the Insurrection Act on a whim risks politicizing the military. The military's mission is to defend and serve the Constitution and the American people regardless of who is in office. Bringing the military into domestic politics risks a rupture in the sacred trust between the civilian and military leadership and undermines fundamental American values. As former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff GEN Martin Dempsey stated shortly after the 2016 Presidential conventions, ``If senior military leaders--active and retired--begin to self-identify as members or supporters of one party or another, then the inherent tension built into our system of government between the executive branch and the legislative branch will bleed over into suspicion of military leaders by Congress and a further erosion of civil-military relations.'' Over the last few years, that erosion has increased steadily as recent events have made eminently clear. This erosion is a toxic force that will undermine one of the most essential ethics of the American military. Soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and coastguardsmen serve the Constitution, not the President. That is the oath many of us took as young men and women. That is the oath that defines the military of the United States, unlike many other countries, fortunately, for us. According to press reports, Secretary of Defense Esper told senior military leaders to ``stay apolitical during these turbulent days,'' but I would urge Secretary Esper to heed his own advice. Traditionally, the Secretary of Defense, while a Cabinet member and appointed by the President, has taken a nonpolitical stand--staying away from campaign events and avoiding even the potential of a political photo op. As General Milley discovered Monday evening, once the civilian leader of the military joins the political fray, it is difficult for the military to stay neutral. Our Nation is in crisis, but it is not a crisis that can or should be solved by American military force against its own citizens. I think, if you ask any young man or woman who took the oath to join the forces of the United States--whatever branch--was he or she doing it to go fight Americans, they would answer no. He or she is doing everything they can to protect Americans, to protect the system of government, and, ultimately, the Constitution. That is the oath we take. The strength of this Nation and of the great American experiment in representative democracy goes far beyond our military strength. It goes to our civil traditions, our Constitution, our sense of civic responsibility, and our ability to constantly evolve and improve ourselves even from our earliest days stained with slavery. We need leaders who will listen and commit to change and then implement that change. We need leaders who will not exacerbate the problem but will seek to solve it and bring people together as our greatest Presidents have done throughout history. In short, we need leaders who are builders, not destroyers, and until those leaders emerge, Iam afraid the tumult will continue. It is my fervent hope that this Nation finds a way to peace soon. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. REED
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2688
| null | 761
|
formal
|
working families
| null |
racist
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, back in March, as the coronavirus pandemic began to grip our country, the Senate's historic CARES Act set up the Paycheck Protection Program to help protect American workers from layoffs during the crisis. Thanks especially to its chief architects, Senator Rubio and Senator Collins, the PPP has literally saved tens of millions of American jobs. Our colleagues' bold policy has meant the mailboxes of working families in all 50 States have continued to bring people their regular paychecks instead of pink slips. Through the end of May, this remarkable program has delivered more than half a trillion dollars to keep American workers on payroll all across our country. One recent survey found that more than three-quarters--three-quarters--of all small business owners have applied for a PPP loan and more than 90 percent of those applicants have received one. The Senate has always committed to standing behind this popular program. Back in April when it ran low on funds, we worked together to add more resources, and today we are passing another piece of legislation that makes a few targeted changes to the program. To help workers and small businesses through these lengthy shutdowns that are just now beginning to ease, we are increasing the loan forgiveness period from 8 weeks to 6 months. Since keeping workers on payroll obviously requires small businesses to stay afloat in the first place, we are expanding firms' ability to use these funds to meet obligations like their rent, their mortgage, or their utility bills, but we maintain the overall requirement to avoid layoffs to keep the strong protection for workers in place. And we are providing payroll tax deferral for the small businesses involved. This is a bipartisan bill that passed the House overwhelmingly. I am proud the Senate is sending it on to the President's desk to become law. I want to thank Senator Collins and Senator Rubio once more for their leadership in authoring this historic program in the first place. They have kept right on with their essential leadership, carefully monitoring the policy as it has taken effect. I know they have identified further technical fixes in addition to the issues we are addressing today, and I hope and anticipate the full Congress will look at addressing those as well in the future. I also want to thank Senator Daines, Senator Tillis, and Senator Gardner for their hard work on these modifications. The Senate delivered for workers and small businesses when we first passed the CARES Act. We delivered again when we added more money to this popular program back in April, and we are delivering again today.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2690
| null | 762
|
formal
|
based
| null |
white supremacist
|
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I rise to mark the start of LGBT Pride Month with reflections on the recent International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia--IDAHOBIT. For more than 50 years, Pride Month has been a reminder that, despite recent progress, every day, millions of people around the world face social stigmatization, legal prosecution, and even violence based on their sexual orientation or because of their gender identity. COVID-19 is necessitating adjustments to how this month is celebrated, with organizers moving large-scale parades from the streets of towns and cities to the internet, where a 24-hour online Global Pride celebration is planned for later this month. Two short weeks ago was the annual commemoration of the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobiaand Biphobia--IDAHOBIT. Started on May 17, 2004, IDAHOBIT was established by LGBTQ activists in 2004 to commemorate the World Health Organization's historic decision in 1990 to remove homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases. As in the United States, despite the progress we have made since 1990, around the world, homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia continue to flourish in many parts of the world. The theme of this year's International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia was ``Breaking the Silence.'' Millions of LGBTQ individuals around the world continue to be forced to hide their identities because of who they are or whom they love. They struggle to achieve the most basic of human rights, let alone respect and visibility. The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association--ILGA--lists 70 countries in which same-sex activities are outlawed, and penalties range from 8 years' imprisonment to the death penalty. Even in countries that do not criminalize homosexuality, many still have laws on the books that make living openly next to impossible. Only five countries, of which the United States is not one, ban the damaging practice of conversion therapy. This type of discrimination has only been compounded by the global outbreak of COVID-19. In addition to the widespread health and economic hardship that this pandemic is creating, it is producing new risks and forms of persecution for the LGBTQ community. In Uganda, security forces stormed an LGBTQ shelter, binding the occupants' hands with rope before marching them to a nearby police station on charges of disobeying social distancing rules. In Latin America, transgender, nonbinary, and queer people who present as gender-nonconforming are being detained or fined for going to the grocery store on days designated by the government as ``men-only'' or ``women-only.'' Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has used the pandemic as an excuse to move legislation that will ban the legal recognition of transgender citizens. Meanwhile, in South Korea, there is a disturbing rise in online hate speech blaming the LGBTQ community for spreading the coronavirus. A number of religious leaders around the world have cruelly attributed the spread of COVID-19 to divine retribution for recognition of same-sex marriages. The COVID-19 pandemic will eventually fade, but the abuse of LGBTQ people will continue unless we come together as a global community to put an end to it. Historically, the United States has been a strong international leader on issues of human rights like this one. However, the current administration's neglect of LGBTQ rights, both at home and abroad, has hurt our credibility and diminished our power to make positive change. Within the United States, the Trump administration has issued rules sanctioning employment, housing, medical, and other forms of discrimination based on gender identity. It has also repeatedly used religious liberty as a shield to enable discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. On a global scale, the administration has attempted to undermine internationally recognized definitions of human rights through the U.S. State Department's Commission on Inalienable Rights and turned a blind eye to the persecution of LGBTQ people in other countries. It is said that you can measure the strength of a democracy by the rights it affords to marginalized communities, these actions do not reflect the strong democracy that we strive to be. Looking at the state of the world today, it is clear that we need more champions for LGBTQ rights on the international stage. We need more leaders to break the silence and speak up for everyone's right to live truly as themselves. This Pride Month, I am hopeful that the United States will once again be one of those voices. For my part, I will keep fighting to protect LGBTQ rights at home and around the globe, so that all people can pursue happiness and love without fear.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. CARDIN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2692-4
| null | 763
|
formal
|
religious liberty
| null |
homophobic
|
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I rise to mark the start of LGBT Pride Month with reflections on the recent International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia--IDAHOBIT. For more than 50 years, Pride Month has been a reminder that, despite recent progress, every day, millions of people around the world face social stigmatization, legal prosecution, and even violence based on their sexual orientation or because of their gender identity. COVID-19 is necessitating adjustments to how this month is celebrated, with organizers moving large-scale parades from the streets of towns and cities to the internet, where a 24-hour online Global Pride celebration is planned for later this month. Two short weeks ago was the annual commemoration of the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobiaand Biphobia--IDAHOBIT. Started on May 17, 2004, IDAHOBIT was established by LGBTQ activists in 2004 to commemorate the World Health Organization's historic decision in 1990 to remove homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases. As in the United States, despite the progress we have made since 1990, around the world, homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia continue to flourish in many parts of the world. The theme of this year's International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia was ``Breaking the Silence.'' Millions of LGBTQ individuals around the world continue to be forced to hide their identities because of who they are or whom they love. They struggle to achieve the most basic of human rights, let alone respect and visibility. The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association--ILGA--lists 70 countries in which same-sex activities are outlawed, and penalties range from 8 years' imprisonment to the death penalty. Even in countries that do not criminalize homosexuality, many still have laws on the books that make living openly next to impossible. Only five countries, of which the United States is not one, ban the damaging practice of conversion therapy. This type of discrimination has only been compounded by the global outbreak of COVID-19. In addition to the widespread health and economic hardship that this pandemic is creating, it is producing new risks and forms of persecution for the LGBTQ community. In Uganda, security forces stormed an LGBTQ shelter, binding the occupants' hands with rope before marching them to a nearby police station on charges of disobeying social distancing rules. In Latin America, transgender, nonbinary, and queer people who present as gender-nonconforming are being detained or fined for going to the grocery store on days designated by the government as ``men-only'' or ``women-only.'' Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has used the pandemic as an excuse to move legislation that will ban the legal recognition of transgender citizens. Meanwhile, in South Korea, there is a disturbing rise in online hate speech blaming the LGBTQ community for spreading the coronavirus. A number of religious leaders around the world have cruelly attributed the spread of COVID-19 to divine retribution for recognition of same-sex marriages. The COVID-19 pandemic will eventually fade, but the abuse of LGBTQ people will continue unless we come together as a global community to put an end to it. Historically, the United States has been a strong international leader on issues of human rights like this one. However, the current administration's neglect of LGBTQ rights, both at home and abroad, has hurt our credibility and diminished our power to make positive change. Within the United States, the Trump administration has issued rules sanctioning employment, housing, medical, and other forms of discrimination based on gender identity. It has also repeatedly used religious liberty as a shield to enable discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. On a global scale, the administration has attempted to undermine internationally recognized definitions of human rights through the U.S. State Department's Commission on Inalienable Rights and turned a blind eye to the persecution of LGBTQ people in other countries. It is said that you can measure the strength of a democracy by the rights it affords to marginalized communities, these actions do not reflect the strong democracy that we strive to be. Looking at the state of the world today, it is clear that we need more champions for LGBTQ rights on the international stage. We need more leaders to break the silence and speak up for everyone's right to live truly as themselves. This Pride Month, I am hopeful that the United States will once again be one of those voices. For my part, I will keep fighting to protect LGBTQ rights at home and around the globe, so that all people can pursue happiness and love without fear.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. CARDIN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2692-4
| null | 764
|
formal
|
terrorism
| null |
Islamophobic
|
The following communications were laid before the Senate, together with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as indicated: EC-4638. A communication from the Secretary of Defense, transmitting a report on the approved retirement of Lieutenant General Charles D. Luckey, United States Army Reserve, and his advancement to the grade of lieutenant general on the retired list; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-4639. A communication from the Secretary of Defense, transmitting a report on the approved retirement of Admiral James G. Foggo III, United States Navy, and his advancement to the grade of admiral on the retired list; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-4640. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to Burundi that was declared in Executive Order 13712 of November 22, 2015; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4641. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism that was declared in Executive Order 13224 of September 23, 2001; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4642. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to Iran that was declared in Executive Order 12170 of November 14, 1979; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4643. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to the stabilization of Iraq that was declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4644. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to the Central African Republic that was declared in Executive Order 13667 of May 12, 2014; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4645. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to Belarus that was declared in Executive Order 13405 of June 16, 2006; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4646. A communication from the Program Specialist, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Department of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Director, Shareholder, and Member Meetings'' (RIN1557-AE94) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on June 1, 2020; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4647. A communication from the Chief Counsel, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Suspension of Community Eligibility, Internal Docket ID FEMA-8629'' ((44 CFR Part 64) (Docket No. FEMA-2020-0005)) received during adournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 28, 2020; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4648. A communication from the Chief Counsel, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Suspension of Community Eligibility, Internal Docket ID FEMA-8627'' ((44 CFR Part 64) (Docket No. FEMA-2020-0005)) received during adournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 28, 2020; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4649. A communication from the Chief Counsel, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Suspension of Community Eligibility, Internal Docket ID FEMA-8625'' ((44 CFR Part 64) (Docket No. FEMA-2020-0005)) received during adournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 28, 2020; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4650. A communication from the Director of Legislative Affairs, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Interim Final Rule - Regulatory Capital Rule: Transitions for the Community Bank Leverage Ratio Framework'' (RIN3064-AF47) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 28, 2020; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4651. A communication from the Director of Legislative Affairs, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Interim Final Rule - Liquidity Coverage Ratio Rule: Treatment of Certain Emergency Facilities'' (RIN3064-AF51) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 28, 2020; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4652. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to North Korea that was declared in Executive Order 13466 of June 26, 2008; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4653. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to the Western Balkans that was declared in Executive Order 13219 of June 26, 2001; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4654. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency with respect to Nicaragua that was declared in Executive Order 13851 of November 27, 2018; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4655. A communication from the Director of Legislative Affairs, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Interim Final Rule - Regulatory Capital Rule: Temporary Changes to the Community Bank Leverage Ratio Framework'' (RIN3064-AF45) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 28, 2020; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4656. A communication from the Director of Legislative Affairs, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Interim Final Rule - Real Estate Appraisals'' (RIN3064-AF48) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 28, 2020; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4657. A communication from the Secretary, Division of Trading and Markets, Securities and Exchange Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendments to the National Market System Plan Governing the Consolidated Audit Trail'' (RIN3235-AM60) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 28, 2020; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4658. A communication from the Regulatory Specialist, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Department of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Community Reinvestment Act Regulations'' (RIN1557- AE34) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 28, 2020; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4659. A communication from the Secretary of the Securities and Exchange Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendments to Financial Disclosures about Acquired and Disposed Businesses'' (RIN3235-AL77) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 28, 2020; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-4660. A communication from the Chief of the Regulatory Coordination Division, Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Implementation of the Northern Mariana Islands U.S. Workforce Act 2018'' (RIN1615- AC28) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 28, 2020; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. EC-4661. A communication from the Chief of Regulatory Analysis and Development, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Department of Agriculture, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Movement of Certain Genetically Engineered Organization'' ((RIN0579-AE47) (Docket No. APHIS-2018-0034)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 28, 2020; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-4662. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Ea peptide 91398; Exemption from the Requirement of a Tolerance'' (FRL No. 10007-57-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on June 1, 2020; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-4663. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Fenpyroximate; Pesticide Tolerances'' (FRL No. 10009-14-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on June 1, 2020; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-4664. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Washington; Northwest Clean Air Agency'' (FRL No. 10009-59-Region 10) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on June 1, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4665. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Approval and Promulgation of Air Quality State Implementation Plans; Provo, Utah Second 10-Year Carbon Monoxide Maintenance Plan'' (FRL No. 10009-49-Region 8) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on June 1, 2020; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-4666. A communication from the Assistant Secretary, Legislative Affairs, Department of State, transmitting, pursuant to the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, a report relative to extending and amending the agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua; to the Committee on Finance. EC-4667. A communication from the Secretary of Energy, transmitting, pursuant to law, the Department's fiscal year 2019 annual report relative to the Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (No FEAR Act); to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. EC-4668. A communication from the Board Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Farm Credit Administration, transmitting, pursuant to law, the Administration's Semiannual Report of the Inspector General and the Semiannual Management Report on the Status of Audits for the period from October 1, 2019 through March 31, 2020; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. EC-4669. A communication from the Director, Office of Acquisition Policy, General Services Administration, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Federal Acquisition Regulation; Federal Acquisition Circular 2020-06, Introduction'' ((48 CFR Chapter 1) (FAC 2019-02)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on May 14, 2020; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
|
2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-03-pt1-PgS2693-2
| null | 765
|
formal
|
working families
| null |
racist
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, yesterday evening, the Senate passed a few targeted changes so that Senator Collins' and Senator Rubio's historic Paycheck Protection Program will continue to protect American workers and small businesses through this pandemic. Back in March, these Senate leaders hand designed this plan to push unprecedented assistance to working families and Main Street businesses. Once again, in April, they led the charge to refill their popular and successful program with more money so it could help even more Americans. In the weeks since, our colleagues have continued to track the program's operation and recommend further tweaks where necessary. In recent days, both Senator Collins and Senator Rubio helped to strengthen and improve the House's proposed PPP modifications before it actually passed the bill and sent it over to us, and I know the senior Senators from Maine and Florida have already identified several more technical fixes for the new legislation that, I hope, Congress will address. Talk about legislation making a difference. Thanks to Senator Collins, Chairman Rubio, and our other colleagues who helped to make this program a success, the PPP has delivered more than a half a trillion dollars in relief and has literally saved tens of millions of American jobs. So, as we continue to stay nimble and continue our efforts, I just had to thank and recognize the architects of this historic program--the senior Senators from Maine and Florida--for helping to soften the blow of this pandemic for so many American families.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2701-6
| null | 766
|
formal
|
Hollywood
| null |
antisemitic
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on an entirely different matter, today marks the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. Because of China's censorship and disinformation, we still do not know how many brave Chinese people were killed by their own government on June 4, 1989. Conservative estimates say hundreds. Others say thousands--a burst of violence against peaceful democracy protesters, weeks of arrests, roundups, and executions, and then total silence. Never since have the Chinese people been able to freely and openly remember the atrocity. Never outside the oasis of Hong Kong has a single formal gathering on Chinese soil been permitted to commemorate the victims. Now even that oasis of freedom is at risk. We learned this week that, under new pressure from Beijing, Hong Kong is refusing to permit the annual candlelight vigil for the first time ever. This year, the Chinese Communist Party wants no candles lit even in Hong Kong--just more darkness. It was 31 years ago that brave Chinese flooded that public square and others across their nation in the fervent hope that economic liberalization would also lead to a less authoritarian, more open society. What they got were bodies littering the ground. A shocked world sanctioned the PRC, but as time passed, the world relaxed somewhat and returned to a strategy of welcoming China into our global public square, bringing the PRC into international institutions in the hope that an included China would actually play by the rules. Time and again, thosehopes have been dashed. The last few months have been their own tidy case study in what kind of global actor the so-called People's Republic has chosen to be. Their response to the coronavirus pandemic that started in their own country was to silence their own doctors, imprison their own people, shut down important research, and lie to the rest of the world while hoarding supplies for themselves. The CCP's selfishness and failures fueled a worldwide catastrophe, and, ever since, they have tried to use that catastrophe as a smokescreen for other aggression. While they thought the rest of the world was distracted, China has cracked down on Hong Kong; conducted provocative military exercises near Taiwan; expanded its bullying into the South China Sea; pressured the Philippines; and literally initiated physical fighting with India in the Himalayas. Oh, and according to press reports, China has also found the time to mount online disinformation campaigns to hurt America and divide us among ourselves. Bad actors linked to Beijing have reportedly flooded Twitter to exploit the death of George Floyd and increase hostility among Americans. Even in official channels, CCP leaders mock America and imply our society is no better than their tyranny. Now, as an aside, some Democrats here in Washington seem to have swallowed the Chinese propaganda and set out to amplify it themselves, including from right here on the Senate floor. Yesterday, right here in the Senate Chamber, the Democratic leader explicitly compared America men and women in uniform to the Chinese murderers who committed the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Leader Schumer said that, when he saw images of American men and women in uniform standing near the recently defaced Lincoln Memorial and protecting the right to peaceful protest, ``You cannot help but think of Tiananmen Square.'' That is what he said. I am sure Beijing was thrilled with this shameful comparison. A propaganda victory for Communist China, gift-wrapped with the compliments of the Democratic Party, delivered just in time for this bloody anniversary. Imagine being so consumed by partisanship that you deliberately link the brave American men and women who stop violence, protect peaceful protests, defend citizens' constitutional liberties, and defend against violent riots to the Chinese butchers who gunned down crowds of peaceful dissenters who were begging for the same rights our military defends. In America, the police help peaceful marchers march. Over there, they gun them down. If anyone is having trouble distinguishing these things, the problem is not with our Nation--it is with them. Now, these recent examples of Chinese hostility are just symptoms of a fundamental problem that has come into focus. Decades ago, the United States and the rest of the world made a calculated bet that welcoming China into the fold would cause it to mend its ways. It was 20 years ago that President Clinton argued for admitting China into the WTO because ``economic innovation and political empowerment . . . will inevitably go hand in hand.'' Many smart people made that wager--in both parties--but we should never have used words like ``inevitable.'' President Clinton also said: ``China has been trying to crack down on the internet. . . . Good luck!'' Back in the year 2000, the transcript says, that was greeted with laughter. Well, no one is laughing now. China's leaders have pounced on every inch of economic space the world has afforded them--and then some. They have cheated on trade and have stolen foreign technology. They have executed on long-term plans to dominate key global industries. They have weaponized foreign aid to bring developing countries under their thrall. So the Chinese economy has leapt forward. The Chinese people enjoy greater prosperity, which they sorely need after decades of Communist mismanagement, but all of this money and innovation have not brought the people any more freedom. They have given CCP elites better high-tech tools with which to oppress their own people and more leverage with which to undermine the international system. Rather than importing liberty into China, this economic integration seems to have been rather more successful at exporting its authoritarian preferences to the rest of us. Right here in the United States, we have seen Hollywood make a gross habit of self-censoring films to avoid offending the Chinese Communist Party. We have seen the NBA prioritize its profits in China and throw an employee under the bus who spoke out for Hong Kong. The same elites, institutions, and businesses that feel totally free to critique our own society--and rightly so--increasingly walk on eggshells around President Xi and his cronies. And free speech is hardly the only front where China poses an international threat. A recent major report from an interagency task force found that China's deliberate economic aggression and targeting of our industrial base is a significant national security vulnerability for the United States, and many other nations are awakening to that same reality. Back in March, a CCP-controlled newspaper threatened to cut off pharmaceutical exports to the United States and ``plunge'' Americans ``into the mighty sea of coronavirus'' if we did not play more nicely with Beijing. One month later, Chinese officials threatened a boycott of Australia because our Australian friends wanted to investigate the origins of the pandemic. Earlier this year, the Director of the FBI explained that China's criminal conspiracies against the United States and our companies make the CCP the ``greatest long-term threat'' to America's information security, intellectual property, and, by extension, our ``economic vitality.'' Once again, our allies and partners are being victimized by the very same tactics. One outside report found that the ``United States is losing between $400 billion and $600 billion per year in intellectual property theft as a matter of provable losses, and that figure does not account for second-order losses such as jobs and infrastructure.'' Let's put that in perspective. Congress has been working hard on the huge, historic Paycheck Protection Program. It has pushed out a half a trillion dollars for American workers. Well, by this estimate, China reaches into our country and steals the equivalent of that entire program every single year. China does not play by the rules, not in Hong Kong, not in the WHO, not in the WTO, not in international trade. Year after year, on issue over issue, it has chosen the path of aggression. So there will be consequences. Just this week, the U.K. is reportedly continuing to back away from plans to work with Huawei, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is impressively preparing to offer visas so that Hongkongers who want to know their freedoms and liberties are secure can take refuge in the United Kingdom instead. In Japan, Prime Minister Abe is taking major steps to strengthen Japan and check China's economic aggression. It is a good thing, too, because defending American security, American interests, American prosperity, and the international system cannot be a go-it-alone operation. There will be steps the United States will take on our own, but just as the entire free world stands united today to remember Tiananmen Square, so we will need to stand together to prevent the world's public square from heading toward a similar domination by China. We will need to keep our friends and partners close. China can try to repress its own people, but the United States of America will never fall silent. We will never go dark. We will keep the candles lit. We will protect our people and their bright future.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2701-7
| null | 767
|
formal
|
single
| null |
homophobic
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on an entirely different matter, today marks the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. Because of China's censorship and disinformation, we still do not know how many brave Chinese people were killed by their own government on June 4, 1989. Conservative estimates say hundreds. Others say thousands--a burst of violence against peaceful democracy protesters, weeks of arrests, roundups, and executions, and then total silence. Never since have the Chinese people been able to freely and openly remember the atrocity. Never outside the oasis of Hong Kong has a single formal gathering on Chinese soil been permitted to commemorate the victims. Now even that oasis of freedom is at risk. We learned this week that, under new pressure from Beijing, Hong Kong is refusing to permit the annual candlelight vigil for the first time ever. This year, the Chinese Communist Party wants no candles lit even in Hong Kong--just more darkness. It was 31 years ago that brave Chinese flooded that public square and others across their nation in the fervent hope that economic liberalization would also lead to a less authoritarian, more open society. What they got were bodies littering the ground. A shocked world sanctioned the PRC, but as time passed, the world relaxed somewhat and returned to a strategy of welcoming China into our global public square, bringing the PRC into international institutions in the hope that an included China would actually play by the rules. Time and again, thosehopes have been dashed. The last few months have been their own tidy case study in what kind of global actor the so-called People's Republic has chosen to be. Their response to the coronavirus pandemic that started in their own country was to silence their own doctors, imprison their own people, shut down important research, and lie to the rest of the world while hoarding supplies for themselves. The CCP's selfishness and failures fueled a worldwide catastrophe, and, ever since, they have tried to use that catastrophe as a smokescreen for other aggression. While they thought the rest of the world was distracted, China has cracked down on Hong Kong; conducted provocative military exercises near Taiwan; expanded its bullying into the South China Sea; pressured the Philippines; and literally initiated physical fighting with India in the Himalayas. Oh, and according to press reports, China has also found the time to mount online disinformation campaigns to hurt America and divide us among ourselves. Bad actors linked to Beijing have reportedly flooded Twitter to exploit the death of George Floyd and increase hostility among Americans. Even in official channels, CCP leaders mock America and imply our society is no better than their tyranny. Now, as an aside, some Democrats here in Washington seem to have swallowed the Chinese propaganda and set out to amplify it themselves, including from right here on the Senate floor. Yesterday, right here in the Senate Chamber, the Democratic leader explicitly compared America men and women in uniform to the Chinese murderers who committed the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Leader Schumer said that, when he saw images of American men and women in uniform standing near the recently defaced Lincoln Memorial and protecting the right to peaceful protest, ``You cannot help but think of Tiananmen Square.'' That is what he said. I am sure Beijing was thrilled with this shameful comparison. A propaganda victory for Communist China, gift-wrapped with the compliments of the Democratic Party, delivered just in time for this bloody anniversary. Imagine being so consumed by partisanship that you deliberately link the brave American men and women who stop violence, protect peaceful protests, defend citizens' constitutional liberties, and defend against violent riots to the Chinese butchers who gunned down crowds of peaceful dissenters who were begging for the same rights our military defends. In America, the police help peaceful marchers march. Over there, they gun them down. If anyone is having trouble distinguishing these things, the problem is not with our Nation--it is with them. Now, these recent examples of Chinese hostility are just symptoms of a fundamental problem that has come into focus. Decades ago, the United States and the rest of the world made a calculated bet that welcoming China into the fold would cause it to mend its ways. It was 20 years ago that President Clinton argued for admitting China into the WTO because ``economic innovation and political empowerment . . . will inevitably go hand in hand.'' Many smart people made that wager--in both parties--but we should never have used words like ``inevitable.'' President Clinton also said: ``China has been trying to crack down on the internet. . . . Good luck!'' Back in the year 2000, the transcript says, that was greeted with laughter. Well, no one is laughing now. China's leaders have pounced on every inch of economic space the world has afforded them--and then some. They have cheated on trade and have stolen foreign technology. They have executed on long-term plans to dominate key global industries. They have weaponized foreign aid to bring developing countries under their thrall. So the Chinese economy has leapt forward. The Chinese people enjoy greater prosperity, which they sorely need after decades of Communist mismanagement, but all of this money and innovation have not brought the people any more freedom. They have given CCP elites better high-tech tools with which to oppress their own people and more leverage with which to undermine the international system. Rather than importing liberty into China, this economic integration seems to have been rather more successful at exporting its authoritarian preferences to the rest of us. Right here in the United States, we have seen Hollywood make a gross habit of self-censoring films to avoid offending the Chinese Communist Party. We have seen the NBA prioritize its profits in China and throw an employee under the bus who spoke out for Hong Kong. The same elites, institutions, and businesses that feel totally free to critique our own society--and rightly so--increasingly walk on eggshells around President Xi and his cronies. And free speech is hardly the only front where China poses an international threat. A recent major report from an interagency task force found that China's deliberate economic aggression and targeting of our industrial base is a significant national security vulnerability for the United States, and many other nations are awakening to that same reality. Back in March, a CCP-controlled newspaper threatened to cut off pharmaceutical exports to the United States and ``plunge'' Americans ``into the mighty sea of coronavirus'' if we did not play more nicely with Beijing. One month later, Chinese officials threatened a boycott of Australia because our Australian friends wanted to investigate the origins of the pandemic. Earlier this year, the Director of the FBI explained that China's criminal conspiracies against the United States and our companies make the CCP the ``greatest long-term threat'' to America's information security, intellectual property, and, by extension, our ``economic vitality.'' Once again, our allies and partners are being victimized by the very same tactics. One outside report found that the ``United States is losing between $400 billion and $600 billion per year in intellectual property theft as a matter of provable losses, and that figure does not account for second-order losses such as jobs and infrastructure.'' Let's put that in perspective. Congress has been working hard on the huge, historic Paycheck Protection Program. It has pushed out a half a trillion dollars for American workers. Well, by this estimate, China reaches into our country and steals the equivalent of that entire program every single year. China does not play by the rules, not in Hong Kong, not in the WHO, not in the WTO, not in international trade. Year after year, on issue over issue, it has chosen the path of aggression. So there will be consequences. Just this week, the U.K. is reportedly continuing to back away from plans to work with Huawei, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is impressively preparing to offer visas so that Hongkongers who want to know their freedoms and liberties are secure can take refuge in the United Kingdom instead. In Japan, Prime Minister Abe is taking major steps to strengthen Japan and check China's economic aggression. It is a good thing, too, because defending American security, American interests, American prosperity, and the international system cannot be a go-it-alone operation. There will be steps the United States will take on our own, but just as the entire free world stands united today to remember Tiananmen Square, so we will need to stand together to prevent the world's public square from heading toward a similar domination by China. We will need to keep our friends and partners close. China can try to repress its own people, but the United States of America will never fall silent. We will never go dark. We will keep the candles lit. We will protect our people and their bright future.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2701-7
