[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 13 (Thursday, January 20, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S370-S373]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Biden Administration

  Mr. President, on another matter, it was 1 year ago today when we 
were all on the Capitol steps on a cold January 20, 2020, following the 
election of Joe Biden as President of the United States and Kamala 
Harris as Vice President. Exactly 365 days ago, we were out there on 
the Capitol steps and heard what I believed to be an important and 
welcomed speech by the President, where the President said he would 
serve to be a unifying force in Washington.
  He said:

       [W]ithout unity there is no peace, only bitterness and 
     fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a 
     state of chaos.

  Wonderful, inspirational words.
  But now we find ourselves, a year into the Biden administration, with 
a lot of bitterness, fury, and outrage over the many failures and 
missteps of this administration. One of the pillars of the President's 
campaign was the promise of a strong Federal response to the pandemic.
  Mr. Biden said:

       I am never going to raise the white flag and surrender. 
     We're going to beat this virus. We're going to get it under 
     control, I promise you.

  That is a quote.
  One year later, we are nowhere close to having this virus under 
control. New daily cases are breaking records, threatening the capacity 
of intensive care units and hospitals across the country. Healthcare 
workers are once again exhausted after having been pushed to their 
limits--mentally and physically. And, perhaps most embarrassingly, 
affordable, reliable tests are increasingly hard to come by.
  We know testing is one of the most valuable resources we have when it 
comes to this virus. I remember calling my Governor, and I said: What 
do you need, Governor?
  This is at the beginning of the pandemic.
  He said: I need two things.
  He said: I need testing, and I need PPE--personal protective 
equipment.
  Well, that is another story about our vulnerable supply chains and 
the fact that we have outsourced the manufacturing of personal 
protective equipment to China, which is the main reason we had a lack 
of access to what we needed.
  But as to testing, the sooner positive cases are identified, the 
better equipped we are as individuals to quarantine ourselves, seek 
medical attention--if necessary--or, if all else fails, to just ride 
out the virus without infecting other people.
  Even before taking the oath of office, President Biden promised to 
make free testing widely available. But months and months went by 
without the President taking any significant action to prevent the 
current testing shortage.
  Last month, the White House Press Secretary even mocked a reporter 
who asked if the United States should provide free at-home tests, just 
as other countries have done around the world. It looks like it took 
swift criticism of her remark to finally prompt some action. Just a 
couple of days ago, the White House launched a website for people who 
wanted to request free at-home tests. But I am afraid it is a case of 
too little, too late.
  Many experts have said that Omicron has already peaked in parts of 
the country. By the time these tests ship, which the website says could 
take 7 to 12 days, we will be even closer to the beginning of the end 
of this current wave of Omicron.
  Instead, the White House could have purchased and distributed massive 
quantities of tests at any point over the last year, but it did not do 
so. Increased access to testing could have lessened the impact of the 
Omicron variant over the summer as well as the contagious variant that 
we are confronting today. So it shouldn't take bad press to force the 
administration to action, especially when they made a commitment to 
free testing early on but, obviously, were unprepared for Omicron and 
the wave of new cases.
  Unfortunately, the President has broken another big promise about his 
plan to address the pandemic. He vowed that public health decisions 
would be made by public health professionals, not politicians.
  Once again, things have played out quite a bit differently. Here is 
one example. Last February, the Centers for Disease Control released a 
report that said that schools are not a breeding ground for COVID-19 
and that as long as precautions are taken, schools could open safely.
  Well, Congress did not skimp when it came to providing financial 
resources to the States and school districts to take those appropriate 
precautions to help preserve the safety of our children. But the 
science was at odds with the demands of a key political constituency--
teachers unions, which wanted schools to remain closed even if the 
teachers were vaccinated and appropriate safety measures could be taken 
to protect the schoolchildren. We all know which side the 
administration chose. It ignored the science and stood with their 
political constituency, the teachers' unions.
  When the President's big promise of a strong pandemic response failed 
to meet the need, he shifted the responsibility to the States. He said: 
I am going to do it. The Federal Government is going to do it. But 
then, amazingly, pivoted and said: Well, this is not my responsibility. 
This is not the Federal Government's responsibility. This is the 
State's responsibility.
  Just a few weeks ago, he actually said these words. He said: There is 
no Federal solution. This gets solved at the State level.

