Its frustrating to see our colleagues across the aisle undermine what could have been a very productive discussion about our nations spending habits, about deficits and debt and what our priorities should be. And instead chose to move forward with these bills which fall short in any number of places. I must say that the majority leader, the senator from kentucky was committed to a process of getting these appropriations back on track so we could give a voice to all members in these negotiations and taking them up in an orderly fashion so that amendments could be offered, they could be debated and voted on, all of which is now been swept to the side. Im also grateful for the tireless work of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the senate, the senator from alabama, senator shelby as well as the other members of the committee who have been negotiating an agreement to support our National Defense and avoid book ending the 2019 year with a second shutdown. But as we move closer to vote on these Appropriations Bills tomorrow, im going to continue to review their text. They are massive pieces of legislation, and we have only recently gotten access to them. But i will be making my individual decision as i trust each member will on whether to support these Appropriations Bills and whether they represent the best interests of their state and of the american people. The presiding officer the assistant democratic leader. Mr. Durbin thank you, mr. President. Mr. President , its hard to believe that in this nation of immigrants we have such a broken immigration system, but its a fact. Weve addressed so many problems in this system over the years. A few years ago on the floor of the senate we passed a comprehensive Immigration Reform bill which didnt survive in the house of representatives. And so its no surprise that on a regular basis, we face challenges when it comes to our existing immigration laws. One of the most serious challenges is the green card backlog in this country. To try to describe it in just the simplest terms, under the current law there are not nearly enough in my estimation immigrant visas, also known as green cards, available each year. Each year in america there are 226,000 family green cards available and 140,000 employment green cards available each year. 140,000 for a nation of 350 million people. So many of those who are aspiring to get a green card and ultimately move toward permanent residence status and citizenship wait and wait and wait for the day to arrive. Children in many of these families for workers currently in the United States on things like the h1b visa, many of these children age out. They reach the age of 21 and theyre no longer protected by their parents presence. And so they are at risk of being deported even as they go into their teenage years. Its a horrible situation. Its really a heartbreaking situation. And ive come to meet and know many of the families affected by it. We are trying to deal with this green card backlog with the reality of current politics in washington. And under the current political environment, there are limitations on what we can do. My response is to increase the number of green cards that are available each year so that we have more than 140,000 available. There are currently at least 800,000 people waiting for the 140,000 green cards that come up each year. As a consequence we are in a predicament where we dont have nearly enough green cards for the people who are waiting for them. I would increase that number. But politically thats not growing to happen. The president doesnt agree with that position and many republicans in the senate and house dont agree either. So senator lee and i have confronted this issue coming at it from different perspectives and initially we were at odds on how to approach it. I objected to a bill that he brought to the floor. He objected to a bill i brought to the floor. And then we sat down to talk. The bill i brought to the floor, as i mentioned earlier, would increase the number of green cards, would make sure that the families while theyre waiting would be protected from deportation, would allow them to travel and to change jobs. That work is called the relief act. Ive introduced it. Its been introduced in the house of representatives by congresswoman shalala and its a bill i still support and would like to see passed. That is my preference. It is not a bill that would pass in the senate at this time. And so senator lee and i sat down to try to find Common Ground if we could on an approach that might work for deal with the backlog in a humane fashion and to protect the families during the course of that. Weve come up with a proposal which i think moves us in the right direction. An agreement between us, a bipartisan agreement which we are now hoping to offer to the senate for consideration as quickly as possible. I will be say very quickly a summary of what it tries to achieve. It protects immigrants and their families who are stuck in the backlog, the green card backlog i mentioned and immigrant workers and their immediate family members would be eligible for what is styled early filing for their queen cards. Ism grant workers would not receive their green cards early but while waiting they would be able to switch jobs, travel without losing immigration status. The amendment includes a critical protection from relief act that protects the children of immigrant workers from aging out of green card eligibility while the family is waiting. So that they will not face deportation. Green cards set asides for immigrant workers stuck in the backlog overseas are provided. The amendment reserves 4,600 green cards on an annual basis for immigrant workers stuck