[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 131 (Thursday, August 4, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4013-S4032]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          MOTION TO DISCHARGE

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, pursuant to S. Res. 27, the Committee 
on Environment and Public Works being tied on the question of 
reporting, I move to discharge the Committee on Environment and Public 
Works from further consideration of the nomination of David Uhlmann, to 
be Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, 
Environmental Protection Agency.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the provisions of S. Res. 27, there will 
now be up to 4 hours of debate on the motion, equally divided between 
the two leaders or their designees, with no

[[Page S4014]]

motions, points of order, or amendments in order.


            Unanimous Consent Agreement--Executive Calendar

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote 
on the motion to discharge the Uhlmann nomination occur at 12:30 p.m. 
on Saturday, August 6.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.


                              S.J. Res. 55

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I just want to thank my colleagues for 
the vote that just occurred here on the floor of the Senate. It was a 
bipartisan victory, 50 to 47, on the Congressional Review Act that I 
had put forward with all of my Republican colleagues to rescind the 
onerous, job-killing Biden administration rule that came out in April 
that would make it harder to build things in America. It would make it 
harder to employ people, especially our incredibly productive American 
workers.
  So that just passed. That was a repudiation of the Biden White House 
in a bipartisan vote on the Senate floor.
  Here is the thing. Even my Senate colleagues--because I was working 
the vote pretty hard down there in the well--even my Senate colleagues 
who voted against it, several of them came up to me and said: You know 
what. You are right. We have really got to fix NEPA. It is killing the 
country. It is killing our ability to do anything. So that was an 
important vote, but a good conversation is starting here.
  We have the best workers in the world. If we let them build, we can 
do great things again in terms of building this country and not let 
redtape, far-left environmental groups, regulations, and endless 
litigation stop us.
  So I also want to thank all the groups that supported this 
resolution.
  I had a bigger sign down on the Senate floor when I was giving an 
earlier speech, but the groups that were supporting this legislation 
are very diverse. There are over 50 groups of men and women who produce 
things, grow things, and build the country. I want to thank them for 
the great support of this Congressional Review Act that just passed.
  I really want to give a shout-out to the building trades, the 
laborers, the operating engineers, and the trade unions that are doing 
such a great job building this country who want to work. They know 
these regulations are killing workers' ability to get good jobs.
  We have a long way to go to fix the broken system of permitting in 
America and the endless litigation by environmental lawyers who want to 
stop everything, but today was an important start and an important vote 
on the floor of the Senate, showing America that a bipartisan group of 
Senators will stand up to these far-left groups and say: Hey, you know 
what? We gotta build. We need to build. And that was the message here.
  We are going to try to move this in the House and get it on President 
Biden's desk. He says he is blue-collar Joe. Well, let's see if he is 
blue-collar Joe when this comes to his desk and he would veto or not 
veto something that all the building trades in America support.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


                                Colombia

  Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the acute dangers 
to American national security that have formed and are deepening across 
the Western Hemisphere.
  These dangers have coalesced because of the comprehensive and 
catastrophic policies pursued by President Biden and his 
administration. Already, nine governments across South America, Central 
America, and the Caribbean are controlled by socialists. All of these 
governments, with only one exception, are also overtly and 
ideologically anti-American. They are committed to undermining American 
security and to endangering Americans.
  This weekend, on Sunday, Colombia will become the 10th government in 
the region controlled by the hard left when the country's new 
President, Gustavo Petro, will take office. I am deeply worried that 
once he does, Colombia will also join the ranks of anti-American forces 
in Latin America.
  Petro is the first openly Marxist to be elected President of 
Colombia. He was brought to power by Colombia's leftist fringe, 
including guerrillas and terrorist groups.
  Colombians had rightly and for decades resisted Marxism and rejected 
the hard left. The first reason for this is that Marxists have long 
been violent guerrillas who have wreaked havoc in Colombia. The second 
reason is that Colombians are well aware of what has happened in other 
Latin American countries that have elected or have seen leftists seize 
power. Cuba and Venezuela, for example, have endured socialist and 
communist regimes that have tortured, killed, silenced dissidents, have 
denied freedom and driven countless people into exile, forcing many to 
flee or be murdered.
  People are rightly asking: What happened? The answer, unfortunately, 
is as straightforward as it is worrying. Joe Biden and his policies 
happened. The Biden administration seems ideologically committed to 
systematically alienating our allies and empowering our enemies. In 
this goal--and perhaps only this goal--they have been wildly 
successful.
  Since Joe Biden has been in office, we have seen forces for evil in 
Iran, in Afghanistan, in Russia, in China, in Venezuela, and in Cuba 
gain strength while our friends and allies in Israel, Ukraine, Hong 
Kong, and Taiwan have felt abandoned and alone. And this pattern has 
been repeated in the Western Hemisphere.
  In Mexico, we are seeing deepening civil unrest and the erosion of 
civil society. The breakdown of the rule of law across our southern 
border--a crisis directly caused by Joe Biden's policies and political 
decisions--poses acute national security challenges and dangers to the 
United States.
  Mexican President Lopez Obrador seems intent on making these trends 
worse, and when I questioned a Biden State Department official on 
Obrador's targeting of American companies and the nationalization of 
energy in Mexico, he wouldn't even admit that those were bad things. 
And if he is not willing to admit to the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee that the leftist President of Mexico's targeting of American 
companies and the nationalization of energy in Mexico are bad things, 
then we can be certain the Biden administration is also unwilling to 
convey that to Mexico.
  When we saw Cubans flood the streets last summer, yelling 
``Libertad'' and waving American flags, the Biden administration 
couldn't even bring itself to come out with a strong support and 
statement for the people marching in the streets of Cuba. In statement 
after statement, as protesters swept into the streets, administration 
officials failed to unequivocally support the protesters and critically 
failed to condemn the brutal thugs that the communist regime was 
sending to assault, brutalize, and silence the speech of Cuban citizens 
seeking freedom.
  When it came to Colombia, the Biden administration went out of its 
way to undermine and to alienate the pro-American government of 
Colombian President Duque. President Biden denied Duque a call for the 
first 5 months of the administration, providing morale and momentum for 
Duque's domestic enemies. Biden did finally call Duque at the end of 
June that year--after his helicopter came under attack by anti-
government terrorists.
  And what was the reward Biden had for the terrorists?
  Well, just a few months later, Biden removed the FARC, the 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, from the list of terrorist 
organizations. He also dismantled terrorism sanctions on individual 
FARC members. FARC is an organization of Marxist-Leninist 
narcoterrorists who, for decades, have killed, kidnapped, and extorted 
Colombians and seized and murdered American citizens.
  FARC continues to pose an acute threat to Colombian security and to 
American interests in the region, but the Biden administration has 
treated it like other terrorist groups, with weakness and appeasement 
and worse. Just last week, House Republicans announced that the 
administration may well be distributing assistance to former FARC 
terrorists. So the inevitable occurred; the Colombian far left

[[Page S4015]]

gained momentum, and Petro was elected.
  This is what happens--this is what always happens--when America 
abandons our friends. Colombia has been an indispensable ally to the 
United States. Our relationship stems back 200 years. We have deep 
economic and security ties. We provide Colombia with almost a half a 
billion dollars in aid every single year--a testament to the breadth 
and depth of our ties.
  Petro says he will work hand in hand with Nicolas Maduro's oppressive 
regime in Venezuela. He is looking to work with the National Liberation 
Army, a terrorist organization in Colombia. He will embrace the FARC. 
He says he wants to stop oil production and to roll back cooperation 
with the United States on stopping drug trafficking. In fact, Petro 
seems deeply committed to weakening and undermining the United States-
Colombian relationship.
  I hope and pray that he doesn't weaken it. I hope and pray that his 
rhetoric and language in the past is not carried forward in policies 
when his administration begins. I want to see Colombia remain a close 
U.S. ally. I don't want to see Colombia follow the example of other 
socialist governments in the Western Hemisphere. We know where that 
leads.
  Both Cuba and Venezuela used to be prosperous countries until 
leftists came to power. Venezuela, in 1950, was the fourth wealthiest 
country on the face of the Earth. The United States was first. 
Switzerland was second. New Zealand was third. Venezuela was No. 4. 
Then socialist dictators came to power, including Hugo Chavez and 
Nicolas Maduro, and they destroyed much of that mighty nation. The 
quality of life deteriorated so much in Venezuela that people are 
literally eating out of trash cans in alleyways as they flee the 
country by the millions.
  In Cuba, when Fulgencio Batista staged a coup and became a brutal 
dictator in the 1950s, my father was a teenager in Cuba, and he fought 
against Batista's cruel regime. My father was imprisoned and tortured. 
He was beaten in a Cuban jail. He had his nose broken. He had his teeth 
broken out of his mouth. My father fled Cuba in 1957. He came to 
America--he came to Texas--seeking freedom. He had $100 in his 
underwear. He didn't speak English. He washed dishes while making 50 
cents an hour.
  In 1959, Castro and the communist revolution succeeded there. Shortly 
thereafter, my father returned to Cuba only to be horrified at the evil 
and oppression that Castro had brought--at the murder, at the torture, 
at the suffering, at the poverty. My aunt, my Tia Sonia--his kid 
sister--was still in Cuba. My Tia Sonia fought in the counterrevolution 
against Castro, and my Tia Sonia was imprisoned and tortured by 
Castro's thugs.
  This is the future that may well be awaiting Latin American countries 
that embrace socialism. This is the pattern we have seen over and over 
and over again. Petro was elected, but if he follows the pattern of 
other leftist dictators, it may prove to be the last free election in 
Colombia.
  So how has the Biden administration handled Petro's rise to power, 
which their own weakness and their own appeasement facilitated? With 
yet more weakness and appeasement.
  Both Joe Biden and Secretary of State Blinken effusively 
congratulated Petro: How great, an anti-American Marxist and a close 
ally of ours in Latin America.
  They said they looked forward to working with him on shared 
interests. I hope those shared interests don't include undermining the 
United States of America.
  There is value in clarity. There is value in telling the truth about 
what socialism does to a country from the bully pulpit of the United 
States.
  If the Biden administration won't support American allies, if they 
will actively undermine American allies like they did the pro-American 
government of President Duque's, and if the President won't check our 
adversaries and stand up to our enemies, then Congress must.
  Last month, I introduced legislation that would reimpose terrorism 
sanctions on the FARC and on FARC-related terrorists. Those sanctions 
should never have been removed, and doing so highlighted the lack of 
respect and support for our friends and allies in Colombia. Mere months 
before the Colombian election, Joe Biden's delisting of the FARC 
contributed to the election of an anti-American Marxist. My bill is a 
commonsense first step to restoring America's policy toward Colombia. 
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted on my bill, and, sadly, 
every Senate Democrat voted no.
  However, much of the damage has already been done, and this weekend, 
Petro will take office. American policy, I believe, must be 
recalibrated to acknowledge that reality. Again, I hope and pray that 
Petro does not lead his country into the camp of anti-American 
socialists who have become ascendent during the Biden administration, 
but we would be reckless and maybe even delusional not to take him at 
his word because that is what he has said he intends to do.
  So I will shortly be introducing another bill--the CAUTION Act--the 
Colombia Assistance Used Transparently by Institutionalizing Oversight 
Now.
  This bill will comprehensively condition all of our aid to Colombia 
based on what path Petro will choose. If he cuts back defense 
coordination with the United States, my bill will ensure that he gets 
no more money for security coordination. If he cuts back cooperation on 
drug trafficking, my bill will ensure he gets no more money for 
counternarcotics. If he refuses to help dampen illegal immigration, my 
bill will ensure he gets no more money for development assistance.
  I am not interested in giving anti-American leftists American tax 
dollars as aid. I believe our foreign policy should use carrots and 
sticks in order to incentivize other countries to behave in a way that 
benefits American interests and strengthens our friendships and in a 
way that discourages countries from seeking to harm and undermine the 
United States of America.
  This is an inflection point, and America must be clear: We don't 
support Marxists in Latin America. Any leftist leader who chooses 
socialism will be held accountable by the United States and, at a 
minimum, will no longer be funded by the U.S. taxpayers to undermine 
our great Nation.
  I hope this bill earns bipartisan support because standing up for the 
interests of America and standing up to save the United States-
Colombian friendship and alliance is a national interest that 
transcends partisan lines. If President Biden won't stand up for 
America, then I hope and pray that the Congress will.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.


                    Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

  Mr. BOOZMAN. Madam President, as cochair of the Senate Recycling 
Caucus, I am all for efforts to reuse material in a manner that gives 
it a second life unless we are talking about recycling bad ideas. The 
reckless tax-and-spend plan the White House and the majority are 
threatening to bring forth once again is a terrible idea to revive.
  The Senate wasted almost all of 2021 chasing this apparition. Now 
here we are, over a year later, and our economic situation is much more 
dire. Inflation is over 9 percent--the highest in more than four 
decades. Many economists predict we are headed for a recession by next 
year. There are indications that we are already there. Americans feel 
this daily as prices at the pump and the grocery store eat away at 
disposable income and as home price affordability becomes a thing of 
the past.
  According to a CNN poll last month, 64 percent of Americans feel the 
economy is currently in a recession, but President Biden and allies of 
his think that raising taxes, eliminating jobs, and spending billions 
more will somehow help. Their wild claim that all of this spending will 
reduce inflation was almost immediately debunked by the Penn Wharton 
Budget Model, which found that, if enacted, the bill will have no 
measurable impact on inflation.
  Americans are struggling with high prices at every turn. Yet the 
majority wants them to pay billions for Green New Deal programs that 
could exacerbate energy security and food security concerns while using 
fuzzy math to sell it as fighting inflation.
  Their message to Americans is, We are sorry you are paying so much 
for

