[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 21, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4887-S4897]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    AMENDMENT TO MONTREAL PROTOCOL (``KIGALI AMENDMENT'')--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise today to remind our colleagues of 
the incredible opportunity that we have before us today--incredible 
opportunity that we have before us today.
  Later today, this body, the U.S. Senate, will have the opportunity to 
vote to ratify the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.
  What does that mean?
  Kigali, as it is affectionately known, is a global treaty to phase 
down the use of hydrofluorocarbons, also known own at HFCs. For years, 
HFCs have been widely used as a key component that are called 
refrigerants, but a key component in modern air conditioners, in 
refrigerators, and other cooling products. Yet, the United States is 
already transitioning away from using HFCs. We might want to ask, why?
  Well, one reason is that American companies are at the forefront of 
developing the next generation of coolant technology, the next 
generation of refrigerants.
  This transition away from HFCs is expected to stimulate literally 
billions of dollars in economic investment in this country--billions of 
dollars; create tens of thousands of jobs; and significantly increase 
U.S. exports, all using technology developed in this country--all by 
using technology developed in this country; putting Americans to work, 
using technologies developed by Americans.
  Now, first, some history on how we got here.
  HFCs came about to replace ozone-depleting substances, which created 
a hole in our ozone layer. I said to some of my colleagues yesterday at 
a luncheon where we were, Mr. President, that I first remember hearing 
about the hole in the ozone, I think, when I was in the Navy overseas, 
and reading about it in Time and Newsweek that I got in the mail while 
we were deployed and saying: I wonder what this is all about. What 
could be causing that? It turned out to be a big deal and one that 
still plays out today in the debate before us as well.

[[Page S4888]]

  But in 1988, this very body, the U.S. Senate, voted unanimously to 
ratify the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to phase out 
ozone-depleting substances that was negotiated under President Ronald 
Reagan's leadership.
  Since then, the global consumption of ozone-depleting substances has 
declined by--get this--by 97 percent, while our economy has continued 
to grow.
  Now, that is good news. That is really good news. But, unfortunately, 
there is some bad news.
  The HFCs that have been used for years now to replace the ozone-
depleting substances have been found to also be bad for our 
environment.
  So in 2016, the global community got together and amended the 
Montreal Protocol to also phase down HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons.
  This is not the first time we have ratified an amendment to the 
Montreal Protocol. The Kigali Amendment before us is the fifth 
amendment to the Montreal Protocol ratified by the United States.
  The Kigali Amendment was transmitted to the U.S. Senate on November 
16, 2021--almost a year ago--300 days, in fact, ago. Each day that has 
passed without ratification represents a further delay in supporting 
American businesses, in supporting American workers, and in growing our 
economic and national security interests and protecting our economic 
and national security interests.
  Thanks to American innovation, we now have HFC alternatives that are 
cleaner and more energy efficient than HFCs. And the best part--here is 
the best part: These cleaner, more efficient HFC alternatives are being 
manufactured, as I said, right here, right here in the U.S. of A.
  In recent years, the American industries' leadership on transitioning 
away from HFCs created an excellent opportunity for bipartisan action 
at the Federal level. And to that end, our friend and colleague Senator 
Neely Kennedy and I introduced something called the AIM Act, the 
bipartisan American Innovation and Manufacturing Act. That was in 2019.

  Our bill proposed phasing down HFCs in our country by 85 percent over 
15 years--not overnight, not in 1 year, not in 2 or 3 years but phasing 
down by as much as 85 percent within 15 years, the same timeline as the 
Kigali Amendment before us.
  So 16 Democrats and 16 Republicans joined the AIM Act as cosponsors 
with Senator Kennedy and myself. Additionally, a broad coalition of 
organizations, from the National Association of Manufacturers to the 
U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the American Chemistry Council, endorsed 
our bill, along with a lot of other American companies.
  In December 2020, the AIM Act became law under a divided Congress and 
a Republican administration. It was a bipartisan win--a bipartisan win. 
It was an American win as well.
  Now it is time to build on that success. Now it is time to seize on 
the opportunity before us and ratify the Kigali Amendment.
  The Kigali Amendment is good for our economy. Implementing the AIM 
Act, paired with ratification, will help generate nearly $40 billion of 
new growth in investment in the U.S. economy by 2027.
  It will also create roughly 150,000 American jobs--150,000 new 
American jobs--and increase U.S. heating, ventilation, air-
conditioning, and refrigeration exports across the world by at least 25 
percent over that same time period.
  In addition, Kigali ratification is good for consumers. As EPA's data 
shows us, transitioning away from HFCs means average prices will be 
lower for consumers--lower for consumers, not higher. Something I think 
we all support in this body.
  Ratifying Kigali will also build on our bipartisan success in the AIM 
Act by allowing the Federal Government to better protect U.S. companies 
from illegal dumping and smuggling of HFCs into our country from 
adversaries like China.
  And then, lastly, Kigali ratification will ensure U.S. companies 
continue to have access to international markets so that modern, 
efficient, economical air-conditioners and refrigerators across the 
world will be stamped ``Made in America,'' not ``Made in China.''
  So today, we, the U.S. Senate, have an opportunity to make that 
vision a reality; to build on the decades-long bipartisan record of 
success from the Montreal Protocol to the passage of the AIM Act a 
couple of years ago; to show our Nation and to show the world yet 
another time that bipartisan solutions are lasting solutions. This is a 
bipartisan solution. This is a bipartisan solution, and it demands 
bipartisan support.
  I hope our colleagues will join Senator Kennedy and myself and many 
of our colleagues, and, frankly, a whole ton of businesses across the 
country and organizations who support what we are doing, and join us in 
supporting the ratification of the Kigali Amendment.
  Let's seize the day or, as we say in Delaware, ``Carper diem. Carper 
diem.''
  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. COTTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                  Iran

