[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 2, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S924-S947]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL UNDER CHAPTER 8 OF TITLE 5, 
UNITED STATES CODE, OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE CENTERS FOR MEDICARE & 
MEDICAID SERVICES RELATING TO ``MEDICARE AND MEDICAID PROGRAMS; OMNIBUS 
                COVID-19 HEALTH CARE STAFF VACCINATION''

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hickenlooper). Under the previous order, 
the Senate will proceed to consideration of S.J. Res. 32, which the 
clerk will report.

[[Page S925]]

  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (S.J. Res. 32) providing for 
     congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United 
     States Code, of the rule submitted by the Centers for 
     Medicare & Medicaid Services relating to ``Medicare and 
     Medicaid Programs; Omnibus COVID-19 Health Care Staff 
     Vaccination''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 2:30 
p.m. is equally divided between the leaders or their designees.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.


                       Postal Service Reform Act

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, as I speak here today on the U.S. Postal 
Service Reform Act, Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging a cruel, 
unjust, and barbaric war of choice, financed by a global addiction to 
fossil fuels, an addiction which Russia is only too happy to exploit 
right now.
  And the most effective way to reduce the long-term security threat to 
Ukraine and Europe and the United States and the whole world is to say 
that we are going to empty Vladimir Putin's oil-and-gas-funded piggy 
bank, setting ourselves and our allies on the course to a future 
powered by domestic clean energy.
  We can use the power of our Federal Government to not only apply 
sanctions but also destroy Putin's dirty energy business model.

  The U.S. Government has 700,000 vehicles in its fleet, and 160,000 of 
the U.S. Government's vehicles belong to the U.S. Postal Service. Our 
Postal Service could play an important role in destroying the Putin 
business model by committing to clean instead of dirty energy to fuel 
its fleet. And it should start by reversing Postmaster General Louis 
DeJoy's short-term decision to buy dirty, new postal trucks, energy-
inefficient postal trucks, gas-guzzling postal trucks.
  As we import oil from Russia, we don't need a new fleet of gas-
guzzling postal vehicles in the United States because if we don't get a 
truly next-generation electric fleet of postal trucks, we need the next 
generation of Postal Service leadership delivered express to the 
American people.
  This is just the latest stop in DeJoy's disastrous postal route, and 
it is time for him to resign. This is just a leftover agenda from the 
Trump years, this commitment to inefficiency, to the consumption 
unnecessarily of oil and natural gas in our country.
  The Postal Service Board of Governors and the Biden administration 
just can't let this bad business, bad-for-climate, bad-for-health 
decision stand. If DeJoy won't get rid of this decision, the U.S. 
Postal Service should get rid of him, especially at this moment where 
Russia is fueling an unconscionable invasion of Ukraine with oil money 
from the United States.
  It is the American people who have been paying $20 billion a year for 
Russian oil coming into our country to put in the gasoline tanks of the 
United States. And then he takes that money and uses it to buy tanks 
and planes and weapons to invade the Ukraine.
  A new fleet of electric postal trucks would receive a stamp of 
approval from the American people as it would lower costs, reduce 
pollution, and provide public health benefits while backing out the 
Russian oil that comes into our country every single day.
  Louis DeJoy wants to claim he doesn't have the money to go electric, 
but that false statement should be marked ``return to sender.''
  One study found that full electrification would save the U.S. Postal 
Service $4.3 billion over the lifetime of the fleet. In other words, 
going all electric saves money for the American taxpayer because going 
all electric is cheaper than going all gasoline or all diesel. We just 
save money, but we don't have to send any money to Putin to run our 
Postal Service because that just doesn't make any sense in 2022.
  Since taking office in 2020, Louis DeJoy has tried to pinch pennies 
at the U.S. Postal Service, so why is he now proposing a fiscally 
irresponsible plan that leaves $4.3 billion on the table instead of in 
U.S. Postal Service's budget?
  If our new postal fleet is made up of vehicles that get less than 10 
miles to the gallon, no better than the vehicles already in use, we are 
going to be tying our mail delivery system of the future to the dirty 
oil, inefficient oil, inefficient vehicle strategy of the past.
  We shouldn't be proposing the Postal Service use the same energy from 
the time of the Pony Express, and these vehicles that we are using 
today move at about the same speed as the Pony Express.
  It is time for us to just think smarter and not harder. That is all 
electric. That is backing out oil. That is just saying that we can have 
an infinity sign next to the efficiency of these vehicles which we are 
driving and not this 10-mile-a-gallon, 1930s, 1920s view of how 
efficient the postal vehicles in our country should be.
  So this is simple. Electric postal trucks are cheaper. Electric 
postal trucks are cleaner. And this isn't charity; it is business. And 
you don't have to take my word for it. Ask some of our most successful 
companies in the mail delivery industry.
  These are the competitors to the Postal Service. The Postal Service 
is constantly coming up here saying that we need more subsidies; we 
need more help to compete against these private-sector competitors. 
Well, UPS just placed a 10,000-vehicle purchase order for electric 
trucks. FedEx is moving to achieve a fully electric fleet by the year 
2040. And Amazon is purchasing 100,000 new electric delivery vehicles; 
that is 20 times more than our U.S. Postal Service is planning to get 
under Louis DeJoy.
  These trucks also would work for UPS routes today. Ninety-six percent 
of USPS routes are compatible with electric postal routes. Electric 
vehicles aren't the future; they work for us, for our budgets, and for 
our energy security right now.
  We need to protect our planet, and having all electric vehicles just 
dramatically reduces the greenhouse gases that we emit. But we also 
have to protect our national security. We have to be telling Russia 
that we don't need your oil any more than we need your caviar.
  And the only way to do it, ultimately, is for the United States--you 
just find a way to break our addiction. And the way to break our 
addiction is to just move to the kinds of transportation, automotive, 
U.S. Postal Service vehicles that don't need oil and still get you just 
where you want to go.
  So that is our challenge right now. And we need to protect 
everything--everything--our health, our environment, our economy, our 
national security, and our own morality by ensuring that we move in 
this direction.
  And we need to protect our planet and our Postal Service by putting a 
``Forever Stamp'' on our transportation future, a fleet of battery-
operated electric vehicles that will usher in a clean vehicle 
revolution in America and destroy the demand for oil and gas so that 
the business model of Russia is destroyed.
  This is the weapon that we can be using. This is the message we 
should be sending to the rest of the world. So I urge the White House, 
the U.S. Postal Service, and the Congress to take any and all possible 
steps to right this wrong decision from Louis DeJoy. The U.S. Postal 
Service needs to tear up this deal and buy a clean fleet, and if it 
doesn't, it needs to get a clean start without Louis DeJoy, who is 
looking at the world in a rearview mirror.
  You have to look straight ahead to this all-electric vehicle future. 
Let's ensure that the Postal Service's next-generation delivery 
vehicles create a livable world for the next generation, not only of 
America but as a model for what the rest of the world has to do.
  What I hear from my Republican friends, what I hear from the American 
petroleum industry is, well, the Biden administration should just open 
up more leases to drill for oil, open up more leases immediately for 
more drilling.
  Well, here is the problem with the Republican Party; here is the 
problem with the American Petroleum Institute: The oil industry, the 
oil giants, have hoarded thousands and thousands of leases on public 
lands all across the United States, and they have not drilled on them.
  I have introduced legislation for years saying: Use it or lose it. 
You want the lease? You say it is imperative? You are going to pay for 
that lease and then you don't drill on it?
  Do you know what they are doing? They just hoard all of that land, 
and the land is the size of huge States in our country. That is how 
much land they have right now or that is owned

[[Page S926]]

by the American people and leased to the oil companies.
  So they want to start drilling? Why did you bid for all those leases 
in the years gone by? Do you want to know why? They want to use this 
whole Russia situation as an opportunity to get even more leases that 
they won't drill on and to get them cheap and to create a false sense 
of emergency here, when, if they want to drill, they have already got 
all of the leases they would ever need. They have a backlog of 20 years 
they haven't even started on.
  So when you hear these crocodile tears from the American petroleum 
industry, from the American prevarication industry, that is what it is 
all about. If they wanted to drill, they would be drilling right now--
onshore, offshore. They have the leases. All they want to do is just 
get more and more and more and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper from the 
American people, while fighting to stop an all-electric vehicle 
revolution, stop a wind and solar revolution in our country. That is 
what their agenda is. That is what the American Petroleum Institute is 
all about--it is stopping an all-electric revolution; it is stopping a 
wind and solar revolution; it is stopping a battery revolution--because 
it destroys their business model as well, while hoarding leases, not 
drilling on them, and then coming in here hat in hand, demanding, in a 
lot of ways, that we give them even more leases that they are not going 
to drill on. They are just going to hoard it and save it for years, 
decades, generations to come. It is sad. It is a sad commentary on 
American corporate greed, but that is where we stand right now.
  So just be prepared to hear more lies from the American oil industry, 
lies that go right to the heart of what we really have to do as 
Americans for the next generation, and that is to stand up to those oil 
companies, stand up to the Russian oil oligarchs, and say: We are 
moving away from you historically. That is what young people in our 
country want. They want us to unleash our technological innovation 
genius in order to solve this problem, and it is wind, it is solar and 
all-electric vehicles and battery storage technologies. And it is a 
moral challenge for us. It is a national security challenge for us. It 
is an environmental challenge for us. It is an economic challenge for 
us.
  We can already see the impact this oil control of the global economy 
has upon ordinary consumers in America and the rest of the world. 
Inflation is spiking--oil. Russia is invading Ukraine--oil. A new U.N. 
report says that we now have an evermore dangerous warming of our 
planet--oil. And what did they do? They continued to lie. They 
continued to try to control our agenda so that we cannot pass the 
legislation to unleash our technological genius. That is our greatest 
strength. Their greatest strengths are their natural resources, but 
ultimately, our greatest renewable resources are the brains of the 
American people, especially the younger people, because if they were 
unleashed to invent and deploy all of these new technologies, it would 
revolutionize not just our country but revolutionize the whole rest of 
the world.
  We gave the young people in our country in the 1990s and the early 
2000s a chance to do that with our telecommunications system. It is now 
called the internet. It is called broadband. Young people did that. We 
have to give the same opportunity to young people to do the same thing 
so that we back out the oil, we revolutionize the way in which we 
transport ourselves, and we give hope to the rest of the planet that 
the United States is going to use all of its resources to accomplish 
that goal.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


                       State of the Union Address

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, last night, of course, we all listened to 
President Biden's prime-time opportunity to explain what his 
administration is doing to address the many challenges that our Nation 
is facing.
  Here at home, we know family budgets are being plundered by the worst 
inflation in four decades. We are paying higher prices for everything 
from food to gasoline. We also know that there have been spikes in 
violent crime that have created public safety concerns in communities 
across the country. After a year of hearing folks on the Democratic 
side of the aisle, the progressive base of the Democratic Party, 
calling for defunding the police, it was welcome to hear the President 
say last night that we should fund the police. It is long overdue.
  Of course, there is the humanitarian crisis at the southern border. 
As I have said before, Texas has 1,200 miles of common border with 
Mexico, and, of course, we have seen records shattered month after 
month of people coming across the border, claiming asylum, and then 
being placed by U.S. authorities into the interior of the United 
States, given a notice to appear for a future court hearing, which, in 
all likelihood, will never occur.
  The human smugglers and drug cartels have figured out the weaknesses 
in our own laws and policies, and they are exploiting them, to the 
detriment of the American people.
  On drugs alone, 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, 
the overwhelming amount of which those drugs came across the southern 
border into the United States. And the cartels are smart. They figured 
out that if you flood the border with people, that is going to take the 
Border Patrol off the frontlines, and here come the drug cartels moving 
their poison across the border.
  Of course, the trials we are facing now abroad are not any easier. 
The precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan without any kind of warning 
or consultation with our NATO allies has caused the world to doubt the 
future of American leadership, and then the Chinese Communist Party 
over in the People's Republic of China continues to commit genocide 
against the Uighurs and threaten attacks against a democratic Taiwan.
  Of course, very much on our minds today is the fact that Vladimir 
Putin is attempting to seize a sovereign nation and redraw the maps of 
Europe and testing the resolve of the United States and other 
democracies around the world.
  I, of course, like many, attended the President's address last night 
and listened closely as he spoke about each of these challenges, 
beginning with the conflict--or I should say war--in Ukraine.
  When it comes to Russia, our allies are not strong enough on their 
own to deter Vladimir Putin or the Russian Federation. They are looking 
to the United States as part of NATO--the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization--for leadership.
  I was pleased to hear President Biden deliver a clear message to the 
world that we stand with the democracy in Ukraine and we will do 
everything we can to help the Ukrainians deter Putin and to defend 
their country. The President said we will continue to send military, 
economic, and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, and it is clear that 
there is bipartisan support for that. But the fact of the matter is, 
most of our allies in Europe have been the ones who stepped up to the 
threat--of course, it is in their neighborhood--and we could have but 
did not impose sanctions before Putin invaded rather than after the 
fact.
  I was disappointed that the President did not speak about what is at 
stake in Ukraine. It is something I talked about here on the floor a 
few weeks back.
  With so many challenges in our own backyard, it is easy for folks in 
Texas or Colorado or New Jersey or anywhere else around the country to 
wonder, why should I care about what is happening in Ukraine?
  Americans want to know, what difference does a war or a military 
conflict on the other side of the globe--what relevance does it have to 
me, and if it is important, how can we best help?
  Well, we know the answer to that question here in the House and the 
Senate. We know that this conflict is key to preserving our rules-based 
international order, that if Putin can get away with this, he can get 
away with anything. If Putin gets away with this, President Xi is 
waiting for his opportunity to unify Taiwan with mainland China. So 
this is a global geopolitical crisis. We know China and Iran, as I 
mentioned, and other adversaries are paying close attention.
  If Texans want America to stay out of another world war, then we 
better slam the door on Vladimir Putin now.

[[Page S927]]

  President Biden had a window to remind the American people and our 
allies around the world what is at stake in this conflict. Vladimir 
Putin has even put his nuclear forces on active reserve. He is rattling 
the nuclear sabre in order to threaten and intimidate NATO and the 
United States and the rest of the world, but he is also finding an 
incredible amount of courage and resilience and leadership by people 
like President Zelenskyy in leading the courageous Ukrainian people in 
their effort to resist this invasion.
  So this is a very serious and very dangerous moment. Many of the 
things that Vladimir Putin has done are eerily similar to what happened 
in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and 1940s.
  On another topic, the President alluded to inflation last night, but 
he didn't instill much confidence that he had a concept of what was at 
stake or how to solve the problem. When he talked about his plan to 
address inflation, he said we need to cut our expenses and overhead. 
Well, I talked to some of the cotton producers in Texas last week when 
I was home, and they told me that one of the biggest problems they have 
are the increasing costs of their inputs, things like diesel and 
energy, fertilizer, and the like. They don't have any room to cut their 
overhead unless they go out of business entirely.
  So the President did not inspire much confidence when it came to 
dealing with the scourge of inflation. But one thing we can do is quit 
making it worse by trying to continue to shovel more and more money out 
the door, chasing fewer and fewer goods and services.
  The President did try to recycle some of the elements of the Build 
Back Better--or, as I like to call it, the ``Build Back Broke''--bill, 
but that bill, that policy is dead and buried. The President couldn't 
even get support among his own political party. But he did try to 
rebrand it and respond to it in a way--rebrand it in a way that 
appeared to deal with the concerns that everybody has about increasing 
costs and inflation, but it just did not make any sense.
  The President repeated the same line that has already been shot down 
a number of times. He talked about raising taxes on the American 
people, and he says no one earning $400,000 a year or less would pay a 
penny more under his plan. But, of course, this is the same President 
who said that the price of the $5 trillion Build Back Better bill was 
zero. I think the President has lost a lot of credibility when it comes 
to talking about taxes and spending.
  Well, what the President talked about last night was really a laundry 
list of his liberal agenda. This isn't a new plan. This is the same old 
plan with a new name broken down into smaller pieces. None of this is 
going to address what is confronting the American people today when it 
comes to inflation or crime or the border or regaining America's 
leadership and credibility in world affairs.
  While I mention crime, when it comes to crime, the President did 
affirm that defunding the police is not the answer.
  I see our friend, the Senator from New Jersey, on the floor of the 
Senate. I think he led an effort for us to have a vote on funding the 
police rather than defunding the police.
  Of course, this is a complete reversal from what we have heard from 
many of the President's nominees, including those at the Department of 
Justice--people like Vanita Gupta who for months, if not years, chanted 
this mantra of defunding the police and criticizing the men and women 
in law enforcement who are the thin blue line between us and chaos. But 
there are some shining examples that I think the President could have 
pointed to. One is Dallas, TX. It is a shining example of how 
supporting our police both financially and with moral support and with 
smart plans can make a difference.
  In most major cities across the country today, crime is up in all 
categories. In Dallas, TX, violent crime is down by 8.5 percent, and 
that is no accident. It is thanks to the great leadership of Dallas's 
mayor Eric Johnson and Chief Garcia, chief of the Dallas Police 
Department.
  I asked Chief Garcia yesterday in a hearing in front of the Senate 
Judiciary Committee, I said: Is there any reason, Chief Garcia, that 
the plan you implemented in Dallas couldn't work elsewhere around the 
country? And he said: No, there is no reason.
  Of course, every plan needs to be adapted to local conditions; but 
what the Dallas Police Department and the city council and mayor have 
done is something that can be replicated in other parts of the country.
  Chief Garcia and other witnesses also testified to the importance of 
Project Safe Neighborhoods, which is a Federal program designed to go 
after gun criminals, particularly people who are felons in possession 
or people who use firearms for carjacking, drug transactions, and the 
like.
  The fact of the matter is that Federal law with its mandatory minimum 
sentences for using a firearm illegally in violation of Federal law is 
a huge deterrent. And if you can't deter people from using firearms, 
you certainly can lock them up for an extended period of time which, I 
think, sends a strong message that this sort of activity will not be 
tolerated and will deter future criminal activity.
  So there is a lot we can do when it comes to crime. We can also make 
sure that people who are suffering from mental health challenges aren't 
diverted to jails and denied the treatment that they need that can help 
them on the road to recovery. Those are the kinds of things that I wish 
we could have heard more about from the President last night.
  I was shocked when the President said we need immigration reform last 
night. I have been in the Senate for quite a while now, a member of the 
Judiciary Committee. I am the ranking member on the Immigration 
Subcommittee. When my party has been in the majority, I have been the 
chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee. For the President to say 
immigration reform is something we ought to do struck me as a throwaway 
line. And the reason I say that is because he has done nothing, zero, 
zip, nada, to stop the flood of migrants across our southern border, 
together with the illegal drugs that come right behind them.
  I have tried to do my best on a bipartisan basis working with people 
like Ms. Sinema, a border State Senator from Arizona, to come up with 
some modest suggestions for the administration to deal with the crisis 
at our border. Unfortunately, we have not heard a peep out of the 
administration, at the same time that the President's poll numbers, 
when it comes to border security and immigration, are in the cellar. 
You would think that they would be looking for some sort of bipartisan 
opportunity to register a win and make some progress, but that would be 
wrong.
  Well, I was hopeful that we would hear more about the President's 
plan to work with Republicans in a 50-50 Senate to build consensus for 
bipartisan solutions. Other than the bipartisan support for Ukraine, we 
didn't hear much about that last night. What we heard was a long 
laundry list of partisan legislation that has been tried and failed 
during this last year.
  The Biden administration needs to do more to address inflation in a 
smart way--in an effective way. They need to do more to support our men 
and women in uniform who are the thin blue line between us and 
criminals; and they need to do something--anything--to address the 
humanitarian crisis at the southern border.
  I was hoping this could be a reset moment. You know, we all make 
mistakes in life, but the real test is whether we learn from those 
mistakes. But from the comments that the President made last night when 
it comes to these failed policies, it appears that he has learned 
nothing.
  The American people elected a 50-50 Senate expecting to force us to 
work together, and we should do that. We should put the tried-and-true 
formula of building consensus and passing positive legislation to help 
the American people. We should use that formula again. It just simply 
blows my mind that the President and his party, with the prospect of an 
evenly divided Congress, has tried to do so many things on a purely 
partisan basis, and, as you might expect, has failed to do so when he 
has been unable to unite even his own political party.
  Well, we need a stronger and a safer and a more prosperous country. 
As Governor Kim Reynolds said yesterday

[[Page S928]]

evening, we can't project strength abroad if we are weak at home. And 
we can't support our allies, NATO, and our own military to deter 
authoritarian thugs like Putin if our economy isn't strong here at home 
as well.