[[Page S4016]]

every necessity you need, but we really have to plant some trees in 
Brooklyn.
  That is right. Tree equity--a Green New Deal program resurrected for 
this bill--is the majority's secret weapon to fight inflation.
  As the lead Republican on the Senate Ag Committee, I can attest to 
how our section of the bill is chock-full of misplaced priorities like 
this, but worse than that, when it comes to agriculture policy, this 
bill sets a particularly bad precedent for farm bill programs. If they 
go down this road, we very well might be looking at reconciliation as 
the only way future farm bills are actually written. Whoever holds the 
pen wields the fate for vital programs that farmers, ranchers, and 
foresters depend on, not to mention nutrition programs that help low-
income families and policies that allow conservationists to achieve our 
shared goals.
  We haven't had a single hearing on this bill. Yet its agriculture 
title spends $40 billion--a huge amount allocated, with no input from 
stakeholders, Republicans, and, quite frankly, most Democrats.
  The majority is extending conservation programs until 2031--well 
beyond the life of the next two farm bills, deliberately taking away 
Congress's ability to change the focus of these programs or how they 
operate.
  The bill unilaterally creates a multibillion-dollar slush fund for 
farm bill priorities shared by the President and his allies. That is a 
terrible idea for any legislation, much less a bill that is 
historically written in a very bipartisan fashion.
  The current farm bill passed this Chamber with a record number of 
``yes'' votes on the floor. My goal, as current ranking member, is to 
top that. To say this reckless bill jeopardizes the chances of that 
would be an understatement. We have never written a farm bill in this 
manner. It is antithetical to how the Senate--and the Ag Committee, in 
particular--should operate. We have a storied history of working 
together on the Agriculture Committee. Our stakeholders value the fact 
that we approach the issues they face together rather than as 
Republicans and Democrats. They appreciate that their voices are heard.
  Unfortunately, with this decision, the majority has changed that 
dynamic. In their zeal to pass their reckless tax-and-spend agenda, 
they have undermined one of the last successful bipartisan processes 
remaining in the Senate.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mrs. FISCHER. Madam President, while we haven't yet seen any bill 
text for this reckless tax-and-spending bill, we have seen or we have 
heard an outline of it, some chatter about it, snippets about it--about 
what is in this reconciliation bill. So, Madam President, let me state 
the obvious: Billions of dollars in reckless spending and major tax 
hikes--they will not solve the economic crisis our Nation finds itself 
in. Yet, somehow, this concoction of truly terrible economic policies 
is exactly what my colleagues on the Democratic side are pursuing.
  Let's start with the tax hikes. In the Schumer-Manchin bill, they 
have proposed imposing a corporate minimum tax on those big, bad 
corporations. Well, 50 percent of this change would be borne by the 
manufacturing industry--an industry that both Republicans and Democrats 
have been trying to grow. We have been trying to grow that, not harm it 
with bad policies.
  Manufacturers are already struggling to navigate inflation and supply 
chain crisis, but this bill will punish manufacturers, and there is no 
question that this would hurt the middle class by raising prices and 
lowering wages. At a time of historic inflation, manufacturers will 
have no choice but to pass on higher prices to the consumer.
  That is just one part of it. Democrats say the rich should pay their 
fair share. OK, let's look at that.
  A nonpartisan analysis of the entire bill found that it would cause a 
$16.7 billion tax increase for American taxpayers earning less than 
$200,000 in 2023. President Biden is going back on his promise and 
raising taxes for those earning less than $400,000, and he is doing 
this during a recession.
  What about the claim that this proposal will address inflation? The 
Penn-Wharton Budget Model, which Senator Manchin frequently cites for 
producing the best economic analysis, found the proposal produces no 
meaningful reduction in the deficit or with inflation. Any suggestion 
otherwise is insulting to the intelligence of the American people.
  OK, now let's look at the spending. Why, during a time of significant 
economic hardship, should the American people be on the hook to fund 
$369 billion in incentives to the Green New Deal businesses to promote 
those energy policies? Can anyone in this Chamber argue with a straight 
face that subsidizing Tesla purchases will help to ease inflation? I 
can tell you it certainly will not help working families.
  Then there is the $80 billion for the IRS, which is six times the 
Agency's current annual budget. Our folks on the other side of the 
aisle are once again trying to hire an armada of new IRS agents--
87,000, to be exact. This would unleash a wave of new audits. Half of 
those new audits would hit Americans making $75,000 or less.
  You know, we have been here before. The public does not want this 
deal. The bottom line: It is clear this economy is not working for the 
American people.
  The Biden administration's policies have saddled this country with 
two consecutive months of negative economic growth--which is the 
definition of a recession--9.1 percent inflation, a negative 3.6 
inflation-adjusted decline in pay for workers, and more Americans than 
ever before are now holding two full-time jobs.
  In the face of all this hardship, we need real solutions, not more of 
the same backward spending policies.
  The cute name that Senators Schumer and Manchin have come up with for 
their proposal should not hide these facts. And the facts are massive 
tax hikes and billions of dollars in reckless government spending. That 
is the last thing our country needs right now.
  So why are we even debating such a terrible bill? A short history 
lesson may offer some answers. People may recall something called the 
Cornhusker Kickback--an agreement in 2009 between my predecessor and 
Senator Harry Reid. In exchange for a special carve-out only for 
Nebraska to reduce the costs of enacting ObamaCare in our State, my 
predecessor agreed to vote for ObamaCare. Well, the kickback, once 
public, it angered and it embarrassed Nebraskans.
  History often repeats itself, and from what I am hearing, it seems as 
though we have a new kickback--the Mountaineer kickback, a deal only 
for West Virginia; tax hikes and reckless spending that all of us will 
have to bear in exchange for a pipeline.
  I will close by saying again, this is not an inflation reduction 
bill. Like a bad Hollywood franchise that just won't die, this is 
simply the third installment in the ``Build Back Broke'' trilogy. I 
hope it does as poorly in the box office as the first two.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I am pleased to join my colleagues in 
talking about the tax-and-spend bill that is being put forward by our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
  I rise today to discuss the harmful economic consequences that this 
tax-and-spend bill will have on American families.
  Americans are facing soaring inflation that we haven't seen in 
generations. In June, the Consumer Price Index was up 9.1 percent from 
a year earlier. The price increases families are seeing at the grocery 
store, at the gas pump, and for basic housing needs have far outpaced 
wage gains and left Americans struggling to make ends meet.
  The news last week that our GDP shrank for a second consecutive 
quarter is only further evidence of this administration's failed 
economic policies.
  Now, my colleagues across the aisle are doubling down on their failed 
approach, proposing to increase taxes on nearly every single hard-
working American by $750 billion and spending nearly $370 billion on a 
Green New Deal policy.
  And, again, don't just take my word for it. Analysis by the Joint 
Committee on Taxation shows this bill will increase taxes on millions 
of Americans across every income bracket, with more than half of the 
tax increase impacting Americans making less than $400,000 a year.

[[Page S4017]]

  Next year alone, the bill will increase taxes by $16.7 billion on 
American taxpayers earning less than $200,000--a clear violation of 
President Biden's promise to not increase taxes on Americans earning 
less than $400,000 a year.
  Further, the Joint Tax analysis also shows that the corporate tax 
increases in this bill would overwhelmingly hurt U.S. manufacturers--
U.S. manufacturers--with nearly 50 percent of the corporate tax 
increase hitting the manufacturing industry.
  Manufacturers are already struggling with inflation, supply chain 
disruptions, and an impending recession. This tax increase would 
undermine U.S. manufacturing investment in critical research and 
development and in emerging technologies. And it will also result in 
higher costs for American families.
  Think about that young couple starting out. They have to buy a 
refrigerator, a couch, furniture--all of these different things. They 
are going to pay higher prices. I mean, that tax is going to impact 
them on the manufactured goods they need, regardless of their income or 
their ability to pay. That is increasing inflation in this country. And 
inflation is the cruelest tax because it hits low-income people the 
hardest.
  Not only that, the bill, as I say, will actually increase inflation. 
Analysis by economists at Penn Wharton at the University of 
Pennsylvania, the Federal Reserve, Moody's Analytics, and the CBO all 
show that it will not reduce inflation.
  When you look at things like the tax on, not just manufacturing but 
other companies that produce oil and gas, here we are fighting with the 
highest prices we have seen at the pump in years that people pay every 
time they pull up to fill up their car. And now with increased taxes, 
that is going to exacerbate the cost of fuel at the pump. It is going 
to impact the price of groceries at the grocery store at a time when we 
are not only fighting inflation but we are fighting economic 
stagnation--stagflation, something we haven't had in this country since 
the late seventies and the early eighties.
  Economists at the nonprofit Tax Foundation projected this bill will 
reduce long-term economic output, reduce average wages, and eliminate 
30,000 full-time jobs. Let me repeat that. Economists at the nonprofit 
Tax Foundation have projected that this legislation will reduce long-
run economic output, reduce average wages, and eliminate 30,000 full-
time jobs in this country.
  Rather than tightening our fiscal belt and reducing spending, 
Democrats are continuing down the same old path that has led to record-
high inflation and our economy on the verge of recession.
  Increasing taxes and more Federal spending will not reduce inflation. 
It will not create jobs. It will not lower gas prices, which are still 
about 60 percent higher than they were just a year ago.
  Instead, we should be empowering our domestic energy producers, 
restoring our energy independence, reducing our reliance on foreign oil 
imports, and creating more jobs here at home--not eliminating 30,000 
jobs, creating more jobs. Less spending, less taxation, less regulation 
gets this economy growing. This bill does just the opposite.
  Democrats are proposing new energy taxes and Green New Deal-style 
subsidies that will only worsen our current energy crisis and weaken 
our Nation's economic and our energy security. And energy security is 
national security.
  As part of the $370 billion in spending on Green New Deal subsidies, 
this bill includes: $51 billion to extend and modify the production tax 
credit to subsidize the already profitable wind, solar, and geothermal 
industries; $27 billion to establish a greenhouse gas reduction fund to 
deploy low-carbon technologies in disadvantaged communities; $3 billion 
for a neighborhood equity, safety, and affordable transportation 
program; $3 billion for environmental and climate justice block grants.
  Further, the bill includes new taxes on natural gas and increased 
fees and royalty rates for oil and gas produced on Federal lands, which 
will only result in higher costs for American families at the pump, at 
the gas station, or their utility bills, and higher prices for goods 
across the board because all of those goods have to be transported to 
the grocery store. And now you are going to pay higher transportation 
costs, and that is going to be reflected in the food prices. So you 
don't just see it at the pump at the gas station when you are filling 
your car, you see it at the grocery store.
  And with this tax on manufacturers, you are going to see it on all 
the manufactured goods as well. Low-income people are going to be 
paying those higher prices, more inflation. That means the tax gets 
them.

  Gas prices are already $2.25 higher a gallon than when President 
Biden took office. Diesel prices are even higher--nearly $2.81 per 
gallon more than in January of 2021.
  In short, look, we need to unleash our domestic energy production, 
not ask for help from OPEC or Venezuela. We need to unleash our oil and 
gas resources in States like my home State or the Presiding Officer's 
home State. We can produce a lot more oil and gas in this country, and 
we have the best environmental standards.
  That is how you bring the price down at the pump: more supply, not 
higher taxes; more supply, not taxes that will drive prices up and 
reduce supply when we still have increased demand. That is why we have 
the inflation in the first place.
  The Biden administration policies are creating the inflation and now 
the stagflation, and this legislation will make it worse. It is going 
down the same path.
  We need to unleash our domestic energy production. We need to get our 
debt and deficit under control. We need to work on behalf of farmers, 
ranchers, the ag supply chain to continue to produce the highest 
quality and the lowest cost food supply in the world. We need to 
unleash our energy resources.
  Those are the things that will increase supply, reduce inflation, and 
get our economy going so we don't have a recession or stagnation. Those 
are the things that benefit all American consumers, all American 
workers, regardless of their income level. This bill does none of those 
things. This bill makes the problem worse, and it should be rejected.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lujan). The Senator from Ohio.


                  Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 6929

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the men and women at the company Delphi 
Technologies helped make General Motors the world's largest automaker. 
Yet those workers lost the retirement they earned through no fault of 
their own when their company went bankrupt during the great recession.
  That was a time--some of us were here then; Senator Crapo and I were 
both here then--when Washington bailed out Wall Street, the people who 
caused the crisis, but left too many Americans like the Delphi 
retirees--again, who did nothing wrong--on their own.
  Now, after years of effort by workers and retirees in Ohio and in 
other States, it is past time for the U.S. Senate to do its job to 
restore full retirement benefits for the thousands of Ohioans and tens 
of thousands nationally of Delphi salaried retirees across the country.
  I have been fighting for them and urging the Pension Benefit Guaranty 
Corporation to do the right thing since 2009. I thought we had this 
problem solved years ago when I blocked President Obama's nominee to 
head the PBGC, Josh Gotbaum. We hoped that would signal to the 
President that we were serious: PBGC needed to do the right thing for 
Delphi workers. Unfortunately, Delphi retirees know what happened: He 
got the job anyway; they didn't get the help they needed.
  President Obama didn't do it. The next President, President Trump, 
promised, went to Youngstown, went to Dayton, promised he would take 
care of these retirees, and Ohioans voted for him. Ohioans thought 
President Trump, this time, would be different, that he would do 
something. Once again, American workers were left on their own.
  We kept working. These retirees never gave up. This year, we 
reintroduced legislation--with Congressman Ryan, a Democrat from Ohio; 
Congressman Kildee, a Democrat from Michigan; Congressman Turner, a 
Republican from Ohio--to save these pensions. We named the bill in 
honor of

[[Page S4018]]

Susan Muffley, a Delphi retiree so cash-strapped after losing her 
pension that she avoided seeing her doctor, and she passed away too 
early as a result.
  It is a bipartisan bill. We have Senator Portman and Senator Young on 
board in the Senate, along with 39 Republicans who joined Congressman 
Turner from Dayton voting for this in the House last week. The White 
House supports it as well. The White House said:

       By ensuring that those who put in a career of hard work 
     will receive the pension benefits they earned, this 
     legislation supports a secure retirement for affected 
     workers.

  That is what the White House said.
  So we have Senator Portman and Senator Young here. We have 39 House 
Republicans on board. A number of Democrats are on board. The President 
of the United States is on board.
  Promises from President Obama and President Trump--now is the time. 
These Ohioans and workers across the Midwest earned these pensions. It 
is past time to restore them. The Senate has that opportunity today.
  I hope my colleagues of both parties will join Senator Portman and 
me.
  I yield the floor to my friend from Ohio.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Ohio, Senator 
Brown, and I thank him for working with us on this bipartisan 
legislation that impacts thousands of retirees in our home State of 
Ohio.
  In the summer of 2009, as the Federal Government took General Motors 
into bankruptcy, the Obama administration terminated the pension plans 
covering thousands of Delphi workers. While union employees were 
protected, these 20,000 salaried retirees, ranging from shop floor 
supervisors and salespeople to engineers, office managers, were left 
out. They had spent many years working at Delphi, a major employer and 
economic engine in Dayton, OH, in Youngstown, OH, and in Sandusky, OH.
  These people had followed the rules. They had earned their pensions 
the American way, through hard work and dedication and contribution. 
But instead of honoring the promises that had been made to these 
salaried, middle income employees after 30, 40 years of service, the 
administration terminated their pensions. People who had worked hard 
their entire lives and played by the rules saw benefits cut by as much 
as 70 percent. It is just not fair and no fault of their own, and it 
has devastated some of them, particularly those who have healthcare 
issues in their later years, who have not been able to lead the 
standard of living that they assumed they would, based on the pensions 
they had.
  So it is about fairness, and it is very simple. It ensures that these 
Delphi retirees receive the retirement benefits they were promised. It 
would reinstate their pension plan and restore their benefits that were 
unnecessarily and unfairly reduced.
  Some of my colleagues may characterize this as a bailout, but I 
respectfully must correct the record. The Delphi pension was over 80 
percent funded when the Federal Government terminated the pensions in 
2009 and took over these assets. By the way, it would have been fully 
funded by the next year based on all the data we now have showing what 
happened with market conditions. So it was 80 percent funded when the 
government stepped in and said that it was massively underfunded, and a 
year later it would have been fully funded.
  Despite this, the government, again, treated the pensions as though 
they were underfunded and slashed the benefits. It is simply about 
keeping our promises to these workers.
  There were 20,000 participants. Some say: Well, that is not a lot of 
people. Well, to them, it is really important, and it is really 
important to Ohio. About a quarter of those 20,000 live in our home 
State of Ohio.
  That is why I am proud to stand with them, my colleagues from Ohio, 
and with others here in this body and over in the House to ensure that 
fairness is what they get at the end of the day.
  This should not be controversial legislation, in my view. I am 
pleased to say that it has bipartisan support. We just saw 36 
Republicans support this on the House side. I encourage my colleagues 
in the Senate to also support these workers, to make them whole with 
this legislation so that we can make good on the Federal Government's 
promise to them.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank my friend Senator Portman for our 
work together on this.
  Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent 
that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 6929, 
which was received from the House and is at the desk; that the bill be 
considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I appreciate 
my colleagues' commitment to this issue and to their constituents. As 
you know, this legislation has been before us for some time now, and 
there is controversy over it.
  This bill would retroactively reinstate pension benefits for a small 
subset of participants whose pensions have already been transferred to 
the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, or PBGC. That would create a 
precedent that other plans would follow.
  The PBGC exists specifically to cover pension benefits if a plan is 
terminated. So we should let the system work. This system does not 
require taxpayer dollars for a bailout or for whatever one would like 
to call it. That is part of the reason for the objection.
  We also have an obligation to be deliberate in how we spend taxpayer 
money. Before we inject more money into the system, we should explore 
the implications of this bill, which brings me to my final point. The 
Finance Committee has not held a hearing--not a single hearing, let 
alone a markup--on this bill. The Finance Committee exists to examine 
proposals such as this and to provide all Senators an opportunity to 
weigh in.
  I am willing to work with my chairman, Senator Wyden, on this and 
with Senator Brown and with Senator Portman and other Senators who are 
interested in the issue so we can see if there is a need and a way that 
we can address this issue specifically without creating a precedent 
that would deal with the rest of the entire system that has been put 
together to address terminated plans.