| null | 768
|
formal
|
blue
| null |
antisemitic
|
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor today after my colleagues have held a moment of silence for the passing of George Floyd. His family should not be preparing for his funeral today. All Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, deserve to have equal protection under the law. It is time that we not just speak out about injustice; it is time that we pass new Federal laws to protect the civil liberties of U.S. citizens and protect them from these injustices. What is our role here in the U.S. Senate? I believe it comes to passing new laws for those Federal protections. The U.S. Attorney General is the top law enforcement of our country. He directs and supervises U.S. attorneys that prosecute Federal crimes. The Attorney General is supposed to make sure that citizens in our country have equal protection of the law. He is supposed to uphold the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable seizure and the Civil Rights Act, that protects against excessive use of force by police. It is not about calling out the military. It is about protecting the civil liberties of our U.S. citizens. He is supposed to enforce 18 U.S. Code Sec 242, which prohibits the deprivation of rights under the color of law. It criminalizes abuse by police. The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is supposed to step inwhen police departments have serious abuses. The Civil Rights Division is responsible for enforcing Federal prohibitions on patterns or practices of policing that violate the Constitution or other Federal laws. It conducts investigations of allegations of systemic police misconduct and reaches comprehensive agreements on reforms that are needed to restore effective policing and trust with communities. If it cannot reach an agreement, the Division will bring a Federal lawsuit to compel the needed reforms. Yes, we have something to do here in Washington. Throughout U.S. history, the Civil Rights Division has played a major role in a number of critical cases, including the prosecution and murders of Medgar Evers and Dr. Martin Luther King. Yes, we have something to do here in Washington. The Obama administration made policing reform a priority. The Civil Rights Division was active in helping oversee pattern and practices of police department abuses and entered numerous consent decrees with Seattle, with New Orleans, on Ferguson, with Baltimore, and with Cleveland. Why? Because we had cases that needed that Federal oversight. We saw that there were abuses of use of force across the country, including even in my home State, that we needed to address. In 2006, Otto Zehm, a man with developmental disabilities, was wrongly accused of stealing money from an ATM. Mr. Zehm was improperly hog-tied by police, placed on his stomach, and he died from lack of oxygen to his brain. As he was dying, he said, ``I was just on my way to get a Snicker bar.'' It breaks my heart that somebody with disabilities was treated this way. There was a Federal indictment in this case and the police officer was found guilty of excessive use of force, lying to investigators about the confrontation. As a result of a civil case, the Spokane police were required to receive special training on interaction with mentally ill suspects and detainees. In 2010, John T. Williams, a Native American, a seventh-generation woodcarver who used his knife to make street art, was fatally shot seven times in the back by Seattle police. He had hearing difficulties and mental health challenges. Literally, he was just carving in one spot and decided to move across the street to another spot. When he didn't respond to the officer, he was shot and killed. The officer who killed Mr. Williams wasn't charged, but the U.S. Department of Justice did investigate and found that there was a pattern and practice of abuse by Seattle police. The U.S. Department of Justice and Seattle agreed on a consent decree, which required a number of reforms. And now, just recently, an African American named Manuel Ellis died from respiratory arrest due to physical restraint by a Tacoma police officer. This just happened in March of 2020. Meth and an enlarged heart contributed to his death, but the Pierce County medical examiner ruled his death a homicide, and his case is under investigation. All of these issues in the State of Washington led our citizenry to have a debate about this. In 2018, 62 percent of Washington voters approved ballot initiative 940. It required de-escalation. It required training for police officers to understand how to help and deal with the public. It mandated first aid to a victim of deadly force, and it required an outside investigation into the use of that deadly force. It also removed the requirement that prosecutors prove malice to hold police officers criminally liable for use of deadly force. And that continues to need improvement in our state. These were steps in the right direction, but these events in the last several weeks have showed us that it is not time to step back from this issue; it is time to pass new Federal legislation. Under the Trump administration and Attorney General Barr, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division police practices group has been reduced to half. It has not opened a major pattern-or-practice investigation of police departments' violation of civil and constitutional rights. President Trump and his administration have pulled back from Department of Justice's important oversight role, at a time we can see that we need more of a Federal role, not less. In November 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions changed the Department of Justice policy to make it even harder for the Department to perform its oversight role of our police departments. He made it harder for the Department of Justice to reach dissent decrees with State and city governments and limited the reforms that they could require. The Trump administration has shown that it isn't interested in the community policing programs that have shown success in the past. There are numbers that statistically show that better investment in community policing helps us lower the crime rate. In 2017, the Trump administration led the U.S. Department of Justice to significantly scale back on the Obama-era program called Collaborative Reform Initiative, which provided support to improve trust between police and communities. And under the Trump administration, it no longer strongly supports consent decrees, which have been so helpful in holding local cities and police departments accountable for civil rights abuses. The Trump administration tried to defund the Office of Community Policing and Services Program. Thank god our colleagues have refused that. This provides important Federal funding help hire community policing and officers and to provide technical assistance. I think this stands in stark contrast to President Obama, who requested that the COPS program be funded each year in his budget request. But all of this brings us to where we are today. What the citizenry of the United States of America is telling us is that we need better laws on the books. I believe we need to act here. The death of George Floyd has shown us that there is a clarion call and a need for more Federal action. I believe in these things: I believe that we should have a prohibition on chokeholds and knee restraints that cut off oxygen to the brain. I believe that we should, just like the State of Washington, provide for more Federal support for de-escalation training. I believe in establishing a Federal standard for the use of body cameras, and when they should be mandatory, because I think they should be, and making sure that what happens to the video is available, and that the public knows and understands what is happening. I believe in requiring an independent investigation, just like we did under State statute--and by the way, that initiative that was voted on, with some of these provisions in them, in the State of Washington, and received 60-percent approval from the Washingtonians of our State. Why? Because they believe these things are essential. The Duckworth bill provides for a independent investigation when deadly force has been used, and we should be making this the Federal law of the land. And we need to provide more support for community policing, and not just the dollars but accountability for when and how the dollars are used, so the community knows exactly what is going on with the Federal dollars for community policing. And we need to require the Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General, who lead the USDOJ Civil Rights Division, to vigorously identify and end patterns and practices of abuse in police departments and seek penalties for those who haven't. I suggest a Federal audit every year where there are practices and patterns of abuse and give us the information so that we in Congress can also help in holding those accountable for not meeting the Federal standards of upholding citizenries' civil rights. And we need to create a clear Federal standard on the use deadly force, just like the Washington State voters did when they passed legislation. Whether we do it like the Washington voters in ending the defense on malice, or whether we look at what my colleagues Senator Booker, Harris, and Markey have suggested, let's have that debate. I am ready to say to my side of the aisle: Let's get these issues--I mentioned seven of them--let's get them out here. I am asking my colleagues on this side of the aisle: let's engage on this Federal debate and show the citizenry of America that we hear them. Let's not also just be deaf to the plight and fate that our officers are dealing with every day on the streets of America. We need more funding to help our police departments. We definitely, in some cases, need additional pay. But for this, we also need to deal with our housing crisis, our mental health crisis, our opioid addiction crisis. So many of our men and women in blue are policing our streets not for crimes but for dealing with the population that is living on the streets. We need to do better here than to shortchange them and to not help--not to help correct these situations that have now become day-to-day tasks in what has never been part of the law enforcement effort. I ask my colleagues, let's put our differences aside to get real action on these. There is a Federal role on civil rights enforcement. Let's take that role seriously, let's respond to the death, and do something about it. I know that the best way to honor George Floyd today would be to help pass the laws that help protect the citizenry of our State. We are a great country, and we can do better by meeting this challenge. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Ms. CANTWELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2705
| null | 769
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor today after my colleagues have held a moment of silence for the passing of George Floyd. His family should not be preparing for his funeral today. All Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, deserve to have equal protection under the law. It is time that we not just speak out about injustice; it is time that we pass new Federal laws to protect the civil liberties of U.S. citizens and protect them from these injustices. What is our role here in the U.S. Senate? I believe it comes to passing new laws for those Federal protections. The U.S. Attorney General is the top law enforcement of our country. He directs and supervises U.S. attorneys that prosecute Federal crimes. The Attorney General is supposed to make sure that citizens in our country have equal protection of the law. He is supposed to uphold the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable seizure and the Civil Rights Act, that protects against excessive use of force by police. It is not about calling out the military. It is about protecting the civil liberties of our U.S. citizens. He is supposed to enforce 18 U.S. Code Sec 242, which prohibits the deprivation of rights under the color of law. It criminalizes abuse by police. The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is supposed to step inwhen police departments have serious abuses. The Civil Rights Division is responsible for enforcing Federal prohibitions on patterns or practices of policing that violate the Constitution or other Federal laws. It conducts investigations of allegations of systemic police misconduct and reaches comprehensive agreements on reforms that are needed to restore effective policing and trust with communities. If it cannot reach an agreement, the Division will bring a Federal lawsuit to compel the needed reforms. Yes, we have something to do here in Washington. Throughout U.S. history, the Civil Rights Division has played a major role in a number of critical cases, including the prosecution and murders of Medgar Evers and Dr. Martin Luther King. Yes, we have something to do here in Washington. The Obama administration made policing reform a priority. The Civil Rights Division was active in helping oversee pattern and practices of police department abuses and entered numerous consent decrees with Seattle, with New Orleans, on Ferguson, with Baltimore, and with Cleveland. Why? Because we had cases that needed that Federal oversight. We saw that there were abuses of use of force across the country, including even in my home State, that we needed to address. In 2006, Otto Zehm, a man with developmental disabilities, was wrongly accused of stealing money from an ATM. Mr. Zehm was improperly hog-tied by police, placed on his stomach, and he died from lack of oxygen to his brain. As he was dying, he said, ``I was just on my way to get a Snicker bar.'' It breaks my heart that somebody with disabilities was treated this way. There was a Federal indictment in this case and the police officer was found guilty of excessive use of force, lying to investigators about the confrontation. As a result of a civil case, the Spokane police were required to receive special training on interaction with mentally ill suspects and detainees. In 2010, John T. Williams, a Native American, a seventh-generation woodcarver who used his knife to make street art, was fatally shot seven times in the back by Seattle police. He had hearing difficulties and mental health challenges. Literally, he was just carving in one spot and decided to move across the street to another spot. When he didn't respond to the officer, he was shot and killed. The officer who killed Mr. Williams wasn't charged, but the U.S. Department of Justice did investigate and found that there was a pattern and practice of abuse by Seattle police. The U.S. Department of Justice and Seattle agreed on a consent decree, which required a number of reforms. And now, just recently, an African American named Manuel Ellis died from respiratory arrest due to physical restraint by a Tacoma police officer. This just happened in March of 2020. Meth and an enlarged heart contributed to his death, but the Pierce County medical examiner ruled his death a homicide, and his case is under investigation. All of these issues in the State of Washington led our citizenry to have a debate about this. In 2018, 62 percent of Washington voters approved ballot initiative 940. It required de-escalation. It required training for police officers to understand how to help and deal with the public. It mandated first aid to a victim of deadly force, and it required an outside investigation into the use of that deadly force. It also removed the requirement that prosecutors prove malice to hold police officers criminally liable for use of deadly force. And that continues to need improvement in our state. These were steps in the right direction, but these events in the last several weeks have showed us that it is not time to step back from this issue; it is time to pass new Federal legislation. Under the Trump administration and Attorney General Barr, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division police practices group has been reduced to half. It has not opened a major pattern-or-practice investigation of police departments' violation of civil and constitutional rights. President Trump and his administration have pulled back from Department of Justice's important oversight role, at a time we can see that we need more of a Federal role, not less. In November 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions changed the Department of Justice policy to make it even harder for the Department to perform its oversight role of our police departments. He made it harder for the Department of Justice to reach dissent decrees with State and city governments and limited the reforms that they could require. The Trump administration has shown that it isn't interested in the community policing programs that have shown success in the past. There are numbers that statistically show that better investment in community policing helps us lower the crime rate. In 2017, the Trump administration led the U.S. Department of Justice to significantly scale back on the Obama-era program called Collaborative Reform Initiative, which provided support to improve trust between police and communities. And under the Trump administration, it no longer strongly supports consent decrees, which have been so helpful in holding local cities and police departments accountable for civil rights abuses. The Trump administration tried to defund the Office of Community Policing and Services Program. Thank god our colleagues have refused that. This provides important Federal funding help hire community policing and officers and to provide technical assistance. I think this stands in stark contrast to President Obama, who requested that the COPS program be funded each year in his budget request. But all of this brings us to where we are today. What the citizenry of the United States of America is telling us is that we need better laws on the books. I believe we need to act here. The death of George Floyd has shown us that there is a clarion call and a need for more Federal action. I believe in these things: I believe that we should have a prohibition on chokeholds and knee restraints that cut off oxygen to the brain. I believe that we should, just like the State of Washington, provide for more Federal support for de-escalation training. I believe in establishing a Federal standard for the use of body cameras, and when they should be mandatory, because I think they should be, and making sure that what happens to the video is available, and that the public knows and understands what is happening. I believe in requiring an independent investigation, just like we did under State statute--and by the way, that initiative that was voted on, with some of these provisions in them, in the State of Washington, and received 60-percent approval from the Washingtonians of our State. Why? Because they believe these things are essential. The Duckworth bill provides for a independent investigation when deadly force has been used, and we should be making this the Federal law of the land. And we need to provide more support for community policing, and not just the dollars but accountability for when and how the dollars are used, so the community knows exactly what is going on with the Federal dollars for community policing. And we need to require the Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General, who lead the USDOJ Civil Rights Division, to vigorously identify and end patterns and practices of abuse in police departments and seek penalties for those who haven't. I suggest a Federal audit every year where there are practices and patterns of abuse and give us the information so that we in Congress can also help in holding those accountable for not meeting the Federal standards of upholding citizenries' civil rights. And we need to create a clear Federal standard on the use deadly force, just like the Washington State voters did when they passed legislation. Whether we do it like the Washington voters in ending the defense on malice, or whether we look at what my colleagues Senator Booker, Harris, and Markey have suggested, let's have that debate. I am ready to say to my side of the aisle: Let's get these issues--I mentioned seven of them--let's get them out here. I am asking my colleagues on this side of the aisle: let's engage on this Federal debate and show the citizenry of America that we hear them. Let's not also just be deaf to the plight and fate that our officers are dealing with every day on the streets of America. We need more funding to help our police departments. We definitely, in some cases, need additional pay. But for this, we also need to deal with our housing crisis, our mental health crisis, our opioid addiction crisis. So many of our men and women in blue are policing our streets not for crimes but for dealing with the population that is living on the streets. We need to do better here than to shortchange them and to not help--not to help correct these situations that have now become day-to-day tasks in what has never been part of the law enforcement effort. I ask my colleagues, let's put our differences aside to get real action on these. There is a Federal role on civil rights enforcement. Let's take that role seriously, let's respond to the death, and do something about it. I know that the best way to honor George Floyd today would be to help pass the laws that help protect the citizenry of our State. We are a great country, and we can do better by meeting this challenge. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Ms. CANTWELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2705
| null | 770
|
formal
|
Cleveland
| null |
racist
|
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor today after my colleagues have held a moment of silence for the passing of George Floyd. His family should not be preparing for his funeral today. All Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, deserve to have equal protection under the law. It is time that we not just speak out about injustice; it is time that we pass new Federal laws to protect the civil liberties of U.S. citizens and protect them from these injustices. What is our role here in the U.S. Senate? I believe it comes to passing new laws for those Federal protections. The U.S. Attorney General is the top law enforcement of our country. He directs and supervises U.S. attorneys that prosecute Federal crimes. The Attorney General is supposed to make sure that citizens in our country have equal protection of the law. He is supposed to uphold the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable seizure and the Civil Rights Act, that protects against excessive use of force by police. It is not about calling out the military. It is about protecting the civil liberties of our U.S. citizens. He is supposed to enforce 18 U.S. Code Sec 242, which prohibits the deprivation of rights under the color of law. It criminalizes abuse by police. The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is supposed to step inwhen police departments have serious abuses. The Civil Rights Division is responsible for enforcing Federal prohibitions on patterns or practices of policing that violate the Constitution or other Federal laws. It conducts investigations of allegations of systemic police misconduct and reaches comprehensive agreements on reforms that are needed to restore effective policing and trust with communities. If it cannot reach an agreement, the Division will bring a Federal lawsuit to compel the needed reforms. Yes, we have something to do here in Washington. Throughout U.S. history, the Civil Rights Division has played a major role in a number of critical cases, including the prosecution and murders of Medgar Evers and Dr. Martin Luther King. Yes, we have something to do here in Washington. The Obama administration made policing reform a priority. The Civil Rights Division was active in helping oversee pattern and practices of police department abuses and entered numerous consent decrees with Seattle, with New Orleans, on Ferguson, with Baltimore, and with Cleveland. Why? Because we had cases that needed that Federal oversight. We saw that there were abuses of use of force across the country, including even in my home State, that we needed to address. In 2006, Otto Zehm, a man with developmental disabilities, was wrongly accused of stealing money from an ATM. Mr. Zehm was improperly hog-tied by police, placed on his stomach, and he died from lack of oxygen to his brain. As he was dying, he said, ``I was just on my way to get a Snicker bar.'' It breaks my heart that somebody with disabilities was treated this way. There was a Federal indictment in this case and the police officer was found guilty of excessive use of force, lying to investigators about the confrontation. As a result of a civil case, the Spokane police were required to receive special training on interaction with mentally ill suspects and detainees. In 2010, John T. Williams, a Native American, a seventh-generation woodcarver who used his knife to make street art, was fatally shot seven times in the back by Seattle police. He had hearing difficulties and mental health challenges. Literally, he was just carving in one spot and decided to move across the street to another spot. When he didn't respond to the officer, he was shot and killed. The officer who killed Mr. Williams wasn't charged, but the U.S. Department of Justice did investigate and found that there was a pattern and practice of abuse by Seattle police. The U.S. Department of Justice and Seattle agreed on a consent decree, which required a number of reforms. And now, just recently, an African American named Manuel Ellis died from respiratory arrest due to physical restraint by a Tacoma police officer. This just happened in March of 2020. Meth and an enlarged heart contributed to his death, but the Pierce County medical examiner ruled his death a homicide, and his case is under investigation. All of these issues in the State of Washington led our citizenry to have a debate about this. In 2018, 62 percent of Washington voters approved ballot initiative 940. It required de-escalation. It required training for police officers to understand how to help and deal with the public. It mandated first aid to a victim of deadly force, and it required an outside investigation into the use of that deadly force. It also removed the requirement that prosecutors prove malice to hold police officers criminally liable for use of deadly force. And that continues to need improvement in our state. These were steps in the right direction, but these events in the last several weeks have showed us that it is not time to step back from this issue; it is time to pass new Federal legislation. Under the Trump administration and Attorney General Barr, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division police practices group has been reduced to half. It has not opened a major pattern-or-practice investigation of police departments' violation of civil and constitutional rights. President Trump and his administration have pulled back from Department of Justice's important oversight role, at a time we can see that we need more of a Federal role, not less. In November 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions changed the Department of Justice policy to make it even harder for the Department to perform its oversight role of our police departments. He made it harder for the Department of Justice to reach dissent decrees with State and city governments and limited the reforms that they could require. The Trump administration has shown that it isn't interested in the community policing programs that have shown success in the past. There are numbers that statistically show that better investment in community policing helps us lower the crime rate. In 2017, the Trump administration led the U.S. Department of Justice to significantly scale back on the Obama-era program called Collaborative Reform Initiative, which provided support to improve trust between police and communities. And under the Trump administration, it no longer strongly supports consent decrees, which have been so helpful in holding local cities and police departments accountable for civil rights abuses. The Trump administration tried to defund the Office of Community Policing and Services Program. Thank god our colleagues have refused that. This provides important Federal funding help hire community policing and officers and to provide technical assistance. I think this stands in stark contrast to President Obama, who requested that the COPS program be funded each year in his budget request. But all of this brings us to where we are today. What the citizenry of the United States of America is telling us is that we need better laws on the books. I believe we need to act here. The death of George Floyd has shown us that there is a clarion call and a need for more Federal action. I believe in these things: I believe that we should have a prohibition on chokeholds and knee restraints that cut off oxygen to the brain. I believe that we should, just like the State of Washington, provide for more Federal support for de-escalation training. I believe in establishing a Federal standard for the use of body cameras, and when they should be mandatory, because I think they should be, and making sure that what happens to the video is available, and that the public knows and understands what is happening. I believe in requiring an independent investigation, just like we did under State statute--and by the way, that initiative that was voted on, with some of these provisions in them, in the State of Washington, and received 60-percent approval from the Washingtonians of our State. Why? Because they believe these things are essential. The Duckworth bill provides for a independent investigation when deadly force has been used, and we should be making this the Federal law of the land. And we need to provide more support for community policing, and not just the dollars but accountability for when and how the dollars are used, so the community knows exactly what is going on with the Federal dollars for community policing. And we need to require the Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General, who lead the USDOJ Civil Rights Division, to vigorously identify and end patterns and practices of abuse in police departments and seek penalties for those who haven't. I suggest a Federal audit every year where there are practices and patterns of abuse and give us the information so that we in Congress can also help in holding those accountable for not meeting the Federal standards of upholding citizenries' civil rights. And we need to create a clear Federal standard on the use deadly force, just like the Washington State voters did when they passed legislation. Whether we do it like the Washington voters in ending the defense on malice, or whether we look at what my colleagues Senator Booker, Harris, and Markey have suggested, let's have that debate. I am ready to say to my side of the aisle: Let's get these issues--I mentioned seven of them--let's get them out here. I am asking my colleagues on this side of the aisle: let's engage on this Federal debate and show the citizenry of America that we hear them. Let's not also just be deaf to the plight and fate that our officers are dealing with every day on the streets of America. We need more funding to help our police departments. We definitely, in some cases, need additional pay. But for this, we also need to deal with our housing crisis, our mental health crisis, our opioid addiction crisis. So many of our men and women in blue are policing our streets not for crimes but for dealing with the population that is living on the streets. We need to do better here than to shortchange them and to not help--not to help correct these situations that have now become day-to-day tasks in what has never been part of the law enforcement effort. I ask my colleagues, let's put our differences aside to get real action on these. There is a Federal role on civil rights enforcement. Let's take that role seriously, let's respond to the death, and do something about it. I know that the best way to honor George Floyd today would be to help pass the laws that help protect the citizenry of our State. We are a great country, and we can do better by meeting this challenge. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Ms. CANTWELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2705
| null | 771
|
formal
|
Baltimore
| null |
racist
|
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor today after my colleagues have held a moment of silence for the passing of George Floyd. His family should not be preparing for his funeral today. All Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation, deserve to have equal protection under the law. It is time that we not just speak out about injustice; it is time that we pass new Federal laws to protect the civil liberties of U.S. citizens and protect them from these injustices. What is our role here in the U.S. Senate? I believe it comes to passing new laws for those Federal protections. The U.S. Attorney General is the top law enforcement of our country. He directs and supervises U.S. attorneys that prosecute Federal crimes. The Attorney General is supposed to make sure that citizens in our country have equal protection of the law. He is supposed to uphold the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable seizure and the Civil Rights Act, that protects against excessive use of force by police. It is not about calling out the military. It is about protecting the civil liberties of our U.S. citizens. He is supposed to enforce 18 U.S. Code Sec 242, which prohibits the deprivation of rights under the color of law. It criminalizes abuse by police. The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is supposed to step inwhen police departments have serious abuses. The Civil Rights Division is responsible for enforcing Federal prohibitions on patterns or practices of policing that violate the Constitution or other Federal laws. It conducts investigations of allegations of systemic police misconduct and reaches comprehensive agreements on reforms that are needed to restore effective policing and trust with communities. If it cannot reach an agreement, the Division will bring a Federal lawsuit to compel the needed reforms. Yes, we have something to do here in Washington. Throughout U.S. history, the Civil Rights Division has played a major role in a number of critical cases, including the prosecution and murders of Medgar Evers and Dr. Martin Luther King. Yes, we have something to do here in Washington. The Obama administration made policing reform a priority. The Civil Rights Division was active in helping oversee pattern and practices of police department abuses and entered numerous consent decrees with Seattle, with New Orleans, on Ferguson, with Baltimore, and with Cleveland. Why? Because we had cases that needed that Federal oversight. We saw that there were abuses of use of force across the country, including even in my home State, that we needed to address. In 2006, Otto Zehm, a man with developmental disabilities, was wrongly accused of stealing money from an ATM. Mr. Zehm was improperly hog-tied by police, placed on his stomach, and he died from lack of oxygen to his brain. As he was dying, he said, ``I was just on my way to get a Snicker bar.'' It breaks my heart that somebody with disabilities was treated this way. There was a Federal indictment in this case and the police officer was found guilty of excessive use of force, lying to investigators about the confrontation. As a result of a civil case, the Spokane police were required to receive special training on interaction with mentally ill suspects and detainees. In 2010, John T. Williams, a Native American, a seventh-generation woodcarver who used his knife to make street art, was fatally shot seven times in the back by Seattle police. He had hearing difficulties and mental health challenges. Literally, he was just carving in one spot and decided to move across the street to another spot. When he didn't respond to the officer, he was shot and killed. The officer who killed Mr. Williams wasn't charged, but the U.S. Department of Justice did investigate and found that there was a pattern and practice of abuse by Seattle police. The U.S. Department of Justice and Seattle agreed on a consent decree, which required a number of reforms. And now, just recently, an African American named Manuel Ellis died from respiratory arrest due to physical restraint by a Tacoma police officer. This just happened in March of 2020. Meth and an enlarged heart contributed to his death, but the Pierce County medical examiner ruled his death a homicide, and his case is under investigation. All of these issues in the State of Washington led our citizenry to have a debate about this. In 2018, 62 percent of Washington voters approved ballot initiative 940. It required de-escalation. It required training for police officers to understand how to help and deal with the public. It mandated first aid to a victim of deadly force, and it required an outside investigation into the use of that deadly force. It also removed the requirement that prosecutors prove malice to hold police officers criminally liable for use of deadly force. And that continues to need improvement in our state. These were steps in the right direction, but these events in the last several weeks have showed us that it is not time to step back from this issue; it is time to pass new Federal legislation. Under the Trump administration and Attorney General Barr, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division police practices group has been reduced to half. It has not opened a major pattern-or-practice investigation of police departments' violation of civil and constitutional rights. President Trump and his administration have pulled back from Department of Justice's important oversight role, at a time we can see that we need more of a Federal role, not less. In November 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions changed the Department of Justice policy to make it even harder for the Department to perform its oversight role of our police departments. He made it harder for the Department of Justice to reach dissent decrees with State and city governments and limited the reforms that they could require. The Trump administration has shown that it isn't interested in the community policing programs that have shown success in the past. There are numbers that statistically show that better investment in community policing helps us lower the crime rate. In 2017, the Trump administration led the U.S. Department of Justice to significantly scale back on the Obama-era program called Collaborative Reform Initiative, which provided support to improve trust between police and communities. And under the Trump administration, it no longer strongly supports consent decrees, which have been so helpful in holding local cities and police departments accountable for civil rights abuses. The Trump administration tried to defund the Office of Community Policing and Services Program. Thank god our colleagues have refused that. This provides important Federal funding help hire community policing and officers and to provide technical assistance. I think this stands in stark contrast to President Obama, who requested that the COPS program be funded each year in his budget request. But all of this brings us to where we are today. What the citizenry of the United States of America is telling us is that we need better laws on the books. I believe we need to act here. The death of George Floyd has shown us that there is a clarion call and a need for more Federal action. I believe in these things: I believe that we should have a prohibition on chokeholds and knee restraints that cut off oxygen to the brain. I believe that we should, just like the State of Washington, provide for more Federal support for de-escalation training. I believe in establishing a Federal standard for the use of body cameras, and when they should be mandatory, because I think they should be, and making sure that what happens to the video is available, and that the public knows and understands what is happening. I believe in requiring an independent investigation, just like we did under State statute--and by the way, that initiative that was voted on, with some of these provisions in them, in the State of Washington, and received 60-percent approval from the Washingtonians of our State. Why? Because they believe these things are essential. The Duckworth bill provides for a independent investigation when deadly force has been used, and we should be making this the Federal law of the land. And we need to provide more support for community policing, and not just the dollars but accountability for when and how the dollars are used, so the community knows exactly what is going on with the Federal dollars for community policing. And we need to require the Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General, who lead the USDOJ Civil Rights Division, to vigorously identify and end patterns and practices of abuse in police departments and seek penalties for those who haven't. I suggest a Federal audit every year where there are practices and patterns of abuse and give us the information so that we in Congress can also help in holding those accountable for not meeting the Federal standards of upholding citizenries' civil rights. And we need to create a clear Federal standard on the use deadly force, just like the Washington State voters did when they passed legislation. Whether we do it like the Washington voters in ending the defense on malice, or whether we look at what my colleagues Senator Booker, Harris, and Markey have suggested, let's have that debate. I am ready to say to my side of the aisle: Let's get these issues--I mentioned seven of them--let's get them out here. I am asking my colleagues on this side of the aisle: let's engage on this Federal debate and show the citizenry of America that we hear them. Let's not also just be deaf to the plight and fate that our officers are dealing with every day on the streets of America. We need more funding to help our police departments. We definitely, in some cases, need additional pay. But for this, we also need to deal with our housing crisis, our mental health crisis, our opioid addiction crisis. So many of our men and women in blue are policing our streets not for crimes but for dealing with the population that is living on the streets. We need to do better here than to shortchange them and to not help--not to help correct these situations that have now become day-to-day tasks in what has never been part of the law enforcement effort. I ask my colleagues, let's put our differences aside to get real action on these. There is a Federal role on civil rights enforcement. Let's take that role seriously, let's respond to the death, and do something about it. I know that the best way to honor George Floyd today would be to help pass the laws that help protect the citizenry of our State. We are a great country, and we can do better by meeting this challenge. I yield the floor.