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, tens of thousands of Iranian citizens are 
taking to the streets in dozens of cities across Iran as we speak. The 
chant that is echoing across that ancient land is: ``Death to the 
dictator.'' Yet Joe Biden and the Democrats in Washington would rather 
make another disastrous deal with the ayatollahs and those who declare 
``death to America'' and who are, at this very moment, working to 
assassinate American citizens on our sovereign soil. Barack Obama's 
betrayal of the Iranian people during the Green Revolution is replaying 
before our very eyes.
  The latest revolt against the ayatollahs was inspired by yet another 
reprehensible crime by this theocratic dictatorial regime against its 
own people.
  Last week, the ayatollahs' thugs, known as the morality police, 
arrested a 22-year-old woman on the street for the heinous crime of 
allegedly not wearing a head scarf in public. They threw her into a 
police van; they brutally beat her on the way to the detention center; 
they inflicted terrible injuries on her, from which she soon died.
  Countless Iranians were immediately horrified by this cold-blooded 
murder and are now taking to the streets to protest their illegitimate 
outlaw regime. They are burning hijabs and protesting the oppression 
under which they have suffered every day for 43 years. In the murder of 
this young woman, we see the true face of the ayatollahs, a regime 
which our President hopes to enrich with hundreds of billions of 
dollars and to appease with yet another terrible nuclear deal. In fact, 
just minutes ago, President Biden stood before the world at the U.N. 
General Assembly, stating at great length that he would continue 
negotiations toward this dangerous deal while offering only the 
briefest and emptiest of words to reproach the ayatollahs for the 
murder of this young woman for the grave crime of refusing to wear a 
headscarf in public and only the briefest of words for the thousands of 
protesters--at latest reports, seven of which have been murdered and 
many more shot and beaten--I would say this does feel a lot like deja 
vu, a replay of Barack Obama's betrayal of the 2009 Green 
revolutionaries. And why did he betray them in 2009? Was he caught 
flatfooted? Was he overwhelmed by events? Was he simply new to the job? 
naive? even incompetent? No. He betrayed those Green revolutionaries in 
cold blood because his one overriding objective was his terrible 
nuclear deal with Iran.

  He wanted a deal because he believed America was to blame for the 
decades of tension and conflicts with Iran; that America had sinned and 
we needed to atone for our sins against Iran and to pull in our horns; 
and therefore he stood idly by so as not to offend the mullahs and 
their street militias as they beat the Iranian people.
  And, today, for the very same reason, Democrats are once again 
selling out those brave Iranian protesters so they can once again try 
to buy the friendship of the oppressive ayatollahs. The U.S. Congress 
should stand with the Iranian people and prevent another betrayal by a 
Democratic President. And

[[Page S4889]]

you wouldn't think it would be that hard. I mean, on face value, you 
would think self-professed progressive Democrats would stand up as one 
against a so-called morality police who arrested a woman for the grave 
crime of not wearing a scarf over her hair in public and then beat her 
so severely that she died in custody.
  Imagine what would happen if this had occurred in, say, Saudi Arabia. 
Imagine what these Democrats would be saying if a country in Western 
Europe enforced its laws in this way. You would expect that Democrats 
could marshal just a tiny bit of outrage--the tiniest bit of outrage 
possible when the ayatollahs arrest a woman for not wearing a headscarf 
in public and then beat her to death. But, no, they don't.
  And to be honest, you don't even have to imagine these things either. 
We see how the Democrats have treated Iran for 13 years--as if America 
is at fault and we are the problem and Iran deserves an apology and 
hundreds of billions of dollars and to be brought into the civilized 
world. Look at how they treated Saudi Arabia as a pariah for years. In 
fact, look at Barack Obama's entire response to the Arab Spring in 
2011. It was just like his response to the Green Revolution in 2009 in 
Iran. The Iranian people rise up in protest, silence; the people of 
Egypt rise up in protest, Barack Obama withdraws political support for 
Egypt's leader and demands his immediate resignation; protests in Libya 
where Muammar Qadhafi had been scared straight by George Bush and had 
come out of the cold, Barack Obama attacks his government and 
overthrows him militarily; protests in Syria, silence.
  What is the common thread in those responses in 2009 in Iran and 2011 
in Egypt and Libya and Syria and 2022 in Iran? It is very simple. If 
you are pro-American, you get condemned--maybe overthrown. If you are 
anti-American, you get rewarded with hundreds of billions of dollars 
and a blind eye toward your grave crimes against your people and your 
aggression against America and our allies throughout the region. Again 
and again, the Democrats excuse the crimes of our enemies while they 
obsess over the flaws of our friends.
  As Jeane Kirkpatrick, the legendary Ambassador to the United Nations, 
once said--and it is true today of so many Democrats--``they always 
blame America first.''
  We cannot allow Joe Biden to repeat the mistakes of Barack Obama and 
once again betray the brave people of Iran, which I would remind you is 
a mortal enemy of the United States. So I call on my colleagues to join 
me in standing with the people of Iran, with the brave people of that 
ancient nation who stand in the streets today chanting ``Death to the 
dictator,'' not with the dictator and the ayatollahs who still to this 
day chant ``Death to America.''
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.


