[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 51 (Tuesday, March 22, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1281-S1288]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will now resume legislative 
session.
  The Senator from Wyoming.


                                 Energy

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about 
the need for more American energy. When Joe Biden was running for 
President, he made a lot of promises that seemed to be all to the 
liberal left. Now, to the hard-working people of my home State of 
Wyoming, these promises sounded more like direct threats to their lives 
and their livelihoods.


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

  
  On page S1281, March 22, 2022, in the first column, the 
following appears: The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. MURPHY). Under the 
previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and 
laid upon the table, and the President will be immediately 
notified of the Senate's action. The Senator from Wyoming. ENERGY 
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk 
about
  
  The online Record has been corrected to read: The PRESIDING 
OFFICER (Mr. MURPHY). Under the previous order, the motion to 
reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the 
President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action. 
LEGISLATIVE SESSION The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will now 
resume legislative session. The Senator from Wyoming. ENERGY Mr. 
BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about


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


  Joe Biden promised that, if elected, there would be ``no more 
drilling on Federal lands.'' ``No more drilling,'' he said, including 
offshore. He said ``no ability for the oil industry to continue to 
drill, period.''
  Joe Biden is known for his multiple gaffes, but these weren't gaffes. 
This was intentional. He said it again and again and again on the 
campaign trail.
  Here is another one. He said:

       I guarantee you we're going to end fossil fuels.

  Joe Biden, on the campaign trail, guaranteeing they are going to end 
fossil fuels.
  During one Democratic debate, Joe Biden was asked a specific 
question. He was asked if he would sacrifice ``hundreds of thousands of 
blue collar jobs'' right here in America to get rid of traditional 
energy.
  Joe Biden said:

       The answer is yes.

  Yes, happy to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of blue-collar, good 
hard-working jobs of the American people. And today, the American 
people are living with the consequences of Joe Biden's decisions.
  Joe Biden is already the most anti-American energy President in 
American history. His policies against American energy have resulted in 
much higher prices for American families. One in five American families 
this past year have had to cut their spending to pay their energy 
bills. They have had to change the way they drive, the way they eat, 
the way they shop. They have changed, and in many ways had to change, 
their dreams and their aspirations as their anxieties continued to 
increase as prices increased but wages didn't keep up.
  Yes, prices have gone up in 12 of the 13 months since Joe Biden has 
taken office. This month, we have seen the highest gas prices ever. The 
Biden energy crisis is already the worst energy crisis in nearly half a 
century. So far, Joe Biden hasn't proposed a single solution, too busy 
blaming everyone other than himself.
  Well, the Joe Biden blame game isn't working with the American 
people. The American people remember Joe Biden's campaign promises, and 
we have seen him wage war on American energy for 14 consecutive months.
  When Joe Biden took office, the price of gas was $2.38 a gallon. By 
the time Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, prices had already gone up to 
$3.53 a gallon. Today, across the country, the average price is $4.24.
  The increase before Putin's invasion was a lot larger than the 
increase after Putin's invasion. Month after month after month, prices 
have gone up, and at the same time, Joe Biden has doubled down.
  First, he shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline, shut down oil and gas 
leases on Federal lands, and he shut down exploration for energy in 
Alaska. Now his political appointees in the government are making it 
impossible to build gas pipelines. As a result, we are producing 1.3 
million fewer barrels a day, in America, of oil than we were just 
before the pandemic. Lower supply, higher prices--that is the law of 
supply and demand.
  So why is supply down? Well, the Biden administration hasn't held a 
single auction for oil and gas leases since Joe Biden has taken office. 
At this point in the Obama administration, there had been more than 30 
of those auctions. After 14 months in office, there should have been 
more than 50; in Joe Biden's term, zero.
  Courts have said that the President's Executive orders on Federal 
lands, they said, are illegal. That is the Federal courts. The 
President stubbornly refused to open up our Federal lands--ignoring the 
courts--failed to open up the lands to American energy production.
  In Western States like my home State of Wyoming, this is devastating. 
Half of Wyoming is Federal land, and Wyoming is sitting on a treasure 
trove of American energy. We have it all--oil, gas, coal, uranium for 
nuclear power. We have wind. We have sunny areas as well. We have it 
all. We need it all. Joe Biden wants us to keep Wyoming energy in the 
ground.
  The White House claims we don't need to drill more, explore more for 
energy because there are some leases that have not yet been used.
  So why aren't they used? I mean, that is a legitimate question to 
ask. Well, half of them are waiting for Joe Biden's permission to 
drill. Just because you paid for a lease doesn't mean you have 
permission yet to explore for energy on that area. You have to ask 
permission of the Federal Government after you pay the Federal 
Government for the lease. It is like renting an apartment and saying: 
Well, they are not going to give you the key to move in yet.

  The Biden administration has to know that, but they continue to try 
to mislead the American people to say they are not being used.
  Many of the leases that are still available are tied up in court by 
environmental activists, and they can't explore for energy using those 
areas until the court cases are resolved. That is a normal ploy of the 
environmental extremist groups that are lined up with the Biden 
administration to try to keep American energy in the ground and keep 
American workers off the job.
  So it seems that the percentage of leases being used that they can 
use is where you would want it to be, but there are more that need to 
be used, but Biden is tying them up.

