[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 200 (Wednesday, November 17, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8321-S8341]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

  NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2022--MOTION TO 
                                PROCEED

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to resume 
legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I move to proceed to Calendar No. 144, H.R. 4350, the 
National Defense Authorization Act.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 144, H.R. 4350, a bill to 
     authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2022 for military 
     activities of the Department of Defense, for military 
     construction, and for defense activities of the Department of 
     Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such 
     fiscal year, and for other purposes.

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hickenlooper). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                                INTERPOL

  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, this Saturday, the International Criminal 
Police Organization, better known as INTERPOL, will begin its annual 
General Assembly in Istanbul.
  INTERPOL is a vital global law enforcement network that helps police 
from different countries cooperate with each other to control crime. 
Unfortunately, it has also become a tool in the hands of despots and 
crooks who seek to punish dissidents and political opponents in an 
effort to turn other countries' law enforcement against the rule of 
law.
  Rooting out this sort of abuse should be the top priority going into 
the INTERPOL General Assembly. These abuses make a mockery of INTERPOL 
and are threatening its continued existence.
  INTERPOL's Constitution cites the universal declaration of human 
rights as the basis for police cooperation. Importantly and 
significantly, Article 3 of that declaration forbids INTERPOL from 
engaging in any ``activities of a political, military, religious or 
racial character.''

[[Page S8322]]

  All 194 member nations have committed to uphold Article 3 and the 
entire INTERPOL Constitution. So it is troubling--as a matter of fact, 
it is even worse than troubling; it is egregious--that INTERPOL chose 
to host this year's General Assembly in Turkey, a country that has 
become one of the worst abusers of INTERPOL's Red Notice and Blue 
Notice systems.
  Turkey has repeatedly weaponized INTERPOL to persecute and arrest 
government critics on politically motivated charges. Journalist Can 
Dundar is a prime example. Mr. Dundar is one of Turkey's most prominent 
media personalities and has received international awards for defending 
freedom of the press.
  In 2018, Turkey demanded that INTERPOL issue a Red Notice for Mr. 
Dundar's arrest. What had he done? He simply criticized his government. 
He had reported on the Turkish Government supplying arms to an Islamist 
group in Syria. He was charged by a Turkish court with espionage and 
aiding a terrorist group--the group was never named--and sentenced to 
27\1/2\ years in prison in absentia.
  Thankfully, Germany has refused to extradite Mr. Dundar, but this is 
the sort of thing we see from this year's host of the conference.
  In June of this year, Turkish media reported that INTERPOL had 
rejected nearly 800 Red Notices sent by the Turkish Government.
  A Swedish human rights group reported that in 2016, after the failed 
coup in Turkey, the Turkish Government filed tens of thousands of 
INTERPOL notifications targeting persons who were merely critics and 
political opponents of the government. Some of these people were 
stranded in international airports, detained and handed over to Turkey, 
where they ended up in prison.
  There are also alarming signs that Turkey is trying to leverage this 
year's General Assembly to further its own authoritarian goals. This 
past June, Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Yavuz Selim Kiran openly 
asserted that the General Assembly in Istanbul ``will be an important 
opportunity . . . [to] explain in detail . . . our rightful position 
regarding our fight against terrorist organizations and our rejected 
Red Notices.''
  Translation: Turkey plans to use this high-level event to mislead and 
lie to the international community. They will no doubt try to explain 
why President Erdogan should be able to hunt--hunt--down his critics in 
foreign countries, using foreign law enforcement through INTERPOL. This 
will be a travesty--one that indeed threatens the legitimacy and future 
viability of INTERPOL.
  Of course, Turkey is not the only offender we could talk about. 
Russia, China, and Venezuela have routinely misused INTERPOL to oppress 
their critics. The case of Bill Browder, a fierce critic of the Putin 
regime and advocate for the Magnitsky Act, is probably the most well-
known example of such abuse. Vladimir Putin has issued no fewer than 
eight INTERPOL diffusions seeking to have Bill Browder extradited--none 
of which, thankfully, have been obeyed.
  These abuses should not be allowed to go on. INTERPOL needs 
protection on behalf of countries that actually believe in human 
rights, that believe in open dissent and the rule of law. Providing 
that protection is why I have introduced the Transnational Repression 
Accountability and Prevention Act, or TRAP Act. This is a bipartisan 
effort, with four Republican cosponsors and four Democratic cosponsors. 
This bipartisan legislation would fortify U.S. systems against INTERPOL 
abuse and would require that we use our influence to push forward due 
process and transparency reforms at INTERPOL. American law enforcement 
should never be doing the work of foreign crooks and dictators.
  I hope that I can count on my colleagues in this Chamber to support 
this much needed legislation, and I invite my colleagues to be added to 
the cosponsor list.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.


                  Remembering Hugh K. Leatherman, Sr.

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, later this afternoon, I will be 
introducing with Senator Scott--my colleague from South Carolina, Tim 
Scott--a statement for the record honoring the life of Senator Hugh K. 
Leatherman, Sr.
  We just lost one of the most distinguished members of the State 
Senate in the history of South Carolina. Senator Leatherman was a 40-
year member of the South Carolina State Senate. He was the finance 
chairman, and his leadership is legendary. With his help and 
assistance, the Port of Charleston is on track to become one of the 
premier ports on the east coast. He was indispensable in recruiting 
Boeing, Honda, and Volvo to South Carolina.
  He was a dear friend of both myself and Senator Scott. I have never 
known a more effective voice for South Carolina. He loved the Pee Dee, 
the Florence area he represented, but when it came to helping South 
Carolina, Senator Leatherman was always there. You could count on him 
to lead from the front. Trying to solve problems was his life's work 
rather than creating problems.
  I want to let the people of South Carolina know we have lost a giant. 
There will be a big vacuum, and all of us in our State are going to 
have to up our game to replace the vacuum created by Senator 
Leatherman.
  His legacy is just extraordinary. He touched so many lives. He led 
the effort to put $300 million up front to deepen the Port of 
Charleston at a critical time. I could go on and on and on about how he 
helped every corner of the State, from the mountains to the sea. He was 
a giant of the South Carolina Senate. His voice will be missed. He has 
a record of accomplishment that is just, again, legendary.
  To his family and legions of friends, we mourn Senator Leatherman's 
loss, but you have a lot to be proud of. Now is the time to celebrate 
this great statesman's life. Senator Leatherman was truly a statesman. 
He could work across the aisle. He knew how to get things done. He used 
the power given to him by his constituents and his fellow colleagues in 
the South Carolina Senate for the greater good. There is no better 
legacy or no better statement about a politician than to say that he 
used his power for the greater good.
  The statement will be forthcoming from myself and Senator Scott.
  To his family and friends, we stand with you. You will not go through 
this journey alone.
  To my many friends in South Carolina from the Pee Dee, you lost a 
great champion, and I will do everything I can to help fill that vacuum 
and void.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.


                   National Defense Authorization Act

  Mr. KING. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the National Defense 
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022.
  I want to make two basic points at the beginning and then discuss 
some of the specifics of the bill.
  The first is the word ``deterrence.'' The cornerstone of our defense 
policy is deterrence. The best battle is the one that doesn't occur. 
The best war is the one that doesn't occur. And there are those who 
will say that this bill authorizes a very large amount of expenditures. 
I can assure you that war would dwarf the expenditures in this bill.

  And deterrence is the whole idea of having a force that would 
convince any potential adversary that attacking the United States is a 
losing proposition, that it would cost them more than they would ever 
gain.
  That has been our strategy for many years. It is our strategy going 
forward, and I will talk about it in some specific terms with regard to 
this bill. But it is important to understand that that's why we are 
doing this defense bill, is to provide and strengthen and ensure that 
this country has the forces and the weapons that are necessary to deter 
any potential adversary.
  The second concept that, generally, I want to discuss is consensus. 
When I go home to Maine, people are amazed that we do anything 
together, because all they see on the TV news and read in the 
newspapers is about conflict--bickering, arguing, differing. Why can't 
they get anything done? What they don't know is that we do get a great 
deal done, and a lot of it is by unanimous consent, by consensus.
  This bill is a good example. This is the 61st year that the National 
Defense Authorization Act has come to Congress, and we hope it is going 
to pass this year. For the past 60 years, every single year, we have 
passed a National Defense Authorization.

[[Page S8323]]

  And we usually--well, not usually, not almost always--we always pass 
them on a bipartisan basis. This bill came out of the committee 25 to 
1. That is pretty close to unanimous. And we always get substantial 
support in our committee, the Armed Services Committee, but also on the 
floor of the United States Senate.
  Why?
  Because the Members of this body, just as the people across this 
country, are committed to those who serve in uniform, and they are 
committed to the idea of peace and the idea of deterring adversaries 
and avoiding conflict and war.
  They all think that all we do is argue, and this bill is proof that 
that is not the case.
  When I first got here, my first two chairs of the Armed Services 
Committee were Carl Levin and John McCain, Senators who represented, in 
my mind, the best of the tradition of this Senate. They argued fiercely 
in favor of their positions, worked hard to resolve conflict within the 
committee, and were absolutely committed to the values of the United 
States of America.
  Despite all the partisan differences that exist in the country, this 
bill is an example that we are still united when it comes to the 
defense of the United States.
  It comes on the heels of Monday's signing of the historic bipartisan 
infrastructure bill. I think it is interesting that the bill has in its 
name--it has a name, I am not even sure what it is, but everyone refers 
to it as the ``bipartisan infrastructure bill'' because it was 
supported by bipartisan majorities in both Houses. And in this bill, we 
are coming together to do something similar, to support our country 
and, particularly, to support those who put their lives on the line to 
defend this country.
  And I want to stop there for just a second. We all go through life 
getting various jobs, signing up for jobs, applying, and then you sign 
a form and you join the company. There are very few jobs in our society 
when you sign on the dotted line, you are literally putting your life 
on the line. Members of the military and first responders are the only 
people I can think of that do that. It is something we need to remind 
ourselves. In addition to all the other responsibilities that you are 
taking on when you join the military, you are literally signing to 
commit your life, if necessary, in defense of this country.
  I believe this bill is essential to protecting our servicemembers, 
the industrial base which serves the defense of our country, and, 
collectively, our national security. The Armed Services Committee has 
produced a bill that will make our Nation safer and stronger.
  For example, taking care of our servicemembers: 2.7 percent pay raise 
for military servicemembers and the Department of Defense civilian 
workforce. That pay raise is important, and if this bill doesn't pass, 
it won't happen. So that is one of the immediate reasons that we need 
to pass this bill, to provide a pay raise to our military personnel.
  They will also receive 12 weeks of parental leave for birth, 
adoption, and foster care placement of a child.
  One of the provisions that I am interested in is that there is 
substantial support in this bill for our naval infrastructure. It 
authorizes funding, for example, to Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, 
which Bath Iron Works in the State of Maine will be able to compete 
for, and this, in furtherance, supports our Navy's ability to deter 
adversaries around the world.
  It is no secret that the Pacific is an important area of potential 
conflict. And the Pacific is an ocean and it requires ships in order to 
project power, and those ships are built here in America. And this bill 
demonstrates Congress' intent to support the Navy, to support 
shipbuilding, and to support the industrial base.

  One of the things the bill does is provide for a new--what they call 
a multiyear contract, where the Navy commits to buying more than one 
ship at a time, which gives them a better price per ship. That is good 
for the taxpayers and also gives some assurance to the industrial base 
that the jobs will be there and the work will be there in order to 
maintain the support.
  We often forget that the companies that do these--produce these 
amazing products cannot be turned off and on like a switch. I have 
visited shipyards. I visited in Norfolk; I visited in Maine, 
Portsmouth, and at Bath Iron Works many times. And these are amazingly 
complicated pieces of machinery. I believe that the destroyers built at 
Bath Iron Works are quite possibly the most complex product built in 
America.
  And the people who build them have to know that they are going to 
have a job a year from now and 2 years from now. We can't go herky-
jerky from one year to the next. Once you lose a welder who goes 
somewhere else, it is hard to get them back.
  So the maintenance of the industrial base, whether it is in 
shipbuilding, aircraft, humvees, whatever the vehicles are, whatever 
the platforms are that support our military, it has to be done on a 
consistent and predictable basis so that those factories, large and 
small--and, by the way, there are thousands of small businesses that 
support these larger industries. They have to know that there is some 
future, and that is why things like a multiyear procurement is very 
important. This industrial base is not something that you can turn off 
and on.
  There is a research provision in this bill that is very important. 
University of Maine is one of those universities that provides vital 
research to the military, because we always have to be thinking not 
about the last war or the last conflict, but the future. And everybody 
in this room knows that the future is going to be based upon newer and 
newer and newer technologies. So research is an essential part of 
building the strength of this country.
  I worked for the last 2 years on something called the National 
Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Our job was to come together to form 
and recommend--recommend--a national strategy in cyberspace to defend 
this country, which we did in March of 2020. A number of the 
recommendations of our commission were enacted last year, either in the 
National Defense Authorization Act or in other areas of legislation 
that we passed. And, this year, there are some really crucial ones in 
this year's National Defense Authorization Act--crucial provisions to 
defend this country in cyberspace.
  The next 9/11 will be cyber, and if we are not ready for it after all 
the warnings that we have had, shame on us. Worse than shame on us; it 
will be destructive of this country. And that is why I am so proud that 
there are provisions in this bill that will help us to respond, that 
will help us to understand what is going on, will help the private 
sector and the Federal Government to work together to meet and defeat 
this 21st century challenge.
  In many ways, cyber is a new manner of conflict. We have to reimagine 
conflict. Traditionally, we think of conflict and war as Army versus 
Army and Navy versus Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard, and now the Space 
Force.
  But cyber is all about the private sector. Eighty-five percent of the 
target in cyberspace is in the private sector, and they are not going 
to have their own army. So that is where there has to be a new 
relationship of trust and confidence between the private sector and the 
public sector in order to successfully defend this country in 
cyberspace. And, indeed, there is a provision, hopefully, that will 
enter this bill through the manager's package that will deal exactly 
with that subject.
  This bill also secures the future of the nuclear triad. Strategic 
forces, otherwise known as nuclear weapons, are hard to talk about. 
They are hard to think about because they are so horrendous.
  But to go back to the beginning of my remarks, the issue here is 
deterrence, and we have had a deterrent strategy virtually since 1945, 
and it has worked. Thank God there has not been a use of nuclear 
weapons since 1945.
  Why?
  Because of the strategy that every adversary knows that they will pay 
an awful price, if they attack us, using nuclear weapons.
  As chairman of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, we have had 
hearings, we have had discussions, we have had readings on how do we 
successfully modernize our nuclear triad--bombers, submarines, and 
missiles--in such a way as to ensure the vitality of the deterrent 
strategy.
  The problem is that all three of those legs of the triad have 
basically been