                       Treaty Document No. 117-1

  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, China is not a developing nation. China is 
the world's second largest economy. China is the world's largest 
manufacturer, and China is the world's No. 1 creditor. Yet this body, 
the U.S. Senate, is poised to ratify a treaty that ignores those facts 
and treats China with kid gloves. Simply put, the Kigali Amendment 
places America at a competitive disadvantage, using American taxpayer 
dollars to subsidize Chinese companies.
  The Kigali Amendment restricts supplies of compounds called 
hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs, which are refrigerants used in most air-
conditioning and refrigeration systems. The rationale is that HFCs 
leaking out of equipment and into the atmosphere add to climate change. 
However, even the EPA admits that HFCs contribute only five one-
hundreths of 1 degree Celsius to projected increases in global 
temperature.
  As a developing nation, designated as such under the Kigali 
Amendment, China is eligible to receive funding from the $4.5 billion 
Multilateral Fund, of which the United States is, not surprisingly, the 
largest contributor.
  If this treaty is ratified, the United States will be required under 
the treaty to meet strict deadlines for phasing out HFCs, while China 
is given an additional 10-year timeline to come into compliance with 
the same standards. It is doubtful, given its track record, that China 
has any intention of actually meeting its environmental obligations 
under this treaty.
  Treating China as a developing country gives it an unfair advantage 
in the existing HFC market and allows China to continue production, 
allowing that country to continue to undercut the HFC market well into 
the 2040s. As the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, China 
has a long history of disrespecting and disregarding environmental 
standards and has continually increased its emissions and investments 
in coal-fired powerplants since the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
  Under this treaty, Chinese-based HFC producers will get the largest 
share of the controlled market in future supplies needed to keep 
existing cooling systems running. As it has done under past 
environmental treaties, China will continue to produce supplies that 
are not allowed under the updated environmental standards.
  This is part of a conspicuous trend on China's part. China wants to 
get ahead by playing by a different set of rules than the rest of the 
world--and certainly a different set of rules than the United States 
has to live under. We know China ignores the rules and has little 
respect, if any, for international norms, and yet we continue to allow 
China to dominate markets with the financial support of American 
taxpayer dollars.
  This is a point where it just goes too far. We can't give them that. 
They haven't earned that. There is nothing about their behavior to 
suggest that they deserve this treatment. We shouldn't give it to them 
here.
  To that end, later today, the Senate will likely vote on an amendment 
offered by Senator Sullivan and me. Now, it will not fix all of the 
flaws in the Kigali treaty; it will, however, begin to address the 
issue of China receiving special treatment at the expense of the 
American people. It will require the Secretary of State to propose the 
removal of China's designation as a developing nation to the Vienna 
Convention. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of our amendment and 
acknowledge the fact that China is not a developing nation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.


                              Immigration

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, the crisis at our southern border 
continues to break records. For the first time ever, the United States 
has encountered more than 2 million migrants at our southern border in 
a single fiscal year, and that doesn't even include data for the month 
of September.
  Now, my State, the State of Texas, has a 1,200-mile common border 
with Mexico where most of these migrants show up, although some go to 
Arizona, some to New Mexico, and some to California. But the vast 
majority of these 2 million migrants have showed up on our backdoor 
step. This includes a hodgepodge of people, from asylum seekers to 
economic migrants, to criminals, to drug smugglers.
  In each of the last 6 months, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection 
has logged more than 200,000 migrant encounters--for each of the past 6 
months, 200,000 a month. The media used to lose its collective mind 
when 100,000 immigrants arrived in a single month, but I guess the 
public has become desensitize to these numbers because they are so 
huge, and we have now been operating at twice that level for 6 
consecutive months.
  Communities in my State of Texas have struggled to carry the weight 
of President Biden's border crisis, and nobody seemed to care. But the 
moment the burden reached the liberal enclaves of Manhattan and 
Martha's Vineyard, the outrage machine fired up.
  Earlier this year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott began transporting 
migrants to other States and cities to ease the burden on communities 
in Texas. After all, what are we supposed to do? Two million migrants 
show up at the border. Are they supposed to stay there? Well, most of 
them have been in contact with relatives and other people in other 
cities around the country, and so they eventually make their way to 
their destination. And, if they are asylum seekers, they are given a 
notice to appear for a future court hearing, which probably will never 
occur because of the huge backlog in our immigration courts.
  So Governor Abbott did what any reasonable person would do and began

