[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 165 (Thursday, September 23, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6655-S6660]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLOTURE MOTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Executive Calendar No. 333, Karen Erika Donfried, of the 
     District of Columbia, to be an Assistant Secretary of State 
     (European Affairs and Eurasian Affairs).
         Charles E. Schumer, Robert Menendez, Patrick J. Leahy, 
           Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell, Sheldon Whitehouse, Brian 
           Schatz, Debbie Stabenow, Catherine Cortez Masto, 
           Christopher A. Coons, Ron Wyden, Margaret Wood Hassan, 
           Edward J. Markey, Benjamin L. Cardin, Richard J. 
           Durbin, Tina Smith, Elizabeth Warren, Angus S. King, 
           Jr.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of Karen Erika Donfried, of the District of Columbia, to be 
an Assistant Secretary of State (European Affairs and Eurasian 
Affairs), shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.

[[Page S6656]]

  

  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. 
Feinstein), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator 
from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Daines), 
the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Johnson), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Kennedy), the Senator from 
Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch), the Senator 
from South Dakota (Mr. Rounds), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Scott), 
the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis), and the Senator from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 65, nays 21, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 380 Ex.]

                                YEAS--65

     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blackburn
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Fischer
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Lujan
     Manchin
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Romney
     Rosen
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott (SC)
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--21

     Boozman
     Braun
     Cassidy
     Cotton
     Cruz
     Ernst
     Hagerty
     Hawley
     Hyde-Smith
     Lankford
     Lee
     Lummis
     Marshall
     McConnell
     Paul
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tuberville
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--14

     Burr
     Daines
     Feinstein
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Moran
     Risch
     Rounds
     Sanders
     Scott (FL)
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Van Hollen
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 65, the nays are 
21.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.


