[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 124 (Tuesday, July 26, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3661-S3664]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE SESSION
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SERGEANT FIRST CLASS HEATH ROBINSON HONORING OUR PROMISE TO ADDRESS
COMPREHENSIVE TOXICS ACT OF 2022
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of the House message to accompany S.
3373, which the clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
House message to accompany S. 3373, a bill to improve the
Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant and the Children of Fallen
Heroes Grant.
Pending:
Schumer motion to concur in the House amendment to the
bill.
Schumer motion to concur in the House amendment to the
bill, with Schumer Amendment No. 5148 (to the House amendment
to the Senate amendment), to add an effective date.
Schumer Amendment No. 5149 (to Schumer Amendment No. 5148),
to modify the effective date.
Schumer motion to refer the bill to the Committee on
Veterans' Affairs, with instructions, Schumer Amendment No.
5150, to add an effective date.
Schumer Amendment No. 5151 (to the instructions (Schumer
Amendment No. 5150) of the motion to refer), to modify the
effective date.
Schumer Amendment No. 5152 (to Amendment No. 5151), to
modify the effective date.
Recognition of the Majority Leader
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
CHIPS Act of 2022
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, this morning--this morning--the Senate
will draw a clear line in the sand that America's chip crisis and
America's dwindling commitment to science and innovation will not
continue under our watch. Within the next hour, the Senate will vote,
finally--finally--to move toward final passage of our CHIPS and Science
bill. That is what we are calling it, the CHIPS and Science bill. That
will put us in a position to finish the work on this bill before the
end of the week. It is a major step for our economic security, our
national security, our supply chains, and, in fact, for America's
future--for America's future.
I want to be clear. The proposal we are passing this week contains
the majority of key science and innovation measures that the Senate
passed last summer. It will make historic investments to scientific
research. It will take direct aim at our Nation's chip crisis.
Alongside the infrastructure law and our recent gun safety bill, among
others, it is one of the most consequential bipartisan achievements of
this Congress. I thank all of my Senate colleagues on both sides of the
aisle who are helping to make this happen.
I am confident that future generations will look back on the passage
of this CHIPS and Science bill as a turning point for American
leadership in the 21st century, but it didn't come together overnight.
The legislation has been several years in the making.
In 2019, I approached my Republican colleague Todd Young with a
proposal
[[Page S3662]]
to work together on legislation to revive America's commitment to
science and innovation. Together, we drafted the first iteration of
many policies we are passing this week, the Endless Frontier Act.
A year later, I joined with my colleagues Senators Cornyn and Warner
to push for the authorization of new Federal chips initiatives as part
of the NDAA to address our Nation's growing chip shortage.
We all knew that America faced a choice: We could keep underfunding
science and innovation and continue to let America fall behind our
global competitors, or we could wake up to the challenges of this
century and empower the American people to unleash the next wave of
discovery and scientific achievement. We knew that if we didn't get
there first, our rivals--chief among them the Chinese Communist Party--
would likely beat us to the punch and reshape the world in their
authoritarian image.
In February of 2021, less than a month after I became majority
leader, I directed the chairs and members of our relevant committees to
start drafting a legislative package to outcompete China and create new
American jobs, with the Endless Frontier Act serving as the core of
this effort. I also instructed them to draft legislation to rebuild the
capacity of the U.S. semiconductor industry. The pandemic made clear
with unforgiving clarity how America's chip shortage was creating a
crisis in our economy and national security.
So Members on both sides of the aisle--this has been a bipartisan
effort from the get-go--got to work. We made a commitment last February
that if both sides worked together, we would bring a bill to the floor
for a vote in the spring. And that is what we did, and we passed the
U.S. Innovation and Competition Act with overwhelming bipartisan
support in June of 2021.
A year later, the legislation we are passing this week has many of
the same important measures contained in the bill we worked on last
summer. For example, last year's bill secured historic investments for
science and innovation. This bill does too.
Last year's bill offered tens of billions to encourage American chip
manufacturing and R&D. This bill does that too and even more with the
investment tax credit provisions.
Last year's bill provided funding to help build a wireless
communications supply chain to counter Huawei. This bill does too.
