Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, yesterday the Senate confirmed a well-qualified jurist chosen by President Trump to serve on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Paul Matey of New Jersey will bring a wealth of experience to the bench, and I was proud to support his nomination.
We also voted to advance the nomination of Neomi Rao to the DC Circuit. This nominee is yet another of the President's excellent choices to serve as a Federal judge.
Ms. Rao graduated with honors from Yale and the University of Chicago School of Law. Her record includes a distinguished tenure in academia, public and private sector legal experience, as well as a clerkship on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Most importantly, in testimony before our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, she demonstrated a commitment to maintaining the public trust and upholding the rule of law. So the committee favorably reported Ms. Rao's nomination, and soon the Senate will have an opportunity to continue fulfilling our advice and consent responsibilities by voting to confirm her to the Federal bench.
We will also vote this afternoon on the nomination of William Beach, who has been waiting for over a year to take his post as Commissioner of Labor Statistics. Our colleagues on the HELP Committee recommended Mr. Beach to the floor in December of 2017. A full year later, with no progress, he was returned to the White House. Now he is finally getting a floor vote. This pointless obstruction needs to change, but I am glad we can at least confirm Mr. Beach this week.
Yemen
Madam President, now, on another matter, the Senate will soon vote on a resolution under the War Powers Act. I strongly oppose this unnecessary and counterproductive resolution and urge our colleagues to join me in opposing it.
From the outset, let me say this. I believe it is right for Senators to have grave concerns over some aspects of Saudi Arabia's behavior, particularly the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. That is not what this resolution is about, however. In December, the Senate voted on a resolution that addressed this institution's concerns about Saudi Arabia.
If Senators continue to have concerns about Saudi behavior, they should raise them in hearings and directly with the administration and directly with Saudi officials, as I have done, and they should allow a vote on the confirmation of retired GEN John Abizaid, whose nomination to be U.S. Ambassador to Riyadh is being held up once again by Democratic obstruction.
They should also allow a vote on the nomination of David Schenker to be Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. He has been held up here for nearly a year. If we want to solve problems in the Middle East through diplomacy, we will need to confirm diplomats.
Regarding Yemen, it is completely understandable that Senators have concerns over the war, the American interests entangled in it, and its consequences for Yemeni civilians. I think there is bipartisan agreement, shared by the administration, that our objective should be to end this horrible conflict, but this resolution doesn't end the conflict. It will not help Saudi pilots avoid civilian casualties. It will not enhance America's diplomatic leverage. In fact, it will make it harder to achieve those very objectives.
This is an inappropriate and counterproductive measure. First, the administration has already ended--ended--air-to-air refueling of coalition aircraft. We only provide limited noncombat support to the U.N.-recognized Yemeni Government and to the Saudi-led coalition. It certainly does not--does not--constitute hostilities.
Second, there are real threats from the Houthis in Yemen whom Iran, as we all know, is backing. Missiles and explosives are being aimed at civilians, anti-ship missiles are being fired at vessels in key shipping lanes of global importance.
If one of those missiles kills a large number of Saudi or Emirati civilians, let alone Americans who live in Riyadh or Dubai, say goodbye to any hope of a negotiated end to this conflict. These threats will not evaporate. They are not going to go away if the United States ends its limited support. So I think of the American citizens who live in the regions.
Third, our focus should be on ending the war in Yemen responsibly. Pulling the plug on support to our partners only undermines the very leverage and influence we need to help facilitate the U.N.'s diplomatic efforts. The United States will be in a better position to encourage the Saudi-led coalition to take diplomatic risks if our partners trust that we appreciate the significant, legitimate threats they face from the Houthis.
Fourth, we face real threats from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. We need cooperation from Yemen, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia to defeat those terrorists. So we should think twice about undermining these very partners whose cooperation we obviously need for our own security.
Here is my bottom line. We should not use this specific vote on a specific policy decision as some proxy for all the Senate's broad feelings about foreign affairs. Concerns about Saudi human rights issues should be directly addressed with the administration and with the Saudi officials. That is what I have chosen to do. That is what I recommend others do.
As for Yemen, we need to ask what action will actually serve our goal; that is, working with partners to encourage a negotiated solution.
Withdrawing? Would withdrawing our support facilitate efforts to end the war, or just embolden the Houthis? Would sending this signal enhance or weaken our leverage over the Saudi-led coalition? Would voting for this resolution strengthen the hand of the U.N. Special Envoy, Martin Griffiths, or in fact undermine his work? Would we prefer that Saudi Arabia and the UAE go to China and Russia for assistance instead of the United States?