  Because of the need for us to have regular-order deliberation and 
consideration of this legislation, I must, today, object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Crapo. Senator Crapo and I 
have worked together on a number of things. He was chair of the Banking 
Committee the last 4 years. I was his ranking member and worked with 
him and Greg and his staff on a number of things. I take him at his 
word.
  I know that Senator Portman and Senator Crapo and I sit also on the 
Finance Committee. And I am serious about this. I just had a private 
conversation with Senator Crapo. He seems serious. I know Senator 
Portman is.
  We have waited too long. There are far too many people. It is not a 
huge number, as Senator Portman said--not a huge number of people--but 
it is awfully important to them. I know what it means to a community 
that is struggling, like the Mahoning Valley and the Miami Valley. 
Those two communities happen to have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds 
of these retirees. When their pension shrinks like this, it affects 
their buying power, it affects their standard of living, and it affects 
the prosperity of the community.
  So we will be back together working on it. I thank Senator Crapo. I 
am disappointed, but I thank him.


                          Tribute to Bill Nell

  Mr. President, I rise today on a cheerful duty, if you will, to 
recognize Bill Nell, who retired this month after a long career of 
service, not working in the Senate but sort of working around the 
Senate.
  Bill was deputy director of the Congressional Program at the Aspen 
Institute, something not particularly known to the public. It is a 
nonprofit working to bring together diverse perspectives to solve 
challenges facing the United States and the world.

[[Page S4019]]

  Bill was the second hire when the Aspen Institute's Congressional 
Program began. He is one of the Aspen Institute's longest serving 
employees--35 years at Aspen.
  Almost every week, for as long as I can remember, that the Senate and 
the House were in session, Bill brought together Democrats and 
Republicans from across the ideological spectrum for breakfast and 
conversations with leading public policy scholars. Typically on a 
Thursday morning at 8, you could come, and there would be 10 or 15 or 
20 House and Senate Members--fairly evenly divided, depending on the 
topic, perhaps, between the parties--and a scholar or an activist or 
someone that Bill generally recruited came in and talked to us.
  It helped educate us, for sure. It brought us together in ways that 
the public doesn't necessarily see but helped us discuss issues with 
each other. And we learned in so many ways about each other and about 
these public issues. We learned from experts. We learned from each 
other.
  Bill helped host 636 breakfasts--someone counted them at Aspen--over 
his career of service. During the hustle and bustle of the workweek, 
these Aspen breakfasts were a welcome respite where Members of Congress 
could come to listen and discuss and learn from experts, with little 
partisanship involved. But Bill had brought in these experts. We 
learned from them. We learned from one another.
  I wish everyone could sit in on those breakfasts and see the 
thoughtfulness of so many Members of both parties in Congress. It 
really taught me a lot about partisanship and that most of my 
colleagues here--I would not say everyone, but most of my colleagues 
here--are here for the right reasons and want to do a good job, and the 
thoughtfulness exhibited in those meetings was so important.
  Bill was diligent about bringing a balanced presentation of topics 
and experts at the forefront of their fields. These breakfasts helped 
us to consider others' perspectives and think about things we might not 
have thought about otherwise. Sometimes we found common ground, an 
experience or opinion or a priority that our constituents share. It is 
how we got things done. Whenever we could find agreement, we worked 
together to accomplish things for the people whom we served.
  It brings to mind one of my colleagues who is about to retire, Roy 
Blunt from Missouri. He served with me in the House. I knew him, 
actually, even before that. He one time said--and he is a conservative 
Republican, and I am decidedly not. He said:

       I have known Sherrod Brown for 30 years, and we have agreed 
     exactly five times.

  Then he laughed, and then he said:

       But all five of those are Federal law.

  And that is what really matters. Senator Crapo and I look at the 
world very differently. Senator Portman and I look at the world very 
differently, but Senator Portman and I put together the strongest 
language ever in Federal law on ``Buy American.''
  We have done a number of issues like that. You may look at things 
differently, but you find things you can agree on, and you go to town 
and make it happen.
  So back to Bill. Those who work closely with him describe him as one 
of the hardest working people they know, and you can see that in these 
records. By virtue of his diligence and his preparation, Bill was able 
to make his job, which was anything but this, appear effortless.
  His longtime colleague, former Ag Secretary, Congressman Dan 
Glickman, recognized Bill as the ``soul of Aspen,'' as a natural leader 
and a jack-of-all-trades.
  His current boss, until his retirement last week, former Congressman 
Charlie Dent--Glickman is a Democrat; Dent is a Republican--called Bill 
an anti-procrastinator when I called him on the phone to talk about 
him. It is a title rare in a town where ``procrastination'' seems to be 
everyone's middle name. Bill's enduring personality is kindness, and he 
was nothing if not kind. He brought so many together. He made people 
feel comfortable. He made people heard. I have no idea what his 
ideology or his party was. We didn't talk about that. He just served 
and helped us understand. He seemed to have no enemies in doing his 
job.
  In retirement, Bill is spending time back in his beloved Montana, 
just outside of Yellowstone, one of my favorite places in the country, 
where I, years ago, took my daughters, as a single parent, on a train 
to see Yellowstone for a week. He is spending time in his beloved 
Montana with his beloved wife Cindy, a retired public school teacher 
and an education activist.
  The Aspen breakfast will continue. Bill will be missed by all of us 
who were blessed by his kindness, his curiosity, and his capability. He 
made this place work better. He reminded us of the importance of self-
government, of democracy. It is up to us to uphold that legacy, to keep 
working with each other towards a better future for the people whom we 
serve.
  Thank you so much, Bill Nell. We wish you the best in retirement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4394

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask 
unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 4394 and the 
Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill 
be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am very 
concerned that this bill would overrule FDA experts and do so without 
even going through regular order. We should be setting a very high bar 
for doing anything like this.
  I do appreciate my colleague's concern that he is bringing to the 
floor today for growers in his State. Greening disease is a serious and 
alarming environmental issue. But skipping regular order here today to 
override FDA's experts and meddle with its longstanding process for 
modifying food standards of identity does not get to the root of the 
problem. So, today, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I regret that that is the case. I 
understand the argument and if I could explain a little further.
  Florida is identified with the citrus industry. People have long 
understood it. It is a big part of our State. Here is the best way to 
describe this to people. About 60 years ago, the FDA created a standard 
for what they consider pasteurized orange juice. For orange juice to be 
marked with a stamp that says ``pasteurized,'' no less than 10.5 
percent of the weight of the juice has to be accounted for by soluble 
solids, such as naturally occurring sugar. So this is just an arbitrary 
number.
  By the way, the 10.5 percent of the weight has nothing to with the 
nutrition. It has nothing to with the safety. It has nothing to with 
the quality.
  They had to come up with a number to define the difference between 
orange juice and something that is not orange juice, and that was the 
number they came up with.
  So for decades, the citrus industry in Florida has been following 
that specification, and it hasn't been a problem. Then Florida was 
impacted by this thing called citrus greening, pests that came from 
Asia, particularly from China. What it has done is it has ravaged the 
trees. It ravaged the trees to the point where one of the impacts it 
has is that now the sugar content--you wouldn't notice it if you drink 
it or if you eat one, but the sugar content of the fruit that is now on 
the trees, because of the greening, often falls under the 10.5. Again, 
no one would know. It is not any less safe. It is not any less 
nutritious. It just falls under that number. Then, obviously, the 
hurricane we had in 2017 made those problems even worse when they 
suffered the loss of a bunch of trees.
  So now, to meet this arbitrary 10.5 percent threshold, the juice 
processors in Florida now have to blend in oranges and orange juice 
that have higher sugar content, and they usually have to import it from 
a foreign source. Again, there is no health benefit to doing that. In 
fact, you could probably argue that less sugar is probably better. You 
wouldn't taste the difference.

[[Page S4020]]

You wouldn't know it. If I put two glasses of orange juice in front of 
you--one with the number they are asking for, which is 10 percent, and 
the other one with 10.5--you wouldn't notice the difference.
  So they have been asking the FDA to change the standard so they don't 
have to import a bunch of oranges from Brazil and mix it just to be 
able to hit the sugar content. If they can't do it, the only thing that 
changes is that the final product can't be marketed as ``Florida orange 
juice.'' That is really the challenge we are facing.
  We would love for this to go through the normal process. The problem 
is, by the time the FDA makes a decision on it, there may not be any 
growers left. Let me explain why that is a problem.
  These citrus growers sit on valuable land. Every developer in the 
State is trying to get their hands on that land. They would love to 
develop it into a mall, into an industrial park. We are facing those 
problems everywhere. Once you turn farmland into a commercial use, 
industrial use, a housing development, you never get it back. I have 
seen farms turned into commercial development; I have never seen a 
commercial development be turned back into a farm.
  Once we lose this land, we lose it forever. We lose it forever. So 
not only is it important to have it from a food security standpoint but 
from an environmental standpoint. Having something remain in 
agriculture, where the people who own it care deeply about the quality 
of the land and the water usage because it is key to their existence, 
is a better use of the land than turning it into an industrial park.
  But, eventually, these agriculture owners will have to do something. 
Some have been in the business for generations, but at some point, they 
cannot grow enough food to justify continuing in business. They have 
people offering millions and millions of dollars to buy their land from 
them.
  So this simple bill that I filed would provide certainty to the 
orange growers. By lowering the 10.5 content to 10.0--that is all it 
does, from 10.5 to 10.0--they will have some level of certainty that 
they will be able to continue in business.
  I regret that there is an objection here today. I understand the 
desire to follow the FDA process, but I just want to be clear. No one 
is arguing--who knows about this--that going from 10.5 to 10.0 has any 
safety issue or anything of that nature. It is literally an 
undetectable difference, but it would make a big difference for the 
citrus growers of Florida.
  If we are not going to do it this way, I hope we can get a hearing 
and get this passed. I am not sure if a couple of years from now, we 
are going to have a citrus industry. If we lose them or lose that land, 
we will never get it back.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4469

  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, across this country, Americans are facing 
aggressive attacks on their reproductive freedom. An extremist Supreme 
Court and radical rightwing politicians have made clear that they see 
women as second-class citizens and that government--government; not the 
person who is pregnant but government--should be making decisions about 
whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term.
  In this extraordinary moment, we must do everything we can to ensure 
that patients get the healthcare and reproductive services they need. 
That includes protecting patients from the deceptive practices of some 
so-called crisis pregnancy centers, or CPCs.
  Nationwide, there are over 2,500 known CPCs, although some claim that 
number is closer to about 4,000. Before Roe was overturned, over 16 
million women of reproductive age lived closer to a crisis pregnancy 
center than to an abortion clinic. Now, some estimate that as many as 
34 million women do. Today in Massachusetts, CPCs outnumber true 
abortion clinics by about 3 to 1.
  CPCs often lure women seeking legitimate reproductive care, including 
abortions, into their facilities by advertising themselves as 
comprehensive reproductive healthcare providers, but this is flatly 
untrue. Many of these CPCs are not healthcare providers, and they often 
operate specifically to deceive pregnant women, with the goal of 
preventing them from having abortions.
  CPC websites often feature images of people in white lab coats and 
promises of services like ultrasounds or STD tests. Yet CPCs rarely 
employ licensed physicians or offer a full range of reproductive health 
services. According to one study, 84 percent of CPCs had no physician 
and 75 percent had no registered nurse even affiliated with the staff. 
In fact, of the staff that did have some medical training, most work 
part time or as volunteers. As for the services they provide, the same 
study found that only 1 out of 607 crisis pregnancy centers provided 
contraceptive care and 95 percent of CPC offered no prenatal care--
none, zero. Most have no doctors, no nurses, and offer no medical care, 
but they sure have a lot of medical opinions. Nearly two-thirds 
promoted medically unsound claims, such as offering information about 
unproven and unscientific abortion pill reversal treatments.