Last year's bill created the National Science Foundation tech
directorate and provided funding to the Department of Energy National
Labs to help compete with foreign rivals in key technologies like AI
and quantum computing. This bill does too.
Last year's bill made major new investments in Manufacturing USA and
the Manufacturing Extension Partnership to strengthen domestic supply
chains. This bill does too.
Last year's bill created the first-ever program to cultivate the tech
hubs of tomorrow in regions around the United States that have enormous
potential but have largely been overlooked--not the big megalopolises
which have a lot of tech in them, like New York City and San Francisco,
but smaller regions that have great talent but have been overlooked.
They might be in Upstate New York. They might be in Indiana and many
other parts of the country. This bill is making sure that happens.
Now, let me be clear. While this bill contains the two major
components of the Science and CHIPS bill, there are other major
proposals from both sides that are still being worked on in the
conference committee. Make no mistake that there are many Democrats and
Republicans who have provisions that will be contained in the
conference report under Chair Cantwell's leadership, and it is my
intention to put the conference committee bill on the floor of the
Senate.
As I said a moment ago, I firmly believe that passing this bill will
be a turning point for American leadership in this century. The
benefits of this legislation will reverberate across the country for
years and decades to come.
For much of the 20th century, America was without peer in our
commitment to scientific research, to innovation, and to new, cutting-
edge manufacturing, and it led to tens of millions of good-paying jobs
and made the United States the unquestioned economic leader of the
world.
Today, the story is different. Nations around the world are spending
tens of billions of dollars to secure this century, much like America
secured the last one. Sadly, the Federal Government's commitment to
science has waned in recent decades. In fact, as a percentage of GDP,
we spend less than half as much as the Chinese Communist Party on basic
research--less than half--which is even more devastating given China
has spent decades stealing America's intellectual property.
With this bill, that is finally going to change. We will not only
create the good-paying jobs of tomorrow; we will not only fix our
supply chains and bring costs down for American families with this
bill; with this bill, we will reawaken the spirit of discovery,
innovation, invention, and optimism that made America the envy of the
world.
We don't mean to let the days of American leadership end on our
watch. We don't mean to see America become a middling nation in this
century. We mean for America to lead this century. For that reason, I
urge my colleagues to give a resounding vote ``yes'' on cloture at 11
a.m. today.
PACT Act
Mr. President, now on the PACT Act, last night, I filed cloture to
prepare the Senate to once again pass the PACT Act, the largest and
most important expansion of veteran healthcare benefits in decades and
a bipartisan issue to the core--another bipartisan issue.
As my colleagues already know, because of a technical error, the
House of Representatives was unable to take up our version of the bill
that we passed in the spring. The House has now fixed their error and
returned the PACT Act back to the Senate. We want to finish our work on
the PACT Act before the end of the week.
Our Nation's veterans have waited long enough to get the benefits
they need to treat complications from toxic exposure in the line of
duty. So we have every reason in the world to get this bill done
quickly, with the same bipartisan support as the first time around.
The need for the PACT Act is beyond question. Burn pits have affected
up to 3\1/2\ million veterans since 9/11. Yet the VA has rejected
nearly 80 percent of all disability claims connected to burn pits. That
is unacceptable and must change.
I hope Members work together to fast-track this bill as soon as
possible because there is no reason to delay a measure that the vast
majority of Senators from both parties agree is necessary. Our
veterans, their families, and our veterans service organizations have
been urging us to finish work on this bill. Let's keep our promise to
those valiant servicemembers and send the PACT Act quickly to the
President's desk.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant 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 ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Order of Business
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 11 a.m.
the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur
with respect to H.R. 4346, the CHIPS and Science legislation.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant 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 ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The Republican leader is recognized.
Inflation
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, 93 percent of the American people are
concerned about inflation; 42 percent say they are struggling just to
stand
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still financially; 63 percent say that gas prices, inflation, bills, or
the economy are their biggest concerns. That is because 100 percent of
the American people live in a country experiencing the worst inflation
in more than 40 years, and 100 percent of the American people live in a
country where things did not have to be this bad but for Democrats'
deliberate policy choices.