The answers to these questions is pretty clear. We need to vote no on this misguided resolution. The Green New Deal
Madam President, now one final matter. Yesterday, I continued the discussion we have been having about the strange ideas that seem to have taken ahold of Washington Democrats.
Ideas like the Democrat politician protection act, a scheme to limit America's First Amendment right to political speech and force taxpayers to subsidize political campaigns, including ones they disagree with. It did not earn a single Republican vote in the House, by the way. Thank goodness.
Ideas like Medicare for None, which could spend more than $32 trillion to hollow out seniors' health benefits and boot working families from their chosen plans into a one-size-fits-all government scheme.
Even the soaring costs and massive disruption that plan would cause American families are dwarfed--dwarfed--by the grandiose scheme they are marketing as the Green New Deal.
By now, we are all familiar with the major thrust of the proposal: powering down the U.S. economy, and yet somehow also creating government-directed economic security for everyone--for everyone--at the same time.
Naturally, accomplishing all this is quite a tall order. According to the Democrats' resolution, it will require overhauling every building in America to meet strict new codes, overseen, of course, by social planners here in Washington. It would require banning the production of American coal, oil, and natural gas in 10 short years and cracking down on transportation systems that produce any emissions, which, as one hastily deleted background document made clear, is just a polite way of saying Democrats want to eventually ban anything with a motor that runs on gasoline. They want to ban anything with a motor that runs on gasoline.
I thought ``Abolish ICE'' was bad enough when Democrats were rallying to close down all of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but now what do we get? The far left also wants to abolish the internal combustion engine. I gather somewhere around that time is when the miraculous, promised universal job guarantee would kick in as well. It is just a good, old-fashioned, state-planned economy--garden-variety 21st-century socialism.
Our Democratic colleagues have taken all the debunked philosophies of the last 100 years, rolled them into one giant package, and thrown a little ``green'' paint on them to make them look new, but there is nothing remotely new about a proposal to centralize control over the economy and raise taxes on the American people to pay for it.
Margaret Thatcher famously said that the trouble with socialist governments is ``they always run out of other people's money.'' How often have we heard that? Well, this dangerous fantasy would burn through the American people's money before it even got off the launchpad.
The cost to the Treasury is just the beginning. It is hard to put a price tag on ripping away the jobs and livelihoods of literally millions of Americans. It is hard to put a price tag on forcibly remodeling Americans' homes whether they want it or not and taking away their cars whether they want that or not. It certainly is difficult to put a price tag on unilaterally disarming the entire U.S. economy with this kind of self-inflicted wound while other nations, such as China, go roaring by--roaring by.
By definition, global emissions are a global problem. Even if we grant the Democrats' unproven claim that cratering American industries and outlawing the energy sources that middle-class families can afford would produce the kinds of emissions changes they are after, we need to remember that the United States is only responsible for about 15 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions--only 15 percent of the global total.
According to the Department of Energy, the United States cut our own energy-related carbon emissions by 14 percent from 2005 to 2017. So we cut carbon emissions in this country significantly from 2005 to 2017. Well, it is appropriate to ask, what did the rest of the world do? They kept soaring higher and higher.
In the same period that the United States cut our energy-related carbon emissions by 14 percent, the International Energy Agency found that worldwide, energy-related carbon emissions rose by 20 percent everywhere else. China--the world's largest carbon emitter--increased its emissions dramatically over that period. So, believe me, if Democrats succeeded at slowing the U.S. economy and cutting our prosperity because they think it will save the planet, China will not pull over by the side of the road to keep us company; they will go roaring right by us.
The proposal we are talking about is, frankly, delusional--absolutely delusional. It is so unserious that it ought to be beneath one of our two major political parties to line up behind it.
The Washington Post editorial board--not exactly a bastion of conservatism--dismissed the notion that ``the country could reach net- zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030'' as ``an impossible goal.''
In a clear sign of how rapidly Democrats are racing to the far left, President Obama's own Energy Secretary said the same thing. He said: ``I just cannot see how we could possibly go to zero carbon in the 10- year timeframe.''
These Washington Democrats' leftward sprint is leaving Obama administration officials in the dust and even parts of their own base. Listen to what Democrats' usual Big Labor allies have to say about this socialist nightmare. Union leaders with the AFL-CIO say this proposal ``could cause immediate harm to millions of our members and their families.'' That is what the AFL-CIO union leaders said. Immediate harm to American workers, American farmers, American families, and America's future, and nowhere near enough reduction in global emissions to show for it. It is a self- inflicted wound for the low price, by one estimate, of somewhere in the neighborhood of $93 trillion.
This is not based on logic or reason; it is just based on the prevailing fashions in New York and San Francisco. That is what is defining today's Democrats.
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