                              Afghanistan

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, the United States has suffered a grave 
humiliation in Afghanistan. President Biden's disastrous withdrawal has 
brought shame to a nation that fought, bled, and sacrificed for two 
long decades after September 11.
  Defeat can be imposed by an enemy, but humiliation is self-inflicted. 
In this case, it was inflicted on America by the President of the 
United States.
  To the thousands of Americans who fought bravely in Afghanistan, I 
share your dismay, and I want to tell you this was not your fault. This 
failure was not caused by our exceptional troops, who fought with 
courage and skill against a determined and ruthless enemy. Our warriors 
lost no battles and surrendered to no enemy. They fought from the 
highest summits of American armed conflict and descended under the 
darkest pits of evil. Our men and women in uniform made us proud and 
filled us with awe. This loss is not their loss.
  The debacle in Afghanistan was also not the fault of our people. The 
American people contributed hundreds of billions of dollars to a just 
cause and endured a prolonged conflict for almost a generation.
  No, our people and our warriors did not fail. Our leaders did, and 
none failed more conspicuously than a Commander in Chief who could not 
command events.
  Joe Biden has been paving the path to ruin for over a decade. Many 
have been wrong about the war in Afghanistan, but few have been more 
wrong, more consistently than this President.
  During the Obama administration, Joe Biden wrongly argued that 
America could strike terrorists from over the horizon, wrongly set a 
public timeline for withdrawing our troops, and wrongly opposed a 
secret mission to kill Osama Bin Laden. Then he stood by when President 
Obama released several high-value Taliban officials from Guantanamo Bay 
in exchange for an American traitor, Bowe Bergdahl.
  Joe Biden extended his perfect record of terrible judgment. He was 
wrong about evacuating Bagram Air Base, wrong about the likelihood that 
the Taliban would take over Afghanistan, and wrong that the Taliban 
cared about its international reputation.
  He also believed wrongly--incredibly--that we could trust the Taliban 
to secure the Kabul airport and help us evacuate our people.
  The President's inexhaustible ineptitude has created this fiasco. 
According to official estimates, over 100 Americans and thousands of 
green card holders are currently stranded in a country run by 
terrorists. The much-vaunted airlift that the President pretends is an 
``extraordinary success''--in his words--evacuated fewer than half of 
approved special immigrant visa holders. That includes thousands of 
Afghans who fought loyally alongside our troops and have now been 
abandoned to torture and execution at the hands of the Taliban.
  The allies of al-Qaida now rule in Kabul; the Taliban is armed with 
billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment; and those Guantanamo 
Bay detainees released under the Obama administration now serve in the 
highest levels of the Afghan Government.
  My office has received many firsthand reports of Taliban insurgents 
going house to house, hunting for American allies. Former Afghan pilots 
are especially high-risk targets who are being tracked down and 
brutally murdered; and, of course, we have all seen the disturbing 
videos of desperate Afghans clinging to an American transport plane and 
plummeting to their deaths on the tarmac below.
  I will admit I had low expectations for Joe Biden's Presidency, yet 
he still failed to meet them.
  When I served in Afghanistan, I saw the Taliban's grim handiwork up 
close. I witnessed the sacrifices of brave Americans and Afghans to 
prevent them from regaining power. So when this disaster unfolded, I 
was determined to do whatever I could to get our people to safety.
  Soon after the fall of Kabul, my office established an email hotline 
for evacuation requests, created a war room to help those in need, and 
established contact with assets on the ground.
  Members of my team did everything from providing required forms and 
up-to-date information to helping orchestrate daring midnight 
evacuations. We facilitated the escape of high-ranking members of the 
Afghan Government and military, along with wounded children and 
pregnant mothers, several of whom were being actively hunted by Taliban 
death squads.
  We also helped dozens of students from a Christian missionary school 
reach safety before they suffered the cruel treatment that Islamic 
terrorists reserve for so-called apostates, or followers, of the 
gospel.
  My staff worked around the clock, volunteering their time and energy 