[[Page S371]]

  I am sure the American people were flabbergasted at the answer and 
his obvious flip-flop. President Biden pledged to lead a strong 
pandemic response when it helped his chances of getting elected, but 
now that he is actually in office and has the power and authority to 
follow through, he is folding his hand and pointing the finger at 
others.
  The Biden administration has fumbled the ball time after time. It has 
chipped away at our energy security. When you saw prices rise at the 
pump because of inflation or because demand of refined petroleum 
products exceeded supply, he actually went so far as to encourage 
Russia and OPEC to produce more oil and gas. At the same time, he was 
all about canceling the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline. Nord 
Stream 2--the Russian pipeline--providing gas to Germany, he is all for 
it. When it comes to domestic pipelines providing oil and gas to 
refineries so they can produce gasoline so that people can drive their 
cars at an affordable price, he is not for it.
  Additionally, this administration has failed to address the 
humanitarian crisis at the border, in an astonishingly blase sort of 
way. It doesn't even seem to get a rise out of this administration 
anymore--the numbers are so high. There are 2 million-plus people 
apprehended at the border, with no real impediment or deterrent or 
discouraging words to keep them from entering the country illegally.

  And then there is the fumbling of diplomatic relations, insulting 
some of our oldest allies and emboldening our biggest adversaries. The 
biggest example of that was ceding the war in Afghanistan to the 
Taliban in the most humiliating way possible.
  So the list of missteps and failures during this last 365 days has 
been a long one, indeed. But perhaps the biggest disappointment was in 
not delivering what President Biden promised the American people 1 year 
ago today, and that is to be a unifying force for our country.
  He promised, as we all heard, to bring people of different 
backgrounds and ideologies and beliefs together and to find common 
ground. It actually made sense to make a virtue out of something that a 
50-50 Senate would ordinarily dictate, and that is: When you can't have 
your own way because you don't have the votes, then make a virtue out 
of working together and actually pass bipartisan legislation.
  He actually went so far as to point to his record in the Senate as 
evidence of his ability to work across the aisle and broker bipartisan 
deals, but it didn't take long for the American people to find out that 
these were, by and large, empty words.
  Less than 2 months into his Presidency, our colleagues across the 
aisle took a hammer to Congress's perfect record of bipartisan pandemic 
response. That was during the previous administration. Almost 
everything we did was bipartisan, virtually unanimous, when it came to 
responding to the pandemic.
  First, our colleagues spent nearly $2 trillion on a bill that even 
though it was framed as COVID-19 response, committed less than 10 
percent of that funding to COVID-19 and only 1 percent to vaccines. But 
that blowout, $2 trillion, wasn't enough.
  The President tried and failed, along with his political allies, to 
advance the so-called Build Back Better agenda. While trying to sell 
this radical plan to the American people, President Biden continued to 
make big promises, most of which were not credible. He said, for 
example, that this multitrillion-dollar bill cost zero dollars. 
Nobody--nobody--believed that. But here it was, the President of the 
United States, embarrassingly, for himself and others, was saying that 
$5 trillion is really zero dollars. He said it wouldn't increase the 
deficit. And he said anyone making less than $400,000 a year would not 
pay a single penny more in income tax.
  All of these claims turned out to be false. And in the end, Democrats 
couldn't muster enough support to get the bill to the President's 
desk--again, not particularly surprising to those who have been 
observers of the Senate for a while. A 50-50 Senate should tell you 
that the only way you are going to get things done is through 
bipartisan consensus building, not trying to do things all on your own 
with 50 votes in the Senate, plus a tie-breaking vote from the Vice 
President.
  But that didn't stop our colleagues from turning to yet another 
partisan bill--this time, one to launch a Federal takeover of State-run 
elections. Yesterday, our Democratic colleagues brought this bill up 
for a vote in the Senate and, of course, as we now know, it failed to 
garner sufficient votes to pass. But no one should be surprised, 
especially because this bill was drafted by one party in a 50-50 
Senate.
  And then when the bill failed, as we all knew it would, our 
Democratic colleagues took their penchant for partisanship to an 
entirely new level.
  With the President's blessing, somebody who served more than three 
decades in the Senate and who railed against efforts to eliminate the 
filibuster, the 60-vote bipartisan consensus requirement before bills 
can be advanced--the President, in spite of his previous comments 
supporting that requirement, the so-called filibuster--this time, with 
the President's blessing, Senate Democrats tried to change the rules of 
the Senate to secure a purely partisan win.
  What we witnessed in the Senate yesterday evening was a remarkable 
show of priorities of our Democratic colleagues. Forget the rules, 
forget compromise, forget consensus building, and forget the traditions 
of this institution, our Democratic colleagues proved that they are 
willing to taking a wrecking ball to this Chamber in pursuit of power.
  It is no wonder that President Biden's approval ratings continue to 
plummet. One recent poll found that only 33 percent of the respondents 
to that poll approved of the job that he was doing. After all, after 
everything the President promised, and with his dismal record of 
actually delivering on that promise, it is hardly surprising that the 
American people are disappointed.
  In addition, inflation is up, wages are being eaten away by 
inflation, eroding the cost of living, and our country feels more 
divided than ever, despite the President's extravagant promises 1 year 
ago today, just out here on these steps.
  The man who positioned himself as an experienced, unifying leader for 
the country has spent virtually all his time pursuing partisan ends. As 
a result, the Democratic Senate majority has wasted a lot of valuable 
time. I am disappointed by the wasted opportunities during the past 
year.
  Floor time in the U.S. Senate is a precious commodity. It is the coin 
of the realm. There are a lot of great ideas that occur outside of this 
Chamber, but unless it can get time on the floor, it doesn't happen. 
But rather than taking up bills that did have that proud, bipartisan 
support, wasting time on purely partisan bills has resulted in very few 
accomplishments.
  I can only hope that the second year of the Biden administration will 
bring more bipartisan cooperation. Hopefully, the administration can 
learn from its mistakes of the last year. This parade of dead-on-
arrival legislation isn't helping the American people. The only way we 
can accomplish anything is by working together and building consensus.
  Again, voters elected a 50-50 Senate, a closely divided House, and a 
President who promised to bring people of different views together. 
Let's hope this next year, the second year of the Biden administration, 
the President will see fit, along with our Democratic colleagues, to 
deliver on that commitment made 1 year ago today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.