  So I continue to be an optimist and hope for the best, but last 
night's message was not encouraging.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1216

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to ask a unanimous 
consent request, and I am going to state the reasons for that before I 
ask for the request. And I appreciate my friend from New Jersey coming 
over to help me at this particular time.
  So, today, the issue is fentanyl. Today's vote on this bill, as 
amended, should be a yes for every Member of the Senate. This measure 
extends the lifesaving authority placing fentanyl drugs in schedule I. 
In fact, a 15-month extension of this authority similar to the bill 
that I offer right now passed the Senate, and it passed the Senate 
unanimously in 2020.
  In case that you have not read the headlines for the past few years, 
fentanyl and its analogs are killing tens of thousands of Americans 
each year, and it happens that fentanyl and analogs are now the No. 1 
cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45, the most productive years 
of a person's life.
  The Drug Enforcement Administration placed fentanyl and analogs on 
schedule I in the year 2018. Congress has already extended this 
authority like I am seeking today five times in 4 years. Now, we are on 
the verge of extending it for a sixth time before it expires on March 
11.
  During the Biden administration, these reauthorizations have gotten 
shorter and yet shorter. The periods of extension have been as short as 
just a few weeks. This has created constant doubt about whether 
fentanyl scheduling will even continue.
  I have received calls from families of people who have overdosed on 
fentanyl. I have received calls from law enforcement seeking our help 
for them to enforce the law. For the last 10 months, these families and 
these law enforcement people have been in terror that this authority 
will disappear, that thousands then would die from the fentanyl 
overdoses.
  We have extended fentanyl scheduling five times in 4 years, but four 
have been in the last 10 months alone. While extensions preserve a 
lifesaving authority, this kind of legislation by extension is neither 
sustainable nor reflective of the great gravity of keeping fentanyl 
drugs in schedule I. A permanently scheduled solution is the best 
answer; but, unfortunately, a permanent scheduling action isn't 
feasible right now.
  Now, why would that be the case? Because some members of Congress 
don't support keeping fentanyl analogs in schedule I--or maybe at all. 
Some reject our criminal drug laws altogether. That seems unbelievable, 
but that is what I sense from some of my colleagues. Fortunately, this 
is a fringe opinion and not very representative of the majority of 
Congress. Republicans and Democrats alike have voiced support for 
permanently scheduling fentanyl analogs, including even President 
Biden. But until Congress agrees on a bipartisan and a permanent 
solution, we must maintain the authority by extension.
  For years, I have been leading the fight to extend this authority in 
hopes of finding a permanent solution. I have urged Leader Schumer to 
support measures that extend fentanyl scheduling as long as possible. I 
have asked President Biden to engage with bipartisan congressional 
leaders on a permanent solution. And I have requested that Chairman 
Durbin hold a hearing on this issue in the Judiciary Committee. All 
these requests have obviously gone unanswered and ignored, or I 
wouldn't be here today asking for unanimous consent.
  Scheduling fentanyl analogs matters. And why does it matter? It can 
save lives. Congress has the power. Congress has the responsibility to 
act. So we ought to do that in just a few minutes. But we can't make 
meaningful bipartisan change unless we have enough time to do it.
  So let's pass a long-term extension and finally then lead the way to 
a permanent solution.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent request that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 45, S. 1216; 
further, that the Grassley amendment at the desk be considered and 
agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time 
and passed; and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid 
upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
  Mr. BOOKER. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I have to preface my remarks with my deep 
respect for the senior Senator from Iowa. I respect him not just 
because he slays it on Twitter, but I respect him because of his heart, 
because we have a great working relationship, and because we have 
worked together to deal with the drug crisis in America. We have worked 
together to make the judicial system more just.
  What you hear from the senior Senator is passion that comes from the 
crisis, as he said. I have traveled his State considerably, and the 
opioid crisis is a crisis from New Jersey to Iowa--all over our 
country. He read the statistics, but you could hear from his heart that 
these are families he knows; that these are people who have seen the 
tremendous loss of young people through opioid overdoses.
  We cannot in this country tolerate one more overdose. I agree with 
the Senator's sense of urgency in that we cannot tolerate one more 
death and that we have to address this public health crisis. But with 
this goal in mind, I cannot support the bill as it is offered today 
because extending the temporary scheduling of fentanyl analogs alone is 
a failed experiment.
  We have seen this temporary scheduling. We are in it right now. 
Classwide scheduling has not curbed the overdoses. In fact, overdoses 
have increased during the period that fentanyl analogs have been 
scheduled by nearly 40 percent from June 2019 to May 2020.
  Here is what makes it even worse.
  As a result of just blanket classwide scheduling--this broad sweep 
approach--the FDA recently testified that there is a potential 
lifesaving antidote to these fentanyl analogs. It is basically a 
stronger version of naloxone. That stronger version has been placed, 
because of this blanket scheduling, as a schedule I. The FDA knows that 
this could actually endanger more people.
  Why in the midst of a public health crisis are we criminalizing the 
next naloxone instead of rushing it to the hands of researchers for 
study and evaluation?
  When you put something in schedule I, it is a declaration that 
doesn't even have any health benefits. This is bad science and, 
therefore, bad policy.
  This bill, as it is now, would not prevent the steady increase of 
fentanyl-related overdoses that we are seeing nationwide. It wouldn't 
achieve that because we have had temporary scheduling, and it is still 
going up. It will not prevent the loss of one loved one that we see 
happening right now or the pain that motivates my friend and senior 
Senator from Iowa.
  This is a public health crisis, and our strategies should be informed 
by the science as a public health response. It requires a response that 
is dictated by science- and evidence-based interventions. Temporary 
scheduling, again, is not simply that. Classwide scheduling impedes 
scientists' and impedes researchers' abilities to develop evidence-
based public health solutions that are needed to overcome the fentanyl 
crisis and deal with these fentanyl analogs.
  Look, right now, temporary scheduling has given this false impression 
that Congress is doing something to deal with fentanyl analogs while 
the death count goes up. What it has done, really, is allowed the 
government to neglect the deeper calling for us to really deal with the 
challenges as they are. There are a lot of evidence-based intervention 
strategies--things we know that work--that we are not investing in. 
There are things that could help these crises in our communities.

[[Page S929]]

  Fundamentally, research by the FDA has confirmed that what is being 
proposed--classwide scheduling--has improperly scheduled substances 
with therapeutic promise and low abuse potential. We need to submit all 
fentanyl-related substances to the same scientific evaluation that we 
have done for other controlled substances. We need to test for their 
dangerousness. We must identify those that might be lifesaving 
overdoses.
  All we have done for nearly 4 years now is schedule these substances 
without thinking about the scientific and medical evidence. Kicking the 
can down the road by temporarily scheduling these substances, yet again 
now, without making any effort to follow the scientific process, is 
irresponsible. We are preemptively criminalizing substances that may 
not be harmful and may actually be antidotes, that might be the answer 
in helping to curb these horrific overdoses and these horrible deaths. 
The temporary scheduling of fentanyl analogs without testing for 
pharmacological effects means that people will be convicted and 
incarcerated for substances that may have no pharmacological effect.
  I want to again make clear that I am committed to ending this 
pandemic. I carry a picture in my wallet of someone who died from an 
overdose--it was given to me as I crisscrossed this country--so as to 
never forget the everyday emergency.
  As the President mentioned in his speech to this body yesterday, 
confronting the opioid epidemic is something that Republicans and 
Democrats, united, can get behind. It should be bipartisan, but at the 
same time, our response should not be guided by the same old drug war 
ideologies that didn't stop the overuse of drugs. It should be guided 
by the scientific evidence. It should be guided by compassion. It 
should be guided by what works.
  Classwide scheduling ignores the scientific and medical guidance. It 
sets in place a dangerous precedent, and it repeats mistakes we have 
made too many times in the past.
  I have seen the drug war go awry. I have seen this body act in ways 
that have compounded problems and not helped people. I have seen the 
people with addictions--that are diseases--with nothing but jail and 
prison. We can get out of this crisis if we follow the science and if 
we follow what works, but it means Democrats and Republicans coming 
together.
  I have tremendous respect for my colleague. I know we can find a way 
to move forward together. I know, if we continue to work together, we 
are going to find a way forward. I know, because of my experience with 
the senior Senator and his grace, that if we dedicate ourselves to 
working together, we can get good things done for this country. We have 
done it before. In this case, I think we can do it again.
  So, with the deepest respect to my colleague, I respectfully object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I would like to have just a short 
rebuttal.
  I thank my friend for his kind remarks about me as I know that he and 
I have worked together on a lot of pieces of legislation.
  I want to express my disappointment that my bill to extend fentanyl 
scheduling by 14 months cannot proceed at this point, but I won't back 
down from trying to extend this authority in a meaningful and long-term 
way.
  There is more than one way to advance this bill. Today's vote is just 
one of those ways. Like history shows us, this authority can be 
included in funding legislation or move as a bipartisan, unanimous 
bill. I will continue my efforts for its inclusion in the upcoming 
omnibus appropriations bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it.
  Unless the Senator from New Jersey has something to say, I would like 
to proceed on another issue.
  Mr. BOOKER. The Senator may proceed. I have nothing else to say.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.


                                 Russia

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, there are 192 nations on the face of 
this globe. Not one of those 192 nations, including Ukraine, is a 
threat to Russia. Regardless, the Russian military is continuing to 
wage a full-scale war on the nation and the people of Ukraine.
  I am not sure of the reasons because I don't know Putin. The highest 
I have been in the leadership of Russia was, once or twice in my life, 
when having a meeting with Mr. Lavrov, the Foreign Minister. I think, 
when it comes to Putin, he has got to satisfy his ego or he is sick or 
maybe both.
  The Ukrainian military and civilians are fighting for their homes. 
Obviously, they want to be an independent nation. They have our moral 
support and even some of our weapons, and they probably need a lot more 
help from the United States, short of putting troops in that country. I 
wish we had gotten them more defensive weapons before this invasion, 
but I still think there is more that we can do.
  I am an original cosponsor of the NYET bill. ``Nyet'' is the word for 
``no'' in Russian. This legislation that goes by this acronym, the NYET 
Act, literally says no to Russian aggression, with tough, targeted 
support for Ukrainian resistance efforts, even if that turns into a 
guerilla war, and there are a number of other bills to crush the Putin 
regime.
  Russia, as we know, is a major oil and gas producer, so Putin's 
actions are hurting not just Ukrainian and Russian citizens but 
Americans as well. Just think of the $1 or more increase in the price 
of gasoline we are paying today compared to 1 year ago. This situation 
comes at the same time Americans across the country are already paying 
more for gas than at any time since 2014. That number comes from AAA 
data.
  Last night, I was encouraged to hear President Biden pledge to ``use 
every tool at our disposal'' to limit gas price hikes after he imposed 
sanctions on Russia. It is time for Congress and the White House to 
rethink policies that threaten our energy independence and, at the same 
time, our national security.
  That is why already this week I have helped to introduce the American 
Energy Independence Act with Senator Hawley, which would reverse the 
President's shutdown of the energy sector and return it to full 
production so that we will have energy independence like we had until 
12 months ago.
  Last night, the President talked about buying American products. Yet 
it seems like oil and natural gas--very major components of our 
economy--were excluded from his rhetoric. When it comes to oil, the 
United States imports nearly 700,000 barrels of oil a day from Russia. 
That is why I introduced legislation yesterday with Senator Marshall 
that would ban purchases of Russian oil.
  I am also backing a new bill by Senator Rubio to make American oil 
companies sever ties with Russian state-owned oil and gas companies as 
many of these companies already have done.
  I support harsh sanctions that hit Putin where it really hurts him. 
In turn, you will affect the entirety of the Russian people, who are 
innocent of this dictator's running of their country, all the harm he 
is causing them right now. But we ought to free the world from a 
Russian energy blackmail and keep gas affordable here at home with 
American-produced energy.

  Some of my colleagues are looking to lower prices at the gas pump by 
pushing for a gas tax freeze. That would be a very short-term, 
unsustainable move that would blow a hole in the highway trust fund.
  Instead, I hope colleagues on both sides of the aisle can work with 
the President to reverse decisions that have increased the price of 
domestic fuel production.
  You remember, on the first day in office, President Biden decided to 
shut down the Keystone Pipeline. President Biden should restart and 
expedite that pipeline.
  Also, in January 2021, President Biden issued an Executive order 
pausing new oil and gas leases on public lands and Federal waters.
  In July 2021, the Interior Department halted all oil drilling on 
leased land within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
  Now, take all these actions. They signal to capital investors that 
the heavy hand of the Federal Government will work against fossil fuel 
investments at every turn. You know, you read about bank regulators all 
the time, discouraging banks from making loans to energy fossil fuels. 
This hostile regulatory environment has crippled investment in fossil 
fuels, which, in turn,

[[Page S930]]

is the reason we have the high price of gasoline.
  Instead of more redtape, the President and Congress should work to 
cut regulations and Federal permitting that slow down, and has slowed 
down, domestic energy production.
  We were, as you know, energy independent 12 months ago. Now, we are 
energy dependent. We have the President begging OPEC and Russia to ship 
us more oil.
  Policies that encourage investments in fossil fuel production will 
increase domestic production, and the result would be lower gas prices, 
just like we can look back at the last 12 months, and all the action 
that has been taken has driven up the price of gasoline.
  But instead of focusing on domestic energy independence last fall, as 
I have already referred to, President Biden instead asked OPEC to pump 
more oil. The OPEC cartel, of course, did not honor that request.
  In 2000, when he was a Senator, now-President Biden acknowledged that 
anticompetitive behavior from OPEC harms American consumers and called 
on President Clinton to consider legal action against OPEC. OPEC is an 
organization which blatantly colludes to raise the price of oil.
  I have introduced the bipartisan bill entitled No Oil Producing and 
Exporting Cartels--it goes by the acronym NOPEC--which would allow the 
Department of Justice to hold OPEC accountable for its anticompetitive 
behaviors that artificially inflate global oil prices. I ask again for 
President Biden to publicly support the passage of NOPEC and work with 
Congress to pass this legislation into law.
  Besides focusing on fossil fuels, we know that ethanol makes up 10 
percent of the gas sold in the United States. When oil prices are high, 
it gives higher blends of ethanol a clear competitive advantage.
  Historically, gas prices gradually rise in the spring and peak late 
summer when people are driving more frequently. But last fall, the 
Supreme Court rejected EPA's regulation allowing year-round E15 sales. 
Congress must move quickly to ensure that E15 can be sold this summer. 
E15 is a cleaner, higher-octane type of gasoline that contains more 
homegrown ethanol and less petroleum.
  Both biodiesel and ethanol are proven domestic supplies of fuel that 
enhance our energy independence and, at the same time, lower greenhouse 
gas emissions.
  Domestic biofuel producers are ready to step up and to give consumers 
lower gas prices that increase our national security and provide jobs 
in the heartland--good-paying jobs.
  Most Americans do not care where the oil was produced when they fill 
up their gas tanks. They just want to fill up their gas tanks without 
taking out a loan to do it. But when conflict occurs in oil-producing 
regions around the world, Americans quickly realize the importance of 
your gas being a mix of West Texas crude and Iowa ethanol.
  In just over a year, we can see how the United States is losing 
energy independence. Instead of focusing on domestic fuel production, 
the President and his administration have caved to the most radical 
environmentalists in shaping our energy policy. It is time to reverse 
course.
  I am taking the President at his word when he said in the State of 
the Union Address last night that he wants to use every tool at his 
disposal to limit gas price hikes. So I have just given several ways 
that we can use every tool that the President is talking about. And, of 
course, it is time to get to work.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, first, I want to thank my colleague who 
just spoke about some really important issues.
  Senator Grassley from Iowa talked about the fentanyl crisis that is 
facing our country. Unfortunately, this synthetic opioid is now killing 
more and more Americans. We are back to record levels of overdose 
deaths, and probably two-thirds of them are caused by fentanyl.
  He is absolutely right. We need to be sure it is scheduled clearly as 
an illegal drug, as well as all the variants of it.


            Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act of 2022

  Mr. President, I am coming on the floor today to talk about another 
issue that is really important to our country, and that is protecting 
us from cyber attacks.
  Last night, I commend this body because the U.S. Senate passed 
legislation called the Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act of 
2022.
  What does that mean? It means that we took the time to do our 
homework, had hearings, and reported out legislation that helps protect 
our government data, including personal data of American citizens, but 
also our national security data and other sensitive information from 
cyber attacks.
  Also, we put in place provisions to help protect the private sector, 
particularly critical infrastructure.
  With what is going on right now around the world, particularly with 
regard to Russia and Ukraine, it is incredibly important that we put up 
better defenses here in this country, as well as helping Ukraine and 
other countries to fight against these cyber attacks.
  In recent years, we have seen this time and time again. I am sure you 
remember the Colonial Pipeline. Remember, they shut down gasoline 
distribution to the eastern part of the United States. These were cyber 
attacks.
  You probably heard of some of these other cyber attacks, like 
SolarWinds or ones where these criminal gangs demand a ransom using so-
called ransomware. This is happening increasingly.
  Again, my concern is, particularly with what is going on today in our 
volatile and dangerous world, that it will continue to happen and even 
become much more dangerous for us.
  The House of Representatives now has a chance to take up this 
legislation and pass it. They have been working with us on this all 
along on a bicameral basis, the House and the Senate, Republican and 
Democrat. This hasn't been a partisan issue. It has been one of these 
issues where we have worked together.
  Senator Peters, who is the chair of the Homeland Security and 
Government Affairs Committee--I am the ranking Republican, top 
Republican--we have worked together on this, but so did a lot of other 
members across the aisle.
  Senator Rubio and Senator Warner, Senator Collins, and others, they 
vitally represent the Intelligence Committee, which also has a strong 
interest in this.
  In my role as the ranking member on Homeland Security, we spend a lot 
of time focused on the oversight of this issue, how to respond to 
things like SolarWinds we talked about or Colonial Pipeline or other 
cyber attacks. What we have found is that these cyber attacks are 
increasingly sophisticated and that our own government doesn't have the 
tools they need, and that is why this legislation is so important.
  Russia's invasion of Ukraine is an atrocity. It must not stand. But 
one of the things they have done in Ukraine for the last 8 years--and, 
really, before that as well, but particularly the last 8 years, since 
2014 when Ukraine decided to turn to the West, to turn to us--is Russia 
had done these cyber attacks relentlessly in Ukraine. And they are 
stepping them up right now, along with the horrible scenes we see of 
the bombings of innocent civilians in their apartment buildings. I saw 
today that not only have hospitals and childcare institutions been 
bombed but also the Holocaust memorial in Kyiv has been damaged. So 
what the Russians are doing is appalling, and the entire freedom-loving 
world needs to stand up to it, and we need to help Ukraine more.

  But one thing they have also done is they have launched these cyber 
attacks against the Ukrainian Government and against the private sector 
infrastructure in Ukraine. That, too, is a place where we can help.
  But, again, we need to be sure that we have our own house in order 
here to be able to be more helpful, to be able to provide the best 
practices, and to help Ukraine be able to deal with these attacks, both 
kinetic attacks, these military attacks, and also the cyber attacks.
  Many times, the cyber attacks are also mixed with disinformation 
attacks because the Russians are flooding the zone and trying to take 
their disinformation and their lies and spread it around to the 
Ukrainian people. By the way, not many people are

[[Page S931]]

believing it anymore because it is so outrageous.
  In China, we see another sophisticated cyber adversary ramping up 
their rhetoric and their incursion into Taiwan's air defense zone. All 
these threats make enacting this legislation we passed last night all 
the more important.
  Legislation has three complementary bills combined into one. First, 
it will protect our critical infrastructure better from cyber attacks 
by increasing our visibility as a country into these cyber attacks and 
building the government's ability to warn potential victims and mount a 
nationwide defense and provide best practices to our critical 
infrastructure.
  It will strengthen the government's own response and recovery 
capabilities, protecting sensitive data as well. And, finally, it will 
make government acquisition and use of cloud services more secure, more 
accountable, more efficient, and, significantly, keep countries like 
China and Russia from being able to access the cloud.
  All of these bills were passed out of the Homeland Security and 
Government Affairs Committee with strong bipartisan support. And, 
again, it passed the Senate overwhelmingly last night.
  The first of these bills that I mentioned is called the Cyber 
Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act. Cyber attacks 
against U.S. critical infrastructure, whether by foreign governments, 
like Russia and China, or criminal organizations, are, of course, a 
serious national security threat.
  Today, no one U.S. Government agency has visibility into all the 
cyber attacks occurring against critical infrastructure on a daily 
basis. We need that. We need to know what is going on to be able to 
warn other infrastructure and to be able to respond quickly.
  Right now, if Russia initiates a cyber campaign against U.S. critical 
infrastructure, there would be nothing to ensure that the U.S. 
Government is notified of that so it can mount a nationwide response 
and, again, warn other critical infrastructure operators similarly 
situated.
  This bill would change that, enabling a coordinated, informed U.S. 
response to cyber attacks against the United States.
  The Cyber Incident Reporting Act will require critical infrastructure 
owners and operators to report substantial cyber attacks within 72 
hours and ransomware payments within 24 hours to what is called the 
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. It is called CISA.
  CISA has done an effective job in the Trump administration, now in 
the Biden administration, but they need these tools to be able to do a 
better job.
  CISA having this information will be able to use the data to 
immediately contact the FBI and other appropriate law enforcement but 
also to help with best practices to mitigate the damage and to warn 
other critical infrastructures of threats, help these victims recover, 
analyze trends, and enable a whole-of-the-nation defense and response 
to these attacks.
  It is a cyber attack. It is not soldiers with guns, but it can have 
some of the same horrible impacts and damage to our economy and to 
individuals. Again, think of the oil pipeline, Colonial Pipeline, being 
basically shut off to the whole East Coast of the United States.
  The second bill that is part of this package is called the Federal 
Information Cyber Security Modernization Act, or FISMA.
  FISMA is the acronym for the way in which we protect our Federal 
Agencies. And, unfortunately, we know that Federal Agencies--government 
Agencies--have failed to protect Americans' data--our data, personal 
data.
  Last August, I released a report with Chairman Peters detailing the 
significant cyber security vulnerabilities of eight different key 
Federal Agencies--Homeland Security, State, Transportation, Housing and 
Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Education, 
and the Social Security Administration--the Social Security 
Administration where a lot of our sensitive information is kept.
  This report that we issued followed a report just a few years ago, in 
2019, that I issued with Senator Carper when I was chair of the 
Permanent Committee on Investigations, and we investigated all eight of 
these Agencies to determine how they were doing in terms of pushing 
back against cyber attacks.
  In last year's report, only the Department of Homeland Security had 
an effective cyber security program. No other Agency we reviewed met 
the standard. And we found that, governmentwide, the average cyber 
security grade in pushing back against these cyber attacks was a C-
minus--not the grade I would have wanted to take home to my parents. 
But that is the truth. We are just not prepared.
  The report identifies several common Agency vulnerabilities, 
including the failure to protect personally identifiable information. 
Again, think about some of these Agencies, HHS or Social Security. That 
is a big issue; second, maintain an accurate list of the Agencies' IT 
equipment so they know what they have; third, install security patches 
quickly; and, fourth, replace vulnerable and insecure legacy 
technology. A lot of these Agencies have technology that needs to be 
updated that is stovepiped--in other words, isn't working well together 
and that makes it difficult to push back against these cyber attacks.
  In the 7 years since FISMA was last updated, Federal Agencies have 
had these same vulnerabilities year after year, putting America's data 
at risk. So this legislation takes the important steps to remedy these 
systemic problems we identified. It incorporates recommendations from 
my bipartisan reports with Senator Peters and Senator Carper and will 
adopt a risk-based approach to cyber security budgeting; position the 
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency--CISA, we talked about 
earlier--as the lead Agency in securing these Federal networks. There 
needs to be accountability, and that is missing now.
  We need to require Agencies to notify Americans whose personal 
identifiable information is compromised during a breach. To me, this is 
just a basic requirement for government. If you have personal 
information that has been breached because the government system has 
not been properly protected, you ought to be told about that so you can 
take your own steps to protect yourself.
  Complement the Cyber Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act by 
ensuring that Federal Agencies and contractors also notify CISA when 
they suffer a breach. We talked about that earlier. But having that 
information is very helpful.
  And, finally, update the requirements for congressional notification 
when an Agency suffers a major cyber incident.
  We have an oversight responsibility here. We need to know if there 
has been a major cyber attack.
  Finally, this legislation includes a third part, which is called the 
FedRAMP Authorization Act. This is the one that will authorize the 
Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program that deals with cloud 
computing and protecting the cloud. FedRAMP is a governmentwide program 
administered by the General Services Administration that provides 
Agencies and cloud service providers with a standard approach to 
evaluating, authorizing, and monitoring the security of cloud services. 
So when a Federal Government Agency wants to use the cloud services, 
they have to go through this process.
  In the first 4 years of FedRAMP, the program authorized only 20 cloud 
service providers. Today, there are more than 230 cloud service 
providers--30 percent of which are small businesses. This act builds on 
the successes of FedRAMP and Agencies' continued push to adopt 
commercial cloud solutions by addressing existing costs and processing 
times.
  But it also includes measures to strengthen the government's response 
to foreign interference in our cloud systems. Supply chain security 
experts have warned us about the weaknesses in FedRAMP that leave our 
cloud systems vulnerable to interference from countries like Russia and 
China, North Korea, Iran.
  The reforms in this bill will allow for increased transparency and 
better monitoring of possible foreign influences in FedRAMP-approved 
systems. For example, it requires an Agency to review, on 
an interagency basis, government standards to identify and assess the 
origin of software and code to

[[Page S932]]

provide the transparency and accountability needed into the FedRAMP-
approved systems that are developed and maintained by foreign engineers 
in countries like Russia and China.

  This bill also requires private-sector, third-party assessment 
organizations to disclose to GSA any information they have related to 
any foreign interests, any foreign influences, any foreign control, of 
course, or ownership, and to report a change in foreign ownership or 
control to GSA within 48 hours.
  We have had instances like this where we are using cloud-based 
services that then become bought by a foreign entity and that is not 
reported and therefore they continue to provide these services, which 
is something we need to stop.
  I commend the hard work of so many of my colleagues in crafting this 
broader legislation, including Chairman Peters, Chairman Warner, 
Ranking Member Rubio, Senator Collins of the Intelligence Committee, as 
well as so many other colleagues on the Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs Committee and the Intel Committee.
  I also want to thank our colleagues in the House, particularly 
Representatives Clarke and Katko, because this has been a truly 
bicameral exercise, both in terms of the oversight and identifying what 
the problems are and coming up with appropriate legislation.
  And by the way, this legislation is strongly supported by those in 
the administration who are responsible for dealing with cyber attacks. 
They need these tools, and they want these tools.
  We are not done yet because it has just passed the Senate. It has not 
passed the House. But we need to move quickly to enact these important 
changes to modernize our cyber security posture.
  I urge the House to act quickly, to be sure we can protect ourselves 
from cyber attacks, particularly in this increasingly dangerous 
environment. I would hope that we could send this critically important 
legislation to the President's desk for signature very soon and be sure 
we are doing all we know to do to be able to better protect our country 
and our citizens in cyber attacks.


                               H.R. 3076

  Mr. President, we are also on the floor today talking about the 
postal reform legislation. I know we are going back and forth trying to 
determine how many amendments will be offered and which amendments are 
germane or relevant to the legislation or not. But let me just say that 
we already had a strong vote to move to this legislation. We had a vote 
of over 70 Members, which is rare around here--a strong bipartisan vote 
saying let's move forward with this postal reform. And it is really 
important we do it because the post office is in deep trouble. And if 
we don't act, it is going to get a lot worse. We are going to have big 
problems.
  In looking at this issue, again, in my oversight responsibilities on 
the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, it looks 
like, in the next few years, the post office would probably go 
insolvent. And none of us wants that. When that happens, there would 
probably be a big government bailout.
  So this legislation, along with internal reforms that the post office 
is making themselves--and I commend them for that--is intended to avoid 
that problem. It is intended to ensure that we can get this under 
control before there is an insolvency.
  Right now, the post office is projecting a 10-year loss of $160 
billion if we just continue with the status quo. The reality is, the 
post office is in a tough business situation. Think about it. How many 
first-class letters have you sent recently? And how many did you send 5 
years ago or 10 years ago? Probably more. Increasingly, we are relying 
on sending things by email and not sending them by first-class mail. 
That changes the post office's business model.
  They are also delivering to more and more addresses because everybody 
wants to be connected to the post office to receive packages, to 
receive other kinds of mail--advertising, newspapers, bills. People who 
are reliant on getting their prescriptions through the mail are very 
eager to see the post office be strong and, of course, be a post office 
that addresses their universal service requirement--in other words, 
goes to every single mailbox around America.

  So the math doesn't work very well when you have more and more 
addresses and not as much first-class mail to be sent out. That is one 
reason that the post office is in trouble. And we need to address that 
new reality.
  The current Postmaster General, by the way, whose name is Louis 
DeJoy, came and talked to some of us yesterday about this and talked 
about an ambitious plan that he has embarked on along with the support 
of the postal Board of Governors and the support of the previous 
administration and this administration to ensure that we can transform 
the post office by finding efficiencies, including transforming 
existing capabilities to make sure they more efficiently meet the needs 
of the American people.
  He has a 10-year plan that makes changes to make the post office more 
efficient, but it also continues to have this universal service 
obligation where everybody is going to be getting their mail. In fact, 
under our legislation, there is also a 6-day-per-week mail delivery 
requirement. So it is not just that everybody's post office box or 
mailbox or door is being serviced by the post office but that it is 
done 6 days a week.
  But he needs help to do that. In particular, he has made it very 
clear to us that he needs the financial space to be able to put these 
reforms in place to be able to take away some of the huge liabilities 
that they currently face at the post office. That is what we do in this 
legislation.
  First, we eliminate a burdensome prefunding requirement for retiree 
health benefits. This has really been a problem for the post office. It 
has made their lives much more difficult. We mandated this in Congress 
back in 2006 for current employees. This has crippled the post office 
financially.
  You should know, by the way, prefunding of healthcare retiree 
benefits is something the Federal Government does not do. So other 
Agencies and Departments don't have to do that. It is also not 
something the private sector does. So it is something that the post 
office uniquely has had to deal with, and, again, it has been a 
financial burden for them that has really made their financial 
statements extremely difficult.
  Second, we require post office employees who are retiring, who have 
been paying into Medicare their entire career, by the way, to join up 
with Part B and Part D of Medicare--in other words, to go into 
Medicare, and instead of having the Federal employee health benefit 
plan be their plan, to have that be the backup and have Medicare be 
their primary payer.
  Everybody is in Part A, by the way, already--Medicare Part A. But 
some Postal Service employees are not enrolled in Parts B and D.
  Now, about 75 percent are enrolled in entire Medicare but, again, 
about 25 percent are not. So that saves money for the post office 
because Medicare is not as generous a program, frankly, as Federal 
employee health benefit plans or the new Postal Service Federal health 
benefit plan.
  Third, we require the Postal Service to maintain its current standard 
of this 6-day-a-week delivery we talked about through an integrated 
delivery system of mail and packages. That simply says that the status 
quo ought to continue so that you are delivering packages and letters 
at the same time, not separately. That would be incredibly inefficient, 
to say, OK, you are going to have a separate system for packages and a 
separate system for letters.
  In addition to doing all these things, the Congressional Budget 
Office estimates that the bill is going to save money. It is going to 
save $1.5 billion a year to the American taxpayer.
  I would also like to note what the bill does not do because there has 
been some information out there, including one editorial I saw 
recently. One, it doesn't appropriate any new funds to the U.S. Post 
Office.
  Two, it does not change the accounting or cost structure for packages 
and letters. So it does not disadvantage private-sector carriers. It is 
the status quo. And that is very important to me.
  Third, it does not impact the solvency of the Medicare hospital trust 
fund. That is the Part A trust that is

[[Page S933]]

going broke in a short number of years. And that is the big focus of a 
lot of us: make sure that doesn't happen. It does not affect Part A 
trust fund at all.
  It also does not increase the Medicare Part B or Part D premiums. And 
that is important, I think, to a lot of us.
  And, finally, it does not allow the post office to enter into new 
commercial services like postal banking, which I believe would be a big 
mistake.
  The legislation received strong bipartisan support when it was taken 
up in the House of Representatives a couple of weeks ago. It passed by 
a vote of 342 to 92. Not much gets passed in terms of major legislation 
along those lines. And I am proud of the people who worked hard on this 
on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol to come up 
with a bipartisan bill. It is not the bill any one of us would have 
written, but it is the right bill to save the post office.
  I think Republicans and Democrats alike in the House looked at this 
and said: We have to do something here. We do not want the post office 
to go belly-up.
  Some say that this is a whole lot better than the alternative. I 
agree with that. I think that is one of the reasons we need to pass 
this. It does get the Postal Service back on track; again, with reforms 
being undertaken internally at the post office itself--that combination 
of what we are doing here to provide them some financial space to be 
able to make the reforms and the reforms that they are doing.
  I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation. 
Let's put the Postal Service in a position to succeed, to continue to 
provide these essential services. Small businesses and our veterans 
with regard to their healthcare, prescriptions being delivered, and our 
rural constituents absolutely need the post office to be there to 
service them. They rely on this. That is why so many, again, of my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle strongly support this 
legislation.
  I want to thank my colleague Senator Peters for working with us over 
time to find consensus on this bill. Let's pass it and ensure that the 
Postal Service--the post office--remains viable for years and years 
ahead. Nothing is more important to my rural constituents, who talked 
to me about this quite a bit, than ensuring that the post office stays 
healthy. It is really important to, again, some of the veterans I 
represent who get their needed medication through the mail.
  It is important to our voting system in this country because a lot of 
voting is by mail, including in Ohio, where for many years we had 
absentee voting that is no-fault absentee. We rely on our post office 
to ensure our ballots get delivered on time.
  This is an opportunity on a bipartisan basis to ensure the post 
office remains strong. I hope we take advantage of it and pass this 
legislation and have appropriate amendments in the meantime and get 
this done in short order.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Rosen). The Senator from Indiana.


