[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 70 (Thursday, April 28, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2199-S2211]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

   AMERICA CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR MANUFACTURING, PRE-EMINENCE IN 
    TECHNOLOGY, AND ECONOMIC STRENGTH ACT OF 2022--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the House message to accompany H.R. 4521, which 
the clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       House message to accompany H.R. 4521, a bill to provide for 
     a coordinated Federal research initiative to ensure continued 
     United States leadership in engineering biology.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.


                                 Energy

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, from the beginning, the Biden 
administration has displayed a hostility to fossil fuels.
  President Biden set the tone on day 1 of his administration when he 
canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline, an environmentally responsible 
pipeline project that was already underway and that was to be paired 
with $1.7 billion in private investment in renewable energy to fully 
offset its operating emissions. He almost immediately froze new oil and 
gas leases on Federal lands and is only now making new onshore leases 
available for sale after being ordered to do so by a Federal judge. His 
first budget contained a series of tax hikes on conventional energy 
production, and his budget this year, released in the midst of an 
energy crisis, calls for hiking taxes on fossil fuel companies to the 
tune of tens of billions of dollars. And the list goes on.
  Perhaps even more troubling, however, is the more insidious campaign 
the President has been conducting against conventional energy 
production, using the long arm of financial regulation and government 
pressure to directly or indirectly discourage investment in fossil 
fuels and other industries disliked by his political base.
  The Securities and Exchange Commission recently issued a completely 
unworkable proposed rule requiring publicly traded companies to 
disclose information not only about their own greenhouse gas emissions 
but about those of their suppliers and even their customers--clearly 
attempting to make companies diminish or outright cut ties with 
traditional energy. Never mind whether this expanded environmental, 
social, and corporate governance--or ESG, as it is called--desired by 
the far left can be accurately or consistently measured, much less 
proved to have a positive impact on the economy or for the climate.
  But the administration doesn't stop there. The Commodity Futures 
Trading Commission established a so-called Climate Risk Unit that 
potentially seems designed to pressure industries into making certain 
investment choices. The Federal Reserve, which has zero business 
inserting itself into debates over climate policy, is suggesting that 
it should provide ``supervisory guidance'' to large banks on so-called 
climate-related risks. Similarly, the Office of the Comptroller of the 
Currency recently issued draft principles for banks on ``climate-
related financial risk.''
  President Biden's climate envoy, former Secretary of State John 
Kerry, has actively--actively--pressured banks not to invest in fossil 
fuels. And disturbingly, the original draft of the National Credit 
Union Administration's Draft Strategic Plan for 2022 to

[[Page S2200]]

2026, though it has since been revised, went beyond discouraging 
investment in conventional energy production and actually suggested 
that investing too heavily in agriculture--agriculture--could be 
problematic for climate-related reasons. Now, I am not sure where the 
National Credit Union Administration thinks our food is going to come 
from if banks and credit unions don't provide capital to their farms 
and ranch clients.
  All of these measures, as I said, are designed to directly or 
indirectly discourage investment in conventional energy production and 
other industries that the far left believes interfere with its 
unrealistic environmental agenda. And that is a problem. While I am a 
longtime supporter of clean energy and come from a State that in 2020 
derived 83 percent of its energy generation from renewables, the fact 
of the matter is that our country is nowhere close to being able to 
eliminate our reliance on fossil fuels. Clean energy technology has 
simply not advanced to the point where we can replace all conventional 
energy production with renewables.
  And cutting off investment in clean, responsible oil and gas 
production will do nothing but drive up energy prices for American 
consumers and increase our reliance on energy from unstable or 
unfriendly countries, which, I might add, often extract energy in far 
less environmentally friendly ways than do U.S. producers.
  Americans are already struggling with high energy prices, thanks, in 
part, to the Biden administration's hostility to domestic oil and gas 
production, and I don't think too many Americans are eager to see 
energy prices rise even further. In the worst-case scenario, limiting 
investment in U.S. conventional energy production could not only drive 
up prices but contribute to fuel shortages here at home, as we may end 
up seeing with countries that are overly reliant on Russian energy. And 
I am pretty sure there aren't many Americans who are eager to wait in 
line at gas stations for a rationed amount of gas.
  And it is not just high energy prices that Americans could have to 
worry about. If Democrats take their climate hysteria as far as 
discouraging lending to certain sectors of the agricultural economy, 
like livestock, which now seems possible, Americans could also see food 
prices rise sharply. I think it is safe to say that it is the last 
thing American families need in an economy that is already beset by 8.5 
percent inflation, not to mention the fact that agriculture should 
actually be regarded as a good investment when it comes to climate 
change considerations. American agriculture should be leveraged as part 
of environmental and conservation policies, and our farmers have a 
vested interest in our land and water.
  Add in the biofuels industry, and our agriculture sector can 
responsibly provide food, fuel, and fiber for the Nation. In fact, the 
Department of Energy has found that ethanol derived by increasingly 
higher crop yields has a more than 40 percent lower lifecycle carbon 
footprint than gasoline.
  Beyond all this, Mr. President, is the fact that the President's 
attempt to dictate investment by privately owned banks and credit 
unions and companies is a misuse of the financial regulatory system. 
The President's use of the financial regulatory system to pressure 
companies on energy investment has all too familiar echoes of the Obama 
administration's Operation Choke Point initiative, which used the 
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Department of Justice to 
target companies whose activities the Obama administration didn't like.
  The question also becomes, Where does this end? The government is 
already pressuring companies on firearms and energy investment, and now 
there are dangerous signs that agriculture could be targeted on 
perceived climate-related grounds.
  Well, what is next? Is the Biden administration going to pressure 
banks not to lend to companies who don't espouse the Biden 
administration's extreme abortion agenda or who donate to causes the 
Biden administration doesn't support? Is it going to pressure banks not 
to lend to States with laws the administration doesn't like?
  These are legitimate questions. As we have seen more than once, the 
Biden administration doesn't have a lot of tolerance for those who 
disagree with its far-left policy goals. Concerns like these are one 
reason why I led 10 of my fellow Republicans earlier this month in 
sending a letter to the President expressing our alarm with his 
administration's use of the financial regulatory system to attempt to 
choke off lending to conventional energy production and potentially 
target American agriculture. And I will continue to work with my 
colleagues to ensure that the Biden administration and its regulators 
are not making improper use of executive power to discourage investment 
in essential production and to pick winners and losers among American 
industries.
  Americans should not have to suffer because Democrats' climate agenda 
is out of control.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The Republican leader is recognized.


                               Inflation

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, runaway inflation is crushing working 
American families on Democrats' watch. The share of Americans who say 
the economy is our most important problem hasn't been this high since 
the last time Democrats controlled the White House.
  Just this morning, we got a devastating quarterly GDP report. The 
economy actually shrank 1.4 percent over the last 3 months. No longer 
are Democrats just presiding over a disappointing recovery. Now they 
have thrown the recovery into reverse, and we are actually going 
backward. We haven't seen inflation this bad in more than 40 years--
month after month of skyrocketing prices.
  It is exactly what everyone knew would happen if Democrats dumped $2 
trillion in printed money on an economy that was already ready for a 
comeback. But Democrats rammed through the far-left spending. So 
working Americans are paying dearly.
  This week, the same Washington Democrats who drove this inflation 
have finally figured out their response. They want to raise taxes on 
the American people. The Democratic leader said this Tuesday:

       If you want to get rid of inflation, the only way to do it 
     is to undo a lot of the Trump tax cuts and raise rates. No 
     Republican is ever going to do that. So the only way to get 
     rid of inflation is through reconciliation.

  Said the Democratic leader. Now, remember, Senator Schumer is the 
same person who said in March 2021:

       I do not think the dangers of inflation, at least in the 
     near term, are very real.

  Now the same person who predicted that inflation would not happen is 
saying we have to fight inflation by dramatically raising taxes on the 
American people.
  The answer for Democrats hurting families once is for Democrats to 
hurt families twice. This is literally the Democratic economic agenda 
for your family: high prices and less money.
  Republicans' 2017 tax cuts just about doubled the standard deduction 
for households. We created a brandnew zero percent tax bracket for the 
first $24,000 that a married couple brings in. Repealing that law would 
cut that in half and raise your taxes. That is what repealing the 2017 
tax bill actually means.
  Republican tax cuts also double the child tax credit from $1,000 to 
$2,000, a tremendous help for working families. Repealing the 2017 tax 
law would slash those credits in half, but that is what Democrats say 
they want to do because of the inflation that they created.
  This is Senate Democrats' position: Because their bad decisions have 
hurt Americans once, the solution is to hurt Americans twice. First, 
they hurt you with inflation, and now, they want to hurt you with tax 
hikes.
  We will see what our citizens have to say about that later this year.


                              Immigration

  Mr. President, now, on another matter, yesterday Secretary Mayorkas 
testified: ``We will not lose operational control of the border.'' But, 
of course, the truth is they already have. The Secretary's own Customs 
and Border

[[Page S2201]]

Protection personnel are struggling to keep up with the massive, 
massive numbers. Only halfway through the fiscal year, they have 
already encountered a million people trying to enter our country 
illegally, and that doesn't count all the people they actually never 
caught.
  But now President Biden wants to rip away the one remaining bandaid 
preserving any semblance of law and order. He is canceling the pandemic 
authorities that let CBP immediately turn people around and actually 
send them back home.
  This week, the administration put out a laughable excuse for a new 
border security plan. In this new memo, Secretary Mayorkas says he aims 
to have a total capacity to hold 18,000 illegal immigrants in custody 
at one time. But here is the problem: That is the number of illegal 
immigrants that some CBP officials fear we could soon be seeing every 
single day. Let me say that again. The administration hopes they will 
soon be able to hold 18,000 people total in custody, while the experts 
warn we could soon have 18,000 coming in every single day.
  So perhaps that is why the second main point in this Mayorkas memo is 
this: ``moving with deliberate speed to mitigate potential overcrowding 
at Border Patrol stations.'' So if you translate that from Washington 
speak into plain English, it means they want to speed up catch-and-
release a whole lot faster. They don't have a plan to secure the 
border. They have a plan to keep the turnstiles greased up and spinning 
as fast as possible--a total abdication and the opposite of what the 
American people expect.