and, on several occasions, their own resources to help those in need. 
One aide repeatedly drove to Dulles Airport to deliver clothes to needy 
Afghans. Another sent school supplies to a recently returned second 
grader.
  All of us heard harrowing stories from the ground. A member of my 
team was on the phone with an American citizen as the Taliban thugs 
attacked her and brutally assaulted her driver on their way to the 
airport. The same woman was on the phone with my office, outside the 
Kabul airport, when Taliban guards started shooting in the air, causing 
a stampede. Luckily, thanks to the cooperation of my staff, military 
personnel at the gate were able to pull her to safety before she was 
potentially crushed by the stampeding mob.
  I would remind the Senate that Joe Biden and Tony Blinken empowered 
the men who beat and then almost killed an American citizen while a 
member of my office was literally on the phone with her.
  The extraordinary efforts of my staffs in Washington and Arkansas 
produced exceptional results. From the beginning of the crisis to 
today, we have contacted more than 2,500 individuals seeking 
assistance, and we have helped more than 300 American citizens and 
legal permanent residents to safely evacuate, along with over 200 other 
vulnerable Afghans, many of whom were the immediate family of those 
Americans and permanent residents.

[[Page S6657]]

  I want to thank my staff for their incredible and selfless work. I 
sincerely believe that these actions have redeemed, in some measure, 
the honor and trust that President Biden squandered this past month. I 
also want to acknowledge the many other aides--Democratic and 
Republican, House and Senate--who also pitched in to help our fellow 
citizens.
  But, for every tale of sacrifice, daring, and courage that ended in a 
plane ride to safety, there were also tales of tragedy, heartbreak, and 
failure. Unfortunately, many of the wounds that we suffered during the 
Afghan withdrawal were, once again, self-inflicted. Those of us 
involved in the rescue effort had a front-row seat to the Biden 
administration's ineptitude. I think it is worth recounting some of 
those stories as well.
  On one notable occasion, my office was contacted by a group of three 
American women who had traveled to a site that was reportedly being 
used to shuttle people to the airport for evacuation. When they 
arrived, a group of Taliban fighters pointed guns in their faces and 
refused to let them pass. The women called a member of my staff for 
help, who promptly called the State Department for guidance.
  The State Department's initial response to Americans held at gunpoint 
was to ask whether they had filled out an online form to request 
evacuation. When my aide pressed the matter further, the State 
Department told them: ``Our best advice is not to give advice.''
  This casual indifference to the plight of American citizens was, 
regrettably, not an isolated incident.
  On a separate occasion, my staff learned that a State Department 
employee told an American citizen who refused to leave Afghanistan 
without her family that she was ``being really annoying right now.''
  I suppose she was just one more inconvenient American spoiling Joe 
Biden's extraordinary success.
  On another occasion, I received a phone call from the Ambassador of a 
country in the region. His government wanted to know what to do about 
dozens of American-trained Afghan soldiers and their families who had 
fled to his country in order to escape the Taliban. The only problem 
was the Ambassador's government couldn't get any senior official from 
the White House or the State Department to return their calls, not so 
much as a ``thank you''; ``please hold what you have got''; ``we will 
be back to help you soon.'' It was radio silence from America while the 
Taliban continued to demand the return of those troops.
  Thankfully, I was able to work with Senator Coons to get the message 
to the administration. After much confusion and delay, the State 
Department official finally returned the Ambassador's call. I want to 
thank Senator Coons for his assistance. The episode is a reminder that 
this body still works and bipartisanship is possible even when the 
stakes are high.
  Even some members of the executive branch have acknowledged that the 
administration's policies have been a catastrophe. On more than one 
occasion, my staff has received calls from officials in the government 
asking for our help to evacuate people from Afghanistan. In other 
words, members of the executive branch of the most powerful Nation on 
Earth were going to a lone, freelancing Senate office for help instead 
of to their own State Department or their own White House.

