The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTION” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the Senate section on pages S5708-S5710 on Sept. 17, 2020.
The Department provides billions in unemployment insurance, which peaked around 2011 though spending had declined before the pandemic. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, claimed the Department funds "ineffective and duplicative services" and overregulates the workplace.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTION
By Mr. LEE (for himself, Mr. Cotton, Mrs. Feinstein, Mrs.
Blackburn, Ms. McSally, Mr. Boozman, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Rubio, Mr.
Cramer, Mr. Daines, Mr. Blunt, Mrs. Loeffler, Ms. Ernst, Mr.
Risch, Mrs. Hyde-Smith, Mr. Barrasso, Mr. Braun, Mr. Romney,
Mr. Cornyn, Mr. Thune, Ms. Murkowski, Mr. Hoeven, and Mr.
Tillis):
S. 4608. A bill to amend the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to provide for the portability of professional licenses of members of the uniformed services and their spouses, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Armed Services.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, tomorrow marks an important day in our Nation's history--the birth of the U.S. Air Force.
For 73 years, countless brave American women and men have protected our liberty and our homeland from the skies. They have embarked on air combat missions, guarded our bases and missile sites, and undertaken heroic rescues. They have flown, fought, and won in the air on behalf of our great country. This year also marks another important anniversary in my home State--the 80th year of Hill Air Force Base's service to that mission.
In 1939, Congress approved the construction of an air depot in Northern Utah. The following year, on January 12, the surrounding community came together and broke ground to create what is now known as Hill Air Force Base. Ever since then, it has played an invaluable role in building up our Air Force and supporting our air men and women throughout World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the conflicts that we still face today.
Tucked between the beautiful Wasatch Mountains on the east and the Great Salt Lake on the west, Hill Air Force Base is today home to 22,000 U.S. military personnel. It is the largest single-site employer in the State of Utah--providing nearly $1.5 billion in jobs each year, with an overall economic impact of about $3.7 billion annually. Hill houses and ensures mission readiness for some of our best and brightest personnel, including the 75th Air Base Wing, the 388th Fighter Wing, and the 419th Reserve Fighter Wing.
It is also home to the Ogden Air Logistics Complex, which repairs and maintains some of our most cutting-edge aircraft, including the F-22 Raptor, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, the A-10 Thunderbolt II, the T-38 Talon, and, of course, the F-35A Lightening II, the most advanced fighter jet in the world.
The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center on Hill has since 1959 been responsible for supporting the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile program, the ground-based leg of our nuclear triad.
Just a short distance west of the base, the Utah Test and Training Range contains the largest block of special-use airspace in the continental United States. The range provides an ideal location for the testing and evaluation of weapons and training grounds for combat, ensuring that our airmen are prepared to win any conflict we enter into with decisive and conclusive airpower.
There is no question that Hill Air Force Base oversees vital national security assets for the U.S. Air Force. The Air Force and our country are better off as a result of its existence. Yet there is something even more important that makes Hill the exceptional place that it is, and that is its people. The patriotism, work ethic, and community support are unmatched anywhere else in the country--or in the world for that matter.
Every commander who serves a 2-year rotation at Hill always says the same thing--that the community's support is stronger at Hill Air Force Base than at any other base where any one of them happens to have served.
I am proud to say that, in Utah, we go above and beyond to aid our military and to support their families, as well we should. According to the 2019 ``Support of Military Families'' report, Utah ranks among the top destinations for military families transitioning to a new duty station. Two of the three highest ranking Air Force installations are in Utah--Hill Air Force Base and the Roland R. Wright Air National Guard Base in Salt Lake City.
The key reason for this has been Utah's work to improve professional license reciprocity for military spouses. Among the many challenges that military families face, one of the greatest is that spouses working in fields requiring occupational licenses often suffer huge setbacks as a result of the barriers put in place by these occupational licensing regimes in the various States.
Faced with a 50-State patchwork quilt of licensing laws, these spouses are forced to spend thousands of dollars and sometimes thousands of hours on top of those thousands of dollars just to obtain licensure every single time they move to a new State, even if they have previously acquired years or even decades of experience in licensure in another State. Oftentimes, by the time the new license in the new State and in the new duty station has been processed, it is already time for the family to move, yet again, for the next military assignment.
This isn't fair. It is not right. It is not how we ought to treat the families of our brave military men and women.
