Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first, all of us heard the sad news today--nice for him but sad for us--that Tom Udall will not seek reelection.
He is one of the most principled, hardest working Senators we have. He is bright, he is dedicated, and he has such integrity, which runs in the Udall family. When he gets up to speak, every Senator, Democratic and Republican, always knows how well thought out his remarks will be and how sincere they are. He is not doing this for some angle or political purpose. He is just the kind of person the Founding Fathers wanted to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Tom's leadership on reforming the campaign finance system, on protecting the environment, on advocating on behalf of Native American communities, shepherding legislation to protect America from harmful chemicals, and so much more, has been invaluable.
We will all be saying more about Tom in a little while. We will miss him. He has been a wonderful Senator, a great friend, and a wonderful member of this caucus.
Climate Change
Madam President, I am going to speak briefly on the matter of climate change, and then I will address matters relating to the special counsel's investigation.
During the last month, this Chamber has been the forum for debate on a topic I never thought I would see Republicans raise on their own-- climate change. They have long been the party of climate change denial, with President Trump as the climate change denier-in-chief. It is an awfully difficult position to defend. It becomes more difficult every week and every month, and it is directly at odds with strong consensus views of scientists in the United States and around the globe.
As our weather changes and as we face disasters, the average American is saying more and more: Uh-oh. Climate change. I wonder what the people in Nebraska and Iowa think. They have had these huge floods that have been so devastating to them.
It is long past time for Republicans to take these issues seriously. This Chamber is supposed to debate the most serious issues of our day. Climate change is at the top of the list and shouldn't be an exception. That is why for a month all 47 Democrats have asked our Republican colleagues three simple questions, which none of them will answer. They are going to have to answer them sooner or later. One, do you agree that climate change is real? Two, do you agree that it is caused by human action? Three, do you believe that Congress should take immediate action to combat its effects?
We are not prescribing one part or another; we are saying, let's debate it. Let's not have a sham vote that is meant to embarrass one person or another. This is too serious of an issue for that. Republicans owe the American people some real answers, not games.
As I mentioned, just over the last week in the plains of Iowa, we saw the devastating effects of climate change with devastating clarity. The kind of weather we saw in the Iowa plains has no precedent. It was the equivalent of a category 2 hurricane lambasting the heart of the Midwest. Our hearts are with the people whose homes were destroyed or damaged, whose farms were decimated, and the animals that were lost.
The science is clear: A changing climate and warmer air make these freakish weather incidents more likely and more intense.
Republicans may want to keep their heads in the sand. I think that is a loser for them, especially among younger and younger voters. Like on so many other issues, Republicans are clinging to the past and not looking at what has happened, but Republicans do so at their own peril. With each passing year, their climate change denial is increasingly out of step with the American people. A majority of Americans--two-thirds, including a large percentage of Republicans--believe climate change is real and believe human action has accelerated its pace. They know it for a very simple reason--they can see it themselves.
On the South Shore of Long Island, all of a sudden after Sandy, very Republican areas understood the need to address climate change. That is happening all over the country. The American people see the effects of climate change every time a fire devastates California, another hurricane strikes the Gulf States, or Biblical flooding strikes some part of the country or another. They see them personally, not theoretically. That is what is happening. Indeed, scientists in the United States and Canada now say that the evidence for climate change has reached a ``gold standard'' of certainty.
What have Republicans done about it? Rather than take these warnings seriously, they choose to play games with our planet's future. Rather than get serious about the world our children will inherent, Leader McConnell has elected to push a sham vote on their version of the Green New Deal. They will play that game right before voting on funding for natural disaster relief. Let there be no doubt--these disasters are magnified precisely because of climate change. I cannot fathom the level of cognitive dissonance required to schedule these two votes one right after the other.
No one is fooled by the Republican attempts to posture and politicize climate change. If they really want to debate the issue, let's debate it. Let's bring different views to the floor. Let's see how people vote. Let's not put something on the floor for the first time--a serious proposal on climate change, which the leader has never before put on the floor. Let's debate them all. We are not getting that to happen. Oh no. It is just a game--politics, politics, politics--that the American people, on this issue and so many others, dislike.
Let Republicans come at us with all they have. The facts are on the people who understand that climate change is real. It is no wonder our Republicans colleagues don't want a real debate but a game. But the American people are not going to be fooled by the Republicans' stunt vote.