[[Page S8324]]

unattended to for 30 or 40 or sometimes 50 years. And as they degrade 
in capability, so also degrades the capability of our deterrence.
  If the adversaries look and say, ``They are trying to fly 50-year-old 
airplanes, or they are trying to defend themselves with missiles that 
they are unsure of whether they will work,'' then the adversary says, 
``Well, maybe we can get away with an attack.''
  And therein lies a path to a horrendous nuclear conflict, which has 
to be avoided. The best way to avoid it is to be sure that our 
deterrence is credible. The only way to make it credible is to be sure 
that it is modernized. That is exactly what this bill contemplates.
  Another provision of this bill that, I think, is critically important 
is a substantial change in the military code of justice, with regard to 
sexual assault, that puts in place an independent prosecutor system to 
take the decisions about moving forward on sexual assault claims out of 
the chain of command and puts it in a special professional prosecutor's 
decision.
  I think that is important not only for the practical effect, but for 
the message that it sends to soldiers and sailors and airmen and 
guardsmen that we are serious about this; that they can feel 
comfortable reporting violations; that they can come forward and that 
there is no danger that the complaints that they make will be swept 
under the rug.
  I think this is an important provision of this bill, and I want to 
commend my friend Senator Gillibrand, who has spent as long as I can 
remember--as long as I have been on the committee, which is 9 years, 
working on this issue, and, in many ways, this is the culmination of 
her work.
  Another provision of this bill that I am particularly interested in 
is that we learn the lessons from 20 years in Afghanistan. Senator 
Duckworth has proposed the creation of an Afghan war commission, an 
independent commission, not made up of generals, not made of people who 
were in Afghanistan, but of people who can take a clear-eyed look at 
the successes and mistakes concerning our engagement in Afghanistan. I 
think this commission is an important idea. I was delighted to support 
Senator Duckworth's proposal.
  Another provision that we hope will be included within the National 
Defense Authorization Act this year is the United States Innovation and 
Competition Act, which we have already passed here in this body, but if 
we put it in this bill, it will then go to the other body, and there 
will be consideration there.
  This is a critical piece of legislation to enable competition with 
China. And make no mistake, we are in competition with China. So 
passing that bill as part of the national defense bill, to me, makes 
total sense because we are talking about national security, and being 
competitive in areas like AI and chips and quantum computing is as much 
a part of national security as bombers and submarines.
  It also includes a provision about competition in the Arctic, which 
is one of the areas of the world that is opening to competition and, 
potentially, to conflict. We don't want that to happen.
  Finally, the bill reasserts the fundamental congressional 
responsibility--I almost said ``prerogative,'' but it is not. It is a 
responsibility of Congress to make the decision as to when this country 
is committed to war.
  In recent years--well, a little history. The last time the Congress 
declared war was in 1942. We have had AUMFs, authorizations for use of 
military force. This bill will repeal two of the early AUMFs that have 
been used as a kind of blank check by the executive to deploy troops 
and engage in conflict around the world. In 1991 and 2002, there were 
AUMFs involving Iraq.
  If you go back to the debates of the Constitutional Convention, I 
think it was--I want to say--August 17, 1787, when there was a debate 
about the war power, and there were those who said the Executive has to 
have the power to declare war; Congress is too cumbersome; the 
Executive can only do that.
  There were others who said: Wait a minute. We rebelled against the 
King of England because we didn't like the King and the prince being 
able to unilaterally take us into war.
  The compromise was to divide the responsibility. The President is the 
Commander in Chief, but Congress has the responsibility to declare war. 
This power has not been usurped by modern Presidents. It has been 
abandoned--it has been given up--by modern Congresses. This bill is a 
step away from what, I think, is a serious gap in our adherence to the 
fundamental purpose of the Constitution.
  So there is plenty of good in this bill; there is plenty to 
celebrate. I am delighted to be able to support it. I have only just 
scratched the surface, but it is a kind of truism that you will never 
be successful in a military context if you are fighting the last war. 
You have to think about conflict in the future.
  In Maine, sometimes people say: We have never done it that way 
before.
  I am sure the Presiding Officer hears that in Colorado, and you hear 
it all around the country: We have never done it that way before.
  If that is our attitude, we are sunk. We have to think about what is 
coming at us, about what is in the future.
  Cyber will be part of any kind of conflict we may become engaged in, 
and I hope we never become engaged in a serious conflict. Again, that 
is the entire purpose of this bill. It is to deter any potential 
adversary from thinking that they can successfully attack this country.
  This bill defends the interests of America. It defends the interests 
of our military and our wonderful military people who are deployed 
around the world and, as I say, who are putting their lives on the line 
for this country.
  We can come together, hopefully, in the next few days, in a 
bipartisan way, to pass this bill, to pass the word, in the words of 
President Kennedy, ``to friend and foe alike,'' that we will accept the 
burdens of leadership and that we will meet our responsibility to John 
McCain, to Carl Levin, to all those who have come before us, and to the 
people of the United States of America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Rosen). The Senator from Missouri.


                               Inflation

  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, one of the most striking things, I think, 
we are beginning to notice this year is that the holidays are taking on 
a really different look than we have seen in a long time.
  Actually, for about a generation now, we have seen more choices and, 
more often than not, declining prices, which has made it possible for 
American families to have things that, in the past, they had not 
thought were possible for them to have.
  The pandemic, of course, was a big obstacle a year ago, as people 
were forced to alter or cancel their plans for their families to get 
together. And I think many of us were really looking forward to a more 
traditional holiday season this year. Hopefully, that season still 
allows people to get together.
  But I think we are also beginning to see people think they are going 
to have to scale back their celebrations or be prepared to pay a lot 
more for them; maybe just simply paying a lot more to get there, to 
start with, as gasoline costs have gone up dramatically. I think we are 
about 46 percent higher in our gas costs than we were a year ago. For a 
lot of families, that is a deciding item of whether you can actually 
get to Grandma's house or not.
  This time, the change in plans isn't because of the virus; it is 
because of inflation and supply side issues that, frankly, the 
government has done a lot to help cause.
  Jason Furman, who was the Chairman of President Obama's Council of 
Economic Advisers, said recently: ``The original sin was [the size of 
the] American Rescue Plan.''
  According to Jason Furman, he said: ``It contributed to both higher 
output [and] also higher prices.''
  Now, what he was talking about was the American Rescue Plan. This was 
the so-called COVID relief plan from March. It was a law that the 
Democrats passed entirely by themselves--despite there being a lot of 
warnings that the economy was already beginning to recover--that put 
another $2 trillion into the economy, including a lot of money that 
went to State governments that, clearly, didn't need it and local 
governments that, maybe, needed it a little more than the States did.
  We had States that were having alltime high revenues, and we had 
already

[[Page S8325]]

helped States in a number of different ways. Then, suddenly, we had to 
beat all of that by sending money to States and sending $2,000 to 
everybody, almost, and thought that wouldn't have any impact.
  I am not sure who we were trying to save in this effort for relief. 
There was no reason to believe, in March, that the economy wasn't 
headed on the way back. What we did in March with that legislation was 
just pour more fire on an economy that was already about to roar back 
in a good way.
  The warnings were right on the money. In October, inflation rose 6.2 
percent over the cost of a year ago. That is the highest increase in 
inflation in 30 years.
  A lot of Americans alive today and, certainly, a lot of Americans who 
are in the workforce today don't remember the inflation of the 
seventies and the early eighties that made it just hard for families to 
keep up; that made it hard for families to buy a house; that made it 
hard for families to pay the basic bills.
  I hope that we are not going to get a strong reminder of that, but it 
certainly looks like we are.
  The prices for many of the things that will be on the Thanksgiving 
table are going up. The New York Times, about 2 weeks ago, had a front-
page article that this would be the most expensive Thanksgiving ever. 
Then they went through that list of things to talk about that.
  The price of turkey, by the way, has gone down a little bit in the 
last few days. It was projected to be 20 percent higher. It is only 18 
percent higher. So your principal protein on the Thanksgiving table 
will cost 20 percent more or 18 percent more than it did a year ago.
  Other protein is even higher than that. Potatoes are 17 percent 
higher than they were a year ago. Green beans are 39 percent higher 
than they were a year ago.
  I don't know if we are beginning to see a pattern here or not, but 
there, clearly, is one.
  Butter is about 30 percent higher than it was a year ago. If your 
grandmother's recipe for stuffing--or, as my grandmother called it, 
dressing; we had turkey and dressing when I was growing up--includes 
onions, onions are 50 percent higher than they were a year ago.
  So, between the labor shortages, the high costs of raw materials, and 
more expensive transportation, the food supply chain is just about as 
messed up as the rest of the supply chain.
  We don't import nearly as much food as we may import other things, 
but that food supply chain isn't working for us either.
  Now, shoppers are already beginning to see bare spaces on grocery 
store shelves. Places you were going 6 months ago, when you had a 
choice or even 6 weeks ago when you had a choice, suddenly there is one 
item there of what you are trying to buy or maybe no items of what you 
are trying to buy. There is just simply not a choice that you can make 
at the store because the product you want to get is not there--and not 
just the brand-name product, the product is not there in growing cases.
  What are we going to see when the Christmas holiday--the holiday 
shopping season really begins right after Thanksgiving. Black Friday, 
or whatever other day you are going to do that shopping in, I think you 
are going to see--American families and American individuals are going 
to see lots of challenges.
  Wait times for ocean freight--we have all seen those pictures now of 
the backup of ships waiting to get to the port in every port in the 
country--every port in the country. Wait times are about 45 percent 
longer than it was last year at this time.
  Shipping rates from China are around 400 percent, four times higher 
than they were a year ago. Things that cost $2,000 a container now are 
much more likely to cost something like $12, $15, or even $20,000, just 
for the container--moving the container from where it is filled up to 
where it gets off the boat at one of our ports.
  Traffic jams at the big ports are a problem in every place. There is 
a shortage of 80,000 truckdrivers to move things once they get 
unloaded.
  We made it so appealing for some people to stay home from work that 
they have, at this point, still decided not to go back to work or 
decided to retire early. They were getting that enhanced unemployment 
check for a couple of years, decided that maybe that life in the truck, 
which is a hard life, or that life on the dock, which is a hard life, 
or that life at the grocery store stocking shelves, which can be 
challenging every single day, or any other job was just not a job that 
they were going to go back to.
  I mentioned President Obama's economic adviser earlier. Well, he said 
another pretty revealing thing at the same time when he talked about 
supply-side problems. He said, and this is his quote also: ``It would 
be foolish to count on a return to normal within the next year.'' 
Within the next year.
  So things are not going to get better if we don't get back. They are 
likely to get worse.
  Then he said inflation ``is likely to remain uncomfortably high.''
  Now, I am not going to talk about what his personal economic 
circumstances may be, but if they are uncomfortably high for him, they 
are painfully high for lots of families.
  So here we go again. By the way, not only was the $2 trillion bill 
done just by one party--not a single Republican voted for it in March. 
Not only did that feed the flames of inflation, but now we are right 
back talking about a bill that if every program was extended through 
the 10 years, it would be a $4 or $5 trillion bill. It is impossible to 
understand how you wouldn't see that as another thing that is going to 
really create great risk. We have had every warning sign we could 
possibly have.
  When Washington pays people not to work, it gets awfully difficult to 
fill all the open jobs. When Washington gives people money that 
Washington has borrowed or just simply kind of made up, that is awfully 
hard.
  The predictions that have been made about what happens with excessive 
unemployment payments, the predictions that have been made about money 
borrowed and put into the economy that we don't have, have actually 
turned out to be right on target.
  So Republicans are warning again, if our colleagues on the other side 
continue to plan to move forward with another--however number you want 
to describe it. I think it is very fair, if all of these programs are 
extended, to describe it as $4 to $5 trillion. It is fair to describe 
it as $2 trillion, if actually you start these programs that people 
will like having government take this new responsibility and then think 
they can actually stop after 1 year or 2 years or 3 years.
  Nobody believes that, and frankly I don't know anybody on the other 
side who thinks that is the plan. They understand the plan is to have a 
$2 trillion pricetag and a $5 trillion ultimate payout for the things 
that that pricetag starts to pay for.
  Nothing about being uncomfortably high--let's talk about the pain 
that you could have as you tighten your belts not just for the holidays 
but for the foreseeable future.
  Transportation, food, home heating in the winter, it doesn't get more 
basic than that. And if transportation costs go up, gasoline goes up 46 
percent, food goes up 15 to 20 percent. Home heating costs are 
projected, in many places, to go up somewhere between 50 and 100 
percent. Even if you got a little bit of a raise at work, that raise is 
immediately taken away by just the basic fundamental things you have to 
have.
  We need to work with our friends on the other side. We need our 
friends on the other side to see the warning signs of what has happened 
with what we have done, what has been done this year already, and 
exactly understand what will happen.
  If we do more of the same, we are going to get more of the same, and 
more of what is happening right now is not what people we work for need 
or deserve. I hope we get serious about the things that our actions 
create.
  With that, I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I appreciate my colleague from 
Missouri and his remarks about how we need the other side to work with 
us. And that is so very true because this administration, the Biden 
administration, has refused to drag themselves away from the political 
posturing and move toward actually governing and

[[Page S8326]]

addressing the problems that the American people would like to see 
addressed. They have sent this economy into the gutter.
  Now, think about it. Just a few years ago, we had the best economy 
that we had had in decades. Unemployment for women, for African 
Americans, for Hispanics hit an alltime low; wage growth at an alltime 
high. Now the economy is in the gutter. Our southern border is now in 
shambles. The hearing we had yesterday with Secretary Mayorkas was so 
dissatisfying because he did not have facts and figures and answers, 
and we see a country that is incredibly divided.
  But at least the American people now know just how in denial the 
White House is about what is takes to be living in the real world. 
Their constant attempts to downplay the mess they have made have had 
the opposite effect, and now everyone knows just how out of touch they 
are with anyone who regularly pulls in at the gas station to fill up 
their own car or darkens the door of a grocery store to buy the 
groceries that they need.
  Yesterday, I came to the Senate floor and asked the question: What 
will it take for the Biden administration to take the threat of Chinese 
aggression seriously?
  The evidence is staring them in the face, and yet they refuse to 
acknowledge that there is a danger; that China is our adversary. 
Certainly, the President's phone call did not give us any comfort in 
knowing that he understands they are an adversary.
  And today, I have a similar question: What will it take for the Biden 
administration to take the American people seriously when they 
repeatedly warn us that the economy is in trouble? They are living the 
warning signs every single day.
  But try as they might to convince us otherwise, this administration's 
talking points are all about happy talk, better jobs numbers, and the 
pockets of growth. But this is not anything that is representative of 
the economy at large.
  Still, every policy that they proposed this year assumes that the 
costs of inflation are a myth; that inflation is concocted by 
Republicans; that it is there as a talking point to scare American 
families.
  How completely out of touch can this administration be? They are 
proving the point that they are elitists; that they live in a bubble.
  What they keep saying to people is: Oh, you know, it is a dollar 
here. It is a dollar there. It doesn't really matter that much.
  But, of course, it does matter.
  Anyone who has taken the time out of their life to rear a family and 
any mother who gets up in the morning and she is trying to feed the 
kids and get them to school and shuttle kids into the minivan and then 
she is off to work and then they are off to activities in the 
afternoon, she knows that pennies add up to dollars, which adds up to 
hundreds of dollars, and it goes quickly--in a hurry.
  I talked to someone last weekend. They were talking about how a 
manageable trip to the grocery store now has the potential to just blow 
their budget. They are somebody who likes to use cash, not credit 
cards. They put it all in envelopes, and they plan out their 
expenditures. They are seeing firsthand what this budget is doing to 
their monthly budget for their family.
  The sad thing is, this is all happening just in time for 
Thanksgiving, just in time for the Christmas holidays.
  But, you know, you don't need to take my word for it. My colleagues 
don't need to take my word for it. Let's look at the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics to tell the story. This is a Federal bureau, and they keep 
this data. Their data is telling quite an interesting story.
  I have a poster here that actually shows you the percentage increase 
you are going to see. The Thanksgiving turkey will cost you 6.1 percent 
more this year than last. If you want to get a ham, that is going to be 
an extra 12 percent. If you are serving veggies with the turkey and 
ham, that is an extra 8.2 percent. The price of a cup of coffee for 
after dinner, that is up 5.7 percent. And the grand finale, the 
homemade apple pie is up 5.1 percent. And I hope that you weren't 
planning on driving out of town for your Thanksgiving dinner because 
gas prices are up $1.23 a gallon since last October. Think about that, 
$1.23 a gallon--a gallon.
  Now, this is sticker shock every time you pull into the gas pump. It 
is sticker shock every time you go to the grocery store. And, as you 
can see what it was last year, you are seeing these stickers on gas 
pumps all across Tennessee.
  Yes, the Biden administration, they can say: I did that.
  Decisions that the President has made--stopping the Keystone 
Pipeline, moving us from being energy independent and exporting oil to 
making us dependent on OPEC, of all things, so that we can drive our 
cars and heat our homes--it outrageous.
  I would encourage President Biden and my Democratic colleagues to 
remember that, when it comes to budgets and families managing their way 
through this inflation, they can't have it both ways.
  Back in January, they told congressional Republicans that their 
bipartisan bailout bill was the only thing standing between the average 
American family and financial ruin. Now, the very idea that pricing and 
spending power matters seems extremely unpopular with our friends on 
the left. Suddenly, they expect the American people to put on a brave 
face, to treat shortages like a minimalist trend, and to cut back where 
they can.
  Do you know what, Madam President? The American people don't want to 
live in austerity; the American people want to go to the grocery store 
and find the food that they need. It is stunning, the attitude of the 
left. It is stunning, the disregard that they have for average American 
families who are working hard every single day.
  Of course, people who are now struggling to make ends meet could stay 
home. They could stay right at home this holiday season. They could 
park the car, cook a small meal, and swallow their disappointment. But 
do you know who won't be doing that this holiday season? President Joe 
Biden. You won't see him making sacrifices to sustain the narrative.
  I have a feeling I won't see many of my Democratic colleagues passing 
on Thanksgiving dinner to show solidarity with families who couldn't 
stretch their paycheck far enough for that Thanksgiving turkey.
  I would hope that something here in all of this data would remind 
you. The Bureau of Labor Statistics--that is where I am getting the 
data. I am hoping it would remind my friends across the aisle that this 
is not about proving a point. This is about the average American's 
growing inability to put food on the table.
  You may not have to worry about an extra $30 or $40 on the grocery 
bill, but most Tennesseans do worry about that. And for some people 
spending more isn't even an option.
  It is time to adjust the priorities of the Democrats. It is time for 
this administration to adjust their priorities. It is time for them to 
meet the people where they are and not where they think that the people 
should be forced to go by their socialist agenda.
  I would encourage my colleagues: Pay attention to what the people of 
this country are telling you. Govern accordingly. People are depending 
on it.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   National Defense Authorization Act

