[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 73 (Wednesday, April 28, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2278-S2281]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Fentanyl

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I am 5 minutes late in coming to the 
Senate floor. I was supposed to be here on the fentanyl issue to 
support Senator Cotton. I know that an objection has been raised, but I 
want people to know how important I think this issue is.
  Today, we were considering--hopefully, by unanimous consent--passing 
a bill to permanently schedule fentanyl substances. Proactively 
scheduling fentanyl-related substances ought to be a big priority 
because too many Americans' lives have been lost to reject this 
critical measure.
  Some wrongly assert that controlling fentanyl analogs is partisan and 
unnecessary. That is simply untrue. Legislation to schedule fentanyl 
analogs is a bipartisan issue. Just last year, this body passed a 
bipartisan, 15-month extension bill unanimously. Also, such authority 
is necessary. The CDC estimates that fentanyl analogs have killed 
50,000 Americans in the last 12 months. We must prevent overdose 
deaths. Prevention is possible when we use our laws to force China to 
stop the flow of fentanyl analogs.
  Opponents of permanent scheduling assert that the authority is broad 
and could result in too many arrests, but since the Drug Enforcement 
Administration placed fentanyl analogs in schedule I, the Justice 
Department has convicted only 80 people under that authority. So too 
many people being arrested as an argument against their permanent 
extension is hogwash. This authority hasn't resulted in vast and wide 
prosecutions; rather, this authority has been targeted and deliberate, 
and, of course, that is the way it should be.
  So if controlling fentanyl analogs is, in fact, bipartisan and 
necessary, why isn't supporting legislation then a no-brainer? Perhaps 
because of heightened partisanship, the Democrats can't vote for 
legislation that helps law enforcement, or maybe they can't be seen as 
supporting any drug control law even if it could save thousands of 
lives. This position goes against the unfortunate truth that 50,000 
Americans have died from these deadly fentanyl analogs. Politics has no 
place above human life.
  As frustrated as I am by this, it is not my nature to throw in the 
towel. I will always work hard to find middle ground. That is why I am 
asking every Senator to support Senator Cotton's permanent extension 
or, at a minimum, my bill, the Temporary Extension of Fentanyl 
Scheduling Act. This bipartisan measure extends the authority to 
schedule fentanyl analogs for 14 months. It keeps fentanyl analogs in 
schedule I until July 2022, which is long enough for the administration 
to come to a permanent scheduling solution and allow for a deliberate 
and transparent dialogue with Congress.
  Simply put, we need to give ourselves enough time to find a solution 
to this major problem causing 50,000 lives to be lost every year. As 
history shows us, lengthy fentanyl scheduling legislation is not 
controversial. I am simply asking for a similar, bipartisan approach 
now. My bill is the only bipartisan temporary extension bill on the 
table.
  I am grateful for Senators Hassan and Shaheen for teaming up with me 
and Senator Cornyn.
  We can't limit ourselves in the fight against fentanyl. It is with 
this in mind that I urge all of my colleagues to support either a 
permanent extension or my bipartisan bill and to extend the authority 
to schedule fentanyl analogs for 14 months.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from Florida


                 Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 185

  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, Americans are worried about 
inflation. New polling shows that 87 percent of Americans are concerned 
about the rising costs of household items, like diapers and gas and 
groceries. That is up from 77 percent just last month. They have good 
reason to feel that way. Right now, reports show that a third of 
American households making less than $50,000 in annual income are 
buying less because of increasing prices, and more than one-quarter of 
all households report that rising prices on goods are causing them to 
purchase less.
  Just this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that, over 
the last 12 months, food prices have gone up, and gas prices have risen 
23 percent. That means, since Biden was elected, gas prices have 
increased about 70 cents per gallon across the Nation. Year over year, 
consumer prices increased 2.6 percent in March. That is up from an 
annual 1.7 percent increase in February. This is all in addition to 
statements from some of America's largest corporations, like Procter & 
Gamble and Kimberly-Clark, which recently announced that they are 
increasing prices on a number of their products. That includes 
essential household goods, like toilet paper and diapers.
  The evidence of inflation is right in front of us. Just look at these 
numbers that show the percentage change in average unit prices versus 
last year: groceries up 2.6 percent; household goods up 5.2 percent; 
baby care up 7 percent; general merchandise up 7.1 percent. Wages never 
go up this fast. So who does it hurt? It hurts the poorest and those on 
fixed incomes.
  Businesses are also expecting price increases to continue.
  According to data from FactSet, 47 S&P companies have mentioned 
inflation on their earnings calls for Q1 2021. That is more than during 
any other quarter in the last 10 years.
  On its most recent earnings call, Procter & Gamble's chief financial 
officer, Andre Schulten, said:

       The commodity cost challenges we face this year will, 
     obviously, be larger next fiscal year.