  President Biden has refused to lead and refused to protect those he 
took an oath to protect, so it fell to the rest of us to shoulder the 
load and get these Americans to safety. Thankfully, Americans remain a 
generous and courageous people. We stepped up to meet this moment.
  Over the past few weeks, countless normal citizens volunteered to 
help people they had never met. Veterans reunited for one last mission 
to help their old battle buddies get to safety, and, of course, 
thousands of American troops risked their lives to help others in a 
distant land far from home. Thirteen of them made the ultimate 
sacrifice on the noble mission to rescue their countrymen, who will 
never forget their sacrifice, nor will we. They performed bravely a job 
that they never should have had to perform.
  Joe Biden's Afghanistan crisis will live in infamy as one of the 
worst strategic blunders in our Nation's history, but the response of 
so many Americans to save their fellow citizens and their allies showed 
the very best of our country. I am proud that my office was able to 
play some small part in that redemptive story.
  Poor leadership comes and goes, but our national character endures. 
Americans have shown that we are still capable of noble and heroic 
deeds even--and maybe especially--when politicians in Washington fail 
in their duty. Our Nation is still exceptional even if our President is 
a mediocrity.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.


                          Freedom to Vote Act

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, we have been in session now for about 11 
hours, and we have taken up a handful of noncontroversial nominees.
  The reason?
  The abuse by the Republicans of the rules of the Senate--filibuster 
after filibuster that require cloture votes--so we spend several hours 
on each of these nominations.
  Even worse, the Republicans have abused the rules of the Senate to 
deny us in the Senate the ability to consider critical legislation that 
we should be taking up and acting on. There are many, many examples. I 
will just cite a few.
  Justice in Policing: We are all committed to reforming our criminal 
justice system and our police system in order to deal with the values 
of our Nation. I know that Senator Booker has worked tirelessly on this 
issue. We should be able to debate that bill on the floor of the U.S. 
Senate, but, no, the Republicans will require a cloture vote and will 
not give us the votes even to consider that legislation.
  Or consider gun safety, which we have been debating in the public now 
for decades, and the Republicans are continuing to use the rules of the 
Senate to deny the Senate the opportunity to take up issues and debate 
issues and see whether we can come together.
  Or take immigration reform, where we see the tragedies that are 
occurring where we need to take action as a Senate, but, no, the 
Republicans won't give us the votes so we can get on a bill and debate 
issues and take up amendments and see whether we can't get something 
done on immigration.
  And now they are threatening to use the filibuster on the legislation 
that would extend the debt ceiling so that we don't default on our debt 
in regard to moneys that have been spent with the initiation and 
support of our Republican colleagues. They are threatening to deny us 
the opportunity to take up that bill and vote on it by the use of the 
filibuster, even though they were the ones who created the spending and 
debt.
  Or take the continuation of our government.
  But top on my list is safeguarding our election system, the bedrock 
of our democracy. On two occasions, Senate Democrats voted unanimously 
to simply begin debate on protecting the right to vote in our 
democracy, which has come under sustained assault in the aftermath of 
the 2020 elections. Both times, all Senate Republicans blocked even 
beginning the debate on this critical legislation. Senate Republicans 
put gridlock and partisanship before the rights of voters.
  The Senate is being blocked from having the chance to consider 
options and amendments and do what the Founding Fathers intended us to 
do--legislate.
  So my Senate Republican colleagues will have another chance to do the 
right thing, thanks to Leader Schumer and Senator Klobuchar. Over the 
August recess, they worked diligently to come up with compromise 
legislation that still preserves the essential elements of S. 1, the 
For the People Act, that has already passed the House of 
Representatives.
  President Biden was absolutely correct that we need to enact voting 
rights legislation to repair the damage done by the Supreme Court to 
the Voting Rights Act. President Biden rightly called efforts to limit 
ballot access across the country as the 21st century Jim Crow assault. 
He warned Americans that the Republicans' efforts to restrict voting 
rights as a result of their selfish challenge of the 2020 election 
results were the most significant tests of our democracy since the 
Civil War.
  Indeed, my colleagues witnessed firsthand the violent insurrection at