|
2020-01-06
|
Ms. CANTWELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2705
| null | 772
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Nomination of Michael Pack Madam President, the Senate nears a vote on the nomination of MichaelPack to head up the U.S. Agency for Global Media. This typically is a job that doesn't get a whole lot of attention here on the Senate floor, but this time, I believe it should. This is yet another Trump nominee who appears to be covering up a whole array of sketchy financial wheeling and self-dealing, and apparently my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are just looking the other way, not interested. So here is the short version of the story. For more than a decade, Mr. Pack ran two entities--a nonprofit film organization and a for-profit production company. His nonprofit raised millions of dollars under its tax-exempt status, and it pumped that money into his for-profit production company, nowhere else. At a minimum, this looks to me like a serious, flagrant abuse of a taxpayer subsidy. Mr. Pack made false statements about this arrangement to the IRS. So as the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, I care greatly about that matter if one were to look at nothing else. When he was first nominated in the previous Congress, Mr. Pack got caught in these false statements by staff on the Foreign Relations Committee. When he was renominated in this Congress and submitted new paperwork, he made false statements about having made false statements. Truly astounding. Now there are a host of unanswered questions about Mr. Pack's murky financial dealings. Fortunately, Ranking Member Menendez is still trying to get to the bottom of this. Now, Ranking Member Menendez is doing his job by the book. He is doing his job. He has been in communication with the administration when it comes to the vetting process for the nominees and, every step along the way, has tried to do responsible vetting. Furthermore, the financial web of Mr. Pack is under investigation by the Attorney General of the District of Columbia. Why not wait to get the results of that investigation? Why rush to confirm a nominee before all the facts are before the Senate? This is a question over whether a nominee broke the law and ripped off taxpayers. When Democrats on the Senate committee of jurisdiction tried to investigate it, Mr. Pack told everybody to just go pound sand. So once again, we have a Trump nominee making a mockery of the Senate constitutional responsibility, and as far as I can tell, the Senate is just going to do nothing about it. (Mr. YOUNG assumed the Chair.) For my last few minutes, I just want to remind colleagues of the way things used to be. The way it used to be is both sides of the Senate took advice and consent seriously. For example, in 2009, Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Grassley held up one nominee and wrote an exhaustive 12-page memo over a matter of $53 in local tax late fees and some sloppy paperwork. Another 2009 nomination, Ron Kirk, to be the U.S. Trade Representative, was held up for months over a tax matter involving some basketball tickets and a television he donated to his local YMCA. In 2010, another nominee was grilled in his hearing before the Finance Committee over a tax debt of $800. Senators on both sides of the aisle--both sides of the aisle--always tried to do a thorough vetting and tried to work on it together. In all three of these cases, which I remember as a member of the Finance Committee, the nominees answered the Senate's questions, paid what they owed, and that was that. The Senate did its job, and it was the right thing to do. I think as we move to the vote here in the Senate, we ought to start talking about one question, and that is this: What has changed in the Senate about the vetting process of these nominees? What happened to the old bipartisan commitment to advise and consent, to fully vet nominees? The majority has just rubberstamped and rubberstamped and rubberstamped some more. Trump nominees show a blatant disregard and disdain for the oversight process that historically has been central to the bipartisan work of this body. Now the President might be totally indifferent to the role and duties of the Senate, but I don't see any reason why Senators here, Democrats or Republicans, have to agree with that. It undermines the role of this Senate and the Congress as a coequal branch of government. The precedent of a bipartisan vetting process simply cannot withstand it. It has been said here before that the Federal Government doesn't need anybody so badly that the person should get a special set of rules. That, regrettably, is the way it seems to be for this nominee--a nominee whose finances are currently under investigation and, apparently, with the majority's support, is going to get confirmed because the majority has decided to essentially set aside years and years of bipartisan work, responsible work, to thoroughly investigate and vet those who are nominated to serve in our government. I am going to oppose this nomination, and I hope my colleagues will think about what is really at issue here, because what goes around comes around. Is the Senate going to get serious about the way matters used to be handled, particularly on the Senate Finance Committee, since we have a member of our committee in the Presiding Officer's chair? The Senate Finance Committee did it right, did it right for years, by the books, in a bipartisan fashion. That is not being used here; in fact, it is being tossed out the window. I think the Senate is going to regret it. I urge my colleagues to oppose the nominee. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2713
| null | 773
|
formal
|
terrorism
| null |
Islamophobic
|
Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the expedited passage of H.R. 35, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, as amended. I seek to amend this legislation not because I take lynching lightly but because I take it seriously, and this legislation does not. Lynching is a tool of terror that claimed the lives of nearly 5,000 Americans between 1881 and 1968, but this bill would cheapen the meaning of lynching by defining it so broadly as to include a minor bruise or abrasion. Our Nation's history of racial terrorism demands more seriousness from us than that. W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in his autobiography about the 1899 lynching of Sam Hose in Georgia. Du Bois wrote that, after the lynching, Hose's knuckles were viewed on display at a store on Mitchell Street in Atlanta. His liver and heart were even presented to the Governor of Georgia as a souvenir. Sickening, grotesque--the images of lynching. In 1931, Raymond Gunn was lynched in Maryville, MO. The spectacle drew a crowd of almost 4,000 people, including, if you can believe it, women and their children. In the tragedy of lynching, the author writes that one woman even held her little girl up so high so she could better see the victim who was ``blazing on the roof.'' Sickening and grotesque, these images. In the summer of 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was visiting family in Money, MS, when he went to a country store and bought some candy. While in there, he was accused of flirting with a White woman, and for that offense, Emmett Till was kidnapped in the middle of the night and bludgeoned so badly that, afterward, his body was unrecognizable. He could only be identified by the ring he was wearing. After seeing her son's remains, his mother insisted on having an open casket funeral so the whole world could see what the killers had done to her son. We must remember the murders of Emmett Till, Raymond Gunn, Sam Hose, and the thousands of others whose lives were destroyed by the barbarity of the lynch mob, but this bill will not do that. This bill would expand the meaning of ``lynching'' to include any bodily injury, including a cut, an abrasion, or a bruise, physical pain, illness, or any other injury to the body, no matter how temporary. Words have meaning. It would be a disgrace for the Congress of the United States to declare that a bruise is lynching, that an abrasion is lynching, that any injury to the body, no matter how temporary, is on par with the atrocities done to people like Emmett Till, Raymond Gunn, and Sam Hose, who were killed for no reason but because they were Black. To do that would demean their memories and cheapen the historic and horrific legacy of lynching in our country. As Congressman Amash stated, ``To be clear, the bill does not make lynching a new Federal hate crime. Murdering someone on account of their race or conspiring to do so is now illegal under Federal law. It is already a Federal crime, and it is already a hate crime.'' He is right. We have had Federal hate crime statutes for over 50 years, and it has been a Federal hate crime to murder someone because of his race for over a decade. Additionally, murder is already a crime in 50 States. In fact, rather than considering a good-intentioned but symbolic bill, the Senate could immediately consider addressing qualified immunity and ending police militarization. We can and must do better. That is why no one in the Senate has been more involved in criminal justice reform than I have. No one has introduced more criminal justice reform bills. In my time in the Senate, I have authored or cosponsored at least 22 unique criminal justice reform bills. I am acutely aware of the injustices perpetrated year in and year out in our cities, but reform needs to be more than window dressing. That is why I am on the floor today to offer the expedited passage--pass it today--of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, as amended. Lynching is a particularly vicious kind of murder, and a Federal law should treat it as such. For these reasons, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act should be adopted with my amendment, which would apply the criminal penalties for lynching only and not for other crimes. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 35, which was received by the House. I ask unanimous consent that my amendment at the desk be agreed to, that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. PAUL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2715-2
| null | 774
|
formal
|
based
| null |
white supremacist
|
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, let me turn to the fight--the century fightfor women's suffrage, the right to vote, the right to be treated equally, the right to be heard. It is a history that is long and interesting, sometimes very colorful. I have had an opportunity these past couple of weeks to be reading a collection of stories about how women in the West worked to really be the vanguards, if you will, on the suffrage movement. You don't necessarily hear them spoken to with great frequency, but, in fairness, it is many of those Western States--it was Wyoming that was the first mover. So reading some of their stories was a good reminder--a good reminder--of the role that many in Alaska have also played. We have been relatively progressive when it comes to women's rights--so progressive that many Alaskan women received equal voting rights with men in 1913. This was 7 years before the 19th Amendment was ratified. Alaska was still a territory and was still going to be a territory for a long time going forward. The sorry and the sad part of that history, though, was that not all Alaskan women were given that right to vote. Alaskan Native women were excluded. They were excluded based on citizenship and civility assessment as well as literacy tests that prevented Alaska Natives--not just the women but some Native men--from voting for several more decades. We recognize through a State day of observation and recognition the work of Elizabeth Peratrovich, an Alaska Native woman from Southeastern Alaska, who was the driving force behind our first antidiscrimination law. This was back in 1945, nearly 20 years before Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. This year, on the 75th anniversary of the bill's passage, the U.S. Mint has actually created a gold coin in her honor. As you look at that coin and reflect on her role, on the significance of that proud, strong, fierce Native woman leader, you can't help but be proud of her. The fight for women's suffrage was waged, as we know, for decades and decades. But again, the women in the West led the way. As I was reading the recount of the Alaska suffrage initiative, it was reflected that the women in Alaska didn't really have to work that hard to get it; that it was just ``provided'' to them. I think there is more to that history than that, but a newspaper publication at the time, The Daily Alaskan, in 1904, argued that while women's suffrage might be disfavored as a general proposition, the merits were different in Alaska. And he says the women there ``are brave and noble helpers in the development of a frontier country'' and ``not the pampered dolls of society.'' So today it still probably holds true that we have some pretty strong women in Alaska. We own and operate fishing vessels. We work as oil rig operators, diesel mechanics. We have some extraordinary Alaskan women, industry leaders leading our Alaska Native corporations, leading our oil companies. We are leaders in education and advocates for children and seniors and victims of domestic violence. They truly have helped not only our State but our country. The 100th Anniversary of Women's Suffrage is a reminder of the progress that we have made as a nation. But we know that we have more to do and that inequities remain whether in the workforce or pay equality. Continuing that work is a matter that we have not relaxed on. That work includes getting the Equal Rights Amendment signed into law. The Equal Rights Amendment was first written and introduced by Alice Paul at a conference commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1923. But it wasn't until 1972 that the ERA passed through Congress and was sent to the States with a 7-year deadline for ratification that was eventually extended until 1982. It is a pretty simple amendment. It is pretty short. ``Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.'' That is the Equal Rights Amendment, in addition to the implementing provisions following that. But that is the context. In Alaska, I am proud to say that we were one of the early adopters, having ratified the Equal Rights Amendment on April 5, 1972. More recently, Virginia became the 38th State to have ratified the amendment, which brings us to the three-fourths threshold needed for ratification. Unfortunately, this milestone was reached after the deadline for ratification. It had already expired, so Senator Cardin and I have introduced a resolution, S.J. Res. 6, which would remove the time limit from the joint resolution that passed the Congress in 1972. I have asserted time and again--and Senator Cardin, so many--we have said that you cannot put a time limit on women's equality. It has been 100 years since women were granted the equal right of voting. Women's equality is fundamental to the American way of life, and it is far past time to be expressly recognized in the Constitution. I thank Senator Cardin for his leadership in working on this resolution with me and all the Members of Congress who fought with us in support of the ERA. I thank the advocates who continue to call their Senators, call their Congressmen, who lift their voices to support this important cause. We have work to do. We will continue that work. I want to note that my colleague Senator Cardin was here on the floor, was planning to speak on this matter today, but our time schedules got compressed, so his statement has been included as part of the Record. I want to acknowledge the good work and the partnership that we have on this. With this, I yield the floor
|
2020-01-06
|
Ms. MURKOWSKI
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2718-2
| null | 775
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to make comments on two other subjects. The first is about a subject that is concerning about 70, 75 million American families; that is, going back to college and going back to school. The question is on the minds of many Americans: Will we be going back to college? Will our children be going back to school? We finished a hearing today--the Presiding Officer was present; the Senator from Alaska was present--on going back to college safely. The question is not whether we are going back to college in the United States of America; the question is how to go back safely. We all understand that when 70, 75 million students go back to college and go back to school, that is the surest sign that American life is regaining its rhythm--not just for the students themselves but, especially with the children, for their parents, most of whom work outside the home. Today's subject was about college. We had excellent witnesses. We had Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University. He was introduced by the Senator from Indiana. We had the president of Brown University, Christina Paxson. We had Logan Hampton, who was president of a small historically Black college in Jackson, TN, Lane College. And we had the President of American Public Health Association, Dr. Benjamin. They talked with us about the various strategies and concerns that existed. I will, in a few minutes, ask consent to put my opening statement in the Record, but if I can summarize it, it would be this. Most of our 6,000 public colleges and universities--some public, some private, some church schools--will be open in August for in-person students but not all of them. The University of California State system has said so far that it expects only to offer online courses. But at Purdue, for example--an institution of 55,000 students--President Daniels has decided, with the approval of his board, and President Paxson of Brown--a different kind of institution in the Northeast, different from Purdue--they both decided it is their obligation to open up and to create a safe environment for the students to come back. There are several reasons for this. There is some health risk in coming back. Of course, wise leadership can address that. But I think, as all of us have looked at our colleges, wise leadership can make colleges among the safest communities to live and work in America over the next year because colleges have certain advantages. In the first place, most of the campus community is young. While we can't be cavalier about the effect of COVID-19 on young people, as Dr. Fauci has warned us, the fact is that COVID-19 seems to hurt the young much less. The second reason it would be easier to go back to college is that there is a lot of space in colleges that isn't used. Colleges are the most notorious wasters of space in our society. It is rare that a class is taught in the early morning or late evening or on Saturdays or in the summers. There is plenty of time and plenty of space to spread out on most college campuses. As we learn more and more about COVID-19, it looks like there are three things we really need to do: Keep 6 feet apart, wash our hands, and wear a mask. Do those three things, and we can probably go back to school, back to work, out to eat, and do most of the things we would like to do. At a college, as President Daniels says, he intends to develop a culture of masks. Vanderbilt University is going to require a mask to be worn in all indoor situations. Then they are taking a number of other steps. Concerts and parties and large gatherings are out. Flu shots and grab-and-go meals are in. There will be systematic testing, and testing will be done in different ways. The president of Brown would like to test every student, she said in an article in the New York Times a few weeks ago. The president of Purdue said: Well, maybe systematic testing. There will be different strategies for testing, but the goal of testing is two things. One is containing the disease; that is, identifying the sick and the exposed so that they can be quarantined so the rest of us don't have to be, and the other is to build confidence. I know that when I took a test last week after I was exposed to COVID-19, I went home for 2 weeks of self-isolation, as the attending physician said I should do. That should have been it, but I went to my local public health department and took a test, which turned out to be negative, for peace of mind. It gave me more confidence to go back home and be with my family. The anticipation is that there will be plenty of testing. Admiral Giroir, the Assistant Secretary of Public Health, has told our committee, we are, in the United States, doing about 10 million tests a month now. States are submitting to the Federal Government a plan each month about their testing needs. The Federal Government is helping fill in any gaps. Over the next 2, 3 months, the number of tests will go from about 10 million a month to 40 or 50 million tests a month. That is a lot of tests. We are already testing more than any country in the world. My guess is that colleges and universities--even though there are 6,000 of them, 127 different institutions in Tennessee--if they will be in touch with their Governor and be a part of the State testing plan, they can have adequate tests, not only to contain the disease and isolate those who should be isolated but to give peace of mind to other students and faculty and members of the community who come onboard. Finally, we talked a little bit about the role of the Federal Government. We have a classic discussion about that here. Some want to say Washington should do it; some want to say the State should do it. Generally, our friends on the Democratic side trust Washington, DC; generally, we on the Republican side trust the States. But there is a role for both. The Federal Government, through the Centers for Disease Control, can provide advice. The Federal Government, as it is doing through the Shark Tank, as we call it, at the National Institutes of Health, can accelerate the number of rapid tests that are available at a low cost for campuses. The Federal Government can provide additional funding for campuses, as we did in the CARES Act. Those are some of the things we can do from here. But the things we ought not to try to do from here are to order California to open its campuses if California doesn't want to or to tell Purdue and Notre Dame and Brown and the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt that they cannot open their campuses if they do want to and think they can do it safely. We should not be trying to tell each of those campuses exactly how many tests they have, what kind of tests they have, any more than we try to tell them what the faculty ought to be paid or what student admissions policies ought to be or what the curriculum ought to be. While the Federal Government needs to create an umbrella in which individual campuses can go back to school safely, we need to be careful about telling everybody exactly what to do. We had a very big event here 4, 5 years ago when we fixed No Child Left Behind. Everybody wanted it fixed--Democrats, Republicans, labor unions, Governors, teachers. Why? Because after a while, everybody got tired of Washington, DC, telling 100,000 public schools exactly what to do, what teachers to hire, what curriculum to have--all of these things. The same is true with our colleges. Our system of colleges and universities is the best in the world. Everyone concedes that. It has not gottenthere by Washington ordering what it should do, and Washington shouldn't order what it should do about this disease. It should advise; it should help; it can help send money. But the autonomy of each campus ought to be respected. One other thing about the colleges and universities have asked for from us is liability protection. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following my remarks a letter from the American Council on Education, with a number of things in it they ask of Congress. This is the umbrella organization for hiring education, and it includes liability protection.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. ALEXANDER
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2721
| null | 776
|
formal
|
public school
| null |
racist
|
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to make comments on two other subjects. The first is about a subject that is concerning about 70, 75 million American families; that is, going back to college and going back to school. The question is on the minds of many Americans: Will we be going back to college? Will our children be going back to school? We finished a hearing today--the Presiding Officer was present; the Senator from Alaska was present--on going back to college safely. The question is not whether we are going back to college in the United States of America; the question is how to go back safely. We all understand that when 70, 75 million students go back to college and go back to school, that is the surest sign that American life is regaining its rhythm--not just for the students themselves but, especially with the children, for their parents, most of whom work outside the home. Today's subject was about college. We had excellent witnesses. We had Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University. He was introduced by the Senator from Indiana. We had the president of Brown University, Christina Paxson. We had Logan Hampton, who was president of a small historically Black college in Jackson, TN, Lane College. And we had the President of American Public Health Association, Dr. Benjamin. They talked with us about the various strategies and concerns that existed. I will, in a few minutes, ask consent to put my opening statement in the Record, but if I can summarize it, it would be this. Most of our 6,000 public colleges and universities--some public, some private, some church schools--will be open in August for in-person students but not all of them. The University of California State system has said so far that it expects only to offer online courses. But at Purdue, for example--an institution of 55,000 students--President Daniels has decided, with the approval of his board, and President Paxson of Brown--a different kind of institution in the Northeast, different from Purdue--they both decided it is their obligation to open up and to create a safe environment for the students to come back. There are several reasons for this. There is some health risk in coming back. Of course, wise leadership can address that. But I think, as all of us have looked at our colleges, wise leadership can make colleges among the safest communities to live and work in America over the next year because colleges have certain advantages. In the first place, most of the campus community is young. While we can't be cavalier about the effect of COVID-19 on young people, as Dr. Fauci has warned us, the fact is that COVID-19 seems to hurt the young much less. The second reason it would be easier to go back to college is that there is a lot of space in colleges that isn't used. Colleges are the most notorious wasters of space in our society. It is rare that a class is taught in the early morning or late evening or on Saturdays or in the summers. There is plenty of time and plenty of space to spread out on most college campuses. As we learn more and more about COVID-19, it looks like there are three things we really need to do: Keep 6 feet apart, wash our hands, and wear a mask. Do those three things, and we can probably go back to school, back to work, out to eat, and do most of the things we would like to do. At a college, as President Daniels says, he intends to develop a culture of masks. Vanderbilt University is going to require a mask to be worn in all indoor situations. Then they are taking a number of other steps. Concerts and parties and large gatherings are out. Flu shots and grab-and-go meals are in. There will be systematic testing, and testing will be done in different ways. The president of Brown would like to test every student, she said in an article in the New York Times a few weeks ago. The president of Purdue said: Well, maybe systematic testing. There will be different strategies for testing, but the goal of testing is two things. One is containing the disease; that is, identifying the sick and the exposed so that they can be quarantined so the rest of us don't have to be, and the other is to build confidence. I know that when I took a test last week after I was exposed to COVID-19, I went home for 2 weeks of self-isolation, as the attending physician said I should do. That should have been it, but I went to my local public health department and took a test, which turned out to be negative, for peace of mind. It gave me more confidence to go back home and be with my family. The anticipation is that there will be plenty of testing. Admiral Giroir, the Assistant Secretary of Public Health, has told our committee, we are, in the United States, doing about 10 million tests a month now. States are submitting to the Federal Government a plan each month about their testing needs. The Federal Government is helping fill in any gaps. Over the next 2, 3 months, the number of tests will go from about 10 million a month to 40 or 50 million tests a month. That is a lot of tests. We are already testing more than any country in the world. My guess is that colleges and universities--even though there are 6,000 of them, 127 different institutions in Tennessee--if they will be in touch with their Governor and be a part of the State testing plan, they can have adequate tests, not only to contain the disease and isolate those who should be isolated but to give peace of mind to other students and faculty and members of the community who come onboard. Finally, we talked a little bit about the role of the Federal Government. We have a classic discussion about that here. Some want to say Washington should do it; some want to say the State should do it. Generally, our friends on the Democratic side trust Washington, DC; generally, we on the Republican side trust the States. But there is a role for both. The Federal Government, through the Centers for Disease Control, can provide advice. The Federal Government, as it is doing through the Shark Tank, as we call it, at the National Institutes of Health, can accelerate the number of rapid tests that are available at a low cost for campuses. The Federal Government can provide additional funding for campuses, as we did in the CARES Act. Those are some of the things we can do from here. But the things we ought not to try to do from here are to order California to open its campuses if California doesn't want to or to tell Purdue and Notre Dame and Brown and the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt that they cannot open their campuses if they do want to and think they can do it safely. We should not be trying to tell each of those campuses exactly how many tests they have, what kind of tests they have, any more than we try to tell them what the faculty ought to be paid or what student admissions policies ought to be or what the curriculum ought to be. While the Federal Government needs to create an umbrella in which individual campuses can go back to school safely, we need to be careful about telling everybody exactly what to do. We had a very big event here 4, 5 years ago when we fixed No Child Left Behind. Everybody wanted it fixed--Democrats, Republicans, labor unions, Governors, teachers. Why? Because after a while, everybody got tired of Washington, DC, telling 100,000 public schools exactly what to do, what teachers to hire, what curriculum to have--all of these things. The same is true with our colleges. Our system of colleges and universities is the best in the world. Everyone concedes that. It has not gottenthere by Washington ordering what it should do, and Washington shouldn't order what it should do about this disease. It should advise; it should help; it can help send money. But the autonomy of each campus ought to be respected. One other thing about the colleges and universities have asked for from us is liability protection. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following my remarks a letter from the American Council on Education, with a number of things in it they ask of Congress. This is the umbrella organization for hiring education, and it includes liability protection.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. ALEXANDER
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2721
| null | 777
|
formal
|
public schools
| null |
racist
|