                            National Defense

  Mr. President, now, on one final matter, the free world has rallied 
behind Ukraine, including by supplying lethal aid that Ukrainians need 
to actually fight and win this war. But it is not enough for Americans 
and our allies to help arm Ukraine; we need to modernize and grow our 
own defenses at the same time. After just 2 months, our aid to Ukraine 
has drawn down a quarter--a quarter--of our entire stockpile of Stinger 
anti-air missiles and a third of our Javelin antitank missiles. Our 
eastern flank allies' stockpiles of similar weapons have also shrunk as 
well.

  So this is a wake-up call and not just about our ability to support 
the current fight; Ukraine's expenditure rate of critical munitions 
should cause us to question whether our own wartime requirements for 
weapons systems and munitions are sufficient.
  This would be less of a problem if we had a robust defense industrial 
base to quickly refill our armories. But defense manufacturers have 
admitted that the production lines for some critical components have 
actually dried up, and it could be years before they could replace the 
weapons that we have already sent to Ukraine.
  We live in a dangerous world. Whether it is the prospect of 
escalation by Russia against NATO today or the threat of aggression by 
China, Iran, North Korea, or some other adversary tomorrow, America 
must be prepared to project power all over the globe.
  We cannot assume our adversaries will give us time to prepare for 
battle or to restock in the middle of one. For the sake of deterring 
the next conflict or winning it if deterrence fails, we must invest in 
our military readiness.
  For 2 years in a row, the administration has submitted budgets that 
do not adequately resource our military. They have failed to even keep 
pace with President Biden's inflation, meaning a net cut in funding. 
And with prices soaring, it won't just take longer to build new 
Stingers and Javelins; it will cost more for them as well.
  Congress has already given the administration significant tools and 
authorities to help America's defense industry address the urgent and 
growing demand for critical munitions and weapons systems. This is 
precisely--precisely--the situation the Defense Production Act was 
designed to address. But instead of invoking the DPA as intended, this 
administration has entertained far-left schemes to use it for unrelated 
liberal goals like environmental policy.
  But I am glad to hear President Biden will be traveling to Alabama 
next week to visit a facility that manufactures Javelins. While he is 
there, I hope he will reconsider what his administration is doing to 
ramp up production of other critical munitions and weapons systems.
  I hope he will recognize what is needed to enhance America's security 
and that of our NATO eastern flank allies and Asian partners threatened 
by China. The President should use the powerful tools he already has--
he already has--to fix this shortfall before it is too late.
  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. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Recognition of the Majority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.


                       Business Before the Senate

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, it has been a good week in the Senate 
because two important things happened. First, we finally confirmed 
every single U.S. attorney that had been blocked by Republicans, making 
the country safer. And today, the Senate is taking the next big step 
toward enacting major legislation to create jobs, bring back American 
manufacturing, strengthen supply chains, and unleash another generation 
of American innovation.
  Later today, we will vote to enter into a conference committee with 
the House on the competition and innovation legislation, and we will 
work with the House to finalize this jobs competitiveness bill. We will 
also vote next Tuesday and Wednesday on 28 motions to instruct--8 from 
Democrats, 20 from Republicans.
  There is still a lot of work to do before we send this competitive 
jobs bill to the President's desk. Not everyone is going to get what 
they want, but even so, this bill is going to be just what the doctor 
ordered to boost our economy, bring back manufacturing jobs, and lower 
costs for American families.
  Let me say it again. Today, the Senate is moving forward on 
legislation that is awash with good news for American jobs, American 
families, American innovation. It is great news for American families 
who want to see lower costs on daily essentials. It is great news for 
workers who want to see good-paying manufacturing jobs brought back 
from overseas. It is great news for our businesses, especially our chip 
manufacturers that need help strengthening supply chains. And it is 
great news for our innovators, scientists, workers at universities, and 
creators who will help us create new technologies and generate the next 
wave of good-paying jobs in this century.
  Now, we Democrats have bent over backward to get this bill done. We 
allowed a very long list of motions to instruct. In fact, it is the 
most votes on motions to instruct of any bill in decades. And it is a 
sign of both the immense good will we have shown to our Republican 
colleagues and the fact that many Members on both sides of the aisle 
have a stake in seeing the bill finalized.
  Frankly, it shouldn't have taken us so long to get to this point of 
forming a conference on the USICA legislation, but, once again, it is 
good news that the bill is moving forward.
  I thank my colleagues from both sides of the aisle who worked in good 
faith to help us reach this point. I give a particular shout-out to 
Chairman Cantwell, as well as Senator Young, my cosponsor on this 
legislation.


                     Confirmations and Nominations

  Mr. President, as I also mentioned, we got more good news yesterday 
after the Senate confirmed every single U.S. attorney who had been 
blocked by a handful of Republican obstructionists.
  It was about time that Republicans finally relented on their 
dangerous and indefensible blockade on Federal prosecutors. I don't 
think it has ever happened before. These U.S. attorneys are vital to 
keeping Americans safe. They are not political positions; they are 
entirely dedicated to preserving public safety and protecting our 
communities.
  It was totally reckless for a very small band of Republicans, who 
claim to care about public safety, to have halted these Federal 
prosecutors for so long just to score political points.
  Still, after months of unnecessary delay, Americans in Georgia and 
Michigan and Ohio and Nevada and

[[Page S2202]]

Minnesota and New Hampshire and other States can breathe a sigh of 
relief that the Republican blockade on Federal prosecutors has broken.
  Now, there are many other very important and uncontroversial nominees 
who are still being blocked by a handful of Senate Republicans. Many of 
them deal with national security. Many of them would help our country 
find ways to lower costs. Republicans should drop their holds on these 
uncontroversial nominees at once or else we are going to have to keep 
Members here in the Chamber for late night and weekend sessions to get 
them through.
  Finally, I want to say it was egregious for Republicans to similarly 
prevent the nomination of Lisa Cook to go through this week. Make no 
mistake, we are going to get her confirmed through the Senate as soon 
as we can.
  Lisa Cook is a historic and highly qualified nominee. She will be the 
first Black woman ever to sit on the Federal Reserve Board of 
Governors. Her family, literally, fought segregation growing up in 
rural Georgia. And despite personally facing immense discrimination, 
she is now professor of economics at Michigan State, a former adviser 
to President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, and is on the 
Chicago Fed Board's academic advisory board.
  A historic Federal Reserve nominee who accomplished as much as Lisa 
Cook deserves far, far better treatment than what Republicans have 
shown. But, nevertheless, the Senate will vote on her confirmation as 
soon as we can.


                            Federal Funding

  Mr. President, on Ukraine and COVID, this morning, President Biden 
has sent Congress his request for $33 billion in emergency funding to 
support the Ukrainian people. This is a big but critically necessary 
package. I will make sure the Senate prioritizes this important funding 
package so we can get help to the Ukrainian people fast--ASAP.
  It was also good to see the President call for legislation to get 
tough on Russian oligarchs. This must be done. I will ask the Senate to 
arm the Federal Government with the tools necessary to put further 
pressure on Russian oligarchs and Putin's cronies. I will expect we 
will include authorities that expand existing forfeiture laws to 
achieve that end.
  We need to go after these crooked oligarchs who have gotten rich off 
Putin's regime. The war in Ukraine is on their hands, and the Federal 
Government should be fully empowered to make sure their moment of 
reckoning comes.
  Two months into the war, Putin's hopes for a quick takeover of 
Ukraine have all but extinguished, thanks to the bravery of the 
Ukrainian people and in addition to the aid that the United States has 
provided in the forms of Javelins, Stingers, armed carriers, tanks, and 
so many other critical weapons.
  This is a fight against democracy--this is a fight of democracy 
against authoritarianism.
  So every penny we approve for Ukraine is money well spent. And the 
fight is far from over. We can't stop now. We must make sure that the 
Ukrainian people will continue to have the help they need for as long 
as they need it.
  The Senate must also work in a bipartisan way to pass another round 
of time-sensitive COVID funding. On both Ukraine funding and COVID 
funding, Republican obstruction will not serve the American people.
  The administration has made clear it needs more COVID money right now 
in order to secure the next round of vaccine doses, testing, and the 
new lifesaving therapeutics, which are so good that if you get a 
positive test and you take the therapeutic, the likelihood of getting 
any kind of COVID, particularly the more severe kind, is virtually--is 
minimal. These are amazing drugs. But what is happening? Since we don't 
have the money to purchase them, other countries are going to the 
companies--American companies, American innovation that has made them. 
And God forbid there is another variant. We may not have them--all 
because of delay and political games on the other side stopping the 
COVID legislation.
  The administration has made clear they need this money right now, 
and, as I said, if we wait, other nations are going to beat us to the 
punch, and America might be left waiting for months before more 
supplies are made. This is a risk. It may be a few months away but very 
real. It is a risk that the American people simply can't afford.
  Of course, there is a very simple way we can prevent another closure 
of schools and churches and businesses. Republicans should work with 
Democrats to pass another COVID funding bill ASAP. No political games. 
No poison pills. No dithering about.
  In short, we must get both Ukrainian emergency relief and COVID 
funding relief done quickly.