  Deception is at the heart of the operation for many CPCs. The 
director of a crisis pregnancy center in Texas explained to the 
Washington Post how she revamped operations so her center could pull in 
more people who were seeking an abortion. The director paid thousands 
of dollars to ensure that searches for phrases like ``need an 
abortion'' would lead people to her center, and she filled the website 
with phrases like ``I want an abortion'' and promised ``CONFIDENTIAL 
ABORTION CONSULTATION--NO COST TO YOU.'' The website is so deceptive 
that the director said she even receives angry calls from anti-abortion 
advocates who want to know why her center even talks about abortion, to 
which she replies: ``How else do you get an abortion-minded girl to 
know that you are there?''
  Deception is wrong. No one should be deceived directly or indirectly 
about the services they can access or the risks of receiving care. That 
is particularly true for someone under great stress and time 
constraints who is coping with an unplanned pregnancy.
  That is why I am glad to introduce the Stop Anti-Abortion 
Disinformation Act with Senator Menendez and why I am joining him today 
in calling up this legislation for a vote. Our bill directs the Federal 
Trade Commission to prohibit deceptive or misleading advertising 
related to the provision of abortion services. It also empowers the 
Commission to enforce these rules and collect penalties from 
organizations that violate the law. This is far from a radical 
proposal. For more than 100 years, the FTC has been authorized to 
prosecute entities that use deceptive practices.
  And let me be clear. Any crisis pregnancy center that operates 
fairly, disseminates factual information, and is clear about what 
services it does and does not provide would be free to continue its 
work.
  This bill is not about preventing parents from receiving diapers or 
other supplies if they have chosen to continue a pregnancy. This is 
about organizations that deliberately deceive women and girls who are 
seeking help to terminate a pregnancy. Unfortunately, deception is at 
the heart of the typical CPC's business model.
  As the director of a CPC explained, the deception begins when women 
search for an abortion provider. The deception then continues once 
women walk through the doors of a crisis pregnancy center.
  I just want to tell you a bit about the experience of a young woman 
living in Massachusetts who visited a crisis pregnancy center earlier 
this year. After finding the facility, which promised a ``free abortion 
consultation,'' this woman was asked to fill out forms to disclose 
personal information. She was repeatedly lied to about how far along 
she was in her pregnancy. She was told falsely that terminating her 
pregnancy would increase her risk of breast cancer and depression and 
that an abortion could mean that she could never become pregnant in the 
future. Sadly, her experience is not unique.
  Here is the kicker. Women and girls visiting CPCs, like this young 
woman, often fill out forms and answer questionnaires requesting both 
personal identification and personal health information, which women 
provide because they believe they are in a medical facility that will 
protect their privacy. But because CPCs are not

[[Page S4021]]

healthcare providers, these women have no legal protection, and these 
centers have no legal obligation to protect those data. These 
unlicensed facilities are not subject to Federal privacy laws like the 
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. This 
means that crisis pregnancy centers could pass along private 
information about who was seeking an abortion, where that person lives, 
and so on--information that, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, is 
particularly dangerous.
  The evidence of abuse is overwhelming. It is time to crack down on 
deceptive and misleading practices that many crisis pregnancy centers 
employ because the last thing that a woman seeking reproductive care 
should have to worry about is whether she is being tricked, lied to, or 
deceived about the medical care she seeks.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague Senator 
Warren for beginning this debate, and we will move to a consent 
shortly. I want to thank her for working together with me on this most 
important issue.
  At this moment, there are millions of women who face an uncertain 
future after the repeal of Roe v. Wade, millions of women who no longer 
have the right to make their own decisions about their own bodies. It 
is a heart-wrenching choice, no doubt one of the hardest decisions 
anyone will ever have to make.
  But in the midst of this, in this post-Roe landscape we find 
ourselves in, there are organizations, as has been discussed here, 
known as crisis pregnancy centers that are preying on the fears of 
women, exacerbating the problems caused by the Dobbs decision.
  Make no mistake, crisis pregnancy centers are anti-abortion 
organizations that cloak themselves in benign language about 
``providing answers'' and ``offering advice.''
  They have an agenda; namely, to steer women away from abortion 
through a combination of guilt, concealment, harassment, and downright 
lies.
  Crisis pregnancy centers in my State of New Jersey pretend that they 
are there to educate, support, and empower women facing unplanned 
pregnancies. And yet at the bottom of their websites, in very small 
print, you will find a disclaimer that lays it all bare.

       Crisis pregnancy centers do not offer or refer for 
     pregnancy terminations or birth control. Information should 
     not be relied on as a substitute for professional and/or 
     medical advice.

  That is a disclaimer. You can hardly read it, but it is there. This 
is pulled straight from the web page of one center in my State. I will 
repeat that ending again.

       Information should not be relied on as a substitute for 
     professional and/or medical advice.

  Ironically, this is the only objective and accurate piece of 
information you will find on the site and others like it.
  As Senator Warren mentioned, crisis pregnancy centers are not 
required to have a physician or a registered nurse on staff. Very few 
of them do.
  They are not required to provide contraceptive care or even stick to 
medically sound claims. And because they claim to only provide so-
called education services, they can promote blatant lies about how 
abortion increases risk for breast cancer.
  Women in America do not deserve to be lied to. They shouldn't be 
preyed upon during moments of vulnerability or any other time. When 
assessing healthcare, they shouldn't have to shift to what is real and 
what is not.
  And they certainly shouldn't have to parse through the carefully 
constructed language of crisis pregnancy centers that promote an anti-
choice agenda.
  Our bill, the Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation Act, would empower 
the Federal Trade Commission to issue rules prohibiting false 
advertisement of abortion services. It would allow the FTC to penalize 
those who are found in violation. And it would provide greater 
oversight over crisis pregnancy centers that profit from the pain of 
unplanned pregnancies--sometimes while double-dipping on the taxpayer's 
dime.
  Senator Warren and I are leading this bill to end the practice of 
deceiving women and girls through false advertisement. We are leading 
this bill to promote truth in advertisement, to end misinformation and 
disinformation, and to protect women from harassment. Yes--harassment.
  As Senator Warren said, crisis pregnancy centers have no duty to 
uphold HIPAA privacy protections--the most significant information that 
you can give about your health and the status of your health and your 
condition. You do that thinking that you are in a medical center. And 
now you have given all this information that has enormous consequences 
to it if it is misused to these deceptive entities.
  And after divulging personal information to them, they can freely 
sell it to scammers who would want to take advantage of them.
  So I ask my colleagues, let's end the assault on bodily autonomy and 
the right to access reproductive care.
  Let's end the barrage of attacks on their healthcare. Let's end 
deception in any delivery of any service. Let's end the fraud in any 
delivery of any ``service.'' Let's end the barrage of attacks on their 
healthcare.
  Join us in passing our bill so that in the hardest moment of their 
lives, women all across our country can rest assured in knowing that 
what they are getting is the truth, not some biased agenda pretending 
to be medical advice, not some one-sided talking point that steers them 
toward one outcome, the truth--the truth.
  Pregnant women in America deserve the truth, and that is what this 
bill does. To oppose our unanimous consent request is to promote 
deception, is to promote fraud. I don't think anybody really wants to 
do that.
  As in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Commerce 
Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 4469 and the 
Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill 
be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider 
be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action 
or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, I rise in objection to this bill because 
it is an outrageous attack on life-affirming pregnancy resource 
centers. As a pro-life obstetrician, I have had the pleasure and honor 
of delivering over 5,000 babies, and I can attest to the lifesaving, 
critical, and comprehensive care and resources these centers provide 
moms in need.
  These pro-life charities not only help women in poverty choose life 
instead of abortion, but they also help women after babies are born. 
They also provide clothing and diapers and housing assistance and 
nutrition and sometimes just putting an arm around their shoulders and 
helping them get to their next appointment.
  This legislation seeks to shut them down all around the country on 
the grounds that they purportedly spread disinformation about abortion.
  Under this bill, charities could be fined $100,000 or 50 percent of 
the revenues earned by the ultimate parent entity of the charity for 
violating the act's prohibition on disinformation related to abortion.
  Now, I ask you, who would determine what counts as prohibited 
disinformation? There is no doubt it would be bureaucrats with a pro-
abortion agenda. Is this not an infringement on our First Amendment 
rights?
  This bill would turn the FTC into a national abortion disinformation 
board with an agenda of suppressing speech and spreading pro-abortion 
propaganda.
  Nationally, pro-life pregnancy resource centers outnumber abortion 
facilities three to one, and that is a good thing--that is a great 
thing--and in some States by as many as 11 to 1. Knowing that many 
women choose abortion because they feel pressured that they have no 
other option, the pro-life movement has placed tremendous resources 
into these centers, which exist to offer alternatives to abortion, 
usually at no cost.
  But right now in America, pregnancy resource centers are the ones in 
need of protection as zealous, pro-abortion terrorists have spent the 
past 2 months firebombing and vandalizing pro-life pregnancy centers 
all across the Nation.
  These criminals, these terrorists do so not in the name of abortion 
access

[[Page S4022]]

but in retribution for daring to defy the ruling abortion regime and 
for daring to stand on the side of good in this spiritual battle.
  There have been more than 60 pregnancy resource centers and offices 
that pro-life groups have attacked and vandalized since the draft 
Supreme Court opinion was leaked in May.
  Pro-abortion domestic terrorists have claimed responsibility for 
these crimes.
  Congress should be taking up the legislation instead to affirm, grow, 
and protect pregnancy resource centers and praise citizens for their 
great work, for volunteering to help and serve their community.
  And Attorney General Merrick Garland should abide by his oath of 
office and prosecute the law. Therefore, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. While my colleague is still here, I would like to 
propound a question to him through the Chair.
  Does the First Amendment allow you to promote fraud? Does the First 
Amendment allow you to promote deception? Is it great work to lie to 
someone about what you are providing them? Is it great work to allow 
someone to get your vital health information believing that you are a 
health provider and then being able to use that private information?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MARSHALL. To answer my colleague, the fraud and deception is 
occurring in the abortion clinics. I could tell you story after story 
of patients crying in my office who went to Planned Parenthood for a 
pregnancy test and were scheduled for an abortion, coming to my office 
wondering, Do I have to do this abortion? That is where the fraud and 
deception is occurring, that these women aren't being told about the 
potential complications of these abortion procedures.
  They are not being told that these abortion pills are going to cause 
pain and cramping and bleeding, that they could end up in the emergency 
room as well. They are not told about the complications from the 
abortion procedures. That is where the fraud and deception is present.
  You talk about this as reproductive services. You are afraid to say 
the word ``abortion'' in these clinics. That is the fraud and 
deception. This isn't reproductive services. These are abortions. This 
is taking the life of the unborn.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Could I ask a question then because I am a little 
confused by what has just happened here. I presume deception is wrong 
whoever does it. So if we just said no deception around pregnancy 
services, would you be willing to support this?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. And just as a reminder, questions need to be 
asked through the Chair.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Questions need to be asked through the Chair.
  Ms. WARREN. Yes, I am asking you that question, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, we could never support any part of this 
legislation. I think the deception and fraud is occurring on the part 
of abortion clinics. This is a threat to our First Amendment rights, 
and like I said in my opening remarks, this is just simply 
unacceptable.
  And that is why we continue to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, if I may continue to ask my colleague 
through the Chair, is it right, no matter who gets the information by 
fraud, to give your most private health--surely, as a doctor, the 
Senator would say that no one should give up their health information 
to an entity that does not preserve it under HIPAA laws.
  So could the Senator not join us if we limit it to fraud that 
ultimately has that fraud create the insecurity of HIPAA information?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, I think this is not the place to try to 
rewrite legislation. Of course, I am against all fraud. I think all 
fraud is bad. I am all for the truth. I am all for protecting patients' 
personal information, but I am also here proud to say what these great 
clinics do. I am not sure what you are even accusing them is even true. 
I have not witnessed that. The pregnancy clinics that I have seen do 
great work for these folks. They truly do sit down and talk with them. 
They give them a hand up. They do so many great things.
  So I don't know where this fraud and deception is coming about, 
except that they are talking to women and saying: Do you realize your 
baby has a heartbeat? Do you realize your baby can feel pain at 14 
weeks? Do you realize that your baby recognizes the voice of your 
husband right now?
  So I think those are great things to share with patients; that how 
wonderful life is; that we are all wonderfully, beautifully made in the 
womb; that life begins at conception. I think that is all the truth 
that should be shared with them.
  So, no, I don't think there is anything you could do with this 
legislation to change it that I could support, and I continue to 
object.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, then can I ask through the Presiding 
Officer another question, and that is if we are not talking about the 
fraud part, can we at least talk about collecting health information 
that any so-called crisis pregnancy center--I am sorry--is the Senator 
leaving, the one who said that it is important to protect private 
healthcare information?
  That at least we could agree that private healthcare information--I 
guess the Senator is just going to walk off the floor.
  So the question would have been how about agreeing that anyone who 
collects information about pregnancy and collects medical and personal 
information has to be bound by HIPAA so that that information is fully 
protected. That would be my question.
  But since there is no one here to answer it on the Republican side, I 
guess we will have to leave it for today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I would like to answer the Senator's question, and that 
makes eminent sense that we would protect HIPAA information, regardless 
of who is in a position to maybe have access to collecting it. And 
therefore, in the first instance, you shouldn't collect it, if you are 
not a medical entity, but if you do, you should be ultimately bound by 
the same guarantees that anyone else would be guaranteed. You know, it 
would baffle me that particularly a medical professional, a doctor, 
would suggest that HIPAA information is something that we shouldn't 
protect.

  I think that at a minimum, we should all be able to agree to that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, this is a reminder again why I am so 
honored to fight alongside Senator Menendez.
  I don't think anyone should be deceived, and particularly a woman who 
is seeking information about termination of a pregnancy, and I don't 
believe anyone's private medical information should be shared.
  The idea that these crisis pregnancy centers gather information from 
women who believe they are giving it to a medical provider and that 
that information will be protected and that that is not the case is 
truly despicable.
  Thank you again, Senator Menendez.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4774

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, gas prices are 64 percent higher in my home 
State of Kentucky than they were in January of 2021. This means 
Kentuckians are paying $1.43 more for gas than they were at the 
beginning of last year.
  For average Americans already struggling to put food on the table, 
sky-high gas prices are a daily punishment.
  Every additional dollar an American spends on a gallon of gas is a 
dollar not going towards their mortgage, their retirement, or their 
children's college fund.
  Rising prices are robbing Americans of the chance to plan for the 
future, as

[[Page S4023]]

they struggle to make ends meet in the present.
  In an attempt to address rising gas prices, President Biden announced 
on April 12 that he would allow the sale of E15 gasoline this summer. 
Then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki had this to say about this 
decision:

       [This] waiver [that President Biden passed to allow E15] is 
     a critical step to address the fuel supply crisis and . . . 
     build real U.S. energy independence, support American 
     agriculture and manufacturing, and save Americans money at 
     the pump. At current prices, E15 can save a family 10 cents 
     per gallon of gas on average and many stores sell E15 at even 
     greater discount and today's waiver will allow families to 
     pay that lower price for months to come.

  So this is a policy supported by President Biden, and it is currently 
the law since he is waiving the regulation.
  E15 is a gasoline blend containing up to 15 percent ethanol. It is a 
renewable fuel typically made from corn. A 2008 study published in 
Atmospheric Environment found that ethanol-based fuels like E15 emit up 
to 16 percent less carbon dioxide than traditional gasoline.
  A more recent study published by the U.S. Department of Energy's 
Argonne National Laboratory found that these fuels emit up to 23 
percent less carbon dioxide and provide a cheaper alternative to 
typical gasoline, and yet the Clean Air Act currently prohibits the 
sale of E15 during the summer. So we sell it for 9 months of the year; 
we forbid it for 3 months of the year. But companies can't get used to 
either selling it or making it or distributing it because of the 
disruption during the summer.
  Under the current law, gas with up to 10 percent ethanol, commonly 
known as E10, can be sold during the summer. But, inexplicably, the law 
treats E15 differently, even though the higher ethanol blend is better 
for the environment.
  American drivers ought to be able to access E15 year-round. 
Prohibiting its sale in the summer months artificially restricts the 
supply, especially when Americans are paying historically high prices 
for a gallon of gasoline.
  What we are asking to do today through this legislation is not to 
subsidize ethanol, not to force people to use ethanol, but to allow 
people to use ethanol at an E15 basis, a little bit higher than we are 
allowed to use already.
  Republican and Democratic Presidents have both waived this rule. This 
is essentially what the law of the land is other than we are having to 
suspend the law to get what we have. The last President and this 
President have both waived the rule that we are trying to repeal today.
  Both Presidents Trump and Biden approved the removal of barriers to 
the sale of E15 during the summer months; but in Congress, we have it 
in our power to permanently allow the sale of E15.
  If we only do it by Presidential waiver, there is never enough 
certainty for people in the marketplace to decide to sell it year-round 
because they are worried that at any one moment a President will flip a 
switch, and then we will go back to banning it again.
  The EASE Act, which is what we will be asking to pass today, is a 
bill that will allow the sale of E15 year-round and will provide relief 
for Americans on the road--not only this year, but every year. This 
change is long overdue. I have advocated this policy for 7 years. I 
first introduced this legislation in 2015.
  Passing the EASE Act would benefit consumers, farmers, and the 
environment by increasing access.
  So as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4774, which is at 
the desk; further, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered 
read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be 
consider made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, what my colleague from Kentucky is 
attempting to do here is to really short-circuit the bedrock public 
health protections in the Clean Air Act.
  And make no mistake. This is a major policy change; not a minor 
change. It would have far-reaching impacts. For example, this policy 
would clearly make food even more expensive; it would make air quality 
worse. And it is not even eminently clear that the impact on gas prices 
would necessarily be negative.
  So, fundamentally, this is the kind of sweeping policy that should 
actually go through the committee of jurisdiction--in this case, the 
Environment and Public Works Committee.
  So I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.


