Commerce, Justice, Science, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the Scripture tells us that ``the Lord is close to the brokenhearted,'' in Psalm 34:18. I pray those words are true, because we lost a Member of the Senate family today and many of us have lost a dear friend. We are brokenhearted at the news that Senator Kay Hagan passed away at the age of 66.

I spoke to her husband Chip a few hours ago, and I told him that from the first moment I met Kay Hagan, she was special. She remained that way every day since. She was an amazing force--never loud but always strong, effective, hard-working, dedicated, principled, and just a kindhearted person.

He told me that he and Kay had just had a wonderful weekend, a dinner, a wedding, surrounded by friends and family. She even got to spend some time with Joe Biden, who was in town. Chip said she was just beaming.

I take some comfort in knowing that. In fact, it reminded me of how Kay lived her life. She was never one to let the sometimes painful realities of life in politics get her down. I knew Kay for over a decade, as a State senator, a candidate, a brilliant Senator, and a former Senator who returned to private life without an ounce of regret or ill-will.

In all that time, I never heard her once--never heard her once-- complain. She was never sour, sarcastic, or dejected. She remained always to her last day a cheerful optimist, a happy warrior.

It is only one of the many reasons that Kay Hagan was beloved by Members on this side of the aisle and I believe by a great number of those on the other side as well. Boy, do we miss her.

My heart goes out to Chip, to their three kids--Jeanette, Tilden, and Carrie--and their wonderful grandchildren, of whom Kay was so proud and loved. Death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Mr. President, on another subject, yesterday morning it was announced that U.S. Special Operations Forces killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State. The death of al-Baghdadi is a great victory for the safety of our country and the safety of our allies and partners. All Americans salute the Special Operations Forces who executed this mission, the intelligence community of professionals, whose work helped to enable the mission, and our allies and partners, particularly, the Syrian Kurds, who have contributed to the global coalition to defeat ISIS.

Despite this great victory, however, we must not confuse the death of this one very evil man with the defeat of ISIS. There are still potentially hundreds of ISIS prisoners and sympathizers who have escaped in recent weeks as a result of President Trump's abrupt decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria and green- light Erdogan's invasion. We cannot allow ISIS to regroup or gather strength. New Yorkers know all too well the destruction a small group of terrorists can cause from half a world away.

Make no mistake, we still need a plan for the enduring defeat of ISIS. They are not gone. We must include details on how we will deal with escaped prisoners. Nobody knows. These are evil people. They want to hurt us, and they can escape from the prisons, and Lord knows where they will go. But we know a good chunk of them will want to do damage to our homeland.

So far, the administration, unfortunately, has articulated no coherent plan. Its top officials, Secretary Pompeo and Secretary Esper, seem unable to find time to even brief Congress, in all likelihood because they have nothing real to say, no plan. For almost a month now, we have been requesting an all-Senators briefing from the administration on its Syria policy. That is the bare minimum we expect from the administration when it comes to major policy decisions. Yet we have had two briefings scheduled and then canceled, and we still cannot get the Department of Defense or the Department of State to commit to a time for those Secretaries to brief Congress.

According to reports, the Trump administration gave Russia and Turkey some kind of advanced notice of the raid of al-Baghdadi, but, seemingly, by deliberate choice neglected to notify the leaders of Congress, as is custom in this case.

Based on the President's remarks yesterday, it seems he may have made a solitary exception for the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. That is not what the Founders envisioned when they imagined Congress and the executive branch working together to conduct the Nation's foreign policy. It seems clear that the Trump administration is either reluctant or simply unwilling to keep Congress in the loop on its plan to defeat ISIS and protect American interest in the region. The most likely explanation, unfortunately, is that it does not have one.

This needs to change. There needs to be a plan. There needs to be some accountability to Congress. We need to hear from Secretaries Pompeo and Esper in Congress this week. Trump Administration

Mr. President, now on another matter, as the House of Representatives continues to do its constitutional duty to conduct oversight of any wrongdoing by the executive branch, our Republican colleagues in both Chambers have made great pains to make its ``process'' an issue. A group of House Republicans stormed the secure facility in the Capitol to highlight the purported secrecy of the process. It was later revealed that fully one-third of those Members were already allowed in the closed hearings. Here in the Senate, Senator Graham introduced a resolution with a list of trumped-up complaints about the House process, and I just heard my friend the Republican leader talk about the process in his opening remarks.

Now, I am going to say something that might surprise everyone listening out there. I actually agree with what President Trump said this morning about the impeachment inquiry in the House. The President said, ``I'd rather go into the details of the case rather than the process,'' adding, ``I think you ought to look at the case.'' The President--the President--himself is saying all this stuff about process is a diversion.