[[Page S6658]]

the Capitol when the mob attacked, injured, and killed our brave 
Capitol Police officers, who put their lives on the line to preserve 
our very democracy and Union.
  In many States, legislatures and Governors have responded to the 
falsehoods of the 2020 elections by restricting voting accessibility. 
The Big Lie, repeated by President Trump, has directly led to the 
disenfranchisement and suppression of the right to vote for millions of 
Americans.
  I urge my colleagues and my fellow American citizens to reflect on 
the state of our democracy and the rights we hold dear. A blatant 
attempt to falsify an election and a persistent effort to deny the 
American people access to the ballot box has undermined the freedom and 
liberty that so many Americans have fought to defend and advance.
  Voting rights is a fundamental issue of importance to a democratic 
country. After elections are over and we win, we celebrate. We 
celebrate the fact that we have gotten the support of the majority of 
voters, and that is what democracy is all about. If we don't win--and I 
think many of us have been involved in campaigns where our candidates 
were not successful--we go to work to try to attract more voters in the 
next election so we can celebrate a victory.
  That is what participation in a free society is all about. That is 
what democracies are about. In repressive, autocratic regimes, they 
never accept the will of the people, so they look at ways in which they 
can undermine the voting record--what the voters want to do and the 
voters' will.
  In the 2020 elections, we should all celebrate the record number of 
people who cast their ballot. It was a record and the most ever 
Americans casting their votes for the Presidency of the United States.
  There were repeated reviews done by both Democrats and Republicans at 
the Federal, State, and local level. It all verified the simple fact 
that there was no widespread corruption or election fraud. The will of 
the people prevailed, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were duly 
elected.
  Congress and Vice President Pence counted the electoral votes for 
President and Vice President and did their duty under the Constitution 
on January 6, notwithstanding the armed insurrection in the Capitol.
  But that did not stop former President Trump from promoting the Big 
Lie. As a result of that, several States have now taken action to make 
it harder for people to cast their votes. The Brennan Center has 
pointed out that we have seen the worst assault on voting rights since 
Jim Crow.
  So what have these laws done? Made it more difficult for voters to 
vote by mail, recognizing that for many voters they prefer to vote by 
mail. We have States that have had 100 percent voting by mail. There 
have been no indications of fraud in voting by mail. States have 
shortened the time for requesting mail-in ballots for voting, making it 
more difficult for individuals to be able to vote by mail, requiring 
certain requirements to vote by mail, making it more difficult to 
deliver their mail ballots, limiting the availability of ballot drop 
boxes.
  Why did States take these actions? Because it makes it more difficult 
for people who are likely to vote for their political opponents to 
vote. That is what these State legislatures were doing. Stricter 
signature requirements, making in-person voting more difficult, purging 
voter rolls simply because a person did not vote, and, again, making it 
more difficult for people to vote. That should have no place in a 
democracy.
  And it goes on and on in terms of the types of legislation that have 
already passed or is currently being considered by many State 
legislatures around our country. Making it more difficult to register 
to vote, making it more difficult to vote, targeting potential voters 
more likely to vote for their opponents, targeting minorities, young 
voters, and older minority voters is a disturbing trend we see across 
this country and has no place in our democracy.
  The Freedom to Vote Act provides a basic Federal floor on protection 
of the right to vote. This legislation includes commonsense items such 
as automatic and online voter registration, uniform early voting, same-
day voter registration, vote-by-mail and drop box standards and uniform 
national standards for voter identification.
  These are simple voter protection measures against the actions being 
taken by State legislatures that are aimed at certain demographic 
groups and set a Federal floor.
  The Freedom to Vote Act ends political gerrymandering. I don't know 
how many of my colleagues can defend the way that legislative and 
congressional lines are drawn today. Congressional districts should 
represent the communities' interests, not an individual Congressman's 
interests.
  The Freedom to Vote Act takes a major step forward in ending 
political gerrymandering by creating nonpartisan redistricting reform 
and banning partisan gerrymandering and allowing States to choose how 
to develop redistricting plans, including having an independent 
redistricting commission.
  In terms of election integrity, the Freedom to Vote Act requires 
voter-verified paper ballots, reliable audits, and voting system 
upgrades. I think we all would agree that we want to be able to verify 
votes. The only way we can is if there is a paper trail, and it 
provides for that paper trail.
  The measure takes steps to prevent State election subversion to 
better insulate State and local officials who administer Federal 
elections, after the attempts by both domestic and foreign interference 
in the 2020 election results.
  This legislation reduces the dominance of Big Money in the political 
system. It does this in a couple ways. One, disclosure. How can anyone 
be against the disclosure of who is putting money into our political 
system? And, secondly, by providing a way in which we can weaken the 
dependence on large special interest dollars.
  The legislation requires super PACs, 501(c)(4) groups, and other 
organizations spending money on elections to disclose donors and shuts 
down the use of transfers between organizations to cloak the identity 
of contributors.
  It ensures that political ads sold online have the same transparency 
and disclosure requirements as ads sold on TV, radio, and satellite.
  S. 2747 includes two provisions I authored. First, it includes the 
Democracy Restoration Act, which deals with laws passed after the end 
of slavery in an effort to prevent African Americans from voting. There 
are States that passed laws back then that are still on the books that 
disqualify for a lifetime a person convicted of a felony. The 
definition of a felony is pretty general in many States, so we have 
States where one out of five African Americans have been disqualified 
from voting because of their conviction of a felony, even though they 
are fully part of our society today. They don't have the right to vote. 
We need to remove that disqualification on voting.
  I am pleased that my Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation 
Prevention Act is included as a provision in the legislation. The 
spreading of false or misleading information intended to suppress 
voting and intimidate the electorate remains one of the most regularly 
employed and effective methods used to keep individuals, particularly 
Black Americans and other racial minorities, from voting.
  Advancement in communications, including the rise of social media 
platforms, have made it easier for bad actors to use these strategies. 
For example, the targeting of Latino voters in Florida with 
disinformation was widely documented. This provision prohibits 
individuals from knowingly deceiving others about the time, place, 
eligibility, or procedures of participating in a Federal election.
  It criminalizes efforts to intentionally hinder, interfere with, or 
prevent any person from voting, registering to vote, or aiding a person 
to vote or register to vote.
  My friend and former colleague was the late John Lewis of Georgia. 
The two of us were elected to the House of Representatives on the same 
day. In an editorial published after his death, Representative Lewis 
called an important lesson taught--recalled an important lesson taught 
by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And I quote our former colleague when he 
said:

       Each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up, 
     and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you 
     must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a 
     state. It is an act. And each generation must do its part.