                              S.J. Res. 32

  Mr. BRAUN. I am here today to talk about vaccine mandates. Of course, 
I led the effort on the vaccine mandate that was preposterous when our 
administration said ``Either take a vaccine or lose your job,'' 
impacting down to 100 employees.
  Thank goodness the Supreme Court weighed in, citing that 
Congressional Review Act as one of the reasons it did it, taking that 
cue from here in Congress. But there still are mandates remaining, and 
it has to do with the Biden administration's pandemic policies that 
have just gone too far, and millions of workers are dealing with the 
consequences.
  You cannot make these arbitrary decisions, especially when it was 
clear we were coming to some type of resolution, some type of different 
dynamic with the COVID saga, and then drop these kinds of mandates upon 
any entity at the worst possible time.
  In this case, we are talking about the CMS vaccine mandate on 
healthcare workers--10 million of them affected. The very same 
frontline workers who have been heroes and served their fellow 
Americans during the pandemic were given a choice: your careers or a 
vaccine.
  With all of the logic that went into the Supreme Court's ruling on 
employers with employees down to 100, it should apply to healthcare 
entities as well.
  It is no surprise that you see healthcare workers leaving at the 
highest rate--leaving their profession--in over 20 years. It is worse 
in rural areas, like the State of Indiana, and that compounds other 
problems that rural places are contending with.
  It also fails to acknowledge evidence-based science that clearly 
tells us stuff now that we didn't know before, like natural infection 
has a much better defense against COVID and it has more durability.
  Common sense doesn't make any difference, and now we have got this. 
He has robbed these healthcare workers of the freedom to make their own 
choices and added to the challenges patients have had to access the 
healthcare system. Today, the Senate can overturn this mandate--another 
example of government in overdrive, getting into individual decisions 
it was never intended to.
  I urge my colleagues to correct this later today, and let's base this 
on science, not political science, which seems to drive so many of the 
decisions here.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to use a 
stethoscope as a prop during my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, last year, I put my sport coats and 
ties away and broke out some scrubs, found my stethoscope and a lab 
coat, and went to work fighting COVID on the frontlines of hospitals 
and community centers in Wyandotte County, KS, and Seward County, KS.
  This is a picture of some of the heroes I worked with. I think what 
is important to note is this is a time when none of us knew how bad 
this virus was. It reminded me, as a medical student, working on HIV 
patients. Myself geared up from head to toe with patient protective 
equipment, personal protective equipment, nurses, respiratory 
therapists, radiology techs--all of us not knowing how bad this virus 
was and how easily it could spread.
  Today, these heroes are being punished. These heroes came to work 
every day covered from head to toe in personal protective equipment, 
with each one knowing that they could contract COVID-19 from any one of 
their patients at any given time.
  This particular setting, an ICU--an ICU with 8 beds and 13 patients.
  Despite the risk to them, to their families--think about that. Think 
about having children at home or a spouse, that you were not only 
risking your own life but the fear of taking this virus home with you. 
But they threw themselves into the fire, so to speak, all in the effort 
to save Kansans from a pandemic that was raging across our communities.
  In the earliest months of this pandemic and still to this day, our 
healthcare heroes have displayed sacrifice and dedication to the 
American people. It is a reminder to all of us how essential these 
people are in ensuring the safety of our communities.
  They weren't left unscathed. Between burnout and suicide, the 
pandemic took a heavy toll on their physical and mental health--
doctors, nurses, all the supporting staffs in these hospitals, in the 
nursing homes, in the emergency rooms.
  The resulting exodus of fatigued and demoralized doctors and nurses 
and other frontline workers is exacerbating a labor shortage which 
already existed across rural Kansas and across rural America long, long 
before the pandemic occurred.
  Since February of 2020, roughly one in five healthcare workers has 
quit their job--one in five--according to a poll published late last 
year. In September, the American Nurses Association sent a letter to 
HHS Secretary Becerra urging the Agency to declare the nursing shortage 
a national crisis and to take immediate action to confront the issue.
  I can tell you, I don't talk to any doctor back home, any hospital 
administrator, who is not going to grab me and say: We have got a huge 
nursing shortage. You have to do something about it.

[[Page S934]]

  The nursing homes, the rehab centers are all suffering huge, huge 
nursing shortages. The nursing colleges are now having a huge shortage 
of teachers. Nearly a third of the country's 15,000 nursing homes 
reported a shortage of nurses or aides. Hospitals have been forced to 
recruit foreign nurses, and National Guardsmen have had to fill in as 
nursing assistants to ease these problems. These shortages are 
particularly impactful in rural areas like my home State of Kansas.
  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services acknowledges there are 
currently ``endemic staff shortages for all categories of employees at 
almost all kinds of healthcare providers and suppliers.'' Despite this 
acknowledgement, President Biden and his public health officials went 
forward with this vaccine mandate, knowing it could and would lead to 
more firings--firings like those we saw in New York, where 33,000 
healthcare workers were fired--33,000. They were fired, retired, or 
placed on unpaid leave because they chose not to abide by the State's 
mandatory inoculation policy.
  Labor shortages at healthcare facilities will impede access for the 
elderly and the poor--those who are supposed to be cared for under 
Medicare and Medicaid.
  In addition to the impact this would have on the healthcare 
workforce, this mandate puts additional burdens on hospitals and State 
surveyors. The rule requires covered entities to comply with redtape by 
requiring them to develop and implement policies to ensure compliance 
with the mandate, meanwhile taking nurses away from that contact with 
the patients who need the attention.
  CMS estimated that the cost of this mandate on private-sector 
entities would exceed $158 million. Follow-on guidance issued by CMS 
recently also required State surveyors to enforce the Federal 
Government's vaccine mandate by verifying compliance at healthcare 
facilities. This will take away, again, limited resources at the State 
level and prevent them from fulfilling their traditional surveying and 
certification duties, not to mention multiple States have laws on their 
books prohibiting vaccination as a condition of employment for State 
agencies.

  As a physician, I am confident that the vaccine has saved lives, and 
I am so grateful for the vaccines. However, whether to receive it or 
not is a personal choice between individuals and their doctor, not 
mandated via unconstitutional Executive actions. I still believe in the 
sanctity of the patient-physician relationship.
  Make no mistake, this Federal vaccine mandate is not about public 
health or science and fails to account for changes in data and the 
circumstances of the virus. If it were, we would recognize natural 
immunity as a highly effective way to combat the virus. Mountains of 
evidence show that those who achieved immunity through natural 
infection--many of them being on our frontline, those healthcare heroes 
from yesterday--are highly protected against reinfection.
  The mandate was also crafted when the Delta variant was the dominant 
strain in the United States. Omicron is now the dominant strain. It is 
much milder and has a 91-percent lower risk of death than Delta.
  Additionally, research shows the traditional COVID vaccine dosing 
regimen provides little protection against transmission of the Omicron 
variant, basically said that natural immunity is at least as good if 
not better than vaccination from the original vaccines.
  As noted by Dr. Fauci, ``Omicron, with its extraordinary, 
unprecedented degree of . . . transmissibility, will ultimately find 
just about everybody,'' and even those who have received the initial 
vaccine and subsequent booster ``will still get infected.'' And we saw 
that play out, right? We all saw that play out. Many, many people who 
had gotten the vaccine ended up with the Omicron virus, and certainly 
we also found out that natural immunity was much better than the 
original vaccines against Omicron.
  Most absurdly, in late January, the CDC issued guidance that allows 
COVID-positive healthcare workers to return to work. Let me say that 
again. The hypocrisy. The CDC issued guidance that allows COVID-
positive healthcare workers to return to work even if they are still 
testing positive. How many people in America would want a COVID-
positive respiratory therapist intubating their loved one in an ICU?
  These examples just show how flawed the science is behind the CMS 
vaccine mandate. As previously stated, that is because this vaccine 
mandate is not about public health or science. The Biden 
administration's mandate is about fulfilling their desire to control 
every aspect of our lives, and it is a slap in the face to the hard-
working men and women who never took a day off in the frontline fight 
of the COVID-19 battle.
  These are real people with real families. They are working to feed 
their families, and they have mortgages to pay. And these are smart 
people. These are well-educated people--people who thoughtfully 
considered the vaccine and then decided it was not best for them. These 
were my medical school classmates, successful physicians working at 
medical centers, experts in their fields who had looked at the data and 
had deeply either religious reasons or scientific reasons for not 
taking the vaccine.
  Each day, we hear from Kansans faced with the difficult decision of 
taking the jab or losing their job. We even surveyed dozens of 
healthcare providers across the State who are already citing shortages 
and other staffing issues due to the mandate. In fact, 87 percent of 
the surveyed oppose the mandate or cited numerous concerns with it.
  These jobs can't be replaced overnight, and with the March 15 
deadline for nearly all healthcare workers who haven't received two 
doses looming, what we are about to witness is a government-induced 
labor shortage and, in turn, a health crisis we can't afford. That 
health crisis will affect every American, whether you are waiting for 
your elective hip to be replaced or you are waiting to get your loved 
one moved from a hospital setting into some type of a nursing home or 
assisted living facility. You all, every one of us, will be impacted.
  One respondent put it best when he told us this:

       [W]e are concerned that the execution [of the mandate] will 
     exacerbate an already dire workforce crisis in long term 
     care. A hard deadline with no resources for providers or 
     glide path for unvaccinated workers is likely to push too 
     many out the door and ultimately, threaten residents' access 
     to long term care.

  Now, I know some here will say that the Supreme Court ruled to uphold 
this mandate earlier this year and this is settled, but that is not the 
full story here. The Supreme Court opinion which lifted the stay on the 
rule focused primarily on the Secretary of HHS's statutory authority to 
impose conditions upon healthcare facilities participating in Medicare 
and Medicaid. This does not mean it is a good rule or it is a 
beneficial condition to have placed on those facilities given 
everything I have laid out here today. In fact, it is a hardship to 
those facilities, and it is a hardship for the families of the loved 
ones who are in those facilities.
  This fight against a harmful rule continues here on the Senate floor, 
and I am going to keep fighting along with all those throughout this 
Nation's Federal judicial system.
  Quick update. Sixteen States have joined together in a new filing 
last month to once again block the Federal Government from enforcing 
the mandate in their respective States. Sixteen States think the CMS 
has got this wrong. They think the White House has got this wrong. 
Additionally, the attorney general in my home State of Kansas, Derek 
Schmidt, is leading the fight. He, along with nine other attorneys 
general, has asked a separate Federal court to reopen litigation.
  No, we are not even close to stopping this fight.
  It has been an incredibly tough time these past couple of years. We 
have lost over 950,000 Americans to COVID-19. We have seen mental 
health issues skyrocket, suicides on the rise, and substance abuse 
increase.
  But if there is one thing that is for sure, though, it is that 
Americans will keep fighting to get through this. Frontline workers in 
hospitals, doctors' offices, community health centers, and beyond will 
fight even harder; that is if we remove the burden of the vaccine 
mandate and our healthcare heroes aren't forced to leave their jobs.

[[Page S935]]

  Just this week, England terminated their COVID vaccination 
requirement for all health and social services. We must do the same. I 
urge my colleagues to support this resolution of disapproval to 
invalidate President Biden's overreaching and harmful vaccine mandate 
for our healthcare workers. This is a major element of the government's 
overreaching COVID-19 response that must begin to be scaled back. Not 
only is it coercive and unconstitutional, the mandate does not take 
into account the fact that natural immunity is as effective as the 
vaccines and that vaccines do not prevent transmission of the Omicron 
variant. Additionally, we all know--we all see it--we have a massive 
labor shortage in our healthcare industry and must do everything in our 
power to fight for Americans who ran to the sound of the battle, for 
these are the true heroes of the pandemic and deserve our best fight 
and utmost respect.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Madam President, as you saw at the State of the Union 
Address last night, a number of pandemic restrictions in Congress have 
seemingly ended, thanks to the CDC's convenient decision to update its 
guidance on mask wearing and social distancing earlier this week.
  Some Democratic politicians in the room were cheering, chanting, 
embracing, and crowding. Though many of them continue to publicly 
condemn those who have chosen not to wear masks or socially distance, 
they were maskless and were not distanced themselves. So why the 
immediate change? Well, perhaps it is because they simply could not 
waste the political opportunity for partisan theater with which they 
could raise the curtain on their Big Government aspirational new 
normal.
  Sure, President Biden can attempt to hide behind CDC guidance, the 
very same CDC guidance that crafted a complex system to provisionally 
grant Americans permission to live as free citizens, but he fell into a 
perpetual pitfall of the left. He forgot that Americans are a lot 
smarter, perhaps, than he thinks they are.
  Americans can see through the transparent political theater and the 
constructive convenient timing. They see the hypocrisy. They know that 
the only science that has changed is the political science. They saw 
the powerful elite gather to praise their own playacted benevolence, 
foresight, and leadership, all while countless Americans who are 
suffering from the real failures of President Biden and his party are 
losing their jobs because of draconian Federal vaccine mandates.
  What a sorry state of affairs and what a sad set of conditions.
  Americans see and feel the hypocrisy. The people of Utah and the 
United States do not want the false freedom pushed by a political class 
that refuses to relinquish control over citizens' lives. They want real 
freedom, the kind promised by the Declaration of Independence and 
protected by the Constitution. They want to be able to live their 
lives, raise their families, and make their own medical decisions 
without a ``Mother, may I'' from President Biden or the vast throngs of 
nameless, faceless, unelected, unaccountable Federal bureaucrats.
  They want to be able to provide for their families without the threat 
of being fired if they don't submit to a medical procedure that they 
don't want.
  I am honored to join my friend and colleague, Senator Marshall, in 
standing for American workers. Today, we stand for the millions of 
healthcare workers that were some of the heroes of this pandemic. They 
came to work and cared for the sick before vaccines were even 
available. They should not be forced to submit to a procedure or risk 
their livelihoods.
  This isn't our first effort to end these Federal mandates. I have 
tried dozens of bills dozens of times to end this draconian overreach. 
I am proud to continue this fight.
  We will not stop until freedom is restored. We will not stop until 
American moms and dads can provide for their families without kowtowing 
to President Biden's vaccine mandates and without submitting to 
Presidential medical orthodoxy in this or any future administration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to speak for up to 15 minutes, followed by Senator Marshall for up to 1 
minute, prior to the scheduled rollcall vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, as my colleague from Utah just noted a 
minute ago, he has been asking for votes on this matter repeatedly. And 
today, he and others seek to invalidate a regulation issued by the 
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that require most healthcare 
providers to be vaccinated.
  And suffice it to say, this is something that the Supreme Court has 
ruled on. The Supreme Court has actually taken this up and agrees with 
our position that, in effect, this is an area where there is a strong 
public interest. And I believe what my colleague is proposing is just 
far outside the mainstream of opinion regarding vaccinations in 
America. There simply is a point where an anti-mandate agenda becomes a 
dangerous anti-vaccine agenda, and my colleagues on the other side, in 
my view, have crossed that line quite some time ago.
  So I am just going to take a few minutes to describe why I think this 
is such an extreme position outside what the vast majority of Americans 
agree and in contrast to what the Supreme Court has said.
  Americans support a vaccine provision or requirement for healthcare 
workers by a 20- or 30-point margin--no surprise about that. Everybody 
is concerned about sitting in a room with a doctor or nurse who may be 
contagious and who has been unvaccinated. I want to particularly 
emphasize the people affected here who are the most vulnerable based on 
what we have seen during the pandemic. We are talking about those with 
chronic illness and seniors.
  Three-quarters of the Americans who died of COVID-19 were seniors, 
and 200,000 of those COVID deaths were Americans living or working in 
long-term care facilities like nursing homes. Many others were in and 
out of hospitals and doctors' offices routinely.
  Making sure that healthcare workers are vaccinated, colleagues, I 
don't think is about any partisan position. It is about a commonsense 
policy designed to keep seniors--people I have worked with for 7 years; 
before I came to the Congress, I was director of the Gray Panthers--I 
think we all believe we want vulnerable people to be safe. So I am 
going to start by quoting a ruling by the Roberts Court--hardly, at 
this point, colleagues, some kind of radical left judiciary. Recently, 
they allowed the vaccine requirement for healthcare workers to go 
forward, and I am just going to quote:

       Ensuring that providers take steps to avoid transmitting a 
     dangerous virus to their patients is consistent with the 
     fundamental principle of the medical profession: First, do no 
     harm. It would be the very opposite of efficient and 
     effective administration for a facility that is supposed to 
     make people well to make them sick with COVID-19.

  This vaccine provision or requirement is about keeping our healthcare 
workforce safe. Doctors and nurses in our country are overwhelmed. That 
is what they just told me as I went about my State, going to hospitals 
and vaccination sites and other healthcare programs.
  These providers have been working nonstop for years under 
extraordinary stress, and what they are all about is honoring that 
Hippocratic Oath and trying to save lives. At times in this pandemic, 
our hospitals have been jampacked with COVID patients. If lots of 
doctors and nurses are out sick during a big COVID wave, that has got 
an impact on the standard of care for everybody. It drops for COVID 
patients, for stroke patients, for people hurt in car accidents. Our 
country desperately needs to protect our healthcare workforce.
  Now, right at the heart of my colleagues' case--and as my friend from 
Utah said, we have had a number of debates about this subject--my 
colleagues say every person is unique, and there needs to be 
flexibility when it comes to vaccines. Colleagues, I am just fine with 
that. The fact is, the administration is allowing for medical and 
religious exemptions. Flexibility is written into the rule because that 
is just plain old common sense.