[[Page S1282]]

  American energy workers are doing their part. It is time for 
Democrats in Washington to start doing theirs. Instead, Democrats seem 
to be taking actions that are going to make this Biden energy crisis 
and high-energy prices even worse.
  Last year, Joe Biden proposed more than a dozen tax increases on 
American energy. A bipartisan majority in this body--in the U.S. 
Senate--blocked the tax increases from ever becoming law. Now Democrats 
are trying to raise taxes on American energy again--again.
  There is a bill in this Senate right now to raise taxes on American 
energy and then send out government checks. That is a bill that is 
going to make inflation worse. And, by the way, inflation is already at 
a 40-year high. People are suffering under the inflation like they 
haven't in a long, long time. Paychecks are not keeping up. People are 
feeling the pain.
  I heard it at the grocery store in Casper, WY, on Sunday; heard it at 
the airport in Casper, WY, on Monday.
  The Democrat's bill will do nothing to increase the supply of energy. 
In fact, higher taxes would only decrease the supply. Government checks 
would increase energy demand. You put the two together, it is an 
inflation nightmare.
  Other Democrats have proposed a pause on the gas tax, saying that 
might actually lower the price a little bit--not much, a little bit. 
Oh, the ones who cosponsored this, they are all running for election 
this year, and the plan, of course, is to put the gas tax back in place 
right after the election.
  The gas tax is what is used to pay for work on Federal roads and 
highways. It is called the highway trust fund. It is how we fund these. 
I chair the Environment and Public Works Committee, bipartisan work 
with Senator Carper. We know how the funding goes to build the 
highways, the roads, and the infrastructure of this Nation. That is 
part of it. It is a gimmick.
  Even Democratic economist Larry Summers called the idea--I called it 
a gimmick; he called it ``goofy and gimmicky.'' This is Larry Summers.
  Other Democrats in the House are asking Joe Biden to declare a 
climate emergency. They want him to tighten his choke hold on American 
energy production. It is going to drive up prices even more. It is 
going to drive supply down and prices up. But not one of the ideas that 
the Democrats are proposing will actually bring down the cost of energy 
for American families who are struggling today under the inflation of 
Joe Biden and the Democrats' policies. Not one of their ideas would 
increase the supply of American energy. So the contrast could not be 
clearer.
  The debate in this country today is a debate between the Biden blame 
game and American energy production. It is a debate between climate 
elitists and working families. It is a debate between Democratic 
gimmicks and Republican solutions.
  The only solution, the real solution to the high energy prices is 
more supply, and the supply is more American energy. It is not going to 
Iran; it is not going to Venezuela; it is American energy supply. We 
have the resources. We have the expertise. We have the workers. We have 
the energy in the ground. The Biden administration and the Democrats 
will not let us get it out of the ground. The solution is for Joe Biden 
and the Democrats to get out of the way so we can get American energy 
out of the ground, and it can be used here at home in America.
  Earlier this month, I sent a letter to the President, the morning 
after the State of the Union Address. I sent it along with every 
Republican who serves on the Energy Committee. I am the ranking member 
of that committee. We sent President Biden a to-do list, 10 action 
items that he could take today to restore American energy dominance--
because we were energy dominant the day he came into office, and we are 
now energy dependent. That is how you get such an increase in gas 
prices and the pain at the pump for the American people.
  Step 1 is to open up our Federal lands to energy production. The 
President ought to auction off leases right away, and he has a lot of 
catching up to do. He should also approve the 4,600 drilling permits 
that are today stuck in limbo and stop putting barriers to pipelines 
and infrastructure that are used to move oil and gas to market.
  Our Nation is an energy superpower. It is time we began to act like 
that again.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I just wanted to take a few moments to 
respond to some of the remarks made by my colleague from Wyoming.
  I think we all saw a jump in big gas prices when Putin invaded 
Ukraine. Then this body called upon the President, in a bipartisan 
manner, to say that we don't want to import any Russian oil into the 
United States because we don't want our dollars going to Putin to help 
fund his war. That was the right thing to do. That also increases gas 
prices.
  We also know that there are thousands of leases on public lands that 
are not being used today and drilled by oil companies that have those 
leases. In fact, the Senator from Massachusetts, the Presiding Officer, 
has said we should have a law saying use it or lose it. And I support 
that position because instead of using it, you see oil companies 
exploiting the current situation to have windfall profits and use those 
profits not to reinvest in war production but to engage in stock 
buybacks to help their CEOs while they keep the prices high.


                                Ukraine

  Mr. President, I am here today on the floor as we mark day 27 of 
Vladimir Putin's unprovoked war against Ukraine.
  Each day that the war grinds on, Putin's brutality exceeds the last. 
As his advances against major cities like Kyiv have slowed, his 
barbaric war crimes have mounted. Americans have seen the harrowing 
images of Russian strikes hitting schools, hospitals, maternity wards, 
and designated humanitarian quarters, indiscriminately killing 
children, women, and men.
  The horror of each day is amplified by the fact that this is not a 
war of necessity. This is a war of choice, a war chosen by Vladimir 
Putin. And that choice grew out of Putin's fear of democracy, his fear 
of freedom of expression.
  Just today, Putin's crony court sentenced Russian democracy activist 
Alexey Navalny to 9 years in a maximum security prison. First, they 
tried to poison Navalny; now they want to silence him with 9 more years 
in jail.

  So you see the lengths to which Putin is willing to go to silence one 
man. You can imagine how he fears a democracy of 44 million Ukrainians 
on his border. He is scared of the example it sets to the Russians that 
he keeps under his authoritarian thumb. He wants to extinguish--snuff 
out--the flame of liberty in Ukraine before it catches fire in Russia.
  So he started a war, a brutal war. Now, Vladimir Putin has shown the 
world who he really is: a scared tyrant who thinks he can snuff out 
democracy and freedom by brute force. But he is wrong. He can kill a 
lot of people, and he has; but whether it is a matter of weeks or many 
months, Putin will not be able to kill the aspirations of the people of 
Ukraine. We see proof of that fact every day in the defiant words and 
heroic actions of Ukrainians everywhere.
  Amidst the horror, the blood, and the misery, we have seen amazing 
strength. The people of Ukraine are fighting for their homeland, for 
their freedom, and for the power to control their own destiny. 
Ukrainian men and women of all backgrounds and ages have joined in this 
cause, blocking the path of Russian tanks with their bodies, making 
Molotov cocktails, tending to the wounded, and taking up arms. Their 
courage speaks to the very best of the human spirit.
  Like most Americans, I am deeply inspired by their resolve and their 
fortitude, and the whole world should learn from their determination 
because the stakes in this war go far beyond the borders of Ukraine. 
This is a fight for the future of democracy itself.
  As President Zelenskyy said in his address to Congress last week:

       Russia has attacked not just us, not just our land, not 
     just our cities. It went on a brutal offensive against our 
     values . . . against our freedom, against our right to live 
     freely in our own country, choosing our own future--against 
     our desire for happiness, against our national dreams--just 
     like the same dreams you have, you Americans.