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk 
about our Nation's defense.
  Last week, America marked Veterans Day. I was in Wyoming and started 
Veterans Day the way I do every year, which is in Douglas, WY, in 
Converse County, at the American Legion.
  We raised the flag at 7 a.m. We kicked off a day of Veterans Day 
ceremonies all around Wyoming. Last week, I visited with veterans all 
around the State. I will share with you the things that I hear all 
across Wyoming.
  What I continue to hear is that since Joe Biden took office, our 
Nation has become weaker--weaker--and the

[[Page S8327]]

world has become more dangerous and our Nation is now less safe.
  In August, Joe Biden oversaw the tragic and failed withdrawal from 
Afghanistan. Because of the President's weakness, incompetence, and 
mismanagement, the Taliban took over Afghanistan in just a matter of 
weeks. Just before the withdrawal, terrorists killed 13 of our troops. 
It was the deadliest day for our military in a decade.
  One of those fallen heroes was Rylee McCollum of Wyoming. All of 
Wyoming felt the terrible loss of this 20-year-old marine. He was a 
statewide high school wrestling champ.
  On August 30, the Biden administration left hundreds of Americans 
behind enemy lines, in spite of the fact that the President said he 
wouldn't leave anyone behind. The administration has admitted to the 
Armed Services Committee that more than 400 Americans are still behind 
enemy lines.
  Joe Biden's Afghanistan surrender was a national disgrace. The 
consequences are being felt all around the world. Our friends are 
furious. Our enemies are emboldened.
  Last month, we saw a hypersonic missile being tested. We see that an 
emboldened Vladimir Putin now has stationed 100,000 troops near the 
border with Ukraine. Vladimir Putin continues to speak of Ukraine as if 
it is part of Russia.
  North Korea showed last month that they can launch ballistic missiles 
from submarines.
  Iran will soon have much, much more cash than they did when President 
Biden took office. You say: How could that be? Well, one reason for the 
influx of cash is the rising price of oil and a weak enforcement of the 
sanctions that we have against Iran. It is easier for them to sell and 
more profitable to do so. The Biden administration is trying to 
negotiate with Iran from a position of weakness.
  Yet the most alarming developments are the strides being made right 
now in China. Since Afghanistan fell, China has aggressively flown 
dozens of military planes over Taiwan's air defense zones. The Pentagon 
admitted recently that China now has the largest navy in the world. 
China plans to build more than 100 new ships over the next 8 years. 
China is also building about 300 missile silos and plans to have 1,000 
nuclear missiles in the next 8 years. China recently tested a 
hypersonic weapon capable of use around the world.
  These are pressing challenges, challenges like we haven't seen since 
the Cold War. This administration has been caught flatfooted.
  At the White House, utter incompetence. At the Pentagon, complete 
mismanagement. At the State Department, global weakness. No one has 
been fired. No one has been held accountable over the withdrawal from 
Afghanistan. No one has resigned. There has been no accountability.
  It is astonishing, but the President must still believe in his 
statement where he said it was ``an extraordinary success.'' He may be 
the only one in America who believes that. Our enemies are getting 
stronger, and the Democrats are asleep at the switch.
  The Pentagon Press Secretary was asked last week which is a bigger 
threat--which is a bigger threat--China or climate change? His 
response: ``They are equally important.'' This is the Pentagon Press 
Secretary. This isn't somebody at the EPA. This is somebody responsible 
for the defense of this Nation. This is not just false; it is absurd 
for this to be the policy of this administration.
  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is focused on fighting so-called 
dissident ideologies in our military. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
of Staff testified in Congress that he supports servicemembers studying 
critical race theory.
  Our enemies are not following that path. Oh, no, they are focused on 
winning wars. The Biden administration seems to be focused on liberal 
fantasies.
  Well, I believe it is about to get a lot worse. That is because 
President Biden's vaccine mandate will likely cause the discharge of 
thousands of servicemembers. It is certainly a concern of mine with our 
National Guard in Wyoming, as it is with troops around the country and 
around the world representing and defending our Nation.
  Recruitment was difficult already. Our troops are feeling the pain of 
inflation cutting into their paychecks, and now the President seems to 
be determined to decimate their ranks.
  I fully support vaccination. I am a doctor. I am vaccinated; so is my 
family. I am pro-vaccine. I am anti-mandate.
  At a time when our enemies are getting stronger, we don't need to 
drive the men and women who defend our Nation out of the military.
  Now, the Senate has still not passed the National Defense 
Authorization Act. The Senate went Independence Day, Memorial Day, and 
Veterans Day with no action on the Defense bill. The majority leader 
now says the Senate will finally get around to it. Why did it take so 
long?
  The Senate has been debating a reckless tax-and-spending blowout the 
American people did not ask for, do not want, cannot afford, as prices 
continue to grow and go up and up and up, when the cost of Thanksgiving 
dinner is going to be the most expensive in the history of our Nation.
  And we are here in the Senate and the House. What are they doing? 
They are debating taxpayer dollars for illegal immigrants instead of 
taxpayer dollars for American heroes. We have been debating taxpayer 
dollars for what Democrats call tree equity. The New York Times even 
wrote about it today.
  We ought to be debating national security. We should be talking about 
the U.S. Army instead of Democrats who have been talking about an army 
of climate activists and an army of IRS agents.
  We just honored veterans last Thursday. We will give thanks again for 
all of them next Thursday on Thanksgiving Day.
  It is time, today, for the United States to do right and for the 
Senate to do right by all of them. I urge my colleagues to focus on a 
bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act, the Defense bill, for 
the defense of our Nation. It is time we prove to the Nation that we do 
support our troops and we do protect them against--and protect all of 
us against--rising threats and keep this great Nation safe.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                   National Defense Authorization Act

  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, day after day here on the floor of the 
Senate and back in their States, many of my colleagues talk to the 
American people about how deeply concerned they are about the deficit 
and the national debt. They tell us that we just don't have enough 
money to expand Medicare, to cover dental care for seniors, to cover 
hearing aids, to cover eyeglasses. We just don't have enough money to 
do what every other major country on Earth does, and that is guarantee 
paid family and medical leave.
  At a time when hundreds of thousands of bright young people are 
unable to afford a higher education and millions are struggling with 
student debt, my colleagues tell us that we just don't have enough 
money to provide 2 years of free tuition at community colleges.
  When we have over 500,000 Americans sleeping out on the streets, 
including a few blocks away from the Nation's Capitol, we just don't 
have enough money to build the low-income and affordable housing this 
country needs.
  At a time when the scientists are telling us that we face an 
existential threat in terms of climate change, we are told that we just 
don't have enough money to transform our energy system away from fossil 
fuel and create a planet that will be healthy and habitable for our 
kids and future generations. Just don't have enough money.
  Yet, today, the U.S. Senate will begin consideration of an annual 
defense budget that costs $778 billion--$778 billion for one year. That 
is $37 billion more than President Trump's last defense budget and $25 
billion more than what President Biden requested.
  By the way, all of this money is going to an Agency, the Department 
of

[[Page S8328]]

Defense, that continues to have massive cost overruns year after year, 
wasting enormous amounts of money, and is the only major governmental 
Agency in the Federal Government not to successfully complete an 
independent audit.
  Now, isn't it remarkable how, even as we end the longest war in our 
Nation's history, the war in Afghanistan, concerns about the deficit 
and the national debt seem to melt away under the influence of the 
military-industrial complex. People sleeping out on the street, people 
dying because they don't have any healthcare, kids unable to get the 
early childhood education they need--not a problem. Can't afford to pay 
for those things, but somehow, when it comes to the defense budget and 
the needs of the military-industrial complex, we just cannot give them 
enough money.
  But that is not all, and I want the American people to know this, as 
I suspect many don't.
  It is very likely that in the Defense bill or attached to the Defense 
bill, there will be a so-called competition bill, and this bill is a 
$250 billion bill that includes $52 billion in straight corporate 
welfare, with no strings attached, for a handful of extremely 
profitable microchip companies.
  Now, is there a problem in that our country is not producing the 
kinds of microchips and the number of microchips that we should? The 
answer is yes. It is an issue we have to deal with, but we can deal 
with it in a way other than simply handing money to a handful of 
enormously profitable corporations with no protection for the taxpayers 
at all.
  By the way, I should also mention that as part of the so-called 
competition bill, there is also a $10 billion handout to Jeff Bezos, 
one of the wealthiest people in our country, for space exploration.
  Combining these two pieces of legislation would push the pricetag of 
the Defense bill to over $1 trillion for 1 year. I want people to 
remember that because when we talk about Build Back Better, we are 
talking about a 10-year bill. This is 1 year.
  Meanwhile, while there is limited discussion about the Defense bill 
or corporate welfare in the competition bill, Congress has spent month 
after month discussing the Build Back Better Act, which on an annual 
basis costs far less than the Pentagon budget, and discussing whether 
or not we can afford to protect the working families of our country 
whose needs have been ignored decade after decade, who in many cases 
are living paycheck to paycheck, can't afford housing, can't afford 
prescription drugs, and can't afford to send their kids to college. We 
can't address their needs--no, no, no--because we are too busy worrying 
about throwing money at the Pentagon and large, profitable 
corporations.
  If there was ever a moment in modern American history when we need to 
fundamentally review our national priorities, now is that moment. 
Whether it is transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels; 
whether it is guaranteeing paid family and medical leave; whether it is 
providing healthcare to all of our people as a human right, as 
virtually every other major country does; whether it is taking on the 
greed of the pharmaceutical industry, which charges us by far the 
highest prices in the world for prescription drugs; whether it is 
addressing our crisis of affordable housing or providing childcare and 
pre-K to the little kids, now is the time to reassess our priorities. 
Now is the time to fight for real change.
  But instead of addressing these major issues that impact the lives of 
working families all across this country and that the working class of 
this country desperately wants, Congress comes together, Democrats and 
Republicans, with minimal debate, to support an exploding Pentagon 
budget, which is now higher than the next 13 nations combined and 
represents more than half of our discretionary spending.
  After adjusting for inflation, we are now spending more on the 
military than we did during the height of the Cold War or during the 
wars in Vietnam or Korea. And I would like to reiterate, this is after 
the war in Afghanistan has ended. That is why I have introduced an 
amendment with Senator Markey to reduce the military budget by $25 
billion, down to what President Biden requested.
  Let's be clear. This is not a radical idea. It is the military 
spending proposed by the President of the United States and the amount 
requested by the Department of Defense. I look forward to support on 
that amendment, especially from the deficit hawks, who I know are very, 
very concerned about the deficit.
  I should also point out that this extraordinarily high level of 
military spending comes at a time when the Department of Defense is the 
only Agency of our Federal Government that has not been able to pass an 
independent audit and when defense contractors are making enormous 
profits while paying their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages.
  Let's not forget that in this so-called competition bill, there will 
be a provision which provides $53 billion in emergency appropriations 
for the microchip industry with no strings attached.
  Let me repeat that. We are talking about more than $53 billion in 
Federal funds, and by the way, I suspect there will be more taxpayer 
money coming to these corporations from State and local government with 
no strings attached.
  Do we need to expand the microchip industry in this country so we can 
become less dependent on foreign countries? Yes. But we can accomplish 
that goal without throwing money at these companies with no protections 
for the taxpayers.
  In total, my guess is that five--one, two, three, four, five--major 
semiconductor companies will likely receive the lion's share of this 
taxpayer handout. Those companies are Intel, Texas Instruments, Micron 
Technology, Analog Devices, and NVIDIA.
  I should also point out that these five companies made nearly $35 
billion in profits last year combined and spent more than $18 billion 
buying back their own stock.
  I should also point out that these five corporations combined paid 
their CEOs a combined $85 million in compensation last year.
  Further, it is important to point out that this is an industry that 
received nearly $6 billion in government subsidies and loans over the 
years, and it is an industry that has shut down over 780 manufacturing 
plants in the United States and eliminated 150,000 American jobs in the 
last 20 years--29 percent of its workforce--while moving most of its 
production overseas. In other words, over the years, in order to make 
more money, they decided to outsource their operations and, in the 
process, throw American workers out on the street.
  So let's be clear what is happening here. In order to make more 
profits, these companies took good government money and then offshored 
good American jobs. Now, for that bad behavior, these same companies 
are being rewarded with some $53 billion in no-strings corporate 
welfare to undo the damage that they did.

  That may make sense to somebody; not to me. That is why I have 
introduced Senate amendment No. 4722, which would prevent microchip 
companies from receiving taxpayer assistance unless they agree to issue 
warrants to the Federal Government. If private companies are going to 
benefit from over $53 billion in taxpayer subsidies, the financial 
gains made by these companies must be shared with the American people, 
not just wealthy shareholders.
  In other words, all this amendment says is that if these companies 
want taxpayer assistance, we are not going to socialize all of the 
risks and privatize all of the profits.
  Let me be very clear. This is not a radical idea. These exact 
conditions were imposed on corporations that received taxpayer 
assistance in the bipartisan CARES Act, which passed the Senate 96 to 
nothing. In other words, every Member of the U.S. Senate has already 
voted for the conditions that are in my amendment.
  CARES was not the first time that Congress passed warrants and equity 
stakes tied to government assistance. During the 2008 financial crisis, 
Congress required all companies taking TARP funds to issue warrants and 
equity stakes to the Federal Government.
  The bottom line is that taxpayers should not just be handing out 
money to large, profitable corporations and well-paid CEOs. They 
deserve to benefit as well.