[[Page S936]]

  Vaccine requirements aren't anything new for healthcare workers. Flu 
shot requirements have been common for a long time. When you go into 
healthcare, it is understood that a vaccine requirement can be part of 
the job.
  Furthermore, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has 
already pushed back the deadline for healthcare workers in several 
States to have their first vaccine dose. Originally, the deadline was 
in December. Now, it is February. The idea that this is somehow an 
inflexible and unreasonable mandate coming from nowhere is just plain 
wrong.
  I would just close by way of saying it is time for us to move past 
these battles that I think regrettably continue to make this pandemic--
which strikes me as having nothing to do with politics--such political 
hutzpah.
  It is good news that the Omicron wave is receding. With any luck, 
that will be the last major COVID wave that threatens to overwhelm our 
healthcare system. We all want our lives to get back to normal, and the 
way to do that is with smart public health policies--and smart public 
health policies, we know, consistently get broad support from the 
American people. That is what the vaccine provision requirement for 
healthcare workers is all about. That is why the Supreme Court upheld 
it.
  I would urge that we oppose this joint resolution and do everything 
we can to make sure that healthcare workers are going to be vaccinated. 
And as I said to my constituents when I was home this weekend, what I 
wanted to make sure was that everybody who could, get vaccinated as 
quickly as possible.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, I appreciate the comments of my 
colleague from the great State of Oregon, but his arguments all rely 
upon one assumption, and that is that the vaccine works to prevent 
transmission.
  But the vaccines don't work to prevent transmission.
  The Supreme Court's ruling was not a ruling on merit. The Medicare 
and Medicaid vaccine mandate will impact every family, every person 
across this great Nation. We already have a dire shortage of doctors, 
nurses, ultrasound techs, custodians, housekeepers, kitchen staff in 
all these hospitals and nursing homes. This mandate will result in more 
staffing shortages and firings.
  The science behind this mandate is quite outdated. Natural immunity 
is stronger than immunity achieved through vaccination at this point in 
time.
  Last night, during the State of the Union Address, President Biden 
said:

       Let's stop looking at the COVID-19 as a partisan dividing 
     line.

  Let's take him at his word. Let's make our actions be consistent with 
his words. Let's repeal this divisive mandate today.
  I urge all my colleagues to support our resolution.
  I yield the floor.


                          Vote on S.J. Res. 32

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
  Under the previous order, the clerk will read the joint resolution by 
title for the third time.
  The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading 
and was read the third time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint resolution having been read the 
third time, the question is, Shall the joint resolution pass?
  Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin), 
the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), the Senator from 
Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan), the 
Senator from California (Mr. Padilla), and the Senator from Minnesota 
(Ms. Smith) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe).
  The result was announced--yeas 49, nays 44, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 67 Leg.]

                                YEAS--49

     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Lummis
     Marshall
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Portman
     Risch
     Romney
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Tuberville
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--44

     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--7

     Baldwin
     Feinstein
     Inhofe
     Klobuchar
     Lujan
     Padilla
     Smith
  The joint resolution (S.J. Res. 32) was passed, as follows:

                              S.J. Res. 32

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That Congress 
     disapproves the rule submitted by the Centers for Medicare & 
     Medicaid Services relating to ``Medicare and Medicaid 
     Programs; Omnibus COVID-19 Health Care Staff Vaccination'' 
     (86 Fed. Reg. 61555 (November 5, 2021)), and such rule shall 
     have no force or effect.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). The Senator from Arkansas.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3731

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, the world is in chaos everywhere you turn. 
In the last week, Vladimir Putin has launched an unprovoked, naked war 
of aggression against the people of Ukraine. The reason he did this is 
because of his imperial ambitions to reincorporate Ukraine into the 
greater Russian Empire in his mind but also because he perceived 
weakness and opportunity in the West and, regrettably, from President 
Biden.
  We saw last night the President congratulated himself on the 
diplomatic coalition he has put together to confront Vladimir Putin. 
That is akin to Neville Chamberlain celebrating the coalition he 
assembled against Germany after Germany invaded Poland. The whole point 
was to deter Vladimir Putin. That failed. Why did that fail? Because 
for the last year, the President has projected weakness and signaled to 
Vladimir Putin that he didn't have the nerve to counteract his 
ambitions. His first action in office was to give Vladimir Putin his 
No. 1 foreign priority--a no-strings-attached extension of a one-sided 
nuclear arms control treaty. Shortly after that, he gave Vladimir Putin 
his second foreign priority. He waived sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 
gas pipeline. We didn't really take stern measures for the Colonial 
Pipeline hack from Russian-affiliated hackers. We rewarded Vladimir 
Putin with a high-stakes summit last summer.
  But it is not just foreign policy; it is also domestic policy here at 
home. As day follows night, Vladimir Putin gets emboldened and more 
aggressive when the price of oil is higher. For the last year, the 
Biden administration has done everything they can to stifle the 
production of American oil and gas that would not only keep the price 
of gasoline lower for our citizens, keep the price of heating their 
homes lower, it would also constrain Vladimir Putin by reducing the 
revenues he has for his war machine.
  But the Biden administration's war on oil and gas has, in fact, 
emboldened him, so much so that we are to this day still importing 
hundreds of thousands of barrels of Russian oil and petroleum products 
every day.
  Since Vladimir Putin launched his naked war of aggression last week, 
we have filled his coffers with millions and millions of American 
dollars to fund his aggression against the Ukrainian people. We still 
haven't taken the steps necessary to stop this--sanctions on Russian 
oil and gas to cut off those revenues, to bankrupt Vladimir Putin's war 
machine, but also to continue the pressure that those sanctions impose,

[[Page S937]]

to begin to once again pump more oil and gas here at home.
  If we really wanted to add the pressure to Vladimir Putin that oil 
and gas sanctions would put on him, we would unleash a flood of 
American oil and gas into the market and deprive Vladimir Putin of 
those revenues. But, instead, on the very day--literally the very day--
last week when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, President Biden halted 
all new oil and gas leases on Federal lands. Think about that. A 
ruthless dictator invades an innocent nation of 45 million souls, using 
oil and gas as a weapon against the West, which could come to the aid 
of that nation, and President Biden's action on that day was to halt 
all new oil and gas leases on Federal lands.
  To the extent the President even talked about energy in his speech 
last night, he simply made pipedream promises about green energy that 
maybe will come true in a decade or two but will do nothing at the 
moment to deter Vladimir Putin and, in fact, will continue to embolden 
him by highlighting a lack of seriousness to confront and undermine his 
aggression.
  In fact, the President only mentioned oil once last night in that 
entire speech when he bragged about releasing 30 million barrels of oil 
from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which wouldn't fuel our country 
for even 2 days.
  What we need is not half measures; we need a sustained, reliable, and 
affordable flow of American energy. That is why I am here to ask for 
unanimous consent for my bill ordering the Biden administration to 
start issuing new oil and gas leases for Federal lands.
  It won't solve all of our problems, but it is an important and 
immediate step that we can take to start producing the American oil and 
gas that will undercut Vladimir Putin's war machine.
  President Biden's foolish energy policy couldn't have come at a worse 
time for Ukraine, but we can begin to end it right now by putting our 
American oil and gas workers back to work. I urge my colleagues to 
stand with Ukraine and to support the bill. It is really a choice 
between American energy or Russian energy. We can decide.
  Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of S. 3731, 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?
  Mr. MARKEY. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I reserve the right to object and to 
explain why to my colleagues here in the Senate.
  This is an unfortunate, terrible exploitation of a crisis in Russia 
by the oil and natural gas industry of the United States of America. 
They have no shame. They have no conscience. They have no sense of 
decency.
  This industry, this unscrupulous industry led by the American 
Petroleum Institute--really the ``American Prevarication Institute,'' 
which is what we are hearing here today and what we have heard on 
airways with tens of millions of dollars of television ads saying we 
have just got to ``drill, baby, drill'' here in the United States, that 
that is the answer to the invasion of Ukraine by the Russians.
  Well, a few facts might be helpful so that the American people can 
understand, once again, that all the American Petroleum Institute is 
about is tipping consumers upside down at the pump and shaking money 
out of their pockets. That is who they are.
  So just a few facts here: The oil industry in the United States has 
bid for leases on American public lands. Right now, 53 percent of the 
leases that the oil industry, the natural gas industry of the United 
States have onshore in our country--in our forests, in our fields--they 
are not drilling on them.
  Fifty-three percent of all the leases that they have from the 
American people, have they been drilling to protect us against this 
day? No, they have not.
  What about offshore? Well, offshore, the oil industry is not using 77 
percent of all of their existing leases off our shores. Right now. And 
what do they do? They come in here with crocodile tears, if only you 
would give us more leases, if only you would take more of the American 
people's land and give it to us, then we will drill.
  Well, this is just hypocrisy on stilts. This is just, again, the 
American Petroleum Institute engaging in exploitative profit-making 
actions, and the Republican Party, sadly, is cooperating with them in 
this time of crisis for the short-term benefit of the American 
Petroleum Institute--which should hang its head in shame about this 
debate that we are having right now, when 77 percent of all the leases 
offshore they haven't drilled yet; 53 percent of all the leases onshore 
they haven't drilled yet.
  And by the way, that area, you want to know how big it is? It is just 
slightly smaller than the State of Arkansas. In other words, they have 
got almost an Arkansas of public lands that they already own, they are 
already leasing from the American public, and they are not drilling on 
it. That would be every square inch of Arkansas. They are not drilling.
  What they do is they bid low for all the leases. They keep them. They 
wait for the day when the price goes high. Then they start drilling. 
They just hoard them. And they are looking for this as another 
opportunity to hoard more--to hoard more.

  Now, the President has responded by deploying the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve in the short term. There are 600,000 barrels of oil a day that 
come into the United States. Thank God our Strategic Petroleum Reserve 
has 600 million barrels; in other words, you can deploy 600,000 barrels 
every day for 1,000 days out of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to make 
up for the Russian oil. We can do that right now.
  But one thing that we should never do is just get stampeded by this 
oil and gas industry greed. This industry that has blocked our movement 
to all-electric vehicles, blocked our movement to wind and solar, 
blocked our ability to blunt the need to have oil for our vehicles, 
natural gas for our homes because it is inconsistent with their 
business interests, their profit-making. They should just be ashamed of 
what they are doing here today--ashamed.
  And the Republican Party should have no part of it. GOP should not 
stand for ``Gas and Oil Party.'' That is what we are hearing here 
today. That is what I am listening to.
  And if we are going to respond, let's respond together as a nation. 
Let's not break this down into partisan politics, special interest 
politics in our country. Let's come together as a nation. Let's work to 
ensure that we are protecting ourselves, that we are protecting 
consumers.
  And if the American Petroleum Institute wants to be part of this, 
there is nothing stopping them from bringing out 2 or 3,000 rigs this 
week, starting to drill on an area the size of Arkansas, waiting for 
them, so the oil can start pumping--not waiting to go through a whole 
leasing process, bidding process. They can do it right now. And you 
know what is going to happen? They are just going to sit there because 
they are making a bundle. They are tipping people upside down. They are 
exploiting this.
  And by the way, let's not understate the partnership which American 
companies--some key oil companies--have with the Russians. That is 
real, too, right now. Let's just not forget the whole history of this. 
How do we get here? How do we get bad foreign policy? How do we get bad 
national policy? How do we get bad oil and gas policy? How do we get 
it? Well, ultimately, behind the curtain in almost every instance you 
find an oil and gas interest somewhere involved.
  And we are hearing it here today. We are hearing it here today. They 
want to drill off the coast of Florida. They want to drill off the 
coast of Maine or, at a minimum, they want the leases so they will be 
ready someday to be able to do it. That is their goal. And meanwhile, 
they just sit on their hands, not drilling, not drilling on an area the 
size of Arkansas because they know the less they do that is the more 
that we can create a panic in our country, with false answers--answers 
that may work on FOX, but it doesn't work in reality. It just doesn't 
work. It is just wrong--plain wrong--to be using this as an issue right 
now for the benefit of the ``American Prevarication Institute.'' And 
behind this whole curtain of dark

[[Page S938]]

money in our country looms the largest voice, which is the oil and gas 
industry of our country.
  So we have got a chance here. We have got a chance to respond in the 
short run with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, getting our allies to 
produce more oil, asking our own American companies to produce more 
oil, and then passing out here on the floor the tax breaks for all-
electric vehicles.
  Now, I will give you a little number. If we just deploy 15 million 
all-electric vehicles, we would back out all the oil from Russia, just 
15 million all-electric vehicles. The next 15 million backs out all of 
the Saudi oil. The next 15 million backs out all of the oil from the 
Middle East.
  You want to do something? You want to terrify them? You want to 
destroy their business model in Russia or the Middle East? That is what 
you should be doing. But, no, what we hear from the Republicans is we 
are not going to support any of that agenda: no money for wind, no 
money for solar, no money for all-electric vehicles, no money for new 
battery storage technologies--no, no, no, no to the long-term solution 
for the next generation of Americans, young people, pages here in the 
well who want to know what is the plan for the long term.
  So that is the sad fact of what is happening here today on the floor. 
So, from my perspective, we don't need to be throwing good land and 
waters at bad actors in our society. It just is wrong. We shouldn't do 
it. And as a result, I object to the motion of the Senator from 
Arkansas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  Mr. COTTON. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.


                                Medicare

  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, imagine this. You are a CEO of a 
company, and one day your CFO comes into your office with bad news. The 
company's costs are rapidly growing, and you aren't bringing in enough 
money to keep pace with the rising costs. The solution here is simple: 
come up with a plan to reduce costs and continue serving your customers 
and honoring your agreements while ensuring that the company can stay 
afloat.
  If you don't adapt and evolve, you fail and go out of business. Most 
Americans understand that. Unfortunately, Congress is not like most 
Americans. We are in charge of running Medicare, and for decades, the 
cost of Medicare has risen dramatically, but Congress has no plan to 
address future costs.
  And now we have Medicare's Board of Trustees reporting that the 
hospital insurance trust fund, the fund which supports Medicare Part A, 
will be insolvent in 2026. You can see here is where we are. In just 4 
short years--in just 4 short years--we are going to run out of money to 
keep paying for services for Americans most in need.
  We are talking about things like emergency surgery, in-home 
healthcare, and hospice care. By 2030, 4 years after insolvency, the 
trust fund will be $335 billion in debt. Medicare Part A cannot pay 
when it lacks funds.
  What makes matters worse, the Medicare trustees have been warning 
about this for years. They have told us that Medicare Part A hasn't met 
even the most basic short-term goals for fiscal health since 2003.
  Let's go back to the imaginary company I mentioned earlier. If you 
were an employee of that company and your salary depended on the 
company's success, how would you feel if, for 18 years, the company's 
leadership knew that the company would go under unless they fixed the 
problem, but it never happened?
  Instead of fixing the problem, no one did anything. They just kept 
using up the company's savings. That is basically what has happened and 
continues to happen with Medicare.
  Here is what is shocking. Absolutely nothing has been done. 
Washington has completely ignored the warnings about the rising costs 
and declining revenues for Medicare, and there is no plan to repair the 
system. Career politicians in the Washington establishment have acted 
recklessly and immorally.
  They are plunging Medicare into billions of dollars of debt, debt 
that our grandchildren will have to pay off for the benefit of those in 
the present. To make matters worse, Washington politicians think they 
can continue to treat Medicare like a piggy bank and draw as much money 
as they want from it to pay for another unsustainable and unfunded 
program.
  We saw them use Medicare savings to help fund road construction in an 
infrastructure bill. Make no mistake, I want to have better ports and 
better highways, but robbing Peter to pay Paul with money Peter doesn't 
have? That is wrong.
  Kicking the can down the road and letting our debt balloon is a 
disservice to the 60 million--60 million--Americans, including the 4.5 
million Floridians, who rely on Medicare.
  Now, Senator Schumer is trying to pass a bill that will stick 
Congress's greedy hand into the Medicare trust fund--this time to pay 
for the U.S. Postal Service.
  In 2020, Part B spending was $418 billion. By 2030, the cost will 
double to $871 billion.
  Look at this. I mean, this is unbelievable.
  The Part B and Part D trust fund is funded through a combination of 
premiums paid by beneficiaries and direct transfer from the U.S. 
Treasury of collected tax revenue. That means the future costs of 
Medicare Parts B and D are going to be paid for by higher premiums for 
retirees and higher taxes for all Americans.
  Today, someone who retires at the Postal Service can keep their 
health plan into retirement, with the option of adding Medicare, but 
the Postal Service needs to pay the full cost of the health plan if the 
retiree doesn't choose Medicare. Now, this is costly to the post 
office, so the proposed solution in Senator Schumer's postal reform 
bill is to force all future retirees into Medicare as a means of saving 
money for the post office. This actually just shifts costs away from 
the Postal Service onto the Medicare Program--from one government 
program to another--and it is a cost borne by hard-working taxpayers 
and nonpostal retirees. This is a gift to the post office balance 
sheet, but it is a cost to everybody else. In other words, the solution 
is as bad as the problem.
  On top of that, the CBO doesn't even have an accurate estimate of how 
much this bill will actually cost. I sent a letter to the CBO asking 
what the future cost of the bill would be to Medicare. While they could 
tell me there would be $5 billion in new deficits, they couldn't 
provide data past 2031, when Medicare will be most affected by this 
proposal. Yet Congress wants to pass this bill and pretend like it is 
solving a problem when it only makes matters worse. If you look at the 
limited CBO score we have and think about what it says, it shows that 
it increases costs to Medicare and reduces costs to the Postal Service.
  Advocates are quick to say that it saves the government money, but 
that is wrong. The post office keeps all the savings and just moves the 
costs to Medicare. It doesn't actually save the taxpayer any money.
  We have got to stop doing business like this. How can anybody in this 
body explain to their constituents that this is the right way to pass 
bills? How can anyone really say with a straight face that kicking the 
can down the road is the right thing to do?
  Do you know why the American people don't trust us? It is stuff like 
this. When Congress passes a bill like this, with zero committee 
process, zero amendments so far considered in the Senate, and the bill 
ends up being terrible, well, it is not hard to see why the American 
people don't have a ton of faith in Congress to solve problems.
  In 2020, Medicare spending was almost $1 trillion. That is $1 
trillion in mandatory spending without any review by Congress.
  I want real reform. I want to make sure retirees have the healthcare 
they have paid into and that the Postal Service is actually 
sustainable. That is why I have introduced an amendment to require the 
Postal Service to pay for any new costs to Medicare that this bill will 
bring. This will ensure that Medicare isn't used like a piggy bank. 
This will ensure that the taxpayer and future nonpostal retirees aren't 
forced to bear the burden of this Postal Service bailout. It would 
ensure that the Postal Service pays their fair share.
  I am thankful to have the support of groups like 60 Plus that 
represent the interests of America's seniors.

