National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I appreciate this broad support we have seen for plugging the holes in our ability to evaluate foreign investment with regard to national security risks in the United States. We know China, for example, has been quite explicit about what it is trying to do to surpass the United States economically and militarily, and it has been very aggressive and very strategic in the way it has tried to acquire intellectual property and know-how through foreign investment in the United States. That is why this legislation is so important.

I admire the Senator from Pennsylvania as one of the most principled conservatives in this body and in Congress, but he and I differ over whether the REINS Act, which would require up-or-down votes on implementing regulations, should be a part of the implementation of this national security legislation. I never dreamed we would do that in a national security context as opposed to doing it in economic and environmental legislation. Reluctantly, I oppose the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania and encourage all of our colleagues to do the same.

I conclude by saying, I share his concerns when it comes to using national security as a pretext on economic legislation and trade issues, and I look forward to continuing to work with him and all of my other colleagues outside of the national security context to make sure we support free and fair trade--trade that protects U.S. interests. With the overstepping of the regulatory bounds by the executive branch on occasion, I am all for rolling that back when we can but not in a national security context like this.

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am glad we are making such great progress on the Defense authorization bill. I know some additional work needs to be done. I wanted to come to the floor and comment briefly on the historic meeting that occurred this last week with North Korean officials in Singapore.

President Trump, Secretary of State Pompeo, National Security Advisor Bolton, and the rest of the American delegation are to be congratulated for having this meeting. It was a historic first step, and I applaud President Trump for taking it. But I reiterate: It was a first step.

To me, it reminds me of boxers entering the ring and touching gloves before the fight begins. It is a warmup for something longer and much more difficult. We need to remain clear-eyed about who we are dealing with and not assume that there isn't hard work to be done.

As one commentator recently put it, North Korean duplicity is normal. We need to remind ourselves of our own history of negotiating with North Korea and our counterpart's record of saying one thing and simply doing another.

The joint agreement signed by President Trump and Kim Jong Un set broad goals whereby the United States made unspecified ``security guarantees'' and Kim Jong Un recommitted to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. This agreement set the stage for future engagements between our Secretary of State and his North Korean counterpart.

By saying it is a first step--or, like two boxers, touching gloves before the fight begins--I don't want to suggest in any way that this was unimportant. I think it is dramatically important because I can't think of any other place in the world where a misstep or a miscalculation could lead to so much bloodshed, heartache, and conflict. While we know that the military option must always be the last option, diplomacy is always welcome and is facilitated by a strong military and preparedness. But now the followup negotiations will be led by Secretary Pompeo, and I have every confidence that he will ably lead those.

He has said that the United States hopes to achieve ``major disarmament'' of North Korea's nuclear arsenal during the next 2\1/2\ years but added emphatically that we will resume joint military exercises with South Korea if the talks stall.

I think this represents the right approach. Aim for the best, while remaining vigilant and preparing for all possible obstacles and outcomes.

President Trump has said that sanctions against North Korea will remain in effect until we are sure that nuclear weapons are no longer a factor. I applaud this stance of maximum pressure. We shouldn't take our foot off the gas at this point because that is what brought us to this historic meeting in the first place.

I believe the United States should remain committed to the permanent, verifiable, and irreversible dismantling of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction, and I wish Secretary Pompeo luck as he continues followup discussions in South Korea to help accomplish the goal that we seek.

As Speaker Ryan said last week, President Trump has now ``disrupted the status quo.'' I like the way he expressed that. President Trump--if nothing--is good at disrupting the status quo, but here, when it comes to North Korea, it is enormously positive when the status quo includes a brutal dictatorship that commits flagrant human rights violations, has a state-controlled economy, is starving its own people in order to build nuclear weapons, and has shown contempt for international norms and global diplomacy. I would say that the careful and cautious kind of ``disruption'' is exactly the right thing to do.

Our colleagues across the aisle seem to agree, and I am grateful for that. Not everything needs to be a partisan issue here in Washington, DC. In a statement, the junior Senator from Vermont called the summit earlier this week ``a positive step in de-escalating tensions.'' I saw that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made similar positive remarks. We will have to wait and see how this story unfolds, but the President is to be commended, first for ensuring that the summit took place at all and, then, for providing us with hope for a path forward. Farm Bill

Mr. President, another item of business today is the farm bill, which I hope we will take up promptly here in the Senate. Fortunately, it passed the Senate Agriculture Committee yesterday by a vote of 20-to-1. Thanks to Chairman Roberts and Ranking Member Stabenow, this bipartisan compromise is a fair and equitable bill that does not favor one region of the country over another. I have found in my time in the Senate that agricultural issues and the farm bill don't pit Democrats against Republicans so much as it pits one region of the country against another, which makes it even more challenging--kind of like a Rubik's Cube to figure out. But the near unanimous vote is a testament to the collaboration and bipartisanship of the leaders of the committee. They deserve the respect and appreciation of us all, especially those of us who hail from States where agriculture has such a dominant presence, like my State and like the State of the Presiding Officer.

The farm bill is always a significant piece of legislation because it helps to ensure that Americans, and many other people who depend upon our food supply, enjoy access to the safest, most affordable, and most reliable food supply in the world. We have to remember that in many non-Western countries, you can't just walk up to a store and know that what you want will be there on the shelf or that it will be affordable or that it will be safe to even eat. The farm bill helps to ensure that we continue to enjoy each of those things, knowing that we can walk into a store, that we will find what we want, that it will be affordable, and that it will be safe to eat.

This year's farm bill will be hugely impactful for farmers and ranchers in my State of Texas. Among its most noteworthy provisions are protecting seed cotton eligibility for the farm bill safety net. In the supplemental funding bill we passed last February, we worked hard to include this language, returning cotton to the safety net. This helped cotton growers compete on a level playing field after years of depressed prices.

So I want to thank Chairman Roberts and Ranking Member Stabenow, as well as the rest of the committee, for ensuring that this policy continues and that cotton farmers have the long-term predictability they deserve under the farm bill.

This year's bill also retains and strengthens the Price Loss Coverage Program to help provide Texas producers with predictability throughout unstable weather and natural disasters. That comes as great news this year, especially, when we are all well aware that much of the Texas Panhandle, as well as much of the rest of my State, remains under severe, or even exceptional, drought conditions.

Additionally, the bill promotes animal health and reauthorizes disease research programs, including a crucial one that will help the U.S. Department of Agriculture research and contain the spread of cattle fever tick. This is a parasite-carrying insect with the potential to wipe out cattle herds and cause devastating financial losses.

The research programs that we are promoting will help farmers and ranchers all across the country. I know the senior Senator from Minnesota, for example, has been concerned about avian influenza in her State, and I am glad that we were able to work together to ensure that these important research programs, with all of their implications, are authorized in the bill.

On top of that, the farm bill will strengthen crop insurance and other crop management tools and enhance incentive programs that help the agriculture community conserve soil and water.

Finally, the bill encourages the U.S. Department of Agriculture research partnerships, including those at Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Prairie View A&M, to promote more productive and profitable farming, and it will assist Texas farmers and ranchers in placing and selling their products in foreign markets.

I know Senator McConnell intends to take the farm bill up on the floor as soon as possible, and I look forward to supporting its swift passage.

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