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to make comments on two other subjects. The first is about a subject that is concerning about 70, 75 million American families; that is, going back to college and going back to school. The question is on the minds of many Americans: Will we be going back to college? Will our children be going back to school? We finished a hearing today--the Presiding Officer was present; the Senator from Alaska was present--on going back to college safely. The question is not whether we are going back to college in the United States of America; the question is how to go back safely. We all understand that when 70, 75 million students go back to college and go back to school, that is the surest sign that American life is regaining its rhythm--not just for the students themselves but, especially with the children, for their parents, most of whom work outside the home. Today's subject was about college. We had excellent witnesses. We had Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University. He was introduced by the Senator from Indiana. We had the president of Brown University, Christina Paxson. We had Logan Hampton, who was president of a small historically Black college in Jackson, TN, Lane College. And we had the President of American Public Health Association, Dr. Benjamin. They talked with us about the various strategies and concerns that existed. I will, in a few minutes, ask consent to put my opening statement in the Record, but if I can summarize it, it would be this. Most of our 6,000 public colleges and universities--some public, some private, some church schools--will be open in August for in-person students but not all of them. The University of California State system has said so far that it expects only to offer online courses. But at Purdue, for example--an institution of 55,000 students--President Daniels has decided, with the approval of his board, and President Paxson of Brown--a different kind of institution in the Northeast, different from Purdue--they both decided it is their obligation to open up and to create a safe environment for the students to come back. There are several reasons for this. There is some health risk in coming back. Of course, wise leadership can address that. But I think, as all of us have looked at our colleges, wise leadership can make colleges among the safest communities to live and work in America over the next year because colleges have certain advantages. In the first place, most of the campus community is young. While we can't be cavalier about the effect of COVID-19 on young people, as Dr. Fauci has warned us, the fact is that COVID-19 seems to hurt the young much less. The second reason it would be easier to go back to college is that there is a lot of space in colleges that isn't used. Colleges are the most notorious wasters of space in our society. It is rare that a class is taught in the early morning or late evening or on Saturdays or in the summers. There is plenty of time and plenty of space to spread out on most college campuses. As we learn more and more about COVID-19, it looks like there are three things we really need to do: Keep 6 feet apart, wash our hands, and wear a mask. Do those three things, and we can probably go back to school, back to work, out to eat, and do most of the things we would like to do. At a college, as President Daniels says, he intends to develop a culture of masks. Vanderbilt University is going to require a mask to be worn in all indoor situations. Then they are taking a number of other steps. Concerts and parties and large gatherings are out. Flu shots and grab-and-go meals are in. There will be systematic testing, and testing will be done in different ways. The president of Brown would like to test every student, she said in an article in the New York Times a few weeks ago. The president of Purdue said: Well, maybe systematic testing. There will be different strategies for testing, but the goal of testing is two things. One is containing the disease; that is, identifying the sick and the exposed so that they can be quarantined so the rest of us don't have to be, and the other is to build confidence. I know that when I took a test last week after I was exposed to COVID-19, I went home for 2 weeks of self-isolation, as the attending physician said I should do. That should have been it, but I went to my local public health department and took a test, which turned out to be negative, for peace of mind. It gave me more confidence to go back home and be with my family. The anticipation is that there will be plenty of testing. Admiral Giroir, the Assistant Secretary of Public Health, has told our committee, we are, in the United States, doing about 10 million tests a month now. States are submitting to the Federal Government a plan each month about their testing needs. The Federal Government is helping fill in any gaps. Over the next 2, 3 months, the number of tests will go from about 10 million a month to 40 or 50 million tests a month. That is a lot of tests. We are already testing more than any country in the world. My guess is that colleges and universities--even though there are 6,000 of them, 127 different institutions in Tennessee--if they will be in touch with their Governor and be a part of the State testing plan, they can have adequate tests, not only to contain the disease and isolate those who should be isolated but to give peace of mind to other students and faculty and members of the community who come onboard. Finally, we talked a little bit about the role of the Federal Government. We have a classic discussion about that here. Some want to say Washington should do it; some want to say the State should do it. Generally, our friends on the Democratic side trust Washington, DC; generally, we on the Republican side trust the States. But there is a role for both. The Federal Government, through the Centers for Disease Control, can provide advice. The Federal Government, as it is doing through the Shark Tank, as we call it, at the National Institutes of Health, can accelerate the number of rapid tests that are available at a low cost for campuses. The Federal Government can provide additional funding for campuses, as we did in the CARES Act. Those are some of the things we can do from here. But the things we ought not to try to do from here are to order California to open its campuses if California doesn't want to or to tell Purdue and Notre Dame and Brown and the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt that they cannot open their campuses if they do want to and think they can do it safely. We should not be trying to tell each of those campuses exactly how many tests they have, what kind of tests they have, any more than we try to tell them what the faculty ought to be paid or what student admissions policies ought to be or what the curriculum ought to be. While the Federal Government needs to create an umbrella in which individual campuses can go back to school safely, we need to be careful about telling everybody exactly what to do. We had a very big event here 4, 5 years ago when we fixed No Child Left Behind. Everybody wanted it fixed--Democrats, Republicans, labor unions, Governors, teachers. Why? Because after a while, everybody got tired of Washington, DC, telling 100,000 public schools exactly what to do, what teachers to hire, what curriculum to have--all of these things. The same is true with our colleges. Our system of colleges and universities is the best in the world. Everyone concedes that. It has not gottenthere by Washington ordering what it should do, and Washington shouldn't order what it should do about this disease. It should advise; it should help; it can help send money. But the autonomy of each campus ought to be respected. One other thing about the colleges and universities have asked for from us is liability protection. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following my remarks a letter from the American Council on Education, with a number of things in it they ask of Congress. This is the umbrella organization for hiring education, and it includes liability protection.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. ALEXANDER
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2721
| null | 778
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, if I may switch gears to another subject, briefly--on Monday, the Senate will be casting the most important vote on conservation legislation, outdoors legislation, that we have had in 50 years. That is quite a statement to make because we do lots of legislation in the U.S. Senate. I am not exaggerating when I say that. This is a piece of legislation that will do more for our public Federal lands--our national parks, our fish and wildlife lands, our Bureau of Reclamation Lands, the lands that hunters and fishermen use--than any piece of legislation we have passed in at least 60 years. In addition, it will create permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, whichhas been a goal of Congress since it was passed first in 1964 and reaffirmed by Reagan's Commission on American Outdoors, which I chaired in 1985 and 1986. Finally, we are getting around to doing both of those things. This piece of legislation that I am describing has the strong support of President Trump. In fact, it couldn't happen without President Trump because the Office of Management and Budget has to approve the method of funding we are using. They have approved it, and it is in the President's budget. It has the support of 59 cosponsors in this body--Democrats and Republicans--who are working together on it in a remarkable way. People say that we are divided. Well, we are in lots of ways, but in other ways we are not. Ask Senators Burr, Cantwell, Daines, Gardner, Heinrich, King, Manchin, Portman, and Warner. They are all in the middle of this. They will all take credit for it, and I will give them credit for it. But everyone recognizes it takes all of us. Why are we all in the middle of it? We have more than 800 sportsmen and outdoors groups who have endorsed this bill--more than 800. You tell me the last time you saw President Trump, 800 outdoors environmental groups, and 59 U.S. Senators on both sides of the aisle in favor of a piece of legislation that has a policy of what I believe is the most important piece of outdoors legislation in a half century. Here is what we are talking about. We are talking about leaky roofs. We are talking about access roads with potholes. We are talking about trails that are worn out so you slip and fall down when you go to hike. We are talking about sewage systems that are broken, shutting down whole campgrounds like the Chilhowee Mountain Campground, which was shut for 2 years. Five hundred families usually use it every summer and can't go because the sewage system is shut down. We are talking about dilapidated visitors centers, from Washington, DC, to Pearl Harbor. We are talking about the Mall in Washington, DC. We are talking about our national treasures. We are talking about where we like to go. One of the organizations supporting this--or a group of them--represents 55 million fishermen and hunters. They would like to have roads in order to get to the fishing holes. They would like not to break the axles on their tires along the way. Families would like to be able to go to Pearl Harbor and see a good visitors' center, and they would like to be able to camp in the Smoky Mountains and find that it is not shut down because the bathrooms don't work. That is what we are talking about here. This isn't exotic stuff, but it is what creates an environment for us to use this great American outdoors that we all love. Now, briefly, exactly how does it do that? Well, one part simply says that we are going to take the 419 national park properties--the national forests, the National Wildlife Refuges, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Education--that is the Indian schools--and we are going to take the deferred maintenance, which is all of those things I talked about that are broken, and over the next 5 years, we are going to pay for half of it. We have about $12 billion in deferred maintenance, and over the next 5 years, we will reduce it to half of that. In the Great Smoky Mountains, for example, which is next to where I live, we have $235 million worth of deferred maintenance, and the park has a $20 million-a-year budget. Now, how long do you think it is going to take, with a $20 million annual budget, to deal with $230 million worth of deferred maintenance? It is never going to happen. It is never going to happen without this piece of legislation or something like it. That is the first part. President Trump, to his credit, said to go ahead and put in the bill the national forests, the National Wildlife Refuges, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Education. We have a lot of Indian schools in this country that are broken down and need to be fixed. He said to put that in there. There are also a lot of Tribal nations and a lot of hunters and fishermen who appreciate that support, which is why we have 800 different outdoor groups that are supporting it. Then there is a second part of the bill--the smaller part--which is the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It is a very simple idea that was recommended by President Johnson's Rockefeller division in 1964. It said this: Let's set aside a certain amount of money every year--$900 million. Half will go to the States, and half will go to the Federal Government and buy land that ought to be protected. It might be a city park or it might be an inholding in a national park. It could be either of those things. This has been going on all that time. Yet what the agreement was in 1964 was that we would get the money from offshore drilling in order to pay for it. We would create an environmental burden--that is, allow offshore drilling--and we would use it for an environmental benefit, which is the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That made a lot of sense. So, every year, Congress has appropriated a certain amount of money for that, but the idea was that the amount would be certain. It would be $900 million every year, and that has never happened. In 1985 and 1986, President Reagan appointed a commission to look at the American outdoors. I was the chairman of it. The principal recommendation was to make the Land and Water Conservation Fund permanent and have permanent funding. So, for 60 years, Presidents and Congresses have been trying to do this, but it hasn't gotten done. Monday is the day to get it done. My hope is that all Members of the U.S. Senate will be back here for votes on Monday. Some of us have been a little delinquent in our attendance on the Monday votes, but we need 60 votes on Monday to advance the bill. Then we will need 60 votes a couple of more times to pass the bill. Then it can go to the House of Representatives where an identical bill has been introduced. To me, it would seem that a bill like this, at a time like this, would be something we would all welcome and want to support. There is nothing any of us wants to do more than to get outside of our homes and get in the fresh air, and these lands are where we go. Some of them are city parks, and some of them are big parks, like Yellowstone and Yosemite and the Great Smokies. Yet they are our treasures, and they are run down. They are run down. The bathrooms leak. The sewage systems have closed camp grounds. In some cases, the visitors' centers are embarrassing. The roads have potholes, and the access roads aren't built for the fishermen. This is a chance for us to take care of that. I look forward to the vote on cloture on Monday. I hope we get a big vote and send a strong signal to the American people that we in Congress have heard them and that, even in a time of crisis like this, we can work together and do important work. There is one more aspect to it. This is an infrastructure bill, and infrastructure means lots of jobs. There are various numbers that have been thrown around--40,000, 100,000--but anytime you spend $14 billion over 5 years on projects that are ready to go in locations all over the country, especially in rural areas, it is going to help a country that has such a high unemployment rate. This is the most important conservation and outdoors legislation in 50 years. In addition to that, it is an infrastructure bill. That sounds like a pretty good vote for Monday. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record after my speech my opening statement from the hearing this morning on Going Back to College Safely as well as the letter from the American Council on Education. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. ALEXANDER
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2723
| null | 779
|
formal
|
Reagan
| null |
white supremacist
|
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, if I may switch gears to another subject, briefly--on Monday, the Senate will be casting the most important vote on conservation legislation, outdoors legislation, that we have had in 50 years. That is quite a statement to make because we do lots of legislation in the U.S. Senate. I am not exaggerating when I say that. This is a piece of legislation that will do more for our public Federal lands--our national parks, our fish and wildlife lands, our Bureau of Reclamation Lands, the lands that hunters and fishermen use--than any piece of legislation we have passed in at least 60 years. In addition, it will create permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, whichhas been a goal of Congress since it was passed first in 1964 and reaffirmed by Reagan's Commission on American Outdoors, which I chaired in 1985 and 1986. Finally, we are getting around to doing both of those things. This piece of legislation that I am describing has the strong support of President Trump. In fact, it couldn't happen without President Trump because the Office of Management and Budget has to approve the method of funding we are using. They have approved it, and it is in the President's budget. It has the support of 59 cosponsors in this body--Democrats and Republicans--who are working together on it in a remarkable way. People say that we are divided. Well, we are in lots of ways, but in other ways we are not. Ask Senators Burr, Cantwell, Daines, Gardner, Heinrich, King, Manchin, Portman, and Warner. They are all in the middle of this. They will all take credit for it, and I will give them credit for it. But everyone recognizes it takes all of us. Why are we all in the middle of it? We have more than 800 sportsmen and outdoors groups who have endorsed this bill--more than 800. You tell me the last time you saw President Trump, 800 outdoors environmental groups, and 59 U.S. Senators on both sides of the aisle in favor of a piece of legislation that has a policy of what I believe is the most important piece of outdoors legislation in a half century. Here is what we are talking about. We are talking about leaky roofs. We are talking about access roads with potholes. We are talking about trails that are worn out so you slip and fall down when you go to hike. We are talking about sewage systems that are broken, shutting down whole campgrounds like the Chilhowee Mountain Campground, which was shut for 2 years. Five hundred families usually use it every summer and can't go because the sewage system is shut down. We are talking about dilapidated visitors centers, from Washington, DC, to Pearl Harbor. We are talking about the Mall in Washington, DC. We are talking about our national treasures. We are talking about where we like to go. One of the organizations supporting this--or a group of them--represents 55 million fishermen and hunters. They would like to have roads in order to get to the fishing holes. They would like not to break the axles on their tires along the way. Families would like to be able to go to Pearl Harbor and see a good visitors' center, and they would like to be able to camp in the Smoky Mountains and find that it is not shut down because the bathrooms don't work. That is what we are talking about here. This isn't exotic stuff, but it is what creates an environment for us to use this great American outdoors that we all love. Now, briefly, exactly how does it do that? Well, one part simply says that we are going to take the 419 national park properties--the national forests, the National Wildlife Refuges, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Education--that is the Indian schools--and we are going to take the deferred maintenance, which is all of those things I talked about that are broken, and over the next 5 years, we are going to pay for half of it. We have about $12 billion in deferred maintenance, and over the next 5 years, we will reduce it to half of that. In the Great Smoky Mountains, for example, which is next to where I live, we have $235 million worth of deferred maintenance, and the park has a $20 million-a-year budget. Now, how long do you think it is going to take, with a $20 million annual budget, to deal with $230 million worth of deferred maintenance? It is never going to happen. It is never going to happen without this piece of legislation or something like it. That is the first part. President Trump, to his credit, said to go ahead and put in the bill the national forests, the National Wildlife Refuges, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Education. We have a lot of Indian schools in this country that are broken down and need to be fixed. He said to put that in there. There are also a lot of Tribal nations and a lot of hunters and fishermen who appreciate that support, which is why we have 800 different outdoor groups that are supporting it. Then there is a second part of the bill--the smaller part--which is the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It is a very simple idea that was recommended by President Johnson's Rockefeller division in 1964. It said this: Let's set aside a certain amount of money every year--$900 million. Half will go to the States, and half will go to the Federal Government and buy land that ought to be protected. It might be a city park or it might be an inholding in a national park. It could be either of those things. This has been going on all that time. Yet what the agreement was in 1964 was that we would get the money from offshore drilling in order to pay for it. We would create an environmental burden--that is, allow offshore drilling--and we would use it for an environmental benefit, which is the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That made a lot of sense. So, every year, Congress has appropriated a certain amount of money for that, but the idea was that the amount would be certain. It would be $900 million every year, and that has never happened. In 1985 and 1986, President Reagan appointed a commission to look at the American outdoors. I was the chairman of it. The principal recommendation was to make the Land and Water Conservation Fund permanent and have permanent funding. So, for 60 years, Presidents and Congresses have been trying to do this, but it hasn't gotten done. Monday is the day to get it done. My hope is that all Members of the U.S. Senate will be back here for votes on Monday. Some of us have been a little delinquent in our attendance on the Monday votes, but we need 60 votes on Monday to advance the bill. Then we will need 60 votes a couple of more times to pass the bill. Then it can go to the House of Representatives where an identical bill has been introduced. To me, it would seem that a bill like this, at a time like this, would be something we would all welcome and want to support. There is nothing any of us wants to do more than to get outside of our homes and get in the fresh air, and these lands are where we go. Some of them are city parks, and some of them are big parks, like Yellowstone and Yosemite and the Great Smokies. Yet they are our treasures, and they are run down. They are run down. The bathrooms leak. The sewage systems have closed camp grounds. In some cases, the visitors' centers are embarrassing. The roads have potholes, and the access roads aren't built for the fishermen. This is a chance for us to take care of that. I look forward to the vote on cloture on Monday. I hope we get a big vote and send a strong signal to the American people that we in Congress have heard them and that, even in a time of crisis like this, we can work together and do important work. There is one more aspect to it. This is an infrastructure bill, and infrastructure means lots of jobs. There are various numbers that have been thrown around--40,000, 100,000--but anytime you spend $14 billion over 5 years on projects that are ready to go in locations all over the country, especially in rural areas, it is going to help a country that has such a high unemployment rate. This is the most important conservation and outdoors legislation in 50 years. In addition to that, it is an infrastructure bill. That sounds like a pretty good vote for Monday. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record after my speech my opening statement from the hearing this morning on Going Back to College Safely as well as the letter from the American Council on Education. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. ALEXANDER
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2723
| null | 780
|
formal
|
Reagan
| null |
white supremacist
|
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I am sorry to note the passing of Jeannette Priebe, a longtime friend and an instrumental part of my team when I was Jefferson County judge-executive. Jeannette was a skilled public servant, animated with a fierce spirit for our work. Today, I would like to pay tribute to her life and her many contributions to our Commonwealth. Jeannette's work embodied President Reagan's notion that ``personnel is policy.'' A great deal of her career was dedicated to putting the right individuals into positions of consequence, regardless of political affiliation. Jeannette became the first female personnel director of the Louisville Civil Service Board and later ran Jefferson County's personnel office. Her unyielding diligence made local government more effective for the families we served. Take, for example, Jeannette's transformative impact on the city's police force. To address a serious under-representation of African Americans in the department, she intentionally placed a strong emphasis on giving qualified, minority candidates a fair shot. She helped create a police force that was more representative of the community it protected. Jeannette joined my team when I was the newly elected Republican judge surrounded on all sides by skeptical Democrats. Almost everything we did brought an uphill climb. As a result, my staff and I developed a deep bond and a collective sense of purpose. In professionalizing the personnel office, Jeannette never let the bureaucracy slow her down. She did away with political patronage, insisting on merit in the county's policymakers. She knew the rules governing her position and used them to shake the malaise off local government. If I told Jeannette where I wanted to end up on a particular policy, she could chart the course to get there. She was absolutely critical to our accomplishments for the people of Jefferson County. There is perhaps no better example than the hiring of Norma Fletcher as the consumer protection division director. Norma might not have been the conventional choice among the stack of 60-plus resumes. She was a 26-year-old attorney who had only recently joined local government. In Jeannette's characteristic way, however, she saw Norma's initiative and drive. Norma got the job and would prove an invaluable asset to Jefferson County over the coming years in several important leadership roles. I am grateful that Jeannette recognized the potential of Norma and several other talented individuals who made our administration better as a result. Jeannette's job came with many serious responsibilities. But she never took herself or her colleagues too seriously. She was quick to break the tension with a joke and a smile. Her deep reservoir of faith helped give us all strength, even on the most grueling days. I will warmly remember the times she invited me to her home for dinner. Jeannette was a wonderful cook, and I enjoyed the chance to spend time with her, her husband Victor, and their family. Throughout my career, I have been lucky to work with some of the most capable and trustworthy staff around. Much of my early team was directly attributable to Jeannette's influence. After she left the county courthouse, I wasn't certain I would ever find another person quite like her. Then, about a decade ago, Jeannette's daughter Angie joined my staff. As my director of State operations, Angie has been tireless in helping me represent Kentucky in the Senate. She is so impressive in her own right and a wonderful reflection of her mother. I am grateful that brilliance happens to run in this particular family. It was a sincere privilege to call Jeannette a friend for so many years. I am forever grateful for her impression on my life and on lives around Jefferson County. I join with her family in remembering this remarkable Kentuckian.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. McCONNELL
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2725-2
| null | 781
|
formal
|
based
| null |
white supremacist
|
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to submit to the Senate the budget scorekeeping report for June 2020. This is my first scorekeeping report since I filed the deemed budget resolution for fiscal year 2021 on May 4, 2020, as required by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, BBA19. The report compares current-law levels of spending and revenues with the amounts agreed to in BBA19. In the Senate, this information is used to determine whether budgetary points of order lie against pending legislation. The Republican staff of the Budget Committee and the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, prepared this report pursuant to section 308(b) of the Congressional Budget Act (CBA). The information included in this report is current through June 1, 2020. In general, my filing of May 4 established the following enforceable budgetary levels: (1) allocations for fiscal year 2021 for the Committee on Appropriations; (2) allocations for fiscal years 2021, 2021 through 2025, and 2021 through 2030 for committees other than the Committee on Appropriations; (3) aggregate spending levels for fiscal year 2021; (4) aggregate revenue levels for fiscal year 2021, 2021 through 2025, and 2021 through 2030; and (5) aggregate levels of outlays and revenue for fiscal years 2021, 2021 through 2025, and 2021 through 2030 for Social Security. Allocations and aggregates for fiscal year 2020 were not overridden by this filing and continue to be enforced under the fiscal year 2020 deemed budget that was filed on September 9, 2019. The figures underpinning the new enforceable levels are based on the discretionary spending limits set forth in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 and CBO's March 2020 baseline, adjusted to reflect legislation enacted between the publication of the baseline and my May 4 filing. Enforceable figures in this filing exclude the direct budgetary effects of provisions in legislation enacted after the release of the baseline that were designated as an emergency pursuant to section 4112 of the fiscal year 2018 congressional budget resolution, H. Con. Res. 71, 115th Congress. Budget Committee Republican staff prepared Tables A-G. Table A gives the amount by which each Senate authorizing committee exceeds or falls below its allocations for budget authority and outlays under the fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2021 deemed budget resolutions. This information is used for enforcing committee allocations pursuant to section 302 of the CBA. To date, eight committees are out of compliance with their allocations for fiscal year 2020, however no committees have breached their newly released allocations this cycle. Tables B and C provide the amount by which the Senate Committee on Appropriations is below or exceeds the statutory spending limits. This information is used to determine points of order related to the spending caps found in sections 312 and 314 of the CBA. The tables show that the Appropriations Committee is compliant with spending limits for fiscal years 2020 and 2021. The figures included in Table C reflect advanced and permanent appropriations that have already been enacted but will become available for obligation in fiscal year 2021. Tables D and E display figures related to limits on the use of changes in mandatory programs, CHIMPs in appropriations bills. These $15 billion limits, found in the fiscal year 2018 budget resolution for fiscal year 2020 and section 207 of BBA19 for fiscal year 2021, currently show the Appropriations Committee in compliance. Tables F and G provide the amount of budget authority enacted for 2020 and 2021, respectively, that have been designated as either for an emergency or for overseas contingency operations, OCO, pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, as amended. Funding that receives either of these designations results in cap adjustments to enforceable discretionary spending limits. There is no limit on either emergency or OCO spending; however, any Senator may challenge the designation with a point of order to strike the designation on the floor. In addition to the tables provided by Budget Committee Republican staff, I am submitting CBO tables which I will use to enforce budget totals approved by Congress. Because legislation can still be enacted that would have an effect on fiscal year 2020, CBO provided spending and revenue reports for both fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2021. This information is used to enforce aggregate spending levels in budget resolutions under CBA section 311. CBO's estimates show that current levels of spending for fiscal year 2020 exceed amounts in last year's budget resolution by $68.6 billion in budget authority and $55.1 billion in outlays, 2020, Tables 1-2. Revenues are $114.8 billion below the revenue floor. As well, Social Security outlays are at levels assumed for 2020, while Social Security revenues are $16 million above levels assumed in budget. For fiscal year 2021, the current law levels are $1,180.0 billion and $667.8 billion in budget authority and outlays, respectively, below allowable levels, 2021, Tables 1-2. This spending room will be spent down as regular appropriations bills are enacted for fiscal year 2021. Revenues and Social Security levels are at the levels assumed by the fiscal year 2021 deemed budget. CBO's report also provides information needed to enforce the Senate pay-as-you-go, PAYGO, rule, 2021, Table 3. This rule is enforced under section 4106 of the 2018 budget resolution. The scorecard stands at zero for all enforceable levels consistent with the filing of newly deemed budget levels. This submission also includes a table tracking the Senate's budget enforcement activity on the floor since the enforcement filing on May 4, 2020. Since that filing, no points of order have been raised. All years in the accompanying tables are fiscal years. I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying tables be printed in the Record.