[[Page S6659]]


  Well, we cannot take action if we don't start. And we cannot start 
unless my colleagues allow us to proceed to this issue on the floor of 
the U.S. Senate.
  I urge my colleagues not to filibuster the right of the U.S. Senate 
to start the debate on protecting voter integrity, where each Member 
will have the opportunity to debate the issue and, collectively, we can 
come together.
  Many of my colleagues have offered suggestions about how we can 
further improve S. 2747, how we can make it even a broader consensus.
  Let's build on the work done by Senator Klobuchar and her colleagues 
over the August recess. But we cannot do that unless we have the right 
to proceed to a debate.
  I urge my colleagues to support taking up the Freedom to Vote Act, 
which is a critical issue to the preservation of our democracy and the 
integrity of our right to vote.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). The Senator from Texas.


                             Nord Stream 2

  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I would like to discuss now how Nord Stream 
2 is an unprecedented example, a contemporary example, of bipartisan 
unity. Democrats and Republicans both know that Nord Stream 2 is a 
terrible idea. It is a terrible idea for Europe, and it is a terrible 
idea for the United States.
  Here are several examples of the bipartisan agreement we have. It has 
been commonplace to say that bipartisanship doesn't exist, but Nord 
Stream 2 refutes that.
  The first wave of sanctions authored by me and by Senator Shaheen 
goes back to the summer of 2019. At a July 31 hearing, several 
Democrats spoke out against Nord Stream 2 and its support of the Cruz-
Shaheen sanctions to stop it.
  Here are some of the things they said. Senator Menendez said:

       I think the international community must stand firm against 
     opening more doors and creating new opportunities for further 
     Kremlin aggression in Ukraine leading to the loss of life. 
     The Russian Federation has repeatedly used its energy 
     resources as a lever of power, and I believe Nord Stream 2 is 
     no exception. Not only will it considerably strengthen the 
     Kremlin's stranglehold on Europe, but it allows Moscow to 
     further undermine Ukraine's sovereignty and stability.

  Senator Shaheen said:

       We have heard in our office directly from other countries 
     in Eastern and Central Europe, and the Baltics, and many of 
     the Nordic states, and of course especially Ukraine, who 
     understand that this pipeline is an effort to increase 
     reliance on Russia among Europe. And I would argue that this 
     does nothing to strengthen the transatlantic alliance, the 
     Nord Stream 2 pipeline. In fact, it actually decreases 
     support for the alliance.

  Here is what Senator Coons from Delaware said:

       I, like many of us, have been to Ukraine, remain gravely 
     concerned about Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine, 
     and the ways in which Russia finances its aggression through 
     the use of its sole remaining export of any interest, which 
     is energy.

  Senator Menendez was right. Senator Shaheen was right. Senator Coons 
was right. That consensus has held for over 2 years, Democrats and 
Republicans, even through the Biden administration's catastrophic 
decision to green light the pipeline and to give a multibillion-dollar 
gift to Vladimir Putin.
  This issue was central to a June 8 meeting of the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee after Biden had defied U.S. law and given a 
multibillion-dollar gift to Putin.
  Here is what Senator Menendez said after Biden acted:

       I think many of us on a bipartisan basis were deeply 
     concerned about the administration's decision to waive 
     sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG. . . . I would have thought 
     that one of the most significant ways to show strength is to 
     ensure that the pipeline is killed.

  Senator Menendez was right.
  Senator Merkley even condemned the pipeline for issues he said were 
directly related to climate change, which is something Biden officials 
claim is utterly sacrosanct in this administration.
  The consensus, even after the Biden administration formally announced 
that it had struck a deal surrendering entirely to Russia on the 
pipeline--nonetheless, we saw the bipartisan consensus remain.
  On July 21, Senator Kaine said:

       I'm not happy about it. . . . I'm not happy about it in 
     terms of Russian politics, and I'm not happy about it in 
     terms of climate change.

  Senator Kaine was right.
  Senator Shaheen said she was ``skeptical that [the agreement] will be 
sufficient when the key player at the table--Russia--refuses to play by 
the rules.''
  Senator Shaheen was right. She was right to be skeptical that the 
agreement from the Biden administration, mind you, will be sufficient 
when the key player at the table--Russia--refuses to play by the rules.
  And I would note that the consensus wasn't limited to the Senate. On 
the other side of the Capitol in the U.S. House of Representatives, 
that same sentiment was broadly echoed both during the previous 
administration and during the current administration.
  At the beginning of my push for the Cruz-Shaheen sanctions in 2019, 
Democratic Representative Engel said:

       Russia has weaponized its energy resources, expanding into 
     European markets and creating greater and greater dependency, 
     particularly with projects such as the Nord Stream 2.

