Tuesday Feb 12 in Congress

page 1

Source is the daily Congressional Record

https://www.congress.gov/116/crec/2019/02/12/CREC-2019-02-12.pdf

House of Representatives

Met and immediately adjourned.

Senate

Cloture expires on S 47.

3 amendments passed.

S 47, Natural Resources Management Act

Passed, 92-8

yeas and nays (page S1196)

bill text (S1196-S1265)

Cloture motion for Barr Attorney General nomination

Passed 55-44 (S1266)

Excerpts from speeches:

H.R. 1 (S1175)

Mr. MCCONNELL. "last week the House began the hearing process on Speaker PELOSI’s signature bill, H.R. 1, the Democrat Politician Protection Act."

"let me say five of those words again: taxpayer bailout for political campaigns."

"Democrats have spent months, if not years, crafting this sprawling, 500-plus page Federal takeover of our political speech and our elections."

"There would be a new Washington, DC-run voucher program so that would-be political donors could simply ask for chunks of taxpayer money and then hand it out to the campaigns they favor. There would also be a brand new, sixfold matching program for certain donations. The Federal Government would literally come in—sort of the way some businesses match their workers’ charitable contributions—and use the American people’s money to match certain campaign contributions sixfold. In other words, millions of dollars would be available for each candidate who comes along asking for his or her share of the taxpayer loot.

Keep in mind—this would put each taxpayer on the hook for financing the candidates and campaigns they personally disagree with."

"This is just another one of the Democrat Politician Protection Act’s greatest hits. I will have more in the future."

PRESS (S1176)

Mr. SCHUMER. "One of the most significant challenges the press faces, of course, is economic. Besieged by a fractured media landscape and rapidly changing technology, newspapers have been forced to adapt or die. Some have adapted, but many have died."

"In cities in Upstate New York—small- and middle-sized—big companies have left, and some of the community banks have been bought up by major large banks. The things that keep a community together are greatly deteriorating. Newspapers are one of the few glues these communities have. They are vital—way beyond the profit and loss that they might make."

"Now there is a new threat on the horizon. A few weeks ago, a hedge fund, known as the 'destroyer of newspapers,' announced a bid to take over Gannett, which, in addition to USA Today, publishes a lot of small and medium-sized newspapers and four important papers in my State'

"This morning, on the front page of the Washington Post, there is an article about the business practices of Alden and its subsidiaries. Essentially, Alden’s strategy is to buy up newspapers, cut staff, and then

>>5197117

Tuesday Feb 12 in Congress

page 2

"So I would propose that charitably inclined institutions and individuals should begin to think of journalism as a philanthropic endeavor. If it becomes a worthy endeavor to buy a local newspaper and preserve its size and independence—just as it is a worthy endeavor to support the local hospital, school, charity—many more might consider doing it."

[CES (Newseum) Prepared Remarks—Feb. 7, 2019] (S1177)

"I have to wind back the clock a bit to the start of the Internet era, which allowed the media universe to splinter into a near-infinite number of outlets, some of which do important niche reporting, but many of which are hyper-partisan, whose sole purpose is to market news to a specific political demographic."

"[Fairness Doctrine repeal] was taken advantage of by folks from every dot on the political spectrum, but figures like Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, Andrew Breitbart and Steve Bannon took perhaps the greatest advantage. They realized they could cultivate a network of partisan media outlets, walking right up to—and sometimes crossing—the line of blurring fact and fiction.

Enter President Trump: stage right. Fueled by his derision for all but the most flattering reporting, President Trump has taken it one step further.

His goal, it seems, is to discredit the media altogether as a check on his power, to say to the American people

that newspapers are irrelevant, 'the failing New York Times;'

that all journalists are evil, 'the enemy of the people;'

that virtually all news is false, 'fake news.'

Let’s be honest here: the president tells more lies than any president we have ever seen."

"But if the public, broadly speaking, loses all faith in the media—if the public comes to believe that all news is fake—that’s the beginning of the end of America as we know it.

So I want to speak directly to the members of the media in the audience and those who may be watching . . .

Your job is more important than ever.

It’s important to rebut alternative facts with facts.

It’s important to correct the president’s lies.