in the backlog overseas and not eligible for early filing. The number is based on the actual or best approximate number of the actual number of people who apply for employment green cards from overseas each year. Third, it addresses abuses in the h1b temporary work visas. The first thing that senator lee and i want to make clear is were committed first and foremost to American Workers getting jobs. In those circumstances where American Workers with certain skills are not available, we have whats known as the h1b visa. What we try to do working with senator grassley is come up with a bipartisan way of strengthening that system. Including in the strengthening in this amendment is a 50 50 rule which says the amendment would prohibit a company from hiring additional h1b workers if the companys workforce is more than 50 employees and more than 50 are actually temporary workers. I personally believe those companies are suspect and this bill raises that question. The 5050 rule as we mentioned is from a bill that senator grassley and i introduced. It was part of comprehensive Immigration Reform. The reality is theres abuse in the h1b system. We dont try to solve every aspect of it but we do address what we consider to be one of the starting points of the problem that we currently face. Heres where we are. Senator lee and i have reached a bipartisan agreement on what we think is a reasonable approach and we want to make sure it is acceptable to our colleagues to move forward. Ive been working on the democratic side. Senator lee has been working on the republican side. We dont believe we can get it done at this very moment but we are hopeful to get it done very quickly. The reason is obvious. These families affected by this backlog are really going through hardship and concerns that no family should face. The sooner we resolve them, the better. As ive talked to many of these families, they said why dont you sit down with senator lee and see if you can reach an agreement. I did. We have. Now i hope we can move forward. Mr. President , i yield the floor. Mr. Lee mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from utah. The presiding officer mr. Mr. Lee mr. President , its a privilege and honor to work with my distinguished colleague, the senior senator from illinois, this important project. Ive been working on bringing about an end to the arbitrary per country caps put in place on employment based green cards for nearly the entire nineyear period ive been in the United States senate. At no point has it been an easy process. These are significant weighty issues and they require attention. Senator durbin and i have spent the last couple of months negotiating in good faith and with a lot of energy and a lot of time and attention given to the project not only by the two members involved, senator durbin and myself, but also by our very dedicated, devoted staffs who have really put a lot of shoe leather, sweat, blood, and tears into this effort. Im grateful to senator durbin for being willing to work with me on this. Ive enjoyed working with him over the years on a number of projects, including the passage just about a year ago, almost exactly a year ago of the First Step Act. This was the result of a project that senator durbin and i had been working on for eight continuous years up until that point culminating in a lot of proposals, including things like the smart sentencing act and ultimately the First Step Act which, like i say, was passed almost exactly a year ago. At no point in that process was there an easy path forward, an easy path toward victory. Yet he and i remained united in our desire to see something get passed. Senator durbin and i along with our staffs have put a lot of energy and attention into this effort as well to try to bring about a resolution of the problem created by the arbitrary percountry caps placed on employmentbased immigrant visas. Im very pleased with the outcome of those negotiations. Im very confident that this is something that we can get passed into law. And he and i are going to continue to work together. Im going to make sure weve got the buyin we need. I want to make sure the cosponsors of the legislation are comfortable with what we negotiated and they understand it. So to that end, mr. President , i thank the senator from illinois and his staff and also my own staff for working on this and i have every hope and expectation and confidence that this is going to result in something that can pass, something i believe that can and will soon pass with the unanimous support of the members of this body. Thank you, mr. President. I yield the floor. A senator mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from maryland. Mr. Cardin thank you, mr. President. Several times on the floor of the senate i talked about the issue of Retirement Security. Its been a priority for me during my entire career in the United States congress. When the United States has led the world in just about every economic indicator, theres always one in which the United States is not doing well, and that is in our national saving, particularly in Retirement Savings. When we take a look at recent figures, we find that 48 of those that are near retirement, over 55 years of age, have zero amounts in Retirement Funds. Almost half of our near elderly have no Retirement Funds and pensions at all. 29 have zero savings. So we need to do a lot better. The issue is very much compromised because weve seen a major trend in the employment world from the defined benefit plans, defined contribution plans. In the defined benefit world, the employer guarantees certain benefits to their employees and takes a risk in the market. In the defined contribution plan, it requires