|
2020-01-06
|
Mr. ENZI
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2726-2
| null | 782
|
formal
|
affirmative action
| null |
racist
|
Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, today I wish to honor the life and legacy of Milele Chikasa Anana, who passed away on May 6, 2020, at the age of 86. An activist, businesswoman, public servant, publisher, mentor, and change-maker, she was a dynamic force in Madison for over 50 years, helping to shape the community for the better and light the torch of many young leaders working to improve the lives of the city's African-American community. Milele was born and raised in Oklahoma, went to college in Alabama and Indiana, and lived in Boston before making Madison, WI, her home in 1968 with her husband Jim. By that time, she had started a career in computer technology and worked for the NAACP, organizing in Boston for the educational rights of Black students. Milele continued to develop her civic engagement and leadership in her early years in Madison when she was elected to the Madison School Board in 1974. She was the first African American to serve on a school board anywhere in the State. In another first--also in 1974--Milele became the first African-American affirmative action officer for the city of Madison, a post she would hold for 5 years. Under her determined and steadfast advocacy, the city made significant changes to its hiring practices to better recruit and hire candidates of color, particularly in the police department. She also addressed the lack of diversity on the city's boards and commissions, bringing new perspective to bodies that were at the time dominated by White men. Milele established the Women's Issues Committee and the Minority Affairs Committee, giving employees of color and female employees a greater voice. She was known to call out city leaders when she saw injustice or inadequate progress and kept them focused on the mission of her agency. Her impact as affirmative action office is far-reaching to this very day. Later in her career, Milele worked as interim director of the Madison Equal Opportunities Commission and was a founder of the Madison Black Chamber of Commerce, building its directory of Black-owned business and establishing Black Restaurant Week. She has been an active member and mentor to many organizations including the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Alumni Chapter, the Greater Madison Urban League, NAACP of Dane County, and Mt. Zion Baptist Church. Milele Chikasa Anana is perhaps best known for her leadership of UMOJA Magazine, Wisconsin's oldest black magazine. From 1990 to 2018, Milele served as editor and publisher, growing it from a 2-page newsletter to a 52-page monthly publication. Milele used UMOJA to celebrate the accomplishments and showcase the good deeds of Black leaders, community members, business owners, and youth. Yet, despite these significant accomplishments, ``Ms. Milele'' or ``Mother Milele,'' as many called her, will be remembered most dearly as a dedicated mentor. Many influential African Americans have credited her with demonstrating the passion and persuasion that led to their success as leaders. Countless others looked to her as a role model who inspired them to join the fight for equal rights. While small in stature, Milele leaves behind an enormous legacy. As a mother of 5, grandmother of 13, and great grandmother of 4, her character lives on as the matriarch of a loving family. Her tenacity and determination live on in each young person she encouraged and each leader she challenged to do better. I know I will think of Milele every time I see the pride of accomplishment in a young African-American woman's eyes. I consider myself lucky to have known Milele, and I am grateful that the depth of her spirit will continue to guide Madison toward a brighter, more just future.
|
2020-01-06
|
Ms. BALDWIN
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2730
| null | 783
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
Enrolled Bills Signed At 2:30 p.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered by Mrs. Cole, one of its reading clerks, announced that the Speaker has signed the following enrolled bills: S. 2746. An act to require the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to provide information on suicide rates in law enforcement, and for other purposes. S. 3414. An act to authorize major medical facility projects for the Department of Veterans Affairs for fiscal year 2020, and for other purposes. S. 3744. An act to condemn gross human rights violations of ethnic Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, and calling for an end to arbitrary detention, torture, and harassment of these communities inside and outside China. H.R. 7010. An act to amend the Small Business Act and the CARES Act to modify certain provisions related to the forgiveness of loans under the paycheck protection program, to allow recipients of loan forgiveness under the paycheck protection program to defer payroll taxes, and for other purposes.
|
2020-01-06
|
Unknown
|
Senate
|
CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2731-3
| null | 784
|
formal
|
the Fed
| null |
antisemitic
|
SA 1591. Mr. PAUL submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 35, to amend title 18, United States Code, to specify lynching as a deprivation of civil rights, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows: (a) Offense.--Chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: ``Sec. 250. Lynching ``(a) In General.-- ``(1) Offenses involving actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin.--Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, willfully conspires with another person to cause serious bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempt to cause serious bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person-- ``(A) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, fined in accordance with this title, or both; and ``(B) shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined in accordance with this title, or both, if-- ``(i) death results from the offense; or ``(ii) the offense includes kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill. ``(2) Offenses involving actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.-- ``(A) In general.--Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, in any circumstance described in subparagraph (B) or paragraph (3), willfully conspires with another person to cause serious bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempt to cause serious bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person-- ``(i) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, fined in accordance with this title, or both; and ``(ii) shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined in accordance with this title, or both, if-- ``(I) death results from the offense; or ``(II) the offense includes kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill. ``(B) Circumstances described.--For purposes of subparagraph (A), the circumstances described in this subparagraph are that-- ``(i) the conduct described in subparagraph (A) occurs during the course of, or as the result of, the travel of the defendant or the victim-- ``(I) across a State line or national border; or ``(II) using a channel, facility, or instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce; ``(ii) the defendant uses a channel, facility, or instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce in connection with the conduct described in subparagraph (A); ``(iii) in connection with the conduct described in subparagraph (A), the defendant employs a firearm, dangerous weapon, explosive or incendiary device, or other weapon that has traveled in interstate or foreign commerce; or ``(iv) the conduct described in subparagraph (A)-- ``(I) interferes with commercial or other economic activity in which the victim is engaged at the time of the conduct; or ``(II) otherwise affects interstate or foreign commerce. ``(3) Offenses occurring in the special maritime or territorial jurisdiction of the united states.--Whoever, within the special maritime or territorial jurisdiction of the United States, engages in conduct described in paragraph (1) or in paragraph (2)(A) (without regard to whether that conduct occurred in a circumstance described in paragraph (2)(B)) shall be subject to the same penalties as prescribed in those paragraphs. ``(4) Guidelines.--All prosecutions conducted by the United States under this section shall be undertaken pursuant to guidelines issued by the Attorney General, or the designee of the Attorney General, to be included in the United States Attorneys' Manual that shall establish neutral and objective criteria for determining whether a crime was committed because of the actual or perceived status of any person. ``(b) Certification Requirement.-- ``(1) In general.--No prosecution of any offense described in this subsection may be undertaken by the United States, except under the certification in writing of the Attorney General, or a designee, that-- ``(A) the State does not have jurisdiction; ``(B) the State has requested that the Federal Government assume jurisdiction; ``(C) the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to State charges left demonstratively unvindicated the Federal interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence; or ``(D) a prosecution by the United States is in the public interest and necessary to secure substantial justice. ``(2) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to limit the authority of Federal officers, or a Federal grand jury, to investigate possible violations of this section. ``(c) Definitions.--In this section-- ``(1) the term `explosive or incendiary device' has the meaning given such term in section 232 of this title; ``(2) the term `firearm' has the meaning given such term in section 921(a) of this title; ``(3) the term `gender identity' means actual or perceived gender-related characteristics; ``(4) the term `serious bodily injury' has the meaning given such term in section 1365(h)(3) of this title; and ``(5) the term `State' includes the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and any other territory or possession of the United States. ``(d) Statute of Limitations.-- ``(1) Offenses not resulting in death.--Except as provided in paragraph (2), no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense under this section unless the indictment for such offense is found, or the information for such offense is instituted, not later than 7 years after the date on which the offense was committed. ``(2) Death resulting offenses.--An indictment or information alleging that an offense under this section resulted in death may be found or instituted at any time without limitation.''. (b) Table of Sections Amendment.--The table of sections for chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 249 the following:``250. Lynching.''.
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2020-01-06
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Unknown
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-04-pt1-PgS2738-2
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the Fed
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The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 4 of rule I, the following enrolled bills were signed by the Speaker on Thursday, June 4, 2020: H.R. 7010, to amend the Small Business Act and the CARES Act to modify certain provisions related to the forgiveness of loans under the paycheck protection program, to allow recipients of loan forgiveness under the paycheck protection program to defer payroll taxes, and for other purposes; S. 2746, to require the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to provide information on suicide rates in law enforcement, and for other purposes; S. 3414, to authorize major medical facility projects for the Department of Veterans Affairs for fiscal year 2020, and for other purposes.
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2020-01-06
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The SPEAKER pro tempore
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House
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CREC-2020-06-08-pt1-PgH2373-7
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The Speaker, on Tuesday, June 2, 2020, announced her signature to an enrolled bill of the Senate of the following title: S. 3744. An act to condemn gross human rights violations of ethnic Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, and calling for an end to arbitrary detention, torture, and harassment of these communities inside and outside China. The Speaker, on Thursday, June 4, 2020, further announced her signature to enrolled bills of the Senate of the following titles: S. 2746. An act to require the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to provide information on suicide rates in law enforcement, and for other purposes. S. 3414. An act to authorize major medical facility projects for the Department of Veterans Affairs for fiscal year 2020, and for other purposes.
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2020-01-06
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Unknown
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House
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CREC-2020-06-08-pt1-PgH2374
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the Fed
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Enrolled Bills Signed Under the authority of the order of the Senate of January 3, 2019, the Acting President pro tempore (Mr. McConnell) announced that on June 4, 2020, during the adjournment of the Senate, he had signed the following enrolled bills, which were previously signed by the Speaker of the House: S. 2746. An act to require the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to provide information on suicide rates in law enforcement, and for other purposes. S. 3414. An act to authorize major medical facility projects for the Department of Veterans Affairs for fiscal year 2020, and for other purposes. S. 3744. An act to condemn gross human rights violations of ethnic Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, and calling for an end to arbitrary detention, torture, and harassment of these communities inside and outside China. H.R. 7010. An act to amend the Small Business Act and the CARES Act to modify certain provisions related to the forgiveness of loans under the paycheck protection program, to allow recipients of loan forgiveness under the paycheck protection program to defer payroll taxes, and for other purposes.
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2020-01-06
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Unknown
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-08-pt1-PgS2762-3
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The Secretary of the Senate reported that on today, June 8, 2020, she had presented to the President of the United States the following enrolled bills: S. 2746. An act to require the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to provide information on suicide rates in law enforcement, and for other purposes. S. 3414. An act to authorize major medical facility projects for the Department of Veterans Affairs for fiscal year 2020, and for other purposes. S. 3744. An act to condemn gross human rights violations of ethnic Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, and calling for an end to arbitrary detention, torture, and harassment of these communities inside and outside China.
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2020-01-06
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Unknown
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-08-pt1-PgS2762-4
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Mr. GARDNER (for himself and Ms. Hirono) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations: S. Res. 611 Whereas Tonga's Queen Salote Tupou III negotiated for the end of British protectorate status for her nation and transition to Commonwealth membership, which bore fruit in 1970; Whereas Tonga is a valued security partner of the United States, and the Tongan Defense Services deployed four contingents to Iraq between 2004 and 2008; Whereas, in the coming year, the United States is committed to deepening this relationship through security cooperation, including hosting Tongan defense forces for International Military Education and Training (IMET) programs; Whereas the United States Government supports many cooperative activities with the Government of Tonga in sustainable fisheries management and development assistance, including those authorized by the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-409); Whereas section 1252 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 (Public Law 116-92) expands the number of countries that receive assistance under the Indo- Pacific Maritime Security Initiative, including Tonga; Whereas a peaceful, prosperous, and open Indo-Pacific rooted in a rule-based order that promotes security, opportunity, and dignity to all peoples benefits the people of both the United States and the Kingdom of Tonga; Whereas the Kingdom of Tonga, a constitutional monarchy, took steps towards democratic governance beginning in 2010; Whereas over 50,000 United States citizens trace their roots to the Kingdom of Tonga, and many of these reside in the States of Utah, California, and Hawaii; Whereas Tonga has hosted the Peace Corps since 1967; and Whereas the Nevada National Guard entered into a State Partnership Program with Tonga in 2014: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Senate-- (1) commends the Kingdom of Tonga on a successful transition to a constitutional monarchy and 3 elections deemed to be free and fair by international observers; (2) supports and affirms the full implementation of provisions of the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-409) with regard to deepening its cooperation with Tonga in areas of mutual interest, including fisheries and marine resource conservation, environmental challenges and resilience, global health, development and trade, people- to-people ties, and continuing United States assistance, as appropriate, to support the rule of law, good governance, and economic development; and (3) recognizes Tonga's participation in multinational security forces and multilateral institutions including the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, International Atomic Energy Agency, the World Trade Organization, the Pacific Community, the Secretariat of the Regional Environmental Programme, and the Pacific Islands Forum.
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2020-01-06
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Unknown
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-08-pt1-PgS2765-2
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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, several times now I have praised the peaceful demonstrations protesting racial injustice and the killings of Black Americans. I am grateful that after several harrowing days of looting and riots, law enforcement restored order and helped these peaceful protests be heard. Notwithstanding the far-left calls to disband the police altogether, I believe most Americans are ready to consider how the memories of Black Americans like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor can move us to continue combating residual racism. Today, I need to discuss a different pressing problem that concerns Americans' constitutional rights. It is becoming clear to many Americans, including many who appreciate and applaud the recent protests, that our national life during this pandemic has slid toward a double standard. For weeks, State and local leaders put normal American life totally on ice and asked citizens to prioritize fighting the virus. For weeks, the mainstream media heaped scorn on any small citizen protest, outdoor gathering, or even the suggestion that other important values might require a reappraisal of certain restrictions. Well, the American people did their part. They made necessary sacrifices that clearly helped the country, and they are ready to continue doing their part as our reopening carefully proceeds. But now, many Americans feel they have just seen those fastidious regulations and that puritanical zeal disappear in an instant because a new cause has emerged that powerful people agree with. A month ago, small protest demonstrations were widely condemned as reckless and selfish. Now, massive rallies that fill entire cities are not just praised but, in fact, are called especially brave because of the exact same health risk that brought condemnation when the cause was different. People just spent the spring watching their small businesses dissolve or canceling weddings or missing religious observances for the longest spells in their lives or missing the last days of a loved one's life and then missing the funeral. Never were the American people told about any exemption for things they felt strongly about. I have no criticism for the millions of Americans who peacefully demonstrated in recent days. Their cause is beyond righteous. It is the inconsistency from leaders that has been baffling. The same Governor of Michigan who argued that letting people carefully shop for vegetable seeds--vegetable seeds--would be too dangerous during the pandemic, now poses for photographs with groups of protesters. Here in the District of Columbia, the mayor celebrates massive street protests. She actually joins them herself. But on her command, churches and houses of worship remain shut. I believe even the largest church buildings in the District are still subject to the 10-person limit for things the mayor deems inessential. The rights of free speech, free assembly, and the free exercise of religion are all First Amendment rights. They have the same constitutional pedigree. Apparently, while protests are now permissible, prayer is still too dangerous. Politicians are now picking and choosing within the First Amendment itself. Last week, one county in California's Bay area seriously attempted to issue guidance that allowed protests of 100 people but still--still capped all other social gatherings at 12 people and banned outdoor religious gatherings altogether--banned outdoor religious gatherings altogether. Figure that one out. These governments are acting like the coronavirus discriminates based on the content of people's speech, but, alas, it is only the leaders themselves who are doing that. It is now impossible to avoid the conclusion that local and State leaders are using their power to encourage constitutionally protected conduct which they personally appreciate while continuing to ban constitutionally protected conduct which they personally feel is less important. In New York City, Mayor de Blasio makes no effort to hide this subjectivity. At one point, he recounted our Nation's history with racism, compared that to ``a devout religious person who wants to go back to religious services'' and concluded, ``Sorry, that is not the same question.'' Well, the American people's constitutional liberties do not turn--do not turn on a mayor's intuition. Politicians do not get to play red light, green light within the First Amendment. The Bill of Rights is not some a-la-carte menu that leaders may sample as they please. It is hard to see any rational set of rules by which mass protests should continue to be applauded, but small, careful religious services should continue to be banned. These prominent Democrats are free to let social protests outrank religion in their own consciences if they choose, but they do not get to impose their ranking on everyone else. This is precisely the point of freedom of conscience. That is precisely the point of the First Amendment. Weeks ago, citizens sued the mayor of Louisville, KY, when he tried to ban drive-in Easter services while imposing no restrictions on the parking lots of secular businesses. A brilliant district judge had to remind him and the whole country that in America, faith can never be shoved into second class. It seems at least a few local leaders still need to learn that lesson. I hope they learn it soon. The American people's response to the coronavirus was courageous and patriotic. On the advice of experts, our Nation sacrificed a great deal to protect our medical system. Politicians must not repay that sacrifice with constitutionally dubious double standards.
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2020-01-06
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Mr. McCONNELL
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-09-pt1-PgS2772-2
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public school
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Mr LEAHY. Madam President, the public health and economic crisis that has gripped the country since March has been a challenge everywhere, and Vermont is no different; yet it should surprise no one that Vermonters rise to the moment. As businesses shuttered and Vermonters adhered to our State's stay-at-home orders, a group of 20 or so Vermonters stepped up to volunteer to bring groceries, medications, or other essential items for their neighbors and friends in Marshfield and Plainfield. The effect was organized by the enrichment coordinator for Montpelier's public schools, Drew McNaughton, who stepped up, utilizing Front Porch Forum, coordinating a group of volunteers to help bring goods to those staying at home. It is ``a natural thing to do,'' Drew said, and he could not be more right: It is natural for Vermonters to step up to help other Vermonters. It has always been the Vermont way. And it is why together we are Vermont strong. I ask unanimous consent that an article highlighting this volunteer effort, which appeared in the Times Argus in March, be printed in the Record.
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2020-01-06
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Mr LEAHY
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-09-pt1-PgS2804
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public schools
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Mr LEAHY. Madam President, the public health and economic crisis that has gripped the country since March has been a challenge everywhere, and Vermont is no different; yet it should surprise no one that Vermonters rise to the moment. As businesses shuttered and Vermonters adhered to our State's stay-at-home orders, a group of 20 or so Vermonters stepped up to volunteer to bring groceries, medications, or other essential items for their neighbors and friends in Marshfield and Plainfield. The effect was organized by the enrichment coordinator for Montpelier's public schools, Drew McNaughton, who stepped up, utilizing Front Porch Forum, coordinating a group of volunteers to help bring goods to those staying at home. It is ``a natural thing to do,'' Drew said, and he could not be more right: It is natural for Vermonters to step up to help other Vermonters. It has always been the Vermont way. And it is why together we are Vermont strong. I ask unanimous consent that an article highlighting this volunteer effort, which appeared in the Times Argus in March, be printed in the Record.
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2020-01-06
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Mr LEAHY
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-09-pt1-PgS2804
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the Fed
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Mr. KAINE. Madam President, the formation, development, growth and success of Good Shepherd Housing and Family Services, GSH is a story that exemplifies the very best in people-to-people programs. Started in 1974 as a ``helping hand'' volunteer-run organization by members of the Mount Vernon community, including several churches and local businesses, the founders of GSH established a volunteer board of directors to steer the organization's efforts to help those experiencing homelessness in the Greater Mount Vernon community. Today, GSH is a vital affordable housing and services provider with a 10-person professional staff and a $2.7 million operating budget. GSH remains true to its founding vision and mission. GSH works every day to reduce homelessness and enable self-sufficiency byproviding permanent affordable rental housing, emergency financial services, budget counseling, and case management to hundreds of working families in Fairfax County. Then, as now, GSH helps struggling families create and sustain a better way of life for themselves and their neighbors. In 1975, GSH acquired its first property on Holland Road, built and furnished a home, and moved in a struggling refugee family of nine and began providing them ongoing support services, starting them on the path towards self-sufficiency and housing stability. Two months later, several Laotian and Vietnamese refugee families received housing assistance upon their arrival in the community. For the next several years, GSH continued to serve families and individuals needing housing and emergency financial assistance. Under the leadership of its board, GSH functioned solely with the support of volunteers and individual donations. Today, with its affordable rental housing portfolio of 100-plus leased and owned units, as many as 120 struggling families are housed and supported every year in GSH housing. GSH's emergency financial assistance program assists an additional 200 households a year by preventing evictions or providing security deposits. GSH case managers also provide service referrals to another 200-plus households each year to receive community services to address their healthcare, transportation, and food needs. Additional support services and programs are offered to move resident household to greater self-sufficiency. The Children's Resources Program supports the 110-plus schoolchildren residing in GSH affordable housing units and ensures their educational needs are met. Various financial counseling programs help low-income female heads of household create a healthy consciousness around money and empowers them to begin to establish financial security. A president/chief executive officer, vice president/chief operating officer, financial manager, and development director lead the day-to-day operations of GSH. They are assisted by staff of six full- and part-time employees. A 16-member board of directors oversees its work, while a leadership council of 23 key community stakeholders in the service area provides advice and guidance on the needs and human services trends within the community and the impact of GSH programs in meeting those needs. The current service area lies within the Mount Vernon and Lee Districts of South Fairfax County, mainly along Richmond Highway from Alexandria to Lorton, where many low-income workers live. The deepest pockets of poverty in Fairfax County are here. For example, according to 2016 U.S. Census Bureau data, 66,618 people 5.9 percent or 1 in 17 Fairfax County live in poverty i.e., below the Federal poverty level of $24,600 per year for a family of four. Based on census data disaggregated at the ZIP code and neighborhood level, several of the neighborhoods in the GSH service area report that 10 to 15 percent of their households live in poverty. For more than 45 years, Good Shepherd Housing and Family Services has had one outcome in mind: to ensure that the households it serves reach housing stability, build financial resources, and never face the possibility or reality of homelessness. Every year, GSH programs stretch and grow to make this outcome a reality for its residents. Recently, several local Northern Virginia and Metropolitan Washington, DC, agencies recognized the affordable housing contributions of GSH through grant awards that help finance the programs. As the need for its services unfortunately continues to grow at a staggering pace, GSH will continue to step up, lend a helping hand, and empower its clients to do the same.