[[Page S4890]]

sending these migrants to other places where they eventually will end 
up at their final destination, wherever that may be. You can imagine 2 
million migrants showing up on your border and what the strain on local 
health systems is like, what the strain is on emergency response 
services. The more migrants that show up on our backdoor step, the 
lower the capacity to care for taxpayers who pay taxes to make sure 
those services are available.
  At the same time, nongovernmental organizations--we call them NGOs--
along the border are expected to pick up the Federal Government's slack 
and care for the migrants, which harms those charities' ability to 
support more Texans and other Americans who rely on them.
  To state the obvious, the burden of this crisis should not fall on 
our border communities. The Federal Government, after all, is charged 
with the responsibility of managing our international borders, and that 
includes migration.
  Simply stated, the Biden administration has refused to deal with this 
crisis or, frankly, even to really acknowledge it. But that doesn't 
change the fact that my State--or any other State, for that matter--
should not be left to manage the fallout alone.
  Now, since April, more than 11,000 migrants have voluntarily boarded 
buses from Texas to Washington, DC; New York; and Chicago. In the past, 
the leaders of these cities have made it clear that they would welcome 
migrants with open arms. They self-designate as a sanctuary city. Well, 
now this is their opportunity to provide that sanctuary and those 
services and relieve some of the burden on the border States that have 
borne the disproportionate burden for all this time. But you would have 
thought that something nefarious was going on or a genuine public 
emergency had occurred. They don't care a whit about 2 million people 
showing up on the Texas border. But when they show up on a bus in 
Washington, DC, or Chicago or New York, they howl like a dog that has 
been hit with a rock.
  After ignoring the border crisis during the entirety of the Biden 
administration, the arrival of a few thousands migrants in these 
sanctuary cities has put them into an absolute panic. The Democratic 
Mayor of Washington, DC, for example, declared a public health 
emergency after her city received only a few thousand migrants. Two 
million migrants at the border in my State, Arizona, New Mexico, and 
California, and they didn't raise a peep. But a few thousand migrants 
to show up here in Washington, DC--roughly the same number that arrive 
on the southern border every single day--you would have thought there 
was an emergency.
  The Democratic mayor of New York said that his city is ``nearly to 
the breaking point.'' This is a city of 8\1/2\ million people. Yet the 
mayor said his city is near the breaking point even though it has 
welcomed only a few thousand migrants. Give me a break.
  Our colleague from Illinois, the majority whip, called the 
transportation of these migrants ``cruel and inhumane.'' Giving people 
a bus ride to their ultimate destination strikes me as not cruel and 
not inhumane. The White House Press Secretary had the temerity to say 
it was ``shameful and reckless.'' Well, what is shameful and reckless 
is the Biden administration's border crisis that it simply ignored for 
the last 2 years.
  Vice President Kamala Harris even went so far as to call this ``the 
height of irresponsibility'' and a ``dereliction of duty.'' I doubt 
Vice President Harris recognizes the many layers of irony in that 
statement. After all, last March, she was designated as the border czar 
for the Biden administration, but she wouldn't visit the border. She 
was charged, by the President of the United States, with finding 
solutions to address this ongoing crisis. If she wants to talk about 
dereliction of duty, her refusal to acknowledge, much less address, the 
border crisis is a prime example of irresponsibility and dereliction of 
duty.

  But what is even more misleading about her statement is the fact that 
transporting migrants to cities far from the southern border is nothing 
new. In fact, the Biden administration has been doing it all along. 
Here is a chart. It shows the cities that have been receiving migrants 
from the Biden administration since the President became President of 
the United States in January of 2021: In Washington State, Yakima, if I 
am pronouncing that correctly; Minneapolis; Denver; Phoenix; Yuma; even 
Atlanta; White Plains; Scranton; Baltimore; Harrisburg; Allentown; 
Jacksonville, FL; Birmingham, AL; Houston, TX; Brownsville; San 
Antonio; Dallas--all of these cities have been the recipients of 
migrants transported by the Biden administration.
  In April of last year, the Associated Press published a story with 
the headline ``Unaccompanied children from border arrive in 
Pennsylvania.'' The following month, the local news station in 
Chattanooga, TN, posted a story with the headline ``Late-night flights 
carrying migrant children arrive in Chattanooga.'' Here is another 
headline from October of last year: ``Biden administration quietly 
flies illegal immigrants to New York in the middle of the night.'' We 
didn't hear the howls of protest from Mayor Adams or the Governor when 
the Biden administration was doing what they are now complaining about. 
Though they don't talk about it very often, the Biden administration 
has a history of transporting migrants to cities far from the U.S.-
Mexico border, and they didn't call it shameful or reckless then.
  Just to be clear, when somebody claims asylum at the border and 
passes an initial test of a credible fear of persecution, they are then 
given a notice to appear for a future court hearing that may be years 
off, with millions of cases in the backlog. That is called a notice to 
appear, and it shouldn't surprise anybody that, over the years, after 
people have already made their way into the interior of the United 
States, that many of them don't show up for their court hearing. This 
is part of what the Border Patrol said is a lack of consequences 
associated with entering the United States in an irregular fashion. Oh, 
by the way, 90 percent of the people who do show up for their court 
hearing are not granted asylum. They don't qualify.
  As I have stressed on many occasions, Mr. President, communities in 
my State do not have the capacity, the infrastructure, or the resources 
to handle this crisis alone. As New York City, the largest city in 
America, raises alarms over a few thousand migrants, I can't help but 
think about what happened when 15,000 Haitian migrants showed up under 
a bridge in Del Rio, TX, a town of 35,000 people. The group of migrants 
who showed up under that bridge in Del Rio equated to more than 40 
percent of the city's population. Can you imagine what a challenge that 
was just to feed people, provide them humane treatment, sanitation. But 
if you extrapolate that 15,000 in a city of 35,000, that would be the 
equivalent of more than 3 million people showing up in New York City or 
280,000 arriving in Washington, DC, in the course of just 1 week.
  So whether they intended to do so or not, the mayors of Washington, 
DC and New York City--and Chicago, for that matter--have shown that the 
weight of this crisis is extraordinarily heavy, and they are only 
experiencing a tiny fraction of what Texas communities have faced every 
day for the last year and a half. And do you know what? Apparently the 
Biden administration simply doesn't care. As these mayors now know, 
caring for these migrants who cross our border is a herculean task 
because of the sheer volume of people coming across.
  Legal immigration is part of the secret to our success as a country. 
We naturalize a million people a year. But these are people who have 
chosen to jump ahead of those waiting in line to enter the country 
lawfully, and we simply don't have the resources in place at the border 
or other places to deal with this vast tsunami of humanity--food, 
clothing, shelter, medical care, translation services, legal services, 
sanitation. Communities in Texas apparently have been expected to bear 
the entire brunt and the entire burden. It is time consuming, it is 
labor intensive, it is extraordinarily expensive, and it is dangerous.
  The criminal organizations that are getting rich moving these 
migrants into the country for $5-, $10-, $15,000 a person are flooding 
the Border Patrol with these migrants, diverting necessary resources 
from the Border Patrol from interdicting the drugs that

