[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 170 (Wednesday, September 29, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6781-S6786]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. KAINE (for himself and Mr. Warner):
  S. 2883. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow 
rehabilitation expenditures for public school buildings to qualify for 
rehabilitation credit; to the Committee on Finance.
  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today, I want to discuss legislation I am 
introducing, the School Infrastructure Modernization Act.
  To claim the Federal tax credit for historic preservation, a building 
renovation must be for a different purpose than that for which the 
building was previously used, a requirement known as the ``prior use'' 
rule. This bill waives that requirement for renovations of K-12 public 
school buildings. This will make it easier to restore historic-but-
dilapidated school buildings across the country so our children have 
safe, modern spaces in which to learn.
  As a Richmond City Council member and later mayor, I faced challenges 
familiar to many municipalities: overcrowded schools, aging buildings, 
and limited dollars in the budget. But in one particular case, I and a 
group of local stakeholders identified a creative solution. On one 
hand, we had an overcrowded Thomas Jefferson High School with in-zone 
and magnet students. On the other hand, we had a closed Maggie Walker 
High School that needed renovations. We put together a financing 
package that made use of Federal and State historic tax credits to 
renovate Maggie Walker High School and satisfied the prior use rule by 
consolidating the magnet program from Thomas Jefferson into a new 
Maggie Walker Governor's School for Government and International 
Studies. Today, some 20 years later, this is one of America's highest 
performing public high schools. Without the Federal historic tax 
credit, this would have been too expensive to make happen.
  This bill will make it easier to do similar projects around the 
country. More modern school buildings will bolster the quality of 
public education, and carrying out these projects will generate private 
sector infrastructure investment and jobs. In Virginia alone, according 
to a 2013 study, more than 800 K-12 schools are at least 50 years old, 
representing some 40 percent of all the K-12 schools in the 
Commonwealth.
  As the Senate considers tax reform and a comprehensive infrastructure 
package, I encourage my colleagues to support this common-sense 
incentive that is good for education, good for infrastructure, and good 
for jobs.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Ms. HIRONO (for herself and Mr. Schatz):
  S. 2884. A bill to amend the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and 
Trade Act of 1990 to provide research and extension grants to combat 
plant pests and noxious weeds that impact coffee plants, and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Coffee Plant 
Health Initiative Amendments Act, a bill that allows the Secretary of 
Agriculture to provide research and extension grants for the purposes 
of protecting coffee plants from outside threats such as invasive pests 
and weeds.
  Coffee serves as a cornerstone of Hawaii's agricultural industry, 
both in terms of culture and economics. Coffee has been grown in Hawaii 
for almost 200 years and is revered all over the world for exceptional 
quality and taste. Coffee is grown on every main island in Hawaii, with 
half of the acreage on Hawaii Island and the other half spread across 
Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Molokai, and Lanai. Hawaii remains the largest 
grower of coffee in the United States, with over 27 million pounds 
produced and yielding just over $54 million during the 2019-2020 
season.
  Like all natural ecosystems in Hawaii, coffee production has 
experienced numerous threats from pests and weeds. These include the 
black twig borer, root-knot nematode, green scale, crab spider, coffee 
berry borer, and coffee leaf rust, to name a few. In response to the 
2010 arrival of the coffee berry borer in Hawaii, I successfully 
included the coffee plant health initiative provision in the 2014 farm 
bill. This provision allowed the Secretary of Agriculture to provide 
research and extension grants to help the coffee community combat the 
coffee berry borer. The resulting Federal assistance provided has been 
instrumental in providing coffee producers the tools they need to 
protect their coffee crops from the coffee berry borer.
  Within the past year another coffee pest has emerged in Hawaii, a 
fungus known as Coffee Leaf Rust. Like the coffee berry borer, Federal 
funds are needed to research and develop pest management strategies to 
equip coffee producers with the knowledge and tools necessary to 
safeguard their coffee yields.
  This bill builds upon the 2014 farm bill coffee plant health 
initiative provision by expanding the scope of research and extension 
grants to all invasive pests and noxious weeds threatening the coffee 
industry, not just the coffee berry borer. While our researchers and 
coffee growers are currently battling coffee leaf rust, future pest and 
weeds not currently in Hawaii, like the Coffee Leaf Miner and Coffee 
Wilt Disease, are likely to emerge. This expansion of the coffee plant 
health initiative will provide much needed Federal resources to help 
our coffee community quickly respond to the myriad pests waiting in the 
wings.