                             Oil Companies

  Mr. President, finally, on gas prices and the FTC, earlier this 
morning, I joined with Senator Cantwell, Speaker Pelosi, and Chairman 
Pallone to detail some of the ways Democrats are helping Americans ease 
the pain they are feeling at the pump. We are focused like a laser on 
developing and passing legislation to lower costs and improve 
Americans' daily lives.
  Nowhere else are Americans feeling the hurt as viscerally and as 
repeatedly as they are when they fill up their tank at the gas station. 
We are thus working on legislation to fight bad actors who may be using 
COVID and Ukraine to jack up prices on consumers to pad their profits, 
and I intend to put that legislation on the floor.
  Oil is basically an oligopoly. A few small companies dominate it. And 
that means supply and demand doesn't work. That means, for instance, 
that the biggest 25 energy giants in America reported a breathtaking 
$205 billion in profits in 2021. If there were real competition, they 
would fight to get the price lower to get some market share, but with 
very little competition, they just keep the price up, and the consumer 
is strangled. One executive even bragged to shareholders about the 
benefits of ``capturing value from high prices.''
  What are the oil companies doing with all this cash? They are helping 
their CEOs and their biggest, wealthiest shareholders. The amount of 
buybacks is skyrocketing. Buybacks do no good. They don't help the 
worker. They don't help the consumer. They don't even produce more oil, 
for those who believe that is the way to go. They simply line the 
pockets of the CEOs and the biggest shareholders, and then they can go 
back and say: I got the stock price up--but not the way you are 
supposed to in capitalism by making your company sell more, be more 
productive, but, rather, by this horrible buyback, which has become 
endemic in corporate America and is very harmful to America. Yet we are 
seeing it in oil more than anywhere else right now.
  So it is high time--we need somebody to look under the hood, see what 
the problem is, and give them the tools to fix it. That somebody is the 
FTC. It is high time for the FTC to roll up their sleeves and drill 
down on what is going on at the big oil companies.
  Very soon, the Senate will confirm Alvaro Bedoya and return the FTC 
to full strength. But Congress needs to do more to beef up the FTC's 
ability to crack down on potential gas price manipulation and price 
gouging, so we will work on legislation to that end, among other 
proposals to lower gas prices.
  Once again, as we reach the end of this week, let me say that I 
intend to put legislation that eases the pain of gas prices on the 
floor for a vote when it is ready.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from the State of Montana.


                             Rural America

  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I could hardly hear you, but thank you 
very much for that recognition.
  I am about to talk about an issue that the man in the Chair, the good 
Senator from New Jersey, I know is passionate about. It is certainly 
something that I know Montanans are passionate about, and, quite 
frankly, it is what I do every day when I am not in this body, and that 
is, talk about rural America and talk about the issues that are facing 
working families and communities across our State, across our country, 
those issues being inflation and rising costs and market consolidation 
and depopulation and drought.
  Last year about this time, I made a quick trip to the town of Great 
Falls, which is about 75 miles away from my

[[Page S2203]]

farm, to pick up some tires, and I was shocked about not only the price 
but the availability. Prices had gone up, and availability was--well, 
they were high in demand, and there wasn't a lot of inventory.
  When I got back home, almost the same moment in time, I got a call 
from my equipment dealer--and this was the first time this has ever 
happened to me in my 44 years on the farm--and the equipment dealer 
said: We are going to have harvest in about 60 to 90 days, and if you 
have any repairs that you need to be done on your combine, we need to 
know what those are today so we can get the parts ordered. Otherwise, 
we can't guarantee you those parts will be here.
  That was the second shock about the supply chain issues that I was 
dealt with.
  So when I came back here to DC, I rang the alarm about the rising 
costs that were occurring in rural America and impacting producers in 
rural America caused by this pandemic. I had a manufacturer in my 
office a few weeks ago saying how this pandemic has made it so they 
can't supply America with what they were making. He said: You know, 
during the pandemic, we told folks to go home, and the 40- and 50-year-
olds have forgotten to come back.
  So, quite frankly, this pandemic has created some challenges in 
business, in manufacturing, and in agriculture that we need to be 
paying attention to.
  Then we have Putin's war in Ukraine, which has made things worse, 
particularly in the areas of energy and, from a farm standpoint, 
fertilizer. It has also put a strain on our family farms across this 
country, which, by the way, have already spent years under the gun 
where things have not been that cheery.
  Even before the pandemic upended supply chains and the global 
economy, we had the previous administration's unnecessary, needless, 
and, quite frankly, stupid trade wars, which disrupted critical ag 
markets for the family farmers across this Nation and the family farm 
ranchers across this Nation who depend upon trade to make ends meet. In 
the years since, we have seen the price of grain rise because this 
administration has done a much better job on trade policy than the last 
one, but the fact is, we have also seen increases in fertilizers, in 
chemicals, in housing, and in retail food.
  But the reality is that rural America truly is in crisis today, and 
it has been a growing problem for decades under both Democratic and 
Republican administrations here in Washington. Ag producers have become 
so reliant on the Federal Government that in the year of 2020, the last 
year of the Trump administration, 39 percent of net farm income was 
provided through subsidies by the American taxpayer. That is a big 
problem, and it is not something that farmers and ranchers want either.
  The reason for this is because of market consolidation, because of 
farm gate prices being artificially low, requiring this government's 
support. To further contribute, whether it is buying inputs or selling 
our products--our grain, our cattle, our postcrops, or whatever it 
might be--consolidation in that marketplace, whether it is on inputs or 
in the market itself, has made profitability at the farm gate a huge 
challenge, to the point where we have been driving folks out of 
business for decades and decades and decades, and it is getting worse.

  As most folks know here, I have a real life, and that real life is as 
a farmer. My wife Sharla and I took over our family operation in 1978. 
This operation is the same operation that my grandfather and my 
grandmother homesteaded in the early 1900s and that my folks took over 
from them and farmed through the forties, the fifties, the sixties, and 
a good portion of the seventies.
  In many ways, the little community in which I live is much the same 
as when my parents lived there. There is a big difference, though: The 
farms now are bigger, and they are fewer.
  This is an aerial shot of our place, and the arrows point to farms 
that, quite frankly--farmsteads where--when we came to the farm, there 
were families who lived there. There were people who sent their kids to 
the school who lived there. Now, those places--those farmsteads and 
those farms that go with those farmsteads are farmed by other people.
  In fact, in my home county of Chouteau County, which is a big 
county--it is a big agricultural county--since 1987, we have lost 
nearly 35 percent of our farms. The numbers have gone from 752 farms 
down to 477 farms. This is from 1987 to 2017, a 30-year period, which 
is the last that we have data for.
  In the State of Montana overall, operations over $2,500 have gone 
from 20,000 basically to 17,000, as this chart shows--once again, the 
same 30-year period from 1987 to 2017.
  Across this Nation, operations with more than $2,500 in sales have 
dropped from nearly 1.6 million farms down to 1\1/4\ million farms in 
2017, as this chart shows.
  So, look, if these charts show you nothing else, they should show you 
that, from a rural America standpoint and a food supply standpoint and 
a food security standpoint, we are not healthy. We are heading in the 
wrong direction.
  You know, there has been a lot of talk about agriculture and its 
impact on mental health. So try to imagine for a second that you are a 
farmer or a rancher. You are working nearly every day on the land that 
was your grandparents or your great-grandparents, potentially your 
great-great-grandparents. The land is literally a history of your 
family and the generations before you who did basically the same work--
feeding people--in the same place to make the same living, except that, 
over time, the numbers, they don't work out anymore. The amount of 
money you have coming in when you sell your product isn't that much 
different than it was years before, but yet input costs have gone up.
  By the way, I might add, they are not that much different than they 
were before because we have some serious consolidation in the 
marketplace, which I am going to talk about in a second, but yet inputs 
go up. Look, in the last 44 years that I have been on the farm, I have 
seen many boom-and-bust cycles in agriculture, and I can tell you, 
every time the price of grain or cattle has gone up, the input costs 
have risen more than what you are getting in the marketplace, and then 
when those marketplace numbers drop, the input prices never go down.
  But getting back to that farmer that you imagine yourself to be like, 
I want you to think about what it would be like to take over the farm 
that your grandfather or great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather 
homesteaded and it has been successful for generations, and now, all of 
a sudden, the books don't balance. You don't have enough money to pay 
the bills. And it is not because you are a bad operator. It is not 
because you don't know what you are doing. It really is through no 
fault of your own that you can't make it work anymore.
  And we wonder why we have a challenge with mental health in rural 
America.
  So the question is, is why did we lose 345,000 farms in the last 30 
years, many of them generational farms?
  It is because folks can't make the numbers work anymore. And that 
main culprit is consolidation in the corporate ag world. No competition 
means you don't get fair prices.
  So I have listed four companies up here that in the--or four 
industries, I should say--in the poultry business, 54 percent of the 
poultry processing is controlled by one company. Sixty-six percent--or 
by four companies, I mean. Sixty-six percent of the hog processing is 
controlled by four companies. Four commodity traders control 70 percent 
of the global market for grain, and four companies control over 80 
percent of the beef processing in the United States.
  Now, any one of these sectors--truthfully, any one of these sectors, 
those four companies could go out on a golf course and set the price 
that my neighbors are getting for their products and that the consumer 
is going to pay for their products when it is on the retail end.
  And this happens while they continue to pull in record profits. And 
the ultimate effect of all this consolidation on rural communities is 
it has pushed family farming and ranchers to the brink of extinction.
  And so you ask yourself: Why should I care?
  Well, for one, the American taxpayer is paying a pretty penny because 
of