The Department of Labor estimates that 13 percent of military spouses are unemployed, and a more recent Department of Defense study put the rate even higher, at 24 percent. This, needlessly and unjustly, burdens military members and their families. In some instances, it prevents servicemembers from reenlisting, and, in others, it prevents spouses from entering their desired fields in the first place.
Thankfully, some States have already taken steps to move forward in the right direction. They have already stepped up to the plate to address this problem in a meaningful way. In fact, thanks to the diligent work of two prominent Utah lawmakers, Senator Todd Weiler and State Representative Brian Greene, my home State has been one of the first to allow licensure reciprocity for military spouses as long as they meet certain established criteria.
I commend Senator Weiler and Representative Greene for their efforts, and I am encouraged to see other States following the example set by Utah.
The Federal Government has a role to play here, too. While occupational licensing is a field that is generally controlled by the State, we have a role to play insofar as the activities of the States. The regulations imposed by the States end up impacting our military families. Military readiness and talent retention, as well as movement of our troops across the Nation and throughout the world, fall under the oversight responsibilities of Congress. We at the national level should be doing everything in our power to ensure that licensing laws are friendly and flexible and certainly not hostile to or prohibitive of the activities of military spouses and their families.
That is why I am introducing the Military Spouse Licensing Relief Act. This bill will simply ensure that, when servicemembers are relocated on military orders, their spouses can receive reciprocity for professional licenses across State lines regardless of where within the United States they might be reassigned.
In order to receive reciprocity under this bill, a license would have to be in good standing, according to the requirements of the jurisdiction that issued the license in the first place, and the spouse must still comply with the State's standards of practice, of discipline, and the fulfillment of any continuing education requirements.
As a State function, protected under principles of federalism and explicitly by the Tenth Amendment, the bill does nothing to preempt the State's rightful authority to set licensing standards within each State.
We owe a great debt of gratitude to the men and women who give so much to protect our Nation, whether on the land, the seas, or in the skies. This bill is a simple, just, constitutionally sound solution that will lessen some of the burden placed on them. It will not fix all of the problems, and it will not make easy all of the sacrifices that are made by our military spouses and their families, but it will make some of it easier. That is the least we can do.
As we commemorate the birthday of the Air Force and the anniversary of Hill Air Force Base this week, this bill's passage is the least we can do for our military and their families. We need to get this passed. I invite all of my colleagues to join me in securing its immediate passage
______
By Mr. COTTON:
S. 4609. A bill to withdraw normal trade relations treatment from, and apply certain provisions of title IV of the Trade Act of 1974 to, products of the People's Republic of China, and to expand the eligibility requirements for products of the People's Republic of China to receive normal trade relations treatment in the future, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Finance.
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, 20 years ago this week, Joe Biden and other politicians from both parties gave a gift to the Communist Party: permanent most favored nation status.
Permanent most favored nation status is a trade privilege we grant most countries that are members of the World Trade Organization. It places lower tariffs and fewer restrictions on those countries' goods. But historically our trade laws have treated hostile countries differently--Communist countries, countries that cheat on trade, human rights abusers; in other words, countries exactly like Communist China.
A few of those countries, like Cuba and North Korea, are denied most favored nation status outright. What few goods their miserable socialist economies produce face steep tariffs, sanctions, and other restrictions, which is one reason you don't see too many ``Made in North Korea'' items on your local store shelves.
Other countries historically have faced a yearly review of their trading privileges with the United States in which the President and Congress can assess the human rights and trade abuses ongoing in those countries and then determine whether it is in our interests to grant those trading privileges for another year.
Communist China was one of those countries subject to yearly review--
at least it was until 20 years ago. This yearly review led the spirited debates about whether Communist China should be stripped of its trading privileges or whether it deserved a temporary reprieve. It put a spotlight on the crimes of the Chinese Communist Party, and it used our market as leverage to advance our interests. Of course the Chinese Communist Party didn't like that--not one bit; neither, sadly, did many bankers and businessmen here in America, who seemed a little more concerned about making money than pressuring Communist China to reform. This China lobby pushed hard to get rid of the annual vote and give China permanent most favored nation status, and 20 years ago this week, they finally won.
Here is how Senator Joe Biden defended his vote at the time to give a big gift to Communist China. He said:
Trade concessions are all one-way in this deal. They drop tariffs. They drop non-market barriers. They agree to increased protection of our intellectual property laws.