  That was President Zelenskyy last week before Congress. He spoke of 
self-

[[Page S1283]]

determination. He spoke of individual liberty and freedom. Those are 
values enshrined in America's own founding documents.
  So Putin is not just trying to take over Ukraine; he is, as President 
Zelenskyy said, trying to destroy the notions of democracy and freedom 
that we hold dear. Putin wants to see freedom fade and democracy fail, 
and he is not alone in that effort.
  Just before the Winter Olympics in Beijing, Putin traveled to China 
and met with another autocratic leader, President Xi Jinping. Putin and 
Xi signed an agreement stating that relations between Russia and China 
had ``no limits,'' ``no limits.'' On that day, they formed a pact of 
autocracy. And, today, China's state-run media parrots Putin's lies as 
Russian tanks encircle Ukrainian towns.
  President Xi is watching closely to see if Putin's model of autocracy 
by conquest might work in other places, might work in Asia. China has 
already violated its international obligations by stomping out freedoms 
in Hong Kong. Now, the Chinese Communist Party is eyeing their own 
democratic neighbor, Taiwan. As Beijing weighs the risks of trying to 
forcefully unite Taiwan with mainland China, its leaders are monitoring 
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and they are watching closely how we and 
the world respond.
  Mr. President, the good news is the United States has rallied our 
NATO allies and partners in Europe. Even partners beyond the West have 
responded with unity and resolve, including Japan, South Korea, 
Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Singapore. One hundred forty-one 
countries voted at the United Nations to condemn Putin's war.
  Support has come not only in words and votes but also in deeds and 
help. Last week, President Biden signed the $14 billion emergency 
Ukraine legislation passed by the Senate and the House. The United 
States, our NATO partners, and others are supplying Ukrainians with the 
weapons they need to fight Putin's army. We are providing millions of 
Ukrainian refugees in Poland, Romania, and other neighboring countries 
with humanitarian assistance, and we are delivering aid to the millions 
more displaced within Ukraine itself.

  The United States has also worked in concert with our allies to 
unleash sweeping, punishing sanctions at a speed the world has never 
seen; and these sanctions are aimed right at the heart of Russia's 
economy, at Vladimir Putin, and at his cronies. We have cut off 
Russia's financial system from the world. The ruble is in shambles. The 
ill-gotten gains of the oligarchs are being seized at this very moment.
  The unity we see today among democracies in the face of Putin's 
aggression marks a double triumph. Not only does it allow us to form a 
united front against Putin, it also undermines his strategy of 
weakening democracies. He has long conspired to erode support for NATO 
from within its member countries. He believes freedom means unending 
chaos, and he wants to see us bicker ourselves into oblivion. When NATO 
and our key democratic allies are divided, Putin and authoritarians can 
win. When we are united, we win.
  When it comes to Putin and Russia, Members of Congress on both sides 
of the aisle have known this for years. Even when the former President 
attacked NATO and belittled our democratic partnerships, lawmakers on 
both sides of the aisle united to reaffirm our support for the 
alliance. In 2018, a bipartisan group of Senators reestablished the 
NATO Observer Group to keep an open line of communication with our NATO 
partners. I am proud to be a member of that group.
  In 2019, the Senate passed a resolution reaffirming our support for 
NATO in the face of the former President's attacks. That same year, 
Speaker Pelosi invited NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg to address a 
joint meeting of Congress. She did that on behalf of a bipartisan 
group. That was the first-ever such address by a NATO Secretary 
General.
  President Biden pledged that he would strengthen that tradition of 
unity, rebuild U.S. relations with our allies, and stand up for 
democracy, and that is what he has done. On day 1, he got to work 
repairing our tattered alliances after the beating they took during the 
last administration. He organized the first of two summits for 
democracy last December to rally global partners, and the Biden State 
Department organized dozens of diplomatic missions to countries around 
the world to foster democracy.
  So let's be clear: This speedy, severe, and synchronized response 
from the United States and our partners did not come about by chance. 
It wasn't random. Our unity came from the deliberate strategy of this 
President and his administration. President Biden understands that 
there is a global contest between autocrats like Putin and Xi, who want 
democracy to die, and those like Zelenskyy, who want it to flourish; 
and he has shown that democratic unity is the strongest instrument we 
have against the forces of autocracy.
  Mr. President, that unity was on full display in February when I 
traveled to the Munich Security Conference with a bipartisan group of 
lawmakers from both the House and the Senate. We met in Munich on the 
eve of Putin's invasion. And because President Biden had the foresight 
to share our intelligence about Putin's intentions with the world, 
NATO, the European community, and members of the G-7 had time to 
prepare and coordinate our response. It allowed us to plan the rapid 
delivery of weapons and the imposition of unified, crushing sanctions--
unity in action.
  I hope we can maintain that unity of purpose here at home. There was, 
as the Presiding Officer knows, a time in American life when politics 
stopped at the water's edge. I realize that era is for the most part 
over, but I hope--I hope this country is strong enough and wise enough 
to put aside our politics at least for the purpose of making common 
cause to support democracy and stand up against Putin, as long as it 
takes.