  This bill is supported by the University of Hawaii at Manoa College 
of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, the Hawaii Coffee 
Association, the Kau Coffee Growers Cooperative, Kauai Coffee Company, 
LLC, Puerto Rico Coffee Roasters, LLC, and the Puerto Rico Farm Bureau.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. PADILLA (for himself, Ms. Collins, Mr. Schumer, Mr. 
        Booker, Mr. Hickenlooper, Ms. Rosen, Ms. Smith, Mr. King, Mrs. 
        Feinstein, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Wyden, Mrs. Murray, 
        Mr. Van Hollen, Mr. Ossoff, Mrs. Gillibrand, Ms. Klobuchar, Ms. 
        Baldwin, Mr. Markey, Mr. Peters, Ms. Warren, and Ms. 
        Duckworth):
  S. 2887. A bill to codify the existing Outdoor Recreation Legacy 
Partnership Program of the National Park Service, and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
  Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the bipartisan 
Outdoors for All Act.
  This legislation would ensure that access to local parks and outdoor 
recreation is equitable and available to all.
  The Outdoors for All Act would codify and guarantee annual funding 
for the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership program, which provides 
grants to build new outdoor recreation spaces, improve existing parks, 
and form connections between underserved, urban communities and the 
outdoors.
  It specifically invests in parks and open spaces in areas where 80 
percent of Americans live. Any urban area with a population of at least 
30,000 can qualify for grants, which can benefit residents in all 50 
States.
  These grants would fund projects in park-poor, urban communities, and 
the bill would require the National Park Service to prioritize projects 
that support underserved communities, provide job-training to youth, 
and leverage resources through public-private partnerships.
  As our cities grow and the effects of climate change intensify, this 
bill will increase equitable access to the many benefits of local 
parks, from job creation, to shade and tree cover, to clean air.
  Nationwide, 100 million people, including 28 million children, do not 
have a park within a half-mile of home. That is almost one third of 
America.
  Additionally, in the 100 most populated cities, neighborhoods where 
most residents identify as Black, Latino, American Indian/Alaska 
Native, or Asian American and Pacific Islander have access to an 
average of 44 percent less park acreage than predominantly White 
neighborhoods.
  For example, in Los Angeles, low-income communities and communities 
of color lack equal access to parks; a Los Angeles County survey found 
that Compton reported only 0.6 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents, 
in contrast to Malibu, which has 55.5 acres of parkland per 1,000 
residents.

[[Page S6782]]

  This bill would address this staggering inequity in Los Angeles and 
across the country and make equity and justice a key focus of park 
investment and planning.
  I thank my colead Senator Collins and all of the bill's cosponsors 
for championing this effort with me in the Senate. I also thank 
Congresswoman Barragan for her steadfast dedication to park equity.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass the Outdoors for 
All Act as soon as possible.
  Thank you.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mrs. FEINSTEIN:
  S. 2888. A bill to reduce passenger, crewmember, and airport 
personnel risk of exposure to COVID-19, decrease the risk of 
transmission of COVID-19 on board aircraft and to United States 
destination communities through air travel, and protect children and 
other vulnerable individuals by preventing further spread of COVID-19 
in the United States; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
Transportation.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the U.S. Air 
Travel Public Safety Act. This bill would require airline passengers 
flying domestically to provide proof that they are fully vaccinated and 
also encourage more healthcare workers to be vaccinated against COVID-
19.
  The rise of the Delta variant and the latest COVID-19 surge in the 
United States continue to hit hospitals hard, and nearly all patients 
who are hospitalized or dying from COVID-19 are unvaccinated.
  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 
surveillance data has shown that even after the more transmissible 
Delta variant became dominant during the summer, people who were fully 
vaccinated were still about five times less likely to be infected and 
more than 10 times less likely to be admitted to the hospital or die 
compared to those unvaccinated.