[[Page S8329]]

  In addition to making sure that companies allow for warrants and 
equity stakes, this amendment would require that these companies cannot 
buy back their own stock, nor outsource American jobs, nor repeal 
existing collective bargaining agreements, and remain neutral in any 
union organizing efforts.
  Here is something else--I think people think that I am kidding here, 
but I am not; this is really true--here is something else that is in 
the so-called competition bill that must be addressed. Unbelievably, 
this bill would provide and authorize some $10 billion in taxpayer 
money to Jeff Bezos, the second wealthiest person in America, for his 
space race with Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in America. This is 
beyond laughable, and I will be introducing an amendment to strike this 
provision. Frankly, it is not acceptable. It is not an issue that we 
have discussed terribly much, but it is not acceptable that the two 
wealthiest people in this country, Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos, take control 
of our space efforts to return to the Moon and maybe even the 
extraordinary accomplishment of getting to Mars. This is not something 
for two billionaires to be directing; this is something for the 
American people to be determining.
  Let me just say a few words about why there is so much waste and 
fraud and abuse in the military. Again, I always find it amazing how, 
when it comes to programs directed at ordinary people, low-income 
people, all kinds of investigations and all kinds of language about how 
we have to protect the taxpayer from fraud, but when it comes to the 
massive amount of money that we put into the Pentagon, not a whole lot 
of attention paid to that.
  One of the reasons that we have so many cost overruns and one of the 
reasons that we have so much fraud and so much abuse is that the 
Pentagon has been unable to pass an independent audit 30 years after 
Congress required it to do so--30 years.
  I think one of the points that need to be remembered is that on 
September 10, 2001, 1 day before the terrible attack on our country, 
then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, talking about the 
Pentagon:

       Our financial systems are decades old. According to some 
     estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We 
     cannot share information from floor to floor in this 
     building--

  The Pentagon--

     because it's stored on dozens of technological systems that 
     are inaccessible or incompatible.

  Yet, 20 years after that statement--a rather profound statement by 
then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld--the Pentagon has still not 
passed a clean audit despite the fact that the Pentagon controls assets 
in excess of $3.1 trillion or roughly 78 percent of what the entire 
Federal Government owns.
  Just this week, the Pentagon announced that it will fail its fourth 
consecutive financial audit in a row. That is why I have introduced an 
amendment with Senator Grassley that would require the Pentagon to pass 
a clean audit this year. If it fails to do so, 1 percent of its budget 
would be returned to the Treasury each year until it obtains a clean 
audit operation. I think 30 years is maybe just enough time to make 
that demand.
  I think that at this moment in American history, it is appropriate 
for the American people and for my colleagues here in the Senate to 
remember what former Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in 
1953 when he was President.
  As we all recall, Dwight D. Eisenhower was a four-star general, not a 
politician, who led the Allied Forces to victory in Europe during World 
War II. So this was no peacenik. This was a man who saw more death and 
more military battles than probably any human being should have to.
  This is what Eisenhower said:

       Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every 
     rocket [fired], signifies in the final sense a theft from 
     those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are 
     not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. 
     It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its 
     scientists, the hopes of its children.

  That was Dwight D. Eisenhower, and that is what he said 68 years ago. 
It was true then. It is even more true now.
  If the horrific coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything--a 
pandemic which has cost us now almost 700,000 lives--it is that 
national security means more than just building bombs or missiles or 
jet fighters or tanks or submarines or nuclear warheads and other 
weapons of mass destruction. National security also means doing 
everything that we can to protect the lives of ordinary Americans, many 
of whom have been abandoned by their government for decades. These are 
people, right now, who are struggling to put food on the table, people 
who are now experiencing a lower life expectancy than was the case in 
the past, and these are people who, in many instances, when they get 
sick, can't even afford to go to a doctor.
  When we analyze the Defense Department's budget, it is important to 
note that Congress has appropriated so much money to the Defense 
Department that the Pentagon literally does not know what to do with 
it. According to the GAO, over the course of 11 years, the Pentagon 
returned an astonishing $128 billion in excess funds back to the 
Treasury.
  And, over the past two decades, while we have funneled out money to 
the defense contractors, it is important to note that virtually every 
major defense contractor in the United States has been fined for 
misconduct and fraud, all while making huge profits. Since 1995, 
Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and United Technologies have paid over $3 
billion in fines or related settlements for fraud or misconduct. 
Meanwhile, the CEOs of these large defense companies enjoy incredibly 
large compensation packages--in fact, on average, over 100 times more 
than does the Secretary of Defense.
  I have also filed an amendment with Senator Markey and Representative 
Ro Khanna, in the House, to finally end all U.S. support for the Saudi 
war effort in Yemen. This amendment simply codifies the prohibition on 
support for the Saudi war, and it already passed both Houses of 
Congress, in 2019, in a bipartisan way. At that time and in 2019, 
various officials now in the Biden-Harris administration signed a 
letter supporting this measure. The House has already passed this 
amendment for the third consecutive year. It is long overdue for this 
provision to be included in the final Defense policy bill that is sent 
to the President's desk.
  In addition to Yemen, I have longstanding concerns about the 
situation in Gaza. That is why I have introduced an amendment to 
request a series of reports on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and on 
steps that the United States can take to ease that crisis and bring 
desperately needed humanitarian and reconstruction aid to the 
Palestinian people in Gaza.
  I would also point out that, when I talk about healthcare, I talk 
about dental care, and I think most healthcare experts understand that 
dental care is part of healthcare. In my home State of Vermont, 
veterans who are eligible for dental care at the VA have no access to a 
VA dental facility. That is why I have introduced an amendment to the 
NDAA to require the Department of Veterans Affairs to maintain a dental 
clinic in every State of this country so that all veterans have access 
to the dental care that they need.
  I believe in a strong military, but I do not believe that we can keep 
throwing more money into the Pentagon than it needs at a time when 
working families all across this country are struggling to put food on 
the table for their kids and when 140 million Americans can't afford 
the basic necessities of life without going into debt.
  In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., warned us that ``a nation that 
continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than 
on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.''
  Dr. King was right. That was true in 1967. It is true today.
  Let me just conclude with another quote from one of the great 
Republican Presidents in American history, and he is Dwight D. 
Eisenhower. This is what he said as he was leaving office back in 1961.
  He said:

       In the councils of government, we must guard against the 
     acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or 
     unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential 
     for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will 
     persist.


[[Page S8330]]


  That was Dwight Eisenhower, and what he was talking about was the 
incredible power then of the military-industrial complex--of the 
revolving door, where people go from the military into defense 
companies. It was true then; it is truer now; and that truth is 
manifested in the fact that we have a bill which is now spending $25 
billion more than the President of the United States requested.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from Florida.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3224

  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, as empty shelves grow more and 
more common, prices are surging higher, and small businesses can't 
access the goods they need to serve their customers. Joe Biden's supply 
chain and inflation crises are devastating for so many Americans, but 
it is our poorest families--those on low and fixed incomes, like mine 
growing up--who are hurt the most.
  Just last week, we saw the new CPI inflation data come out. Rates are 
the highest they have been in more than 30 years. Every month, when I 
see Biden's new inflation numbers come out--and they are always worse 
than the month before--I think about my mom. Growing up, I watched my 
mom struggle every day just to put food on the table and make ends meet 
for our family. Now countless families across America are dealing with 
that same struggle today all because of Joe Biden's reckless, socialist 
policies, like his unconstitutional vaccine mandates. These policies 
are fueling inflation and the current supply chain crisis, but Biden 
and his administration do absolutely nothing to fix it.
  Throughout my years in business and 8 years as the Governor of 
Florida, I learned that, when you are trying to solve a problem, the 
best place to start is by bringing people together. When hurricanes 
devastated Florida, and we had to deal with restoring power and 
communication services and getting resources where they were needed 
most, we brought people together and got to work to solve problems, but 
you don't see any of that with this administration.
  Just look at inflation. I have been talking about inflation nonstop 
all year, and it is getting worse and worse and worse. Biden has 
totally ignored it. His administration has attacked people like Larry 
Summers and me. Larry Summers is a Clinton-Obama appointee who warned 
early on that reckless spending was going to fuel a massive inflation 
crisis.
  Now we are seeing the same thing with Biden's supply chain crisis. I 
have called on Commerce Secretary Raimondo and Transportation Secretary 
Buttigieg to come before the Commerce Committee and testify about what 
they are doing to resolve this problem. They haven't shown up. We 
haven't had a single hearing on this crisis in the Commerce Committee. 
I have seen them on TV dismiss the severity of the problem. I was 
surprised to see that Secretary Buttigieg had time to attend a bill 
signing but still hasn't been to California to get working on the 
massive supply chain issues that are stranding dozens of ships off the 
California coast.
  Unlike the Biden administration, I am not going to sit around and 
play TV commentator. Families in Florida expect and deserve more than 
that. That is why I was proud to partner with my friend and colleague 
Congressman Carlos Gimenez to introduce the Supply Chain Emergency 
Response Act to get products flowing to American families and 
businesses again. Our legislation is simple and common sense. Congress 
passed the CARES Act to help our economy survive the effects of COVID 
and the economic lockdowns. We know that much of that money remains 
unspent and that it could be used for far more important purposes.
  We also know that there are dozens of ships waiting to dock and be 
unloaded at California ports right now. Our bill would redirect $125 
million of unspent, unobligated CARES Act funds to help pay for the 
costs of moving cargo ships, which are waiting to dock on the west 
coast, through the Panama Canal, so they can dock along the east coast, 
including in States like Florida. I am going to be clear. This bill 
does nothing to mandate that ships be redirected to the east coast. It 
simply provides an option and the funding to offset some of the costs. 
The bill would also allow Governors to use their unspent and 
unobligated CARES Act funds to offset port fees and other related 
State-level expenses. It is the pretty simple idea of using the money 
meant to help with the economic recovery to actually help with the 
economic recovery.
  Just last week, at the Port of Palm Beach, I had a meeting with port 
and business leaders who are seeing the delays and effects firsthand. 
Their businesses are hurting and are left waiting for weeks and months 
for the resources they need to run their businesses and serve their 
customers. We need a solution, and Florida's ports are ready and able 
to help with this crisis, and with the holidays getting closer and 
closer, we can't waste any more time.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to 
the immediate consideration of S. 3224, which is at the desk. Further, 
I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time 
and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and 
laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The junior Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I know 
my colleague--well, I assume my colleague is sincere about his interest 
in doing something about our issues of port congestion and supply chain 
issues, but I disagree with his approach here today.
  I have, personally, worked very hard on increasing the amount of 
investment in port infrastructure that was in the bill--just signed by 
the President on Monday--that helps to increase port capacity around 
the United States. Why? Because we have seen, even in a pandemic, an 
increase in trade and port activities. So, yes, we have to invest in 
our infrastructure.
  I take disagreement with my colleague's characterization that the 
President hasn't done anything because the President has helped at 
L.A.-Long Beach in reducing the congestion, and he has put in place a 
better COVID response process. My colleagues need to understand that 
longshoremen died in the COVID pandemic while delivering goods and 
products to us in the United States of America. They died. So getting a 
better response in vaccination for people working on our docks is 
incredibly important. So the President has done something. He has got a 
better COVID response; he has basically helped at reducing congestion; 
and he has got a plan to invest in our ports all over the United States 
of America.
  I know my colleague wishes that it would be so simple, but these 
shipping companies are reporting more than $200 billion in profit--$200 
billion in profit even during the pandemic. So they are not lacking for 
money. And, if they wanted to go to those ports, they would go to those 
ports. We heard from one of the big shipping associations that going 
anywhere, just to say that you want to go there when there are 
logistical and cost reasons that don't likely bear out, eventually, the 
customer really just wants to go where the customer wants to go.
  That is why it is so important to invest in our ports. That is why we 
led the charge for a $2.25 billion investment. Why? Because 95 percent 
of consumers live outside of the United States. And if we want to be 
involved in the trade economy, we should invest in our infrastructure 
to get product to and from our citizens, to other citizens of the 
world, the 95 percent who live outside of the United States.
  So I don't think giving shippers--who are having a recordbreaking 
profit year--more money is going to make them go to other ports. So I 
do hope that we continue to look at ways to catch up from the fact that 
production in many areas of our economy were off. There is no bigger 
example than the 8-percent reduction in oil from OPEC in 2020.
  Talk about something we need to address, my colleagues and I sent a 
letter to President Trump about high oil prices in 2018, and we 
recommended these various things that the President should do: leverage 
a relationship with the Saudi Crown Prince to urge them to increase 
capacity in world oil supplies, make sure the energy Secretary

[[Page S8331]]

is communicating that with Vienna and OPEC nations, initiate world-
trade disputes regarding countries' anti-competitive practices, work 
with our European allies and China and make sure that they are working 
on this issue. We just had a hearing this morning asking the FTC, if 
they do see any kind of manipulation or moving of supply, please 
investigate it; and, in this case, we said, Abandon the Trump 
administration's rollback of fuel economy standards.
  Because guess what Americans want when there are high oil prices? 
They want fuel-efficient cars.
  That also is what we just legislated, and that is why we need to keep 
working on this issue, because as long as we are in a world oil market, 
and as long as we are under these pressures of OPEC, we are never going 
to win the day. The best way to win the day is to get an economy that 
is less dependent on those prices being impacted by OPEC.
  Now, I may shock some people here this afternoon, but I am for 
getting rid of the Trump 301 tariffs. These have cost us enormously in 
the Pacific Northwest--higher seafood costs, higher equipment costs, 
higher cost on agriculture products, higher costs on aerospace.
  So we have had the two dilemmas of a COVID pandemic taking a 
workforce out of production, literally. I don't know if my colleague 
supported the aid to the airline industry or not, but basically COVID 
hit, it ended up costing over 15,000 jobs in the aerospace sector in my 
State--gone, gone, gone. So not here today.
  If you imagine, if that happened with the airline production--why? 
Because what airline was going to buy a new plane? It wasn't going to 
happen.
  People are saying now they don't think it is going to happen until 
2023 or 2024, even though there are some announcements happening now. 
In general, people don't think that the airline sector is going to 
recover to where it was before for several years.
  So just imagine if every other sector did the same thing, that 
reduced their workforce in response to COVID, and now we are seeing the 
impacts of that.
  So what do we do? Let's be smart about each of these cost areas and 
figure out what we can do to reduce those costs.
  Giving $125 million to basically the shipping companies of the world 
that basically have made record profits--one company said that was the 
biggest profit last year that they have made in 117 years. OK. So they 
don't need more money to just go from LA, Long Beach to Miami.
  But I want the Senator of Florida to know I actually believe in his 
port economy. I don't know what is going to happen to the port 
economies of the world. I don't know if we are going to switch 
dynamics.
  We have supported freight investment because freight can't wait. If 
you don't have good freight movement, you are going to lose to some 
other country. So we supported that.
  In fact, I see my colleague from Maryland here. The director for the 
Port of Baltimore came and became the director of the Port of Seattle. 
And I said: Do you think if we invest in freight, moving freight, 
somehow we might lose to the west coast and other places?
  He said: The business is just going to continue to grow, and 
everybody will lose if we don't increase more efficiencies.
  That is the objective: increase more efficiencies at every port.
  I know the Presiding Officer from the Great Lakes wants to do the 
same thing, increase the capacity and efficiency of the Great Lakes. 
Let's get an icebreaker. Let's invest in port infrastructure. We led 
the charge. Why? Because I know that the Presiding Officer today knows 
that the competitiveness of your State in Wisconsin depends on 
manufacturers getting those products made and outside your State and on 
to a world market.
  That is what is going to help us with our economy and reducing price, 
is to get production up and to get product moving efficiently.
  So if my colleague--and I sincerely offer this--wants to help me, 
because I guarantee you not everybody on my side is going to call for 
this, but I am definitely calling for a repeal of the 301 Trump 
tariffs. I didn't approve them when he did it the first time because 
these kind of punitive tariffs just basically exacerbated the problem 
with retaliatory tariffs, and those retaliatory tariffs are costing us 
right now.
  I know that Secretary Yellen is looking at this, I know that USTR is 
looking at this, and I would just encourage the President to look at 
this. And I would encourage the President to do everything he can to 
work with our nation countries to put pressure on OPEC, just as we did 
before, to try to address this issue on price. But let's work not on 
reducing the cost to shipping companies that don't need anything 
because they have seen record profits; let us instead invest in our 
ports and our ports economy.
  So, Madam President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, I appreciate my colleague, and 
I am proud to serve on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
Transportation with her.
  Just remember, what we are talking about here is a supply chain 
problem, and let's not ignore a very important fact. That committee has 
not held a single hearing on this crisis.
  I have been calling for Secretary Buttigieg and Secretary Raimondo to 
testify in the Commerce Committee on Biden's supply chain crisis for 
weeks and haven't seen one bit of action taken to make that happen. I 
don't think we can wait any longer. American families can't wait any 
longer.
  Biden's supply chain crisis is hurting American families everywhere 
right now. The President's failed policies and unconstitutional vaccine 
mandates are stifling business growth, crippling our supply chain, and 
fueling his--his--inflation crisis. Restoring our supply chains is 
critical to getting the American economy rolling again and something 
President Biden doesn't seem to understand, but we need solutions.
  I actually feel sorry that my Democratic colleagues have to cover for 
the President's failures instead of actually helping the American 
people. Passing this bill today would have given us the opportunity to 
provide some needed relief in the supply chain and help lower costs for 
American families who are worried about whether they will be able to 
afford Thanksgiving dinner and Hanukkah gifts and holiday gifts.
  We need solutions now, and today's inaction is a perfect example why 
the American people don't trust Washington to get anything done.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.