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2020-01-06
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Mr. KAINE
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-09-pt1-PgS2805-3
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Mr. LEE. Madam President, to most Americans, the so-called Great American Outdoors Act is a mistake. It is expensive, shortsighted, and it is wrong; but to those of us who live in the American West, it is a disaster. Despite its rosy claims, this legislation combines two bills that will only tighten the Federal stranglehold on our lands and drive us deeper into debt, to the detriment of our economy, our environment, and the livelihoods and the freedom of the American people. So just how, you might ask, does it do that? Well, let me explain. The first title containing an expanded version of the Restore Our Parks Act attempts to address the roughly $19.3 billion maintenance backlog on our Federal lands, concentrated primarily within national parks projects, which approach a $12 billion maintenance backlog just on their own, but it seeks to do so by spending $9.5 billion of Federal offshore energy revenues over 5 years, without any means whatsoever of offsetting those extra funds. Now, that, to be clear, is money that is currently going to the U.S. Treasury to pay for a number of other costs, anumber of other expenditures--from aircraft carriers to Federal courts and everything in between--and will only add to our already ballooning national debt. It is, we have to remember, Congress's job to set priorities for the funds in the Treasury. If we prioritize something--if we prioritize one thing--we must either proportionately decrease the funding for something else or find another way to generate new revenue. This bill does neither. Furthermore, without any measures to prevent it, it guarantees that a similar backlog will only reemerge in the future. There are better ways to address this problem. For example, there are much better ways in a proposal that has been introduced by Senator Enzi in a bill called the REAL Act. The REAL Act would modestly increase park visitor fees by $5, businesses and tourist visa fees by $25, and a visa waiver program fee by $16--estimated to bring an additional $5.5 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. This, the REAL Act, introduced by Senator Enzi is a reasonable, practical solution to sustainably address the maintenance backlog on our National Parks, which is a problem. It is a problem that needs to be dealt with, and the REAL Act does it in a very responsible, sustainable fashion. What is more, the REAL Act would create a permanent and independent way of supplementing the funding for our National Parks and do so without adding to the national debt. The second title of this bill--of the Great American Outdoors Act--creates almost $1 billion of mandatory spending every single year on new Federal land acquisition through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. In other words, it adds a new entitlement, adding to our already unaffordable system of entitlements. It puts it on a level playing field with things like Social Security and Medicare, other entitlement programs, the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Now, why would we do this when we are already on a collision course with our ability to fund Federal programs, including and especially those programs that America's seniors have paid for, for years, and come to rely on? Why would we do that for this program? Why make it mandatory spending and thus convert it into yet another unaffordable entitlement program? Let's talk a little bit about the Land and Water Conservation Fund, or LWCF, as it is known. This was originally put in place pursuant to a law passed in 1964, and the LWCF, as it was created and enacted into law back in 1964, was put in place in order to promote and preserve access to recreational opportunities on Federal public lands--on public lands generally, in fact. So the fund was set up to be the principal source of money for Federal land acquisition and to assist States in developing recreational opportunities on their own. Originally, it directed 60 percent of its funds to be appropriated for State purposes and 40 percent for Federal purposes. Unfortunately, the program has since drifted far from its original moorings and far from its original intent, and it has been rife with abuse. In 1976, the law was amended to remove the 60-percent State provision, stating simply that not less than 40 percent of the funds must be used for Federal purposes, while remaining silent on whether a State would receive a penny. Now, just over the last year or so, not less than 40 percent of the funds are dedicated to State purposes, so that still means that up to 60 percent of the funds can still be used for Federal land acquisition. The result? Well, it hasn't been good. It has been used more for Federal land acquisition than for improving access to or care of the vast Federal lands that we already own and manage--or in many cases, fail to manage. Sixty-one percent of the funds have historically been used for acquisition, compared to the 25 percent that have been allocated to State grants, spending close to $12 billion to purchase new Federal lands. So despite people's images of charming ribbon cuttings at local parks and scenic wildlife, the LWCF has functioned as the Federal Government's primary vehicle for Federal land grabs, resulting in a massive, restrictive, and neglected Federal estate. The Federal Government now owns 640 million acres of land--more than 640 million acres--within the United States. To put this in perspective, this amount--the more than 640 million acres of land currently owned by the Federal Government within the United States--is a total larger than the entireties of France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands combined. Now, I am not talking about the government-owned lands or the parklands within those countries. I am talking about the entirety of the countries themselves. The Federal Government owns more land than that. That is 28 percent of the total acreage within the United States, and more than 50 percent of the land in the West. This has proven to be far more land than the Federal Government is capable of managing responsibly. The condition of the vast Federal estate ranges from fair to poor to dismal. These lands face problems with rampant wildfires, soil erosion, mismanagement, and littering--with a staggering combined maintenance backlog of nearly $20 billion. Resources are only being spread thinner as they are being stretched to serve more and more lands--more and more lands that are now going to be bought with the new entitlement spending that we are putting in place with this bill should we enact this ill-conceived legislative proposal. On top of that, many of the LWCF funds have been diverted to a vague ``other purposes'' category that has, in many instances, little to do with access to outdoor recreation at all. In fact, many of the programs it has funded have, instead, aimed to pull land from public use, regardless of how the land in question is classified. So rather than increasing opportunities for hunting and fishing, snowmobiling, hiking, camping, mountain biking, or kayaking, the land policies in place have slowly been squeezing out recreational opportunities, and this has been going on for decades. And so, too, have these policies imposed severe economic restrictions. As the Federal estate has grown since the time the LWCF was established in 1964, natural resource production--including mining, energy, timber, and livestock raising--have sharply declined, depriving rural communities and their economies of crucial jobs and economic activity. Timber production, for example, has been cut by about 90 percent since the 1980s. So instead of providing sustainable, renewable, economically productive logging in the Northwest, these forests are now managed by catastrophic wildfire under the supervision--or I should say the failed supervision--of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. If you don't believe me, ask anyone who lives in the Western United States. Ask anyone who lives in the communities of Utah who have seen the environmental and economic devastation brought about as a result of failed land management policies. Now, some claim, rather audaciously, that the outdoor recreation economy is a major boon to these very same communities that are being impoverished by it. But usually, nearly always, people who say that aren't people who live in those communities. Seasonal tourism is not a sustainable core industry for most communities. Much of the money spent on outdoor recreation ends up going to apparel, equipment, and gear from large out-of-state companies. Rural public lands counties don't see a penny of it. This is especially true in those counties where the Federal Government owns not just 67 percent of the land mass, as is the case throughout Utah as a whole, but 90, 95 percent plus of the land in some counties. To make matters worse, Federal lands also mean a loss of property taxes and, as a result, a loss of huge sources of revenue and opportunities for States and for local communities. It is no coincidence that the poorest rural counties in the West are the very same communities, the very same counties where they have the most Federal land. The poorest counties are the counties with the most Federal land. Why is that? Well, there are a number of reasons, but one of the things that has to be taken into account isthe fact that, without property taxes, schools are underfunded, local governments are crippled, fire departments are, ironically, depleted and, therefore, unable to properly take care of the lands they are charged to protect in the first place. This, by the way, says nothing of the loss of economic activity as a whole. I am just talking here about the lack of property tax revenue Now, there is a Federal program for this, the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program, also known as the PILT Program, as the abbreviation refers. This is a program that was intended to address this disparity by compensating counties and local communities for their loss of property taxes--that is the loss from property taxes that comes about as a result of significant Federal land ownership and the Federal Government's declaration, by law, that its lands may not be taxed. But PILT payments have provided only a pittance of what would be due to local governments were Federal lands not exempt from property taxes. In 2018, the Utah Legislature commissioned a state-of-the-art evaluation of 32 million acres of Federal land in Utah, excluding roughly 3 million acres of National Parks and Wilderness Areas. Now, this May, that same commission found that appraising these BLM and Forest Service lands according to their lowest use value would result in an annual property tax bill of $534 million. And this, by the way, in addition to excluding National Parks and Wilderness Areas from that equation, was a study that involved only those Federal lands extending to within 1 mile of any municipal boundary or of any city or town in Utah. So this fraction would produce $534 million annually in property tax revenue, even if it were taxed at its lowest value. In 2019, the PILT payments to Utah statewide totaled just $41 million, just 7.7 percent of the potential revenue from property taxes. Again, we are not talking about the National Parks or their National Wilderness Areas, nor are we talking about the lands outside of 1 mile beyond any municipal boundary. And while States and localities are the ones carrying the unfair economic burden, Washington only pours salt in these wounds by neglecting its oversight responsibilities. In May 2019, a GAO report found that BLM fails to maintain centralized data on lands acquired and that an increasing element of LWCF funds across agencies are being spent on acquisition projects that occur without and, in some cases, contrary to congressional approval. Not only that, but a December 2019 GAO report found that numerous agencies have blatantly disregarded LWCF requirements in order to illegally purchase more land. Yes. They are buying land, in many cases, contrary to their statutory authorization and limitations imposed by law. Under the original LWCF Act, no more than 15 percent of the land added to the National Forest System is to be west of the 100th meridian, essentially everything west of Oklahoma. But the GAO found that between fiscal years 2014 and 2018, the Federal Government had acquired more than 450,000 acres of land in the United States, more than 80 percent of which were west of the 100th meridian. In another recent review of land acquisition policies across the agencies conducted by the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, officials said that 40 percent of the land acquired with LWCF funds were not even requested by the agencies--not requested in the first place, yet they were purchased in some cases contrary to an explicit statutory command. As it turns out, billions of LWCF dollars are being spent without the Congress and without the relevant agencies or the public being informed of where or why or pursuant to what authority they were made. Why, then, would it ever make sense to turn this into an entitlement program, to turn this into something that is self-perpetuating--into a self-licking ice cream cone--that needs no support or reauthorization year to year from Congress? Last year, the Senate permanently reauthorized this broken, harmful, dangerous, unaccountable fund without reform and without any incentive to offer future reforms, but as if that weren't bad enough, the legislation before us now proposes to make that funding mandatory. Before, Congress could at least appropriate varying amounts to be used from the fund. Now, this bill, if passed, would turn the LWCF into a true trust fund, automatically requiring that the full $900 million be spent primarily on Federal land acquisition each year in perpetuity without accountability and without oversight. The unofficial Congressional Budget Office score estimates that this bill, as a whole, will cost nearly $17.3 billion over the next 10 years, all for land projects that we cannot afford, let alone maintain. This is not how Congress was tasked with exercising the power of the purse. This is not how it is supposed to work--not in this country and certainly not in this legislative body. It is the tough business of Congress to set priorities and to decide which, among worthy causes, should receive our limited resources. These funds could be going to provide relief in the midst of the current pandemic or to our national defense or to shoring up benefits for veterans or to a myriad of other goals. Putting these funds into a direct deposit mechanism, however, means that we are not having those conversations and not actively evaluating how we can best spend those taxpayer dollars each year. No, no. Instead, we are going to put it on autopilot. That is what this bill wants to do rather shamefully. This provision of the bill automatically puts more funds toward the harmful cause of growing the Federal estate, putting us on an even worse path than we have already taken. In fact, the first provision of the bill is only evidence to the fact that we have bitten off far more than we can chew. We can do better. As it currently stands, we have nothing to gain from this legislation. The agenda of aggressively and endlessly growing our Federal estate has put us on a dangerous path with devastating effects for our lands and for the people who live, recreate, and survive off of them as my home State of Utah has already experienced far too well. If we do not change course, this path will only worsen for the rest of the Nation too. I want to point out something--a common misperception that people often have about Federal land and what it is and what it does. In many cases, if you don't live in the western United States, you are not necessarily aware of the fact that the overwhelming majority--not just most but the overwhelming majority of Federal land is not a national park. National parks are some of the few things people consistently like about the Federal Government. They are frequently the favorite thing about the Federal Government. We all love national parks. They are beautiful. They are fun, and they are something that the Federal Government does that everyone still enjoys and loves. But most Federal land is not a national park. The overwhelming majority isn't anything like a national park, and the way these lands are divided out really isn't fair. In every State east of Colorado, the Federal Government owns less than 15 percent of the land. In every State to the west of Colorado and including Colorado, the Federal Government owns at least 15 percent and, in many cases, many multiples of that. In my State it happens to be about 67 percent. A tiny segment of that land consists of national park land. Most of it is just land that you can't use for anything else. The local governments can't tax them, and people can't access them for economic or recreational purposes without a ``Mother, may I?'' from the Federal Government. That is what it is. Most of this land isn't even a national park or a national recreation area or a wilderness area or anything remotely worthy of that. This is just about Federal control, and most of it is not managed very well. The National Park System has been underfunded. They, in many ways, do the best job they can with what they have, but they have been chronically underfunded, and the national parks are quite well run compared to the vast majority of Federal public land we have, which is chronically neglected, environmentally mismanaged, often to the economic and environmental detriment of those States where there is a lot of Federal land. Take San Juan County, UT. The Federal Government owns somewhere along the order of 95 percent of the land in San Juan County. It also happens to be Utah's poorest county.These two issues are not a coincidence. The fact that they appear in the same land mass is not coincidental; it is causal. The Federal Government is the cause for the impoverishment of this county and other communities in Utah and throughout the United States. Why? Because people can't own the land, can't develop the land, can't tax the land to fund their schools, their search and rescue services, or any other government priority. Nor can they access it for most economic purposes. Finally, all of my other observations about this legislation notwithstanding, this is the Senate, and just like church is for sinners, the Senate floor isn't for perfect, hermetically sealed, finished bills. We are supposed to bring imperfect bills to the floor to debate and deliberate and amend and discuss and, ultimately, find consensus. That is why I and many of my colleagues have been trying to do exactly that in this very situation with this very bill. I have a number of amendments. Many western State Senators do as well. Several Gulf State Senators have their own concerns about this bill in its current form. The way the process is supposed to work is that we bring this and other bills like it to the floor, and we offer up changes and see where the Senate is, see where the process goes, using reason, gentle persuasion, and awkward improvements to each piece of legislation as our guide. That is how it is supposed to work. There are a number of Senators from western States, from Gulf States, and from States that really aren't in the West or the gulf that don't really have that much to do with Federal public land, but they can see the procedural and substantive defects of this bill. That is why many of us who really would like to make improvements to this bill have come together from different parts of the country. The process of actually legislating has gone out of fashion in Washington and, quite regrettably, out of this Chamber in recent years, but it is something that I think the whole Senate would like to get back to--and I mean the whole Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike. This is an issue that is neither Republican or Democratic; it is not liberal or conservative; it is not Libertarian. It is not an ideological viewpoint. I know people within this Chamber on virtually every point along the ideological political continuum who would very much like to see the Senate working as an actual legislative body rather than as a rubberstamp for whatever small handful of people happen to write out behind closed doors and decide must be the finished, perfect, hermetically sealed object of our vote. This is wrong. It is an insult, not just to the 100 Senators who are here. It is that to be sure, but nobody cares about that. It is more about those we represent, those who elected us. Those election certificates don't belong to us. They belong to the voters of our various States who expect us to represent them. Regardless of how we might vote on any particular piece of legislation, they expect us to have read it; they expect us to do our job by showing up and by offering to make it better where we see flaws and we see defects. There is no perfect bill, but we can still make legislation a lot less bad. We can make it better. We bring about actual consensus. Consensus is not found by ramming something through without an opportunity for amendment, debate, or discussion This is wrong. It has gone on for far too long. I have seen it under the leadership of Democrats and Republicans alike in this Chamber, and it has to end. It will end. The question is, How long is it going to take us and how much misery will the American people have to endure while most of their Senators are effectively locked out of meaningful legislative debate, discussion, and amendment? This is wrong, and it has to end. The debate on this bill has now been extended by a whole extra day. There is no earthly reason why we can't use that extra day to work through a handful of 15-minute votes on a handful of amendments. It is just not that hard. In the amount of time that I have been speaking tonight, we could have processed a couple of amendments. In the amount of time that will be devoted only to hand-wringing and dismissal of legitimate concerns with this legislation, we could process any amendment that anyone wants to introduce, and this legislation could still be passed weeks before the House of Representatives is even poised to return. So why are we not doing this? There is no persuasive answer here. We have to start doing our job. I look forward to working with our colleagues to get an agreement on some amendments so that we can give this legislation the due consideration and the careful deliberation that it deserves, that we deserve, that those who elected us deserve, and then move on to the important nominations pending before the Senate and to the National Defense Authorization Act that are next in line. In the meantime, I hope Democrats and Republicans alike can unite behind the fact that we can't skate forever under the mantra that the Senate is the world's greatest deliberative body when it does not deliberate. The good news is, it is entirely within our power to reclaim use of that title justifiably and with dignity. I yield the floor.
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2020-01-06
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Mr. LEE
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-09-pt1-PgS2834-5
| null | 795
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formal
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entitlement program
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racist
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Mr. LEE. Madam President, to most Americans, the so-called Great American Outdoors Act is a mistake. It is expensive, shortsighted, and it is wrong; but to those of us who live in the American West, it is a disaster. Despite its rosy claims, this legislation combines two bills that will only tighten the Federal stranglehold on our lands and drive us deeper into debt, to the detriment of our economy, our environment, and the livelihoods and the freedom of the American people. So just how, you might ask, does it do that? Well, let me explain. The first title containing an expanded version of the Restore Our Parks Act attempts to address the roughly $19.3 billion maintenance backlog on our Federal lands, concentrated primarily within national parks projects, which approach a $12 billion maintenance backlog just on their own, but it seeks to do so by spending $9.5 billion of Federal offshore energy revenues over 5 years, without any means whatsoever of offsetting those extra funds. Now, that, to be clear, is money that is currently going to the U.S. Treasury to pay for a number of other costs, anumber of other expenditures--from aircraft carriers to Federal courts and everything in between--and will only add to our already ballooning national debt. It is, we have to remember, Congress's job to set priorities for the funds in the Treasury. If we prioritize something--if we prioritize one thing--we must either proportionately decrease the funding for something else or find another way to generate new revenue. This bill does neither. Furthermore, without any measures to prevent it, it guarantees that a similar backlog will only reemerge in the future. There are better ways to address this problem. For example, there are much better ways in a proposal that has been introduced by Senator Enzi in a bill called the REAL Act. The REAL Act would modestly increase park visitor fees by $5, businesses and tourist visa fees by $25, and a visa waiver program fee by $16--estimated to bring an additional $5.5 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. This, the REAL Act, introduced by Senator Enzi is a reasonable, practical solution to sustainably address the maintenance backlog on our National Parks, which is a problem. It is a problem that needs to be dealt with, and the REAL Act does it in a very responsible, sustainable fashion. What is more, the REAL Act would create a permanent and independent way of supplementing the funding for our National Parks and do so without adding to the national debt. The second title of this bill--of the Great American Outdoors Act--creates almost $1 billion of mandatory spending every single year on new Federal land acquisition through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. In other words, it adds a new entitlement, adding to our already unaffordable system of entitlements. It puts it on a level playing field with things like Social Security and Medicare, other entitlement programs, the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Now, why would we do this when we are already on a collision course with our ability to fund Federal programs, including and especially those programs that America's seniors have paid for, for years, and come to rely on? Why would we do that for this program? Why make it mandatory spending and thus convert it into yet another unaffordable entitlement program? Let's talk a little bit about the Land and Water Conservation Fund, or LWCF, as it is known. This was originally put in place pursuant to a law passed in 1964, and the LWCF, as it was created and enacted into law back in 1964, was put in place in order to promote and preserve access to recreational opportunities on Federal public lands--on public lands generally, in fact. So the fund was set up to be the principal source of money for Federal land acquisition and to assist States in developing recreational opportunities on their own. Originally, it directed 60 percent of its funds to be appropriated for State purposes and 40 percent for Federal purposes. Unfortunately, the program has since drifted far from its original moorings and far from its original intent, and it has been rife with abuse. In 1976, the law was amended to remove the 60-percent State provision, stating simply that not less than 40 percent of the funds must be used for Federal purposes, while remaining silent on whether a State would receive a penny. Now, just over the last year or so, not less than 40 percent of the funds are dedicated to State purposes, so that still means that up to 60 percent of the funds can still be used for Federal land acquisition. The result? Well, it hasn't been good. It has been used more for Federal land acquisition than for improving access to or care of the vast Federal lands that we already own and manage--or in many cases, fail to manage. Sixty-one percent of the funds have historically been used for acquisition, compared to the 25 percent that have been allocated to State grants, spending close to $12 billion to purchase new Federal lands. So despite people's images of charming ribbon cuttings at local parks and scenic wildlife, the LWCF has functioned as the Federal Government's primary vehicle for Federal land grabs, resulting in a massive, restrictive, and neglected Federal estate. The Federal Government now owns 640 million acres of land--more than 640 million acres--within the United States. To put this in perspective, this amount--the more than 640 million acres of land currently owned by the Federal Government within the United States--is a total larger than the entireties of France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands combined. Now, I am not talking about the government-owned lands or the parklands within those countries. I am talking about the entirety of the countries themselves. The Federal Government owns more land than that. That is 28 percent of the total acreage within the United States, and more than 50 percent of the land in the West. This has proven to be far more land than the Federal Government is capable of managing responsibly. The condition of the vast Federal estate ranges from fair to poor to dismal. These lands face problems with rampant wildfires, soil erosion, mismanagement, and littering--with a staggering combined maintenance backlog of nearly $20 billion. Resources are only being spread thinner as they are being stretched to serve more and more lands--more and more lands that are now going to be bought with the new entitlement spending that we are putting in place with this bill should we enact this ill-conceived legislative proposal. On top of that, many of the LWCF funds have been diverted to a vague ``other purposes'' category that has, in many instances, little to do with access to outdoor recreation at all. In fact, many of the programs it has funded have, instead, aimed to pull land from public use, regardless of how the land in question is classified. So rather than increasing opportunities for hunting and fishing, snowmobiling, hiking, camping, mountain biking, or kayaking, the land policies in place have slowly been squeezing out recreational opportunities, and this has been going on for decades. And so, too, have these policies imposed severe economic restrictions. As the Federal estate has grown since the time the LWCF was established in 1964, natural resource production--including mining, energy, timber, and livestock raising--have sharply declined, depriving rural communities and their economies of crucial jobs and economic activity. Timber production, for example, has been cut by about 90 percent since the 1980s. So instead of providing sustainable, renewable, economically productive logging in the Northwest, these forests are now managed by catastrophic wildfire under the supervision--or I should say the failed supervision--of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. If you don't believe me, ask anyone who lives in the Western United States. Ask anyone who lives in the communities of Utah who have seen the environmental and economic devastation brought about as a result of failed land management policies. Now, some claim, rather audaciously, that the outdoor recreation economy is a major boon to these very same communities that are being impoverished by it. But usually, nearly always, people who say that aren't people who live in those communities. Seasonal tourism is not a sustainable core industry for most communities. Much of the money spent on outdoor recreation ends up going to apparel, equipment, and gear from large out-of-state companies. Rural public lands counties don't see a penny of it. This is especially true in those counties where the Federal Government owns not just 67 percent of the land mass, as is the case throughout Utah as a whole, but 90, 95 percent plus of the land in some counties. To make matters worse, Federal lands also mean a loss of property taxes and, as a result, a loss of huge sources of revenue and opportunities for States and for local communities. It is no coincidence that the poorest rural counties in the West are the very same communities, the very same counties where they have the most Federal land. The poorest counties are the counties with the most Federal land. Why is that? Well, there are a number of reasons, but one of the things that has to be taken into account isthe fact that, without property taxes, schools are underfunded, local governments are crippled, fire departments are, ironically, depleted and, therefore, unable to properly take care of the lands they are charged to protect in the first place. This, by the way, says nothing of the loss of economic activity as a whole. I am just talking here about the lack of property tax revenue Now, there is a Federal program for this, the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program, also known as the PILT Program, as the abbreviation refers. This is a program that was intended to address this disparity by compensating counties and local communities for their loss of property taxes--that is the loss from property taxes that comes about as a result of significant Federal land ownership and the Federal Government's declaration, by law, that its lands may not be taxed. But PILT payments have provided only a pittance of what would be due to local governments were Federal lands not exempt from property taxes. In 2018, the Utah Legislature commissioned a state-of-the-art evaluation of 32 million acres of Federal land in Utah, excluding roughly 3 million acres of National Parks and Wilderness Areas. Now, this May, that same commission found that appraising these BLM and Forest Service lands according to their lowest use value would result in an annual property tax bill of $534 million. And this, by the way, in addition to excluding National Parks and Wilderness Areas from that equation, was a study that involved only those Federal lands extending to within 1 mile of any municipal boundary or of any city or town in Utah. So this fraction would produce $534 million annually in property tax revenue, even if it were taxed at its lowest value. In 2019, the PILT payments to Utah statewide totaled just $41 million, just 7.7 percent of the potential revenue from property taxes. Again, we are not talking about the National Parks or their National Wilderness Areas, nor are we talking about the lands outside of 1 mile beyond any municipal boundary. And while States and localities are the ones carrying the unfair economic burden, Washington only pours salt in these wounds by neglecting its oversight responsibilities. In May 2019, a GAO report found that BLM fails to maintain centralized data on lands acquired and that an increasing element of LWCF funds across agencies are being spent on acquisition projects that occur without and, in some cases, contrary to congressional approval. Not only that, but a December 2019 GAO report found that numerous agencies have blatantly disregarded LWCF requirements in order to illegally purchase more land. Yes. They are buying land, in many cases, contrary to their statutory authorization and limitations imposed by law. Under the original LWCF Act, no more than 15 percent of the land added to the National Forest System is to be west of the 100th meridian, essentially everything west of Oklahoma. But the GAO found that between fiscal years 2014 and 2018, the Federal Government had acquired more than 450,000 acres of land in the United States, more than 80 percent of which were west of the 100th meridian. In another recent review of land acquisition policies across the agencies conducted by the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, officials said that 40 percent of the land acquired with LWCF funds were not even requested by the agencies--not requested in the first place, yet they were purchased in some cases contrary to an explicit statutory command. As it turns out, billions of LWCF dollars are being spent without the Congress and without the relevant agencies or the public being informed of where or why or pursuant to what authority they were made. Why, then, would it ever make sense to turn this into an entitlement program, to turn this into something that is self-perpetuating--into a self-licking ice cream cone--that needs no support or reauthorization year to year from Congress? Last year, the Senate permanently reauthorized this broken, harmful, dangerous, unaccountable fund without reform and without any incentive to offer future reforms, but as if that weren't bad enough, the legislation before us now proposes to make that funding mandatory. Before, Congress could at least appropriate varying amounts to be used from the fund. Now, this bill, if passed, would turn the LWCF into a true trust fund, automatically requiring that the full $900 million be spent primarily on Federal land acquisition each year in perpetuity without accountability and without oversight. The unofficial Congressional Budget Office score estimates that this bill, as a whole, will cost nearly $17.3 billion over the next 10 years, all for land projects that we cannot afford, let alone maintain. This is not how Congress was tasked with exercising the power of the purse. This is not how it is supposed to work--not in this country and certainly not in this legislative body. It is the tough business of Congress to set priorities and to decide which, among worthy causes, should receive our limited resources. These funds could be going to provide relief in the midst of the current pandemic or to our national defense or to shoring up benefits for veterans or to a myriad of other goals. Putting these funds into a direct deposit mechanism, however, means that we are not having those conversations and not actively evaluating how we can best spend those taxpayer dollars each year. No, no. Instead, we are going to put it on autopilot. That is what this bill wants to do rather shamefully. This provision of the bill automatically puts more funds toward the harmful cause of growing the Federal estate, putting us on an even worse path than we have already taken. In fact, the first provision of the bill is only evidence to the fact that we have bitten off far more than we can chew. We can do better. As it currently stands, we have nothing to gain from this legislation. The agenda of aggressively and endlessly growing our Federal estate has put us on a dangerous path with devastating effects for our lands and for the people who live, recreate, and survive off of them as my home State of Utah has already experienced far too well. If we do not change course, this path will only worsen for the rest of the Nation too. I want to point out something--a common misperception that people often have about Federal land and what it is and what it does. In many cases, if you don't live in the western United States, you are not necessarily aware of the fact that the overwhelming majority--not just most but the overwhelming majority of Federal land is not a national park. National parks are some of the few things people consistently like about the Federal Government. They are frequently the favorite thing about the Federal Government. We all love national parks. They are beautiful. They are fun, and they are something that the Federal Government does that everyone still enjoys and loves. But most Federal land is not a national park. The overwhelming majority isn't anything like a national park, and the way these lands are divided out really isn't fair. In every State east of Colorado, the Federal Government owns less than 15 percent of the land. In every State to the west of Colorado and including Colorado, the Federal Government owns at least 15 percent and, in many cases, many multiples of that. In my State it happens to be about 67 percent. A tiny segment of that land consists of national park land. Most of it is just land that you can't use for anything else. The local governments can't tax them, and people can't access them for economic or recreational purposes without a ``Mother, may I?'' from the Federal Government. That is what it is. Most of this land isn't even a national park or a national recreation area or a wilderness area or anything remotely worthy of that. This is just about Federal control, and most of it is not managed very well. The National Park System has been underfunded. They, in many ways, do the best job they can with what they have, but they have been chronically underfunded, and the national parks are quite well run compared to the vast majority of Federal public land we have, which is chronically neglected, environmentally mismanaged, often to the economic and environmental detriment of those States where there is a lot of Federal land. Take San Juan County, UT. The Federal Government owns somewhere along the order of 95 percent of the land in San Juan County. It also happens to be Utah's poorest county.These two issues are not a coincidence. The fact that they appear in the same land mass is not coincidental; it is causal. The Federal Government is the cause for the impoverishment of this county and other communities in Utah and throughout the United States. Why? Because people can't own the land, can't develop the land, can't tax the land to fund their schools, their search and rescue services, or any other government priority. Nor can they access it for most economic purposes. Finally, all of my other observations about this legislation notwithstanding, this is the Senate, and just like church is for sinners, the Senate floor isn't for perfect, hermetically sealed, finished bills. We are supposed to bring imperfect bills to the floor to debate and deliberate and amend and discuss and, ultimately, find consensus. That is why I and many of my colleagues have been trying to do exactly that in this very situation with this very bill. I have a number of amendments. Many western State Senators do as well. Several Gulf State Senators have their own concerns about this bill in its current form. The way the process is supposed to work is that we bring this and other bills like it to the floor, and we offer up changes and see where the Senate is, see where the process goes, using reason, gentle persuasion, and awkward improvements to each piece of legislation as our guide. That is how it is supposed to work. There are a number of Senators from western States, from Gulf States, and from States that really aren't in the West or the gulf that don't really have that much to do with Federal public land, but they can see the procedural and substantive defects of this bill. That is why many of us who really would like to make improvements to this bill have come together from different parts of the country. The process of actually legislating has gone out of fashion in Washington and, quite regrettably, out of this Chamber in recent years, but it is something that I think the whole Senate would like to get back to--and I mean the whole Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike. This is an issue that is neither Republican or Democratic; it is not liberal or conservative; it is not Libertarian. It is not an ideological viewpoint. I know people within this Chamber on virtually every point along the ideological political continuum who would very much like to see the Senate working as an actual legislative body rather than as a rubberstamp for whatever small handful of people happen to write out behind closed doors and decide must be the finished, perfect, hermetically sealed object of our vote. This is wrong. It is an insult, not just to the 100 Senators who are here. It is that to be sure, but nobody cares about that. It is more about those we represent, those who elected us. Those election certificates don't belong to us. They belong to the voters of our various States who expect us to represent them. Regardless of how we might vote on any particular piece of legislation, they expect us to have read it; they expect us to do our job by showing up and by offering to make it better where we see flaws and we see defects. There is no perfect bill, but we can still make legislation a lot less bad. We can make it better. We bring about actual consensus. Consensus is not found by ramming something through without an opportunity for amendment, debate, or discussion This is wrong. It has gone on for far too long. I have seen it under the leadership of Democrats and Republicans alike in this Chamber, and it has to end. It will end. The question is, How long is it going to take us and how much misery will the American people have to endure while most of their Senators are effectively locked out of meaningful legislative debate, discussion, and amendment? This is wrong, and it has to end. The debate on this bill has now been extended by a whole extra day. There is no earthly reason why we can't use that extra day to work through a handful of 15-minute votes on a handful of amendments. It is just not that hard. In the amount of time that I have been speaking tonight, we could have processed a couple of amendments. In the amount of time that will be devoted only to hand-wringing and dismissal of legitimate concerns with this legislation, we could process any amendment that anyone wants to introduce, and this legislation could still be passed weeks before the House of Representatives is even poised to return. So why are we not doing this? There is no persuasive answer here. We have to start doing our job. I look forward to working with our colleagues to get an agreement on some amendments so that we can give this legislation the due consideration and the careful deliberation that it deserves, that we deserve, that those who elected us deserve, and then move on to the important nominations pending before the Senate and to the National Defense Authorization Act that are next in line. In the meantime, I hope Democrats and Republicans alike can unite behind the fact that we can't skate forever under the mantra that the Senate is the world's greatest deliberative body when it does not deliberate. The good news is, it is entirely within our power to reclaim use of that title justifiably and with dignity. I yield the floor.