Don't take it from me. Listen to Larry Summers, Treasury Secretary to
President Clinton and NEC Director to President Obama. Here is what
Larry Summers had to say:
There wouldn't have been nearly the same kinds of supply
chain problems . . . if we weren't giving people who were
laid off unemployment insurance that was far more than the
salaries they had been earning . . . if we weren't mailing
checks willy-nilly . . . there would have been less spending,
that would have meant less bottlenecks.
He continued:
Printing money and distributing it well ahead of the supply
of goods is a prescription for inflation--and that's what we
did. We injected enough money into the economy to make total
spending grow at an 11.6 percent rate last year. When you
have 11.6 percent growth rate in spending, then on any
reasonable theory of how much capacity there is, you're going
to have a lot of inflation. And that's what we did.
That is a top Democrat talking, but he is intellectually honest. He
tried to advise Washington Democrats not to dump nearly $2 trillion
onto the economy, but, of course, they didn't listen. And now working
families are stuck with skyrocketing costs and bills as a consequence.
You would think the worst inflation in 40 years would be enough to
convince Democrats to stop running these painful experiments on
American families. But, if you can believe it, almost every House and
Senate Democrat would like to follow up this historic inflation with
massive new tax hikes. The same people who spent us into inflation want
to tax us all the way into recession.
So let's hope this small handful of Democrats who see the insanity of
this approach continue to stand strong for our country.
Ukraine
Mr. President, on an entirely different matter, this past Saturday
brought yet another escalation in Russia's brutal war in Ukraine. The
ink had barely dried on a deal securing safe passage for Ukrainian
grain exports when Russian missiles hit the port city of Odesa.
Ukraine produces one-fifth of the world's high-grade wheat. Russia's
Black Sea blockade and the destruction of Ukraine's crops have left
vulnerable regions of the world literally on the verge of crisis. But
Vladimir Putin only managed to resist the urge to commit senseless
violence for about 24 hours.
Now, the fact that Putin was even compelled to negotiate was thanks
to the introduction of HIMARS long-range rockets and Harpoon anti-ship
missiles into Ukraine's arsenal. If Ukraine had had weapons like these
earlier, the blockade of Odesa could have been prevented in the first
place.
The Biden administration says its decision making throughout the
process has been deliberate and nuanced. History will likely judge
otherwise. The months before Putin's escalation clearly called for
boldness and resolve, to say nothing of the months since. But, too
often, the administration's first instincts have been to plot along
slowly and vacillate.
The Ukrainians have fought bravely to stop Russia's advance despite
being undermanned and outgunned. Just think what they could have
accomplished if the West had acted boldly to support Ukraine as storm
clouds were first gathering, or right away when the storm broke.
But, now, no one should need a reminder of the far-reaching impacts
of the war in Ukraine. Our eastern flank allies certainly don't. They
have been preparing to defend themselves literally for generations, and
from the beginning of Russia's latest offensive, they have reached deep
into their own inventories to help equip Ukraine.
Elsewhere in Europe, treaty allies have finally taken an important
lesson about investing in deterrence and self-defense to heart.
Countries like Germany have made historic commitments to increase
military spending. The Germans, Swedes, and others have also broken
historic precedent to share their stockpiles with Ukraine.
And, of course, Russia's war has led other major European states to
announce their intention to join the ranks of the strongest alliance in
world history. Last week, our colleagues on the Foreign Relations
Committee advanced the necessary protocols to ratify Sweden and
Finland's accession to NATO. There is now nothing preventing the
Democratic leader from calling these measures up for immediate
consideration and passage by the full Senate. The legislatures of other
NATO allies like Canada, Norway, Poland, and Germany have already
ratified them.
The United States would be fortunate to have two new treaty allies as
impressive and capable as Finland and Sweden. Both countries' high-tech
economies and extensive American-made systems will improve the
alliance's interoperability and instantly improve the state of burden-
sharing the day they come in.
American leadership in the world has made possible the peace and
security our country enjoys today. That leadership is helping encourage
our allies to make sufficient investments in their own capabilities to
face down the shared threats, but American leadership is only as strong
as our willingness to make robust investments in our own capabilities.