                       Nomination of Dilawar Syed

  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, earlier this afternoon, I convened a 
meeting of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee as its 
chairman. We had noted an agenda to act on the nomination of Dilawar 
Syed to be the Deputy Administrator of the Small Business 
Administration.
  This was not our first attempt, and I am going to outline all the 
efforts that we have made to get a vote on Mr. Syed. But to my 
disappointment, the Democrats were there ready to vote on the 
nomination.
  We also had two important pieces of legislation that we were 
scheduled to vote on, and every Republican refused to show up, denying 
us a quorum to be able to conduct business.
  Let me share with my colleagues the state of play on this individual 
and on this nomination. President Biden nominated Dilawar Syed to be 
the Deputy Administrator of the Small Business Administration on March 
3. He is a well-qualified entrepreneur and a small business advocate.
  After reviewing his paperwork and ethics agreement, the committee 
held a hearing on Mr. Syed's nomination on April 21. Now, during that 
hearing, Ranking Member Paul raised serious concerns about PPP and 
Economic Injury Disaster Loan--EIDL--received by Lumiata, a tech 
company from which Mr. Syed serves as the CEO. After weeks of 
negotiations, I brokered a compromise between Ranking Member Paul and 
the SBA that provided access to the company's loan applications.
  On June 8, I personally sat down with Ranking Member Paul and a 
representative of the Small Business Administration outside the Senate 
Chamber to review those documents and ensure that the loans were 
properly attained, which they clearly were. The

[[Page S8332]]

following day, the documents were made available to all of the 
committee members on the Small Business Committee.
  Now, what that record showed is that those loans were taken out in 
regular order, that they were entitled to the PPP loan and the EIDL. 
But it also showed something that was quite remarkable. Mr. Syed 
returned the PPP loan without forgiveness. He was entitled to 
forgiveness, but, as he said, he was able to get access to additional 
capital and didn't need the government help and thought it was the 
right thing to return the loan without forgiveness. What exemplary 
action.
  Satisfied that we had resolved the issue, Senator Paul agreed to my 
request that the committee schedule a vote to report out the nominee on 
June 16. After achieving a quorum of Senators, I moved to report the 
nomination by voice vote, as requested--a common practice in the 
Senate. A few Republican members asked to be recorded as voting no, 
which is also a common practice in the Senate.
  However, we were later informed by the Senate Parliamentarian that 
the nomination could not be reported to the full Senate because a 
Republican staff member raised an objection that there had not been a 
rollcall vote in our committee.
  A new objection was then raised based on Mr. Syed's involvement in 
Emgage, a nonprofit organization that supports the Muslim-American 
community. One Republican office even circulated an email that focused 
on Mr. Syed's Muslim religion and place of birth.
  Two weeks after the meeting, on June 30, I received a letter from 
eight Republican members suggesting that Mr. Syed's involvement in 
Emgage was evidence of an Israel bias and support for Boycott, 
Divestment, and Sanction movement--the BDS movement. This is 2 weeks 
after we have already had our first committee vote.
  Mr. Syed had a relationship with this company, and this company had 
no record of this type of bias. Mr. Syed responded to these concerns in 
a letter that he stated he is ``a proud first-generation Muslim-
American but also pro-Israel.''
  He clearly stated that he does not support the BDS movement and 
believes ``Israel to be a major partner in supporting the growth of 
America's innovative small businesses.''
  Several Jewish organizations have come to Mr. Syed's defense. For 
example, the American Jewish Committee wrote:

       The unsupported accusation that somehow Jewish businesses 
     are those with ties to Israel may not fare as well under Mr. 
     Syed's leadership in the Small Business Administration . . . 
     has no factual grounding. Indeed, he has specifically 
     disavowed support for the . . . (BDS) movement. . . . AJC 
     rejects the charge that simply an affiliation with Emgage 
     would reflect negatively on an individual, organization, or 
     agency.

  And AJC went even further and called the Republican accusations 
against Mr. Syed ``un-American.''
  On Thursday, July 15, the committee again attempted to hold a 
business meeting to report out the nomination.
  We thought we had resolved all the issues. We resolved the issues 
concerning the loans. Everybody agreed they were proper. There was no 
concern about Mr. Syed's views in regards to Israel. That had been 
resolved.
  So, Mr. President, I was puzzled that, on the July 15 meeting, all 10 
Republican members boycotted the meeting and a reporting quorum was not 
achieved. We couldn't take action. I couldn't understand why because we 
had resolved the two issues--the first issue, and then it changed to a 
second issue.
  But it was not until a week later that committee Republicans changed 
course again and developed a new line of attack, this time linking the 
nomination to PPP loans received by entities of Planned Parenthood.
  On July 22, all 10 committee Republicans released the following 
statement:

       The SBA has wrongfully approved nearly $100 million in 
     taxpayer-funded Paycheck Protection Program loans to Planned 
     Parenthood branches across the country. On June 30th alone, 
     SBA approved four PPP loans to Planned Parenthood affiliates 
     despite a determination from the last Administration that 
     these entities were ineligible for the program. We will not 
     allow a vote on this nominee until the SBA takes action to 
     recover the wrongfully acquired PPP funds by Planned 
     Parenthood entities.

  Mr. President, I am going to go through in detail as to how these 
loans were not improperly given and that the ground rules we set up 
were followed by Planned Parenthood and other nonprofits of similar 
type of organization.
  Where they came up with this line is still somewhat of a puzzlement 
to me since my Republican colleagues were engaged with us in developing 
the PPP program and the eligibilities for the PPP program.
  Since that date, I have tried several times to hold business meetings 
to report out the nomination, but Republicans would not attend markups 
that I attempted to hold on September 21, November 4, and again today. 
On September 29, I attempted to discharge Mr. Syed's nomination from 
the committee by unanimous consent--that is after our voice vote that 
had already approved his nomination--but Ranking Member Paul objected 
to my request on the Senate floor.
  The Planned Parenthood issue predates the Syed nomination and even 
the Biden administration. It goes back to March of 2020 when this 
committee took the lead--the Small Business Committee took the lead in 
drafting the bipartisan CARES Act.
  I was proud to be part of a team that includes Senator Shaheen, 
Senator Rubio, and Senator Collins. We sat down and went line by line 
drafting the PPP legislation that we are talking about. We negotiated 
back and forth in good faith on the provisions of this bill. It was 
truly a bipartisan effort.
  Republicans controlled the Senate. We worked with the Republicans, 
and we came up with a bipartisan bill to help America's small 
businesses. That legislation made 501(c)(3)s--nonprofits--and veteran 
nonprofit organizations with up to 500 employees eligible for the PPP 
loans. This was a mutual decision. We knew it had some controversy 
associated with it. There are faith-based groups that people have some 
concern about getting government support. There are different 
organizations that people might have a concern. But we felt that during 
this pandemic, it was important to preserve our small business 
entities, whether they were for-profit or nonprofit, and that was a 
bipartisan decision that was made by Democrats and Republicans.
  During the negotiations of March 2020, then-Chairman Rubio added 
language to an early draft that would have prohibited nonprofit 
entities that receive Medicaid assistance from getting PPP loans. This 
was presumably an effort to deny Planned Parenthood the opportunity to 
participate in the program. But because of the way it was drafted, it 
also affected a lot of nonprofits. It affected programs such as 
domestic abuse centers or homes for the disabled. It was soundly 
rejected in our group as not being a workable restriction, that we 
could not support that type of prohibition.
  So we negotiated back and forth, and we could not resolve the issue. 
Eventually this issue, along with other issues that we couldn't 
resolve, was taken up to the joint leadership of the Senate Republicans 
and Democrats who were trying to resolve issues that we couldn't 
resolve in our committee deliberations. It was at that level that a 
compromise was reached to add language that applied the SBA affiliation 
rules to nonprofits--not the Medicaid language but the affiliate rules. 
We had no objection to that. We felt that nonprofits should be subject 
to the same restrictions as for-profit entities as far as whether they 
were truly independent or part of just a national group, whether there 
was control on the affiliate. So we thought that made sense.
  In April of 2020, the SBA, under the Trump administration, released 
guidance on applying the affiliation standards to nonprofits, which is 
where we are getting to the determinations made by Planned Parenthood.
  The part of the affiliation that applies to nonprofits relates to 
common management. I am going to quote for the Record. I have the full 
statement here of what the affiliate rules were, but let me just read 
into the Record the relevant section that applies to the 
controversies--I don't think it is controversies--the Republican 
controversy on Planned Parenthood.

       Affiliation arises where the CEO or President of the 
     applicant concern (or other officers, managing members, or 
     partners who

[[Page S8333]]

     control the management of the concern) also controls the 
     management of one or more other concerns. Affiliation also 
     arises where a single individual, concern, or entity that 
     controls the Board of Directors or management of one concern 
     also controls the Board of Directors or management of one 
     [or] more other concerns. Affiliation also arises where a 
     single individual, concern or entity controls the management 
     of the applicant concern through a management agreement.
  Now, the question is, Does the national group control the personnel 
and board of the affiliate? That is how the rules apply.
  Planned Parenthood of America determined its entities were eligible 
because it does not exercise control over its member organizations and 
does not have a common management. Each member organization is its own 
independent, not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization with its own 
independent board of directors that is solely responsible for the 
hiring and retention of its CEO. Planned Parenthood of America does not 
have the power to remove CEOs or directors from its individual member 
organizations.
  Now, Mr. President, this type of federated structure is common in the 
nonprofit world, and it is the reason why nonprofits such as the YMCA 
and Boys & Girls Clubs also qualified and received PPP loans, 
forgivable loans. We recognize that they have a large national 
structure, but the individual entities are small entities and are 
independently managed and controlled.
  In May of 2020, under the Trump administration, 38 Planned Parenthood 
entities received correspondence from Associate Administrator Bill 
Manger with a preliminary finding that the entities may not be in 
compliance with the affiliation rules.
  To my knowledge, Mr. Manger only sent letters to Planned Parenthood 
entities, not to any of the other similarly structured entities. Now, I 
say that because we now have learned that there was a list--a hold list 
of a much larger number of entities that there was a concern as to 
whether they qualified under the affiliation rules, but only Planned 
Parenthood received the May 2020 letter, not the other groups that had 
a similar structure.
  The letter that was sent out is titled ``Notice of Investigation and 
Request for Records.'' This was sent out in May 2020 to 38 Planned 
Parenthood entities. The Planned Parenthood entities responded to these 
letters. They contested the finding. Every Planned Parenthood company 
that received correspondence in May of 2020 contested its findings. The 
letter is pretty detailed in what it spells out. It spells out all the 
reasons why they comply with the affiliation rules, and it talks all 
about it, about all the different reasons why they were qualified to 
receive their funds.
  Mr. President, it ends with this line. This is how Planned Parenthood 
responded to the May 2020 letter:

       I trust that this response resolves the matter.

  May 2020.
  Nine months later, under the Trump administration, no additional 
action that we are aware of was taken by the SBA to contest Planned 
Parenthood's eligibility for the PPP money, so it was clear that the 
Trump administration decided not to take action.
  So where are we now?
  It is also important to note that PPP loans were not used by Planned 
Parenthood to provide any health services. We are not talking about 
providing health services here. The law is very specific as to what the 
funds can be used for: payroll costs, healthcare benefits for the 
employees, paid leave for the employees, allowance for dismissal or 
separation, interest on mortgage expenses, rent and utilities, interest 
on debt prior to February 15, 2020.
  I was somewhat puzzled by all of this, but in an attempt to broker 
another compromise, after dealing with whether the PPP loans and the 
business entity were proper, whether there was any semblance of concern 
about his attitude in regards to Israel--having satisfied that, I made 
another effort to try to deal with Senator Paul and the members of the 
committee to see what they wanted.
  Mr. Syed had nothing to do with these loans. Mr. Syed is fully 
qualified. The SBA needs a Deputy Administrator confirmed to deal with 
all of the programs that we have passed in the last 2 years to help 
small businesses. They need a confirmed manager to work between us and 
our constituents and make sure these programs are working effectively.
  So what else could I provide? Yesterday, I invited all of the 
Republican members to come to my office--or come to the small business 
office and we would make available all of the information SBA has in 
regards to these Planned Parenthood loans. They will make it 
available--all the loans that were given out, when they were given out, 
what was forgiven, what was not forgiven, second-round PPP loans, all 
of it. I don't know what else we can do. Not one showed up to review 
the information.
  I can appreciate the fact that this issue may make Republicans who 
oppose Planned Parenthood politically uncomfortable. I can understand 
that. But Democrats also disagree with views of many organizations that 
received PPP loans.
  Last December, the Washington Post reported that 14 organizations 
designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center or the 
Anti-Defamation League received PPP loans. These are legal entities 
that qualified for the program because we can't draft it based upon the 
mission of a particular organization; we have to draft it in a way that 
those that are legitimate businesses and operations can qualify for the 
loans. And we did that. We don't judge who we are giving the money to, 
whether we like what they are doing or not. That is not what this is 
about.
  As I said in the committee a little earlier today, it is important 
for the Small Business Committee to get back to its bipartisan 
tradition.
  I hope that my Republican colleagues will accept the information that 
we have made available, work with us, and let's get Mr. Syed confirmed. 
Let's get him confirmed because he is the right person for this 
position at this time. The SBA desperately needs a confirmed Deputy 
Administrator, with all the work that we put on them, and all the help. 
Our small business community needs to have an accountable, confirmed 
Deputy Administrator so that they have an accountable person who can 
work with us to make sure our programs are not only administered 
properly but we get the information to modify these programs to make 
them work moving forward. We are already in the process of considering 
additional legislation. It is so important to have a confirmed Deputy 
Administrator of Mr. Syed's experience in order to help us with that.
  I must tell you, Administrator Guzman is doing a fantastic job. She 
is one person. She needs a Deputy. It is time that we get this person 
confirmed. There has not been an articulated reason why this person 
should not be confirmed.
  Mr. President, I know we have had this debate on nominations that are 
here on the floor. We are wondering why people vote against them. I 
can't even get a vote in our committee on this because the Republicans 
won't show up for a vote.
  I think, in respect for the system, it is important that the Small 
Business Committee have an opportunity to vote on Mr. Syed's 
nomination, which I hope then would be on the floor promptly for 
confirmation.
  I see that Senator Lee seems to be on the floor.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaine). The Senator from Utah.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3225