That is what Joe Biden said at the time, but is that what actually happened? Were all the trade concessions ``one way,'' as he predicted? In fact, they were, but not the way Joe Biden intended because all the trade concessions ended up benefiting Beijing, while devastating America.
The main consequence of that decision was to make it harder to put tariffs on China in response to human rights and trade abuses, and it sent a strong signal to businesses and banks that China was open for business for good. The gold rush to China was on.
In the two decades that followed, America invested more than $200 billion in China. Most of that money went to building factories and training workers over there, while our factories were dismantled and our workers were laid off.
In the 6 years that followed that vote, manufacturing employment plunged by 18 percent as cheap Chinese goods flooded our market and as our factories were dismantled and offshored to China.
The vote to give trade privileges to Communist China is just more evidence of the alternate reality that politicians like Joe Biden have been living in for decades. There is a consistent pattern. They treat our enemies like friends and our friends like enemies, and the American people suffer because of it.
Twenty years of getting ripped off by China is more than long enough. That is why I am introducing a bill that would repeal China's permanent most favored nation status and return us to the older way, where China's trade status would be assessed by the President and Congress every year.
My bill would make businesses think twice before sending more American jobs overseas to China, and it would add new human rights and trade standards that China must work toward to qualify for most favored nation status. This would put a spotlight on the Communist Party's most recent crimes, including its use of slave labor and concentration camps in Turkestan.
Ultimately, repealing China's most favored nation status would force regular votes in Congress, so politicians like Joe Biden would have to go on the record about whom they serve--the American people or the interests of the Chinese Communist Party
______
By Mr. THUNE (for himself and Mr. Rounds):
S. 4616. A bill to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to transfer certain National Forest System land to the State of South Dakota, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 4616
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Gilt Edge Mine Conveyance Act''.
SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Federal land.--The term ``Federal land'' means all right, title, and interest of the United States in and to approximately 266 acres of National Forest System land within the Gilt Edge Mine Superfund Boundary, as generally depicted on the map.
(2) Map.--The term ``map'' means the map entitled ``Gilt Edge Mine Conveyance Act'' and dated August 20, 2020.
(3) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary of Agriculture, acting through the Chief of the Forest Service.
(4) State.--The term ``State'' means State of South Dakota.
SEC. 3. LAND CONVEYANCE.
(a) In General.--Subject to the terms and conditions described in this Act, if the State submits to the Secretary an offer to acquire the Federal land for the market value, as determined by the appraisal under subsection (c), the Secretary shall convey the Federal land to the State.
(b) Terms and Conditions.--The conveyance under subsection
(a) shall be--
(1) subject to valid existing rights;
(2) made by quitclaim deed; and
(3) subject to any other terms and conditions as the Secretary considers appropriate to protect the interests of the United States.
(c) Appraisal.--
(1) In general.--Before submitting an offer under subsection (a), the State shall complete an appraisal to determine the market value of the Federal land.
(2) Standards.--The appraisal under paragraph (1) shall be conducted in accordance with--
(A) the Uniform Appraisal Standards for Federal Land Acquisitions; and
(B) the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice.
(d) Map.--
(1) Availability of map.--The map shall be kept on file and available for public inspection in the appropriate office of the Forest Service.
(2) Correction of errors.--The Secretary may correct any errors in the map.
(e) Consideration.--As consideration for the conveyance under subsection (a), the State shall pay to the Secretary an amount equal to the market value of the Federal land, as determined by the appraisal under subsection (c).
(f) Survey.--The State shall prepare a survey that is satisfactory to the Secretary of the exact acreage and legal description of the Federal land to be conveyed under subsection (a).
(g) Costs of Conveyance.--As a condition on the conveyance under subsection (a), the State shall pay all costs associated with the conveyance, including the cost of--
(1) the appraisal under subsection (c); and
(2) the survey under subsection (f).
(h) Proceeds From the Sale of Land.--Any proceeds received by the Secretary from the conveyance under subsection (a) shall be--
(1) deposited in the fund established under Public Law 90-171 (commonly known as the ``Sisk Act'') (16 U.S.C. 484a); and
(2) available to the Secretary until expended, without further appropriation, for the maintenance and improvement of land or administration facilities in the Black Hills National Forest in the State.
(i) Environmental Conditions.--Notwithstanding section 120(h)(3)(A) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (42 U.S.C. 9620(h)(3)(A)), the Secretary shall not be required to provide any covenant or warranty for the Federal land conveyed to the State under this Act.
____________________