the employee to put money aside and be disciplined to do that. We find less Retirement Security for many wage earners today. This puts pressure on our Social Security system. Social security is a very, very Important Program but its only supposed to be one leg of a threeleg stool of Retirement Security, including private retirement and private savings. So we have responded in the past and weve taken action. Im very proud of the work that i first started doing in the house of representatives with thencongressman rob portman. The two of us worked on pension legislation. We were able to get it enacted and it made a big difference. Tomorrow were going to have a chance i hope tomorrow well be voting on the omnibus appropriation bills. Well have a chance to make a major step forward on Retirement Security with the passage of the secure act. The secure act is seeing every community up for Retirement Enhancement act, Setting Every Community up for Retirement Enhancement act. It is a bill that was first acted upon by the Senate Finance committee back in 2016 so this has been a long time in happening. It passed the house of representatives by a vote of 4173. So, you see, theres very strong bipartisan support for this next chapter in Retirement Security. It expands opportunities for americans to increase their Retirement Savings and improve the portability of Lifetime Income options. Mr. President , many provisions are included in the secure act. I want to talk about a few, several of which i was very produce to be parred of working to include within the secure act. First, for the first time in many years we do something about the required minimum distribution. Under current law once you reach 70 and a half years of age, youre required to take out a certain amount of your Retirement Income. The problem with that is that people are living longer and longer and longer and their Retirement Income becomes inadequate the longer they live. And they may have planned to live to be 80 or 85 or 90 but find they still have an active lifestyle well beyond that. The required minimum distribution works against them being able to maintain adequate amount of Retirement Funds for later in life. This bill takes a step forward in increasing the date in which you are required to take out a minimum distribution to 72 years of age. We are now also providing retirement opportunities for parttime workers. This is a major improvement on our retirement programs, and i might tell my colleagues that parttime workers affect women much more than men, and this is something that was long overdue, and im very pleased that thats also included in this legislation. Part of legislation that senator portman and i have worked on deals with the fact that we have defined benefit plans that are available today, but in some cases employers have found it employer to continue these plans for new employees. These are called closed plans. Well, these defined benefit plans are still there to protect those that were enrolled in the plan before they became closed. But heres the problem. As more and more people are employed by the company that are not in this plan and more of the people that were in the defined benefit plans are no longer around, the nondiscrimination rule test is much harder to be met, and as a result these plans may have to be frozen or canceled, and that would be to the detriment of those that are currently protected under these closed plans. Ive been told that as many as 400,000 workers would risk losing benefits by the end of this year if we do not take action to change the nondiscrimination rules in regards to these closed plans. The secure act includes a provision to do this. I was very happy to work with senator portman to get that done. Thats included in this legislation, and its very important that we enact it before the end of december. Theres a provision in here that i worked with senator roberts, bipartisan proposal to deal with Church Pension plans. Weve had a Church Pension plan on the books for many years, but weve gotten inconsistent i. R. S. Regulations as it relates to the management of these pension plans, particularly when you are dealing with churchafill i didnt thinked institutions churchaffiliated institutions such as day care centers. This will affect thousands of workers in making a positive difference on Retirement Security. The secure act also includes a provision that will exempt state and local firefighters and Emergency Responders from income tax liability. That was never intended on some pension plans. All thats included in the secure act, and it will help a great deal in dealing with the issue i raised in the beginning of my remarks Retirement Security for individuals. Now, well get that done i hope this week. We expect a vote on the bill within the next hopefully within the next day. That will be a major step forward for Retirement Security. But its not the end. We have to do a lot more. Thats why senator portman and i have filed the Retirement Security and savings act. Thats a bill that contains almost 50 different provisions. Some are included in the secure act and were grateful for that. Most are not. And whats included in the Retirement Security and savings act builds on the secure act to provide greater opportunities for those for Retirement Security. Let me give you a couple examples. It improves the required minimum distribution, allowing individuals to be able to reserve more for the later years of their life. It also provides tremendous incentives for Lifetime Income. Heres the problem people may have Retirement Savings and they say, look, i guess ill live another 15 years, so they take their money out over 15 years. Guess what . After 15 years theyre still