[[Page S2204]]

this consolidation. In recent years, we have averaged well over $10 
billion a year to help keep American farmers in the business across 
this country. I believe it is money well spent, but the truth is that 
there is not a farmer or a rancher out there that doesn't want to get 
their check from the marketplace; they do not want it from the Federal 
Government. But without it, we would see even a bigger mass exodus out 
of rural America. They want their markets to work. They want to make it 
so it benefits them and it benefits the consumer, and, quite frankly, 
right now it is not working because we have four companies that control 
54 percent of the food supply in chickens, four companies that control 
66 percent of the supply in pork, 70 percent in the grain markets, four 
companies, and over 80 percent when it comes to beef.
  There is no competition, folks. There is no competition. And this is 
also bad not only for the taxpayer, but also for our food security.
  What this pandemic has taught us is when you have big processors with 
thousands of people that work in these plants and you get an incidence 
of COVID, for example, it shuts the entire plant down because you 
literally have people in these plants that are working shoulder-to-
shoulder processing meat. So COVID goes through these plants like that. 
So they shut them down.
  Or you end up with a fire like we had at a processing plant in 
Kansas, which, obviously, a fire shuts the plant down.
  Or we have a cyber attack that happened on one of these big four, 
JBS, which shuts them down.
  So you say: What the heck? It is just one plant.
  Well, these plants individually make up a large portion of these 
percentages that I talked about.
  And so what happens? The marketplace goes away once again for the 
producers, the farmers, the ranchers; and on the other end, it limits 
supply and the family--the working family that goes to the grocery 
store sees their prices go up and they say what do we want? Well, we 
can't do this. I mean, we can't afford to eat because the prices are 
jacked up.
  So it is bad for producers; it is bad for the consumers.
  And the fact is, is these packers are doing pretty darn well. The 
last quarter of 2020, Tyson Foods increased their year-to-year profit 
over $469 million to $1.13 billion. That is a 140-percent increase in 
profit.
  Now, I am going to tell you something. I don't think there is 
anything wrong with making a profit. In fact, I think if you are going 
to have a business that is successful, you have to make a profit. But 
the fact of the matter is, if we are making a profit--these kinds of 
profits--and it is killing our folks in family farm agriculture, I 
don't think that is quite right. And I don't think that is good for 
rural America, and I don't think it is good for the consumers that live 
in this country.

  So bottom line is, we have got to put some guardrails on the system 
if we are going to make this marketplace work because it is not working 
today.
  So we have got some legislative solutions. Congress has the 
opportunity to do something, and I have worked very closely with a 
number of my colleagues, including the man that is sitting in the chair 
today, on bipartisan legislation that can put guardrails on 
consolidation and puts some sunlight on this industry.
  I particularly want to thank Senators Grassley, Fischer, Wyden, and 
Rounds, as well as Senator Booker, for their good work.
  In the case of Grassley, Fischer, Wyden, and Rounds, we have put 
forth the bipartisan Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act. That 
is a long name for a bill that is going to increase transparency in the 
marketplace and set regional mandatory minimum thresholds for 
negotiated cattle purchases. This is going to ensure that the ranchers 
get a fair price, but it won't ensure it alone. We have to do more.
  We have to also pass the Meat Packing Special Investigator Act, which 
will put teeth back in the Packers and Stockyards Act, which was passed 
back in 1921 because of consolidation in the packing industry, and we 
are more consolidated today than we were in 1921.
  So this will give the Department of Ag a team of investigators within 
the USDA, with subpoena power, dedicated to preventing and addressing 
anticompetition practices in the meat and poultry industry and 
enforcing our Nation's antitrust laws that are currently on the books.
  And I am asking my colleagues, when these bills hit the floor--and I 
believe they will hit the floor, hopefully this work period--to pass 
these bills, get them to the House so we can get them to the 
President's desk as quickly as possible.
  If you take these two bills, the meat packing special investigator 
bill and the bipartisan cattle price discovery bill--by the way, they 
are both bipartisan--and you combine that with the dollars that the 
administration has put out to loan to small meat packers, to expand and 
start up meat packers, we will infuse more competition into this 
marketplace and that will be good for producers and it will be good for 
consumers and we will not continue to see this decline in rural 
America.
  Look, a well-fed citizenry is essential if a democracy is going to 
survive. With the consolidation that we have seen over the last many 
decades, we see the potential for food to become a serious problem in 
this country, and potentially even weaponized.
  Rural America is going to dry up if we don't fix this problem. It is 
going to continue to see this diagram where we could see fewer folks on 
the land and we see bigger corporations manipulating for their prices, 
because, quite frankly, they have already found out--``they'' being the 
big packers--that they can have it their way because they have had it 
their way for a long, long time. And because they have had it their way 
for a long, long time, consumers are paying higher prices because there 
is no competition, without any regard to what people can afford. It is 
all about the profit margins, which--I will show you that one again 
too.
  It is all about record profits. It is not about making sure that we 
have food security. It is about how we can maximize our money at the 
expense of families.
  And by the way, the same is true on the agriculture side of the 
equation. We will maximize our profits, and we don't care if these 
generational ranchers go broke. We don't care. Somebody else will buy 
it. We will still get the cattle. It will be some big hedge fund in New 
York City. It is OK.
  So we need to do something because our citizenry needs to have access 
to food that they can afford. These two bills are going to help 
capitalism work for farmers and it is going to help capitalism work for 
consumers because, I am telling you, when capitalism works, everybody 
does better.
  I said this problem has been around for over 100 years since the 
Packers and Stockyards Act was passed in 1921. So there will be some in 
this body who say: Look, we don't need to do this. This is government 
intervention. It is not necessary. Things will be just fine.
  I can guarantee you one thing for sure: If you look at where we have 
been and predict where we are going, if we do nothing, there will be 
very, very, very few people living in rural America. Family farm 
agriculture will be dead in this country. And if we lose family farm 
agriculture, this country will change for the worse in a major way for 
all the reasons I have already put out.
  So I am going to tell you what. Folks serve in this body because they 
want to do right by the next generation. They want to make sure our 
kids and our grandkids have the same opportunity that we had. They want 
to make sure this country remains the greatest country on Earth. I 
implore the Members of this body: When these bills come to the floor, 
and they will come to the floor because I think they are going to come 
out of Agriculture probably in the next week to 10 days--no pressure, 
Chairman Stabenow, but that is what I hope happens--and we can get 
these bills to the floor, I hope that you put your shoes--put your feet 
in the shoes of those people that are involved in agriculture, and I 
hope you put your feet in the shoes of the consumer, because if we do 
these bills, we will be putting the country back on the right track for 
food security for the long term.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
allowed to complete my remarks prior to the vote.