President Biden has submitted a defense budget request that fails to
keep pace with growing threats and fails to keep pace with Democrats'
own inflation, and Senate Democrats are giving short shrift to the need
for a strong, bipartisan Defense authorization bill.
Russian aggression isn't the only threat to American interests today.
Rogue states like Iran and North Korea continue to march toward
devastating weapons. China's provocative behavior in the Indo-Pacific
continues to raise the stakes for long-term competition.
So there is no time--no time--to waste on either of these measures--
neither the Sweden and Finland protocols nor a strong, bipartisan NDAA.
We need to do all three as soon as possible.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada.
Unanimous Consent Agreement--H.R. 1892
Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that if the Senate
receives a message from the House that it has passed H.R. 1842, and if
the text of that bill is identical to S. 697, that the bill be
considered read three times and the Senate vote on passage of the bill
without intervening action or debate, and that the motion to reconsider
be considered made and laid upon the table.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
CHIPS Act of 2022
Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, for months, our country has experienced a
severe computer chip shortage, one that has impacted nearly every
American industry and increased costs for nearly every American. From
cell phones to cars to televisions, even our refrigerators and washing
machines--products we use every day--well, they need computer chips to
function.
They are also used in critically important technology like the
medical equipment at our hospitals and the technology used by our
military. This is why the computer chip shortage we are facing is a
critical economic and national security issue. It has caused prices to
rise, contributed to supply chain issues, and limited the availability
of many products, something that anyone who has tried to buy or rent a
car over the past couple of years knows all too well.
This shortage was directly impacting hard-working families and the
businesses that support jobs across our Nation.
It has hurt companies that employ people in my State of Nevada, like
Varian Medical Systems, which uses computer chips to manufacture
cancer-fighting and other critical medical technologies. This shortage
is impacting lives and likelihoods.
For decades, America was a global leader in manufacturing and
innovation; but over the years, we outsourced the production of
computer chips to countries like China, costing us millions of
potential American jobs and increasing our reliance on foreign nations
for technology that is critical--critical for our national security and
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for our safety. All of this has been exacerbated by a global pandemic
and the war in Ukraine.
We can't afford to wait any longer to bring manufacturing of computer
chips back to the United States. The Senate will be voting on
bipartisan legislation to bring computer chip manufacturing back to the
U.S. and help existing manufacturers compete, creating thousands of new
American jobs and enhancing both our economic and our national
security.
We will also improve our supply chain, which will help businesses
like Varian Medical Systems, and it will minimize the supply chain
disruptions which will ultimately help lower prices for consumers. This
bill will do so much more to spur innovation and invest in our American
economy.
As the first and only former computer programmer to serve in the U.S.
Senate, I am so excited about what this legislation will do for the
future of American technology and innovation. It will establish a
first-of-its-kind effort to accelerate our development of critical
technologies, like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and
advanced manufacturing. We will invest heavily in STEM education and in
our cybersecurity workforce. And it will help build regional technology
hubs all across this country to spark innovation.
I am also so proud that this bill includes bipartisan provisions that
I worked on in the committee that wrote the bulk of the legislation,
which includes these: my bipartisan Rural STEM Education Act with
Senator Wicker to increase access to quality STEM education for rural
schools so it is accessible to all of our students no matter where they
live. It also includes provisions I worked on with Senator Blackburn to
support advanced manufacturing workforce development and a bipartisan
amendment I introduced with Senator Lummis to develop a secure and
reliable critical mineral supply chain.
This historic bipartisan legislation is just common sense. So let's
build up our communities; let's strengthen America's competitiveness;
let's invest in American innovation; let's lower prices for hard-
working families; and let's bolster our domestic supply chain. Let's
pass this critical piece of legislation now.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican whip.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to
speak for up to 15 minutes prior to the scheduled rollcall vote.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Inflation
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, ``our experts believe and the data shows
that most of the price increases we've seen . . . [are] expected to be
temporary''--that is what President Biden said 1 year ago this month,
something his administration has repeatedly echoed.