[[Page S939]]

  Unlike many career politicians who are running Washington off a 
fiscal cliff with over $30 trillion worth of debt, I have actually been 
a CEO. I have run companies and have had to help solve financial 
problems. I have listened to CFOs and have worked with budgets to turn 
things around. I didn't come to Washington to fit in and maintain the 
status quo. I came to make real change that benefits American families, 
and this bill, as written right now, doesn't do anything to help 
anyone.
  I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and join me in demanding 
that Senator Schumer slow down and put this bill through the proper 
process. American taxpayers and voters who sent us here deserve better 
than this.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hickenlooper). The Senator from Texas.


                         Texas Independence Day

  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, today is Texas Independence Day. One hundred 
eighty-six years ago today, Texans declared our independence from 
Mexico, and we fired a shot for liberty that was heard around the 
world.
  As I have done a number of years in the past, I am going to read the 
letter from the Alamo that Lieutenant Colonel William Barret Travis 
wrote calling for help. It is a letter that energized Texans across our 
great State and that energized lovers of liberty everywhere.
  I read this letter the very first time that I ever stood and spoke on 
the Senate floor, and these are the words that inspire us even 186 
years after they were written.
  Colonel Travis writes:

       To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World--
       Fellow Citizens & compatriots--I am besieged, by a thousand 
     or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna--I have sustained a 
     continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not 
     lost a man--The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, 
     otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the 
     fort is taken--I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, 
     & our flag still waves proudly from the walls--I shall never 
     surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of 
     Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American 
     character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch--

  The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase 
to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is 
neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die 
like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of 
his country--Victory or Death.

       William Barret Travis, Lt.Col.comdt.
       PS: The Lord is on our side--When the enemy appeared in 
     sight we had not three bushels of corn--We have since found 
     in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels and got into the walls 20 
     or 30 head of Beeves.
       Travis.

  The brave men and women at the Alamo would go on to give their lives 
for liberty, including Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett.
  Shortly thereafter, the Texans were victorious at the Battle of San 
Jacinto. With a cry in the air of ``Remember the Alamo,'' the heroes 
who gave their lives for liberty inspired a successful revolution, and 
the Republic of Texas was formed.
  Sam Houston, one of the founding fathers of the Lone Star State, was 
also born on this very day 229 years ago.
  Sam Houston was a great American. He was born in Virginia and spent 
many years in Tennessee, where he served in the U.S. House of 
Representatives and then became the Governor of Tennessee. In Texas, he 
was the George Washington of Texas. He served as the commander in chief 
for the Texas Army and led the Texas Army to victory in our revolution. 
When Texas became independent, Houston served in the Texas House of 
Representatives and then as President of the Republic of Texas. When 
Texas joined the United States, he served in the U.S. Senate and then, 
finally, as the Governor of Texas.
  He was a tireless, talented leader and a great statesman who believed 
in freedom. His words, ``Govern wisely and as little as possible,'' are 
still true today, and the Lone Star State still endeavors to follow 
that principle.
  The Republic of Texas was an independent nation from 1836 to 1845--
for 9 years. Then Texas joined the United States of America.
  Indeed, there is one fact I discovered a couple of years ago. Heidi 
and I are members of the First Baptist Church in Houston. We discovered 
that the First Baptist Church was actually started by American 
missionaries in a foreign country. Texas was an independent nation, and 
American missionaries came to the Republic of Texas and founded the 
First Baptist Church, which, today, thrives in my hometown of Houston.
  Texans are proud Americans, but we are also proud of the history--the 
diverse, brave, extraordinary history--of those Texans all those years 
later. William Travis, Sam Houston, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, and all 
of the people they led risked everything to make freedom a reality for 
generations of Texans.
  I am reminded of a story that was told to me by a former Senator from 
Texas, my friend Phil Gramm.
  Phil Gramm, in the early 1980s, was a Member of the House of 
Representatives. He was a Democrat. He was a conservative Democrat. 
Ronald Reagan was President, and Phil Gramm, as a conservative Democrat 
in the House, introduced the Reagan tax cuts, and he fought for the 
Reagan tax cuts. Phil described a meeting with other conservative 
Democrats in Texas back when we had conservative Democrats in Texas--a 
meeting wherein he was urging his fellow Democrats to support the 
Reagan tax cuts. Phil drew an analogy to the Alamo on that fateful day 
when Colonel Travis drew a line in the sand with a sword and called on 
each of the men there to step across that line and commit to defending 
the Alamo.
  One of those other conservative Democrats said to him at the time: 
Phil, everybody who stepped across that line died.
  Phil, in not missing a beat, chuckled and said: Yes. Yes, they did. 
And do you know what? Everybody who didn't step across that line died, 
too, and nobody remembers their names.
  Today, I celebrate heroes--heroes who fought to make freedom a 
reality for generations of Texans. Today, we celebrate, and we honor 
their sacrifices.
  To every Texan, I wish you a very happy Texas Independence Day.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.


                                Ukraine

  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, the Ukrainian people have captured the 
hearts of freedom-loving men and women around the world since Putin 
launched his unprovoked invasion of their homeland last week.
  Even as we speak, they are still under attack, not just in the 
capital of Kyiv but in cities all across Ukraine. The images coming out 
of Ukraine are truly heartbreaking: newborn babies in need of intensive 
care, kindergarten buildings and apartment complexes being shelled 
indiscriminately, and tearful goodbyes between loved ones.
  Putin's invasion has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis this 
century. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, nearly 
900,000 Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries so far, but many 
of the other images we have seen show inspiring courage. Citizens of EU 
countries have welcomed their Ukrainian neighbors with open arms. 
Regular, everyday men and women--teachers and software engineers and 
moms and dads--have taken up arms to defend their country and their 
loved ones. President Zelenskyy has chosen to remain in Ukraine when he 
could have fled, refusing to desert his people in their darkest hour.
  The English writer G.K. Chesterton once said:

       The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in 
     front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.

  I can't think of a better way to describe this conflict.
  The Russians are fighting to fulfill Putin's imperial ambitions. The 
Ukrainians are fighting to protect their families, their democracy, and 
everything that they hold dear. That may be their greatest advantage as 
they, God willing, continue to hold out in the coming days.
  Responsibility for this horrific invasion lies squarely with Putin. 
Leading up to this crisis, President Biden and our allies offered 
Russia every opportunity to choose deescalation and peace. Instead, 
Putin chose to use diplomacy as a smokescreen, buying time while he 
prepared for war.
  In a deliberate message of contempt for the international community, 
Putin ordered the attack to begin

[[Page S940]]

while the U.N. Security Council was meeting to discuss Russia's buildup 
on the Ukrainian border. Here is a glimpse into how little power 
organizations like the U.N. have in moments of crisis like this: During 
this meeting on what to do about Russia's coming invasion, the Russian 
Ambassador was presiding.
  Innocent Ukrainians as young as 6 years old are being killed because 
one man fancies himself the next Joseph Stalin. Because of one man's 
desire to restore the borders of the Soviet Union, the fundamental 
principles of security in Europe are in peril.
  In response to this invasion, President Biden has announced new 
sanctions against Russia. These measures will affect 2 of Russia's 
largest banks--Sberbank and VTB--as well as 45 of their subsidiaries. 
The administration is also imposing sanctions against several other 
Russian financial institutions and a number of state-owned enterprises.
  The United States, with our allies and partners, not just in Europe 
but also in Asia, have agreed to pursue even more aggressive sanctions 
against Russia. That includes beginning to remove certain Russian banks 
from the global SWIFT financial messaging network. It includes freezing 
the currency reserves of Russia's central bank. All of this will make 
Putin and his inner circle feel the pain. It will hurt Russia's ability 
to wage war now and in the future. Many companies are joining this 
effort on their own, and they are withdrawing from the Russian market.
  Putin's unprecedented aggression demands an unprecedented response. 
Beyond economic sanctions, this invasion has only made the NATO 
alliance stronger and more resolved to stand firm against unlawful 
aggression. This includes Germany, which has traditionally taken a more 
positive view of Russia than many of our other European allies.
  Germany's Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has rightly committed to 
increasing Germany's military investment after decades of putting 
defense spending on the back burner. Scholz also said Germany would 
seriously pursue options to reduce their reliance on Russia for natural 
gas. If he follows through on increasing Germany's military spending, 
that will bring German defense investment above the 2 percent target 
NATO has set for its members by 2024--a target that most NATO countries 
still aren't meeting.
  While historically neutral Sweden and Finland are considering joining 
NATO, they aren't members yet, but they are still sending much needed 
military aid to Ukraine. Even Switzerland has broken its tradition of 
neutrality in order to freeze billions in Russian assets being held in 
Swiss banks, and our other allies and partners around the world, like 
Japan and Australia, are helping fund the Ukrainian resistance as well.
  After this near universal condemnation from the world's democracies, 
Putin hasn't backed down. No. He has turned to nuclear blackmail. He 
put Russia's nuclear forces into special combat readiness on Sunday, 
explicitly using Russia's nuclear deterrent to discourage Western 
nations from supporting Ukraine.
  This kind of escalation is unthinkable to Americans but not to Putin. 
This is why the men and women of the U.S. Strategic Command, which is 
based at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, work day and night to deter 
threats like these. There is a reason that their motto is ``Peace is 
Our Profession.'' Separately, at least five Offutt-based jets from the 
Air Force's 55th Wing are flying reconnaissance missions in Europe. 
Together, these planes have flown 10 of the 86 missions the United 
States and our NATO allies carried out in the days leading up to the 
Russian attack. I was told of these missions during a visit to Offutt 
last Friday.
  In addition to what we have done so far, I believe the Ukraine crisis 
demands that we fundamentally reevaluate our approach to dealing with 
Putin. We can no longer pretend that he might, one day, play by the 
same rules as the rest of us.

  Since he came to power, Presidents of both parties have sought to 
improve relations with him. Too often, they have overlooked decades of 
bad behavior to try to achieve that goal, hoping that American 
restraint might lead Moscow to take that same approach.
  If it wasn't clear even before this attack, the events of the past 
week have proven that idea to be a fantasy.
  Putin thought Russia would get a quick win when he invaded Ukraine. 
He never expected this kind of resistance from the outmatched and the 
outnumbered Ukrainians. But he didn't account for their bravery. He 
didn't account for the fact that while Russia is fighting to gobble up 
more land in Eastern Europe, the Ukrainians are fighting to protect 
their children, spouses, parents, and their very way of life.
  After the events of the past week, Putin's naked aggression, his 
imperial ambitions, and his contempt for the international order are 
undeniable.
  Global norms and treaty obligations mean nothing--they mean nothing 
to him. Russia had explicitly sworn to uphold Ukraine's territorial 
integrity in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, one more agreement added to 
the long list of those Russia has violated under Putin.
  After his completely unprovoked invasion, this would-be 21st-century 
czar has lost whatever credibility he had left. The United States and 
our allies must keep this in mind as we think about where we go from 
here.
  We have to accept that as long as Putin is in power, a cooperative 
relationship with Russia will not be possible. We have to do what we 
can to push back against Putin's warmongering and continue to support 
the brave people of Ukraine.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.


                              Kleptocracy

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, as I rise today, kleptocracy is on the 
march in Europe, showing how unchecked corruption leads to evil.
  Vladimir Putin's corrupt regime fabricated a pretext to invade and 
subjugate the sovereign and peaceful nation of Ukraine. Putin's attack 
helps divert the Russian people from his festering corruption and 
misrule, as jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny put it.
  America and our allies are meting out stiff sanctions; and my 
colleagues and I here in Congress are working on additional measures to 
deliver punishing financial blows to Putin and his corrupt oligarchs. 
But we must consider how we arrived at this moment.
  Putin has, for decades, deployed corruption and kleptocracy to 
strengthen his grip on Russia's government and to project power and 
influence throughout the region. In the process, he decimated Russia's 
free press, attacked--physically and economically--all political 
opposition, and grew his own personal fortune to what is thought to be 
the largest in the world. I say ``thought to be'' because Putin's 
wealth is hidden behind shell corporations and nestled in tax havens, 
far from the view of the people he robs and oppresses. And along the 
way, he cultivated--through favors, force, or fortunes--a group of 
oligarchs who serve him.
  It is important to understand that Putin isn't special. We have 
plenty of kleptocrats around the globe. Putin just happens to be in 
charge of a big and oil-rich country with a military at his command, a 
gangster with an army running a gas station, as Senator McCain used to 
say.
  America is engaged in a growing clash of civilizations against this 
brand of corrupt leadership. Democracy and the free market are on one 
side; kleptocracy and corruption are on the other. And we will prevail 
in this clash by pursuing one powerful value of rule of law society: 
transparency.
  Kleptocrats and criminals seek the protection of our rule of law and 
our secure financial system to stow their illicit money, but they need 
anonymity. They need to hide it. That is why so much anonymously owned 
luxury real estate sits empty in America, in some places actually 
driving up local housing costs for normal people. And that is why shell 
corporations in American States multiply.
  The Pandora Papers last year revealed webs of American shell 
corporations and trusts hiding dirty assets. It revealed 
professionals--lawyers, accounts, and real estate agents--aiding and 
abetting the hiding of those dirty assets. Shining the light of 
transparency on kleptocrats' money is a potent countermeasure to their 
power.
  Late in 2020, Congress passed the most important anti-money 
laundering

[[Page S941]]

reform law in two decades: the Corporate Transparency Act. It was very 
bipartisan. Senators Grassley, Graham, Wyden, Rubio, Brown, Crapo, 
Warner, Cotton, and I all spent years getting that bill done. Our aim 
was to arm law enforcement with knowledge of the ``beneficial owner''--
the real person--who is behind American shell corporations.

  Now, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, 
FinCEN, is implementing our beneficial ownership provisions. And the 
new rule promises to be a strong countermeasure.
  It requires anyone who exerts substantial control directly or 
indirectly over a legal entity to identify themselves as the beneficial 
owner. That is what we wanted. It is clear enough so that companies 
know what they have to do, while minimizing the risk that bad actors 
can evade disclosure.
  And its timelines for reporting and updating beneficial ownership 
information are fair, providing law enforcement and national security 
officials timely information without imposing unreasonable turnarounds 
for legitimate companies.
  The beneficial ownership rule also avoided a trap. Some had urged 
FinCEN to add exceptions to the reporting requirements on top of the 
ones Congress included in the bill. Well, we worked hard to come up 
with the right list of excepted entities. It is encouraging to see 
FinCEN stand firm and avoid watering down the rule with new unjustified 
exceptions.
  FinCEN is also working on a review of Bank Secrecy Act regulations 
with an eye toward a new ``anti-money laundering and counterterror 
financing'' framework. This review offers a chance to take on some big 
challenges.
  We need to make sure American professionals aren't aiding and 
abetting kleptocrats. Investing in hedge funds, luxury real estate, 
high-priced art, expensive cars, mega yachts all requires help from 
professionals, and those professionals aren't bound to ``anti-money 
laundering and counterterror financing'' safeguards like our banks are.
  Private investment funds are worth about $11 trillion. You can hide a 
lot of mischief in $11 trillion. An FBI intelligence bulletin leaked in 
2020 warned that ``threat actors'' used those funds to launder their 
money into rule-of-law financial systems. That is a vulnerability we 
need to close.
  This aiding and abetting problem, giving aid and comfort to our 
enemies, extends to professional services from lawyers, accountants, 
company and trust formation agents, even PR firms. But on this front, 
FinCEN's hands are tied. Congress will need to step in to clean that 
up.
  Kleptocrats and criminals constantly change the methods they use to 
hide their money. Trade-based money laundering, for instance, allows 
bad actors to trade everything from vegetables to washing machines as a 
way to move their money around internationally. We need better 
coordination among key agencies involved in overseeing trade and better 
information on suspicious financial and trade activity that is shared 
more efficiently among various Federal authorities.
  Real estate is a massive target for money launderers. In August of 
last year, the watchdog group Global Financial Integrity released a 
report showing over $2.3 billion laundered through American real estate 
over the previous half decade. As Global Financial Integrity would tell 
you, this is just what they could identify. The real number is probably 
far higher.
  The good news there is we have a countermeasure that works well. In 
2016, FinCEN started the ``geographic targeting order'' program, which 
requires title insurers to report to FinCEN beneficial ownership 
information of shell companies that stash money in high-priced real 
estate. That program started in New York and Miami, then expanded to a 
dozen jurisdictions nationwide. The Congressional Research Service has 
reviewed it and said these targeting orders work.
  Now, FinCEN is proposing a rule to make these orders permanent and 
expand coverage across the United States. It looks like FinCEN will 
deliver that improvement. And if it does, that is a big win, 
particularly if that rule lines up with our beneficial ownership rule 
and if it extends to cover commercial, as well as residential real 
estate.
  In Congress, we should pass legislation to help FinCEN address 
professional aiders and abettors. There is bipartisan legislation in 
the House, the ENABLERS Act, which I hope to introduce here in the 
Senate. I have also introduced bipartisan legislation to make it a 
crime for foreign officials to demand bribes from Americans. At the 
moment, it is only a crime to pay bribes. And we should pay close 
attention to others in the dark economy, like drug traffickers and 
terrorists.
  I am working on legislation to target money laundering related to the 
illicit narcotics trade. Indeed, we had a hearing on it today.
  Finally, we need to work together with the international community. 
When U.S. defenses are strengthened, kleptocrats will direct their 
dirty money to some other willing sanctuary. So it matters that the 
Biden administration has announced a transatlantic, interagency task 
force to help crack down on ill-gotten assets stowed in the West by 
Russian oligarchs and their families, their mistresses, their stooges, 
whomever. This is exactly the right approach. We must work with friends 
abroad to close off hidey-holes for oligarchs, bolster the rule of law, 
expand judicial transparency, and increase access to justice in 
struggling jurisdictions.