                    Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to 
support the swift passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.
  In the wake of COVID-19, global supply chains have been strained. 
There has been shipping disruptions, and Putin's illegal invasion of 
Ukraine has added to this. As a result of these many factors, inflation 
is up in almost every single country across the globe. The United 
States is among the world's wealthiest and most productive and 
diversified economies, but no nation on Earth is immune to the forces 
of inflation, particularly when it comes from so many different 
directions.
  Let's remember also, 2021 was a huge year for U.S. economic growth. 
In fact, last year, the U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace since 
1984. Our unemployment rate is back down to 50-year lows, wages have 
risen for many, and there is a job literally for any American who wants 
to work and is looking for work. Nobody thought that type of growth was 
sustainable, especially with the global economic headwinds we are 
facing and will continue to face.
  The fact is that Americans are forced to pay inflated gas prices at 
the pump because of the immoral and illegal invasion of Ukraine by 
Vladimir Putin, because of the cartel--OPEC--that controls prices, and 
because of our failure so far to invest in clean energy, and that has 
made our economy crack.
  So the question before us is: How do we help our economy gain firmer 
footing and lower prices for consumers; how do we make our country more 
energy independent; and how do we strike a blow for fairness and 
financial responsibility and make things better for families, 
businesses, and communities?
  The Inflation Reduction Act accomplishes all of those goals. It makes 
forward-looking policy adjustments and investments to shore-up the 
economy. It takes long overdue steps to help lower out-of-pocket costs 
for things like energy, prescription drugs, and healthcare. It will 
strengthen America's energy independence and enhance our national 
security by moving production lines and jobs from China and other 
places back to the United States.
  And don't just take my word for it. A wide array of economic experts 
have confirmed this bill will ease inflation in three ways: by lowering 
energy costs for families and small businesses, by cutting healthcare 
costs for millions of Americans and by ensuring wealthy Americans and 
large corporations pay their fair share.
  Republican and Democratic Treasury Secretaries have said this, as 
have over 120 of our Nation's leading economists, including seven Nobel 
Prize winners. The Inflation Reduction Act will also reduce the deficit 
by more than $100 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional 
Budget Office. And budget experts agree, it will save another $200 
billion by empowering and equipping the IRS to crack down on tax cheats 
and enforce tax laws already on the books.
  So independent arbiters are clear: This bill is good for the family 
budget and for the national budget. It is good for the health of our 
communities and our planet.
  And here are some of the highlights. Let's start with the cost of 
prescription drugs. According to Families USA, nearly 3 in 10 American 
adults--that is about 80 million people--have not taken required 
medicine due to its high cost. For decades, the drug companies have 
taken advantage of every avenue to keep prices high.
  They argue that the cost is justified in order to fund research and 
development, but that is not really what is happening. The bottom line 
is, drug companies are not playing fair. In fact, they are charging 
inflated prices even

[[Page S4024]]

on old medications, insulin being the classic example. Developed more 
than 100 years ago, the developers basically made their product 
available to everyone. They did not insist upon patent protection. Yet, 
the price of insulin, of a 100-year old drug, has gone up dramatically.
  The Inflation Reduction Act will put the brakes on this type of 
profiteering. Under this bill, the government will finally be allowed 
to directly negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries. And 
I am fighting to include, as I mentioned before about insulin, a $35 
cap on insulin costs for millions of Americans in this bill. And I must 
applaud Senator Warnock for his leadership on this effort.
  It is long past time to get this done. The Department of Veterans 
Affairs already does it and saves veterans and taxpayers billions of 
dollars a year. The Inflation Reduction Act would also limit drug price 
increases to the rate of inflation. It also caps out-of-pocket costs at 
$2,000 annually for older adults buying prescriptions from pharmacies. 
It would also provide free vaccinations for seniors, and it helps keep 
health insurance affordable for millions of Americans.
  Let's not forget, cutting healthcare costs for millions of Americans 
is a direct attack on inflation. So the benefits here are both health-
related and economic.
  Now, let's talk about how the bill will reduce energy costs and 
address climate change. The American people recognize that climate 
change is a serious threat. It fuels extreme weather, environmental 
degradation, and natural disasters. We are witnessing these phenomena 
at this moment all across the country. And, frankly, I haven't seen the 
kind of rapidity and severity of storms like this in sheer number in my 
time.
  This is a result of our neglect of the climate crisis. And I must 
also applaud my colleague Senator Whitehouse because he has been a 
voice since his first day here in this Chamber about the dangers of 
climate change, the cost to families, and the cost to our environment.
  Of course, all of these climate effects lead to food and water 
insecurity, economic disruption, and, indeed, human conflict. One of 
the areas which is most concerning to our Defense Department officials 
is the follow-on effects of famine and disruption of economies. It 
usually creates a whole generation of young people without any gainful 
employment but with access to weapons, which leads to instability and 
violence--threats to the whole world. And eventually threats to us.

  Just this week, we had a hearing in the Banking Committee on the 
economic costs of climate change. One witness cited a particularly eye-
popping statistic from OMB, that our lack of action on climate change 
costs the Federal Government up to $2 trillion per year. That is $2 
trillion with a T. So the cost of our efforts to reduce this will be 
more than exceeded, according to this number, by the benefits. And good 
economic analysis suggests, when you have a proposal in which benefits 
far outweigh cost, that proposal is something to consider.
  The Inflation Reduction Act stops kicking the can down the road and 
takes urgent, overdue action to confront climate change and economic 
challenges head on. I don't have to remind anyone here that we have 
been talking about climate change for years and years and years. And 
now, we have a real opportunity to take positive steps. And if we 
don't, what we see now is upsetting, to say the least, but it is 
accelerating and you can sense the economic crises and the 
environmental crises we see all around us will grow.
  Now, this legislation would invest $369 billion in affordable clean 
energy, energy security, and initiatives to help combat climate change 
and make America more energy independent.
  I will give you a very good example up in Rhode Island. We have the 
first offshore wind field in the United States off of Block Island. It 
was built and provided up to 300 workers--union workers mostly--with 
good jobs. It will continue to help employ people as it is maintained. 
It has provided us, the whole region, with an example of where to go. 
And now, you have significant wind farms that are being proposed in 
Federal waters off of Massachusetts and off of Long Island. This will 
bring energy without pollution. That is something that will benefit all 
of us, both in our pocketbook and in our well-being.
  This is really a historic investment. And the savings will pay off 
for families and the planet month after month, year after year. It is 
something that we owe the next generation because right now, we are 
prepared to hand off to the sons and daughters and grandsons and 
granddaughters a world that is environmentally challenged, to say the 
least. And they will look back on us and say: You had an opportunity, 
and you failed.
  We cannot fail.
  Now, a report by nonprofit group Rewiring America found that the tax 
incentives included as a part of the $369 billion dedicated to climate 
change initiatives in the bill would save the average household $1,800 
per year on energy costs. This will incentivize the use of heat pumps, 
the use of solar panels--a much more practical and cost-saving energy 
tool than what is available today.
  The Inflation Reduction Act also sets up America to out-innovate and 
out-compete other countries and strengthens domestic clean energy 
manufacturing and reinforces our supply chain, making America more 
energy independent and self-reliant.
  I want to make the important point that under the Budget Act, this 
bill must be paid for. And rather than cut Medicare or Social Security 
as some of my colleagues on the other side like to suggest, this bill 
strikes a blow for fairness when it comes to our Tax Code. It sends a 
signal to the middle class that wealthy individuals who wish to avoid 
taxes will no longer be able to easily evade taxes because we are 
enforcing the auditing mechanisms at the IRS so that the laws are 
followed more scrupulously, and that will result in benefits to all of 
us.
  It sends a signal to working families that the 150 most profitable 
companies will pay a minimum tax of 15 percent rather than zero, as is 
sometimes the case. It is not fair for a multi-billion dollar company 
to game the tax system to avoid any payment, while a truck driver or a 
custodian is paying 20 percent of their income to taxes--or even more.
  It sends a signal that private equity and hedge fund managers who 
claim their income is carried interest will have to step up and pay 
more. Indeed, as the President stressed, this bill is written so that 
no family that makes under $400,000 will see their taxes go up. That is 
what the President promised, and that is what this legislation will do.
  So no one should be out making the claim that this hurts the middle 
class and the tax cuts will be paid for by them. In fact, it increases 
the taxpayers in our system. And any examination of our present system 
shows it is grossly unfair.
  I will end with the words of the five former Treasury Secretaries, 
including one appointed by former President George W. Bush, who all 
agree that the Inflation Reduction Act will, in their words, ``help 
increase American competitiveness, address our climate crisis, lower 
costs for families, and fight inflation--and should be passed 
immediately by Congress.''
  Let me also quote over 120 leading economists who shared a similar 
message, writing: ``This historic legislation makes crucial investments 
in energy, health care, and shoring up the nation's tax system. These 
investments will fight inflation and lower costs for American families 
while setting the stage for strong, stable and broadly-shared long-term 
economic growth.''
  This isn't a partisan issue for economists, and it shouldn't be a 
partisan issue in Congress. The bottom line is that Congress has an 
opportunity to help lower prices for consumers and invest in scalable 
new energy technologies and solutions that will strengthen our economy 
and make the U.S. and the planet more secure, more prosperous, and more 
resilient.
  We must seize the moment. The time to act is now. Generations from 
now, they will look back at this moment and ask the question: Did we 
stand up for them, for this country, for the planet, and for the 
future, or did we fail?
  I urge us all to stand up and succeed.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

[[Page S4025]]

  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3012

  Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, before the COVID-19 pandemic, few people 
other than scientists and national security experts were familiar with 
gain-of-function research. Now, as we continue to search for the origin 
of this pandemic and begin to learn more about the dangerous research 
that has been largely kept from the public eye, it is becoming a 
household phrase.
  Before we get started on the current state of play, I would like to 
give a brief history of this research and how the Federal Government 
has poorly, perhaps even negligently, approached its oversight and 
funding.
  In late 2011, over a decade ago, the NSABB, which is the NIH's 
advisory board, stopped two scientists from publishing an avian 
influenza gain-of-function study. Why? Because they were afraid that 
this study would educate bioterrorists. That is right. In 2011, a 
decade ago, scientists had figured out how to make H5N1--a highly 
pathogenic avian influenza--more contagious, which would have been 
catastrophic for American agriculture.
  Dr. Fauci personally called both scientists and convinced them to 
volunteer to pause their experiments. In early 2012, Dr. Fauci 
encouraged all influenza scientists to voluntarily pause influenza 
gain-of-function research and told them:

       It is essential we respect the concern of the public 
     domestically or globally, and not ask them to take the word 
     of the influenza scientist.

  Dr. Fauci was obviously concerned about the public's perception out 
there. Dr. Fauci also, almost prophetically, stated that he worried 
about ``unregulated'' laboratories, perhaps outside of the United 
States, doing work ``sloppily'' and leading to an inadvertent pandemic. 
``Accidental release is what the world is really worried about.''
  In 2014, after several biosecurity accidents in U.S. research labs, 
the Obama White House implemented the gain-of-function moratorium on 
influenza, as well as MERS and SARS research, because of the potential 
risk of lab accidents and inherent gain-of-function danger. These two 
moratoriums clearly demonstrate that the U.S. Government and the NIH, 
our primary public health Agency, understood the risk associated with 
this research and understood the threats it posed.
  Despite this pause, though, certain viral gain-of-function research 
projects continued at the University of North Carolina, research that 
was later shared with a Chinese virologist named Dr. Shi, the Bat Lady. 
She was famous for her copious amounts of research conducted on 
coronaviruses that live in bats.
  Outside of the North Carolina studies, Dr. Fauci failed to heed his 
own call on U.S. scientists to pause their gain-of-function studies and 
offshored the paused research to China not just once and not just 
recently but practically continuously for over a decade. It is 
disturbing that one of our top public health Agencies directed this 
risky research to be offshored while encouraging the pause on that 
exact same research here in the United States.
  In 2012, Dr. Fauci gave a new grant to Peter Daszak's EcoHealth 
Alliance, a company that America will soon know the name of all across 
America. He gave a new grant to Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance for 
avian influenza research in China, which was truly gain-of-function 
research.
  In 2014, Dr. Fauci gave another new grant, another gain-of-function 
grant, to Dr. Daszak and EcoHealth for SARS research in China. Through 
these grants, Peter Daszak partnered with the Wuhan Institute of 
Virology.

  In late 2017, the NIH announced a lift on the gain-of-function pause, 
apparently without consultation with the Senate-confirmed State 
Department or with national security leadership. Significantly, there 
was no Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in 
place, with only an Acting HHS Secretary at the helm. The NIH 
essentially lifted the moratorium on their own by slipping it in 
between administrations and self-policing.
  Today, we can't see the research records from Dr. Fauci's offshored 
projects because the Chinese Communist Party has the possession--or at 
least supposedly has the possession--of EcoHealth's records, and the 
NIH resists in sharing theirs.
  By all accounts, Dr. Fauci and EcoHealth's research in China led to 
the COVID-19 pandemic and Dr. Fauci's worst fears that a lab accident 
in a foreign lab would become a reality.
  At a very important hearing yesterday at the Capitol, hosted by 
Senator Paul, before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight, Dr. 
Richard Ebright, a renowned microbiologist, declared that it was indeed 
possible that this research did lead to the outbreak of COVID-19.
  Dr. Steven Quay and Dr. Kevin Esvelt, other expert witnesses on the 
panel, agreed that viral gain-of-function offers no civilian use or 
benefit. Let me say that again. Both of these doctors agreed that viral 
gain-of-function offers no civilian use or benefit but that it is so 
risky that it can cause a pandemic that will have a worse impact than a 
nuclear attack. It is indeed a weapon of mass destruction.
  Despite warnings and past lab accidents, our public health Agencies, 
like the NIH, continue to fund this weapon-of-mass-destruction 
research, often in China nonetheless. In fact, at one point, the NIH 
paid for more viral gain-of-function experiments than the Department of 
Defense, according to hearing testimony given by Dr. Fauci on this 
topic in 2012.
  Shockingly, Congress has minimal insight into the amount of research 
that the NIH performs. There is no transparency in the risk evaluation 
process, and there is no proper oversight.
  Recently--and this is news--our office learned that the USAID is 
currently paying $125 million to the Washington State University Paul 
Allen School for Global Health to collect potential pandemic pathogens 
in high-risk areas for outbreak. Once collected, these samples are 
being used in dangerous gain-of-function experiments through their DEEP 
VZN grant. This project initially partnered with five countries in 
Africa, Asia, and Latin America, but it could expand to others.
  The university researchers are collecting, storing, and experimenting 
on these pathogens in foreign laboratories in each country. Even worse, 
these hazardous research techniques are being taught to foreign 
researchers while experimenting with potentially deadly pathogens in 
laboratories where the United States has no regulatory control or 
authority. No process exists to screen U.S. researchers or foreign 
researchers by intelligence analysts for their potential as threat 
actors. The United States has no ability to control who the technology 
or the deadly pathogens are shared with in these foreign labs and 
cannot enforce proper storage techniques.
  The USAID is putting everyone at risk right now. Our U.S. public 
health Agencies, like the NIH and the CDC, cannot be entrusted to 
oversee risky research with the current guardrails that are self-
selecting and self-policing. Certainly, our U.S. Agency for 
International Development cannot be entrusted. Yet Federal Agencies 
continue to dispense funds for gain-of-function research.
  Dr. Fauci recently came before Congress and publicly declared that he 
had no intention to stop using U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund Chinese 
Communist Party research projects.
  Folks, this is a national security issue. Since January of 2020, I 
have been trying to sound the alarm on this virus--on this issue, on 
this weapon of mass destruction--but it is largely falling on deaf ears 
in Congress and with the current administration. Yesterday's HSGAC 
hearing was the first time Congress had examined this subject since the 
outbreak of COVID-19. Unfortunately, none of my colleagues from across 
the aisle bothered to show up for this hearing, clearly declaring that 
this was not a priority for them. Additionally, mainstream media has 
attempted to bury concerns about gain-of-function research and the 
possibility of a lab leak.
  This is unacceptable. We must pause this research until national 
security experts can help create appropriate risk metrics, guardrails, 
and processes for this research.