[[Page S2205]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. CANTWELL. If the Senator--first of all, I want to associate 
myself with the comments of the Senator from Montana, and I wanted to 
ask a question because I--look, I hear from my cattlemen about this all 
the time.
  I think the issue is, they think they are going to get a price, they 
think they are going to grow beef, they think that they are going to 
have some certainty in this marketplace, only to find, at the last 
minute when the beef is about to be delivered to the packing house, the 
packing house comes up with a scheme or scenario to drop their price 
after our growers have made these investments. Is that right?
  Mr. TESTER. Yeah. So, look, you have a situation where you have got 
four companies who control 82 percent of the meat in this country. 
There is no secret. When you don't have any competition--and that is 
not competition--that you are not going to get a fair price.
  And, by the way, these ranchers all have fixed costs. It is not like 
they can just cut their costs. They have fixed costs.
  And right now, because of the drought west of the Mississippi, hay 
prices are at an alltime high. So all this stuff exacerbates the 
problem.
  What we need is more competition. We will get more competition. And 
when we get more competition, it will be fair for everybody, both the 
producer and the consumer.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Well, I thank the Senator from Montana for articulating 
this issue.
  Too much market control, not enough transparency, and our growers 
basically get stuck with having invested costs never to recuperate them 
because somebody used that market power to basically lower those costs. 
And, you know, we have seen this a lot. We have seen them import a ton 
of Canadian beef right at this very moment, right when they are about 
to deliver U.S. product into the meat packing plants: Oh, we just 
dropped the price because we got so much supply because they just let a 
lot of supply in from Canada.
  So this--the gentleman from Montana is talking something that is 
existing in other aspects of our economy too. So I am very glad that we 
are trying to better police these markets and do a good job. And I know 
you and the Senator from Mississippi have focused on this issue, and we 
very much appreciate you doing that.
  Well, Madam President, we are about to go to conference on the United 
States Innovation and Competition Act and the House America COMPETES 
Act. Boy, this is a long time coming. I want to thank Leader Schumer 
and my colleague Senator Wicker, also Senators Young and Cornyn and 
other Members who worked hard to help us reach an agreement so that we 
can have this process today.
  Obviously, I hope my colleagues will vote yes to compound this motion 
and go to conference and allow for these various motions to instruct.
  It has been 324 days since the Senate passed this bill on June 8, 
2021, and it has been 488 days since we authorized the CHIPS Program. I 
am here to implore my colleagues to get this done today and to say that 
we need to move faster.
  We just heard yesterday from Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who 
said even in Ukraine, weapon replacement is being hindered by a lack of 
chips. We know that we are facing other problems. I am talking about 
Beijing with further lockdowns. What does that mean? It means fewer 
people producing products. It means more serious supply chain issues. 
So if you are serious about America's competition, Americans being 
allowed to build more and invest more in the United States, onshoring 
of our manufacturing supply chains, our competitiveness, then you want 
to vote yes and go to conference.
  We have had so many letters in the last month--the American Society 
of Engineering Education, tech companies that believe in the 
competition and the opportunity that we have seen--writing us and 
saying to please get this legislation done. We have seen used car 
prices shoot up 40 percent because semiconductor shortages have 
basically created havoc in the automotive market.
  And it is clear that our European and Asian counterparts aren't 
waiting. They are moving ahead trying to deal with this supply chain 
shortage because as the Secretary also told us yesterday, the shortage 
is well defined. We know that it is going to last well into the future; 
that is, there is demand.
  So the question for the world economy is, Are you going to try to 
meet that demand? And the answer is, there are a lot of people who are 
going to try to meet that demand.
  The question is, Are we going to try to meet that demand? The longer 
we wait, the longer we take to meet that demand, the more the 
investment is attracted to go somewhere else.
  Now, the United States of America believes in having the leading edge 
in semiconductor production, and we are excited that the next 
generation of chips can do so many things for the smart appliances; 
smart tools; clean energy economy; obviously, the communications 
economy; the next generation of all sorts of technology as it relates 
to our telecom sector. But we need to get this bill done. We need to 
resolve the differences between the House and the Senate. And we need 
to have bipartisan support to show that the U.S. Senate can function 
legislatively on an issue that is not a mandatory or annual bill but a 
process by which an issue, presented to us as a nation--supply chain, 
competitiveness, manufacturing issues--that we can get the job done.
  We in the United States pride ourselves on being a nation of 
inventors. We are a leader in global technology. We know that we can 
solve our problems by solutions that we, together--business and labor 
and government and R&D investment--can bring the best ideas to fruition 
and help us as a nation.
  But we have to show that we, Democrats and Republicans, House and 
Senate, can master the next step in the innovation process. That is 
what these underlying bills do. It basically allows us to dust off our 
R&D skills and say: Let's do more translational science.
  So we have had lots of letters from people supporting tech hubs--
investments of universities working with business in a centralized 
location to solve engineering problems and move ahead. We have the 
Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program. And many of our small and 
medium-sized businesses that need access to technology and supply chain 
data to better compete in a global economy and provide security want 
this legislation.
  So the risks of inaction are too great to ignore. The U.S. Innovation 
and Competition Act is clearly part of our supply chain solutions. I 
urge my colleagues to not only help us by invoking cloture and going to 
conference but help us resolve these issues in a timely fashion so we 
can send a price signal about the investments that we want to make in 
the United States of America to make our Nation and our manufacturers 
more competitive.
  With that, I yield the floor.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schatz). Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair 
lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will 
state.
  The senior assistant executive clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     insist on the Senate amendment to H.R. 4521, a bill to 
     provide for a coordinated Federal research initiative to 
     ensure continued United States leadership in engineering 
     biology, agree to the request from the House for a 
     conference, and authorize the Chair to appoint conferees on 
     behalf of the Senate.
         Charles E. Schumer, Michael F. Bennet, Tammy Baldwin, 
           Richard J. Durbin, Patty Murray, Margaret Wood Hassan, 
           Gary C. Peters, Mazie K. Hirono, Tina Smith, Alex 
           Padilla, Debbie Stabenow, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Mark 
           R. Warner, Tim Kaine, Tammy Duckworth, Brian Schatz, 
           Jon Tester.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to insist on the Senate amendment to H.R. 4521, a bill to 
provide for a coordinated Federal research initiative to ensure 
continued United States leadership in engineering biology, agree to the 
request from the House for a conference, and authorize the Chair to 
appoint conferees on behalf of the Senate, shall be brought to a close?

[[Page S2206]]

  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) 
and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 68, nays 29, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 141 Leg.]

                                YEAS--68

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Crapo
     Daines
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Lujan
     Manchin
     Markey
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--29

     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Boozman
     Braun
     Burr
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Cruz
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Hagerty
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Lummis
     Marshall
     Paul
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shelby
     Thune
     Tuberville

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Blunt
     Murphy
     Wyden
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). On this vote, the yeas are 68, the 
nays are 29.
  Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.


                            Border Security

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about 
the Biden border crisis. Right now, our Nation is facing a dangerous 
national security crisis at the border, and it is all because of the 
policies and the actions of President Joe Biden.
  Now, there are a lot of crises that we are facing. There is the 
border crisis; the crisis of high gas prices; there is a crisis of 
inflation, which is at a 40-year high; and there is the crisis of the 
issue of international affairs with Vladimir Putin on NATO's doorstep 
having invaded Ukraine.
  When you take a look at all of these, the two that I hear about most 
at home in Wyoming are that of inflation and that of illegal 
immigration. The thing that is really bringing this to the fore today 
and why I am coming to the floor to talk about Biden's border crisis is 
the announcement that on May 23, distressingly, the crisis is going to 
get a lot worse.
  On May 23, the experts tell us, including people from this own 
administration, that the number of people illegally coming to this 
country could double or even triple overnight. Since Joe Biden took 
office, there have been millions and millions of illegal crossings from 
our southern border into the United States. The Border Patrol estimates 
that more than 700,000 illegal immigrants got away from them since Joe 
Biden has taken office. This includes 62,000 people just last month. It 
works out to about 2,000 illegal immigrants vanishing into the United 
States every single day. These are the ones who got away. These aren't 
the tens and tens of thousands who are coming through the process and 
being registered and released into the United States. Once they get in, 
most likely, they will never leave.
  Under Joe Biden, we are breaking record after record, and these are 
the wrong kind of records to break. Last year, the number of illegal 
immigrants who came to the United States was the highest ever recorded. 
At the same time, America's immigration enforcement is the least amount 
ever. And to that point, the Biden administration seems to think 
everything is going just fine.
  Yesterday, the Secretary of Homeland Security testified before 
Congress. I was on a conference call with him the day before, where he 
met with a number of the Members of the Republican leadership. What the 
Secretary said yesterday is this. He said:

       We have effectively managed an unprecedented number of non-
     citizens seeking to enter the United States.

  ``Effectively managed?''
  To me, this is an early candidate for the fact checkers' ``lie of the 
year.'' They haven't effectively managed anything. The only thing they 
have effectively managed to do is erase the border completely.
  The men and women on our Border Patrol are working around the clock. 
They are heroes, although they have been vilified by the President of 
the United States. This crisis is happening because Joe Biden's 
policies have tied the hands of the border agents. They are being both 
abused and disrespected by this President and this administration.
  On Joe Biden's first day in office, he stopped all construction of 
the border wall. He ended the successful ``Remain in Mexico'' policy. 
In fact, just last week, his lawyers were pleading a case before the 
Supreme Court to eliminate a policy that protects the national security 
of our Nation.
  Joe Biden is now ending title 42. People at home say: What exactly is 
this title 42? Well, it is a section of our laws that deal with public 
health. At the start of the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control 
closed our border to people from coronavirus-impacted areas. So this 
title 42 decision by the administration likely, at that point, saved 
thousands of American lives; it protected our public health; it helped 
our Border Patrol bring down illegal immigration.
  Last July, Joe Biden tried to end title 42. He said coronavirus was 
over; it was behind him. He was patting himself on the back for the 
great job he had done. And then the Delta variant hit the country like 
a sledgehammer. Joe Biden and the administration were caught by 
surprise. People looking for testing were running into long lines, 
empty shelves. He and the administration were caught completely off 
guard as has this administration on so many things--on the border; on 
the failure in Afghanistan; on inflation, which they said was going to 
be temporary and transitory, month after month after month.
  The administration showed they have no core competence to run this 
Nation. By September of last year, the Biden administration was forced 
to admit that one in every five illegal immigrants coming to this 
country was bringing disease with them. That is tens of thousands of 
illegal immigrants bringing disease into a country each month.
  But now Joe Biden wants to end title 42 forever and do it on May 23. 
If it ends, we are told and believe that this will cause a tidal wave 
of illegal immigration like this Nation has never seen before. Right 
now, Homeland Security is preparing for up to 18,000 illegal immigrants 
each and every day after title 42 ends. That is half a million people a 
month. That is a population equal to the entire population of the State 
of Wyoming. Mr. President, I assume the State of Maine--I don't know 
the exact population--but if you bring in half a million people a day, 
it doesn't take too many days to add up to the population of the State 
of Maine.
  So what are Democrats saying about this? Well, Barack Obama's 
Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, whom we met with regularly 
when he was in that position--he once said 1,000 a day would overwhelm 
the system. Joe Biden seems pretty happy with 18,000 a day. Right now, 
we are at 6,000 a day.
  We have a system that is overwhelmed and it is going to get a lot, 
lot worse. Joe Biden could triple the number of illegal immigrants 
overnight to 18,000 a day come May 23.