  That unity will be tested. I already see divisions in Congress over 
the administration's response to this invasion. Sometimes Members of 
the Senate or the House will have an idea to help Ukraine or an idea to 
punish Putin that they want implemented immediately. I often have the 
same impulse. But let's be clear: The success of the President's 
strategy has been the rapid coordination of our steps with our allies, 
whenever possible. That is how we pack the biggest punch.
  There are also some measures where the President has asked for 
immediate action and Congress has delayed. Five days ago, the House of 
Representatives passed a bill to strip Russia of its most-favored-
nation trading status. It passed 424 to 8. When is the last time we saw 
a vote like that in the House of Representatives?
  That bill is sitting right here in the Senate right now. We should 
and could pass it today. We should certainly pass it before President 
Biden leaves Wednesday--tomorrow--to meet with NATO allies and leaders 
from the European Union and G-7.
  Sometimes around here, if the President announces a sanctions measure 
a day after somebody else thinks about it, he gets criticized for it 
being too late; but here, the Senate has been sitting for days on the 
House bill, and every day that goes by is another day that Russian 
producers and exporters make more money, make more dollars. Every day 
that goes by provides some relief to Putin's cronies and the Russian 
economy. So let's stand together in this Senate and act on that 
legislation now.
  I also appeal to my colleagues--especially on the Republican side--to 
speak out against those here at home who are spreading Putin's 
propaganda. A case in point has been the fast-spreading lie that the 
United States and Ukraine have bio labs in Ukraine to help develop 
bioweapons. That is just flatout false, but that lie has been fueled in 
part by some in the rightwing media.
  On March 3, the Kremlin circulated a memo to Russian media saying it 
is ``essential'' to feature Tucker Carlson, who has been spreading this 
kind of misinformation about Putin's war on his show. The lie about the 
so-called American and Ukrainian bioweapons labs was also picked up and 
peddled by China's state media.
  So, Mr. President, all of us should stand up and speak out against 
this misinformation. American media figures can say what they want. 
That is their right. But so can we as Members of Congress, and I would 
argue we have a duty to make our voices heard and

[[Page S1284]]

join in the chorus of those calling out Russian lies across the globe.
  Every day, we see thousands of Russians flood the streets, from St. 
Petersburg to Siberia, to protest Putin's war. The world witnessed 
Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova speak out against the invasion 
on live, state-sponsored TV, with a sign calling out Putin's lies.
  These heroes are carrying on knowing full well the risk that they put 
themselves in, the risk that they will be thrown in jail or worse. The 
least we can do in Congress is to stand up to lies here at home that 
aid and abet Putin's propaganda machine.
  Make no mistake, even in unity, there will be spirited debate here. 
We will have disagreements over how to best respond to Putin's 
aggression, but we should never ever disagree about who the true enemy 
is. Vladimir Putin is to blame for this attack on democracy. Vladimir 
Putin is to blame for death and destruction in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin 
is the enemy--not one another; not the other party; not the President.
  There are plenty of things for us to fight about, but in the current 
battle for democracy and freedom in Ukraine and the larger fight for 
democracy and freedom around the world, the stakes are simply too high 
for us to fall back on partisan games. Let's come together. Let's stay 
together. And if we do, I am confident that democracy and justice will 
prevail.
  To those countries and leaders around the world who stand on the 
sidelines, I say that neutrality in the face of evil is complicity. In 
the end, freedom and the dignity of the human spirit will prevail over 
subjugation and oppression every single time. They need to get on the 
right side of history.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, before I start my remarks in regard to the 

2-year anniversary of the CARES Act, I just want to compliment my 
colleague from Maryland on his statements in regard to Mr. Putin's 
aggression in Ukraine.
  Everything he said I totally concur in--the unity that President 
Biden has been able to instill not only among our traditional allies 
but the global community; the strength of our help to the Ukrainian 
people, the help that we have given in regard to humanitarian relief; 
and the sanctions that were led by the United States--but we now have 
global support for many of these sanctions, which are making a 
difference.
  This is clearly a battle between good and evil, and I just really 
wanted to compliment my colleague from Maryland on his statement, one 
on which I hope all of us agree, and that we can move forward very 
quickly on the legislation you refer to that passed the House of 
Representatives that would make it clear that we will not do business 
with Russia as normal; that we will revoke the favored nation status 
and normal trade relations; and that we will do what Mr. Zelenskyy has 
asked us to do, and that is to make it clear that the Magnitsky 
sanctions, which are individual sanctions imposed against the 
perpetrators, Mr. Putin and his enablers in Russia, will be maintained 
with reauthorization of the global Magnitsky statute.
  I hope we will get to that as early as this week because I agree with 
my colleague that every day we delay it, in fact, is helping Mr. Putin. 
We need to make it clear and enact that statute, which, by the way, the 
Biden administration strongly encourages us to do.


                               CARES Act

  Mr. President, 2 years ago, the United States declared COVID-19 a 
national emergency. By then, it was clear that we were experiencing a 
once-in-a-century pandemic and that preventing the spread of this 
dangerous virus would require our Nation's greatest collective effort 
since World War II. Here in the U.S. Congress, we knew that this era-
defining challenge would require unprecedented action from the Federal 
Government to confront the economic and public health crisis created by 
COVID-19.
  The pandemic has waxed and waned in the 2 years since then, so 
opportunities for American families and small business owners to return 
to their normal lives have come in fits and starts. But one lesson that 
has remained true through these ups and downs and has been confirmed on 
multiple occasions through the pandemic is that the U.S. Federal 
Government can--it must--play a role in solving our Nation's 
longstanding, difficult, and intractable problems.
  Let us remember those first few weeks of the pandemic. The vast 
majority of Americans did not know what to make of the Centers for 
Disease Control's January report of a novel virus, the coronavirus 
identified abroad. By mid-February, small business owners were already 
feeling the effects of reduced revenues. By the end of February, the 
U.S. economy was rapidly deepening into a recession. There were severe 
disruptions in domestic and global supply chains, leading to shortages 
in food and critical personal protective equipment, and the 
unemployment rate was increasing rapidly.