  Further CDC studies have supported that our vaccines remain effective 
against the severe consequences of COVID-19. For this and other 
reasons, we must take every opportunity to get all eligible Americans 
vaccinated as quickly as possible.
  We know that travel is a significant factor in the spread of COVID-
19. According to a study published in the ``Proceedings of the National 
Academy of Sciences,'' people traveling to other counties or States 
last year contributed to higher COVID-19 case numbers in their 
destination communities. This was especially true during the 2020 
summer and winter holidays.
  As friends and family gathered together for Thanksgiving, in 
particular, we experienced the start of major back-to-back surges that 
would culminate into the highest daily cases, hospitalizations, and 
deaths reported nationally during the pandemic.
  While scientists aren't expecting COVID-19 peaks to reach these 
levels again, hospitals may still find themselves overwhelmed if large 
numbers of COVID-19 and influenza hospitalizations coincide this 
winter.
  The U.S. Air Travel Public Safety Act would add an additional 
preventative layer to COVID-19 safety measures for domestic air travel. 
Specifically, it would require airline passengers to provide proof of 
vaccination before boarding a domestic flight within the United States.
  The bill would also offer alternatives to airline passengers not yet 
fully vaccinated by allowing them to provide either proof of a negative 
COVID-19 test result or documentation proving that they have recovered 
from COVID-19.
  Current CDC guidance notes that fully vaccinated travelers are much 
less likely to get and spread COVID-19 than people who are 
unvaccinated. Furthermore, new research published in a Mayo Clinic 
Proceedings study shows that COVID-19 testing requirements for airline 
passengers could have a meaningful effect on detecting active 
infections either immediately before or after a flight.
  This legislation builds on current requirements in place since 
January 2021 that require proof of a negative COVID-19 test result for 
all airline passengers, including U.S. citizens, arriving from a 
foreign country to the United States. Many Americans have already 
experienced this process, and airlines are required to collect this 
passenger COVID-19 information on behalf of CDC.
  When added to current safety interventions required for domestic 
flights, these measures could decrease the risk of transmission during 
air travel, as well as the potential of air travelers spreading COVID-
19 at their destinations.
  The bill would also require CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization 
Practices--ACIP--to develop recommendations for COVID-19 vaccine use in 
healthcare settings and among health care personnel in other settings. 
ACIP currently recommends that healthcare personnel be vaccinated for 
vaccine-preventable diseases, such as Hepatitis B, measles, and 
influenza.
  ACIP's recommendation for the COVID-19 vaccine would further 
encourage health workers to get the shot and reduce the chances of 
spread. This is particularly important as vaccination rates among 
health workers remain lower than optimal.
  This legislation may also positively affect vaccine acceptance among 
the general public. According to a poll by the Kaiser Family 
Foundation, about 3 in 10 people surveyed who were waiting to be 
vaccinated said they would be more likely to get vaccinated if airlines 
required passengers to be vaccinated. This number increased to about 4 
in 10 among unvaccinated individuals who said they would only get the 
vaccine if required.
  We must ensure the millions of airline passengers that crisscross our 
country aren't contributing to further COVID-19 transmission. This is 
especially critical for young children, who remain ineligible to be 
vaccinated and are increasingly accounting for reported COVID-19 
infections nationwide.
  I want to thank the Infectious Diseases Society of America for their 
support for this bill. Getting vaccinated is a matter of life and 
death, and it is the only option to safely returning to normalcy. I 
look forward to working with my colleagues on this important issue, and 
I urge my fellow Senators to support the U.S. Air Travel Public Safety 
Act.
  Thank you.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. LEAHY (for himself and Mr. Cornyn):
  S. 2891. A bill to amend title 35, United States Code, to address 
matters relating to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the United 
States Patent and Trademark Office, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, 10 years ago this month, Congress worked on 
a broad bipartisan basis to pass the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, 
the biggest change to the United States patent laws in half a century. 
The patent system exists to create incentives that promote the progress 
of science and the useful arts for the benefit of the public. Our whole 
economy depends on a working patent system that reinforces high-quality 
patents while ensuring that poor-quality patents cannot throw a wrench 
into the gears. Today, I am proud to introduce, alongside Senator 
Cornyn, the bipartisan Restoring the America Invents Act to ensure that 
the improvements we made to maintain high patent quality in the Leahy-
Smith Act continue to work as Congress intended.