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2020-01-06
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Mr. LEE
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-09-pt1-PgS2834-5
| null | 796
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formal
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entitlement
| null |
racist
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Mr. LEE. Madam President, to most Americans, the so-called Great American Outdoors Act is a mistake. It is expensive, shortsighted, and it is wrong; but to those of us who live in the American West, it is a disaster. Despite its rosy claims, this legislation combines two bills that will only tighten the Federal stranglehold on our lands and drive us deeper into debt, to the detriment of our economy, our environment, and the livelihoods and the freedom of the American people. So just how, you might ask, does it do that? Well, let me explain. The first title containing an expanded version of the Restore Our Parks Act attempts to address the roughly $19.3 billion maintenance backlog on our Federal lands, concentrated primarily within national parks projects, which approach a $12 billion maintenance backlog just on their own, but it seeks to do so by spending $9.5 billion of Federal offshore energy revenues over 5 years, without any means whatsoever of offsetting those extra funds. Now, that, to be clear, is money that is currently going to the U.S. Treasury to pay for a number of other costs, anumber of other expenditures--from aircraft carriers to Federal courts and everything in between--and will only add to our already ballooning national debt. It is, we have to remember, Congress's job to set priorities for the funds in the Treasury. If we prioritize something--if we prioritize one thing--we must either proportionately decrease the funding for something else or find another way to generate new revenue. This bill does neither. Furthermore, without any measures to prevent it, it guarantees that a similar backlog will only reemerge in the future. There are better ways to address this problem. For example, there are much better ways in a proposal that has been introduced by Senator Enzi in a bill called the REAL Act. The REAL Act would modestly increase park visitor fees by $5, businesses and tourist visa fees by $25, and a visa waiver program fee by $16--estimated to bring an additional $5.5 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. This, the REAL Act, introduced by Senator Enzi is a reasonable, practical solution to sustainably address the maintenance backlog on our National Parks, which is a problem. It is a problem that needs to be dealt with, and the REAL Act does it in a very responsible, sustainable fashion. What is more, the REAL Act would create a permanent and independent way of supplementing the funding for our National Parks and do so without adding to the national debt. The second title of this bill--of the Great American Outdoors Act--creates almost $1 billion of mandatory spending every single year on new Federal land acquisition through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. In other words, it adds a new entitlement, adding to our already unaffordable system of entitlements. It puts it on a level playing field with things like Social Security and Medicare, other entitlement programs, the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Now, why would we do this when we are already on a collision course with our ability to fund Federal programs, including and especially those programs that America's seniors have paid for, for years, and come to rely on? Why would we do that for this program? Why make it mandatory spending and thus convert it into yet another unaffordable entitlement program? Let's talk a little bit about the Land and Water Conservation Fund, or LWCF, as it is known. This was originally put in place pursuant to a law passed in 1964, and the LWCF, as it was created and enacted into law back in 1964, was put in place in order to promote and preserve access to recreational opportunities on Federal public lands--on public lands generally, in fact. So the fund was set up to be the principal source of money for Federal land acquisition and to assist States in developing recreational opportunities on their own. Originally, it directed 60 percent of its funds to be appropriated for State purposes and 40 percent for Federal purposes. Unfortunately, the program has since drifted far from its original moorings and far from its original intent, and it has been rife with abuse. In 1976, the law was amended to remove the 60-percent State provision, stating simply that not less than 40 percent of the funds must be used for Federal purposes, while remaining silent on whether a State would receive a penny. Now, just over the last year or so, not less than 40 percent of the funds are dedicated to State purposes, so that still means that up to 60 percent of the funds can still be used for Federal land acquisition. The result? Well, it hasn't been good. It has been used more for Federal land acquisition than for improving access to or care of the vast Federal lands that we already own and manage--or in many cases, fail to manage. Sixty-one percent of the funds have historically been used for acquisition, compared to the 25 percent that have been allocated to State grants, spending close to $12 billion to purchase new Federal lands. So despite people's images of charming ribbon cuttings at local parks and scenic wildlife, the LWCF has functioned as the Federal Government's primary vehicle for Federal land grabs, resulting in a massive, restrictive, and neglected Federal estate. The Federal Government now owns 640 million acres of land--more than 640 million acres--within the United States. To put this in perspective, this amount--the more than 640 million acres of land currently owned by the Federal Government within the United States--is a total larger than the entireties of France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands combined. Now, I am not talking about the government-owned lands or the parklands within those countries. I am talking about the entirety of the countries themselves. The Federal Government owns more land than that. That is 28 percent of the total acreage within the United States, and more than 50 percent of the land in the West. This has proven to be far more land than the Federal Government is capable of managing responsibly. The condition of the vast Federal estate ranges from fair to poor to dismal. These lands face problems with rampant wildfires, soil erosion, mismanagement, and littering--with a staggering combined maintenance backlog of nearly $20 billion. Resources are only being spread thinner as they are being stretched to serve more and more lands--more and more lands that are now going to be bought with the new entitlement spending that we are putting in place with this bill should we enact this ill-conceived legislative proposal. On top of that, many of the LWCF funds have been diverted to a vague ``other purposes'' category that has, in many instances, little to do with access to outdoor recreation at all. In fact, many of the programs it has funded have, instead, aimed to pull land from public use, regardless of how the land in question is classified. So rather than increasing opportunities for hunting and fishing, snowmobiling, hiking, camping, mountain biking, or kayaking, the land policies in place have slowly been squeezing out recreational opportunities, and this has been going on for decades. And so, too, have these policies imposed severe economic restrictions. As the Federal estate has grown since the time the LWCF was established in 1964, natural resource production--including mining, energy, timber, and livestock raising--have sharply declined, depriving rural communities and their economies of crucial jobs and economic activity. Timber production, for example, has been cut by about 90 percent since the 1980s. So instead of providing sustainable, renewable, economically productive logging in the Northwest, these forests are now managed by catastrophic wildfire under the supervision--or I should say the failed supervision--of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. If you don't believe me, ask anyone who lives in the Western United States. Ask anyone who lives in the communities of Utah who have seen the environmental and economic devastation brought about as a result of failed land management policies. Now, some claim, rather audaciously, that the outdoor recreation economy is a major boon to these very same communities that are being impoverished by it. But usually, nearly always, people who say that aren't people who live in those communities. Seasonal tourism is not a sustainable core industry for most communities. Much of the money spent on outdoor recreation ends up going to apparel, equipment, and gear from large out-of-state companies. Rural public lands counties don't see a penny of it. This is especially true in those counties where the Federal Government owns not just 67 percent of the land mass, as is the case throughout Utah as a whole, but 90, 95 percent plus of the land in some counties. To make matters worse, Federal lands also mean a loss of property taxes and, as a result, a loss of huge sources of revenue and opportunities for States and for local communities. It is no coincidence that the poorest rural counties in the West are the very same communities, the very same counties where they have the most Federal land. The poorest counties are the counties with the most Federal land. Why is that? Well, there are a number of reasons, but one of the things that has to be taken into account isthe fact that, without property taxes, schools are underfunded, local governments are crippled, fire departments are, ironically, depleted and, therefore, unable to properly take care of the lands they are charged to protect in the first place. This, by the way, says nothing of the loss of economic activity as a whole. I am just talking here about the lack of property tax revenue Now, there is a Federal program for this, the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program, also known as the PILT Program, as the abbreviation refers. This is a program that was intended to address this disparity by compensating counties and local communities for their loss of property taxes--that is the loss from property taxes that comes about as a result of significant Federal land ownership and the Federal Government's declaration, by law, that its lands may not be taxed. But PILT payments have provided only a pittance of what would be due to local governments were Federal lands not exempt from property taxes. In 2018, the Utah Legislature commissioned a state-of-the-art evaluation of 32 million acres of Federal land in Utah, excluding roughly 3 million acres of National Parks and Wilderness Areas. Now, this May, that same commission found that appraising these BLM and Forest Service lands according to their lowest use value would result in an annual property tax bill of $534 million. And this, by the way, in addition to excluding National Parks and Wilderness Areas from that equation, was a study that involved only those Federal lands extending to within 1 mile of any municipal boundary or of any city or town in Utah. So this fraction would produce $534 million annually in property tax revenue, even if it were taxed at its lowest value. In 2019, the PILT payments to Utah statewide totaled just $41 million, just 7.7 percent of the potential revenue from property taxes. Again, we are not talking about the National Parks or their National Wilderness Areas, nor are we talking about the lands outside of 1 mile beyond any municipal boundary. And while States and localities are the ones carrying the unfair economic burden, Washington only pours salt in these wounds by neglecting its oversight responsibilities. In May 2019, a GAO report found that BLM fails to maintain centralized data on lands acquired and that an increasing element of LWCF funds across agencies are being spent on acquisition projects that occur without and, in some cases, contrary to congressional approval. Not only that, but a December 2019 GAO report found that numerous agencies have blatantly disregarded LWCF requirements in order to illegally purchase more land. Yes. They are buying land, in many cases, contrary to their statutory authorization and limitations imposed by law. Under the original LWCF Act, no more than 15 percent of the land added to the National Forest System is to be west of the 100th meridian, essentially everything west of Oklahoma. But the GAO found that between fiscal years 2014 and 2018, the Federal Government had acquired more than 450,000 acres of land in the United States, more than 80 percent of which were west of the 100th meridian. In another recent review of land acquisition policies across the agencies conducted by the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, officials said that 40 percent of the land acquired with LWCF funds were not even requested by the agencies--not requested in the first place, yet they were purchased in some cases contrary to an explicit statutory command. As it turns out, billions of LWCF dollars are being spent without the Congress and without the relevant agencies or the public being informed of where or why or pursuant to what authority they were made. Why, then, would it ever make sense to turn this into an entitlement program, to turn this into something that is self-perpetuating--into a self-licking ice cream cone--that needs no support or reauthorization year to year from Congress? Last year, the Senate permanently reauthorized this broken, harmful, dangerous, unaccountable fund without reform and without any incentive to offer future reforms, but as if that weren't bad enough, the legislation before us now proposes to make that funding mandatory. Before, Congress could at least appropriate varying amounts to be used from the fund. Now, this bill, if passed, would turn the LWCF into a true trust fund, automatically requiring that the full $900 million be spent primarily on Federal land acquisition each year in perpetuity without accountability and without oversight. The unofficial Congressional Budget Office score estimates that this bill, as a whole, will cost nearly $17.3 billion over the next 10 years, all for land projects that we cannot afford, let alone maintain. This is not how Congress was tasked with exercising the power of the purse. This is not how it is supposed to work--not in this country and certainly not in this legislative body. It is the tough business of Congress to set priorities and to decide which, among worthy causes, should receive our limited resources. These funds could be going to provide relief in the midst of the current pandemic or to our national defense or to shoring up benefits for veterans or to a myriad of other goals. Putting these funds into a direct deposit mechanism, however, means that we are not having those conversations and not actively evaluating how we can best spend those taxpayer dollars each year. No, no. Instead, we are going to put it on autopilot. That is what this bill wants to do rather shamefully. This provision of the bill automatically puts more funds toward the harmful cause of growing the Federal estate, putting us on an even worse path than we have already taken. In fact, the first provision of the bill is only evidence to the fact that we have bitten off far more than we can chew. We can do better. As it currently stands, we have nothing to gain from this legislation. The agenda of aggressively and endlessly growing our Federal estate has put us on a dangerous path with devastating effects for our lands and for the people who live, recreate, and survive off of them as my home State of Utah has already experienced far too well. If we do not change course, this path will only worsen for the rest of the Nation too. I want to point out something--a common misperception that people often have about Federal land and what it is and what it does. In many cases, if you don't live in the western United States, you are not necessarily aware of the fact that the overwhelming majority--not just most but the overwhelming majority of Federal land is not a national park. National parks are some of the few things people consistently like about the Federal Government. They are frequently the favorite thing about the Federal Government. We all love national parks. They are beautiful. They are fun, and they are something that the Federal Government does that everyone still enjoys and loves. But most Federal land is not a national park. The overwhelming majority isn't anything like a national park, and the way these lands are divided out really isn't fair. In every State east of Colorado, the Federal Government owns less than 15 percent of the land. In every State to the west of Colorado and including Colorado, the Federal Government owns at least 15 percent and, in many cases, many multiples of that. In my State it happens to be about 67 percent. A tiny segment of that land consists of national park land. Most of it is just land that you can't use for anything else. The local governments can't tax them, and people can't access them for economic or recreational purposes without a ``Mother, may I?'' from the Federal Government. That is what it is. Most of this land isn't even a national park or a national recreation area or a wilderness area or anything remotely worthy of that. This is just about Federal control, and most of it is not managed very well. The National Park System has been underfunded. They, in many ways, do the best job they can with what they have, but they have been chronically underfunded, and the national parks are quite well run compared to the vast majority of Federal public land we have, which is chronically neglected, environmentally mismanaged, often to the economic and environmental detriment of those States where there is a lot of Federal land. Take San Juan County, UT. The Federal Government owns somewhere along the order of 95 percent of the land in San Juan County. It also happens to be Utah's poorest county.These two issues are not a coincidence. The fact that they appear in the same land mass is not coincidental; it is causal. The Federal Government is the cause for the impoverishment of this county and other communities in Utah and throughout the United States. Why? Because people can't own the land, can't develop the land, can't tax the land to fund their schools, their search and rescue services, or any other government priority. Nor can they access it for most economic purposes. Finally, all of my other observations about this legislation notwithstanding, this is the Senate, and just like church is for sinners, the Senate floor isn't for perfect, hermetically sealed, finished bills. We are supposed to bring imperfect bills to the floor to debate and deliberate and amend and discuss and, ultimately, find consensus. That is why I and many of my colleagues have been trying to do exactly that in this very situation with this very bill. I have a number of amendments. Many western State Senators do as well. Several Gulf State Senators have their own concerns about this bill in its current form. The way the process is supposed to work is that we bring this and other bills like it to the floor, and we offer up changes and see where the Senate is, see where the process goes, using reason, gentle persuasion, and awkward improvements to each piece of legislation as our guide. That is how it is supposed to work. There are a number of Senators from western States, from Gulf States, and from States that really aren't in the West or the gulf that don't really have that much to do with Federal public land, but they can see the procedural and substantive defects of this bill. That is why many of us who really would like to make improvements to this bill have come together from different parts of the country. The process of actually legislating has gone out of fashion in Washington and, quite regrettably, out of this Chamber in recent years, but it is something that I think the whole Senate would like to get back to--and I mean the whole Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike. This is an issue that is neither Republican or Democratic; it is not liberal or conservative; it is not Libertarian. It is not an ideological viewpoint. I know people within this Chamber on virtually every point along the ideological political continuum who would very much like to see the Senate working as an actual legislative body rather than as a rubberstamp for whatever small handful of people happen to write out behind closed doors and decide must be the finished, perfect, hermetically sealed object of our vote. This is wrong. It is an insult, not just to the 100 Senators who are here. It is that to be sure, but nobody cares about that. It is more about those we represent, those who elected us. Those election certificates don't belong to us. They belong to the voters of our various States who expect us to represent them. Regardless of how we might vote on any particular piece of legislation, they expect us to have read it; they expect us to do our job by showing up and by offering to make it better where we see flaws and we see defects. There is no perfect bill, but we can still make legislation a lot less bad. We can make it better. We bring about actual consensus. Consensus is not found by ramming something through without an opportunity for amendment, debate, or discussion This is wrong. It has gone on for far too long. I have seen it under the leadership of Democrats and Republicans alike in this Chamber, and it has to end. It will end. The question is, How long is it going to take us and how much misery will the American people have to endure while most of their Senators are effectively locked out of meaningful legislative debate, discussion, and amendment? This is wrong, and it has to end. The debate on this bill has now been extended by a whole extra day. There is no earthly reason why we can't use that extra day to work through a handful of 15-minute votes on a handful of amendments. It is just not that hard. In the amount of time that I have been speaking tonight, we could have processed a couple of amendments. In the amount of time that will be devoted only to hand-wringing and dismissal of legitimate concerns with this legislation, we could process any amendment that anyone wants to introduce, and this legislation could still be passed weeks before the House of Representatives is even poised to return. So why are we not doing this? There is no persuasive answer here. We have to start doing our job. I look forward to working with our colleagues to get an agreement on some amendments so that we can give this legislation the due consideration and the careful deliberation that it deserves, that we deserve, that those who elected us deserve, and then move on to the important nominations pending before the Senate and to the National Defense Authorization Act that are next in line. In the meantime, I hope Democrats and Republicans alike can unite behind the fact that we can't skate forever under the mantra that the Senate is the world's greatest deliberative body when it does not deliberate. The good news is, it is entirely within our power to reclaim use of that title justifiably and with dignity. I yield the floor.