  Congress had to act and act fast, so that is exactly what we did. We 
passed the CARES act--a bold, unprecedented, and comprehensive $2.2 
trillion COVID relief package that met the scale of the crisis we 
faced--and we did it without partisan rancor or political infighting. 
The bill passed the Senate 97 to 0. It is one of the greatest acts of 
bipartisanship I have witnessed during my career in politics.
  The CARES Act provided funding to our public health infrastructure 
for testing, tracing, and vaccine development. It directed funds to 
State and local governments that were straining under the cost of the 
pandemic. It also authorized the Treasury Department to get stimulus 
payments to American families and increased unemployment payments 
because we knew that millions of Americans would be unable to work as 
we came together to slow the spread of the virus.
  The bill also provided hundreds of billions of dollars to support our 
Nation's small businesses. I was proud to lead bipartisan negotiations 
on the small business provisions of this bill on the Small Business 
Task Force, which included myself and Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Marco 
Rubio, and Susan Collins.
  As we negotiated these provisions, we had several key facts in mind. 
First, small businesses have low profit margins and carry little in 
cash reserves, so they could only survive a few weeks of a closure 
without some form of support. Secondly, eventually, Americans unable to 
work would return to work, and it is much easier and quicker for small 
businesses to reopen with their existing staff instead of hiring new 
staff. Third, keeping small businesses in operation would make our 
eventual recovery come about more quickly and much more robustly. So we 
wanted to keep small businesses afloat. We wanted to keep their 
employees employed. We wanted to keep our economy moving forward.
  The Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, which predates the 
pandemic, had already been approved to provide loans to small 
businesses harmed by COVID-19. So we knew that small businesses would 
have access to the long-term capital they needed to adapt their 
businesses and make other investments.
  EIDL can meet small businesses' long-term capital needs, but we knew 
that we had to move quickly to meet the immediate capital needs of 
these businesses, so we created the EIDL Advance Grant Program to send 
$10,000 grants to small businesses that applied for EIDL.
  We knew how important it was to a recovery to keep employees on 
payroll, so we created the Paycheck Protection Program to provide small 
businesses with loans worth up to $10 million to cover the cost of up 
to 8 weeks of payroll, and we made a promise to borrowers to forgive 
the loans as long as they used the funds for payroll or other allowable 
expenses.
  We created a debt relief program to cover all costs associated with 
new and existing SBA loans for 6 months. We invested in the SBA 
entrepreneurship development programs to hire experts and increase 
capacity to help small businesses navigate the ups and downs of the 
pandemic.
  In total, the CARES Act included more than $375 billion in aid to 
small businesses. The aid could not have come soon enough. The initial 
$349 billion in PPP funds were exhausted in less than 2 weeks. SBA 
approved more than 1.6 million loans in that time.
  SBA's laudable efforts to deliver relief to small businesses also 
came with

[[Page S1285]]

disappointments and missed opportunities. Senator Shaheen and I fought 
to include a provision in the CARES Act that required SBA to issue 
guidance to the banks participating in PPP to prioritize loan 
applications for small businesses in underserved communities. We knew 
that those small businesses that had priority relationships with banks 
would be first in line, but we wanted the SBA to make sure that those 
that did not have those privileges would also be able to benefit by the 
PPP program.
  We insisted on the inclusion of this provision because we knew that a 
program like PPP, which relied on financial institutions to make loans, 
ran the risk of worsening the existing inequities in our private 
capital market.
  We simply could not allow small businesses in our most vulnerable 
communities to fall further behind. SBA failed to issue the guidance. 
So it was no surprise when organizations representing underserved small 
businesses sounded the alarm that women, minorities, small businesses 
in rural communities, and other underbanked borrowers were at risk of 
being frozen out of the program.
  The SBA's inspector general would eventually report that the Agency's 
implementation of PPP did not fully align with the intent of Congress. 
With funds exhausted after less than 2 weeks, the prior administration 
requested additional funds for PPP--and only PPP--which would have 
neglected the equally important EIDL Program, which had also exhausted 
its funds by then.