  One of the challenges we confronted 10 years ago was that too many 
invalid patents were being issued. Instead of rewarding true 
innovation, these patents were being used to indefinitely extend 
monopolies, quash competition, and harm American consumers. For 
example, in the pharmaceutical industry, brand-name drug companies 
would artificially extend a drug's patent term by patenting minor and 
insignificant changes to the underlying product. In other industries, 
entities that did not even make products would buy up tens of thousands 
of questionable patents covering simple and obvious actions like doing 
business on the internet, and they would sue thousands of small 
businesses that sold innovative products online.
  One of the biggest accomplishments of the Leahy-Smith Act was that it 
empowered members of the public to challenge a patent's validity at the 
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office--PTO--directly, providing a faster, 
less expensive, and more accessible avenue than litigation in the 
courts. These proceedings, called inter partes review

[[Page S6783]]

and post-grant review, have been wildly successful. According to one 
economic impact study, in one 5-year period, the Leahy-Smith Act saved 
the U.S. economy $2.64 billion in litigation costs alone, with more 
than $1 billion more in added personal income for Americans.
  The Leahy-Smith Act's new proceedings have been used thousands of 
times and have had the aggregate impact of improving the quality of 
patents in our patent system. Unfortunately, over time and especially 
during the last administration, the PTO has limited the availability of 
these proceedings beyond what Congress intended. The PTO began 
routinely declining to hear challenges brought by members of the 
public, even when those challenges met timing requirements, met all 
other statutory criteria, and would have likely succeeded on the 
merits. In 2020, roughly one in five challenges was summarily denied 
proceedings by the PTO, undermining the intent of the Leahy-Smith Act.
  Furthermore, whether a patent is valid should not depend on which 
party is in the White House or what individual is in charge of the 
agency. During the last administration, there was reported 
nontransparent meddling by the PTO Director in the work of the 
administrative patent judges who were making inter partes and post-
grant review decisions. While the Supreme Court has recently held that 
the PTO Director should have the last word on patentability decisions, 
the public deserves to know when decisions are being made by dedicated 
civil servant judges and when they are being made by the politically 
appointed Director.
  This bill fixes both problems and generally restores the Leahy-Smith 
Act to what Congress intended 10 years ago. It requires institution of 
inter partes review petitions that meet the statutory criteria and 
further encourages district courts to stay litigation when a parallel 
proceeding at the PTO will resolve the same validity issues. The stay 
factors in this bill are intended to put a heavy thumb on the scale in 
favor of a district court stay, preventing duplicative proceedings, and 
protecting patent owners from having to repeatedly defend their 
patents. The Restoring the America Invents Act further imposes 
transparency. The PTO Director must provide a separate written opinion 
when overriding part or all of a decision of administrative patent 
judges, and the PTO Director may not interfere in any way in the 
judges' initial decisionmaking. The public and any reviewing court 
should get to see the judges' decisions first, before any political 
actor might change the outcome.
  This bill further clarifies other aspects of the Leahy-Smith Act. It 
clarifies the intent of the Leahy-Smith Act that the PTO can address, 
in inter partes review proceedings, certain clear instances of 
invalidity: double patenting, where applicants amass dozens of patents 
covering trivial iterations of an already-patented drug or other 
product; and admissions by the patent owner, in the patent itself, that 
someone else first came up with the invention. It clarifies that, when 
patent owners want to amend their patent claims during these post-
issuance proceedings, the PTO must fully examine and vet those claims 
before issuing them. Likewise, the bill prohibits the PTO from issuing 
new claims to a patent that are essentially the same as existing 
claims, addressing the problem of patent thickets. And the Restoring 
the America Invents Act addresses multiple related proceedings pending 
at the PTO, specifying that the PTO must decide ahead of time how to 
proceed, to avoid conflicting outcomes from separate parts of the 
agency. This is in addition to the agency's ongoing obligation to make 
rules addressing common situations, such as under 35 U.S.C. 
Sec. 316(a)(4). The PTO should study frequent scenarios and determine 
whether new regulations are needed to address them.