  I met recently with a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament who said a 
phrase--that we were talking about actually during the Munich Security 
Conference codel--which was: It is not enough to freeze the oligarch's 
assets; we need to seize the oligarch's assets.
  We can do so even theatrically, and to take a camera through the 
preposterous and grotesque wealth and show the people of Russia what 
was stolen from them would be as significant a public relations victory 
as when Ukrainians went through their oligarch's mansion and showed 
everything from gold toilet seats to private petting zoos.
  Kleptocrats, like Putin and his oligarchs, can be defeated. A little 
sunlight will vanquish them. Free societies and the rule of law can win 
the long battle we face against kleptocracy and corruption.
  This is a national security matter, not just a question of doing 
good. This is a national security matter, and these are the tools--the 
ones I have described, the tools of transparency--that will secure our 
victory.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about 
the war in Ukraine. One week ago, Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine by 
land, by sea, and by air. Now we know that thousands of people are 
dead.
  Vladimir Putin prepared for this invasion, and he prepared over the 
course of at least 3 months. Month after month after month, he moved 
troops, he moved weapons, and he moved them to the border with Ukraine. 
Now, many of these troops are attacking the capital city of Kyiv. The 
Ukrainian people are fighting bravely. Their example is an inspiration 
to the world. They are outnumbered, they are outgunned, and yet they 
continue to fight for their freedom.
  Make no mistake, Vladimir Putin has caused this war. He alone is 
responsible. He is responsible for the death and the destruction that 
the world is witnessing now. Yet, it is undeniable that the Biden 
administration's so-called deterrence and diplomacy have failed.
  Joe Biden ran for President on competence and on his foreign policy 
expertise. As a candidate for President, Joe Biden said Putin's days of 
tyranny would be over if he became President--Putin's days of tyranny 
would be over if Joe Biden were elected President. The opposite has 
occurred under this administration.
  Vladimir Putin has become emboldened like never before. Putin is 
cunning, he is opportunistic, and he is aggressive. When he sees an 
opportunity, he takes it. He can smell weakness, and he views Joe Biden 
as weak and ineffective. Clearly that has become even more so after Joe 
Biden's disgraceful and deadly surrender from Afghanistan. Enemies of 
ours around the world have become emboldened.
  After Afghanistan fell, Vladimir Putin increased his weapons testing.

[[Page S942]]

Just a few months later, Vladimir Putin put 100,000 troops on the 
border of Ukraine. How did the President of the United States, Joe 
Biden, respond? He lobbied this body, the Senate, against imposing 
sanctions on Vladimir Putin.

  In January, this Senate voted on sanctions for Putin's Nord Stream 2 
Pipeline. I came to the floor; I argued that the Senate needed to act 
quickly. Almost every Democrat in this body had previously supported 
sanctions. Under pressure from the White House, the Democrats reversed 
course. They buckled to the demands of the President of the United 
States, who had a different view than this body in a broad, bipartisan 
consensus had had previously of sanctioning the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline 
between Russia and Germany. Senate Democrats blocked the sanctions.
  Look, energy is the reason that Vladimir Putin is flush with cash. He 
has hit the jackpot. His energy revenues are up, and more than $1 out 
of every $3 that Vladimir Putin has in Russia's treasury is energy-
related. High energy prices today that Americans are paying at the pump 
and people around world are paying are the reason why Putin can 
indefinitely--how he can afford this invasion.
  So who is Putin's No. 1 rival for energy production? Well, it is the 
United States. But under Joe Biden, American crude oil production is 
down--down more than a million barrels each and every day from what it 
was prior to the pandemic.
  It is not a lack of American energy resources, and it is not a lack 
of American energy workers. They want to work. The energy is in the 
ground. This is a direct result of the far-left driven anti-American 
energy policies of the Joe Biden administration.
  On Joe Biden's first day in office, he killed the Keystone XL 
Pipeline, and he bragged about it. So how much energy would be coming 
across from the Keystone XL Pipeline? Well over 800,000 barrels a day. 
But that number today is zero.
  How much energy are we bringing in from Russia each and every day 
into the United States, imported from Russia, sending money to Vladimir 
Putin? Well, 670,000 barrels a day. If he hadn't killed Keystone, we 
would be bringing more energy in that way, and we are now buying and 
sending money to Vladimir Putin. And the President bragged about it, 
thumped his chest: I killed Keystone.
  He also blocked new oil and gas leases on public lands, stopped 
American exploration for energy in the Arctic. Joe Biden approves of 
Vladimir Putin producing energy; it seems he is only opposed to 
American energy production.
  Just days before he surrendered in Afghanistan, Joe Biden sent his 
National Security Advisor to beg Russia to produce more oil to sell to 
us. It is hard to believe. People watching said that can't be true, and 
I would say: Go to the White House website. Go right now; see if it is 
still there. It was there two nights ago--the National Security Advisor 
saying: We are asking OPEC+--and the ``plus'' is Russia; it is Putin--
to produce more energy to sell to us.
  Why should we depend upon people who are our enemies, whose 
intentions are not kind or caring for us, and who is now--Vladimir 
Putin is attacking his neighbor in a bloodthirsty way--rather than 
allow us to produce American energy that we have today in the ground in 
this Nation?
  So it is no wonder that Putin can now afford another assault. Oil hit 
over $100 a barrel last week--the highest in 7 years, and it is even 
higher than that today.
  Today, American families in every State are paying $1 a gallon or 
more for each additional gallon of gas that they put in the tank than 
they were the day Joe Biden became President of the United States, and 
that is soon going to be even a higher number, a higher amount that 
people are going to be paying as a result of this President's policies. 
The situation is getting worse.
  President Biden's response to the buildup to the war in Ukraine has 
been mismanagement and weakness. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Joe 
Biden issued sanctions on Russia that are far too little too late. The 
Biden deterrence was after the fact. That didn't seem more like 
punishment than deterrence. It reminds me when President Obama said he 
was going to be leading from behind. Deterrence after the fact is the 
same thing as no deterrence at all. Try to deter someone from doing 
something.
  Even after the invasion has occurred and even after we see the tanks 
lined up heading into Kyiv, Joe Biden is not yet ready to sanction 
Russian energy and clearly not ready to produce American energy to make 
up for what we buy from them.
  His Deputy National Security Advisor went to the podium and said our 
sanctions are not designed to cause any disruption to the current flow 
of energy from Russia to the world. This administration has caused 
plenty of disruption in the flow of energy from America, from our 
homeland. We are not going to disrupt energy from Russia, oh, no. It 
was actually Germany that stood up and finally stopped Putin from 
getting the pipeline. Joe Biden won't touch the one industry that is 
propping up Vladimir Putin. Yet he seemed to be happy--Joe Biden seems 
to be happy with his continued war on American energy. He has 
effectively put harsher sanctions on American energy workers than he 
does on Russian energy thugs.
  The war in Ukraine is going to lead to higher energy prices in this 
country; there is no doubt about it. But we have seen no change in Joe 
Biden's energy policies in spite of the abundant energy resources we 
have in this country. The White House Press Secretary was asked 
recently if Joe Biden was considering allowing more energy production 
here at home in the United States. We have the resources; we have the 
workers; the jobs are necessary; and, effectively, she just said no. We 
heard nothing about it in the State of the Union last night--not a 
thing.
  Over the weekend, actually, the President's Press Secretary went on 
television and doubled down. She said she refused to rule out importing 
oil from Iran. Oil and gas leases on Federal lands are still in limbo.
  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC--and there will be a 
hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee 
tomorrow--recently decided, in a 100-percent partisan 3-to-2 vote, to 
make it even harder to build natural gas pipelines in America. Harder.
  The day after Russia invaded Ukraine, this administration, the Biden 
administration, said uranium was no longer a critical mineral for the 
United States--no longer a critical mineral. American businesses get 
half of the uranium we use from Russia and its partners. It is a 
critical mineral but not according to the Biden administration. Now we 
are going to become even more dependent on Russia, and Putin will get 
even wealthier.
  It seems like Joe Biden and his advisers want to turn our energy 
sector into what we have seen over the last number of years in 
Germany--dependent on other countries, begging enemies to help us keep 
the lights on.
  And just before the Russian invasion, John Kerry, the President's 
Climate Envoy, said in an interview with BBC--this is the former 
Secretary of State of the United States--said he was concerned that the 
war in Ukraine would distract people from his climate agenda. You can't 
believe it. This is very disturbing to people all around my home State, 
and I would think all around America. This is a delusional obsession, 
distracted from the reality of the world and of our Nation.
  Innocent people are being slaughtered. Vladimir Putin is conducting 
nuclear drills. People around the world are terrified. People are 
looking to the United States for leadership, and we have a high 
official of this administration concerned it is going to distract from 
this White House's and this administration's climate agenda.
  The American people know what we need to do. We need to continue to 
support and send lethal weapons to our friends in Ukraine, and clearly 
we need to produce more American energy. We have it. We have it in the 
ground. This administration will not let us get it out. More American 
energy will help us at home. It will help bring down prices at home. 
More American energy will help us defund Putin's military aggression. 
It is our energy dollars that are paying for Putin's killing machine.
  More American energy will help our allies from being held hostage by

[[Page S943]]

Vladimir Putin. This is why I have introduced legislation called the 
ESCAPE Act, Energy Security Cooperation with Allied Partners in Europe. 
It expedites the sale of natural gas from America to our NATO allies so 
they don't have to buy it from Vladimir Putin. I brought it to the 
floor yesterday, and Democrats objected to a unanimous consent to pass 
it.
  I sent a letter to the President today with every Republican on the 
Senate Energy Committee as well as Senator Lummis--sent a letter to the 
White House today detailing 10 specific actions that the President of 
the United States can take right now to produce more American energy 
and undermine Vladimir Putin and help other NATO allies and help the 
people of Ukraine. We as a nation are much better off selling American 
energy to our friends than for us as a nation to have to buy energy 
from our enemies. More American energy means more American strength and 
more American security.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaine). The majority whip.


             Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, I came to the floor to 
request unanimous consent for the Senate to take up and confirm six 
U.S. attorneys and two U.S. marshal nominations.
  These nominees are all highly qualified. They have critical law 
enforcement experience, and they want to serve this country at new 
levels. They were voted out of the Judiciary Committee, which I chair, 
by a voice vote. They have the support of their home State Senators. 
They have the support of other local law enforcement. They deserve to 
be confirmed. We need them--right now--without further delay.
  And the obvious question is, Why are they being held up? Why are 
these dedicated men and women not yet in office, ready to tackle 
violent crime--which we know is a problem across America? Why aren't 
they in office to prosecute fraud and terrorism? Why aren't they there 
to protect families and children across America? One reason--the junior 
Senator from Arkansas.
  You see, when I made my unanimous consent request--a request joined 
by the majority leader and Senators from all the affected States--one 
Senator objected. Only one Senator refused to allow these individuals' 
confirmation so that they could continue to serve this Nation and the 
cause of law enforcement. And that same Senator, the junior Senator 
from Arkansas, continues to engage in this mindless obstruction, 
jeopardizing the safety of communities outside of Arkansas for reasons 
which are still hard to understand.
  Why is the junior Senator blocking well-qualified individuals from 
law enforcement? What has he got against law enforcement at this moment 
in America's history? Well, it doesn't have anything to do with the 
nominees themselves or their qualifications. We have asked him over and 
over. He has no complaint about any single one of them. He happened to 
pick these people out as his political targets. He is concerned about a 
completely unrelated issue. Let me tell you what it is.
  In the summer of 2020, Federal law enforcement personnel were 
dispatched to Portland, OR, to help protect the Federal courthouse. A 
number of those Federal officers now face lawsuits relating to the 
events that happened there.
  The Department of Justice often represents Federal employees who were 
sued in their individual capacity. Under governing regulations, the 
Department of Justice goes through a process to determine that such 
representation would be ``in the interests of the United States.''
  And in this matter, the Department of Justice has either represented 
or paid for the representation of more than 70 law enforcement 
officials who have been sued. The Department has declined to represent 
one individual--only one--and continues to review three additional 
requests for representation.
  The Senator from Arkansas says he wants to know why, but the 
Department of Justice has made it clear it can't comment on these four 
cases. Remember what you first learned when you were elected to the 
U.S. Senate and somebody came to you and said: I need for you to be my 
advocate. I need for you to be my champion.
  You said to them: I would like to do it, but first you have to sign a 
privacy waiver, a confidentiality waiver. I can't represent you or talk 
about you unless I have that waiver.
  The last time we came to the floor, I asked the junior Senator from 
Arkansas: Have these three who are being under review, for example, 
these Federal employees, given you a privacy waiver? Can you tell us 
what the circumstances are that slowed it down?
  No. So here he is, their champion and advocate, and they don't trust 
him with a privacy waiver or they would rather their circumstances not 
become public. They made that decision. It is pretty complicated in a 
way. The bottom line is, who is paying for this complication and the 
stalling tactic? Innocent people, six U.S. attorneys, two U.S. 
marshals--not in the State of Arkansas.
  The Department of Justice has made it clear it can't comment on these 
cases ``in light of significant confidentiality interests and 
applicable privileges.''
  The Senator from Arkansas is hearing none of it. For example, DOJ's 
regulations make it clear that communications about an employee's 
request for representation are protected by an attorney-client 
privilege. The Senator from Arkansas wants us to ignore that. The 
Privacy Act prevents the Department of Justice from disclosing personal 
records related to employees without their consent.
  Unless things have changed in the last 2 weeks, the Senator who is 
advocating for these people has never received that. He has never 
received those consents. These privileges protect the privacy of the 
very law enforcement personnel whose interests the junior Senator from 
Arkansas claims to represent. The Senator claims to be speaking on 
behalf of his deputy marshals, but he is asking the Justice Department 
to violate legal privileges and attorney-client privileges that are 
designed to specifically protect them and other Federal employees.

  It is important to add that it is standard practice for any Member of 
Congress to obtain a Privacy Act waiver. We have done it thousands of 
times in our office--an act that gives a waiver for a constituent, 
authorizing the office to make inquiries on their behalf. Apparently, 
the Senator from Arkansas doesn't have that waiver or he would explain 
to us what the circumstances are. It seems that the people he wants to 
protect don't trust him with that information or don't want it to 
become public.
  The Senator is upset that the Justice Department is following the law 
and a process required by their own rules and regulations--a process 
that now affects four individuals. His response is to block the 
confirmation of every U.S. attorney and every U.S. marshal on the 
Senate calendar. How can you claim, as he does, to be tough on crime if 
you are blocking well-qualified law enforcement officials from serving 
because of a grievance that has nothing to do with them personally? The 
junior Senator from Arkansas should let these law enforcement officials 
do their job.
  Often we hear the complaint: Oh, they want to defund the police. You 
heard last night, President Biden said we need to fund the police and 
got a standing ovation from everybody.
  This is a new approach. Instead of funding the police, this one 
Senator is going to stop law enforcement from even doing their job. For 
example, yesterday, I chaired a hearing in the Judiciary Committee. We 
examined how the Federal Government can help prevent and respond to the 
surge in carjackings across America over the last 2 years. It was an 
important bipartisan hearing with witnesses from law enforcement, 
community groups, and the automobile industry testifying about 
solutions to a problem that is an urgent issue in many of our 
communities and testifying to the need for U.S. attorneys to enforce 
the law in their jurisdictions. The same junior Senator from Arkansas, 
who is leaving these U.S. attorneys spots vacant because he is unhappy 
with the way he is being treated by the Department of Justice, didn't 
attend the hearing. And he is blocking votes on Federal law enforcement 
nominees charged with helping to protect our communities from

[[Page S944]]

carjackings and other violent crimes. How can that be anything other 
than soft on law and order?
  Before I proceed to my unanimous consent, I want to note the 
overwhelming support these U.S. attorneys and U.S. marshal nominees 
have from law enforcement professionals in their States. We are 
receiving dozens of letters because of this outrageous hold by the 
Senator from Arkansas--letters that speak not just to the nominees' 
qualifications but the need to confirm them now.
  Consider the support for Chief LaDon Reynolds to be the U.S. marshal 
for the Northern District of Illinois. Senator Duckworth and I have 
received letters from the director of the Illinois State Police and 
police chiefs in towns and cities like Park Ridge, Hazel Crest, and 
Calumet Park. It is unanimous. Chief Reynolds is a man for the job, and 
he is waiting and waiting and waiting on the junior Senator from 
Arkansas.
  The Senate has also received letters of support for several of the 
other nominees who face this needless blockade. Aaron Ford, the 
attorney general of Nevada, has written in support for Jason Frierson 
to be that State's U.S. attorney. Both Senators from Nevada took the 
floor last time we brought this issue up and supported him.
  The chiefs of police of Rochester, Duluth, and Saint Paul, MN, have 
joined the Sheriff of Ramsey County, MN, urging the Senate to quickly 
confirm Andrew Luger as Minnesota's U.S. attorney and Eddie Frizell to 
be the State's U.S. marshal.
  Mark Totten, nominated to be U.S. attorney for the Western District 
of Michigan, has the support of county prosecutors and sheriffs 
throughout the State, as well as from Michigan Attorney General Dana 
Nessel and the Michigan Association of Police Organizations.
  And the Sheriff of DeKalb County, GA, urges the Senate to swiftly 
confirm Ryan Buchanan to be U.S. attorney for the Northern District of 
Georgia.
  These law enforcement officials want reinforcement. We have the 
professionals to take over these positions now; one Senator holds them 
up. They are just a few examples of the broad bipartisan support these 
nominees enjoy.
  These State and local law enforcement officials know how eminently 
qualified the nominees are, and they have told us as much. They know we 
can't and shouldn't waste another day supporting law enforcement. They 
know it is time for the Senate to act now.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to 
executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: 
Calendar Nos. 660, 661, 662, 663, 739, 740, 741, 742; that the Senate 
vote on the nominations en bloc without intervening action or debate; 
the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table 
with no intervening action or debate; that any statements related to 
the nominations be printed in the Record; that the President be 
immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate resume 
legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I reserve the right to object because, 
here we are again, 2 weeks later and nothing has changed.
  The Democrats and the Department of Justice once again want their 
well-connected and wealthy political nominees confirmed, while the 
Department of Justice hangs out to dry four career law enforcement 
officers and threatens them with fiscal ruin and bankruptcy.
  The Senator from Illinois said I am having none of it. You are 
absolutely right; I am having none of it.
  These officers, I remind you, faced down leftwing street militias for 
months in Portland. They were attacked with blinding lasers, ball 
bearings, Molotov cocktails. There were efforts to lock them into the 
courthouse and set it afire and burn them alive.
  Now, the Senator from Illinois keeps saying that my objections are 
completely unrelated--those were his words--or had nothing to do with 
these nominees. We have heard this now for weeks. I don't know why he 
keeps repeating it. I will give my answer once again. I am not making 
objection to some random, unconnected agency. I am not upset that the 
Corps of Engineers didn't approve a water project in Arkansas.
  I am not making some doomed-to-fail demand like Merrick Garland 
should resign in disgrace--though he should. I am making a very 
specific point about this Department.
  If Merrick Garland and the Democrats want their political nominees to 
be confirmed on a fast-track basis, then they need to protect their 
career law enforcement officers from financial ruin and bankruptcy.
  I have talked to these officers; the anxiety and the stress that this 
has created for them is real. They have received no explanation 
whatsoever beyond ``not in the interest of the United States.'' That is 
not an explanation; that is a conclusion.
  Three of them haven't heard anything at all. It has been months--
actually, more than a year. The Senator from Illinois said the 
Department of Justice often represents law enforcement officers sued 
for actions in the line of duty. It is not ``often represents.'' It is 
``almost always represents.''
  I have spoken with multiple former Department of Justice leaders. 
They say they cannot remember a time when they declined to represent a 
law enforcement officer sued for actions in the line of duty.
  The Senator from Illinois, once again, waves around the idea of a 
privacy waiver like it is a big ``gotcha'' or something. I don't have a 
privacy waiver, but I know what these officers would say. They would 
say, We have no idea what the Department would tell us.
  So if the Senator from Illinois would like me to be a good bureaucrat 
and run off and get a privacy waiver, I guess I could do that. And then 
once they gave it to me, I would ask them, Why did you get denied 
coverage? And they would say, I don't know. They won't tell us 
anything.