  Earlier this month, former Secretary Jeh Johnson, whom I alluded to 
earlier--this is what he said. He said the current crisis trends are 
unsustainable. He said it overwhelms communities in Texas and Arizona; 
it overwhelms the Border Patrol. This is Barack Obama's Secretary of 
Homeland Security saying that. I believe Secretary Jeh Johnson is 
right.
  Recently, the head of the Del Rio, TX, Border Patrol union--and my 
colleague from Texas is on the floor here, the senior Senator--this 
head of the

[[Page S2207]]

Del Rio, TX, Border Patrol union spoke here on Capitol Hill. He said 
there are some days in Del Rio when officers are so busy with 
transportation and processing of these illegal immigrants that no one 
is patrolling the border, the southern border of the United States.
  And I am certain that the senior Senator, the distinguished Senator 
from Texas--Senator Cornyn, who is on the floor--will address this 
issue after I get finished speaking because he sees this every weekend, 
as he is home in Texas and talks to people from Texas every day, the 
crisis that is hitting his home State and is hitting this entire 
Nation.
  So this Del Rio sector covers an area of 240 miles of border. And the 
head of Del Rio, TX, Border Patrol told us no one is patrolling that 
section of the border because the personnel are too busy filling out 
paperwork and moving illegal immigrants from location to location.
  In Yuma, AZ, up to 90 percent of Border Patrol agents are busy with 
transportation and caretaking duties. Ninety percent of their agents 
cannot spend their time guarding the border. As a result, large 
portions of the southern border in Arizona are wide open, which is why 
I believe the junior Senator from Arizona is so vehemently opposing the 
President of his own party for a reckless move by a President, who 
seems to disregard the importance of even having a border to our 
Nation.
  Media reports show that 60,000 people right now are waiting at our 
southern border. They are counting down the days until title 42 is 
over. Some of them will bring in drugs, some will be human traffickers, 
some of them may even be on the Terror Watch List. If you are a foreign 
terrorist on the Terror Watch List, this is a dream come true if you 
are trying to get to America.
  On May 23, we will face a humanitarian crisis, a public health 
crisis, and a national security crisis all in one greater--much greater 
than the one we are facing today and is already terrifying Americans in 
every State because with an open border, every State is a border State, 
every city is a sanctuary city, and people are subjected to the drugs 
and the crime that is coming with it and the deaths that are coming as 
well.
  Now, many Democrats are asking and telling Joe Biden: Keep title 42 
in place. Yet these same Democrats, they voted in lockstep with Chuck 
Schumer and Joe Biden the last 15 months. They understand today that 
Joe Biden's policy is unwise and very unpopular. But these are the same 
Democrats who came to the floor and voted to stop building the border 
wall; the same Democrats who in this very Chamber voted to give 
stimulus checks--send out checks to illegal immigrants when they voted 
last year. Not one of those Democrats joined us in supporting title 42 
last summer.
  Democrats can run for reelection, but they cannot run from their 
records. They voted for the Biden border agenda, and every Democrat 
shares the blame for this crisis.
  What happens if the border doesn't stay at the border? No, it makes 
each one of us less safe. Border Patrol tells us they have caught, so 
far, 42 terrorists trying to cross the border since Joe Biden took 
office. How many got away? We are hearing the numbers getting away is 
60,000 a month--getaways. How many of those are terrorists who are now 
living in our midst?
  Federal narcotics agents say that the vast majority of illegal drugs 
in this country came here over our southern border. That is how they 
are getting in. Drug overdoses have never been higher than they are 
right now. One hundred thousand Americans died of drug overdoses last 
year. People are dying every day in every State because of drugs being 
brought in across the southern border by the lax border policies of Joe 
Biden and the Democrats.
  If title 42 ends, it is going to mean more drugs, more crime, more 
death in all of our States. Even the Washington Post newspaper--their 
editorial board, that is not known for being conservative or lining up 
with conservatives--this is what they recently said:

       A migrant surge is coming at the border--and Biden is not 
     ready.

  All of America knows that. They know Biden is not ready. He is not 
ready to be President, not ready to run the economy, not ready to help 
with the military, not ready on any level, and at the border, the 
Washington Post points out he is not ready.
  The article went on and said:

       The predictable effect of lifting Title 42 is a new influx 
     of migrants . . . which would compound an existing surge at 
     the . . . border . . . for weeks or much longer.

  The Washington Post points out and predicts:

       Absent progress on [addressing the root causes], the Biden 
     administration . . . will surely face more chaos at the 
     border.

  This is an administration of chaos. The Washington Post--that was my 
addition. They ended by saying ``more chaos at the border.'' I am 
adding ``an administration of chaos.''
  Look, the Post is exactly right. This crisis is 100 percent 
preventable. It is a crisis of Joe Biden's choosing and Joe Biden's 
making. It is a crisis that is entirely the result of Democrats' 
reckless open border policies. We need to go back to policies that 
work.
  I ask the President to keep title 42 in place. Listen to the 
Democrats who are talking to you in addition to us, Mr. President, who 
say keep title 42 in place.
  And enforce the laws on the books, close the loopholes that encourage 
illegal immigration, finish the wall, bring back the ``Remain in 
Mexico'' policy; we know it works.
  The American people in every State are pleading with Joe Biden. Only 
about one in three Americans support the President's policy at the 
border, two-thirds don't. Overwhelming numbers oppose what this 
President is doing to this country in terms of how he is affecting the 
economy, inflation, energy prices, and the border. This is a President 
with record low numbers on all of those areas, and it is all of his own 
doing and his own making. Mr. President, do not make this, your own 
border crisis, even worse.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, let me start by expressing my gratitude to 
the Senator from Wyoming, Senator Barrasso, for laying out the nature 
of the border crisis that we are experiencing and have experienced at 
the highest levels in 20 years, during the year and a half--or year and 
a quarter, I guess, of the Biden administration.
  But I want to come to the floor and talk about an aspect of the 
border crisis that has not been sufficiently discussed or noticed, and 
that is the connection between the flood of illegal drugs coming across 
the border--not just with the 100,000 drug overdose deaths we 
experienced in America last year, but also with crime and gangs and 
guns in every community across the United States, from Maine to Texas, 
from Virginia to California.
  A Gallup poll published earlier this month found that 80 percent of 
Americans are worried about crime and violence. It seems like there is 
a new headline every day about acts of violence in cities across our 
country.
  Two weeks ago, for example, a gunman set off smoke grenades and 
opened fire on a crowded New York City subway car. Chicago just 
experienced its most violent weekend this year, with 8 people murdered 
and 42 others shot.
  Earlier this month, a gang shootout in Sacramento killed 6 and 
wounded 12. The American people aren't just noticing this trend; they 
are demanding solutions. Rising crime rates have caused many leaders to 
change their tune on this idea, this crazy idea called ``defund the 
police.''
  New York City, Oakland, and Baltimore are among the cities to reverse 
their previous cuts in police funding. And that is for a very simple 
reason. It is because defunding the police is dangerous.
  There is no question that law enforcement plays an important role in 
stopping crime, but we have to remember that this crime surge is tied 
to far more than just police departments. I am reminded of a quote by 
H. L. Mencken:

       For every complex problem, there's a solution that is 
     simple, neat, and wrong.

  So when looking at the factors that fuel this upsurge of violence and 
crime in our cities across the country, we can't ignore a big 
contributor of that, which is the crisis occurring along our southern 
border. Some of the numbers are familiar to all of us. For example, 
Customs and Border Protection encountered more than 200,000 migrants 
along the southern border last month

[[Page S2208]]

alone, the highest number in more than two decades.
  The total number of migrant encounters over the last 12 months 
exceeds 2.2 million. You might be tempted to ask what in the world is 
going on; why are things changing? I want to make one thing clear, 
though. I am in no way suggesting that all of these individuals coming 
across the border are dangerous criminals. Many of them are economic 
migrants looking for a better life. Something we all understand.
  But there are definitely people coming across the border who are 
dangerous criminals, primarily associated with the drug cartels, who 
threaten public safety in every city in America every day.
  We need to acknowledge that a human flood of people, even people 
potentially associated with legitimate asylum claims, but that flood of 
humanity, just the--having to deal with that many people, opened 
gateways for truly dangerous criminals and the drugs that are smuggled 
across the border undetected.
  I will give you an example of how that happens. Last fall, more than 
15,000 migrants, primarily Haitians who had been living in South 
America, arrived at the small border town of Del Rio, TX, a town of a 
population of 35,000 people.
  So all of a sudden, 15,000 migrants show up in a town of 35,000 
people. It is not by accident. To state the obvious, the Del Rio Border 
Patrol Sector did not have the capacity to process and care for that 
many migrants at a given time. But that was part of the plan of the 
drug cartels and the criminal organizations associated with them. But 
in response, the administration moved Border Patrol agents from other 
checkpoints to the Del Rio sector to try to help. But, of course, that 
is exactly what the cartels hoped for.
  Taking people off the frontlines in other sectors to handle the surge 
of migrants in Del Rio opened up avenues for the drug cartels to 
smuggle their poison into the United States.
  Administration officials later told Congressional staff that this 
massive surge of migrants was, they acknowledge, part of a coordinated 
effort by the cartels. They directed the Haitian migrants to show up at 
a single location in a small town on the border to make sure that other 
paths into the United States would be cleared for their illicit 
contraband of drugs.
  Talk to any Border Patrol agent and they will tell you that this 
happens all the time. The cartels are very sophisticated. They know how 
to game the system. They watch, they wait, they coordinate, and at the 
right moment, they bring their poison into our country.