  Fundamentally, we need to address why the PTO issues invalid patents 
in the first place. But when these invalid patents have already been 
issued, they need to be addressed on the back end. On this 10th 
anniversary of the Leahy-Smith Act, I am proud to introduce this bill--
the Restoring the America Invents Act, that will restore the patent 
system so it can continue to accomplish its goals into the next decade 
and beyond, reinforcing high-quality patents while ensuring that poor-
quality patents don't disrupt the American economy, costing Americans 
untold sums in unreasonable drug costs and overly inflated prices 
generally. I am excited to work alongside Senator Cornyn, on a 
bipartisan basis, to pass this important piece of legislation. The 
Founders envisioned the patent system to promote the progress of 
science and the useful arts for the benefit of the public. It is time 
to get back to the Founders' vision. I hope the Senate will act quickly 
to pass this critical legislation.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. SCOTT of Florida (for himself, Ms. Lummis, Mr. Johnson, 
        Mr. Lee, and Mr. Marshall):
  S. 2895. A bill to prohibit the Department of Transportation and 
other agencies from promulgating rules requiring a person to provide 
proof of COVID-19 vaccination in order to engage in interstate commerce 
or travel, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, 
Science, and Transportation.
  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, the past 18 months have been 
trying for our Nation.
  Thankfully, the vaccine has brought normalcy back to the lives of 
many Americans. In record time, thanks to the hard work of the Trump 
administration and scientists across our country, we developed a safe 
and effective vaccine to protect Americans against COVID-19.
  These vaccines show us what can happen through cooperation, 
ingenuity, and hard work. And I am grateful for all those who helped us 
get here. I got the vaccine and encourage everyone to talk to their 
doctor and consider doing the same. That is what we all should do: give 
Americans all the information and data so that they have everything 
they need to make a good decision for their family.
  That is exactly what I did when I was Governor of Florida in the face 
of life-threatening hurricanes. I made sure Florida families were well 
informed. I went out and made sure everyone knew exactly what to expect 
and how dangerous the storm could be, but I didn't issue mandates 
because that is not what governments should do.
  When I was Governor of Florida, we had the Zika healthcare crisis, 
which impacted newborns. Rather than placing mandates on pregnant women 
or restricting their travel to areas with local transmission of Zika, 
we simply informed Floridians, worked to be as transparent as possible, 
and offered free Zika testing to all pregnant women in Florida.
  Unfortunately, the Biden administration has gone in the complete 
opposite direction. The White House has tried to use the new OSHA 
guidance to create fear; push another round of trillions of dollars in 
reckless, wasteful spending; lock down our Nation; close our schools; 
and kill the economy that so many Americans have worked so hard to 
preserve and protect.
  Americans are sick and tired of the government telling them what to 
do, and the American people are more than capable of making the right 
choices to protect themselves, their families, and their neighbors.
  As families and businesses in Florida and across the U.S. continue to 
work hard to recover from COVID-19's devastation, travel is critical to 
getting our economy fully reopened. America's truckers, shippers, 
pilots, and deliverymen and -women play an important role in delivering 
the goods needed to keep our economy going. Everything from gas and 
groceries to packages from small businesses and department stores, they 
help keep this country running. They also haven't had the luxury of 
working from home. For 18 months, they have shown up to work. They have 
figured out how to be safe without the feds telling them what to do.
  But the job-killing Biden White House is now considering requiring 
those engaged in interstate commerce or interstate travel be vaccinated 
and provide proof of vaccination and a vaccine passport.
  The Federal Government has no business imposing vaccine mandates on 
the American people and our hard-working businesses. This proposal 
reeks of a power grab and is another attempt by the Biden White House 
to control

[[Page S6784]]

Americans. The Biden administration wants to control Americans through 
fear and mandates so the Federal Government is touching every single 
part of your life.
  I won't stand for it. Americans won't stand for it. They know that 
such an order is an overreach of power. Americans should be free to 
make choices they feel are in the best interests of their own health 
and the health of their loved ones, and the Federal Government has no 
business requiring travelers to turn over their personal medical 
information in order to make a delivery or to catch a flight.
  I believe Floridians and Americans across this country know what 
decisions are best for them. They don't need the Biden administration 
controlling their lives.