  It is important to keep in mind that since these programs were 
designed to work together, funding one without the other would not meet 
the needs of many small businesses.
  Once again, Members of this Chamber worked with our colleagues across 
the Capitol to create a comprehensive COVID-19 relief package that we 
all could agree on, which passed the Senate, again, unanimously.
  The bill provided an additional $370 billion of funds to the SBA 
COVID-19 relief efforts, with $310 billion for PPP, $10 billion for the 
EIDL Advance Grant Program.
  The bill also provided $50 billion for the EIDL Program, which 
allowed the Agency to make more than $350 billion in loans. And similar 
to the ways in which the CARES Act implemented lessons learned during a 
prior economic downturn, the second package implemented lessons learned 
during the first round of PPP.
  Since the SBA did not issue the guidance as required by the CARES 
Act, Senate Democrats championed more prescriptive policies to make the 
PPP fairer and more equitable.
  I remain proud that we were able to set aside $60 billion of PPP 
funds to be distributed by credit unions, community development 
financial institutions, minority depository institutions, community 
banks, and other small lenders that are better able to get funds to 
underserved and underbanked communities.
  We wanted to make sure that those who needed it could get it, and I 
am proud that we were able to include that in that legislation.
  Thanks to the set-aside, approximately 600 new, mostly nonbank, 
lenders that did not participate in phase 1, participated in phase 2 of 
the PPP program. We should take great pride in knowing that the set-
aside worked.
  According to the Government Accounting Office report issued in 
September of last year, banks made the vast majority of PPP loans 
during phase 1 of the program. As a result, the program favored larger 
small businesses. During phase 2, however, the Agency found that the 
share of loans to underserved businesses and communities ``was 
proportionate to their representation in the overall small business 
community.''
  We succeeded in the second round. For example, 42 percent of the 
loans approved during phase 1 of PPP went to businesses with between 10 
and 499 employees, but those businesses only accounted for 4 percent of 
all the businesses in the United States. We know that women-owned and 
minority-owned small businesses are less likely to have employees at 
all, and when they do, they have less employees, on average.
  During phase 2, the share of loans to the larger of these businesses 
with 10 or more employees dropped to 17 percent. We achieved our 
objective.
  And while only 9 percent of the PPP loans issued during phase 1 went 
to businesses located in counties where women-owned businesses 
accounted for a large share of all businesses, the number doubled to 18 
percent during phase 2, which is in line with the share of small 
businesses nationwide owned by women.
  Similarly, 36 percent of phase 1 loans went to small businesses in 
high-minority counties, and that number increased to 50 percent in 
phase 2.
  In every example in underserved communities--minority-owned small 
businesses, women-owned small businesses--because we targeted the funds 
to mission lenders, because we were able to get the entrepreneurial 
services to small businesses that needed the help, we reached the 
underserved community.
  I would like to take a moment to highlight the significance of these 
findings. The fact that women and minorities face historic and 
pervasive barriers to entrepreneurship is not new, and the primary 
barrier is their inability to access capital. But the GAO's report 
confirms that through the policies, the capital access gap is 
bridgeable. We can bridge this gap if we pass the right policies.
  After the end of phase 2 of PPP on August 8, Congress negotiated the 
next round of COVID-19 relief, which was not finalized until December 
22.
  Negotiations may have taken much longer than any of us would have 
liked, but we once again found common ground to pass the bipartisan 
Economic Aid Act, providing $900 billion in COVID-19 relief, including 
an additional $325 billion for small businesses. In this bill, my 
Democratic colleagues and I secured an additional $30 billion set-aside 
for smaller lenders in addition to expanding eligibility to additional 
industries and nonprofits. The Economic Aid Act also provided eligible 
small businesses with an additional Second Draw PPP loan worth up to $2 
million.
  The bill created new programs as well. The Shuttered Venue Operators 
Grant Program was created to provide grants of up to $10 million to 
live venues, independent movie theaters, and other cultural 
institutions that were shuttered as a result of COVID-19. And a new $20 
billion Targeted EIDL Advance Program was created to provide additional 
EIDL Advance grants to our Nation's most vulnerable small businesses 
that couldn't afford to take out a loan. They needed grants.
  I would like to take a moment to speak on why the Targeted EIDL 
Advance Program was necessary.
  Similar to how the Trump administration initially handled the PPP, 
hindering the program's utility, the administration's implementation of 
the EIDL Advance Program also made it less useful to small businesses. 
The CARES Act directed SBA to provide $10,000 grants to all EIDL 
applicants, but the Trump administration only provided $1,000 per 
employee up to 10 employees.
  The Targeted EIDL Advance Program addressed the problem directly by 
targeting the program to the most vulnerable communities and providing 
small businesses in those communities with the remainder of the $10,000 
Congress intended them to receive. We corrected the mistake initially 
made.
  It remains frustrating to know that our Federal response to the 
pandemic could have helped even more small businesses. So it was 
welcome relief when President Biden was inaugurated because I knew that 
America's underserved small businesses would have a champion 
administering phase 3 of PPP, and we in Congress would have a partner 
committed to ensuring that these programs helped as many small 
businesses as possible.
  The administration hit the ground running. In February of 2021, 
President Biden instituted a 14-day priority period for PPP, during 
which the SBA only processed applications for small businesses with 
fewer than 20 employees.
  The administration also changed the loan calculation formula for 
small proprietors and eliminated an exclusionary restriction that 
prevented small business owners with a prior nonfelony conviction from 
obtaining a PPP loan for their businesses.
  In addition to these administrative actions, President Biden also 
proposed and Congress enacted the American

[[Page S1286]]

Rescue Plan. The bold relief package created the Restaurant 
Revitalization Fund to provide grants to restaurants and bars that lost 
revenue due to COVID-19, added additional funds to the Shuttered Venue 
Operators Grant Program, added additional funds to the Targeted EIDL 
Advance Program, and provided $350 billion to States and localities, 
which helped spur new State programs and replenish existing ones, like 
the RELIEF Act and the Maryland Strong Economic Recovery Initiative in 
my own home State, and created a new Community Navigator Program to get 
the SBA's entrepreneurial development resources in the communities that 
would benefit from them the most.
  We had the Federal programs. Then we had the navigators to help small 
businesses get those funds. And we provided local funds through State 
and local governments so they could help small businesses. We really 
went through everything we could to help those that needed the help the 
most.
  The significance of these actions--the passage of the bipartisan 
Economic Aid Act in December, the Biden administration's administrative 
steps, and the American Rescue Plan--cannot be overstated. They helped 
set our Nation on course for the most robust economic recovery in 
American history.
  Phase 3 of PPP--January to May 31, 2021--had the most equitable loan 
approval shares, according to a report released in January of this year 
by economists Robert Fairlie and Frank Fossen. Fairlie and Fossen, both 
of whom have been following PPP and the pandemic's impact on small 
businesses closely for the past 2 years, cited the extraordinary 
increase in loan volume of Prestamos, a CDFI that targets Hispanic-
owned small businesses, as an example of the success of the PPP under 
the Biden administration.
  These numbers are impressive. During phase 1 of PPP, Prestamos ranked 
4,274 among PPP lenders by volume. That was phase 1, where you really 
had to have an existing relationship if you were going to be able 
to get a PPP loan. In phase 2, where we did a better job of targeting, 
they ranked 325. In phase 3, they were among the top ranked PPP lenders 
by volume.