  In many cases, they are moving drugs--everything from marijuana to 
methamphetamine to heroin. But in recent years, Customs and Border 
Protection has seen an alarming increase in synthetic opioids, fentanyl 
coming across the border.
  As we all have learned, fentanyl is a uniquely dangerous drug because 
it is so potent, a lethal dose can fit on the tip of a sharpened 
pencil.
  In the first 3 months of this year, Customs and Border Protection 
seized nearly 1,200 kilograms. Now, a kilogram is 2.2 pounds, so that 
is 2,640 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the border, enough to wipe 
out the entire U.S. population.
  Cartels and criminal organizations aren't just trying to smuggle 
their product into the United States, they have to have a way to 
distribute those drugs across our country. And that is where the 
criminal gangs come into the picture.
  Last Tuesday, agents from the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector 
arrested an MS-13 member. MS-13 is one of the most violent gangs on the 
planet. The following day, agents arrested an 18th Street gang member, 
and, over the weekend, agents arrested four additional gang members. 
This all happened in one Border Patrol sector in less than a week's 
time.
  What we need to remember when we look at all this data is that these 
are just the ones we know about. We have absolutely no idea how many 
drugs and criminals have slipped through the cracks. Now, the Border 
Patrol has a name for this, they call it ``the getaways,'' but the 
truth is we don't really know how many people have gotten away, 
undetected, to smuggle drugs or dangerous criminals into the United 
States.
  By one estimate, 385,000 getaways came across the border in 2021. And 
there is a reason they didn't turn themselves in to the Border Patrol; 
they are not seeking asylum. They are not saying: I have been 
persecuted in my home country, and, thus, eligible for asylum 
potentially in the United States.
  These people, these getaways, are the ones that don't want to be 
detected by law enforcement because they are up to no good.
  I think this chart shows the network of gangs and criminal 
organizations operating within the United States.
  You know, most of the time we all think, well, the drugs come across 
the border, and we forget what happens next. But as you can see, 
cartels--this is a DEA, a Drug Enforcement Administration, chart--as 
you can see, the cartels in transnational criminal organizations have a 
presence in most major cities across the United States.
  Many of these are members of dangerous gangs who want to make money, 
so they sell drugs in their local community, and they fight for 
territory, for market share. They commit other property crimes, other 
crimes of violence, carjacking, larceny, armed robbery, in order to 
fuel their need for money.
  So once cartel members and their gang associates get drugs across the 
border, where do they go? Well, they go to Chicago. They go to Detroit. 
They go to Atlanta. They go to New York. They go to San Diego. They go 
to virtually every community in our country where they are then 
distributed to people to feed addictions, which result in overdoses and 
death. It is not just a border problem. This affects every single 
community in our country.
  Last year, the special agent of Chicago's DEA office spoke about what 
happens when these drugs and criminals reach your backyard. He said 
cartels use every means possible to get drugs from Mexico into the 
United States and then to local markets. In Chicago, that means 
predominantly to the gangs that control the drug markets in Chicago.
  But it is not just Chicago. It is literally every community in 
America. These are the same gangs that fuel the overdose epidemic, the 
same ones that perpetuate crime and gun violence. These are the same 
gangs that engage in deadly fights over control for territory and 
market share. And the cruel reality is, this is happening on a daily 
basis in every community in our country, which is contributing to the 
spike in violent crime and the public's reasonable concerns that they 
have expressed about it, including boneheaded ideas like defunding the 
police.
  A Drug Enforcement Agency report from 2017 acknowledged that drug 
trafficking profits ``increase the staying power of both street gangs 
and drug trafficking organizations.'' The more money they make, the 
more drugs that are manufactured and brought into the country and 
spread throughout our communities.
  No community in America is safe. A rural, an urban, a suburban 
community, none of them have been spared the pain and suffering of the 
drug overdose epidemic, drugs which predominantly come across our 
southern border by these criminal cartels.
  I mentioned it before, but it is worth noting that last year we hit a 
grim milestone in America. For the first time on record, more than a 
hundred thousand Americans lost their lives to drug overdoses in a 12-
month period.
  Now, I remember what happened when Al Qaeda hit the United States and 
killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11. We declared war, and we committed 
ourselves to rooting out these terrorists that exported this terrorist 
plot to hit our homeland.
  When 100,000 Americans die of drug overdoses, what do we do? Well, we 
throw up our hands. We say there is not much we can do about it. Supply 
meets demand. And there is some truth to that, but it is not the whole 
story.
  As I said, in recent years, the number of drug overdose deaths caused 
by synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, has skyrocketed, and so have 
the seizures of fentanyl at the border, virtually all made from 
precursors from Asia, primarily China, shipped to Mexico, manufactured 
there in an industrial operation which can make a fentanyl tablet look 
a lot like some other medication

[[Page S2209]]

that you might take. Many people--too many people--have died thinking 
they were taking a drug for some condition, only to find out it was 
laced with fentanyl, resulting in their drug overdose death.
  The alarming increase in the supply coming across our border 
foreshadows even worse overdose statistics in the months to come.
  Fentanyl isn't the only dangerous drug--methamphetamine, cocaine, 
heroin. According to the DEA--the Drug Enforcement Administration--
threat assessment, 92 percent of the heroin that comes to the United 
States comes from one place: Mexico. Ninety-two percent.
  So when you zoom out and get a broader perspective and quit looking 
through a soda straw at what is happening at the border, you see it is 
not just an immigration issue. The drugs pouring across our border make 
this a public health crisis as well.
  The criminals sneaking across our border who are distributing these 
drugs in our communities all across the country are a public security 
crisis, a public safety crisis. The unlicensed guns that the gangs use 
to protect their territory makes this a gun violence crisis as well.
  Every single American should be outraged by what is happening at the 
border, but if you don't care about 2.2 million people showing up on 
our front doorstep, if you don't care about the 100,000 Americans who 
died of drug overdoses, do you care about the spikes in violence and 
crime in your neighborhood, in your local community? All of these are 
inextricably intertwined.
  I don't care if you are a liberal Democrat or an Independent or a 
conservative Republican, this failure of the Federal Government to deal 
with our border crisis is absolutely appalling, and it hurts us all.
  I have heard someone say that every city is a border town these days, 
and this makes that point. This state of chaos is dangerous for the 
migrants who turn themselves over to human smugglers who care nothing 
about them, only the money they can generate from smuggling them into 
the United States. I have seen the bleached bones of migrants left 
behind, injured or sick, because the coyotes, the smugglers, care 
nothing about them but just the money they can garner from smuggling 
them into the country, not to mention the girls and women who are 
sexually assaulted on the long trip from their home country into the 
United States.
  It is unfair to the border communities I represent. We have 1,200 
miles of common border, Mexico and Texas. My Governor, my State 
legislature, the people I represent are outraged that the Federal 
Government is not living up to its responsibilities. It is unfair to 
those communities, most of which are Hispanic majorities by large 
majorities, who are sympathetic to the desire of people for a better 
life, fleeing no jobs or violence, but they are having to pay the price 
now, not just with the flood of people coming across the border, for 
which the Federal Government is completely unprepared, they also have 
to deal with the opioid abuse and the criminal organizations that are 
flooding our communities with fentanyl, heroin, and other dangerous 
substances.
  But it is not just the border. Cities all across this country are 
combating violent crime at numbers that we have not seen for decades. 
This is directly tied to the drug business at the border because the 
criminal gangs are the ones who distribute those drugs in our 
communities.
  The status quo is deeply unfair to the dedicated men and women of law 
enforcement, including the Border Patrol, who put their lives on the 
line to secure our border and protect our communities.
  Last week, Texas lost a 22-year-old soldier who was doing a job that 
the Federal Government should have done, but he was there at the 
southern border as part of a State National Guard effort called 
Operation Lone Star.
  Texas Army National Guardsman SPC Bishop Evans was attempting to 
rescue two migrants who appeared to be drowning as they were crossing 
the river from Mexico. He disappeared into the treacherous waters of 
the Rio Grande and, tragically, did not survive. Making matters even 
worse, initial reports from law enforcement indicate that the two 
migrants whom Specialist Evans was trying to save are suspected of drug 
trafficking.
  There are a million and one reasons why President Biden should want 
to address this border crisis, and it is absolutely inconceivable to me 
that his administration has done nothing to make this better, and I 
would argue that through some of the policies promulgated by Director 
Mayorkas, he has actually made it worse. He has made it more attractive 
for more people to come and attempt this dangerous journey from their 
home into the United States. He has made it easier, given the business 
model of the cartels, to get more of those drugs across the border and 
into our communities, contributing to the crimewave that is shocking so 
many people.
  As we head into the summer months, which are traditionally the 
busiest times for border crossings, the Biden administration needs to 
do something. And let me just say, I am prepared--I know a lot of us 
are prepared on a bipartisan basis to do what we need to do to end this 
crisis. If the Biden administration doesn't want to lead in the effort, 
at least they could allow those of us here in the Congress to come up 
with ideas, like my bipartisan, bicameral Border Solutions Act, to try 
to address this crisis that we cannot tolerate any longer.
  I yield the floor.


                        Vote on Compound Motion

  Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I yield back all time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate?
  If there is no further debate, the question is on agreeing to the 
compound motion.
  Mr. CRAPO. Mr. 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 bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) 
and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), 
the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott), and the Senator from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).
  The result was announced--yeas 67, nays 27, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 142 Leg.]

                                YEAS--67

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Crapo
     Daines
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Lujan
     Manchin
     Markey
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Tillis
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--27

     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Boozman
     Braun
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Cruz
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Hagerty
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Lummis
     Marshall
     Paul
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Scott (FL)
     Shelby
     Thune
     Tuberville

                             NOT VOTING--6

     Blunt
     Burr
     Murphy
     Scott (SC)
     Toomey
     Wyden
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Van Hollen).
  On this vote, the yeas are 67, the nays are 27.
  The compound motion was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I would note Maryland is in the House.


                 Unanimous Consent Agreement--H.R. 4521

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motions 
to instruct at the desk, which may be made with respect to the message 
to accompany H.R. 4251, be printed in the Record for the information of 
the Senate.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

[[Page S2210]]

  


                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Paul moves that the managers on the part of the Senate 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be instructed 
     to insist that the final conference report include the 
     provisions contained in section 6107 of the Senate amendment 
     (relating to prohibiting funds made available to any Federal 
     agency from being used for gain-of-function research 
     conducted in China).

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Barrasso moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     provisions that require immediate development of a 2022-2027 
     Federal oil and gas leasing program on the outer Continental 
     Shelf, which shall be finalized not later than June 30, 2022, 
     and which shall provide for a minimum of 10 region-wide oil 
     and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska Regions 
     of the outer Continental Shelf, with a minimum of 2 oil and 
     gas lease sales per calendar year, not fewer than 1 of which 
     shall be in the Gulf of Mexico Region each calendar year.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Cruz moves that the managers on the part of the Senate 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be instructed 
     to insist that the final conference report include section 
     3258 of the Senate amendment, which requires a report 
     identifying ``major areas of diplomatic, energy, 
     infrastructure, banking, financial, economic, military, and 
     space cooperation . . . between the People's Republic of 
     China and the Islamic Republic of Iran'', regarding the 
     policy of the United States to limit such cooperation through 
     terrorism-related sanctions imposed on the Central Bank of 
     Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as such 
     sanctions are necessary to limit such cooperation.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Menendez moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist upon the provisions contained in section 
     73003 of the Senate amendment (relating to establishment of 
     an Inspector General of the Office of the United States Trade 
     Representative).