Look at the substance. We want to look at the substance. That is what the House is doing. That is what our Republican friends--those who in a fit of rage or whatever stormed the House committee room, that is what so many of our colleagues on this side of the aisle are doing, just focusing on process because they are afraid to focus on substance and how wrong it was--what the President did, if the facts prove he did it, which I believe the House is looking at.

So let's not forget the impeachment inquiry stems from a very serious allegation that President Trump pressured a foreign leader to investigate a domestic political rival. Allegations were deemed credible and an urgent concern by a Trump appointee. Allegations have been further corroborated by the memorandum of conversation released by the White House, testimony gathered by the House, and public comments made by no one less than the President's chief of staff.

We have a responsibility--a responsibility, a constitutional responsibility--to grapple with the facts in the public record and ultimately make judgments based on the merits of the case. So the President of the United States, in this case, happens to be right. Congressional Republicans in the House and Senate should focus on the details of the case rather than the process. Health Insurance Plans

Mr. President, another subject, later this week, Senate Democrats will again use their authority under the Congressional Review Act to force a crucial vote on the future of healthcare protections for Americans with preexisting conditions. The Trump administration has done nearly everything imaginable to undermine these protections over the past 3 years, including by suing to repeal our healthcare law in its entirety. This vote concerns the administration's expansion of junk insurance plans, which offer ways around the requirements to cover Americans when they need healthcare most. This rule gives States the green light to use taxpayer dollars to buy junk insurance plans.

Oftentimes, the plans are so skimpy they hardly cover anything at all. They are barely worth the paper they are written on. Imagine you are the mother or father of a child with cancer and you sign one of these plans, and the insurance company says we don't have to take care of your kid for something as devastating and as life-threatening as cancer. Imagine how you would feel.

Yet our Republican friends and this administration want to give insurance companies the green light to make a ton of money and write this junk--junk insurance--and have hundreds of thousands--millions of Americans not covered for even the most important and vital of coverages.

Well, that is what is at stake this week. The Senate will vote. Republicans will have to go on record to either defend the administration's actions or protect Americans who have preexisting conditions.

I know several of my Republican colleagues publicly declared their support for these protections when they have their campaign ads going. That hasn't been the case here in Congress where Republicans have repeatedly voted against the same protections. Wednesday will be another important test for Senate Republicans. Climate Change

Finally, Mr. President, on climate. On Friday, I announced a new proposal to rapidly phase out gas-powered vehicles and replace them with clean vehicles like electric cars. The goal of the plan, which also aims to spur a transformation in American manufacturing, is that, by 2040, all vehicles on the road should be clean.

We need a plan of this scale and ambition to fight one of the largest drivers of carbon emissions--transportation--which account for over one-third of America's carbon output. Scientists now tell us that, to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change, the world needs to be carbon neutral by mid-century. At the moment, we are not on track even remotely to meet that target.

So we must act urgently and ambitiously, which requires building diverse coalitions of support. What distinguished my proposal is not only its scale, but its ability to unite the American environmental movement, the American labor movement, and large automakers. Listen to who is supporting this proposal: the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the League of Conservation Voters, and labor unions like the United Automobile Workers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the AFL-CIO, and car manufacturers like Ford and General Motors. When have we ever seen the car manufacturers and the unions and the environmentalists agree on a major proposal that will stop carbon from poisoning our atmosphere? Well, here it is.

How would this plan work? First, it would provide a large discount on an American-made vehicle when drivers trade in a gas-powered car. Second, it would provide grants to States and cities to build charging stations with a particular emphasis on low-income, rural, and underserved communities. Third, the plan aims to establish the U.S. as the global leader in electric vehicle and battery manufacturing by providing grants to retool existing manufacturing plants in the United States and build new ones in this country that specialize in those technologies.

It will clean our atmosphere, save families money; the cost of these cars will be less than the cost of maintaining a gasoline-driven vehicle, and it will establish America once again as the preeminent automobile power as electric cars become the way of the future.

Critics say that acting on climate change has cost us jobs and money. It is simply not true. My plan is actually estimated to create tens of thousands of new jobs, good-paying jobs right here in the U.S. Much as America experienced a revolution in auto manufacturing at the outset of the 20th century, America under this plan will experience a revolution in clean auto manufacturing at the beginning of this century, but if we are to reach our goal, we have to move fast. China now accounts for more than half the world's electric vehicle market, and if we don't match the level of China's commitment, we are going to miss a tremendous opportunity. We have missed too many already.

If Democrats win control of the Senate in 2020, I as majority leader will introduce bold and far-reaching climate legislation. This proposal for clean cars would be a key element of that bill.

This is about American jobs, American global economic leadership, and protecting our dear planet. Nothing, nothing could be more worthy of pursuing.

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