[[Page S4026]]

  It is important to note that it is estimated that this research only 
comprises less than 0.1 percent of all biomedical research and less 
than 1 percent of virology research. Dr. Richard Ebright testified that 
because gain-of-function research of concern can cause pandemics, this 
small part of the biomedical research enterprise is highly 
consequential and requires effective oversight. Certainly, that current 
oversight is not effective.
  This is a bipartisan national security issue. And anyone who studies 
this issue in depth will conclude that viral gain of function is a 
weapon of mass destruction.
  Anyone who examines this will conclude that COVID is like a nuclear 
hand grenade, with its pin pulled out. It has already killed a million 
people and can kill millions more. Every witness will conclude, like we 
did yesterday, that the potential is much worse than any type of 
benefit from this research.
  This COVID virus is likely a product of U.S.-funded gain-of-function 
research. The research has produced no benefit in 10 years and with 
seemingly no benefit on the horizon.
  This is why I brought my legislation to the floor today to place a 
moratorium on all Federal research projects, grants to universities and 
other organizations conducting gain-of-function research and risky 
research on potential pandemic pathogens. This is an urgent matter that 
must be acted on today.
  As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from 
further consideration of S. 3012, and the Senate proceed to its 
immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a 
third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered 
made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Reserving the right to object, earlier this year, when 
we passed the PREVENT Pandemics Act out of our HELP Committee in an 
overwhelming bipartisan vote, we were able to include amendments from 
my colleague from Kansas and others to bolster oversight of the 
federally funded research involving pathogens of pandemic potential and 
make sure that we do have appropriate guardrails in place.
  I appreciate the leadership my colleague from Kansas has shown on 
this issue. I know it is important to him. However, I am concerned this 
new bill brought forward today is far less targeted than the provisions 
the Senator from Kansas and I worked on within PREVENT and would have 
significant and unintended consequences for U.S. biomedical research.
  Instead of passing this bill, I would respectfully ask my colleague 
from Kansas to keep working with me and Ranking Member Burr to get his 
related provision and the rest of our PREVENT Pandemics Act across the 
finish line.
  I thank the Senator from Kansas for his work and his focus on this 
issue. I really think we can continue to make bipartisan progress in 
the next few weeks on getting the PREVENT Pandemics Act and the 
Senator's provision he and I worked on into a good place and finally 
getting that much needed package signed into law.
  For those reasons, I object today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Kansas.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4778

  Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague for her 
kind comments. Certainly, the chairwoman has my commitment to continue 
to work with her on the PREVENT Pandemics Act as well.
  But if my colleagues do not agree with placing a full moratorium on 
gain-of-function research, I ask for unanimous consent to adopt the 
SAFE Risky Research Act, which stops Federal funds from being used to 
conduct risky research with countries that threaten our democracy and 
public health.
  We recently learned that USAID has been paying for this dangerous 
research in China. We know that this research is being conducted in 
Africa, Asia, and Latin America, but we don't yet know all the other 
countries where they fund this risky research.
  What we do know is that, despite their relationship with the State 
Department, this funding is being dispensed by USAID without State 
Department security consultations, oblivious to the proliferation 
potential.
  Federal Agencies that oversee national intelligence maintain lists of 
countries that may pose a risk or threat to national security. The 
Department of State, for example, maintains a list that includes Burma, 
the People's Republic of China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, 
Saudi Arabia, and others.
  This legislation is common sense. We shouldn't be collaborating on 
dangerous research with our adversaries.
  I think it is obvious that all members of our committee agree with 
us. They support this bill and this legislation.
  On March 15, the HELP Committee held a markup where this amendment--
the same text that is in this bill--was unanimously adopted in the 
bipartisan PREVENT Pandemics Act. I appreciate Chairwoman Murray 
working so hard collaborating with us.
  During the markup, she supported this, specifically stating that it 
threads the needle in terms of protecting biomedical research 
enterprise while taking steps to address some of the concerns she has 
heard from other committee members.
  Given the inherent risk, NIH's unwillingness to fully cooperate with 
congressional oversight, and Senate Democrats' objection to taking the 
needed step of placing a complete moratorium on gain-of-function 
research, we must at least pass this narrow approach today.
  As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4778, which is at the 
desk; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and 
passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid 
upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Reserving the right to object, I do appreciate the 
Senator from Kansas's focus and leadership on this issue.
  I am glad we were able to work together to include a provision 
similar to this bill in our PREVENT Pandemics Act that we did pass out 
of the HELP Committee by an overwhelming vote earlier this year.
  Along with Ranking Member Burr, we are very focused on getting the 
PREVENT Pandemics Act passed into law. These reforms are overdue and 
vital to keeping our families safe.
  The Senator's provisions within that package, as well as many others, 
are really key to making sure that our country is prepared for future 
pandemics.
  I do hope we can continue to work on this bill in a bipartisan way 
and get it passed and put into law shortly. So while I look forward to 
continuing to work with the Senator from Kansas on this issue within 
the PREVENT Pandemics Act package, if he is asking today for unanimous 
consent to pass it, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaine). The Senator from Massachusetts.


                        Inflation Reduction Act

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, 12 years ago, the U.S. Congress was on the 
precipice of passing historic climate legislation--legislation that may 
not have been perfect but would have cut carbon pollution by 80 percent 
by the year 2050, and it would have set us on a path to a healthier, 
cleaner, safer world.
  Unfortunately, despite that bill passing through the House of 
Representatives, a bill which Congressman Henry Waxman and I were able 
to craft and to move through the House of Representatives, even though 
the Senate and the Senate Democrats had a supermajority, that 
legislation was ultimately defeated by the same legislative body, the 
U.S. Senate, that I serve in today. In 2009, the U.S. Senate chose to 
do nothing rather than something substantial that would give us a 
fighting chance against this generational crisis, which is why we have 
spent the

[[Page S4027]]

last 12 years in the climate wilderness, with full-blown Republican 
obstructionism and no meaningful congressional action on climate 
justice all the while. That wilderness literally burns to the ground 
because of climate change.
  In the intervening decade, we have suffered the consequences of 
climate inaction. Weather that used to be extreme is now the new 
normal, and that normal is deadly. Our addiction to fossil fuels has 
put communities at risk--worsening asthma, cancers, and disease in 
general--and has exposed working people to criminal price gouging from 
Big Oil and Big Gas.
  Throughout this summer, the United States has experienced devastating 
heat waves, putting 100 million Americans under heat warnings across 
the country. People are dying in Kentucky. Children are dying in 
Kentucky as a result of the extreme rain and floods--rain that still 
hasn't stopped. Those are so-called 100-year floods. Well, now they are 
happening on a weekly basis--in Kentucky. Over and over again, 
communities throughout the United States are facing deadly wildfires, 
storms, and droughts, all of which have become more frequent and more 
severe over the last 12 years.
  But instead of giving up after that missed opportunity more than a 
decade ago, we reengaged. We rebuilt and reenergized a stronger, 
smarter climate movement, one that expanded carbon calculators to 
include climate justice; one that swapped complicated carbon trading 
systems for direct funding for environmental justice communities in our 
country; and one that exchanged an environmental-above-all strategy for 
a 21st-century contract with communities, with the promise of climate 
justice, well-paid union jobs, and cuts to climate pollution so all of 
our children and grandchildren can thrive on a livable planet.
  So let me be clear. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is not the 
Green New Deal that America wants and needs. I wish it were. But I have 
learned a hard truth throughout my years in Congress: Perfect ideas can 
only live on through imperfect legislation.
  As the author of both the Green New Deal and the Waxman-Markey 
climate bill, I know we cannot wait another 12 years for billions of 
dollars in investment to fight the climate crisis. This is not the bill 
we wanted. It is not the bill I would have drafted. But we need a 
package now to fight for and resources to fight with.
  This bill will not correct every economic injustice in our society or 
rectify the economic disparities between Big Oil billionaires and 
working families, but it starts a process that we absolutely need to 
level the playing field.
  The Inflation Reduction Act makes sure that every billion-dollar 
corporation finally pays a higher tax rate than a preschool teacher. 
Last year, a preschool teacher in Massachusetts paid 8 percent of their 
average $39,000 salary in Federal taxes. ExxonMobil paid only 2.8 
percent of their $9.3 billion U.S. earnings in Federal taxes. Chevron 
paid a mere 1.8 percent of their $9.5 billion in U.S. earnings in 
Federal taxes in 2021. A kindergarten teacher in Massachusetts paid 8 
percent on $39,000 of income.
  Who did more for America last year--all of our kindergarten teachers 
or the executives at ExxonMobil and Chevron? Who contributed more to 
our society?
  That is our challenge right now to pass this legislation because the 
status quo is immoral. It is outrageous. And unless we pass this bill, 
that disparity is perfectly legal. They can evade their responsibility 
to contribute to solving the problem which they created: the climate 
crisis.
  Right now, they are letting preschool teachers contribute more than 
they are to a problem that families across our country are suffering 
from. By passing the Inflation Reduction Act, we can make sure that Big 
Oil finally pays more in taxes than preschool teachers. We can take 
that revenue and reinvest it into clean energy and healthier 
communities.
  This bill will not give the climate movement the trillions needed to 
confront the crises of systematic racism, economic inequality, a broken 
health system, and climate injustice. But thanks to our relentless 
fighting, this bill contains a historic $60 billion in environmental 
justice investments.
  Let me say that again: $60 billion will be in this bill to begin the 
process of rectifying the problems for Black and Brown and indigenous 
communities all across our country who have always been the victims of 
climate change, of environmental injustice.
  This has never happened before in any bill in U.S. history. It is in 
this bill, finally. Now, that is the message of the Green New Deal. 
That was something that was driving FOX News and the oil companies 
crazy when we said we have to rectify environmental injustice as well 
as part of the Green New Deal. It is in this bill. It is in this bill, 
$60 billion. And that will begin to start righting the wrongs brought 
by polluters in our most vulnerable communities.
  This could be a downpayment on clean air and safer communities 
everywhere, not just the suburbs, which have always breathed cleaner 
air than inner-city communities because they don't plant these oil and 
gas and other facilities in the suburbs; they put them right next to 
what they believe are the least powerful communities in our country.
  We know this bill will not get us to the critical mark of 50 percent 
emissions reductions, 2005 levels, by 2030, which is the baseline of 
what we need to meet our 2050 targets. However--however--this package 
gets us to 40 percent reductions economy-wide, and, more importantly, 
it puts our economy on an emissions reductions trajectory that 
positions us to enact more clean energy and climate justice provisions 
in the future to meet the 50 percent goal. Securing these emissions 
reductions now is the start which we need, and we need it now.
  This legislation reflects the largest single investment in climate 
justice and environmental protection in our Nation's history. And it 
meets the climate test. First, it reduces emissions, creates good-
paying union jobs, and provides funding so that we can begin the long 
process of repairing historic harms in our environmental justice 
communities with that $60 billion investment.
  Second, the bill lowers energy costs for consumers. Price-gouging and 
tax-dodging big oil companies are charging Americans more than $4 a 
gallon for gasoline, shaking money out of their pockets at the pumps 
all across our country. And what we are going to do is just point to 
the electric vehicle owners who pay an equivalent of 75 cents a gallon 
right now in our country in order to go the same distance. And we are 
going to open up this opportunity to tens of millions of additional 
Americans once we pass it.
  The Inflation Reduction Act provides tax credits to low- and middle-
income Americans so they can buy a new or a used EV, break their 
addiction to Big Oil, and save money on their daily commutes.
  And, finally, the Inflation Reduction Act will make sure we make 
things in America again. The domestic manufacturing tax credits in this 
bill for the first time ensure that we will build electric vehicles, 
solar panels, wind turbines here in our own backyard, in the United 
States. American-made infrastructure means good-paying union jobs. And 
a new study released today shows that this bill will create--get 
ready--9 million new jobs in our country. That is what we are talking 
about. That is what we will be debating on the floor of the U.S. Senate 
over the next several days.
  And I am especially proud of a provision I authored with Senator 
Chris Van Hollen and Congresswoman Debbie Dingell that would fund a 
national climate bank to ensure vulnerable American communities will 
have access to capital to invest in local clean energy projects and 
fuel a new generation of entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds.
  How big is this program? Twenty-seven billion dollars and a climate 
bank that communities across the country can apply to at the lowest 
possible interest rates for their greening of their housing units, the 
greening of any other part of their community. And what McKinsey has 
estimated is that for every dollar that is in the bank, $27 billion, it 
will unleash $7 to $10 of private sector investment--meaning we are 
looking at $200 to $300 billion that are going to get unleashed just in 
this section in that one program.

[[Page S4028]]

  And critical Defense Production Act funding will ensure that we have 
robust domestic supply chains to install heat pumps in American 
buildings and responsibly source critical minerals for clean energy 
technologies made in America.
  We have to break this whole addiction that we have not only to 
foreign oil coming into our country but also being dependent upon other 
countries for the clean energy technologies. We are going to do it 
here. That is what this bill says. We are going to tell people we don't 
need your oil any more than we need your sand. We are going to do it 
right here. We are going to build the technologies right here in our 
country.
  So my time in Congress has taught me this: We cannot let the perfect 
be the enemy of the good. Ending up with nothing might be a viable 
political option, but it is not a viable planetary option. This is a 
good bill with broad-based appeal that lowers costs for consumers, 
fights inflation with deficit reduction, protects our environment with 
critical justice investments, and provides affordable healthcare access 
to all Americans.