  The Supreme Court has already ruled that the Federal Government can't 
force people to purchase health insurance under the Commerce Clause. 
Why would President Biden think he could do so with a vaccine mandate?
  In December, President Biden promised--promised--he would not require 
Americans to be vaccinated or require that they carry vaccine 
passports--promise by President Biden. The new OSHA order breaks that 
promise. It has been one lie after another with this President.
  Today, I am introducing legislation which will prevent 
unconstitutional vaccine mandates for interstate commerce. I am 
thankful for Senators Johnson, Lummis, Marshall, and Lee cosponsoring 
this legislation and for Congressman   Dan Crenshaw, who is introducing 
the companion bill in the House of Representatives.
  We are working to make sure that families across our country can 
travel freely and businesses can conduct interstate commerce without 
the ridiculous government bureaucracy created by vaccine passports.
  This bill would prohibit the Department of Transportation, the 
Department of Commerce, and other Federal Agencies from requiring proof 
of vaccination or the use of a vaccine passport to engage in interstate 
commerce or travel.
  It protects people like my dad, who used to drive a truck and would 
carry goods across State lines. It protects the rights of American 
citizens, as laid out in our Constitution.
  President Biden is trying to upend our way of life and impose his 
view of health on every American--and I am here to say that I won't 
stand for it.
  Now, I would like to yield to my friends Senator Johnson and Senator 
Lee, as they will talk about this same bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Scott's 
bill. I want to make a few different points. First of all, I don't 
believe this administration or people who support the mandates are 
really thinking the process through as to how devastating these 
mandates are going to be on our economy.
  Well before the President even announced his unlawful regulatory 
initiative, I was hearing from truckdrivers; I was hearing from nurses 
and doctors who have already had COVID, who had natural immunity, who 
are looking at, for example, the reports, are looking at some of the 
data and science saying that natural immunity is 13 to 27 times more 
effective than the vaccine, and they have chosen not to get it.
  President Biden promised the American public he wouldn't mandate 
this. He said: ``I don't think it should be mandatory. I wouldn't 
demand it to be mandatory.''
  His Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, said it is not the Federal 
Government's role.
  I agree. The President also said: ``This is not about freedom or 
personal choice.''
  No, this is exactly about freedom and personal choice.
  I have written so many oversight letters to the healthcare Agencies. 
I completely agree with Senator Scott. I was a big supporter of 
Operation Warp Speed. I have gotten every vaccine until this one 
because I have had COVID, but the Federal Agencies have not been 
transparent. They have not given the American public information that 
we need to make that informed choice.
  We need to recognize people's health autonomy. This is their body. 
They should be able to make these choices.
  I want to talk a little bit about some of the information we are not 
getting from our healthcare Agencies that people who are choosing not 
to get vaccinated are looking at. And it is not disinformation. This is 
real information. It is just being withheld from the public by our 
healthcare Agencies, by the media, and the social media.
  The first thing I want to show is a chart that I put together. Again, 
this is real data. This comes from the CDC in terms of the number of 
new cases per day, as well as the number of deaths per day. The deaths 
are down here in a very thin red line. But you can see by this chart 
that in terms of the surge of the initial Alpha variant of COVID, it 
pretty well peaked late December, early January.
  The vaccines got the emergency use authorization about mid-December. 
The orange line shows the percent of Americans vaccinated, fully 
vaccinated. You can see the initial surge, the initial pandemic, was 
winding down before the vaccines even could take effect.
  Now, again, we all hoped and prayed that the vaccine would be 100 
percent effective and 100 percent safe. But when you look at this 
chart, as the pandemic is winding down, the percent of fully vaccinated 
individuals are going up, you would think--again, you would think what 
you would see is just a complete winding down of the pandemic. But that 
is not what we have seen.
  We have seen this new surge, this new surge of a variant called 
Delta. So what are we to make of this? Again, I am not a doctor; I am 
not a medical researcher--but I look at this, and I am going, well, it 
certainly doesn't look like the vaccine has been particularly effective 
against the Delta variant.