  Who gets hurt the most when inflation rises? Not the rich. It is 
working families, especially those on low and fixed incomes.
  I grew up poor and watched my parents struggle to put food on the 
table. I know just how much a slight rise in prices can hurt a family, 
because I saw it while I was growing up, and that is what is happening 
right now across our Nation.
  We know that those in the Biden administration are worried about 
this. They know that rising costs caused by their massive spending are 
bad for Americans, but they won't say it. While they are reportedly 
worrying in private about the effects of their spending plans, they 
have had a different message in public.
  On April 13, the New York Times reported that officials and aides at 
the White House and the Department of the Treasury have been holding 
private meetings for months to discuss inflation and have conducted 
indepth internal analyses for senior officials and President Biden.
  The article goes on to read:


[[Page S2279]]


  

       Mr. Biden's aides are sufficiently worried about the risk 
     of that spending fueling inflation that they shaped his 
     infrastructure proposal, which has yet to be taken up by 
     Congress, to funnel out $2.3 trillion over eight years, which 
     is slower than traditional stimulus.

  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record this New York Times article, dated April 13, 2021
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Apr. 13, 2021]

      The Biden Administration Is Quietly Obsessing Over Inflation

                          (By Jim Tankersley)

       Washington.--Even before President Biden took office, some 
     of his closest aides were focused on a question that risked 
     derailing his economic agenda: Would his plans for a $1.9 
     trillion economic rescue package and additional government 
     spending overheat the economy and fuel runaway inflation?
       To find the answer, a close circle of advisers now working 
     at the White House and the Treasury Department projected the 
     behaviors of shoppers, employers, stock traders and others if 
     Mr. Biden's plans succeeded. Officials as senior as Janet L. 
     Yellen, the Treasury secretary, pored over the analyses in 
     video calls and in-person meetings, looking for any hint that 
     Mr. Biden's plans could generate sustained price increases 
     that could hamstring family budgets. It never appeared.
       Those efforts convinced Mr. Biden's team that there is 
     little risk of inflation spiraling out of the Federal 
     Reserve's control--an outcome that Wall Street analysts, a 
     few prominent Republicans and even liberal economists like 
     Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary, have said 
     could flow from the trillions being pumped into the economy.
       Traditional readings of price increases are beginning to 
     turn upward as the recovery accelerates. On Tuesday, the 
     Consumer Price Index rose 0.6 percent, its fastest monthly 
     increase in more than a decade, while a less volatile index 
     excluding food and energy rose a more muted 0.3 percent.
       But Mr. Biden's advisers believe any price spike is likely 
     to be temporary and not harmful, essentially a one-time event 
     stemming from the unique nature of a pandemic recession that 
     ruptured supply chains and continues to depress activity in 
     key economic sectors like restaurant dining and tourism.
       The administration's view mirrors the posture of top 
     officials at the Fed, including its chairman, Jerome H. 
     Powell, whose mandate includes maintaining price stability in 
     the economy. Mr. Powell has said that the Fed expects any 
     short-term price pops to be temporary, not sustained, and not 
     the type of uptick that would prompt the central bank to 
     raise interest rates rapidly--or anytime soon.
       ``What we see is relatively modest increases in 
     inflation,'' Mr. Powell said in March. ``But those are not 
     permanent things.''
       Armed with their internal data and conclusions, 
     administration officials have begun to push back on warnings 
     that a stimulus-fueled surge in consumer spending could 
     revive a 1970s-style escalation in wages and prices that 
     could cripple the economy in the years to come.
       Yet they remain wary of the inflation threat and have 
     devised the next wave of Mr. Biden's spending plans, a $2.3 
     trillion infrastructure package, to dispense money gradually 
     enough not to stoke further price increases right away. 
     Administration officials also continue to check on real-time 
     measures of prices across the economy, multiple times a day.
       ``We think the likeliest outlook over the next several 
     months is for inflation to rise modestly,'' two officials at 
     Mr. Biden's Council of Economic Advisers, Jared Bernstein and 
     Ernie Tedeschi, wrote on Monda in a blog post outlining some 
     of the administration's thinking. ``We will, however, 
     carefully monitor both actual price changes and inflation 
     expectations for any signs of unexpected price pressures that 
     might arise as America leaves the pandemic behind and enters 
     the next economic expansion.''
       Some Republicans call that posture dangerous. Senator Rick 
     Scott of Florida, the chairman of his party's campaign arm 
     for the 2022 midterm elections, has called on Mr. Biden and 
     Mr. Powell to present plans to fight inflation now.
       ``The president's refusal to address this critical issue 
     has a direct negative effect on Floridians and families 
     across our nation, and hurts low- and fixed-income Americans 
     the most,'' Mr. Scott said in a news release last week. 
     ``It's time for Biden to wake up from his liberal dream and 
     realize that reckless spending has consequences, inflation is 
     real and America's debt crisis is growing. Inflation is 
     rising and Americans deserve answers from Biden now.''
       Economic teams in recent administrations spent little time 
     worrying about inflation, because inflationary pressures have 