And it is equally important that you not let the president wear you down or throw you off course . . . to think—maybe we should tone it down a little, maybe we can let that one go, when in fact it should be the opposite.

Dictators throughout the course of history have learned that the best way to consolidate power is to capture or totally discredit the news media."

"As Americans, we must continue to support the First Amendment; the freedom—and viability—of the press. It’s nothing short of a moral imperative."

>>5197145

Tuesday Feb 12 in Congress

page 3

GOVERNMENT FUNDING (S1188)

Mr. CORNYN. "First of all, if this agreement does, as I believe it is reported to do, provide for 55 miles of additional physical barriers along the border, then the President has won, and Ms. PELOSI has lost because she said not one penny more— I am sorry, that was Senator SCHUMER—for border walls or border barriers. Ms. PELOSI called them immoral.

But if Democrats on the negotiating committee have now agreed to 55 miles of additional physical barriers, it sounds to me as though they are not in the same place Ms. PELOSI is. I don’t say that to try to blow up the deal because, frankly, I believe a shutdown would be a mistake. But what I would encourage the President to do is to count his victory here and then to build on that. He has additional authorities, particularly under the Defense authorization bill, on a non-emergency basis, to reprogram money that has been appropriated already for the Department of Defense."

NOMINATION OF WILLIAM BARR (S1189)

Mr. CORNYN. "We saw, I would note, pieces from the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Daily News to the same effect. Even the Washington Post believes that Democrats should vote for William Barr. They wrote that he 'came across as a highly qualified person and committed to the traditions, procedures and mores of the Justice Department.' "

Good for them. The headline of that editorial was 'Confirm William Barr— and hold him to his pledge of independence.' "

THE GREEN NEW DEAL (S1190)

Mr. BARRASSO. "Even if it were affordable—and it is not—the proposal is so far outside America’s mainstream that it is scary. The proposal reads like an absurd socialist manifesto. They call for a 'national mobilization' to 'transform every sector of our economy and society' and to do it by the year 2030. In just 10 years, Washington would create a command-and-control economy to eliminate choice in how we live. Washington would tell us how to travel, what our houses should look

like, and what food is on our grocery store shelves."

The Green New Deal eliminates energy sources that currently provide power to roughly three out of every five homes in America and to businesses as well. It mandates the use of expensive energy sources that realistically can’t meet our country’s needs. It would mean the end of the internal combustion engine in cars, in boats, and in planes. The plan would force every driver in America to purchase an electric vehicle or rely on public transportation.

It would also mean the end of both airplanes and ships."

An extensive and expensive national high-speed rail system would have to replace air travel. That is what they are calling for—an expensive and extensive national high-speed rail system to replace air travel.

The State of California is currently attempting to build just one of these rail lines at a cost of $89 million for every planned mile of track—so $89 million for every planned mile of track.

… California Governor Gavin Newsom said he is ending the State’s effort to build a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles … Newsom said in his state of the State address today that it 'would cost too much and take too long.' "

There is another victim of the Green New Deal. It is ice cream. Livestock would be banned. Say goodbye to dairy, beef, and family farms and ranches. American favorites like cheeseburgers and milkshakes would become a thing of the past. Millions of American workers will lose their jobs. Living this 'green dream' is actually a nightmare.

Just the energy portion of this plan alone would cost at least $5.7 trillion, and it is feasibly impossible. The government handouts, healthcare, and other giveaways will cost tens of trillions more. This Green Deal will bankrupt the country."

"American energy-related carbon dioxide emissions have steadily fallen in recent years. The United States is currently on pace to reduce them by 17 percent below 2005 levels, and we are going to do it by the year 2025. So we have been doing it in the United States. We have been lowering emissions. We are leading the world in lowering our carbon emissions over the past decade. A Washington takeover of the energy sector is going to interfere with that progress.

>>5197156

Tuesday Feb 12 in Congress

page 4

PARKLAND HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTING (S1191)

Mr. BROWN. "The young people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School launched an incredible movement for change in this country. These were high school students, many not even old enough to vote, dealing with pain that most of us can’t imagine.

These kids stood up to the gun lobby—if only we saw that kind of courage among politicians who take money from the gun lobby year after year after year. These kids stood up to the gun lobby. They organized and forced their government to listen."