                   S.T.A.N.D. With Taiwan Act Of 2022

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, today I introduce the S.T.A.N.D. with 
Taiwan Act of 2022, which would mandate comprehensive and devastating 
economic and financial sanctions against the Chinese Communist Party, 
key sectors of China's economy, and leaders in the Chinese Communist 
Party, if the Chinese People's Liberation Army initiates a military 
invasion of the island democracy of Taiwan. Representative   Mike 
Gallagher of Wisconsin introduced an identical bill in the House today 
as well.
  I am hopeful that when my colleagues come back from recess, the vast 
majority of Senators here, Democrats and Republicans, will end up 
joining me in supporting this important bill.
  Last March, in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, I posed 
this

[[Page S372]]

question to the INDOPACOM commander, Admiral Davidson:

       Given the Chinese Communist Party's recent but long list of 
     coercive and even violent actions--a hostile suppression of 
     freedom in Hong Kong, threatening nuclear war with Japan, 
     hand-to-hand combat with Indian soldiers in the Himalayas, 
     economic blockades of Australia, genocide in its own Xinjiang 
     province, [and aggressive naval actions in the South China 
     Sea]--how do such actions impact your analysis [Admiral 
     Davidson] on if and when China would invade Taiwan?

  His response to me in this hearing made news around the world. He 
called these recent actions by President Xi ``alarming,'' and then he 
said:

       I think the threat [of an invasion of Taiwan] is manifest 
     during this decade, in fact, in the next 6 years.