  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, yesterday, I came to the Senate floor and 
spoke on President Biden's vaccine mandate. I explained that I have now 
come to this Chamber a total of 16 times and offered 12 different bills 
that would counteract, limit, or, in one way or another, restrain the 
vaccine mandate. I also explained that, unfortunately, each of these 
bills has been rejected by Democrats in the Senate.
  I have spoken to Utahns and folks from across country who have 
expressed to me their frustration at moving goalposts and changing 
expectations in the middle of the pandemic. President Biden's vaccine 
mandate, which has been halted now by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
Fifth Circuit, happens to be among the latest attempts to force 
Americans to make health decisions under the threat not just of 
unemployment but also under the threat of becoming unemployable.
  That is a taxing burden for anyone to bear. Anyone who has kids at 
home or

[[Page S8334]]

if they don't have kids at home, if they are just supporting 
themselves, these days all Americans are helping someone or something 
that they love, that they care about, and they ought to have the 
opportunity do that. They ought not have their ability to make a living 
threatened by virtue of a distinct religious belief or a particular 
medical concern or a particular desire not to receive a particular 
treatment.
  I will reiterate here what I have said before. I have been 
vaccinated. My family has been vaccinated. I believe that the vaccines 
are helping countless Americans be protected against the dangers of the 
COVID-19 virus.
  Just the same, there is a big difference between believing the 
vaccine does good and receiving the vaccine, on the one hand, and, on 
the other hand, saying that anyone who disagrees or who thinks that it 
is not right for them, for one reason or another, ought to be fired 
from their job and rendered unemployable as a result. That is very, 
very different. That is something that very few Americans would agree 
is right.
  In fact, according to a recent Axios poll, only 14 percent of 
Americans believe that someone who decides not to get the vaccine 
should be fired as a result of that decision.
  Now, in some lines of work, this sort of thing is already coming into 
play. For example, our military servicemembers and frontline workers 
who sacrificed so much to care for and protect the American people 
during the pandemic are already being forced out of work. I have heard 
from many members of our Armed Services from Utah who are being 
discharged under less-than-honorable conditions and under conditions 
that are in no way, shape, or form appropriate in light of their many, 
many years of faithful, honorable service to this country. They are 
losing their jobs--and not just their jobs but also their benefits, 
their dignity, their ability to serve further. You know, I have 
introduced and offered up a bill that would help them, but Democrats 
objected to that.
  On November 4 of this year, a couple of weeks ago, the Centers for 
Medicare and Medicaid Services--known as CMS--imposed a requirement 
that all healthcare workers at facilities participating in Medicare and 
Medicaid be vaccinated by January 4. This requirement, if it takes 
effect, will affect millions of Americans in tens of thousands of care 
centers across the Nation. And unlike the mandate imposed by OSHA, 
which has now mercifully been stayed, at least for the pendency of the 
litigation pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 
this mandate--this particular mandate--gives no option for testing if 
someone has religious, moral, or medical objections to the vaccine.
  Now, let's just think about this on an individual level. There are 
nurses in this country who worked faithfully and tirelessly throughout 
the pandemic, without regard to their own circumstances, in some cases 
without regard to their own health, their own sanity, putting their 
lives at risk at times. They have gone to work caring for others, and 
they have saved lives in the process. They accepted the risk, and they 
were rightfully heralded as heroes for doing that. They still are 
heroes, and they still should be heralded as heroes. But many of these 
same nurses caught COVID at work and have recovered. They are, in fact, 
heroes.
  But now the Biden administration is giving them an extraordinary--and 
I would add extraordinarily cruel--ultimatum; one that I don't think I 
have ever seen in government; one that I didn't ever expect I would see 
in government. Those very same doctors and nurses and other healthcare 
workers--the same people we appropriately described as heroes--can 
either get a medical procedure they don't want or lose their current 
employment and any future realistic prospect of employment.
  Let that sink in for a moment. What if this were you? What if this 
were your spouse or your child, someone you loved? What if this were 
your friend or your neighbor? The truth is, these people fit into all 
those categories. They are not our enemies. They are our friends, our 
neighbors, our family members, our loved ones. At a minimum, they are 
people who served valiantly throughout a pandemic, and they should not 
be punished; they should be thanked.

  These heroes will be thanked for their service with a pink slip and a 
boot out the door as they become outcasts in the very profession that 
they have selflessly chosen and the very profession for which they have 
spent a lot of money and a lot of time receiving training and the very 
profession to which they dedicated their lives. What a tragedy. What a 
needless, senseless tragedy.
  These are not abstract anecdotes. This isn't just hypotheticals, 
speculation. No, not at all. I have heard from hundreds of Utahns who 
risk losing their employment if these vaccine mandates take effect. 
They are everyday Americans. They are good Americans. They are valiant 
Americans. Oftentimes, they are struggling to make ends meet and to 
feed their families. They are our neighbors, our friends, our 
caretakers, our heroes. They deserve the respect that is necessarily 
implicit in the ability to make decisions for themselves, including 
these decisions for themselves.
  Additionally, as a practical matter, it is extremely foolish to be 
pushing healthcare professionals out of their jobs at the precise 
moment when our healthcare system is under such incredible strain. 
Hospitals are understaffed as it is. I mean, a lot of places are 
understaffed. Hospitals are particularly understaffed even without this 
mandate. So requiring medical facilities to fire perfectly good doctors 
and nurses and technicians is only going to further strain our system 
and place more Americans at risk of serious harm.
  So today I am offering my 13th bill in the effort to curb the vaccine 
mandates. My Respecting Our Frontline Workers Act would simply prohibit 
any Federal Agency from requiring that staff and healthcare facilities 
be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of that facility being 
able to participate in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. But this bill 
would provide certainty to our Nation's healthcare heroes and honor the 
sacrifices that they have made to help Americans in need at a time when 
we were, as a country, facing great need. It will keep our healthcare 
system strong during what is still a really difficult time. This bill 
is the reasonable, compassionate answer to the current situation. I 
encourage my colleagues to support it.
  To that end, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3225, which is at the 
desk; I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and 
passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid 
upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Reserving the right to object. Mr. President and 
colleagues, sadly, this is the third time I have had to come to the 
Senate floor to object to Republican proposals dealing with far-fetched 
claims about vaccines.
  And today I am struck by one issue in particular because my 
background is working with senior citizens. I was the director of the 
Gray Panthers at home for almost 7 years. I ran the legal aid office 
for the elderly. I went into public service because of my passion for 
the cause of the elderly and trying to protect their well-being and 
keeping them safe.
  It is almost as if this unanimous consent request ignores the 
extraordinary human toll COVID-19 took on senior citizens in nursing 
homes across the country: nearly 200,000 dead in nursing homes and 
other long-term care facilities since the beginning of the pandemic--
mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. That is roughly 1 
in 10 residents in those nursing facilities, according to an analysis 
of State and Federal data by the COVID tracking project.
  How many of those senior citizens died alone, without being able to 
spend their final hours or days with their loved ones? How many others 
of those fortunate enough to survive the pandemic were still separated 
from their family members for months and months and months in 2020?
  We also know that the risks to nurses and doctor and EMTs were 
massive as well. One major investigation found that more than 3,600 
healthcare workers died of COVID in the first year of the pandemic--the 
worst pandemic in a

[[Page S8335]]

century that our country is still wrestling with as we speak. Nobody in 
this Chamber should forget that just over the last week, there have 
been more than 1,000 COVID deaths per day.
  And in my view, it doesn't do any good to unnecessarily suppress 
access to highly effective vaccines while there is a deadly virus 
circulating and mutating around the country and around the world.
  Seniors who live in nursing homes and long-term care facilities are 
safer when the people around them get vaccinated. And I just hope that 
our colleagues will recognize the importance of that basic proposition. 
When Americans are vaccinated, they and the people around them, based 
overwhelmingly on the factual evidence, are less likely to die of 
COVID-19. And everybody ought to be interested in stopping this virus 
with these overwhelmingly effective vaccines. It shouldn't take a 
requirement to get healthcare workers to protect themselves and their 
patients.

  As I close, I think--and, again, I am sad to have to come to the 
floor and get into this issue, but because of my background working 
with senior citizens, I think it is bad for senior citizens, bad for 
the elderly to continue these frightening remarks about vaccines and 
vaccine policies. They prolonged the pandemic. They led to more 
infections and deaths.
  With respect to the proposal that is before the Senate, I simply 
don't believe Senators should oppose policies that would keep America's 
elderly citizens safer after the pandemic has cost so many lives of 
America's senior citizens. Therefore, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lujan). Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I appreciate the thoughtful remarks from my 
friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from the State of 
Oregon.
  The Senator from Oregon and I have spent a lot of time working on a 
number of issues together. He and I agree on a number of issues and 
have worked together to ensure the privacy of the American people and 
make sure that they are protected from an overreaching government, one 
that sometimes has intruded on them in violation of the spirit, if not 
also the letter, of the Fourth Amendment.
  I remember when I first came to the Senate, the Senator from Oregon 
took me to lunch and we had a good chat. He introduced me to a lot of 
concepts in the Senate and has always been a good friend to me.
  I feel the need to respond to some of these issues. Yes, I, too, like 
my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Oregon, wish 
that we didn't have to come to the floor to discuss these things. I 
wish that it weren't necessary because I wish that we weren't even 
talking about firing people, about people losing their jobs, becoming 
unemployed and possibly unemployable as a result of Federal policy that 
refuses to allow people to make decisions on their own.
  Insofar as my friend, the Senator from Oregon, describes the policy 
of firing people who refuse to get the vaccine as necessary to protect 
the elderly, I would respectfully submit that quite the opposite is 
true. We are actually imperiling those who might need medical treatment 
the most, including the sick and the elderly.
  Insofar as we destabilize our healthcare workforce--which, make no 
mistake, this maximum mandate does; it does that unquestionably--
remember that the CMS mandate that we are talking about, unlike the 
OSHA mandate, doesn't give any option to allow for testing, for 
example, if someone has a religious or a moral or a medical objection 
to the mandate.
  So what this really is going to do is it is going to take a lot of 
people out of the healthcare workforce and sideline them.
  Yes, this is going to be devastating to those individuals. You are 
suddenly taking away their means of providing for their needs and those 
of their family. It would be absolutely devastating to them, as I 
mentioned a minute ago.
  This is also a field in which they invested a lot of time and money--
sweat, blood, and tears--to getting the education and professional 
certifications necessary to work in a field that has a lot of 
requirements attached to it, and with good reason. It is not good for 
anyone, least of all the elderly, to destabilize that same workforce.
  Insofar as we are going to talk about what is better for the 
healthcare system, I just would respectfully reach the exact opposite 
conclusion of that proposed by my friend from Oregon. This isn't going 
to make things better. It is going to make things worse.
  My friend from Oregon also described the approach that I am taking of 
protecting the individual healthcare worker's right to make an 
appropriate decision without government interference; described that 
and, as I understood it, my other efforts to try to curb the more 
egregious impacts of the vaccine mandates imposed by the Biden 
administration as somehow unnecessarily suppressing access to the 
vaccine.
  I want to make very clear that just is not accurate. I would state 
that as not at all consistent with what I am doing. Not a single one of 
my proposals would suppress access to the vaccine.
  Each time I have come to the floor and talked about these things, I 
have made very clear that I have been vaccinated. Every member of my 
family has been vaccinated. I have encouraged everyone I know to get 
the vaccine. The vaccine, really, is a medical miracle of sorts, and it 
is one that is protecting a lot of people.
  Not everyone agrees with me. But the fact that they don't agree with 
me, the fact that they don't agree with President Biden or anyone else 
in government doesn't mean they should lose their job for it. But it 
sure as heck doesn't mean that firing them because they won't get the 
vaccine and then opposing the effort to force their firing would 
somehow amount to an act of suppressing access to the vaccine.
  That is a logical syllogism that just doesn't work. In no way, shape, 
or form would we be suppressing access to the vaccine if we liberated 
the American people from an overreaching executive who is insisting 
that people be fired if they don't agree with the President's 
officially sanctioned view on vaccines.
  My friend also noted that people are safer when they get vaccinated. 
I believe this is generally true. I don't think it is going to 
encourage more people to get vaccinated by telling them that they are 
going to get fired if they don't.
  Particularly with the subject matter we are covering today, where we 
are talking about the CMS end of the vaccine, these are people who work 
in healthcare. These are people who are highly educated in it, who have 
professional certifications, in many cases, graduate degrees in 
healthcare. They can make their own informed decision as to what to do. 
I tend to believe that people are generally safer when they get 
vaccinated, but that doesn't mean that firing them is the right thing 
to do.
  Look, finally, my friend from Oregon--and I don't use that term 
loosely. He and I talk regularly. He was in my office earlier today, 
and we were talking about an upcoming game between the University of 
Utah and Oregon. When he refers to frightening remarks regarding the 
vaccine, I am not sure what he is referring to. I hope he is not 
referring to remarks debating the merits, or lack thereof, of vaccine 
mandates. Nothing about these remarks should strike anyone as 
frightening.
  What I think would be frightening would be if tens, if not hundreds, 
of millions of Americans are threatened with getting fired based on 
their refusal to get the vaccine. I don't think we will ever reach a 
point where there are that many people who decide not to get 
vaccinated. It is certainly not going to be hundreds of millions of 
people declining to be vaccinated.
  But whatever the number is, it still doesn't make it right for the 
President of the United States to just decide arbitrarily that they 
either have to follow his medical advice and that of his administration 
or get fired; to choose between getting an undesired medical procedure, 
or, on the other hand, losing their opportunity to put bread on the 
table for their children.
  It is not constitutional. It is not within Congress's power. Congress 
hasn't exercised that power. It certainly hasn't given that power to 
the President of the United States.
  Regardless of all those statutory and constitutional arguments, this 
is a fundamentally, morally flawed proposition that says everyone has 
to get

[[Page S8336]]

this; and if you disagree, you will get fired; we will render you 
unemployed and unemployable. This is wrong, and it is especially wrong 
to do to our healthcare workers.
  Let's not do this. I urge my friend and colleague from Oregon to 
reconsider. We can do better than that. The American people expect 
more. They demand better, and we need to listen to them.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.