[[Page S4891]]

are entering our country that killed 108,000 Americans last year alone. 
Seventy-one thousand of those 108,000 died of fentanyl overdose, a 
synthetic opioid. Precursors come from China, get to Mexico, are 
manufactured there, and are smuggled into the United States. And 
fentanyl has taken far too many lives in every State and in every city 
in this Nation, and yet the Biden administration has not awakened to 
the fact that they are being played; that part of this business model, 
if you want to call it that, of flooding the border with migrants is to 
divert the Border Patrol and law enforcement officials from stopping 
these drugs, this poison, from coming into the country.
  Then, yes, in every city in the Nation, we have seen a spike in 
crime. Do you know who the distribution network is in the United States 
for the drugs that the cartels smuggle across the border? It is gangs 
in every city and in every State in the country. And who is responsible 
for most of the gun violence and crime in our cities? It is these gangs 
that are the principal distribution network for the drugs that come 
across the border. Yet the Biden administration has not connected the 
dots. I don't know why. The DEA, or the Drug Enforcement 
Administration, the FBI Director--there are a lot of people in the 
administration who could inform the President and the Vice President of 
what the facts are, but they apparently are not even curious, or, if 
they know, they don't seem to care.
  From El Paso to the Rio Grande Valley, as I said, Texas shares a 
1,200-mile border with Mexico out of our total border of 2,000 miles. 
The communities situated along that border simply cannot handle the 
monumental job of dealing with this flow of migrants and the failure of 
the Federal Government to live up to its responsibilities. But this 
isn't a partisan matter.
  My friend Oscar Leeser, who is the mayor of El Paso, TX--he is a 
proud Democrat--he has been busing migrants to get them off the streets 
of El Paso to the cities where they want to go.
  He said a few days ago:

       People are not coming to El Paso, they're coming to 
     America.

  It is only fair for other parts of the country to bear the burden 
that we have borne alone in my State and in other border States, as 
long as the Federal Government is simply advocating its responsibility 
to deal with illegal immigration and to fix this crisis. They know what 
to do. They simply are refusing to do it, presumably because some of 
their political supporters don't believe in anything except open 
borders.
  The Biden administration has completely abdicated its duty to secure 
the border, and it has failed to supply border communities with the 
resources they need to try to manage this fallout. The truth is, no 
matter what the resources were, the numbers are just overwhelming. And 
that is the point. The cartels get rich; they smuggle drugs and 
additional migrants; and that is the point. So it is not going to stop 
until the Biden administration wakes up out of its deep sleep and deals 
with the reality of what is happening at the border.
  In the last 12 months, Customs and Border Protection has encountered 
more than 2.3 million migrants at the southern border, and that total 
grows every single day. All you have to do is turn on your TV set and 
see people streaming across the border, many of them turning themselves 
in, getting into this asylum system where they ultimately melt into the 
great American heartland, never to be heard from again, successfully 
making their way into the country.
  Our amazing men and women at the Border Patrol are grappling with 
staffing shortages and poor morale. How would you like to be a police 
officer where the mayor and city council say: Well, we had to hire a 
police force, but we are really not going to fund that police force or 
we are not going to do anything to recruit more people to serve in that 
police force. And do you know what? We really don't care whether they 
enforce the law or not.
  That is the message that the Border Patrol is receiving from the 
Biden administration. So, of course, morale is bad. Of course, it is 
hard to recruit. The agents are outnumbered, they are overwhelmed, and, 
frankly, disgusted with the lack of leadership.
  Border communities are buckling under the weight of vast humanitarian 
needs, and now even the self-proclaimed sanctuary cities don't seem to 
want to help. Unfortunately, the Biden administration appears to have 
no intention of fixing the problem. And it sure seems like they don't 
think anybody else should have to help either.
  It is leaving Texas and other border States to buckle under the 
weight of a crisis that we had no hand in creating. It is forcing Texas 
taxpayers to make up for the failure of the Federal Government to 
perform its responsibilities. And what is worse, President Biden, Vice 
President Harris, and Members of this body are trying to paint my State 
as the enemy for trying to deal with the hand that it has been dealt 
while they continue to refuse to lend a helping hand.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.