     been tame for decades. It has fallen short of the Fed's 
     average target of 2 percent for 10 of the last 12 years, 
     topping out at 2.5 percent in the midst of the longest 
     economic expansion in history.
       Shortly before the pandemic recession hit the United States 
     in 2020, President Donald J. Trump's economic team wrote that 
     ``price inflation remains low and stable'' even with 
     unemployment below 4 percent. As the economy struggled to 
     climb out from the 2008 financial crisis under President 
     Barack Obama, White House aides feared that prices might 
     fall, instead of rise.
       ``Given the economic crisis, we worried about preventing 
     deflation rather than inflation,'' said Austan Goolsbee, a 
     chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during Mr. 
     Obama's first term.
       The conversation has changed given the large amounts of 
     money that the federal government is channeling into the 
     economy, first under Mr. Trump and now under Mr. Biden. Since 
     the pandemic took hold, Congress has approved more than $5 
     trillion in spending, including direct checks to individuals.
       Mr. Biden's aides are sufficiently worried about the risk 
     of that spending fueling inflation that they shaped his 
     infrastructure proposal, which has yet to be taken up by 
     Congress, to funnel out $2.3 trillion over the course of 
     eight years, which is slower than traditional stimulus.
       Even before Mr. Summers and others raised economic concerns 
     about Mr. Biden's $1.9 trillion relief bill, officials were 
     wrestling with their own worries about its inflation risks. 
     They had internally concluded, with direction from Mr. Biden, 
     that the biggest risk to the economy was going ``too small'' 
     on the aid package--not spending enough to help vulnerable 
     Americans survive continued stints of joblessness or lost 
     income. But they wanted to know the risks of going ``too 
     big.''
       They tested whether an uptick in inflation might cause 
     people and financial markets to expect rapid price increases 
     in the years to come, upending decades of what economists 
     call ``well-anchored'' expectations for prices and 
     potentially creating a situation where higher expectations 
     led to higher inflation. They estimated the odds that the Fed 
     would react to such moves by quickly and steeply raising 
     interest rates, potentially slamming the brakes on growth and 
     causing another recession.
       The informal group that initially gathered to research 
     those questions included Mr. Bernstein, a member of the 
     Council of Economic Advisers; David Kamin, a deputy director 
     of the National Economic Council; Michael Pyle, Vice 
     President Kamala Harris's chief economic adviser; and two 
     Treasury officials, Nellie Liang and Ben Harris. More members 
     have joined over time, including Mr. Tedeschi.
       The group reports regularly to Ms. Yellen and other senior 
     officials including Brian Deese, who heads the N.E.C., and 
     Cecilia Rouse, who leads the C.E.A. Its work has informed 
     economic briefings of Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris.
       ``The president and the vice president, their job is to 
     deliver good economic outcomes for the American people,'' Mr. 
     Pyle said in an interview. ``Part of what delivering strong 
     economic outcomes to the American people means is ensuring 
     that their team is fully on top of both the tailwinds to the 
     U.S. economy but also the risks that are out there. And this 
     is one of them.''
       Mr. Pyle and his colleagues looked at financial market 
     measures of inflation expectations, including one called the 
     five-year, five-year forward, which currently shows investors 
     expecting lower inflation levels over the next several years 
     than they expected in 2018.
       At the same time, officials at the Treasury's Office of 
     Economic Policy conducted a series of modeling exercises to 
     ``stress test'' the virus relief package and how it might 
     change those price and expectation measures if put in place. 
     They considered scenarios where consumers quickly spent their 
     aid money, which included $1,400 checks, or where they did 
     not spend much of it at all right away. They talked with 
     large banks about trends in customers' cash balances and how 
     quickly people were returning to the work force. Ms. Yellen, 
     a former Fed chair, helped adjust the models herself.
       The exercises produced a wide range of possibilities for 
     inflation. But they never suggested it would rise so rapidly 
     that the Fed could not easily handle it by adjusting interest 
     rates or other monetary policy tools. They saw no risk of a 
     sharp return to recession--and no reason to pull back from 
     spending proposals that administration officials believe will 
     help the economy heal faster and help historically 
     disadvantaged groups, like Black and Hispanic workers, regain 
     jobs and income.
       ``We're going to see some heat in this economy,'' Mr. Pyle 
     said. ``That heat is going to be good and redound to the 
     benefit of wages and labor market conditions overall and 
     particularly for a number of communities that have been at 
     the margins of the labor market for too long.''
       If the data proves that forecast wrong, officials say 
     privately, they will be quick to adapt. But they will not say 
     how. If inflation were to accelerate in a sustained and 
     surprising way, some officials suggest, the administration 
     would trust the Fed to step in to contain it.
       There is no plan, as of yet, for Mr. Biden to consider 
     inflation-fighting actions of his own.
  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. The content and conclusions of these meetings 
and working groups have not been disclosed or been made available to 
the public.
  While privately worrying about the same issue I have been sounding 
the

