Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, later this afternoon, the U.S. women's soccer team will begin its quest for another World Cup title with its opening match against Thailand. As the entire Nation cheers them on as they take the field, I want to shine a light today on an issue the women's national team has been fighting for off the field: pay equity. The women make just as much of a sacrifice, put in just as much mental and physical energy, absorb just as much risk of injury as the men who play for the national team. Yet when you break it down, a women's national soccer team player earns a base salary of $3,600 per game while a men's player earns $5,000. Over the course of a season, if both the men's and women's teams have the same record, a male player could earn $30,000 more than his female counterpart.

Female soccer players who earn the privilege of representing their country on the world stage get a much smaller bonus, $15,000, than male soccer players who earn the same privilege, $55,000. When a woman's national team wins a World Cup, something the U.S. women have done three times--with some New York State players helping--it wins a percentage of what a men's team gets if it wins at all, something the U.S. men have never done.

For the sake of comparison, U.S. soccer awarded the men's national team a $5.4 million performance bonus for losing in the round of 16 in the 2014 World Cup. It awarded the women $1.7 million for winning the World Cup.

Let me repeat that so you get the contrast. The women won the Cup and were given $1.7 million. The men got into the final 16 and got $5.4 million. That is discrimination staring us all in the face.

This is an issue of basic fairness. Performances aside--and the women have been excellent and often dominant over the past two decades--we shouldn't reward women less for doing the same work as men. We shouldn't say to generations of girls and boys who look up to these talented stars that women's sports is in any way ``less than'' because it is not. These women, who inspire our country with their poise, tenacity, skill, and excellence every time they take the field, deserve to be fairly compensated.

Right now, the Senate could take a meaningful step to support the women's international team by passing legislation that aims to end gender-based wage discrimination. The House passed a paycheck fairness bill months ago, which languished here in the Senate in Leader McConnell's legislative graveyard. Bill after bill comes from the House, has the support of large percentages of Americans, gets Republican support in the House, and Leader McConnell just lets them lie there--another tombstone in the graveyard.

As the women of Team USA take the field today, I call on Leader McConnell to bring up the House legislation already passed that would aid in their fight for equal pay.

I will be rooting for Team USA women to kick off their campaign with a win against Thailand. Huawei

Madam President, on another matter, Huawei, according to public reports, the Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, is pushing a 2-year delay--a 2-year delay--in the implementation of key portions of a law intended to protect U.S. agencies and government contractors from Chinese telecom technology, chiefly Huawei.

This is deeply concerning for two reasons. First, from a national security standpoint, the FBI, CIA, and other members of the intelligence community have testified that the technology from Chinese telecom companies, such as Huawei and ZTE, present a national security risk, potentially allowing China to build backdoors into our networks, enabling their cyber theft and cyber espionage for which they are, unfortunately, well known. That is why Congress banned U.S. Government agencies and contractors from using this technology--because they are our highest valued targets. We have been encouraging our European allies to do the same.

Why on Earth, then, is the Acting Director of OMB, Russell Vought, asking for a 2-year delay in these rules? We passed the law more than a year ago. President Trump has signed it, and our agencies and contractors have had time to make sure their technology doesn't come from Huawei.

There is simply no reason, in my mind, for such a lengthy delay. It would only extend a window of opportunity for what is already a dire threat to our national security.

The second reason this news concerns me so is that it is about the Trump administration's broader approach to China. Across many issues in the Trump administration, it sometimes feels as though the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. A few weeks ago, the administration issued an Executive order largely banning U.S. companies from selling equipment to Huawei, an action I praised. But then the Commerce Department abruptly delayed that decision by 3 months. Now we have this additional request from OMB to soft-pedal a different set of restrictions on Huawei.

China needs to understand that the United States is serious when it comes to our trade relationship. We must have a consistent policy implemented with rigor. This idea of reciprocity, of barring China's companies from doing business here until they let our biggest companies do business there, is an important part of our overall effort to increase pressure on China to agree to meaningful economic reforms.

I am very troubled by the OMB's request, and I plan on strenuously opposing the approval of the delay here in Congress.

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