                              DISCLOSE Act

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor and kick 
off the process that will culminate tomorrow with our vote on the 
DISCLOSE Act.
  The DISCLOSE Act will get rid of dark money in our politics. 
President Biden gave a good speech about it yesterday to help stir 
interests and progress in this area.
  There are problems with dark money in and of itself. It contributes 
to what has been called the tsunami of slime in our politics, because 
when the slimy ad has a fake, phony front group's name on it and no 
actual real entity or company or association is accountable for that, 
well, then you can lie to your heart's content, you can smear to your 
heart's content, and there is no accountability.
  So there are reasons for getting dark money out of our elections on 
their own: just giving disproportionate power to special interests, 
sliming up our elections, allowing a lot of bad actors powers that they 
don't deserve, and putting enormous power in the hands of people who 
are, A, politically active enough to be willing to spend that kind of 
money and have a motive in legislative outcomes to spend that kind of 
money that regular citizens can't begin to match.

  But there is a lot more to it than that. There is a lot more to it 
than that, because, like corruption, dark money is used to achieve 
other goals. And those other goals have had very important policy 
effects in our country.
  Climate change we are dealing with daily now in floods, in fires, in 
droughts, in species moving about--particularly in Rhode Island, our 
ocean fisheries are moving about. The oceans are acidifying. We are 
putting essential operating systems of our planet in danger and onto a 
course that mankind has never seen before in the entire history of 
humankind.
  When I got here in 2007, this was addressed as a bipartisan problem. 
There were three different bipartisan Senate bills, all of which were 
very consequential. It would have made a huge difference. Senator 
McCain ran for President carrying the Republican Party banner with a 
significant and serious climate platform, and it looked like democracy 
was responding to this problem in a responsible way. All of that 
activity came to an instant shuttering halt in January of 2010.
  What happened in January of 2010? What happened in January of 2010 
was that the U.S. Supreme Court let loose one of the worst decisions it 
has ever rendered--the Citizens United decision--and that decision 
allowed unlimited money to flow into politics.
  Of course, if you can spend unlimited money in politics, you suddenly 
have an unprecedented motive to hide it. If the most you can give is 
$3,500 or $5,000 from your PAC, it is not worth putting a lot of effort 
into hiding that; plus, nobody really cares. But if you can give $35 
million, plus, let's say you are a polluting fossil fuel company and 
you don't want people to know that, now it is worth putting quite a lot 
of money into the apparatus of hiding who you are. It is an expensive 
apparatus. It is a real apparatus. Senators have gone to the floor 
before to describe it. We have used this graphic.
  This is the web of climate denial that has been chronicled by 
scientists who study as a phenomenon climate denial and how the money 
flies around

[[Page S4892]]

through these different groups and how they use it to hide what they 
are doing on climate.
  Well, once that got launched, that was the end of bipartisanship on 
climate. We lost a decade. I think history will show that the lost 
decade from January 2010 until now is one that these pages and children 
across the country will pay a very steep price for.
  Why would they be willing to do it? Well, the fossil fuel industry 
has an annual subsidy of $660 billion, basically, from being allowed to 
pollute for free--$660 billion.
  If you are protecting a $660 billion subsidy, how much would you be 
willing to spend any given year to protect it? If you spent $6.6 
billion a year, you would still be earning 100 times your investment. 
Sure enough, we have seen dark money explode into expenditures by the 
billion. And as that happened, climate progress ended.
  Look at voter suppression. Across the country, there was a wave of 
Republican State legislatures passing voter suppression laws. Was it an 
amazing coincidence that they all happened to do that at the same time? 
Evidently not, because there is actually a tape from Heritage Action--
one of the dark money groups behind those voter suppression campaigns--
where the person briefing the big donors admitted this:

       We're working with these state legislators . . . in some 
     cases we actually draft [the bills] for them or we have a 
     sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation so it 
     has that grassroots, you know, from-the-bottom-up type of 
     vibe.

  The whole thing was a dark money fake fed into these State 
legislatures by dark money and no small amount.

       This is a $24 million investment--

  The speaker said--

       We . . . started . . . right after the November election. . 
     . . we've driven hundreds of 1000s of calls, emails, placed 
     letters to the editor, hosted events, and run television and 
     digital ads.

  So voter suppression is an artifact of dark money.
  And, last, Court capture. I have got a series of speeches that I have 
given so far--18 of them. When I do, I put my ``Scheme'' poster up 
because this was a scheme; indeed, a scheme and a half.
  At this point, what we know is that at least $580 million was spent 
on phony front groups using dark money out to capture the Court. We 
don't know how much additionally went into political coffers to reward 
people for their Court-packing enterprise or to threaten to punish 
people if they didn't go along with the Court-packing enterprise, but 
it was quite a show.
  This is just one little node of that $580 million Court capture 
enterprise. It shows two groups, which is the current, sort of, best 
practices--worst practices, better to say--in political influence. You 
have a 501(c)3 and a 501(c)4 side by side, same location, same staff, 
indistinguishable in any real sense. And then in this case, they pushed 
what they called fictitious names so that their phony front groups had 
phony front groups that had names like Judicial Education Project and 
Honest Elections Project Action. But here is one that was somewhat 
significant, the Judicial Crisis Network, because Judicial Crisis 
Network took $15 million checks, $17 million checks and turned that 
money to TV ads to stop the confirmation of Justice Garland and to push 
through the confirmation of Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. 
So dark money flows into all these other areas.
  If you like climate denial, you love dark money. If you like voters 
having their votes suppressed by partisan legislators, you love dark 
money. And if you like a captured Court that dances to the tune of the 
dark money donors who stocked it, you love dark money. And that is 
before we even get to its pernicious, insidious, clandestine effect in 
our elections.