  Representative Engel was right.
  Several years later, after the announcement of President Biden's 
complete surrender to Russia on Nord Stream 2, Representative Kaptur 
told a Polish newspaper that she and much of the House of 
Representatives were disappointed with the deal. She said:

       I am very disappointed by the Biden administration's 
     willingness to allow Russian gas to reach the heart of Europe 
     via Nord Stream 2, endangering energy security. . . . We 
     consider this a dangerous project from a security point of 
     view.

  Representative Kaptur was right.
  Supporters of the Biden administration will say: Well, of course, 
everybody opposes Nord Stream 2, but there is no way to stop it.
  That excuse is disingenuous. That excuse is laughable on its face. 
Now, why is that? Because it is the identical excuse that was central 
to the Russian disinformation 2 years ago. In the summer of 2019, when 
I first authored the bipartisan sanctions to stop Nord Stream 2, the 
Russian disinformation campaign in Europe was predicated on the 
proposition that the pipeline was 95 percent complete, and they said: 
Gosh, you can't stop it. There is nothing you can do to stop it.
  They halted construction of the pipeline 15 minutes before our 
bipartisan sanctions were signed into law, and for over a year, the 
pipeline lay dormant as a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.
  So every time the Biden administration says ``It was too far along; 
we couldn't stop it,'' you know what--it was just as far along in 
December of 2019, and we stopped it then. It was just as far along in 
January of 2020, and we stopped it then. We stopped it in February. We 
stopped it in March, April, May, June, July, August, September, 
October, November, December. And it wasn't until January, January 24--4 
days after Joe Biden took the oath of office--that Russia resumed 
building the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline.
  The only reason they couldn't stop it is because Joe Biden wanted to 
surrender to Putin, because the answer is, Republicans and Democrats in 
this Chamber had stopped it for over a year, until Joe Biden came in 
and turned victory into defeat; until Joe Biden came in and offered 
complete capitulation--and might I note, in exchange for nothing.
  Let me ask you, what did the Biden administration get in exchange for 
a multibillion-dollar gift--and not a one-time gift; a gift every year 
for decades in perpetuity? What did the Biden administration get? Not a 
damn thing. Nothing. It was simply a complete capitulation. Surrender.
  Now, defenders of the Biden administration will say: Well, maybe we 
could have stopped it a few months ago, before the pipeline was 
complete. But in between January and this month, the Russian efforts 
built the pipeline, and they just announced it is complete. So now we 
should surrender, right? There is nothing that can be done about it.
  Well, that, in fact, is not true. That is a second wave of 
disinformation. Now, why is that true? That is not true because before 
the pipeline can go online, there are a series of certifications that 
are required. Nord Stream 2 AG, the company that is responsible for

[[Page S6660]]