  The point of the matter here is that career law enforcement officers 
are being hung out to dry and facing financial ruin. And they cannot 
get an answer, and we cannot get an answer.
  Now, is it possible they engaged in misconduct? Sure. It happens. 
However, I would note, as I did last time, that all four officers are 
on unrestricted active duty--unrestricted active duty. Three are in the 
special operations group. One is in the warrant group. Both assignments 
likely to result in situations where the threat of violence, and even 
lethal violence, is high.
  If these officers somehow acted inappropriately in Portland to the 
point we can't represent them when they are sued by leftwing activists, 
surely, they shouldn't be serving high-risk warrants. Surely, they 
shouldn't be out on the street in the special operations group. So I 
can only infer that is not the case.
  The Department of Justice won't tell us anything more. They won't 
tell these officers anything more. None of these facts has changed--
nothing in 2 weeks.
  The only thing we know that we didn't know 2 weeks ago, actually, is 
that three of these marshals received an award for their service in 
Portland.
  This is the award that was given out to marshals who risked their 
lives in defense of the Federal courthouse in Portland. I blurred out 
the names to protect the safety of those marshals, but, I assure you, 
their names are on there. They received an award for their service. 
They are being sued for that very service, and the Department of 
Justice won't represent them. They deserve answers.
  The Senator from Illinois said that last night the President spoke 
about funding the police after the Democrats spoke for years about 
defunding the police. Well, I have a suggestion, How about funding 
these officers' legal defenses? How about that for funding the police?
  Stand by the law enforcement officers who did their job and can't now 
get an explanation for why Merrick Garland is not standing by them.
  And until that happens, I guess we can keep coming down here every 
week or 2 weeks because they deserve to be represented or we deserve a 
credible, fact-based explanation.
  Now, I am just one Senator. I can't block these people forever. We 
can have a vote on them. We were in session yesterday for 10 hours; we 
didn't

[[Page S945]]

have a single vote. On Monday night, we voted on late-term partial-
birth abortion. If these are so important, we can have a vote on them. 
Or the Department of Justice could just do what it should, which is 
right and moral: It should represent law enforcement officers who are 
being sued for actions in the line of duty, or it should give an 
explanation for why they are not.
  So I do object, and I will continue to object until that happens.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The majority whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Right and moral? Is it right and moral to deny law 
enforcement officials--the Senator is now leaving the floor.
  Is it right and moral to deny these law enforcement officials an 
opportunity to serve across the United States?
  I listened carefully, and I was waiting for him to spell out--the 
Senator from Arkansas who just walked off the floor--his objection as 
to the qualifications of these law enforcement officers. He has none. 
There are none.
  These men he calls political appointees, the same thing happened 
under the Trump administration. Over 85 of their U.S. attorneys were 
approved by voice vote, with no delay. One was held over for 1 week; 
that was it.
  And yet he has made a crusade of this to try to stop these 
individuals from serving in the States where they are desperately 
needed.
  The Senator from Arkansas is blocking the confirmation of these 
individuals and, at the same time, calling the Democrats soft on law 
and order. Go figure.
  Don't lecture me on law and order if you are coming to the floor to 
prevent qualified law enforcement professionals from helping the 
Justice Department combat violent crime.
  The reason I come to the floor and will continue to come to the floor 
is because we have a serious crime problem in my State and in the city 
of Chicago. I want to have the U.S. marshal there on the job doing 
everything he is supposed to do to help the local and State law 
enforcement bring down the violence and the death rate.
  The Senator from Arkansas just doesn't seem to understand basic law. 
The Department of Justice has an attorney-client privilege with these 
individuals as they review their cases. He has been unable to get a 
waiver so that he can even tell us publicly what the complaint might be 
by the Department of Justice from the viewpoint of those Federal 
officials.
  He can't do it. It is good enough for him, if they are under review, 
to stop all other U.S. attorneys and marshals across the United States.
  Is this what America wants to see in Washington, this kind of 
obstruction? I think not. It doesn't take political courage to harm an 
innocent person. And what the Senator from Arkansas has done is to harm 
individuals who simply want to serve America and make it safer.
  My Republican colleagues frequently claim to be the party of law and 
order; but in this matter, they are the ones playing politics on law 
enforcement.
  I yield the floor.
  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. DURBIN assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                       State of the Union Address

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, obviously, the images coming out of 
Ukraine and the heroism that we are seeing is inspiring people all 
across America, all across the world, and it is spurring governments to 
action, appropriate action.
  Just the other day, there was a world leader in charge of one of the 
world's most important countries who was spurred to action. Despite his 
country and his government having a leftwing leaning, he made 
announcements--historic, remarkable announcements--that not only 
stunned his country but stunned his world about the importance of a 
strong defense, military defense, about the importance of being 
realistic about energy policies. No, I am not talking about President 
Biden, unfortunately. I am going to get to that. He missed a huge 
opportunity to do just that. I am talking about the world leader German 
Chancellor Olaf Scholz who in the last 2 days has said Germany, because 
of the current crisis, is going to almost double its defense budget to 
achieve its 2 percent GDP portion of national defense within the next 
year or two--a huge, stunning announcement by the Chancellor.
  A country that is addicted to Russian natural gas is now saying we 
are not going to have any and we are going to stop the Nord Stream 2 
gas line--a huge, stunning announcement. That is global leadership.
  And, unfortunately, President Biden missed the opportunity last night 
at the State of the Union to do exactly the same on exactly the same 
issues.
  Let me talk about this a little bit more. I think we are starting to 
fully understand the implications as a nation and as a world of what is 
happening in Ukraine. We have entered a new era of authoritarian 
aggression, led by Russia's and China's dictators who are increasingly 
isolated and dangerous, who are driven by historical grievances, who 
are paranoid about their democratic neighbors and are willing to use 
military force and other aggressive actions to crush the citizens in 
countries like Ukraine and Hong Kong and Taiwan.
  These dangerous dictators--Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping--are 
increasingly working together to put forward and implement their vision 
for the world: spheres of influence that revolve around them.
  If you saw and read, they joint communicated just a few weeks ago 
before the Beijing Olympics, Xi Jinping and Putin. It is a wake-up call 
to the world. It is a scary, darn document. That is what is happening.
  Again, we need to wake up; this administration needs to wake up to 
this new era of authoritarian aggression because it is going to be with 
us, unfortunately, in my view, for years, if not decades.
  The President had the opportunity to do what the Chancellor of 
Germany did in the last few days, and he didn't. My view of this 
situation is that we need to face it as a country with strategic 
resolve and confidence and recognize that our country has extraordinary 
advantages, particularly relative to China and Russia.
  If we are wise enough to utilize and strengthen these advantages, 
what are they? They are our global network of allies, our lethal 
military, our world-class supplies of energy and other natural 
resources, our dynamic economy, and, most important, our democratic 
values and commitment to liberty.
  We must always remember that Putin and Xi Jinping's biggest 
weaknesses and biggest vulnerabilities are that they fear their own 
people. They fear their own people. We need to remember that and 
exploit this vulnerability in the months and years ahead.
  But what happened last night? Again, it was a missed opportunity 
because the President could have--should have--followed the lead of the 
Chancellor of Germany, and he didn't.

  He put forward a few good ideas that, I think, drew bipartisan 
support in the Chamber, certainly, talking about the brave people of 
Ukraine. That was something that all Americans are seeing and 
supportive of. Also, the President's commitment to defend every inch of 
NATO territory, I think, is an important redline that he drew last 
night that, again, all of us support, but it was important for him to 
articulate it. Other topics--opioids, mental health, helping our 
veterans--count me in on those.
  But what he didn't do was step up in front of the American people 
and, like the Chancellor of Germany, say: It is a new world, and we 
need to recognize it, and the Biden administration is going to make a 
course correction on some critical issues.
  What were those critical issues? Well, they are the exact issues that 
the Chancellor of Germany announced to his people.
  Yesterday, 23 Senators--we sent a letter to the President 
respectfully imploring him to address the same issues that the 
Chancellor of Germany just did in this new era of authoritarian 
aggression. We need a much stronger, robust military budget that can 
ensure the lethality and readiness of our

[[Page S946]]

forces. If you don't believe that, you are not watching what is going 
on in Ukraine.
  What we don't need is another Biden budget like he put forward last 
year that increases, by double digits, the budgets of literally every 
Federal Agency in the Government of the United States, with the 
exception of two: Homeland Security and the Department of Defense.
  The Biden budget last year cut those, and I guarantee you the 
dictators in Beijing and the dictator in Moscow noticed. You can't do 
that. He didn't even mention it last night--didn't even mention it last 
night. And I guarantee you the dictators in Moscow and Beijing noticed 
and so did our European allies, which is, again, why what the 
Chancellor of Germany did was so extraordinary. He announced a budget 
doubling the budget of the German military--stunning.
  But the other area that we suggested strongly to the President of the 
United States to address to the American people in this new era of 
authoritarian aggression is energy.
  In our letter to the President yesterday, we respectfully called out 
the President and said: With respect, Mr. President, you recently told 
the American people in a press conference that your administration was 
using ``every tool at our disposal to protect American families and 
businesses'' from rising energy crisis, but that is not true. It is not 
true, and the whole world knows it. Heck, the administration knows it.
  So we suggested 12 actions that the President of the United States 
could take and announce at the State of the Union that would help us 
with regard to energy: bring down costs, put American energy workers 
back to work, and not let Putin blackmail European allies of ours with 
energy and continue to use it as a weapon.
  We asked for a course correction on the Biden administration's energy 
policies, which, from day 1, have focused on restricting, delaying, 
and, indeed, killing the production of American oil and gas.
  All of this has had the predictable result, the catastrophic result 
of driving up energy prices at the pump and in home heating for 
American citizens--enormous increases, hurting working families, 
increasing pink slips for American energy workers like those in my 
State, the great State of Alaska, and again in the current crisis, 
significantly empowering our adversaries, especially Vladimir Putin, 
who has used energy as a weapon against our allies for decades.
  So I am not going to go into each one of the topics or the actions 
that we suggested the President of the United States take, with the 
exception of one because it is so apparent that we need to do it and so 
apparent that the President should have announced it last night that I 
want to just briefly mention it again here.
  We called on--and today in a press conference many of us called on--
many Republicans and some Democratic Senators now have called on the 
Biden administration to undertake sanctions and an embargo against 
Vladimir Putin's strongest weapon, his export of natural gas and oil.
  Now, many people are saying: Well, you can't do that as it relates to 
our European allies. What we are saying is, we understand there are 
challenges there. We are not talking about Europe. We are talking about 
the United States of America.
  I want you to understand these numbers. Right now, we are buying an 
average of almost 700,000 barrels a day of Russian oil. By the way, 
that number has increased 35 percent--actually over 35 percent during 
President Biden's first term. At the same time, the Biden 
administration is going to States like mine and saying, We are going to 
try to shut down Alaskan oil production.
  Does anyone in America, does anyone in the U.S. Senate, does anyone 
in the Biden administration think that that makes sense--increase 
imports of Russian oil to the United States while shutting down the 
production of American energy?
  They are doing it. We all know they are doing it. Heck, they know 
they are doing it. It makes no sense.
  In the last year, imports from the United States paid for that went 
back--oil imports of Russian oil, paid for in the United States going 
back to Russia--put $17 billion into Putin's war chest--$17 billion.
  So a number of us--like I said, Republican and now Democratic 
Senators--have been saying: This is nuts. We are trying to sanction 
Putin. We are trying to isolate Russia from the global economy, and 
there is this giant loophole, and it is coming right to the United 
States. We are paying for hundreds of thousands of barrels a day of 
Russian oil going back to Putin, and they are still trying to shut down 
American energy production. Come on.
  Of course, some of this is driven by the far left that the Biden 
administration listens way too much to. Come on, Mr. President, my 
colleagues here, this is insane, and everybody knows it. Everybody 
knows it.
  What are we doing right now? We are subsidizing this war. We are 
subsidizing--by the importation of 7,000 barrels a day of Russian oil 
in the United States, we are subsidizing Putin's war on Ukrainians.
  By the way, our friends in Canada, they just announced that they are 
not going to import any more Russian oil. Prime Minister Trudeau, well 
done, sir.
  By the way, had the Keystone Pipeline not been killed by the 
President of the United States a little over 12 months ago, we would 
have up to 700,000 barrels of oil from Canada. I would much rather be 
getting oil from Canada than Russia right now.
  If you think that this is an issue that is not impacting Ukraine, 
here is what the Foreign Minister of Ukraine recently said about this 
topic:

       We insist on a full embargo for Russian oil and gas around 
     the world. Buying Russian oil and gas right now means paying 
     for the murder of Ukrainian men, women and children.

  That is the Foreign Minister of Ukraine. What he is asking for is 
something we can easily do--block any more Russian oil, Russian natural 
gas coming into the United States of America. People say: Well, where 
would we get it, then? I will tell you where we would get it. We would 
get it from the United States of America.
  The only thing that the President mentioned last night on this topic 
in a glancing manner--to be honest, it was a lame glancing manner. It 
was almost a pathetic attempt to just barely recognize that this giant 
issue had to be touched upon. He said we are going to briefly release 
oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We are not going to produce 
more, which we could. We are just going to release a little more oil 
out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
  Here is my answer to that: Mr. President, there is a much better 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve than the one you referenced last night. It 
is called the great State of Alaska. That is America's Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve. And you need to let us, as your fellow Americans, 
help our fellow citizens and the rest of the world by producing. So it 
was a missed opportunity last night.
  We have world leaders who, right now, the Prime Minister of Canada on 
the imports of Russian oil, the Chancellor of Germany on significantly 
recognizing the new era in which we are all in, saying: I have got to 
be serious about national defense and our military, and I have got to 
be serious about energy.
  We had respectfully asked the President of the United States last 
night in the State of the Union to do just the same--just the same. The 
American people were watching, and he had an opportunity to talk about 
the consequences, long term, of this new era of authoritarian 
aggression and say: ``And I am going to make some course corrections as 
the President of this administration because it is going to be what is 
good for the American people and our allies,'' and he didn't do it. He 
didn't do it, and it was a big missed opportunity for our country and 
for the world.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The majority leader.


               Unanimous Consent Agreement--S.J. RES. 38

  Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent that at 11 a.m. on Thursday, 
March 3, S.J. Res. 38 be discharged from the Committee on Finance and 
the Senate proceed to its consideration; further, that there be 3 hours 
for debate only, with the time equally divided between the Leaders, or 
their designees, on the joint resolution; and that following the use or 
yielding back of that time, the joint resolution be

[[Page S947]]

read a third time and the Senate vote on the resolution, with no 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               H.R. 3076

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I am about to file cloture on the postal 
reform bill, so let me say a few words about that. So this week the 
Senate has kept making progress toward our goal of passing and 
ultimately enacting the largest bill to support the U.S. Postal Service 
in a long, long time.
  This is a bipartisan bill, long overdue and far-reaching in how it 
will place our post office on secure footing for the future.
  Democrats have spent the day working with Republicans on a list of 
amendments that they want to hold with regard to this bill, and these 
negotiations are ongoing.
  So while we work on an agreement--and to keep the process moving--I 
will be filing cloture so that we can take the next steps toward the 
final passage.
  It is my hope that we can arrive at an agreement tomorrow and finish 
this bill before the weekend. There is every reason in the world to do 
so.
  At the end of the day, the vast majority of Democrats and Republicans 
want to see this bill sent to the President's desk quickly.
  I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their 
continued work, especially Chairman Peters.
  This postal reform bill has been a long time coming, and when passed 
it will ensure that the tens of millions of Americans who rely on the 
post office every single day for medicine, Social Security, checks, 
other goods, they can be sure that the post office remains in good 
hands and is strengthened.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  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 Calendar No. 
     273, H.R. 3076, a bill to provide stability to and enhance 
     the services of the United States Postal Service, and for 
     other purposes.
         Charles E. Schumer, Gary C. Peters, Mazie K. Hirono, Tina 
           Smith, Margaret Wood Hassan, Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden, 
           Patty Murray, Debbie Stabenow, Jack Reed, Mark Kelly, 
           Cory A. Booker, Robert Menendez, Jon Tester, Jon 
           Ossoff, Sheldon Whitehouse, Martin Heinrich.

  Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call 
for the cloture motion filed today, Wednesday, March 2, be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________