  They wrote that the 14-day priority period in particular ``helped to 
bring the PPP loans to disadvantaged small businesses.''
  Thank you to the Biden administration and the Democrats in Congress.
  The program hasn't only been good for small businesses; it has also 
supported small community banks. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 
wrote that small business lending was a ``key business line'' for small 
community banks during the operation of the program and that the 
program will help smaller banks regain some of the ground they have 
lost through larger competitors in the small business loan market.
  The Biden administration's implementation of the Shuttered Venue 
Operators Grant Program has also been a resounding success. After 
awarding more than 12,800 initial grants worth more than $11 billion at 
an average of more than 1 million per institution, the administration 
also awarded more than 8,700 supplemental grants worth more than $3 
billion.
  I mention all of that because we know our shuttered venues would be 
out of business if it weren't for the shuttered loan program. It has 
kept them in business.
  And the administration successfully provided more than 100,000 
restaurants with the Restaurant Revitalization Fund grants, worth more 
than $28 billion in grants.
  I have seen firsthand the benefit of these grants as I have traveled 
in Maryland. On Small Business Friday, last year, I did a walking tour 
down Main Street in Annapolis. Every single restaurant owner I visited 
shared that they may not have survived without the Restaurant 
Revitalization Fund grant. All of these restaurants are more than just 
a place to grab a bite to eat. These are decades-old institutions owned 
by small business operators, and their closures would have been deeply 
felt by the community.
  In the coming weeks, Congress must finish the job by replenishing the 
Restaurant Revitalization Fund. There are still hundreds of thousands 
of applicants waiting on funds. We have to finish the job for our 
restaurants, because if there are any lessons learned from the past 2 
years, it is that when Congress comes together to produce thoughtful 
policies that address the system issues in our economy, it yields 
results.
  After enduring the deepest economic contraction since 1947, the 
American economy grew at the fastest rate since 1984 with the first 
year of Joe Biden's administration.
  We are back, but we still have pockets that need help.
  In an ironic twist of history, the lessons we have learned and the 
expertise and capacity that we have built up within the SBA have now 
prepared us for what can only be described as an entrepreneurial 
renaissance underway in our communities. According to the Census 
Bureau, Americans registered 4.4 million new businesses in 2020--4.4 
million new businesses--the highest total on record and a 24-percent 
increase over the prior year.
  Remarkably, the surge is being driven by entrepreneurs in some of our 
most underserved communities, and our policies helped make that a 
reality. For example, data shows that between February 2020 and August 
2021, the number of Black business owners increased by 38 percent.
  Congress needs to take advantage of the entrepreneurial spirit that 
is surging throughout our communities by continuing to invest in our 
entrepreneurs, especially those in underserved communities. We have 
demonstrated that the historic structural barriers that have inhibited 
the growth of small businesses in underserved communities are far from 
insurmountable.
  Now is not the time to retreat. It is time for us to double down. In 
implementing lessons learned during the implementation of PPP, we 
should create a new direct loan program within SBA and further empower 
small businesses. We must build on the inroads that the SBA has made 
with underserved communities during the pandemic to get entrepreneurial 
development, business mentorship, and technical training into 
communities that would benefit from it the most. And we should continue 
to work in a bipartisan way to ensure that American small businesses 
have the tools they need to emerge from the COVID-19 stronger than 
ever.
  The bottom line is our policies made a difference. We saved America's 
small businesses. We need to continue to work in the future to make 
sure the climate for small businesses is healthy so that our economy 
can continue to grow.
  We know that small businesses are the growth engine of job growth in 
America. We know that they are where most innovation takes place in our 
economy.
  Our policies during this pandemic helped save small businesses and 
now expand the opportunity for small businesses, but we need to 
continue to pay attention to these issues.
  I hope we can do this in a bipartisan way. We need to replenish the 
funds for those that have not been able to get it under the Restaurant 
Revitalization Fund, and we need to pay attention to small businesses 
in this country.

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.


                          Strategic Deterrence

  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, earlier this month, the commanders of 
the U.S. Strategic Command and the U.S. Space Command, ADM Charles 
Richard and GEN James Dickinson, testified before the Senate Armed 
Services Committee for their annual posture hearing.
  The backdrop for their testimony was two twin challenges facing the 
United States and our allies: Putin's desire to recreate the Russian 
Empire, demonstrated most recently in his unprovoked and unjustified 
invasion of Ukraine, and China's plan to massively expand their power, 
rolling back U.S. influence in the process.
  Both of these American adversaries are expanding their nuclear 
arsenals to back up their ambitions.
  As ranking member of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces and with 
STRATCOM's headquarters in my State of Nebraska, I appreciated this 
chance to engage with Admiral Richard on such an important issue.
  As the commander of STRATCOM, Admiral Richard has one of the highest 
pressure jobs in the world--overseeing America's nuclear forces. He 
knows

[[Page S1287]]

better than anyone how important our nuclear deterrent is to preventing 
war around the world, and he understands the threat posed by our 
adversaries' growing arsenals.
  Admiral Richard told the Armed Services Committee that Putin's war in 
Ukraine is giving us ``a very vivid real-world example of the 
importance of extended deterrence.'' What he meant by that is that, 
even though Putin has brought a major war back to Europe for the first 
time since the end of World War II and heartbreaking destruction to the 
people of Ukraine, nuclear deterrence, including the extended 
deterrence commitments that we provide our allies, has shielded NATO 
countries and discouraged the conflict's spread. More specifically, 
without our nuclear deterrent, our plans to protect American citizens 
and our allies would fall apart.

  Take it straight from Admiral Richard. He said:

       Every operational plan in the Department of Defense, and 
     every other capability we have, rests on the assumption that 
     strategic deterrence is holding, and in particular that 
     nuclear deterrence is holding.
       If strategic or nuclear deterrence fails, no other plan and 
     no other capability in the Department of Defense is going to 
     work as designed.

  When people who care about a safe and secure America say that 
strategic deterrence, especially nuclear deterrence, is the bedrock of 
our national security, that is exactly what we mean because, at the end 
of the day, American strength is the only thing that tyrants like Putin 
actually respect.
  Just as we need to reassess our approach to Putin in light of his 
invasion of Ukraine, we also need to rethink our approach to our 
nuclear deterrent. Barely 2 months ago, on January 3, the five members 
of the U.N. Security Council released a joint declaration on 
``Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races.'' Russia, of course, 
is one of those five members.
  People who want our deterrence to continue aging while Russia and 
China modernize their own forces, including many members of the media, 
rushed to hail the joint statement as a long-awaited and revolutionary 
breakthrough. They seemed certain that we had turned a corner and that 
by signing this statement, we were ushering in a new and enduring era 
of world peace.
  I was skeptical. I wrote an op-ed in National Review Online that 
responded to what I called the ``delusional'' parts of that statement 
and the wishful thinking that led the United States to sign our name 
next to those of Russia and China.
  More than a month before Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, I 
wrote:

       This would be a historic moment for international unity--or 
     rather, it would be if it were true. China and Russia may 
     have signed this document, but they do not intend to honor 
     it.