  In 2009, zero was an option, which this Senate took. Zero is not an 
option we can take. We must pass this legislation. And we will begin a 
pathway for generations to come that says: We understood your anger. We 
understood why you as a younger generation believe that the system had 
failed you and that it had not provided the solutions which you 
deserve.
  So let's pass this bill and keep fighting the cities and States and 
in the White House and in Congress so that we can finish the job in the 
years ahead, meet our climate targets, and finally pass the Green New 
Deal that our country deserves.
  This is our moment. And the beauty of it is that there is a poetic 
justice in it. And it is that Chevron only paid 2.8 percent on their 
profits last year. ExxonMobil only paid 3 percent on their profits last 
year. They are the ones who are going to pay for the solutions to the 
problems which they created. They are going to be the source of the 
funding because we are going to force them to finally pay their taxes, 
to pay their fair share of the dues to live in this great country.
  That moment of justice is arriving. And it is justice. They are the 
ones who should be paying for this. They are the ones who have a moral, 
political, and economic responsibility to pay for this bill. And they 
right now are screaming; they are absolutely angry that we are going to 
take this action. But I will tell you this. We are going to be forced 
to do it with no Republican support because the GOP now stands for 
``Gas and Oil Party.'' It now stands for ``Gang of Polluters.'' That is 
the GOP of today. And they are going to say: Oh, my goodness, look at 
all the socialism that is going into this package for wind and solar 
and all-electric vehicles and batteries. And you know what this young 
generation's response is? What do you call tax breaks for oil, gas, and 
coal for 100 years? If that is not socialism, what is? And all we are 
looking for is fair treatment for the renewable energy revolution 
because once we give them the same kinds of incentives, get out of the 
way because we are going to have that revolution that young people in 
our country have wanted for so long.
  So it is all on us, the Democrats. It is our moment to deliver for 
the American people and guarantee the resources we need to keep 
fighting for the future we deserve.
  And, by the way, after we have created those 9 million new jobs, that 
is forever going to be a new political constituency in our country. 
They are going to be saying to Senators who are going to vote no today: 
What are you doing? You are voting against my new job that has been 
created?
  And so this is just the beginning. And we are going to telescope the 
timeframe ultimately in order to finish the job.
  Yes, we are now in a sprint to solve the problem because every night 
on every TV station, the lead stories are: floods and fires and every 
other imaginable consequence of climate change. And it is time, the 
moment has arrived, and the U.S. Senate, with only Democratic support, 
is ready to take the action that the younger generation in our country 
has been ready for.
  I thank you for giving me the opportunity of being here.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.


                    Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I wanted to come down here tonight to talk 
a little bit about the bill that we have in front of us this weekend, 
the Inflation Reduction Act. I have been in the Senate for 13 years, 
and I think this is one of the most important pieces of legislation 
that we have ever considered.
  Let me just say, also, that the Presiding Officer and I have been 
here for a long time, and there have been weeks and weeks and weeks, 
months, years that have gone by here where it felt like we haven't 
gotten anything done.
  What an amazing moment to be here when we have a bipartisan 
infrastructure bill that we passed with the biggest investment in our 
infrastructure since Eisenhower was President. We passed the first 
bipartisan bill to overcome the NRA just a few weeks ago. Last week, we 
were able to pass the CHIPS Act to bring back semiconductors to the 
U.S.A. and the PACT Act, the veterans bill last night.
  Today, we are here to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act. It is 
quite an amazing moment in our democracy and, I think, in the country's 
history. It is not the subject of my speech tonight, but I want to say, 
with the Presiding Officer on the floor, that there might be a reason 
to think that we are at a moment in our country's history when we are 
actually ready, finally, to turn the page on the trickle-down economics 
that have created such an unfair economy for so many families and so 
many young people in this country and create, once again, in the United 
States, an economy that, when it grows, it grows for everybody, not 
just the people at the very top.
  This bill fits into that. The bill on infrastructure fits into that. 
The bill on the semiconductors fits into that, as well.
  If you look at the agenda Washington has pursued for the last 40 
years or so, it is pretty simple: Let the big corporations do whatever 
they want and call it ``freedom''; cut investments in working families 
and our future; and instead of grappling with the income inequality we 
have, instead of grappling with the economic mobility that we have, cut 
taxes for the wealthiest people in the country, cut taxes for the 
largest corporations in the country, hoping that those tax cuts will 
somehow magically trickle down to everyone else and pay for themselves. 
That has never happened.
  Here is what happened instead: 40 years of an economy that has worked 
really well for the wealthiest people and corporations but hasn't 
worked very well for anybody else; an economy with income inequality 
higher than at any time since the 1920s, where the top 0.1 percent of 
Americans, a mere 160,000 families, hold basically the same amount of 
wealth as the bottom 90 percent of Americans, nearly 145 million 
families--160,000 families, the top 0.1 percent, hold as much wealth as 
the bottom 90 percent, 9 out of 10 Americans, nearly 145 million 
families--where kids--I am sad to say this in front of the kids here 
tonight--have a 50-50 shot of earning more than their parents, where 
that number used to be 90 percent; that charges families more for their 
healthcare than any other industrialized country in the world; that 
forces seniors in this country--and only in this country--to cut their 
pills in half or skip prescriptions or decide whether they are going to 
be able to eat or take their medicine; that is shackled to a global 
fossil fuel market dictated by tyrants like Vladimir Putin, despite our 
abundant resources at home and despite the urgent threat from climate 
change.
  That is the legacy of the past 40 years of trickle-down economics. As 
I have said many, many times on this floor, we can't survive another 40 
years like the last 40 years and expect to hold onto this democracy. I 
don't think we can survive another 10 years like this and expect to 
hold on to this democracy with this failed agenda.
  Working families can't sustain it. Our democracy can't withstand it 
because, when people feel like they have lost the sense of opportunity 
for themselves and their families no matter how hard they work, that is 
when, you know, throughout human history,

[[Page S4029]]

somebody shows up. Some self-interested politician shows up and says: I 
alone can fix it. You don't need a democracy. You don't need the rule 
of law. You should expect your public sector and your private sector to 
be hopelessly corrupt, and you are a sucker if you don't believe that 
because people are going to take advantage of you.
  We need a new agenda for America. I am pleased to say that we are 
closer, I think, tonight--this weekend--than we have been in a long 
time to pursuing one.
  It started with the American Rescue Plan. It continued, as I said 
earlier, with the bipartisan infrastructure law we passed this year to 
rebuild our country and the bipartisan innovation bill that we passed 
last week to help us compete with China and bring thousands of good-
paying jobs back home.
  And, now, I hope we are close to passing the next part, the Inflation 
Reduction Act. This bill will lower costs for millions of families--at 
the pharmacy, at the pump, and on their monthly energy bills and 
insurance premiums. It will do more to achieve energy independence and 
fight climate change than anything that we have ever done as a nation.
  And unlike the Trump tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which 
added $1.9 trillion to the debt, notwithstanding the arguments that we 
have heard going back to Ronald Reagan--the false arguments that we 
have heard going back to Ronald Reagan--that these tax cuts will pay 
for themselves. Once again, of course, they didn't pay for themselves. 
And unlike that, a $1.9 trillion hole blasted into our deficit when 
unemployment was only at 3.5 percent. Every cent of that money was 
borrowed just for the privilege of giving tax cuts to the wealthiest 
Americans. Fifty-two percent of that bill went to the top 5 percent of 
Americans. We borrowed every single cent to do that.
  That would be no different than when the Presiding Officer was the 
mayor of Richmond, VA, and if he said to the people of Richmond: I have 
a really good idea for how we could spend a lot of money, but we are 
going to have to borrow money to do it.
  And they said: Well, that sounds like a lot of money that you are 
borrowing. Tell us what you are spending it on. Are you using it for 
our roads and bridges?
  No.
  Are you using it for the parks?
  No.
  Are you using it for education, for mental health, which we 
desperately need in this country? Are you using it to transfer the 
local economy to greener energy?
  No.
  What are you using it for, Mr. Mayor, they would say.
  And the answer is: I am going to borrow this massive amount of money, 
and I am going to give it to the two wealthiest neighborhoods in 
Richmond and hope that it is just going to trickle down to everybody 
else.
  I am not making it up. That is the theory. That is the policy. And 
that was the theory and the policy when Ronald Reagan was President. 
That was the theory and policy when Donald Trump was President.
  And unlike those bills, every single cent in this bill is paid for. 
More than that, it cuts the deficit by over $300 billion. If you listen 
to my Republican colleagues, at least some of them and the way they 
complain about this bill, you would think it was some sort of Bolshevik 
takeover of the U.S.A. It is ridiculous.
  I think, sometimes, they just don't even want the public to know what 
is in this bill because what is in this bill is so popular with the 
American people.
  Let's start with healthcare. For the first time ever, this bill 
requires Medicare to negotiate drug prices on behalf of the American 
people.
  The Presiding Officer and I wrote a bill called Medicare-X. We 
introduced it, I think, in 2017, to create a public option so that 
everybody in America could have the benefit of choosing between their 
private insurance and public insurance. That is not in this bill. But 
in that bill, we said that Medicare ought to negotiate drug prices for 
seniors. This would allow Medicare to use its market power to drive 
down the costs of prescription drugs. That is going to save families 
thousands of dollars, and it is going to save our country billions of 
dollars.
  The only reason we have not passed that is because special interests 
have succeeded at tying Medicare's hands so that pharmaceutical 
companies could keep charging Americans prices that no other developed 
nation in the world would tolerate--Americans like Julia from Denver. 
Her dad has a heart condition. He pays $6,000 a month for medication. 
That is $72,000 a year for something he needs to take for the rest of 
his life. That is outrageous, but I hear stories like that every day 
all over Colorado.
  The Inflation Reduction Act also would cap out-of-pocket costs for 
seniors to $2,000 a year so they aren't spending down their retirement 
to buy medication. I know seniors in Colorado who literally spend their 
entire retirement trying to figure out how to get the medication they 
need, the medication they have been prescribed by a doctor. The choices 
they have to make look unlike any other choices any senior has to make 
in any other country in the world.
  I was with some people in Pueblo recently where one of the people 
said: I have three inhalers, but I can't afford the three inhalers. So 
I can only take one of them at a time, and I have been getting sicker 
and sicker as a result of that.
  Another person in the room had worked her entire life at the local 
newspaper, and she was telling me that she was having to cut her 
medications in order to make it through economically.
  On top of that, this bill has a 3-year extension for tax credits to 
help millions of Americans pay for their health insurance, including 
over 150,000 Coloradans who are going to be able to afford their health 
insurance in ways they couldn't.
  The second part of this bill closes tax loopholes for about 200 of 
the biggest corporations in America--those with over $1 billion in 
profit. This comes directly from a bill that I wrote with Senator 
Warren and with Senator King. Today, these corporations use armies of 
lawyers and accountants that no middle-class family has, no working 
family has, no small business has to pay almost nothing in classes.
  Last year, Chevron paid an effective rate of 1.8 percent. Bank of 
America paid 3.5 percent--3.5 percent. That is after the Trump tax cuts 
cut the corporate rate and took it down to, I think, it was 20 
percent--which, by the way, there was no consensus to do. The consensus 
was at 25 percent. Here you have companies paying 1.8 percent, and 3.5 
percent in the case of Bank of America. Amazon paid 6.1 percent. They 
might want to fire their CFO because they are paying a little more than 
the 1.8 and the 3.5. AT&T paid negative 4.1 percent. That means they 
got money back from the Treasury in tax credits.
  In Colorado, a typical firefighter, teacher, or police officer has an 
effective tax rate of somewhere around 16 to 22 percent. So, on the one 
hand, you have working Americans paying 20 percent of their income in 
an economy that has barely lifted their incomes in 40 years, while 
billion-dollar corporations are paying virtually nothing.
  I had a conversation the other day with a ``Teacher of the Year'' 
from Colorado. She is from Glenwood Springs. She said that she wasn't 
complaining, that she was just making an observation. She said 70 
percent to 80 percent of her colleagues in the middle school in which 
she teaches and at the high school in Glenwood Springs have to work two 
and three jobs just so they can afford to live in Glenwood Springs.
  Do we think it is all right for her to have to pay 22 percent of her 
income in taxes and the biggest corporations in America that are making 
more than $1 billion in income don't have to at least pay 15 percent, 
much less the 20 percent gift that Donald Trump gave them when the 
number that everybody had basically agreed to was 25 percent? It is no 
wonder that Americans think this Tax Code is rigged against them.
  We start to fix that problem with this bill. It is not everything 
that I would have wanted. I think we have a lot more to do to make this 
Tax Code fairer, not the least of which is to make permanent the 
expanded child tax credit that I worked on with Sherrod Brown, Cory 
Booker, and Kamala Harris; and the earned income tax credit that I 
worked on with

[[Page S4030]]

Sherrod Brown to give working people the biggest tax cut they had in 
generations. That is one of the things that is not in this bill that I 
feel really terrible about.
  This bill also is limiting something called the carried interest 
loophole. Most Americans have no idea what that is because 99.9999999 
percent of Americans are not hedge fund managers; they don't benefit 
from this loophole to lower their tax rate and pay less than their 
assistants or than their secretary.
  That hasn't stopped my Republican colleagues from telling the 
American public that this bill would tax working people--that is what 
they are saying. And I guess that is true if by ``working people'' they 
mean hedge fund managers. Over half of them base their business in the 
Cayman Islands or billion dollar corporations. We are increasing their 
taxes--that is true--but there is nothing in this bill that is raising 
taxes on American families--nothing. Nothing.
  It is amazing to me that people that I meet that simultaneously 
support the Trump tax cuts for the wealthiest people on the theory of 
trickle-down economics and are opposed to this bill on the theory that 
somehow the taxes that we are raising on, literally, the wealthiest 
humans in our country and the wealthiest corporations are somehow going 
to trickle down to people in the workplace. It is never going to 
happen. It never has.
  The last part of this bill contains energy. And, first, I think it is 
important for us to have some context. It has been nearly 50 years 
since the 1973 oil crisis spurred America to seek ``energy 
independence.''
  It has been more than 30 years since NASA scientist James Hansen 
urged Congress to fight climate change, I think at a hearing held by my 
predecessor Tim Wirth. And until now we haven't had a plan, we have had 
no plan to accomplish either.
  We haven't just stalled--in some cases, we have actually gone 
backward. At home, right now, our use of coal has increased during the 
Biden administration. Abroad, Germany has been forced to reactivate 
coal plants after Putin's attack on Ukraine, while other EU nations 
plan on rationing natural gas or turning on their coal plants.
  Instead of leading the world with a coherent approach on these 
issues, Washington has been deadlocked in the same old, tired politics 
around climate and energy. And as usual, the American people have paid 
the price.
  They have paid it at the pump with incomes that have barely budged in 
this economy. In Colorado, we have paid for it in homes incinerated by 
record wildfires, mountain passes washed out by mudslides, fields 
withering in extreme drought that nobody has seen for 800 years, the 
Colorado River in crisis, and a galloping fear that the American West 
will somehow be unrecognizable to our grandchildren.
  When this deal fell apart 10 days ago or so, whenever it was, my 
heart was broken as a result of it, because I thought about what 
Colorado has been going through. And I thought about--I had to call and 
explain to my 22-year-old and 21-year-old and 17-year-old daughters 
that once again we had failed.
  And their sense of disbelief, of incredulity--which, by the way, I 
think is shared with every single member of their generation in this 
country, whether they are Democrats or whether they are Republicans or 
independents or if they don't even know what political party they are 
in. How can you not deal with this? How can you place this burden on 
us?
  And if we pass this bill, we are going to be able to look the next 
generation straight in the eye and say: We are actually living up to 
our responsibility to you, at least with respect to climate. And that 
fills me with joy. And that is the reason to support this bill and feel 
good about it.
  We can't afford another 10 years of dysfunction on these issues. This 
transition should have started 25 years ago--25 years ago.
  And in my opinion, we urgently need a plan, an energy policy that 
secures the energy our economy needs and relentlessly lowers climate 
pollution.
  In other words, we need a plan for clean energy independence. And we 
can start by being honest about where we are; I think that is really 
important.
  Today, 60 percent of our power generation comes from fossil fuel; 
only 20 percent comes from renewables. Over 90 percent--90 percent of 
our transportation relies on fossil fuels, and less than 3 percent uses 
electricity. Across the economy, 80 percent of primary energy 
consumption still comes from fossil fuel. Renewables are just 12 
percent.
  We have made some progress, but to hit our emissions targets, 
renewables have to scale from 12 percent today to at least 60 percent 
by 2050.
  That is why, even under the most ambitious projections, some fossil 
fuels will likely remain in our energy mix for decades, even through 
2050. Don't take my word for it; that is not me saying it. These 
projections are from the National Academy of Sciences, the 
International Energy Agency, and Princeton. And that is the reality 
that they confront us with.
  So when I hear politicians and others whip up Twitter with promises 
to reject every permit for new infrastructure, they ignore this 
reality. And I worry that we cede the scientific high ground to critics 
of climate action, who then paint climate advocates as disconnected or 
deluded or even dangerous to the economy. And the only thing that wins 
is our fossil fuels. The only thing that wins is coal.
  And I worry sometimes that these claims also repel the very Americans 
we need to support our energy transition. If our position in the short 
term is to oppose every new piece of infrastructure, we are essentially 
forcing America to choose between scarcity and higher prices, to choose 
between either less energy or higher prices.
  I was in Belgium and, with our colleague Chris Coons, met with the 
deputy prime minister there who said--we were on our way to Scotland 
for the climate conference, and he said: We have to meet these climate 
targets. We have to meet these climate targets in 2050.