  Six years--that is not a lot of time. The Senate needs to focus on 
this issue much more. Indeed, this issue is not unrelated to the 
actions of another dictator--Vladimir Putin--who is right now 
threatening and likely to invade one of his neighbors--Ukraine.
  Now, some see the defense of Taiwan as a luxury we cannot afford in 
an age of sharpened and great power competition and China's global 
economic strength. I reject that view. Importantly, so does American 
law, particularly the Taiwan Relations Act, which this body passed in 
1979 by a vote of 90 to 6. Among other things, it states the following:

       The United States will consider any effort to determine the 
     future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means . . . a threat 
     to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of 
     grave concern.

  The free world cannot be neutral in the contest between freedom and 
authoritarianism that is once again underway around the world, 
especially in the Indo-Pacific region.
  American alliances, power, and ingenuity helped build a world that 
provided more freedom and prosperity to more people than ever before. 
Think about this fact: The U.S. democracy, bolstered by our strong 
military, has done more to liberate humankind from oppression and 
tyranny--literally hundreds of millions of people--than any other force 
in human history.
  The Chinese Communist Party knows exactly what it wants to 
accomplish--to make the world safe for its authoritarian government, to 
export its dictatorship model to other countries, to separate America 
from its democratic allies, and to erode U.S. leadership around the 
world.
  A world governed by Xi Jinping's totalitarian vision would be a world 
unsafe for America and other democracies around the world. That is why 
Taiwan is so central to the free world and its future. It is a 
thriving, prosperous Chinese democracy that holds free elections and 
bounds its power by the rule of law. For that reason, it threatens the 
CCP's central premise, which is that one man ruling in perpetuity by 
crushing all dissent knows what is best for 1.4 billion people.
  The Chinese Communist Party has already crushed Hong Kong, once a 
bastion of liberty, and the free world barely raised its voice in 
protest. Should America and the world stand by as China does something 
similar to Taiwan, a peaceful democracy of 25 million people who have 
voted for an entirely different future, that would not simply undermine 
the security of the Western Pacific, as the Taiwan Relations Act says. 
A violent military takeover of Taiwan by the Chinese Communist Party 
would be a sea change in how the world is ordered. It would change the 
history of the 21st century in ways that the guns of August of 1914 
changed the 20th century.


 =========================== NOTE =========================== 

  
  On page S372, January 20, 2022, second column, the following 
appears: Should America and the world stand by as China does 
something similar to Taiwan, a peaceful democracy of 25 million 
people who have voted for an entirely different future? That would 
not simply undermine the security of the Western Pacific, as the 
Taiwan Relations Act says, a violent military takeover of Taiwan 
by the Chinese Communist Party would be a sea change in how the 
world is ordered.
  
  The online Record has been corrected to read: Should America and 
the world stand by as China does something similar to Taiwan, a 
peaceful democracy of 25 million people who have voted for an 
entirely different future, that would not simply undermine the 
security of the Western Pacific, as the Taiwan Relations Act says. 
A violent military takeover of Taiwan by the Chinese Communist 
Party would be a sea change in how the world is ordered.