Democrats are prepared to take bold action to address the climate crisis head-on. That is why we are pushing for the creation of a bipartisan committee on climate change so we can examine this issue with the level of urgency and depth it deserves. I urge my colleagues on the other side who know the truth to speak out and join us as we try to put a halt to the greatest threat of our time.
Unanimous Consent Request--H. Con. Res. 24
Madam President, now on another matter, last night, Attorney General Barr delivered a brief letter to Congress that included his summary of Special Counsel Mueller's investigation. We have all seen the Attorney General's letter, but none of us--neither the Congress nor the public-- have seen the report itself. The Justice Department has declined to even say how many pages the report includes, as if that were some sort of State secret.
After all, let's not forget why we are here in the first place. Two years ago, a hostile power attacked our democracy. As Mr. Barr's letter says, Russian actors, with the backing of Mr. Putin, waged a sophisticated and malicious campaign of disinformation and falsehood in order to influence the outcome of our elections. That has never happened before.
The American people deserve to see the documentation. What did they do? Whom did they approach? What happened? To sweep an issue like this under the rug, when the security of our wellspring elections--fair and not interfered with by foreign power--is at stake?
It is overwhelmingly self-evident in the public interest for the Mueller report to be released to the people. The American people simply want the truth. Each American, if he or she chooses, could read the report for themselves and draw their own conclusions. Whether or not you are a supporter of President Trump, whatever you feel, there is no good reason not to make the report public.
On March 14, just prior to the recess, the House of Representatives surprised a lot of our Republicans friends here in the Senate by passing a resolution calling for the report to be made public. Guess what the vote was. It was 420 to nothing. Even the most vociferous defenders of President Trump--Mr. Meadows and Mr. Jordan--voted yes.
When the resolution arrived here in the Senate, I asked unanimous consent that it be adopted. I thought it would be. Regrettably, one Senator objected. The Senator from South Carolina--my friend, Senator Graham--said he wouldn't agree to the resolution unless it was amended to call for a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton. The Senate was unable to pass the resolution that passed the House unanimously without controversy.
In fact, President Trump had said, even before the report came out and repeatedly afterward several times, that he supported passage of the House resolution and he supports making it public, and so did a good number of my Republican colleagues--a whole bunch today.
So, in a moment, I am going to renew my request of March 14 that the Senate adopt H. Con. Res. 24, calling for public release of the Mueller report. Now that President Trump supports public release of the report, there is no good reason for anyone to object to this request.
It is a simple request for transparency, nothing more, nothing less-- not to make a decision as to what you believe, not to say what we ought to do about it, but just to make it public. Transparency is a great American virtue that we have tried to uphold through the centuries.
So I hope I will not hear a request from the other side to amend the resolution to call for a different special counsel investigation. If there is going to be an objection, the American people deserve to know why--why should this report not be made public--not why something else shouldn't be done, not some extraneous issue. Why shouldn't this report be made public?
I ask my friend, the leader--I see him rising, and I imagine he is going to object--to give a reason why this report should not be made public, not that something else should be done at the same time. This is serious stuff. If there is an objection raised, it will only serve to frustrate the compelling public interest that is made in the special counsel's report in making it public.
Therefore, I will now give the Senate another opportunity to join every one of their colleagues in calling for the public release of this important report.
Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 24, expressing the sense of Congress that the report of Special Counsel Mueller should be made available to the public and to Congress, which is at the desk; further, that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I will be brief. The resolution does not say it has to be done immediately. The resolution certainly allows for the Attorney General to make sure that nothing is released that violates the law. All it says is that it ought to be released. It is hard to understand why the majority leader wouldn't be for that resolution.
None of his objections--none--are in the words of the report. In fact, the words of the report are very simple. It shows a sense of the Congress that it should be released--not when, not in violation of the law, not in a hurried matter, just to be released.
So I am sort of befuddled by at least the majority leader's reasoning in this regard because it is not in the words of this resolution.
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, again, this language was good enough for every Republican in the Senate, as well as every Democrat. The President himself says it should be released. It is hard to understand why the majority leader should stand alone in objections no one else found to be reasonable or sustainable and oppose this resolution. The report should be made public, and the Senate should resolve that it should be.
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