Unfortunately, it long ago became clear that was wishful thinking on
the President's part. Far from being temporary, inflation has become a
fact of life in the Biden economy.
Last month, inflation hit its highest level yet under President
Biden, climbing to 9.1 percent, the worst inflation in more than 40
years. The impact of inflation is being felt in every corner of our
economy. Businesses of every size are dealing with the effects of
inflation. Small businesses, of course, are being hit particularly
hard. And 75 percent of small business owners report inflation has had
a negative effect on the financial health of their business over the
past 6 months. And 75 percent report that inflation pressures are
getting worse.
It is not surprising. Everything from inputs to transportation to
electricity has become more expensive in the Biden economy, and that
has a huge impact on businesses' ability to pay their expenses and run
their operations.
As one South Dakota business owner who wrote to me noted:
It makes it hard for me to grow my USA-made business when I
don't have the funds to pay my employees more, add more
benefits, purchase more machinery, and buy more material in
buck as inflation continues to rise.
Farmers and ranchers in my State are also struggling. As of March,
the price of fertilizer had risen to an astounding 162 percent since
January 2021. The prices of two common herbicides have risen more than
50 percent since last year. And the price of diesel, which powers a lot
of farming and ranching equipment, has doubled since President Biden
took office. Farming and ranching are tough jobs already, often with
tight margins and a lot of weather-related risks. Inflation is making
things exponentially hard.
The list of inflation's impacts goes on. For example, last week I
talked about how inflation is affecting our military, which is able to
do less with the funds appropriated for it, thanks to soaring prices
across the economy. That, in turn, can affect troop readiness and the
military's ability to keep up with needed programs and purchases from
weapons to vehicles to aircraft, and ships.
Of course, I haven't even yet mentioned the most basic impact of
inflation and that is the misery faced by hard-working Americans who
confront sky-high prices at the grocery store and the gas pump and
wonder how they are going to feed their family this month or whether
they will be able to afford to get to work.
Bloomberg reported last week that nearly 6 in 10 American workers are
concerned that their paychecks won't stretch far enough to support
themselves and their families. Another recent poll reported that 70
percent of Americans have had to cut back on other spending to afford
necessities.
Life in the Biden economy is grim. At this point, how we got here is
well-established. One of the main reasons we are in the midst of this
inflation crisis is Democrats' decision to pass a massive partisan $1.9
trillion spending bill last March under the guise of COVID relief,
despite the fact that Congress had just passed a fifth bipartisan COVID
bill that met essentially all current pressing COVID needs. Democrats
were warned that their bill would cause inflation; and they proceeded
anyway. The so-called American Rescue Plan flooded the economy with
unnecessary government money, and the economy overheated as a result.
So here we are with Americans struggling under the weight of the
worst inflation in 40 years, and Democrats want to double down on the
spending strategy that helped get us into this mess in the first place.
That is right. Despite the fact that even Democrat economists have
stated that the American Rescue Plan helped create our current
inflation crisis, Democrats want to pass another massive government
spending bill filled with excessive spending and tax hikes--a trillion
dollars in tax hikes in recent discussions.
Apparently, Democrats are not content with spending us into an
inflation crisis, they would also like to tax us into a recession.
There is already reason to worry about the negative economic impacts of
new climate measures the President is contemplating imposing, but on
top of that, Democrats want to spend even more government money and
impose a trillion dollars in tax hikes, a substantial part of which
would fall on small businesses.
At this rate, there is no telling when our inflation crisis will end.
Democrats are so committed to big spending that even if their
legislation fails this time around, they are already planning to run on
their big spending agenda in November.
I am not sure I would want to try to convince voters to elect me by
touting the same spending strategy that helped land our country in this
inflation crisis in the first place. But Democrats' belief in big
spending is so deeply ingrained that it apparently can't be swayed even
when they see the negative consequences.
It is incomprehensible that Democrats are contemplating doubling down
on the spending strategy that helped get us in this mess in the first
place. The first spending spree has been a disaster for our country,
and I can only imagine how much Americans would suffer from their next
one.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican whip.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the scheduled 11 o'clock vote.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
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