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Senator Risch moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     provisions that take actionable steps to address the risks of 
     and counter malign or undue influence and activities in the 
     United States and abroad by the Chinese Communist Party, the 
     Government of the People's Republic of China, or individuals 
     or entities acting on their behalf.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Kelly moves that the managers on the part of the Senate 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be instructed 
     to insist that the final conference report include incentives 
     to support investments in semiconductor manufacturing and 
     innovation in the United States, including investments in the 
     fabrication, assembly, testing, advanced packaging, and 
     research and development of semiconductors.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Lee moves that the managers on the part of the Senate 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be instructed 
     to insist that the final conference report not include the 
     provisions contained in the following sections of the bill 
     (as passed by the House of Representatives):
       (1) Section 30609 (relating to building United States 
     economic growth and technological innovation through the 
     Green Climate Fund).
       (2) Section 30607 (relating to addressing international 
     climate change mitigation, adaptation, and security).
       (3) Section 30601(b)(7)(E) (relating to the sense of 
     Congress on implementing the Paris Agreement).
       (4) Section 30610 (relating to ensuring a whole-of-
     government response to climate action).

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mrs. Blackburn moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     a provision that requires the Director of the Office of 
     Management and Budget, in consultation with the Administrator 
     of General Services, the Director of the National Institute 
     of Standards and Technology, the Director of the 
     Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the 
     Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense, 
     the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, and 
     the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 
     System, and consistent with information security requirements 
     designed to address any national security risks, to develop 
     guidance for executive agencies requiring adequate security 
     measures for any transfer, storage, or use of digital yuan on 
     information technology.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Cotton moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist upon rejecting the authorization of 
     appropriations for contributions to the Green Climate Fund 
     under section 30609(b) of the text of the bill as engrossed 
     by the House of Representatives and insisting upon including 
     an authorization of appropriations of $8,000,000,000 within 
     section 2118 of division A of the Senate amendment (relating 
     to funding for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) 
     for Department of Defense research, development, production, 
     and procurement of weapon systems needed to compete with 
     China.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Ms. Murkowski moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     the text of each of the following:
       (1) S. 3245, 117th Congress, as introduced on November 18, 
     2021.
       (2) S. 140, 117th Congress, as reported to the Senate on 
     December 17, 2021.
       (3) H.R. 1447, 117th Congress, as referred in the Senate on 
     May 19, 2021.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Sullivan moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     provisions that prohibit a renewable energy project receiving 
     Federal financial assistance, a subsidy, or any other 
     financing mechanism authorized under the final conference 
     report, such as a grant or tax credit, from purchasing 
     materials, technology, or critical minerals mined, produced, 
     processed, or refined in the People's Republic of China or 
     the Russian Federation.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Rubio moves that the managers on the part of the Senate 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be instructed 
     to insist that the final conference report include a Federal 
     Government-based counterintelligence review to certify 
     recipients of grants, funding, awards, or other resources 
     provided, and intellectual property developed, as a result of 
     the conference report, have national security protections in 
     place to prohibit misappropriation and theft of Federal 
     resources.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Johnson moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to reject any proposals to prohibit the 
     possession, acquirement, receipt, transportation, sale, or 
     purchase of mink raised in captivity in the United States for 
     fur production.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Sanders moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     provisions that require each beneficiary of Federal financial 
     assistance for semiconductor manufacturing to be banned from 
     purchasing the stock of the beneficiary, from outsourcing 
     employment opportunities of the beneficiary to any country 
     outside of the United States, and from repealing any 
     collective bargaining requirements of the beneficiary, and 
     that require each such beneficiary to issue warrants and 
     equity stakes in the enterprise of the beneficiary to the 
     Federal Government and to remain neutral in any union 
     organizing effort of the employees of the beneficiary.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Scott of Florida moves that the managers on the part of 
     the Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the 
     two Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     provisions that ensure that any taxpayer funds spent in the 
     bill, including those provided to universities and private 
     sector corporations, are subject to comprehensive return on 
     investment analyses and claw back provisions, and 
     corresponding timely reports on the use of such funds to 
     Congress and the American public.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Ms. Hassan moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     provisions that expand the research and development tax 
     credit for small businesses and preserve full and immediate 
     expensing for research and development investments.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Ms. Ernst moves that the managers on the part of the Senate 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be instructed 
     to reject the provision as agreed to by the House of 
     Representatives that would reauthorize the Small Business 
     Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer 
     programs under section 9 of

[[Page S2211]]

     the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 638) without authorization 
     to prevent the Russian Federation and the People's Republic 
     of China from acquiring technology critical to national 
     security developed through programs of the Small Business 
     Administration and participating Federal agencies.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Lankford moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     provisions requiring that any agreement negotiated by the 
     United States with the Islamic Republic of Iran addressing 
     Iran's development of nuclear weapons--
       (1) also includes provisions addressing the full range of 
     Iran's destabilizing activities, including development of the 
     means of delivery for such weapons (such as ballistic 
     missiles), support for terrorism, and evasion of sanctions by 
     individuals, entities, and vessels in the trade of petroleum 
     products with the People's Republic of China;
       (2) does not lift sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary 
     Guard Corps; and
       (3) does not revoke the designation of the Islamic 
     Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization 
     under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 
     U.S.C. 1189).

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Sanders moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to recede from the provision contained in section 
     2614(c) of the Senate amendment (relating to contract 
     redundancy and funding for the human landing system program 
     of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which 
     would likely go to Blue Origin).

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Cassidy moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     provisions that require the President to directly address 
     troubling developments in Mexico's energy sector that 
     intentionally cause harm to United States jobs and economic 
     interests, business and investor interests, and climate goals 
     through the use of consultations under the USMCA (as defined 
     in section 3 of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement 
     Implementation Act (19 U.S.C. 4502)).

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

        Mr. Bennet moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     provisions to strengthen the resilience, capacity, and 
     security of critical supply chains to reduce costs for United 
     States consumers and businesses and to avoid supply chain 
     shocks that increase prices and jeopardize the national and 
     economic security of the United States, including provisions 
     that--
       (1) reinvigorate United States semiconductor manufacturing 
     and promote the research and development needed to regain and 
     maintain the ability to manufacture, test, assemble, and 
     package advanced semiconductor products in the United States;
       (2) strengthen supply chains in critical industries and 
     improve the availability of critical goods important to the 
     national and economic security of the United States, 
     including by identification and mapping of those supply 
     chains and sharing data and best practices;
       (3) support investments that strengthen the diversity, 
     security, resilience, and reliability of critical supply 
     chains, which may include working with allies and partners of 
     the United States to reduce reliance on countries of concern, 
     consistent with international trade agreements to which the 
     United States is a party;
       (4) expand and strengthen United States manufacturing, 
     mining, shipbuilding, transportation, and logistics 
     capabilities, while enhancing environmental sustainability, 
     safety, and equity; and
       (5) support United States manufacturers, including small- 
     and medium-sized enterprises, to improve their resilience to 
     supply chains shocks, train their workforce, and adopt new 
     technologies to make them more globally competitive.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Warnock moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     provisions that fully fund programs to build institutional 
     research capacity at historically Black colleges or 
     universities that are developing research institutions.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Daines moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to reject provisions that weaken the energy 
     security of the United States, prohibit the development of an 
     all-of-the-above energy portfolio, or direct funds to foreign 
     entities for international climate objectives.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

        Mr. Cassidy (for himself and Ms. Warren) moves that the 
     managers on the part of the Senate at the conference on the 
     disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the Senate amendment 
     to the bill H.R. 4521 be instructed to insist that the final 
     conference report include the provisions contained in section 
     90306 of H.R. 4521, as agreed to by the House (relating to 
     college transparency).

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mrs. Capito moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist that the final conference report include 
     provisions that--
       (1) emphasize that, under current law, the President may 
     not--
       (A) declare, on the basis of climate change--
       (i) a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act 
     (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.);
       (ii) an emergency or major disaster under the Robert T. 
     Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 
     U.S.C. 5121 et seq.); or
       (iii) a public health emergency under section 319 of the 
     Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 247d); or
       (B) invoke, on the basis of climate change, the authorities 
     of the Defense Production Act of 1950 (50 U.S.C. 4501 et 
     seq.); and
       (2) provide that nothing in H.R. 4521 grants the President 
     the authority to make a declaration or invocation described 
     in paragraph (1).

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Toomey moves that the managers on the part of the 
     Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be 
     instructed to insist upon the provisions contained in section 
     73001 of the Senate amendment (relating to establishing a 
     process for exclusion of articles from duties under section 
     301 of the Trade Act of 1974).

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Scott of South Carolina moves that the managers on the 
     part of the Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes 
     of the two Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 
     4521 be instructed to insist that the final conference report 
     include a requirement that any new legislation providing for 
     new mandates on greenhouse gas emissions should not be 
     enacted unless similar mandates are enacted in the People's 
     Republic of China.

                      Motion to Instruct Conferees

       Mr. Lujan moves that the managers on the part of the Senate 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be instructed 
     to insist on provisions supporting the work of the Department 
     of Energy, user facilities of the Department of Energy, and 
     National Laboratories, including work in microelectronics and 
     across the key technology focus areas (as defined in section 
     2002 of the amendment).

     

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