  And then he said: But I don't know how we are going to meet them and 
not lose the middle class.
  And I said: What do you mean by that? And he said: I don't know how 
we are going to meet them and not have yellow vests break out all over 
Europe.
  And we are seeing that now. We are seeing where Putin has cut off 
Russian oil and Russian gas because of his invasion of Ukraine--the 
challenges that it creates in democratic societies when it comes to 
energy. There is no country in the world better positioned on this 
question, better positioned to lead this transition to clean energy 
than the United States of America.
  There is not a country in Europe; there is not a country in the 
Middle East. China is not better positioned than we are on this. We are 
the best positioned country in the world to lead this transition.
  In fact, I think we are the only country in the world that can lead 
this transition--which, by the way, is why it was such a tragedy when 
it looked 10 days ago like this bill wasn't going anywhere, because 
then the rest of the world looks at us and says: Why should we do 
anything if the country that is most capable of being able to do this 
can't do it?
  And what I want to assure you is that these outcomes of scarcity or 
higher prices, neither of those outcomes are going to support the broad 
and durable support that we need to be able to not just pass climate 
policy but keep it the law of the land and make sure that it lasts 
until the next generation of Americans can pick it up from us and say: 
Thank you for putting us in a decent position; we are going to finish 
the job.
  And then if we can't pass this bill and we can't make progress on 
climate change, then what we have, instead, is our current policy, 
which is the status quo, which drives up prices, is bad for our 
national security, and is terrible at reducing emissions. That is where 
we are today. That is why coal is up, as I said, during the Biden 
administration.
  For a successful transition, we have got to smooth the path with 
domestic energy production now to stabilize prices and bridge our way 
to a clean energy economy tomorrow. And to do that, we need every tool 
on the table.
  This means deploying renewables like wind and solar, which my State 
has led in. We need to do it at record rates. We need to invest in 
next-generation technology from carbon capture to hydrogen to advanced 
nuclear.

[[Page S4031]]

  That means we need to recognize the role that natural gas has played 
in our transition. Over the last 15 years, replacing coal with natural 
gas has accounted for 60 percent of our national carbon reductions, and 
that is really good. But we need to do a lot better because the time is 
ticking. And now we have the opportunity, because of this bill, to 
secure America's position as the global standard for production--
modeled on our example in Colorado, where we passed the first law to 
capture fugitive methane when Senator Hickenlooper was our Governor--by 
driving down methane pollution and strengthening cleanup and monitoring 
across the supply chain.
  The last thing we should accept is the leaking pipes that the status 
quo allows when we have tools available to do better.
  And we can't accept the painful price shocks that the American people 
have to bear because of our lack of a coherent energy policy.
  Fortunately, this bill lays the foundation for a responsible energy 
policy for the country, and it has the largest investment to fight 
climate change in the Nation's history. And it is full of proposals I 
have worked on for years, proposals to rapidly deploy clean energy and 
to provide industry the long-term certainty it needs, to boost American 
manufacturing for wind and solar and batteries to power electric 
vehicles and our energy grid, to invest $14 billion to help rural 
communities transition from fossil fuels, along with over $25 billion 
for environmentally friendly farming, conservation, and forest health.
  We also have an opportunity in this bill to address the drought that 
is ravaging the American West and to do it in a way that measurably 
improves the situation of the Colorado River Basin, reflects the 
interest of the people of my State and other States in the Upper Basin, 
and actually deals, finally, with the long-term causes of the crisis 
that we face.
  When you add it all up, this bill would put us on track to reduce 
carbon pollution 40 percent by the end of the decade. That is light 
years ahead of where we would be without it.
  But even if you don't care about climate change, you should still 
like this bill because it lowers costs for families. How does it do 
that?
  By increasing the supply of American energy with a responsible 
approach while reducing demand for oil and gas by putting more 
renewables and electric vehicles on the market.
  According to a recent study, this bill would reduce the average 
family's electricity bill by hundreds of dollars a year. From my 
perspective, as I said, this transition should have started 25 years 
ago, and we can't wait any longer. Now is the moment to act.
  Russia's invasion of Ukraine should finally rid America and our 
allies of the delusion that we can continue to rely on foreign 
dictators for our energy needs. It should remind us how foolish we have 
been to surrender the lifeblood of our economy to the whims of tyrants.
  So nearly 50 years after the 1973 oil crisis, let's make this the 
year that we finally pass a coherent plan for America's energy 
independence. Let's finally organize our thinking and advance a plan 
that liberates us from foreign energy and tackles the threat of climate 
change head-on.
  And while we are at it, let's reforge the engine of American 
manufacturing to produce the clean energy we need and to create 
thousands of good-paying jobs along the way.
  Let's support our European allies by exporting cleaner American 
energy so they don't have to rely on coal or Russian gas to heat their 
homes through the winter.
  There is no country in the world better prepared than the United 
States to lead this effort. And this bill will do more than anything we 
have ever done to strengthen our hand in this regard.

  In another era, a proposal like this would have received 70 votes on 
the Senate floor. Every provision in here is a victory for common sense 
and a victory for the American people over special interests and the 
status quo.
  Frankly, I don't know how many people can go home and say they voted 
against a balanced approach to achieve energy independence, fight 
climate change, and lower costs for families at this moment in our 
history.
  I don't know how you would go home and say they voted to preserve tax 
loopholes for hedge fund managers and billion-dollar corporations that 
no American family can even imagine as they are paying the rates of 
taxation that they are paying or how they voted to let pharmaceutical 
companies continue to gouge the American people instead of letting 
Medicare negotiate on their behalf; how they voted against reducing our 
deficit by $300 billion.
  But that is the choice we have in front of us. To me, it is a choice 
that is obvious. We have got to pass this bill. We need to seize the 
moment to lower costs for the American people, to make our Tax Code a 
little fairer, to secure our energy independence, and spark a new era 
of clean energy manufacturing and innovation to support our allies and 
lead the world in a fight against climate change and, hopefully, 
hopefully, hopefully, leave something a little bit better for the next 
generation of Americans.
  I thank my colleague from New Jersey for his patience.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I was happy to listen to my colleague 
from Colorado's erudite exposition of what the opportunity is before us 
and what it means for the American people, and so I very much 
appreciate it.


                       Tribute to Keith Roachford

  Mr. President, I come to the floor today for a very important reason. 
I rise not to introduce a bill nor to ask my colleagues for unanimous 
consent. No.
  I am here for one simple reason, and I want to make sure that the C-
SPAN cameras are capturing this moment for posterity.
  I come to the floor today to honor Keith Roachford, a member of my 
staff who has faithfully served the State of New Jersey, the U.S. 
Senate, and the United States of America for more than 35 years.
  As you can see from Keith's face, it is clear that he had no idea 
this was happening. We told him he was coming for another reason, and I 
don't think we would have gotten him otherwise.
  But, nonetheless, I rise today because, after 35 years and 18 
Congresses, Keith is retiring from the Senate, and as result, I wanted 
to come to the floor to send him off with a tribute befitting his 
legendary career.
  A native son of Willingboro, NJ, Keith has served not one, not two 
but four U.S. Senators for the Garden State. He is the very definition 
of institutional knowledge, and countless fellow staff members can 
attest to his experience, which has saved the day on more than one 
occasion.
  Keith has sometimes said that he has been here so long he came with 
the furniture. It is a classic Keith line, a glimpse not only into his 
sense of humor but also his view of how staff work behind the scenes 
gets things done.
  Now, that may be the case, but today, Keith, I rise to shine a 
spotlight on your illustrious career.
  To start, I would like to share some of the stories that his 
colleagues have sent me:

       Keith has not only been a mentor to me, he's also been a 
     friend to anyone lucky enough to come into contact with him.
       When I think of Keith, the words that come to mind are 
     helpful, generous, thoughtful--a patient and understanding 
     team player.

  Another one said:

       He is so kind to everyone, from interns to the Chief of 
     Staff, and is always--always--willing to share his knowledge 
     with others.

  So it brings me immense joy to speak these words into the 
Congressional Record so that, like Keith's legacy, they may stand the 
test of time.
  But beyond his accolades, beyond his track record and sterling 
reputation, Keith, at heart, is a humble man. I know it isn't easy for 
him to be sitting here, listening to me shower praise on him, but to 
that I say: Well, you are still on the payroll so you will have to bear 
with it.
  But above all, Keith is a family man, a devoted husband to his wife 
Sandy and an incredible father to his beloved children, Rick, Daniel, 
and Lauren.
  He is a man that every day for the last 36 years has braved the 
brutal beltway traffic to come into work in the Hart Senate Office 
Building. And he is a man that every weekend has made a similar trip 
with his family to attend

[[Page S4032]]

services at St. George's Episcopal Church here in DC.
  Keith credits his faith for guiding him throughout his life, and he 
would be the first to tell you that it has been a moral compass for 
him, season after political season. But as the Book of James asks, 
``What good is someone who says they have faith but does not have 
works?''
  Fret not. In addition to his duties as senior warden of the Vestry at 
St. George's, Keith takes the time to give back to his community. He is 
a member of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. He serves as the secretary 
of the convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, and he is a 
Boy Scout leader.

  At every opportunity, he goes out of his way to give back. It is a 
trait he learned growing up. As the son and grandson of public 
servants, Keith was taught from an early age that service to others is 
the highest calling.
  His grandfather was a transit operator for the city of New York, 
while his father, a veteran of the U.S. Army and the New Jersey Army 
National Guard, worked for the sanitation department for 37 years. It 
is no surprise, then, that Keith has followed in their footsteps. He is 
a throwback to a previous era, one where individuals spent years, if 
not decades, working for the same organization.
  I know Keith never intended to spend 36 years working in the Senate. 
He used to joke with colleagues that he came to Washington fresh out of 
the college just to try it out. But in the process, he has gone from 
working as a constituent liaison, to mail director, to deputy chief of 
staff, and so much more.
  Today, Keith is an indispensable resource for our legislative staff. 
He is our go-to person for appropriations, defense, veterans' issues, 
homeland security, and the budget.
  He has had a hand in passing countless initiatives for our office, 
from supporting community development financial institutions to shoring 
up supply chains and expanding senior housing, to inserting provisions 
in the PACT Act--that is how we got him here, telling him that is what 
we were going to talk about--that addresses the needs of veterans 
suffering from Gulf war illness.
  Keith has had a hand in far too many legislative wins to count, but 
suffice to say, the legend of Keith Roachford has led to what we call 
``the Roachford Rule,'' which is simple: With every appropriations 
letter I sign on to, with every bill I cosponsor, for something to pass 
the Roachford Rule, it needs to have a tangible benefit for New Jersey 
families.
  Much like the man it is named after, the Roachford Rule is about 
connecting what we do here in DC to the people whose lives it affects 
back home.
  Long after Keith has left the Senate, his rule will live on, a 
testament to his relentless pursuit of good government, a trademark for 
a public servant devoted to the common good, a namesake that all of us 
in this Chamber would do well to emulate.
  I will end with this: Last March, I came to this floor to rebuke the 
words that a colleague used in reference to the January 6 attack. I 
won't use the time to rehash what I said; instead, I will use this time 
to once again lift up the bravery and the courage of the man who 
compelled me to act.
  Late one night, Keith sent me an email that outlined the pain and the 
outrage he felt after reading our colleague's comments. In personal 
terms, he relayed how his entire life he has had to endure--in overt 
and covert ways--the harmful legacy of racism and the stain of White 
supremacy.
  Knowing Keith, it could not have been easy to type that message to 
his boss, a sitting U.S. Senator.
  But as I said in that speech, there comes a time when you either 
ruffle some feathers and speak the truth or you fail to do justice to 
the values you hold dear.
  The U.S. Senate is a better institution, and I am certainly a better 
Senator, for having Keith Roachford work in these Halls. He is man of 
principle, a man of God, a man who has put every ounce of his being 
into the work that New Jerseyans have sent us here to do.
  He is the first person to tell you that he is not perfect, the first 
to say that he has certainly seen it all over 36 long years of service, 
but, by God, I cannot help but feel so thankful, so grateful that we 
have been blessed with his presence. He is a calm and steady hand that 
has helped guide our office since 2006.
  He is the quiet one, the one who keeps his powder dry and plays the 
long game; the one who never loses sight of the ultimate goal, which is 
to improve the lives of hard-working American families.
  John Madison, one of the Framers of our Constitution, once said:

       If men were angels, no government would be needed.

  I have never met an angel, but I have worked alongside Keith 
Roachford for 16 of those 36 years. He has served with me longer than 
any other of the U.S. Senators he has worked with. And it is why I can 
truthfully say without pause or equivocation that Keith Roachford is 
truly doing God's work here on Earth.
  When Keith first mentioned to me that he was thinking of leaving, he 
said the most incredible thing. He said:

       You know, Senator, it's just that with the pandemic and 
     with work from home, I've just gotten to spend more time with 
     Sandy and the kids.
       We don't want to wait any longer to get started.
       We make breakfast and we take walks. . . .
       I just don't want to wait any longer to do that.

  That is Keith in a nutshell. That is who he is. So I want to 
congratulate Keith on an incredible 36 years of Senate service. We are 
going to miss you, certainly so. But to you, to Sandy, and to your 
three children, we wish you all the best on a well-deserved retirement.
  Thank you, Keith.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. 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 PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________