"The students at Parkland clearly aren’t quitting. The millions of Americans inspired by them give me hope for the future. I hope my colleagues in this body finally stand up to the gun lobby and demand change."

TAX REFORM

Mr. BROWN. "Here is what we should do. We should first pass the Patriot Corporation Act. The Patriot Corporation Act is really simple. It simply says that if you pay decent wages, if you provide decent benefits—health benefits, healthcare, and pensions or 401(k)—and if you do your production in the United States of America, you get a lower tax rate."

S. 47 (S1193)

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. "I am particularly grateful for Senator MURKOWSKI’s leadership in moving this bipartisan effort forward, as well as Senators CANTWELL and MANCHIN’s efforts as the ranking members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee last Congress and this one, respectively."

"The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is the largest estuary in the western United States. It is one of the most productive and ecologically important watersheds in North America."

"This bill will transfer ownership of the Contra Costa Canal System from the Bureau of Reclamation to the Contra Costa Water District to allow the water district to complete necessary safety improvements.

The water district would like to convert the existing open earthen canal to a closed pipe, which is expected to cost $650 million.

The water district understandably wants to take title in order to use as collateral for issuing bonds to cover the cost of the conversion, and this bill would accomplish this."

Additionally, drought is always an issue in California, and water is becoming more and more expensive.

About 6 percent of the canal’s water is lost through evaporation and seepage. A covered pipeline would eliminate these losses.

Before I conclude, I would also like to thank Senator MURKOWSKI for including in the package a permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund."

>>5197164

Tuesday Feb 12 in Congress

page 5

(S1194)

Ms. MURKOWSKI. "Madam President, we are now down to the final minutes of debate on S. 47, our Natural Resources Management Act. This is something we had a good number of Members come to the floor to speak on. Our Members are proud of the many provisions that we have seen fit to include within this package itself—bills that relate to lands and land conveyances, conservation aspects, sportsmen’s provisions, those measures that can help bring about economic development in very small areas. We are very proud of what we have done with this process that has led us to where we are today.

"When we take a package that is over 100 bills from over 50 different Senators and over 90 who have signed on as cosponsors, that demonstrates something. What we have done with the strength, extent, and expanse of these provisions, the efforts we have made to ensure that the Land and Water Conservation Fund continues with a permanent extension … "

"Sportsmen and women spent about $119 billion—that was back in 2016—on everything from their gear to the support in these small communities."

"This has come together with a great deal of hard work by many Members and our staffs."

EXECUTIVE CALENDAR (S1266)

Mr. GRAHAM. "The best indication of what Mr. Barr will do as Attorney General in the future is what he has done in the past. He has actually been Attorney General before. He was approved by this body, under Bush 41, to be the Attorney General by a voice vote. He has been the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel and the Deputy Attorney General. He has been the chief lawyer for the CIA. In all of these jobs, he was confirmed by the Senate by voice vote."

"When it comes to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, the Barrs and the Muellers are friends, but it will be a business relationship. I can promise you this: Mr. Barr will make sure that Mr. Mueller can finish his job without political interference. He said that, I believe that, and that is the way this movie has to end. "

"Here is what Mr. Barr said that really stuck with me. I am not making bargains with editorial writers, with pundits, or with elected political leaders that I don’t feel are right for the Department. I don’t want the job that much. I don’t need the job in terms of building a career. I have had a great career. I am doing this because I think I can provide some leadership at a time we need some."

"He will be a shot in the arm for a Department that needs a morale lift. He is going to look at the abuses inside of the Department. How could a FISA warrant be issued on an American citizen based on a dossier? It is a bunch of political garbage."

"To DIANNE FEINSTEIN, who is a great partner, I appreciate the processing of the nomination. We may have differences of opinion about what the right answer is, but we could not have asked for a better process. Mr. Barr was challenged, but respectfully so."

>>5197176

Tuesday Feb 12 in Congress

page 6

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. "Also, you didn’t see a lot of Democrats who had a lot of engagement with dark money coming to high office, but with the Trump administration that all changed, and we now have an Acting Attorney General, Mr. Whitaker, who was paid $1.2 million through a group called FACT. Basically, FACT is a front group. It does no business. It has no product. It provides no service. It basically just pays Mr. Whitaker to go on talk shows and criticize Democrats. There are very few employees.