  But let's look at some data, the type of data that we are not getting 
from our healthcare Agencies. So we have to look, unfortunately, to 
England and to Israel that are more transparent. I don't expect anybody 
to be able to read the figures here. I will give you the highlights, 
but I am showing that this is from Public Health England. This is one 
of their Federal healthcare Agencies. This is from their technical 
briefing No. 23, dated September 17, 2021. It covers cases for about 
7\1/2\ months, from the beginning of February to February 12. What the 
data shows is that during that 7\1/2\-month period in England, there 
are about 750,000 new COVID cases. A little under 600,000 of those were 
the Delta variant, about 80 percent. The number of deaths associated 
with those 600,000 Delta cases was 2,542, which gives us a case 
fatality ratio of about 0.4.
  Now, again, case fatality is higher than infection fatality because 
these are actually registered cases, and there are all kinds of 
infections that never get registered. So to put this in context, an 
infection fatality rate for a bad flu season is slightly under 0.2, 
half of this. Again, put things in perspective.
  Now, President Biden--and this has been parroted by media, news 
media--said that what we are currently experiencing is a pandemic of 
the unvaccinated. They don't give us, really, any data to back that up; 
they just proclaim, pronounce, that 99 percent of people with COVID now 
are unvaccinated, but they don't give us the data.
  We have data from England. And here is the data. So of the 600,000 
cases in England, 43 percent were with the unvaxxed; 27 percent were 
with the fully vaxxed; another 30 percent were partially vaxxed or just 
undetermined. But I think what is interesting--here is another quote 
from President Biden--President Biden said: If you are vaccinated, you 
are not going to be hospitalized; you are not going to an ICU unit; you 
are not going to die; you are not going to get COVID if you have these 
vaccinations.
  Well, maybe that is true in the United States. I kind of doubt it 
because in England, of the 600,000 new cases of Delta, of the over 
2,500 deaths--63 percent of those deaths--1,613 people were fully 
vaccinated. Twenty-eight percent were with the unvaxxed.
  This is information the American people probably never heard. It is 
information, by conveying it, I will get attacked. I will be vilified. 
I will be

[[Page S6785]]

censored. I will be suppressed. It is one of the reasons I come to the 
floor of the Senate to reveal this information that the American people 
need to know.
  Let me close with something else that certainly nurses know, nurses 
who were our heroes. They had the courage and compassion to treat COVID 
patients. Many got infected; some tragically died; most survived. Now, 
many of those nurses are treating the vaccine injured.
  Let me just quick quote a couple of figures from the CDC's own safety 
early surveillance system--the VAERS report, the Vaccine Adverse Event 
Reporting System. Worldwide, from a couple of weeks ago--these numbers 
are pretty fresh--there have been over 15,000 deaths reported on VAERS. 
Now, I realize VAERS does not prove causation. But of those 15,000 
deaths, over 5,000 of those deaths have occurred on days 0, 1, or 2 
following vaccination.
  Now, again, it doesn't prove causation, but if I were working at the 
CDC, I would be looking at that very closely and analyzing those cases. 
The final number, total adverse events, on the VAERS system in 10 
months, since the COVID vaccines have been under emergency use 
authorization, over 725,000 adverse events. So, again, I was hoping and 
praying this vaccine was 100 percent effective, 100 percent safe, but 
that does not appear to be the case.
  And I believe this administration, I believe our healthcare Agencies 
need to be honest and transparent with the public. They have not been. 
The American people have the right to choose. It should not be 
mandated. We should respect their personal choice. We should respect 
their freedom.
  And I will just close on--I will be bringing more information as we 
discuss other ways to push back on these mandates over the next few 
days, so stay tuned.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, during this pandemic, the people of the 
United States have seen the Federal Government intrude into their lives 
more frequently and more completely than ever before. President Biden 
didn't make any pretense about this. He didn't mince any words. He 
didn't sugarcoat it. He didn't even try to hide behind any veneer when 
he spoke to the American people. He said: ``Our patience is wearing 
thin.''
  This five-word expose of the President's thinking is deeply 
troubling. It is not the kind of sentiment you ever want expressed 
within a Free Republic, not from the Chief Executive.
  To say ``our patience is wearing thin'' might be something that you 
say of a foreign adversary. It might be something you say of a 
subordinate within government, someone who reports up to the President. 
It is not something you say of the people--the people who, in our 
system, collectively, are the sovereign.