                              Nominations

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss 
what are, sadly, the harmful impacts of ongoing partisan obstruction in 
the Senate.
  Earlier today, at the Small Business Committee, our colleague, 
Senator Cardin, who is chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business 
and Entrepreneurship, held a business meeting--I think about the fifth 
one--to try to advance the nomination of Mr. Dilawar Syed to be the 
Deputy Administrator of the Small Business Administration.
  As we know, the Small Business Administration is a very important 
Agency under the best of circumstances. It does great work, but during 
this pandemic, for the past year, it has become absolutely 
indispensable as we tried to address the continuing economic impact of 
COVID on our small businesses.
  In order for it to operate effectively, in order for us to hold the 
Agency accountable for administering the small business relief programs 
that Congress has designed to pass, we have an obligation to ensure 
that the Small Business Administration has a fully functioning and 
Senate-confirmed leadership team.
  Unfortunately, as Senator Cardin and others witnessed just a few 
hours ago, Republicans, again, on the Small Business Committee--all of 
the Republicans on the Small Business Committee--have orchestrated a 
complete blockade of Mr. Syed's nomination, preventing it from even 
coming to the floor of the Senate for debate and consideration.
  And what is so confusing, Mr. President, is that there doesn't seem 
to be a reason to the Republicans' objections to Mr. Syed. It keeps 
changing. No one has raised any questions about Mr. Syed's competence 
or his experience or his suitability to serve as Deputy SBA 
Administrator.
  In fact, several months ago, we tried to advance the nominee in our 
first effort in a business meeting by a voice vote, and several 
Republican Members of the Small Business Committee who are now 
participating in this obstruction voted yes at that time, including the 
ranking member.
  Now it appears that this boycott is part of a pattern by just a 
handful of Members who simply want to stop any action that would allow 
the Biden administration to have a full complement of Senate-confirmed 
officials at critical Federal Agencies so they can then carry out their 
work as directed by Congress.
  Unfortunately, I would also note that this partisan brinkmanship and 
obstruction doesn't end with domestic and economic matters. I want to 
point out, again, the dangerously slow confirmation process of our 
State Department nominees and ambassadors. Again, we have a few 
Republican Members of the Senate who are not just threatening our 
economic recovery and the health of our small businesses; they are 
threatening our national security by slowing the process to schedule 
nomination hearings for qualified nominees and by placing holds on 
their confirmation because of their own personal political issues.
  I appreciate that some of those issues are very important. Nord 
Stream 2, I support, but holding these ambassadors, holding these State 
Department officials is not going to change what happens with Nord 
Stream 2. All it is going to do is make the United States less 
effective and less secure in the world.
  Today, only 30 Ambassadors have been confirmed by the Senate. This 
administration had to wait over 200 days--200 days--for its first 
Ambassador to be confirmed, compared to only 62 days for the previous 
administration.
  For the first 300 days of the previous administration, 55 State 
Department nominees were confirmed by the Senate. In the first 300 days 
of Biden's Presidency, the Senate has confirmed one-quarter of that 
number.
  Actions speak louder than words. If our colleagues care about our 
national security, they would match deeds with words and swiftly 
confirm the 59 State Department nominees who are awaiting confirmation 
on the Senate floor.
  Unfortunately, the holdup is not only on the floor of the Senate but 
also in the Foreign Relations Committee. Eleven nominees in committee 
are awaiting business meetings, and 21 haven't even been able to have a 
hearing to advocate for themselves and their qualifications.
  What is worse from my perspective, the nominations that are being 
affected by this obstruction are disproportionately women. In a Foreign 
Service where men still outnumber women and where we are trying to 
become a more diverse State Department, it is critical that we confirm 
these qualified women.
  Amid increased Russian aggression toward our Ukrainian allies, it is 
particularly important that we confirm without delay the nominee to be 
Ambassador to NATO, Julie Smith.
  How can we advocate for American interests abroad, how can we 
represent American citizens abroad, how can we support our economic 
interests if we don't have people in place who can do that?
  When we look at the increasing global threats to the United States, 
operating with a depleted diplomatic corps jeopardizes our national 
security. It jeopardizes U.S. interests and the safety of Americans at 
home and abroad. The political games that are being played by a few 
Members of this body are risking very serious consequences.
  I see my colleague from Ohio, who is the cochair of the Ukrainian 
Caucus, has come in. Perhaps he would work with me to try to get Julie 
Smith, our Ambassador to NATO, confirmed so that we have somebody there 
who can help as we are looking at the crises that are happening in 
Eastern Europe. I know we can work together in a rational, bipartisan 
way to address our country's basic needs because we have just seen it. 
We saw it with the bipartisan infrastructure bill that was just signed 
this week. Confirming Presidential nominees is one of the most 
fundamental responsibilities of the Senate. It is the heart of article 
II in the Constitution.
  What we have seen to date is no substantive objection to the 
nomination of Dilawar Syed to be Deputy SBA Administrator or to the 
nominations to fill numerous critical national security and foreign 
policy positions. This is obstruction for obstruction's sake, and it 
has very real consequences for our country, for our small businesses, 
and for our national security and foreign policy. I hope that we will 
be able to work together on both sides of the aisle to address those 
nominees, who must be confirmed if we are to represent American 
interests at home and abroad.
  Again, I want to thank Chairman Cardin for his hard work as head of 
the Small Business Committee and for the work that he has done on the 
Foreign Relations Committee as we have tried to address those people 
who need to be confirmed. Obviously, he has worked very closely with 
Senator Menendez, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. These 
are two committees that I have the honor of serving on, and they have 
historically operated on a very bipartisan, very collaborative basis. 
That is why it is so disheartening to see the breakdown that is 
occurring.
  I hope that our colleagues will have a change of heart, that we will 
be able to move forward, and that we will be able to work together. I 
look forward to doing everything I can to make that happen.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.


                   Tribute to Dr. Kristina M. Johnson

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Dr. 
Kristina M. Johnson and celebrate her investiture as the 16th president 
of the Ohio State University.
  Dr. Johnson brings more than 30 years of experience and leadership in 
the academic, business, and public policy sectors to Ohio State, along 
with some very ambitious goals she has for the university.

[[Page S8337]]

  Although the formal investiture was postponed until this Friday, 
November 19, due to COVID, Dr. Johnson actually assumed the presidency 
in August of last year, and her leadership has already helped the 
university community to come together during the past year of the 
pandemic. Ohio State is in full swing--classes, research, and other 
activities. They have a darn good football team under her leadership as 
well--currently No. 4 in the country and on its way up. Go, Bucks.
  The Ohio State University was founded in 1870 as a land grant 
university--the first of its kind in Ohio. Over the years, the 
university has grown into one of the largest and best respected 
institutions in the country.
  Dr. Johnson actually has close family ties to Ohio State. Family lore 
has it that Dr. Johnson's grandfather, who graduated from Ohio State in 
1896, met Dr. Johnson's grandmother on the Columbus campus. We like to 
think those close ties to OSU and deep family roots in Ohio have made 
her a Buckeye in spirit all along.
  Dr. Johnson comes to the Ohio State University after a long career in 
academic and business leadership. She previously served as the 
chancellor of the State University of New York system and has founded 
and served as CEO of several successful science and technology 
companies, served as the Under Secretary of Energy at the Department of 
Energy, and held academic leadership positions in institutions such as 
Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, and the University of 
Colorado at Boulder. Her breadth of experience from academic 
leadership, business, and public policy gives her the important tools 
to successfully lead the Ohio State University.
  I have enjoyed getting to know Dr. Johnson over the past year and a 
half, and I have been impressed with how the students have embraced 
her. It is a great student body. I have seen that firsthand at Ohio 
State, having taught four courses at the Glenn School of Public 
Affairs--now the Glenn College of Public Affairs--before being elected 
to the U.S. Senate, and I am proud to have been a member of the 
advisory board of the exciting Glenn College for the past 12 years.
  I believe the students and the faculty and the alumni and the friends 
who make up the Ohio State University community are very fortunate to 
have Dr. Johnson at the helm during this time. I wish her the very best 
as she continues to guide Ohio State into the future while focusing on 
academic excellence and building a strong and passionate community of 
Buckeyes. I look forward to continuing to work with Dr. Johnson to 
ensure her success and the success of the great institution, the Ohio 
State University.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.


                               Inflation

  Mr. KENNEDY. Gosh, Mr. President, I wish I didn't have to give this 
talk.
  I think it is a bipartisan observation that, unfortunately, Americans 
are paying a lot more for just about everything. I asked my staff to 
put together some inflation numbers, and they are just breathtaking: 
gasoline, up 50 percent; rental cars, up 42.9 percent; you need a used 
car or truck, they are up 26 percent; a turkey, 20.2 percent; bacon, 
20.2 percent; beef, 20.1 percent; pork chops, 15.9 percent; bedroom 
furniture, 12 percent higher than last year; eggs, up 11.6 percent; 
televisions, up 10 percent; frozen fruits and vegetables, up 7\1/2\ 
percent; chicken, up 8.8 percent; shoes, up 8 percent; baby food, up 8 
percent; children's clothes, up 7.6 percent. And I could keep going. 
Unbelievable.
  Now, I believe in calling them like I see them. I think most 
fairminded Americans know that President Biden is responsible for this 
inflation. You don't have to be Einstein's cousin to figure that out. 
But put the politics aside. The shame of all this is that the burden of 
these price increases is falling on the backs of the American people, 
and while Washington is obsessed with the politics of it, the American 
people and the people in my State have to bear the cost.
  A lot of people, Mr. President, as you well know, just can't afford 
to pay 50 percent more to fill up their gas tanks. They can't afford to 
have to stop and go arrange a bank loan to go to the gas station or to 
the grocery store.
  Unfortunately, for Americans in my State and your State and across 
the country, here with winter coming on, the cost of heating homes is 
also going up just in time for temperatures to fall. So the cost of 
heating is going up, and the temperatures are going down. A lot of 
families are going to have to shell out up to 30 percent more for 
natural gas than they did this past year. Ask them if their income went 
up 30 percent.
  As our days grow shorter, the economic landscape, unfortunately, is 
getting darker.
  Thanksgiving is just around the corner. It is a cherished American 
holiday.
  But even the holiday that Americans observe in order to count our 
blessings is coming with new hardships. According to the New York 
Times, Thanksgiving 2021, and I quote, ``could be the most expensive 
meal in the history of the holiday.''
  As I just mentioned a few seconds ago, frozen turkey is going to set 
you back 20 percent more than it did last year. If you like gravy with 
your turkey, get ready to pay 7 percent more for gravy. Maybe you don't 
eat meat. Maybe you are a vegan. Unfortunately, frozen vegetables are 
also going to cost you 7 to 7\1/2\ percent more, and the high prices 
only apply if you can find food in the supermarkets. Some of these food 
products, you can't even find with Google. There is no guarantee that 
the cranberry sauce and the sweet potatoes will be in stock come 
dinnertime.
  Now, this is America. This is 2021. This isn't the Soviet Union, 30, 
40, 50 years ago. My God, Washington ought to hide its head in a bag.
  The official general inflation rate is 6.2 percent higher than it was 
last October, and that happens to be the largest increase in over 30 
years. But we all know, and I can tell you, real people in the real 
world who go to the grocery store and the clothing store and pay their 
insurance bill and go try to buy an automobile know that it is not 6.2 
percent. It is a lot higher.
  I need to ask a question, though. Are you really surprised? Are you 
really surprised that prices are rising when the Biden administration 
is printing money, when the Biden administration is exploding our debt, 
when the Biden administration is forfeiting America's energy 
independence, when the Biden administration is paying people to watch 
Netflix instead of producing the goods we need, when the Biden 
administration is ignoring gridlock in our supply chain? The American 
people aren't surprised.
  For months--for months--the White House has turned gaslighting 
Americans about the inflation crisis into an art form. White House 
officials pretend inflation--if you ask them--oh, it is just 
temporary--a temporary problem. Temporary, a rat's rear end. It is 
actually a soul-crushing, job-killing tax on working Americans. That is 
what inflation is.
  Every time you go to the grocery store, your taxes go up. And 
inflation hits lower-income and middle-income families the hardest. And 
anyone who doesn't believe that should ask Secretary Kerry whether fuel 
prices have grounded his private jet. Of course not. He is rich. He has 
got a private jet. He doesn't feel it.
  You know who feels it? The moms and dads in this country who get up 
every day, who go to work and obey the law and pay their taxes and try 
to do the right thing by their kids and try to save a little money for 
retirement. That is who pays this tax that the economists call 
inflation.
  This inflation didn't just appear out of nowhere. I mean, any 
economist with a pulse knows where this inflation came from. Inflation 
comes from too much money chasing too few goods. And when you have an 
administration, as we do with the Biden administration, that spends 
money like it was gully dirt, whose mantra is, ``We can't possibly 
spend enough taxpayer money, there is not enough hours in the day''--of 
course, you don't have inflation. Of course, you don't have inflation.
  Now, what is President Biden doing tonight? Well, I have noticed that 
the Biden administration, when it comes to economics and other areas as 
well, they never make the same mistake twice. They make it five or six 
times, just to be sure.
  So how's the Biden administration going to deal with this economic 
cancer of inflation which is killing the American people? Their idea 
is: Let's go pass a spending orgy bill--they call

[[Page S8338]]

it reconciliation--of epic, epic proportions, chockful of welfare 
blowouts when we can't afford the social programs we have now.
  Are you kidding me?
  Are you kidding me?
  And one White House official claimed earlier this week that the 
President's--he calls it a $1.75 trillion bill. It is going to end up, 
we all know, being a lot more than that. He says it will actually 
reduce inflation. Right--and those aren't hogs in the hog lot.
  Just wait. The fact is, unless you were in the quad playing Frisbee 
during Econ 101, you know this is truth. The fact is that massive 
government spending has kept workers on the sidelines and has fueled 
inflation. But the only comfort the permanent Washington types are 
sending to folks gathered around a historically expensive Thanksgiving 
table is that more--not less--more of the same insane policies are 
coming down the pipeline through what the President calls the Build 
Back Better bill. And I think most Americans call it the Build Back 
Broker bill.
  Have you looked at the bill?
  I looked at the House bill a bit. I started reading it. I am probably 
going to go broke just reading the thing.
  Neosocialists love this bill. They love it like the devil loves sin, 
but the American people aren't going to love it. Louisianans are not 
going to love it. Louisianans love their families, and they just want 
to provide for them, especially at Thanksgiving and at Christmas. And 
they can't do it with inflation raging.
  This Thanksgiving, what most Americans need the most is relief--not 
just relief from inflation, but relief from bad leadership.
  Now, I want my friends in the Biden White House to know that I am 
genuinely interested in working with them to solve America's inflation 
problem, but you are not going to do it by spending more money. You are 
not going to do it by throwing gasoline on the fire.
  The first rule is to do no harm. Do no harm, and by that, I mean that 
my Democratic friends should stop trying to ram this multitrillion 
dollar tax-and-spend bill through Congress. And they should stop for 
two reasons: Americans don't want it, and Americans can't afford it.
  So this Thanksgiving, Madam President--and I hope you have a good 
one--I hope my Democratic friends will give up on tying millstones 
around the neck of the American economy. I hope they will give up 
fueling inflation with another extremist spending orgy bill.
  And if they would do that, if they would just do that, Americans 
could sit down to eat next Thursday and give thanks that compassion and 
common sense have finally prevailed in Washington, DC, where, frankly, 
on most issues, common sense is illegal.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Smith). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Border Security