  They clearly did not.
  Since then, Russia has put their deterrent on high alert, essentially 
threatening to use their nukes against the other countries that signed 
that statement. I believe it was clear to anyone who had been paying 
attention that signing our names to a feel-good piece of paper wasn't 
actually going to change anything about Putin's behavior or the 
behavior of China.
  While our deterrent remains effective, we are asking it to protect 
against a growing range of threats. Russia is continuing the deadliest 
war in Europe in nearly a century, and the Chinese Communist Party--
well, they are hard at work expanding their own nuclear arsenal. And 
they are doing it at a pace we have never seen in world history.
  I asked Admiral Richard about the U.S. intelligence community's 
estimate that China plans to potentially quadruple their nuclear 
arsenal by the year 2030. He told the committee:

       Last fall, I formally reported to the Secretary of Defense 
     the PRC's strategic breakout. Their expansion and 
     modernization in 2021 alone is breathtaking. And the concern 
     I expressed in my testimony last April has now become a 
     reality.

  China is attempting a rapid buildup of unprecedented scope and scale, 
and we have no reason to think they will stop once they reach the 
Pentagon's estimate. We have even less reason to think it will take 
China 8 more years to grow their stockpile to 1,000 deliverable 
warheads.
  Admiral Richard agreed. In response to my questioning, he said:

       Whatever the time estimate that the intelligence community 
     gives you on anything from China, divide it by two and maybe 
     by four and you will get closer to the right answer.
       So, no, I don't know that we have any idea of [China's] 
     endpoint and/or speed.

  And as Admiral Richard pointed out at another point in the hearing, 
many observers have gotten too caught up on the ``1,000 by 2030'' 
figure.
  Since the Pentagon released their report in November of last year, an 
unspoken assumption has developed that China will simply stop building 
nukes once they reach that point, whether that is in 2025 or 2030. But 
let me point out, the Chinese Communist Party has given us no reason to 
think that that might be the case.
  In fact, given their ambitions to take Taiwan and develop a Chinese 
sphere of influence beyond Asia, I think it is very likely they will 
continue building far beyond that number.
  And even as China works to expand its nuclear arsenal, ours is 
rapidly aging. The United States has not designed or built a new 
nuclear warhead since the end of the Cold War. We don't even have the 
ability to produce a new warhead right now, and we are the only nuclear 
power unable to do so. China and Russia can. The United Kingdom can. 
France can. And India and Pakistan can. Even North Korea can.
  But here in the United States, we cannot. Instead, we have focused on 
extending the life of our current systems. This has pushed our 
deterrent far beyond its designed lifetime and made the need for 
modernization even more acute.
  Admiral Richard went out of his way to stress this point during his 
testimony. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee:

       Right now, I am executing my strategic deterrence mission 
     under historic stress, crisis levels of deterrence, crisis 
     deterrence dynamics that we've only seen a couple of times in 
     our nation's history.
       And I'm doing it with submarines built in the '80s and 
     '90s, an air-launched cruise missile built in the '80s, 
     intercontinental ballistic missiles built in the '70s, a 
     bomber built in the '60s, part of our nuclear command and 
     control that predates the internet, and a nuclear weapons 
     complex that dates back to the Manhattan era.
  We have ignored the need to modernize our deterrence for far too 
long. As Admiral Richard said at another point during his testimony: 
The nuclear force we have today is the absolute minimum we need to 
guarantee our security.
  The world has only gotten more dangerous over the past decade, and 
the last few weeks in Ukraine are the latest evidence of that.
  But Washington--well, Washington has spent that time procrastinating.
  Our failure to make tough decisions has left Admiral Richard with a 
deterrent that simply hasn't kept up with those of our adversaries. The 
final piece of Admiral Richard's testimony I will read is this:

       We have reached a point where we can no longer deter with 
     the leftovers of the Cold War. We have life extended them to 
     the maximum extent possible.
       We must now start to recapitalize, remanufacture those that 
     require a very robust infrastructure . . . We're 10 years 
     behind the point where we needed to start recapitalizing the 
     infrastructure . . . And the consequence is we simply won't 
     have the capabilities that we are going to have to have to 
     deter the threat environment we're in.

  We cannot keep kicking the can down the road. We are not in the 1990s 
or the 2000s anymore. The threat environment is changing, and we have 
no choice but to keep up. But our nuclear deterrent is sized based on 
the 2010 New START Treaty, written in a very different world, before 
Putin decided to behave like a war criminal and before China's 
unprecedented nuclear breakout.
  To wrap up, I would like to draw my colleagues' attention to an 
exchange from the Foreign Relations Committee's hearings during the 
ratification process for the New START Treaty.
  Responding to a question about whether the posture set by the treaty 
left the United States with nuclear forces beyond what we needed, the 
STRATCOM commander at the time, GEN Kevin Chilton, completely rejected 
that idea. He said instead:

       I think the arsenal that we have is exactly what is needed 
     today to provide the deterrent.

  We need to think long and hard about if a deterrent designed around 
the

[[Page S1288]]

threats of 2010 is still what is needed for the very different and much 
more dangerous world we live in now.
  I hope the administration will address that question in its upcoming 
Nuclear Posture Review. In fact, the upcoming fiscal year budget and 
various strategy documents we expect to be released soon, including the 
NPR, are a chance for the administration to show that they do 
understand the challenges that we face. Most fundamentally, that is the 
erosion of global stability and the increasingly challenging threat 
environment facing our country.
  These documents are an opportunity for President Biden to propose a 
realistic plan to meet these threats. I hope that he will. The hard 
truth is that every day that we refuse to commit to the modernization 
schedule today's world needs is a day that Russia and China become 
greater threats. They get further ahead.
  If we wait too long, we are going to wake up 5, 10, 20 years from now 
with no way to deter adversaries who did commit to modernization. That 
is not a position anyone wants to wind up in.
  We need to act like adults and make difficult choices to prioritize 
our nuclear deterrent, the most fundamental part of our defense 
strategy. And we have to keep modernization on schedule in the FY2023 
NDAA.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.

                          ____________________