planning, construction, and eventual operation of Nord Stream 2, needs 
to be granted formal permission as a gas transmitter. There are many 
regulatory hurdles in their way--hurdles that have not yet been 
cleared. The process at a minimum should take many months, and the 
process could be derailed at any time.
  First, there has to be an inspection process. Each of Nord Stream 2's 
strings has to be inspected to make sure there are no leaks, and part 
of that requires confirming that the pipelines were installed 
correctly. Part of that has already begun with air. Nobody knows how it 
has been going.
  Then, there has to be an additional technical certification. This 
will be extremely difficult for Nord Stream 2 AG because the bipartisan 
sanctions legislation that I wrote and passed with Senator Shaheen and 
that Congress passed imposes mandatory sanctions on anyone who 
certifies the pipeline for operation.
  Now, pause and think about that for a second. The pipeline can't go 
into effect unless it is certified. U.S. law passed overwhelmingly by 
Democrats and Republicans in this Congress, signed into law in the U.S. 
Code, says anyone who certifies it faces mandatory, crushing sanctions 
from the United States. The company that was originally going to 
certify it withdrew after the sanctions became law. The only way that a 
different company would dare to certify is if they believed the Biden 
administration would look the other way, would bless their 
certification in outright defiance of U.S. law.
  Then, apart from the technical issues, Nord Stream 2 AG still has to 
be certified as a gas transmission operator as a matter of regulation 
and law. That should take at a minimum many months and require delicate 
negotiations between the company and the regulators.
  You know, what is striking is, everything that I am saying has been 
said by the Biden administration. So right now, their talking points 
are ``There is nothing we can do. It is a done deal. We have 
surrendered. We have given up. There is nothing we can do,'' but when 
they were in the process of surrendering, they said everything I just 
told you.
  Until recently, even the top officials of the Biden administration 
acknowledged that physical completion of Nord Stream 2 didn't make its 
activation a fait accompli.
  On June 8, Secretary of State Blinken testified that ``even when the 
pipeline is physically complete, for it to go into operation, it still 
requires insurance, it still requires various permits, and we are 
looking very carefully at all of that.'' Secretary Blinken said that 
``it was too late to stop the joining of those pipes. Its operation is 
another matter.''
  Secretary Blinken was wrong when he said it was too late to stop the 
joining of the pipes because we stopped them for over a year, until 
Biden surrendered to Putin, but he wasn't wrong when he said we could 
still stop the operation of it.
  Given these requirements and this time line, the path for America is 
obvious: We should sanction Nord Stream 2 AG, the parent company of the 
Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. That will automatically isolate the company, 
and it will signal our readiness to follow the law, to impose more 
sanctions, and to ensure that everyone knows that involvement with 
Putin's pipeline brings with it crippling, company-ending sanctions. 
Indeed, that is exactly why Congress has repeatedly passed 
legislation--bipartisan legislation--to stop this pipeline. But instead 
of obeying the law, President Biden decided brazenly and willfully to 
defy Federal law--to defy Congress's mandate.
  In May, President Biden transmitted a communication to Congress 
that acknowledged, yes, he was obliged to impose sanctions on Nord 
Stream 2 AG for violating the sanctions that Congress had passed and 
passed overwhelmingly, but instead of imposing those mandatory 
sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, given the clear and unequivocal intent 
of Congress, the Biden administration chose instead to waive them. It 
was a disastrous decision. It was a decision based on weakness and 
capitulation to Russia. It hurt our friends and allies in Europe, and 
it hurt the United States of America.

  It is a decision that can be reversed. Right now, the pipeline, if 
this pipeline goes into effect, will be the Biden-Putin pipeline. It 
doesn't have to be. This was designed at the outset to be the Putin 
pipeline, and when it was the Putin pipeline, we stopped it. 
Republicans stopped it. Democrats stopped it. We came together at a 
time of partisan division and we said together: Giving billions of 
dollars to Putin, to Russia, for aggressive military hostility, 
subjecting Europe to energy blackmail, making Europe dependent on 
Putin's gas, and destroying American jobs is bad all around.
  Congress succeeded. It was the Putin pipeline until January 24, 2021. 
Joe Biden had just been sworn into office, and Putin, after a year of 
dormancy, began building the pipeline again because Biden had already 
signaled he intended to capitulate.
  When we convene next week, I am going to discuss in greater detail 
the compromise that I have offered to the Biden administration and 
Senate Democrats to move forward on more of their nominees if they 
accept a compromise solution on Nord Stream 2. The Biden administration 
has had this compromise offer for 2 months, and they have done nothing 
with it.
  But I would suggest something right now. In the course of my remarks, 
I have read quote after quote after quote from Senate Democrats. Senate 
Democrats know this pipeline is a disaster for America. Senate 
Democrats know that surrendering to Putin is bad for America. But 
Senate Democrats are scared to stand up to a Democratic President.
  I can tell you, when we had a Republican President, President Trump, 
there were some in the Trump administration who resisted these 
bipartisan sanctions, and as a Republican, I was perfectly willing to 
stand up to a Republican administration for those who were resisting 
these sanctions and to press them hard.
  So my request to my Democratic colleagues is, show that you actually 
believe what you said in 2019 and 2020 and 2021. Show that you care 
about U.S. national security. Let's stand together, and let's reclaim 
that bipartisan consensus we have had for 2 years that Nord Stream 2 is 
bad for America and bad for our allies.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________