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, yesterday, the Secretary of Homeland 
Security, Mr. Mayorkas, testified before the Senate Judiciary 
Committee. It is the first time he has been before the Judiciary 
Committee for an oversight hearing. Of course, our minds were all on 
the crisis that is currently underway--and has been since the beginning 
of this year--at the border.
  When our colleague Senator Lindsey Graham asked him how he would rate 
his own performance so far, he gave a bizarre answer. He said: ``I 
[would] give myself an A for effort.'' Well, that is the type of rating 
you would give yourself if you offered to cook dinner and completely 
bungled the recipe, or if you ordered a really thoughtful Christmas 
gift for your spouse, but it didn't arrive on time, you would give 
yourself an A for effort. But when you are talking about the person who 
is responsible for some of our Nation's most critical responsibilities 
for which there are life-and-death consequences, an A for effort is 
hardly acceptable, and in this case, it is an overly generous 
assessment.
  Over the last year, Customs and Border Protection has encountered 
more than 1.7 million migrants along the southern border--the highest 
on record. In 1 month alone, more than 213,000 migrants crossed the 
border, including 19,000 unaccompanied children. The Secretary may 
think he is worthy of an A for effort, but the numbers certainly do not 
reflect that.
  The American people are clearly concerned about the way things are 
going. A recent poll found that more than 80 percent of voters think 
illegal immigration is a serious issue. Nearly two-thirds believe that 
the President's Executive orders actually encourage more illegal 
immigration, and, as a result, only 35 percent of voters approve of the 
President's handling of the border.
  Leaders in the administration have tried to play the blame game, 
saying, well, they inherited policies from the previous administration 
that led to the crisis. That seems to be part of the playbook--let's 
blame Trump; let's blame the previous administration and absolve 
ourselves of any responsibility--but they have simply failed to provide 
an explanation to why those policies led to 460,000 fewer encounters in 
fiscal year 2020 but more than 1.7 million in 2021.
  There is no question at all that this crisis is a direct result of 
the Biden administration's words and deeds. Back in February, just a 
few weeks after President Biden took his oath of office, migrants who 
were interviewed in their trek from their homes across our border said 
as much. One woman who crossed the Rio Grande River on a smuggler's 
raft said that she and her 1-year-old son only came to the United 
States because of the Biden administration. She said: ``That gave us 
the opportunity to come.'' The administration has signaled that it is 
not only OK with the record levels of illegal immigration but that it 
is actively encouraging more people to make the trek.
  Prior to the Biden administration's border crisis, there was a clear 
and sensible process for migrants who crossed our border to claim 
asylum. That individual would be processed by the Border Patrol and 
undergo a credible fear assessment, which is the standard for claiming 
asylum, essentially determining, at least as a preliminary matter, 
whether they would qualify for asylum. If so, that person would be 
issued a notice to appear at a future court hearing--a critical 
document that tells asylum seekers when and where to show up for their 
day in court.
  But under Secretary Mayorkas's leadership, that is not happening 
anymore. I have heard from many folks in Texas about the fact that huge 
numbers of migrants are now being released without a notice to appear. 
Thousands of migrants have been released with what is now called a 
notice to report--essentially, a document that says: When you get where 
you are going, turn yourself in to your local Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement office.
  Well, these migrants haven't undergone a credible fear screening, so 
we have no way of knowing how many of them will likely, potentially, 
qualify for asylum. We do know, based on decisions from immigration 
courts, that only about 10 percent of the people who claim asylum 
actually qualify under the prevailing legal standard.
  Because these migrants haven't undergone preliminary screening, we 
have no information about the validity of their asylum claims. And it 
is unclear whether the administration has given any teeth at all to the 
warning that the failure to contact the local ICE office may result in 
your arrest. In other words, there are no consequences for not showing 
up.
  The Department of Homeland Security is now telling us that they have 
stopped issuing notices to report, but the truth is, they have just 
changed the title. They are still paroling migrants into the United 
States without issuing a notice to appear. When these migrants 
inevitably fail to turn themselves in to the nearest ICE office--and 
ICE's internal figures suggest the compliance rate is unsurprisingly 
low--it isn't clear that the Department of Homeland Security will do 
anything at all to locate them and remove them from the United States 
even though they haven't complied with the process that they have been 
told they must comply with. The Biden administration has made it even 
easier for migrants to disappear into the great American heartland.

[[Page S8339]]

  Several weeks ago, Secretary Mayorkas gave migrants another reason to 
believe that they could make it across our borders and be able to stay. 
According to Secretary Mayorkas, illegally entering our country is no 
longer reason enough for ICE to begin removal proceedings. The 
Secretary's guidance provided a few exemptions. In theory, illegal 
border crossers are a priority for enforcement but only if they are 
apprehended in the United States after unlawfully entering after 
November 1, 2020. It is unclear what the magic is with that date. In 
other words, ICE agents can't touch them unless another law enforcement 
agency picks them up first.
  It says individuals convicted of serious criminal conduct who pose a 
current threat to public safety should be a priority for removal, but 
it is unclear what crimes meet those criteria. Is distributing or 
receiving child pornography considered serious criminal conduct? What 
about crimes like embezzlement? larceny? breaking and entering? sex 
offenses? It is unclear exactly what the standard is, and I think that 
is on purpose because clearly Secretary Mayorkas does not want the 
Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to actually 
enforce the law that Congress has written. We are the ones who make the 
policy, and the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
simply execute that policy. Clearly, Secretary Mayorkas is trying to 
confuse things such that no apprehension and detention takes place at 
all.
  What if the distribution of child pornography, let's say, happened 4 
years ago? Is the perpetrator no longer a priority for apprehension and 
removal now that the threat isn't ``current''? In fact, the Secretary 
explicitly says the threat shouldn't be determined according to bright 
lines or categories. In other words, he wants to continue to fuzz it up 
and make it ambiguous. I don't understand why if you are actually 
serious about enforcing our laws. Is there a reason that any migrant 
convicted of possessing or distributing child pornography should be 
allowed to remain in the United States?
  The Secretary indicates that even certain migrants, like those who 
are elderly or provide for their families, should be exempt from the 
law. That clearly is not within the authority of the Secretary to 
decide against whom the laws should be enforced. Does that mean that 
someone who committed a sexual assault 20 years ago but now has a 
family who depends on him should be able to remain in the United 
States?
  It defies all common sense to ask our law enforcement officers to 
turn a blind eye when they encounter individuals who have clearly 
broken the law. Imagine calling the police to report an intruder in 
your home and being told, unless this person is young, childless, and 
murdered a member of your family, we can't do anything or we won't do 
anything.
  The reality of the situation, however inconvenient it may seem for 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, is that, by entering the 
United States illegally--by doing that--migrants have broken the law, 
and there have to be consequences. The Secretary cannot, consistent 
with his oath of office, refuse to enforce those laws in order to 
appease his party's political base.
  In fact, by clearly outlining who will and who will not be able to 
remain in the United States, notwithstanding what the law says, the 
administration is actually encouraging even more migrants to put 
themselves in harm's way to come to the United States. This is known as 
pull factors, which actually encourage more illegal immigration. Under 
this guidance, visa overstays aren't a priority for enforcement at all. 
If somebody comes in on a visa but overstays that visa, they are 
illegally present in the United States, but they don't have to worry 
about the Biden administration actually enforcing the law and removing 
them. In other words, the guidance is an open invitation for migrants 
to disregard the terms of their entry into the United States.
  When President Biden's nominee for the Customs and Border Protection 
testified before the Senate Finance Committee, I asked the police chief 
from Arizona if he agreed that the Biden administration's policy of 
nonenforcement is a pull factor that is encouraging more illegal 
immigration. He admitted that, yes, it is.
  So, yesterday, I asked Secretary Mayorkas the same question: Does 
this guidance of nonenforcement send a signal to criminal 
organizations, human smugglers, and migrants that if they illegally 
enter the United States and commit no other crimes, they can stay?
  He said: No. That is 100 percent false.
  But I disagree with Secretary Mayorkas. He is clearly not telling the 
truth. There is a clear correlation between the Biden administration's 
reckless policies and the record level of illegal migration.
  Any administration, of course, has a certain amount of discretion 
when it comes to enforcement, but what we are seeing from Secretary 
Mayorkas isn't an exercise of discretion, and it is certainly not A-
for-effort worthy. I don't think anyone expected Secretary Mayorkas to 
lead the charge to secure our borders and crack down on illegal 
immigration, but he is not even doing the bare minimum that his job 
description requires.
  The truth is, the Biden administration has fumbled the border crisis 
at every turn. The President sent smoke signals about open borders 
before he even took office, and his administration has rolled out 
incentive after incentive for migrants to continue to break the law, 
and it has tied the hands of dedicated law enforcement officers who put 
their lives on the line to protect the American people.
  We have got a border czar who once compared ICE to the Ku Klux Klan, 
and we have a DHS Secretary who gives himself an A even though more 
than 1.7 million migrants have crossed the border since he took office 
in February. So, while Secretary Mayorkas thinks he is entitled to an A 
for effort, there is no question that, on balance, the Biden 
administration has earned an F for its response to the border crisis.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               Inflation

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, inflation soared to a 31-year high in 
October.
  Now, after thinking about it, it seems President Biden and his allies 
are sensing inflation may endanger their reckless tax-and-spending 
agenda. Now, as a result, they have taken to arguing that the cure for 
the inflation spurred by their reckless spending is to pursue even more 
reckless spending.
  I am not buying it. The American people aren't buying it either.
  President Biden and his allies have been wrong about inflation from 
day one, and they are wrong now. Immediately after taking office, we 
all know what happened: They pursued a partisan $2 trillion liberal 
wish list package under the guise of COVID relief, and only 9 percent 
of it was to fight COVID.
  Congress had already approved $4 trillion in bipartisan relief, 
including a nearly $1 trillion bill, only a month prior to the 
President's inauguration. And all that money that was spent recovering 
from Congress shutting down the economy in March of 2020 was all passed 
in a bipartisan, cooperative way, not like bills this year are tuned up 
to just be partisan, with the majority Democrats of the House and 
Senate supplying all the support.
  Now, our economy was already on the road to recovery when the 
President was sworn in, and highly effective vaccines were allowing 
economic activity to bounce back, and it did bounce back quickly.
  I, along with many on my side of the aisle, warned that adding $2 
trillion on top of the existing relief--that money still entering the 
economy--risked sparking inflation, and it has.
  And it wasn't just Republicans sounding the inflation alarm. Longtime 
Democratic economist Professor Larry Summers, who held top posts in 
both the Obama and Clinton administrations, also made his inflation 
concerns known. So Democrats in Congress and the White House don't even 
heed the advice of their own.

[[Page S8340]]

  In a February Washington Post op-ed, Professor Summers warned 
President Biden's so-called COVID package might ``set off inflationary 
pressures of a kind [that] we have not seen in a generation, with 
consequences for the value of the dollar and financial stability.'' Six 
and two-tenths inflation just announced, which proves that Professor 
Summers was right.
  With a prominent liberal economist such as Larry Summers raising 
inflation concerns, wouldn't one think the President of the United 
States would begin to take the risk of inflation very seriously? It is 
not how it is turning out. Instead, President Biden and senior 
administration officials are doubling down, arguing the real risk was 
not spending enough.
  Now, think about that for a second. Congress had already spent almost 
as much responding to COVID, in inflation-adjusted dollars, as it did 
in waging World War II. Yet we are somehow expected to believe too 
little spending, not inflation, was the real risk.
  In reality, President Biden and congressional Democrats were simply 
determined to not let a crisis go to waste. They couldn't let a ``high 
class problem'' like inflation get in the way of passing ``the most 
progressive piece of legislation in history.''
  How out of touch is that? Remember, inflation is a regressive tax 
that hurts the poor the most, increasing the cost of food, clothing, 
and shelter; in other words, affecting the basic essentials of life. 
Then, in the months to follow, inflation began to tick upward. In 
April, inflation clocked in at an annualized rate of 4.1 percent--the 
highest spike since the financial crisis of 2008.
  Nothing to see here, the Biden administration officials said. That 
inflation was solely due to ``base effects''--those are their words, 
``base affects''--that resulted from prices being suppressed during the 
pandemic.
  In a month or two, they said inflation was to return to normal or you 
heard the word ``transitional'' inflation, as Fed Chairman Powell was 
preaching to the entire country. Now, of course, Powell has changed his 
mind, to some extent.
  Now, around the same time, President Biden released his reckless tax-
and-spending agenda, calling for an additional--can you believe it?--
$4,000 in spending?
  Professor Larry Summers again sounded the inflation alarm warning, 
``[W]e are injecting more demand into the economy than the potential 
supply . . . and that will generate overheating.''
  Now, skip ahead a month to June. Inflation surges to 5.4 percent. 
Again, the administration claims that there is nothing to worry about. 
Again, we are told inflation is merely transitory and solely the result 
of bottlenecks in the supply chain.
  Inflation remained at those elevated levels of 5.4 percent July 
through September. Inflation was persisting longer than the 
administration expected. But they were still sure it was only 
transitory.
  According to President Biden, ``[N]o serious economist''--those are 
his words--``[N]o serious economist'' was predicting spiraling 
inflation. Really? Larry Summers, a Harvard professor and former 
Clinton Secretary of Treasury, isn't a serious economist?
  I will tell you how serious of an economist he is. I think he got on 
the Harvard staff at a very young age with a title of distinguished 
professor. And I think he was only about 30 years of age at that time. 
Then, early this month, the inflation numbers for October were 
released. Inflation surged to 6.2 percent. That is the highest 
inflation rate in 31 years.
  Only then did the administration begin to acknowledge that inflation 
is a problem. To do otherwise would be an insult to the intelligence of 
the American public. Hard-working Americans have been experiencing 
historically high price increases for more than half a year.
  The Biden inflation tax on average Americans is now $175 a month, 
which equates to about an extra $2,100 of costs every year. Gone are 
the claims that inflation is transitory. Instead, according to 
President Biden, ``[i]nflation hurts Americans' pocketbooks, and 
reversing this trend'' is his ``top priority.''
  Now, President Biden and his allies claim the key to reversing this 
inflation trend is to enact the same reckless tax-and-spending agenda 
that they have been pursuing all year. How convenient. The solution to 
surging inflation is the same agenda he has been passing all along.
  I won't go as far as President Biden and try to claim no serious 
economist agrees with him. However, even the economists cited by the 
administration as supporting their agenda do have caveats. Those 
caveats include that their spending policies are entirely paid for and 
are structured in a way that will increase labor productivity.
  The current version of their spending plans doesn't come close to 
meeting those huge caveats. The President claims his agenda is 
completely paid for, but those claims rest solely on sleight of hand 
and budget gimmickry.
  Their largest gimmick comes from artificially sunsetting spending 
provisions that they do not intend to expire while imposing a permanent 
tax hike. In other words, increasing taxes and accounting it for over 
the 10-year period of time that the Congressional Budget Office looks 
ahead--spend that money in the first 2 or 3 years, and then supposedly 
the program is going to sunset. But everybody knows that these programs 
won't sunset. So you better figure what the long-term cost is. And that 
is that $4.2 trillion that has been in the press since this Build Back 
Better program hit the press.
  Now, on another point, even taking President Biden's claim at face 
value, his agenda will result in hundreds of billions of dollars of 
increased deficit spending in the near term, fueling current inflation 
pressures.
  Moreover, according to a Penn Wharton Budget Model and its analysis, 
under the more realistic assumption that their spending proposals are 
made permanent, their plan would increase debt and deficit by more than 
$2 trillion over 10 years. The Penn Wharton Budget Model shows that.
  As a result, then, by 2050, government debt would be 24 percent 
higher, economic growth would be 3 percent lower, and wages would be 
1.7 percent less than they otherwise would be.
  Now, he calls the program Building Back Better. This is a recipe for 
building back worse. The bottom line is that the President's ill-
designed spending-and-tax spree isn't deficit neutral. It won't boost 
productivity, but it will fuel inflation. So I think after this October 
report comes out of inflation being the highest in 31 years at 6.2 
percent, it is time to pause and rethink this entire approach.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff).
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kelly). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on the 
motion to proceed to Calendar No. 144, H.R. 4350 occur now.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             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 senior assistant 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 motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 144, H.R. 4350, a bill to authorize 
     appropriations for fiscal year 2022 for military activities 
     of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and 
     for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to 
     prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, 
     and for other purposes.
         Charles E. Schumer, Jack Reed, Jon Tester, Jeanne 
           Shaheen, Margaret Wood Hassan, Angus S. King, Jr., Alex 
           Padilla, Sherrod Brown, Mark Kelly, Tim Kaine, Jacky 
           Rosen, Tina Smith, Ben Ray Lujan, John Hickenlooper, 
           Christopher A. Coons, Raphael Warnock, Mazie K. Hirono.

  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 
motion to

[[Page S8341]]

proceed to H.R. 4350, a bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal 
year 2022 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for 
military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of 
Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, 
and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Van 
Hollen) is necessarily absent.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 84, nays 15, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 472 Leg.]

                                YEAS--84

     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Daines
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Lujan
     Manchin
     Marshall
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Reed
     Risch
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Tuberville
     Warner
     Warnock
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--15

     Blackburn
     Booker
     Boozman
     Braun
     Cotton
     Cruz
     Hawley
     Kennedy
     Lummis
     Markey
     Paul
     Portman
     Sanders
     Sullivan
     Warren

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Van Hollen
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). On this vote, the yeas are 84, the 
nays are 15.
  Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  The majority leader.

                          ____________________