 ========================= END NOTE ========================= 


  Taiwan is not some peripheral sideshow in terms of global great-power 
competition; it is the frontline between freedom and tyranny, like West 
Berlin was during the height of the Cold War. It matters everywhere.
  Last month, the magazine the National Review highlighted many of 
these issues in an excellent issue which laid out the arguments for and 
against whether the U.S. military should come to Taiwan's aid if the 
island democracy was invaded by the Chinese military. Should our 
country militarily defend democratic Taiwan after the CCP launches a 
military invasion of the island? This is a vitally important question 
which was front and center in the National Review last month. As the 
National Review points out, there is much disagreement on this issue.
  There are powerful arguments on both sides, as this issue admirably 
demonstrates, but I believe there is much less disagreement on whether 
the United States should take actions now to deter a Chinese Communist 
Party military invasion of Taiwan in the future. Indeed, taking actions 
now to promote deterrence of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is an area 
where I believe there is broad bipartisan agreement and support in the 
U.S. Senate.
  Deterrence comes in many forms, and with regard to Taiwan, I believe 
there are three crucial layers of deterrence, as depicted here.
  First is Taiwan's ability to militarily defend itself, the so-called 
hedgehog approach right here, where Taiwan musters sufficient self-
defense capabilities to make a Chinese military invasion very difficult 
and very costly.
  The second layer of deterrence is America's capability and will to 
defend Taiwan militarily should the President of the United States 
decide to do so once there is an invasion by the Chinese.
  Over the past several decades, through many different crises in the 
Taiwan Strait, this layer, the American layer of deterrence, has proven 
to be decisive in keeping the Taiwanese people free. Our deep network 
of allies in the region augments this level of deterrence.
  As it relates to deterrence in Taiwan, it is really often discussed 
only in these two layers, but there is a third layer that is depicted 
here, which in terms of the present circumstances might be the most 
important, and that is the use of other instruments of American power 
beyond our military, such as our global economic and financial 
strengths, to deter China from an invasion.
  That is exactly what my bill, the S.T.A.N.D. with Taiwan Act of 2022, 
is all about. The full name of this bill is Sanctions Targeting 
Aggressors of Neighboring Democracies--aka S.T.A.N.D.--with Taiwan.
  It is a simple bill but a very powerful one, especially in terms of 
its deterrent effect. It states that if the Chinese Communist Party 
initiates a military invasion of Taiwan, the United States shall impose 
a comprehensive suite of mandatory economic and financial sanctions. 
The bill lays out these comprehensive sanctions, some of which are 
listed here, in great detail. These sanctions would be crippling to the 
Chinese Communist Party, its leaders, and key sectors of China's 
economy.
  The bill also calls on the United States to coordinate such 
comprehensive sanctions with our allies around the globe, with the goal 
of making the CCP an economic pariah globally if President Xi chooses 
to militarily invade Taiwan.
  The bill's goal is to make very clear to President Xi today the true 
cost of what such a military invasion of Taiwan would be, thereby 
heightening deterrence, which we all in the U.S. Senate support.
  I believe the S.T.A.N.D. with Taiwan Act of 2022 should receive broad 
bipartisan support. In many ways, it reinforces the goals, policies, 
and directives of the Taiwan Relations Act, which continues to have 
overwhelming support here in the U.S. Senate.
  The defense of Taiwan is an issue that has been weaved in and out of 
the careers and professions of countless Americans, including my own.
  Over 25 years ago, in 1995 and 1996, I was a Marine infantry officer 
deployed to the Taiwan Strait as part of a Marine amphibious task force 
and two U.S. carrier strike groups, all in response to the Chinese 
Communist Party's aggressive military provocations on the eve of 
Presidential elections in Taiwan--the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, this 
period is now called. That was an important and decisive demonstration 
of American commitment and resolve to an emerging democracy and partner 
that is still remembered today on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
  More recently, I was part of another demonstration of American 
commitment and resolve when I traveled to Taiwan with Democrat Senators 
Tammy Duckworth and Chris Coons to provide vaccines--close to a 
million--from the United States for the Taiwanese people in the face of 
the Chinese Communist Party's aggressive attempts to prevent the 
citizens of Taiwan from receiving these lifesaving Western medicines.

[[Page S373]]

  I am now a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, working again on 
these issues in the INDOPACOM theater.
  Let me conclude with this: American commitment and resolve for Taiwan 
has been part of our law, heritage, trade, economics, and military 
deployments for decades and should be for decades to come. The 
S.T.A.N.D. with Taiwan Act of 2022 is the next logical step to 
demonstrate America's commitment to Taiwan, this time emphasizing the 
deterrent power of our economic and financial strengths.
  It is our values of freedom, innovation, the rule of law, individual 
rights, and openness that the Chinese Communist Party is most afraid 
of. We must be ready as democracies to defend these values or risk a 
world increasingly governed by autocracy, surveillance, aggression, and 
permanent conflict. The S.T.A.N.D. with Taiwan Act will help us do just 
that.