  With that, I see that my time has expired and that Senator Grassley 
is here for his time, so I yield the floor to my friend Senator 
Grassley.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hickenlooper). The Senator from Iowa.


                                Fentanyl

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today, roughly 175 Americans will die 
from fentanyl poisoning. Many of them won't even know that they have 
taken the fentanyl. They will think they have taken Xanax for anxiety 
or oxycodone for pain. That is what Devin Anderson--you will see his 
picture here in a minute--of Shelby, IA, thought when he took a 
fentanyl pill marked like an oxy.
  Devin had fought hard for his sobriety. He had enrolled in treatment 
and moved back home, but he was struggling with anxiety. To cope, he 
took a pill from a friend.
  Devin's coworker came to pick him up for work in the early morning of 
February 24 of this year. Devin wasn't ready, so his coworker called 
him. When Devin didn't answer, he called again. Devin's 14-year-old 
brother heard the phone ringing. He went downstairs to investigate and 
found Devin unresponsive.
  Devin was 23 years old when he died. His mom wants you to know that 
Devin was a kind person and he was loved by his friends.
  In 2021, fentanyl killed more Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 
than any other cause. That is more than COVID-19, cancer, and car 
accidents combined.
  Six months ago, I stood where I am now and asked for a permanent 
solution for fentanyl scheduling. Today, we are absolutely no closer to 
a permanent solution than we were back then, 6 months ago.
  While Congress has been waiting to take action, the cartels have not. 
The cartels have simply rebranded, coloring fentanyl like candy to 
addict America's children. Fentanyl is in our schools, like in 
Blackwood, NJ, where a 12-year-old overdosed on a schoolbus after his 
uncle made him clean a fentanyl trap house; or in Chipman Junior High 
School in California, where a 13-year-old brought 150 fake Percocet 
pills laced with fentanyl, with 4 out of every 10 fake pills containing 
a potentially lethal dosage of fentanyl. Both of these schools are 
hours away from the Mexican border, but despite Customs and Border 
Protection's efforts, fentanyl has reached our children's hands.
  So when the Vice President tells the press that our border is secure, 
we all know that is just plain wrong and irresponsible, and that 
attitude, that the border is secure, ends up killing.
  In the Federal Government's absence, parents like Arletha and Robert 
Gilliam have been forced to fill the void. Their daughter Ciara died 
last month because of fentanyl. And you see Ciara right here. By all 
accounts, Ciara had a big heart. As her dad puts it, if you were in a 
bad mood, Ciara would make sure that that bad mood didn't last very 
long. Even though she had graduated from Iowa's Ankeny Centennial High 
School and lived on her own, she still FaceTimed her mom every day.
  But on August 23 of this year, no one could get hold of Ciara, so her 
grandparents drove by her house. Her car was in the driveway. Ciara's 
grandparents knocked, both on her doors and her windows, with no 
response. Finally, Ciara's grandpa crawled through her bedroom window. 
There, he found her dead on her bedroom floor. Fentanyl shut down her 
organs, and she went to sleep. She never woke up again. She was only 22 
years old.
  Ciara's parents are now searching for answers they never should have 
had to find in the first place. They have offered a $50,000 award to 
locate the dealer who supplied the fake pill that killed their 
daughter. They deserve better than that. They deserve congressional 
action, and they deserved it in 2017 when the DEA, the Drug Enforcement 
Administration, first scheduled fentanyl.
  Grieving parents are the unsung heroes in the fight against fentanyl. 
Time after time, they push through their heartbreaks to share their 
stories, as you have heard me tell for two families, and now they 
demand action so that more kids don't die. It is time for Congress to 
match the efforts of those parents.
  The Department of Justice has been very clear:

       The permanent scheduling of FRS is critical to the safety 
     and health of our communities and class-wide scheduling 
     provides a vital tool to combat overdose deaths in [America].

  End of quote from the Department of Justice.
  For those whom we have lost, like Ciara and Devin, and for the 
countless lives that we will save if we take action, it is time that we 
give them the

[[Page S4893]]

tool they need, and that is the scheduling of fentanyl--and on a 
permanent, long-term basis.