[[Page S2280]]

alarm on for months, the Biden administration continues to mislead the 
American public and ignore the threat of inflation.
  Over the last 2 months, I have asked the National Economic Council 
about its plans to fight inflation and protect American families.
  I have written a Federal Reserve member, asked him what can be done 
to help families who are seeing skyrocketing gas prices and increasing 
mortgage rates.
  I have called on President Biden and Federal Reserve Chair Powell to 
lay out their clear plan to address inflation and rising prices that 
threaten American families. I have yet to get a straightforward or 
acceptable response. I have yet to hear them acknowledge this very real 
threat or propose a solution to protect families.
  So today Senator Braun and I are making a simple request that the 
Biden administration share with the Senate all of its notes, memos, and 
reports regarding their discussions and plans to mitigate and prevent 
growing inflation.
  Inflation is a very real threat to the well-being of already 
struggling families, and the last thing American families need is to be 
misled by this administration.
  Right now, Democrats in Washington are living in a fantasyland where 
debt doesn't matter, spending has no consequences, inflation is 
impossible.
  But the reality is that inflation does have consequences, and it is 
the duty of everyone here, especially the President of the United 
States, to be open and transparent with the American people about what 
is happening with inflation.
  There is no reason the Biden administration should be hiding this 
information. Americans deserve to know the consequences of massive 
government spending, and they deserve leadership that will show some 
fiscal responsibility when it comes to their taxpayer dollars.
  I look forward to all my colleagues supporting this effort to 
increase transparency.
  Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous 
consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 185, 
submitted earlier today. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be 
agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be 
considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or 
debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The senior Senator from Ohio
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, reserving the right to object, no serious 
economists across the ideological spectrum are concerned about 
inflation right now. No one is hiding information at the White House.
  I am in meetings all the time with White House officials talking 
about this package. No one believes--first of all, no one is hiding 
information. No one believes what the Senator, the junior Senator from 
Florida, is saying about this.
  Perhaps some millionaire Senators want to make this into an issue, 
and I hear that over and over and over, but I talk to people like Jay 
Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve, nominated by President Trump for 
that position. He, of course, keeps his eye on these kinds of things, 
but he has expressed no strong concern about inflation.
  And we even know that when some experts have been concerned, they 
have been wrong. We saw what happened in 2008 after too many elites 
worried about inflation. What we really needed was to increase wages 
and get people back to work. The result from 2008 was a recovery that 
was too slow for most people, while so many of these big costs 
continued to rise.
  Our economy looks a whole lot better today than it did last year, but 
we can't compare where we are today with where we were last year. We 
were on the brink of a once-in-a-generation health and economic crisis 
at this time last year. Millions of people, mostly low-wage workers, 
lost their jobs. Our economy ground to a halt as we tried to stop the 
spread of the virus.
  This year, we have made good progress with the American Rescue Plan, 
as the Presiding Officer from Wisconsin knows, getting shots in arms 
and money in pockets and kids back in school, people back to work.
  But our recovery is far from over. Just moments ago Fed Chair Powell 
said that we are seeing some temporary upticks because things were so 
dire last year, but we still have a long way to go.
  The bigger risk to the economy is not doing enough to raise workers' 
wages and to invest in the infrastructure that allows our economy to 
grow.
  We know corporate leaders, we know millionaire Senators, we know 
people at the top have done very--in many cases, have done very, very 
well through this, but we know millions of workers, many of them hourly 
workers, have lost jobs. We know millions of workers, so-called 
essential workers--one essential worker said to me, works in a grocery 
store: I don't feel essential. Frankly, I feel expendable because they 
don't pay me much; they don't protect me at work. Those are the people 
we should be looking after.
  I want to raise wages. I want to bring down costs. That is exactly 
what the jobs plan and the family plan will do--bring down healthcare 
costs, make childcare more affordable, create more housing people can 
afford, bring down energy bills, make work--getting to work cheaper and 
easier with better transit. These are the costs that have been rising 
and eating away at family budgets for decades.
  If my colleague from Florida is so concerned about the cost of living 
and raising a family, I hope he will join me to allow Medicare to 
negotiate directly with drug companies to bring down prices for 
seniors. I hope he will join us in investing in childcare to bring down 
the cost of childcare. I hope he will join us as we work to create more 
housing, bringing down housing costs. I hope he will join us to raise 
the minimum wage.
  My first speech on this floor 14 years ago--14 years ago, my first 
speech on this floor was to raise the minimum wage, and we did, and it 
hasn't been raised since. That is what the Senator from Florida and the 
Senator from Indiana can help us with.
  But we know most of the conservative elites in this country--most 
won't say out loud what this inflation alarmism is really about. They 
don't want to invest in the American people. They don't want to do 
anything to make Americans' hard work pay off. They would rather try to 
scare people: Can't spend this money because there might be inflation.
  They don't want us to do what too many have failed to do: put money 
in people's pockets and raise wages and rebuild infrastructure.
  I would ask my colleagues to listen to the words of a worker from 
West Virginia, Pamela Garrison. She testified at our first-ever work 
listening session, our ``Dignity of Work'' session in the Banking and 
Housing Committee yesterday. She said:

       We're seeing corporations make billions every quarter in 
     profit, but then when we ask for a minimum wage raise, we're 
     told that ``no that will raise the cost of stuff, oh that'll 
     cost jobs.''

  Funny, corporate executives never seem to say they will have to raise 
prices when they give themselves bonuses. It is just we will have to 
raise prices if we increase the minimum wage.
  This same Ms. Garrison also said: You know, they call me part of the 
working poor. The words ``working'' and ``poor'' shouldn't be in the 
same sentence, and she is right about that.
  Real expenses for most families have gone up for decades, along with 
corporate profits and the stock market. Executive compensation has 
exploded upward, and workers' wages haven't kept up.
  Executive compensation--productivity is up. Executive compensation is 
up. Profits are up. Workers' wages are flat. That is the problem. That 
is what we should be working on.
  I object
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The junior Senator from Florida.
  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, the decision by my colleague 
to block this resolution is clearly disappointing.
  Let's remember what this was about. This was about transparency. They 
just blocked the Senate from requesting basic information that is going 
to help all Americans.
  And just look at these numbers again. Just in the last 4 months, 
grocery prices are up 2.6 percent; household care is up 5.2 percent; 
baby care is

[[Page S2281]]

up 7 percent; general merchandise up 7.1 percent. We are clearly seeing 
inflation.
  Senate Democrats just objected to transparency. That means they are 
against getting the facts, against ensuring accountability, and against 
getting the American people the information they need to make smart 
decisions as prices keep rising.
  Eighty-seven percent of Americans are worried about the rising costs 
of goods. Apparently, so is the White House. So don't the American 
people deserve the same information about what is happening with the 
economy?
  Floridians deserve to know the truth about inflation and so do the 
people of Ohio. Why does my colleague want to keep them in the dark?
  This administration is telling the American people one thing but 
saying something else behind closed doors. That is wrong.
  The American people deserve the truth. Inflation is real. It is 
happening. It is hurting American families. It is time President Biden 
does something about it, and I am extremely disappointed my colleague 
is actually today helping the President mislead the American people.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to address the 
Senate for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.