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2020-01-06
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Mr. LEE
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-09-pt1-PgS2834-5
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formal
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entitlements
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racist
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Mr. LEE. Madam President, to most Americans, the so-called Great American Outdoors Act is a mistake. It is expensive, shortsighted, and it is wrong; but to those of us who live in the American West, it is a disaster. Despite its rosy claims, this legislation combines two bills that will only tighten the Federal stranglehold on our lands and drive us deeper into debt, to the detriment of our economy, our environment, and the livelihoods and the freedom of the American people. So just how, you might ask, does it do that? Well, let me explain. The first title containing an expanded version of the Restore Our Parks Act attempts to address the roughly $19.3 billion maintenance backlog on our Federal lands, concentrated primarily within national parks projects, which approach a $12 billion maintenance backlog just on their own, but it seeks to do so by spending $9.5 billion of Federal offshore energy revenues over 5 years, without any means whatsoever of offsetting those extra funds. Now, that, to be clear, is money that is currently going to the U.S. Treasury to pay for a number of other costs, anumber of other expenditures--from aircraft carriers to Federal courts and everything in between--and will only add to our already ballooning national debt. It is, we have to remember, Congress's job to set priorities for the funds in the Treasury. If we prioritize something--if we prioritize one thing--we must either proportionately decrease the funding for something else or find another way to generate new revenue. This bill does neither. Furthermore, without any measures to prevent it, it guarantees that a similar backlog will only reemerge in the future. There are better ways to address this problem. For example, there are much better ways in a proposal that has been introduced by Senator Enzi in a bill called the REAL Act. The REAL Act would modestly increase park visitor fees by $5, businesses and tourist visa fees by $25, and a visa waiver program fee by $16--estimated to bring an additional $5.5 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. This, the REAL Act, introduced by Senator Enzi is a reasonable, practical solution to sustainably address the maintenance backlog on our National Parks, which is a problem. It is a problem that needs to be dealt with, and the REAL Act does it in a very responsible, sustainable fashion. What is more, the REAL Act would create a permanent and independent way of supplementing the funding for our National Parks and do so without adding to the national debt. The second title of this bill--of the Great American Outdoors Act--creates almost $1 billion of mandatory spending every single year on new Federal land acquisition through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. In other words, it adds a new entitlement, adding to our already unaffordable system of entitlements. It puts it on a level playing field with things like Social Security and Medicare, other entitlement programs, the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Now, why would we do this when we are already on a collision course with our ability to fund Federal programs, including and especially those programs that America's seniors have paid for, for years, and come to rely on? Why would we do that for this program? Why make it mandatory spending and thus convert it into yet another unaffordable entitlement program? Let's talk a little bit about the Land and Water Conservation Fund, or LWCF, as it is known. This was originally put in place pursuant to a law passed in 1964, and the LWCF, as it was created and enacted into law back in 1964, was put in place in order to promote and preserve access to recreational opportunities on Federal public lands--on public lands generally, in fact. So the fund was set up to be the principal source of money for Federal land acquisition and to assist States in developing recreational opportunities on their own. Originally, it directed 60 percent of its funds to be appropriated for State purposes and 40 percent for Federal purposes. Unfortunately, the program has since drifted far from its original moorings and far from its original intent, and it has been rife with abuse. In 1976, the law was amended to remove the 60-percent State provision, stating simply that not less than 40 percent of the funds must be used for Federal purposes, while remaining silent on whether a State would receive a penny. Now, just over the last year or so, not less than 40 percent of the funds are dedicated to State purposes, so that still means that up to 60 percent of the funds can still be used for Federal land acquisition. The result? Well, it hasn't been good. It has been used more for Federal land acquisition than for improving access to or care of the vast Federal lands that we already own and manage--or in many cases, fail to manage. Sixty-one percent of the funds have historically been used for acquisition, compared to the 25 percent that have been allocated to State grants, spending close to $12 billion to purchase new Federal lands. So despite people's images of charming ribbon cuttings at local parks and scenic wildlife, the LWCF has functioned as the Federal Government's primary vehicle for Federal land grabs, resulting in a massive, restrictive, and neglected Federal estate. The Federal Government now owns 640 million acres of land--more than 640 million acres--within the United States. To put this in perspective, this amount--the more than 640 million acres of land currently owned by the Federal Government within the United States--is a total larger than the entireties of France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands combined. Now, I am not talking about the government-owned lands or the parklands within those countries. I am talking about the entirety of the countries themselves. The Federal Government owns more land than that. That is 28 percent of the total acreage within the United States, and more than 50 percent of the land in the West. This has proven to be far more land than the Federal Government is capable of managing responsibly. The condition of the vast Federal estate ranges from fair to poor to dismal. These lands face problems with rampant wildfires, soil erosion, mismanagement, and littering--with a staggering combined maintenance backlog of nearly $20 billion. Resources are only being spread thinner as they are being stretched to serve more and more lands--more and more lands that are now going to be bought with the new entitlement spending that we are putting in place with this bill should we enact this ill-conceived legislative proposal. On top of that, many of the LWCF funds have been diverted to a vague ``other purposes'' category that has, in many instances, little to do with access to outdoor recreation at all. In fact, many of the programs it has funded have, instead, aimed to pull land from public use, regardless of how the land in question is classified. So rather than increasing opportunities for hunting and fishing, snowmobiling, hiking, camping, mountain biking, or kayaking, the land policies in place have slowly been squeezing out recreational opportunities, and this has been going on for decades. And so, too, have these policies imposed severe economic restrictions. As the Federal estate has grown since the time the LWCF was established in 1964, natural resource production--including mining, energy, timber, and livestock raising--have sharply declined, depriving rural communities and their economies of crucial jobs and economic activity. Timber production, for example, has been cut by about 90 percent since the 1980s. So instead of providing sustainable, renewable, economically productive logging in the Northwest, these forests are now managed by catastrophic wildfire under the supervision--or I should say the failed supervision--of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. If you don't believe me, ask anyone who lives in the Western United States. Ask anyone who lives in the communities of Utah who have seen the environmental and economic devastation brought about as a result of failed land management policies. Now, some claim, rather audaciously, that the outdoor recreation economy is a major boon to these very same communities that are being impoverished by it. But usually, nearly always, people who say that aren't people who live in those communities. Seasonal tourism is not a sustainable core industry for most communities. Much of the money spent on outdoor recreation ends up going to apparel, equipment, and gear from large out-of-state companies. Rural public lands counties don't see a penny of it. This is especially true in those counties where the Federal Government owns not just 67 percent of the land mass, as is the case throughout Utah as a whole, but 90, 95 percent plus of the land in some counties. To make matters worse, Federal lands also mean a loss of property taxes and, as a result, a loss of huge sources of revenue and opportunities for States and for local communities. It is no coincidence that the poorest rural counties in the West are the very same communities, the very same counties where they have the most Federal land. The poorest counties are the counties with the most Federal land. Why is that? Well, there are a number of reasons, but one of the things that has to be taken into account isthe fact that, without property taxes, schools are underfunded, local governments are crippled, fire departments are, ironically, depleted and, therefore, unable to properly take care of the lands they are charged to protect in the first place. This, by the way, says nothing of the loss of economic activity as a whole. I am just talking here about the lack of property tax revenue Now, there is a Federal program for this, the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program, also known as the PILT Program, as the abbreviation refers. This is a program that was intended to address this disparity by compensating counties and local communities for their loss of property taxes--that is the loss from property taxes that comes about as a result of significant Federal land ownership and the Federal Government's declaration, by law, that its lands may not be taxed. But PILT payments have provided only a pittance of what would be due to local governments were Federal lands not exempt from property taxes. In 2018, the Utah Legislature commissioned a state-of-the-art evaluation of 32 million acres of Federal land in Utah, excluding roughly 3 million acres of National Parks and Wilderness Areas. Now, this May, that same commission found that appraising these BLM and Forest Service lands according to their lowest use value would result in an annual property tax bill of $534 million. And this, by the way, in addition to excluding National Parks and Wilderness Areas from that equation, was a study that involved only those Federal lands extending to within 1 mile of any municipal boundary or of any city or town in Utah. So this fraction would produce $534 million annually in property tax revenue, even if it were taxed at its lowest value. In 2019, the PILT payments to Utah statewide totaled just $41 million, just 7.7 percent of the potential revenue from property taxes. Again, we are not talking about the National Parks or their National Wilderness Areas, nor are we talking about the lands outside of 1 mile beyond any municipal boundary. And while States and localities are the ones carrying the unfair economic burden, Washington only pours salt in these wounds by neglecting its oversight responsibilities. In May 2019, a GAO report found that BLM fails to maintain centralized data on lands acquired and that an increasing element of LWCF funds across agencies are being spent on acquisition projects that occur without and, in some cases, contrary to congressional approval. Not only that, but a December 2019 GAO report found that numerous agencies have blatantly disregarded LWCF requirements in order to illegally purchase more land. Yes. They are buying land, in many cases, contrary to their statutory authorization and limitations imposed by law. Under the original LWCF Act, no more than 15 percent of the land added to the National Forest System is to be west of the 100th meridian, essentially everything west of Oklahoma. But the GAO found that between fiscal years 2014 and 2018, the Federal Government had acquired more than 450,000 acres of land in the United States, more than 80 percent of which were west of the 100th meridian. In another recent review of land acquisition policies across the agencies conducted by the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, officials said that 40 percent of the land acquired with LWCF funds were not even requested by the agencies--not requested in the first place, yet they were purchased in some cases contrary to an explicit statutory command. As it turns out, billions of LWCF dollars are being spent without the Congress and without the relevant agencies or the public being informed of where or why or pursuant to what authority they were made. Why, then, would it ever make sense to turn this into an entitlement program, to turn this into something that is self-perpetuating--into a self-licking ice cream cone--that needs no support or reauthorization year to year from Congress? Last year, the Senate permanently reauthorized this broken, harmful, dangerous, unaccountable fund without reform and without any incentive to offer future reforms, but as if that weren't bad enough, the legislation before us now proposes to make that funding mandatory. Before, Congress could at least appropriate varying amounts to be used from the fund. Now, this bill, if passed, would turn the LWCF into a true trust fund, automatically requiring that the full $900 million be spent primarily on Federal land acquisition each year in perpetuity without accountability and without oversight. The unofficial Congressional Budget Office score estimates that this bill, as a whole, will cost nearly $17.3 billion over the next 10 years, all for land projects that we cannot afford, let alone maintain. This is not how Congress was tasked with exercising the power of the purse. This is not how it is supposed to work--not in this country and certainly not in this legislative body. It is the tough business of Congress to set priorities and to decide which, among worthy causes, should receive our limited resources. These funds could be going to provide relief in the midst of the current pandemic or to our national defense or to shoring up benefits for veterans or to a myriad of other goals. Putting these funds into a direct deposit mechanism, however, means that we are not having those conversations and not actively evaluating how we can best spend those taxpayer dollars each year. No, no. Instead, we are going to put it on autopilot. That is what this bill wants to do rather shamefully. This provision of the bill automatically puts more funds toward the harmful cause of growing the Federal estate, putting us on an even worse path than we have already taken. In fact, the first provision of the bill is only evidence to the fact that we have bitten off far more than we can chew. We can do better. As it currently stands, we have nothing to gain from this legislation. The agenda of aggressively and endlessly growing our Federal estate has put us on a dangerous path with devastating effects for our lands and for the people who live, recreate, and survive off of them as my home State of Utah has already experienced far too well. If we do not change course, this path will only worsen for the rest of the Nation too. I want to point out something--a common misperception that people often have about Federal land and what it is and what it does. In many cases, if you don't live in the western United States, you are not necessarily aware of the fact that the overwhelming majority--not just most but the overwhelming majority of Federal land is not a national park. National parks are some of the few things people consistently like about the Federal Government. They are frequently the favorite thing about the Federal Government. We all love national parks. They are beautiful. They are fun, and they are something that the Federal Government does that everyone still enjoys and loves. But most Federal land is not a national park. The overwhelming majority isn't anything like a national park, and the way these lands are divided out really isn't fair. In every State east of Colorado, the Federal Government owns less than 15 percent of the land. In every State to the west of Colorado and including Colorado, the Federal Government owns at least 15 percent and, in many cases, many multiples of that. In my State it happens to be about 67 percent. A tiny segment of that land consists of national park land. Most of it is just land that you can't use for anything else. The local governments can't tax them, and people can't access them for economic or recreational purposes without a ``Mother, may I?'' from the Federal Government. That is what it is. Most of this land isn't even a national park or a national recreation area or a wilderness area or anything remotely worthy of that. This is just about Federal control, and most of it is not managed very well. The National Park System has been underfunded. They, in many ways, do the best job they can with what they have, but they have been chronically underfunded, and the national parks are quite well run compared to the vast majority of Federal public land we have, which is chronically neglected, environmentally mismanaged, often to the economic and environmental detriment of those States where there is a lot of Federal land. Take San Juan County, UT. The Federal Government owns somewhere along the order of 95 percent of the land in San Juan County. It also happens to be Utah's poorest county.These two issues are not a coincidence. The fact that they appear in the same land mass is not coincidental; it is causal. The Federal Government is the cause for the impoverishment of this county and other communities in Utah and throughout the United States. Why? Because people can't own the land, can't develop the land, can't tax the land to fund their schools, their search and rescue services, or any other government priority. Nor can they access it for most economic purposes. Finally, all of my other observations about this legislation notwithstanding, this is the Senate, and just like church is for sinners, the Senate floor isn't for perfect, hermetically sealed, finished bills. We are supposed to bring imperfect bills to the floor to debate and deliberate and amend and discuss and, ultimately, find consensus. That is why I and many of my colleagues have been trying to do exactly that in this very situation with this very bill. I have a number of amendments. Many western State Senators do as well. Several Gulf State Senators have their own concerns about this bill in its current form. The way the process is supposed to work is that we bring this and other bills like it to the floor, and we offer up changes and see where the Senate is, see where the process goes, using reason, gentle persuasion, and awkward improvements to each piece of legislation as our guide. That is how it is supposed to work. There are a number of Senators from western States, from Gulf States, and from States that really aren't in the West or the gulf that don't really have that much to do with Federal public land, but they can see the procedural and substantive defects of this bill. That is why many of us who really would like to make improvements to this bill have come together from different parts of the country. The process of actually legislating has gone out of fashion in Washington and, quite regrettably, out of this Chamber in recent years, but it is something that I think the whole Senate would like to get back to--and I mean the whole Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike. This is an issue that is neither Republican or Democratic; it is not liberal or conservative; it is not Libertarian. It is not an ideological viewpoint. I know people within this Chamber on virtually every point along the ideological political continuum who would very much like to see the Senate working as an actual legislative body rather than as a rubberstamp for whatever small handful of people happen to write out behind closed doors and decide must be the finished, perfect, hermetically sealed object of our vote. This is wrong. It is an insult, not just to the 100 Senators who are here. It is that to be sure, but nobody cares about that. It is more about those we represent, those who elected us. Those election certificates don't belong to us. They belong to the voters of our various States who expect us to represent them. Regardless of how we might vote on any particular piece of legislation, they expect us to have read it; they expect us to do our job by showing up and by offering to make it better where we see flaws and we see defects. There is no perfect bill, but we can still make legislation a lot less bad. We can make it better. We bring about actual consensus. Consensus is not found by ramming something through without an opportunity for amendment, debate, or discussion This is wrong. It has gone on for far too long. I have seen it under the leadership of Democrats and Republicans alike in this Chamber, and it has to end. It will end. The question is, How long is it going to take us and how much misery will the American people have to endure while most of their Senators are effectively locked out of meaningful legislative debate, discussion, and amendment? This is wrong, and it has to end. The debate on this bill has now been extended by a whole extra day. There is no earthly reason why we can't use that extra day to work through a handful of 15-minute votes on a handful of amendments. It is just not that hard. In the amount of time that I have been speaking tonight, we could have processed a couple of amendments. In the amount of time that will be devoted only to hand-wringing and dismissal of legitimate concerns with this legislation, we could process any amendment that anyone wants to introduce, and this legislation could still be passed weeks before the House of Representatives is even poised to return. So why are we not doing this? There is no persuasive answer here. We have to start doing our job. I look forward to working with our colleagues to get an agreement on some amendments so that we can give this legislation the due consideration and the careful deliberation that it deserves, that we deserve, that those who elected us deserve, and then move on to the important nominations pending before the Senate and to the National Defense Authorization Act that are next in line. In the meantime, I hope Democrats and Republicans alike can unite behind the fact that we can't skate forever under the mantra that the Senate is the world's greatest deliberative body when it does not deliberate. The good news is, it is entirely within our power to reclaim use of that title justifiably and with dignity. I yield the floor.
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2020-01-06
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Mr. LEE
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-09-pt1-PgS2834-5
| null | 798
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formal
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entitlement spending
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racist
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Mr. LEE. Madam President, to most Americans, the so-called Great American Outdoors Act is a mistake. It is expensive, shortsighted, and it is wrong; but to those of us who live in the American West, it is a disaster. Despite its rosy claims, this legislation combines two bills that will only tighten the Federal stranglehold on our lands and drive us deeper into debt, to the detriment of our economy, our environment, and the livelihoods and the freedom of the American people. So just how, you might ask, does it do that? Well, let me explain. The first title containing an expanded version of the Restore Our Parks Act attempts to address the roughly $19.3 billion maintenance backlog on our Federal lands, concentrated primarily within national parks projects, which approach a $12 billion maintenance backlog just on their own, but it seeks to do so by spending $9.5 billion of Federal offshore energy revenues over 5 years, without any means whatsoever of offsetting those extra funds. Now, that, to be clear, is money that is currently going to the U.S. Treasury to pay for a number of other costs, anumber of other expenditures--from aircraft carriers to Federal courts and everything in between--and will only add to our already ballooning national debt. It is, we have to remember, Congress's job to set priorities for the funds in the Treasury. If we prioritize something--if we prioritize one thing--we must either proportionately decrease the funding for something else or find another way to generate new revenue. This bill does neither. Furthermore, without any measures to prevent it, it guarantees that a similar backlog will only reemerge in the future. There are better ways to address this problem. For example, there are much better ways in a proposal that has been introduced by Senator Enzi in a bill called the REAL Act. The REAL Act would modestly increase park visitor fees by $5, businesses and tourist visa fees by $25, and a visa waiver program fee by $16--estimated to bring an additional $5.5 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. This, the REAL Act, introduced by Senator Enzi is a reasonable, practical solution to sustainably address the maintenance backlog on our National Parks, which is a problem. It is a problem that needs to be dealt with, and the REAL Act does it in a very responsible, sustainable fashion. What is more, the REAL Act would create a permanent and independent way of supplementing the funding for our National Parks and do so without adding to the national debt. The second title of this bill--of the Great American Outdoors Act--creates almost $1 billion of mandatory spending every single year on new Federal land acquisition through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. In other words, it adds a new entitlement, adding to our already unaffordable system of entitlements. It puts it on a level playing field with things like Social Security and Medicare, other entitlement programs, the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Now, why would we do this when we are already on a collision course with our ability to fund Federal programs, including and especially those programs that America's seniors have paid for, for years, and come to rely on? Why would we do that for this program? Why make it mandatory spending and thus convert it into yet another unaffordable entitlement program? Let's talk a little bit about the Land and Water Conservation Fund, or LWCF, as it is known. This was originally put in place pursuant to a law passed in 1964, and the LWCF, as it was created and enacted into law back in 1964, was put in place in order to promote and preserve access to recreational opportunities on Federal public lands--on public lands generally, in fact. So the fund was set up to be the principal source of money for Federal land acquisition and to assist States in developing recreational opportunities on their own. Originally, it directed 60 percent of its funds to be appropriated for State purposes and 40 percent for Federal purposes. Unfortunately, the program has since drifted far from its original moorings and far from its original intent, and it has been rife with abuse. In 1976, the law was amended to remove the 60-percent State provision, stating simply that not less than 40 percent of the funds must be used for Federal purposes, while remaining silent on whether a State would receive a penny. Now, just over the last year or so, not less than 40 percent of the funds are dedicated to State purposes, so that still means that up to 60 percent of the funds can still be used for Federal land acquisition. The result? Well, it hasn't been good. It has been used more for Federal land acquisition than for improving access to or care of the vast Federal lands that we already own and manage--or in many cases, fail to manage. Sixty-one percent of the funds have historically been used for acquisition, compared to the 25 percent that have been allocated to State grants, spending close to $12 billion to purchase new Federal lands. So despite people's images of charming ribbon cuttings at local parks and scenic wildlife, the LWCF has functioned as the Federal Government's primary vehicle for Federal land grabs, resulting in a massive, restrictive, and neglected Federal estate. The Federal Government now owns 640 million acres of land--more than 640 million acres--within the United States. To put this in perspective, this amount--the more than 640 million acres of land currently owned by the Federal Government within the United States--is a total larger than the entireties of France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands combined. Now, I am not talking about the government-owned lands or the parklands within those countries. I am talking about the entirety of the countries themselves. The Federal Government owns more land than that. That is 28 percent of the total acreage within the United States, and more than 50 percent of the land in the West. This has proven to be far more land than the Federal Government is capable of managing responsibly. The condition of the vast Federal estate ranges from fair to poor to dismal. These lands face problems with rampant wildfires, soil erosion, mismanagement, and littering--with a staggering combined maintenance backlog of nearly $20 billion. Resources are only being spread thinner as they are being stretched to serve more and more lands--more and more lands that are now going to be bought with the new entitlement spending that we are putting in place with this bill should we enact this ill-conceived legislative proposal. On top of that, many of the LWCF funds have been diverted to a vague ``other purposes'' category that has, in many instances, little to do with access to outdoor recreation at all. In fact, many of the programs it has funded have, instead, aimed to pull land from public use, regardless of how the land in question is classified. So rather than increasing opportunities for hunting and fishing, snowmobiling, hiking, camping, mountain biking, or kayaking, the land policies in place have slowly been squeezing out recreational opportunities, and this has been going on for decades. And so, too, have these policies imposed severe economic restrictions. As the Federal estate has grown since the time the LWCF was established in 1964, natural resource production--including mining, energy, timber, and livestock raising--have sharply declined, depriving rural communities and their economies of crucial jobs and economic activity. Timber production, for example, has been cut by about 90 percent since the 1980s. So instead of providing sustainable, renewable, economically productive logging in the Northwest, these forests are now managed by catastrophic wildfire under the supervision--or I should say the failed supervision--of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. If you don't believe me, ask anyone who lives in the Western United States. Ask anyone who lives in the communities of Utah who have seen the environmental and economic devastation brought about as a result of failed land management policies. Now, some claim, rather audaciously, that the outdoor recreation economy is a major boon to these very same communities that are being impoverished by it. But usually, nearly always, people who say that aren't people who live in those communities. Seasonal tourism is not a sustainable core industry for most communities. Much of the money spent on outdoor recreation ends up going to apparel, equipment, and gear from large out-of-state companies. Rural public lands counties don't see a penny of it. This is especially true in those counties where the Federal Government owns not just 67 percent of the land mass, as is the case throughout Utah as a whole, but 90, 95 percent plus of the land in some counties. To make matters worse, Federal lands also mean a loss of property taxes and, as a result, a loss of huge sources of revenue and opportunities for States and for local communities. It is no coincidence that the poorest rural counties in the West are the very same communities, the very same counties where they have the most Federal land. The poorest counties are the counties with the most Federal land. Why is that? Well, there are a number of reasons, but one of the things that has to be taken into account isthe fact that, without property taxes, schools are underfunded, local governments are crippled, fire departments are, ironically, depleted and, therefore, unable to properly take care of the lands they are charged to protect in the first place. This, by the way, says nothing of the loss of economic activity as a whole. I am just talking here about the lack of property tax revenue Now, there is a Federal program for this, the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program, also known as the PILT Program, as the abbreviation refers. This is a program that was intended to address this disparity by compensating counties and local communities for their loss of property taxes--that is the loss from property taxes that comes about as a result of significant Federal land ownership and the Federal Government's declaration, by law, that its lands may not be taxed. But PILT payments have provided only a pittance of what would be due to local governments were Federal lands not exempt from property taxes. In 2018, the Utah Legislature commissioned a state-of-the-art evaluation of 32 million acres of Federal land in Utah, excluding roughly 3 million acres of National Parks and Wilderness Areas. Now, this May, that same commission found that appraising these BLM and Forest Service lands according to their lowest use value would result in an annual property tax bill of $534 million. And this, by the way, in addition to excluding National Parks and Wilderness Areas from that equation, was a study that involved only those Federal lands extending to within 1 mile of any municipal boundary or of any city or town in Utah. So this fraction would produce $534 million annually in property tax revenue, even if it were taxed at its lowest value. In 2019, the PILT payments to Utah statewide totaled just $41 million, just 7.7 percent of the potential revenue from property taxes. Again, we are not talking about the National Parks or their National Wilderness Areas, nor are we talking about the lands outside of 1 mile beyond any municipal boundary. And while States and localities are the ones carrying the unfair economic burden, Washington only pours salt in these wounds by neglecting its oversight responsibilities. In May 2019, a GAO report found that BLM fails to maintain centralized data on lands acquired and that an increasing element of LWCF funds across agencies are being spent on acquisition projects that occur without and, in some cases, contrary to congressional approval. Not only that, but a December 2019 GAO report found that numerous agencies have blatantly disregarded LWCF requirements in order to illegally purchase more land. Yes. They are buying land, in many cases, contrary to their statutory authorization and limitations imposed by law. Under the original LWCF Act, no more than 15 percent of the land added to the National Forest System is to be west of the 100th meridian, essentially everything west of Oklahoma. But the GAO found that between fiscal years 2014 and 2018, the Federal Government had acquired more than 450,000 acres of land in the United States, more than 80 percent of which were west of the 100th meridian. In another recent review of land acquisition policies across the agencies conducted by the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, officials said that 40 percent of the land acquired with LWCF funds were not even requested by the agencies--not requested in the first place, yet they were purchased in some cases contrary to an explicit statutory command. As it turns out, billions of LWCF dollars are being spent without the Congress and without the relevant agencies or the public being informed of where or why or pursuant to what authority they were made. Why, then, would it ever make sense to turn this into an entitlement program, to turn this into something that is self-perpetuating--into a self-licking ice cream cone--that needs no support or reauthorization year to year from Congress? Last year, the Senate permanently reauthorized this broken, harmful, dangerous, unaccountable fund without reform and without any incentive to offer future reforms, but as if that weren't bad enough, the legislation before us now proposes to make that funding mandatory. Before, Congress could at least appropriate varying amounts to be used from the fund. Now, this bill, if passed, would turn the LWCF into a true trust fund, automatically requiring that the full $900 million be spent primarily on Federal land acquisition each year in perpetuity without accountability and without oversight. The unofficial Congressional Budget Office score estimates that this bill, as a whole, will cost nearly $17.3 billion over the next 10 years, all for land projects that we cannot afford, let alone maintain. This is not how Congress was tasked with exercising the power of the purse. This is not how it is supposed to work--not in this country and certainly not in this legislative body. It is the tough business of Congress to set priorities and to decide which, among worthy causes, should receive our limited resources. These funds could be going to provide relief in the midst of the current pandemic or to our national defense or to shoring up benefits for veterans or to a myriad of other goals. Putting these funds into a direct deposit mechanism, however, means that we are not having those conversations and not actively evaluating how we can best spend those taxpayer dollars each year. No, no. Instead, we are going to put it on autopilot. That is what this bill wants to do rather shamefully. This provision of the bill automatically puts more funds toward the harmful cause of growing the Federal estate, putting us on an even worse path than we have already taken. In fact, the first provision of the bill is only evidence to the fact that we have bitten off far more than we can chew. We can do better. As it currently stands, we have nothing to gain from this legislation. The agenda of aggressively and endlessly growing our Federal estate has put us on a dangerous path with devastating effects for our lands and for the people who live, recreate, and survive off of them as my home State of Utah has already experienced far too well. If we do not change course, this path will only worsen for the rest of the Nation too. I want to point out something--a common misperception that people often have about Federal land and what it is and what it does. In many cases, if you don't live in the western United States, you are not necessarily aware of the fact that the overwhelming majority--not just most but the overwhelming majority of Federal land is not a national park. National parks are some of the few things people consistently like about the Federal Government. They are frequently the favorite thing about the Federal Government. We all love national parks. They are beautiful. They are fun, and they are something that the Federal Government does that everyone still enjoys and loves. But most Federal land is not a national park. The overwhelming majority isn't anything like a national park, and the way these lands are divided out really isn't fair. In every State east of Colorado, the Federal Government owns less than 15 percent of the land. In every State to the west of Colorado and including Colorado, the Federal Government owns at least 15 percent and, in many cases, many multiples of that. In my State it happens to be about 67 percent. A tiny segment of that land consists of national park land. Most of it is just land that you can't use for anything else. The local governments can't tax them, and people can't access them for economic or recreational purposes without a ``Mother, may I?'' from the Federal Government. That is what it is. Most of this land isn't even a national park or a national recreation area or a wilderness area or anything remotely worthy of that. This is just about Federal control, and most of it is not managed very well. The National Park System has been underfunded. They, in many ways, do the best job they can with what they have, but they have been chronically underfunded, and the national parks are quite well run compared to the vast majority of Federal public land we have, which is chronically neglected, environmentally mismanaged, often to the economic and environmental detriment of those States where there is a lot of Federal land. Take San Juan County, UT. The Federal Government owns somewhere along the order of 95 percent of the land in San Juan County. It also happens to be Utah's poorest county.These two issues are not a coincidence. The fact that they appear in the same land mass is not coincidental; it is causal. The Federal Government is the cause for the impoverishment of this county and other communities in Utah and throughout the United States. Why? Because people can't own the land, can't develop the land, can't tax the land to fund their schools, their search and rescue services, or any other government priority. Nor can they access it for most economic purposes. Finally, all of my other observations about this legislation notwithstanding, this is the Senate, and just like church is for sinners, the Senate floor isn't for perfect, hermetically sealed, finished bills. We are supposed to bring imperfect bills to the floor to debate and deliberate and amend and discuss and, ultimately, find consensus. That is why I and many of my colleagues have been trying to do exactly that in this very situation with this very bill. I have a number of amendments. Many western State Senators do as well. Several Gulf State Senators have their own concerns about this bill in its current form. The way the process is supposed to work is that we bring this and other bills like it to the floor, and we offer up changes and see where the Senate is, see where the process goes, using reason, gentle persuasion, and awkward improvements to each piece of legislation as our guide. That is how it is supposed to work. There are a number of Senators from western States, from Gulf States, and from States that really aren't in the West or the gulf that don't really have that much to do with Federal public land, but they can see the procedural and substantive defects of this bill. That is why many of us who really would like to make improvements to this bill have come together from different parts of the country. The process of actually legislating has gone out of fashion in Washington and, quite regrettably, out of this Chamber in recent years, but it is something that I think the whole Senate would like to get back to--and I mean the whole Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike. This is an issue that is neither Republican or Democratic; it is not liberal or conservative; it is not Libertarian. It is not an ideological viewpoint. I know people within this Chamber on virtually every point along the ideological political continuum who would very much like to see the Senate working as an actual legislative body rather than as a rubberstamp for whatever small handful of people happen to write out behind closed doors and decide must be the finished, perfect, hermetically sealed object of our vote. This is wrong. It is an insult, not just to the 100 Senators who are here. It is that to be sure, but nobody cares about that. It is more about those we represent, those who elected us. Those election certificates don't belong to us. They belong to the voters of our various States who expect us to represent them. Regardless of how we might vote on any particular piece of legislation, they expect us to have read it; they expect us to do our job by showing up and by offering to make it better where we see flaws and we see defects. There is no perfect bill, but we can still make legislation a lot less bad. We can make it better. We bring about actual consensus. Consensus is not found by ramming something through without an opportunity for amendment, debate, or discussion This is wrong. It has gone on for far too long. I have seen it under the leadership of Democrats and Republicans alike in this Chamber, and it has to end. It will end. The question is, How long is it going to take us and how much misery will the American people have to endure while most of their Senators are effectively locked out of meaningful legislative debate, discussion, and amendment? This is wrong, and it has to end. The debate on this bill has now been extended by a whole extra day. There is no earthly reason why we can't use that extra day to work through a handful of 15-minute votes on a handful of amendments. It is just not that hard. In the amount of time that I have been speaking tonight, we could have processed a couple of amendments. In the amount of time that will be devoted only to hand-wringing and dismissal of legitimate concerns with this legislation, we could process any amendment that anyone wants to introduce, and this legislation could still be passed weeks before the House of Representatives is even poised to return. So why are we not doing this? There is no persuasive answer here. We have to start doing our job. I look forward to working with our colleagues to get an agreement on some amendments so that we can give this legislation the due consideration and the careful deliberation that it deserves, that we deserve, that those who elected us deserve, and then move on to the important nominations pending before the Senate and to the National Defense Authorization Act that are next in line. In the meantime, I hope Democrats and Republicans alike can unite behind the fact that we can't skate forever under the mantra that the Senate is the world's greatest deliberative body when it does not deliberate. The good news is, it is entirely within our power to reclaim use of that title justifiably and with dignity. I yield the floor.
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2020-01-06
|
Mr. LEE
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Senate
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CREC-2020-06-09-pt1-PgS2834-5
| null | 799
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