The only employee I am aware of, other than, perhaps, clerical people, was actually Whitaker himself, so one would like to know why he was paid that money and who paid him in order to do proper recusal and conflict checks.

But here is what is interesting: The money that came in to pay him through FACT, before it got to FACT, had been laundered through another group called Donors Trust. Donors Trust is another group that does no business, has no service, creates no product, manufactures nothing. Its purpose for existence is to strip the identities off of big donors—ordinarily it seems big Republican special interest donors—so that the money they then give goes anonymously to groups that pretend they are not fossil fuel funded, for instance, because the identity of the fossil fuel donor has been stripped clean, or they are not the tool of the Koch brothers because the Koch brothers’ identity has been stripped clean. It is a device for misleading and confusing people. When you consider how much of that $1 million went through to Mr. Whitaker in salary, the idea that he doesn’t know who was paying him when so much of FACT’s money came through that one donation is really improbable."

"The obvious reason he would not give a straight answer is that the President who appointed him has significant—although we don’t understand them well yet—significant business entanglements that we don’t know about. We need to find out what his business entanglements are, and it is really hard to assess some of his behavior without knowing who is on the other side of his foreign business relationships and how much money is involved and how much is at risk for him."

"Within the Department of Justice there is a group called the Office of Legal Counsel, which is kind of the legal advisor to the Department of Justice. The Office of Legal Counsel has decided that a Department of Justice cannot indict a sitting President. Here is the problem with that. The Office of Legal Counsel isn’t elected by anybody. They are career people. They tend to be hypersmart, but their purpose in life is opining on the separation-of-powers questions is to describe the maximum possible credible scope of Executive power. They represent the executive branch, and when they are making these separation-of-powers decisions, they always veer to the maximum greatest Executive power that they can justify."

>>5197185

Tuesday Feb 12 in Congress

page 7 - last page

"Here is the problem—there are actually two problems. At the end of the day, whenever the Mueller report is concluded, that report can be provided to Congress, but there is considerable flexibility and considerable discretion within the Department of Justice and the Attorney General’s office as to how much to give."

(S1283)

"We have seen these extreme, almost wild, unlimited assertions of executive privilege by members of the Trump administration. There has never been any discipline or proper process about it. There has never been any enforcement. So it is a wide-open field for mischief if the President decides that big chunks of the Mueller report shouldn’t be disclosed to the public because he asserts executive privilege.

Then Attorney General Barr says: Good enough for me. I am not going to let any of that go to the public or to Congress.

"The bad deed that was done by Jim Comey was to violate that Department rule and disclose derogatory investigative information about an uncharged person—specifically, Mrs. Clinton. That violated longstanding procedures and principles in the Department and kicked up a lot of criticism, including by me right at the time and since and also by Attorney General Barr. He stands, I think, in the best traditions of the Department to condemn the release of derogatory investigative information about an uncharged person.

The rule as a prosecutor is, if you are going to say it, save your pleadings. Charge the guy. Put it in the indictment. Put it in the criminal information. Then defense can fairly react. Then you are accountable to the court for what you are saying, and then there is some discipline to it, but you don’t get to describe unrelated or uncharged conduct that just happens to be

derogatory."

"The problem comes when that rule gets applied in this case, and here is the circumstance: The Mueller report comes down, and it is full of derogatory information about the President and the people around him. But because the Office of Legal Counsel, as I described earlier, has decided that you can’t charge a sitting President with a crime, now that President is an uncharged person— not because there wasn’t an indictment to be brought against him, not because he didn’t engage in criminal conduct, not because the government wouldn’t ordinarily prosecute that case to the full extent of the law, but simply because of this little policy at the Office of Legal Counsel that you can’t indict a sitting President—one that has never been tested in court and one that I think will fare badly in court if you look at the precedence of Nixon and Clinton and others.

So now, with the President an uncharged person, do you then call in this doctrine and say: Hey, all derogatory investigative information about this uncharged person is now no longer amenable to disclosure to Congress or the public.

It is a complicated situation, but it is easy to get there, and once you are there, the answer ought to be ‘‘Well, obviously no,’’ but I couldn’t get that answer. I couldn’t get a straight answer."