  It is only by the consent of the governed that our government has its 
legitimacy, and to denigrate the American people that way is not 
consistent with who we are. It is not consistent with our form of 
government.
  So I find that five-worded mission of how he views the American 
people worrying in its own right. But I find it nothing short of 
horrifying that he--as if acting as some sort of omnipresent nanny 
state disciplinarian executive is now set to plunge even more deeply 
into everyday lives of the American people.
  We are here today to remove one of the options from the 
unconstitutional buffet of strong-armed Executive tactics used by 
President Biden in connection with COVID-19. Requiring proof of 
vaccination for interstate travel would create millions of second-class 
Americans. And it would make all Americans subject to a form of 
government and a type of power to which we are not accustomed. And that 
is really ill-suited for our Constitution structure.
  The Constitution itself protects Americans from this type of action. 
The Privileges and Immunities Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment 
grants Americans the right to freely travel between the States. There 
is no precedent for the Federal Government requiring anything like 
vaccination before traveling domestically. There is no precedent 
because there is no legitimate Federal power in this area to begin 
with.
  It is important to remember that the Federal Government doesn't have 
what we call general police powers. These are the basic powers of 
government that are there to protect life, liberty, and property and to 
focus on things like health, safety, and welfare.
  You see, State governments retain this general police power. Remember 
that James Madison, in Federalist No. 45, described the powers given to 
Congress as few and defined and those reserved to the States as 
numerous and indefinite.
  The Founding Fathers understood what general police powers were. They 
deliberately, consciously, intentionally, and with very good reason did 
not give those powers to the Federal Government.
  So as a result, the Federal Government doesn't possess, under the 
Constitution, the ability to pass laws or regulations of this sort. No, 
in our system of government--our national government--this Federal 
Government has to pass only those laws that are within these powers 
that are few and defined, those enumerated in the Constitution.
  The President of the United States, under our Constitution, does not, 
moreover, have any kind of unilateral lawmaking authority whatsoever. 
So the power is not Federal in the first place. And even if it were a 
proper Federal power, which it is not, it is a legislative power that 
he is trying to wield here. Only we can give him that. Only we can 
enact legislation.
  Article I, section 7, makes it very clear that if you are going to 
change the legal status quo, if you are going to establish policy at 
the Federal level that will carry the force of generally applicable 
Federal law, you have to be acting within one of Congress's enumerated 
powers.
  But more importantly here, under article I, section 7, you have to 
have passage in the House; you have to have passage in the Senate of 
the same legislative vehicle, followed by presentment to the President 
of the United States. That formula hasn't been followed here. We have 
no Federal law on this as a result of that. We, thankfully, got rid of 
a King back in 1776. We have never gone back--never looked back and 
longed for the Union Jack. We shouldn't be anxious to convert the 
Presidency into a type of monarchy, even if it is a mini monarchy.

  Beyond the constitutional problems, requiring vaccine passports for 
domestic travel within the United States would place a huge burden on 
not only the American people, but also on airlines and on other 
businesses that are already hard hit by the pandemic. Multiple major 
airlines have already expressed their concerns with a vaccine passport 
mandate.
  Look, the last thing the American people need is more mandates and 
restrictions preventing them from making their own reasonable 
decisions. Americans deserve to be able to make a living and to be able 
to engage in interstate commerce and to travel interstate without 
mandates making them choose between providing for their families and 
undergoing a medical procedure against their will.
  That is why I am fighting President Biden's existing mandate and 
fighting against future intrusions by the executive branch into the 
lives of Americans.
  The bill offered by my friend and colleague, the Senator from 
Florida, would ensure that Federal Agencies cannot attempt to impose 
vaccine requirements for interstate travel or commerce. I am proud to 
be here in support of this bill. I am proud to defend Americans and 
their constitutional rights. I hope we can protect millions of our 
fellow citizens and the American way of life by passing this bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, under no circumstances should 
the Federal Government attempt to mandate these vaccines and require 
proof of vaccination in order to conduct business.
  Small business owners who are trying to restart their businesses, 
families trying to take vacations, and truckers who are getting back to 
work shouldn't have to choose between living their

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lives and meeting President Biden's demands.

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