               Combating Violent and Dangerous Crime Act

  Mr. President, on another subject--and a shorter subject for anybody 
waiting to talk--it is dangerous to live in many places in America, 
especially in blue cities. Like inflation, violent crime remains very 
high. For example, compared to 2019 midyear figures, America's largest 
cities have seen a 50-percent increase in murders and a 36-percent 
increase in aggravated assaults. And it is no mystery what is causing 
this spike in crime. Blue city progressive, pro-criminal prosecutors 
and radical bail reform laws fuel this spike, a spike in violent crime, 
by letting dangerous, repeat criminals go unpunished and, in some 
cases, even uncharged.
  The recent tragedies in Memphis, TN, earlier this month underscore 
the dangers that families face at the hands of chronic criminals. And 
remember the words ``chronic criminals'' because the fact is that the 
majority of violent crimes are committed by a relative handful of 
repeat offenders like the two in Memphis. For example, criminals in 
Chicago charged with shootings and murders have, on average, 12 prior 
arrests. In Oakland, CA, only around 400 people, or just one-tenth of 1 
percent of Oakland's population, were responsible for a majority of the 
city's murders. Now, just think, one-tenth of 1 percent of the 
population of that city is responsible for a majority of the murders in 
Oakland.
  Federal law enforcement has a unique and very vital role in targeting 
repeat violent criminals, but for the last 2 years, the Senate's 
ability to actually pass bills that expand criminal law to reduce 
violent crime and target repeat violent criminals has hit a brick wall. 
It is just impossible to get any consensus even though we all know it 
is a very major problem.
  In July, as part of my effort to promote a solution to this problem 
of major crime caused by a very small number of people in each 
community, I introduced a bill that I entitled ``Combating Violent and 
Dangerous Crime,'' which is cosponsored by 26 of my Republican 
colleagues in the Senate. The House companion bill was introduced 
September 15, with seven Republican cosponsors.
  The bill has seven simple solutions that will help to reverse this 
violent crime spike by putting dangerous criminals in jail and keeping 
them there. These commonsense solutions will fix real problems and 
bring immediate relief and increased safety to communities plagued by 
the scourge of violent crime.
  Given the unprecedented increase in murders, we can and we should 
make it easier to prosecute murders. This bill will do that.
  Mr. President, 2021 was the deadliest year to be a law enforcement 
officer since 9/11. We should make it easier to prosecute people who 
attack law enforcement. This bill will do that.
  Carjackings are way up nationwide--200, 300, and even 400 percent in 
some cities. We should deter carjacking with sufficient sentences. This 
bill will do that.
  Dangerous drugs are being marketed to young people as colorful 
candy--I just spoke about that--and these children are dying from 
overdoses. We should make it so that no children die from fentanyl made 
to look like candy. This bill will do that.
  Bank robbery, kidnapping--the list of violent crimes that would be 
strengthened by this bill goes on and on.
  I stand ready to work with Democrats who want to provide relief to 
their constituents from this crimewave. So if any of them are open to 
any of these provisions, I want them to know that I am ready to work 
with them. Let's partner together to make the American people safer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.


                               Inflation

  Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Mr. President, over the past week, Americans were 
hit once again with a grave inflation report. Worse, the American 
people got more evidence of just how out of touch the White House and 
congressional Democrats are with the damage inflation is doing to 
families across the country.
  We were all hoping President Biden's crushing inflation might show 
signs of easing and give folks a chance to catch their breath after 
months and months of watching their paychecks shrink. That is not what 
happened at all. Inflation is up 8.3 percent from a year ago--a 
disastrous number.
  We are feeling the inflation in every aspect of our lives, from 
paying utility bills to gassing up cars, to rent and insurance, and, 
especially, to the basics like food. Grocery prices are up 13.5 percent 
from this time last year, which is a crushing blow to most Americans 
who visit their local store once a week, like I do. Milk is up 17 
percent. Bread and chicken are up 16 percent. Eggs are up an outrageous 
40 percent. And the list goes on and on.
  I do my own shopping for my family, and I see this weekly, and it is 
incredible. This is a reality, but President Biden appears to be living 
in a very, very different reality. When the latest bad inflation 
numbers were released last week, the President and Washington Democrats 
threw a party on the White House lawn. That is right, a party--a lawn 
party. The President and Democrats celebrated as the rest of us watched 
the Dow plummet and received an inflation report confirming that this 
is the worst year for food and electricity inflation since the fallout 
from President Jimmy Carter.
  What exactly did they celebrate? Their latest reckless, Big 
Government spending bill.
  I don't have to remind you that, just over a year ago, the Democrats 
rammed through their $2 trillion spending spree despite economists 
warning that it would be a catalyst for rampant inflation. Economists 
warned us then, and they are warning us now, about the misnamed 
Inflation Reduction Act; namely, that it won't do anything to ease 
inflation, but it will certainly add to the deficit.
  Apparently, hosting a big party is preferable than heeding these 
nonpartisan warnings and getting to work to get our Nation back on the 
right track.
  When the ``Inflation Act'' was on the floor, Republicans tried 
countless times to adopt solutions to tackle inflation, crime, and 
secure our border. But our efforts were consistently shut down because 
not one Senate Democrat could spare a penny from the Green New Deal. 
No, they have their own priorities, and they are awfully out of touch 
with the priorities of American families.
  On Sunday, we were given more evidence that the President is living 
in a completely different world than the rest of us. The President 
appeared on ``60 Minutes,'' where he discussed several challenges 
currently facing our Nation, only, according to him, our Nation is 
doing swell. And indeed, the President seemed to paint a rosy picture 
of little to no inflation and suggested we should be relieved by the 
new inflation numbers.
  When asked what he could do better and faster to help Americans get 
some relief at the grocery store checkout line, he claimed inflation 
was up ``hardly at all.''
  ``Hardly at all''? Say that to parents paying 40 percent more for a 
dozen of eggs just to feed their children breakfast. Say that to 
workers who are watching their savings dwindle month after month 
because their paychecks can't keep up with these prices. Say that to 
the Americans who are just barely getting by in this economy.
  President Biden, you may not have to visit the grocery store or pay 
an electricity bill, but my constituents do.
  Time and time again, the President and his allies in Congress have 
proven he is out of touch with American priorities and in denial about 
the real suffering and fears of the American people. They are right to 
question whether they can still afford the leadership they are getting 
out of the White House and the Democrat-led Congress.
  It is high time for the President and Democrats to align their 
priorities with those of the people, allow real solutions to be 
considered on the Senate floor, and get out our economy back on its 
feet.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I think you all might remember when the 
Biden administration's so-called

[[Page S4894]]

experts claimed that inflation was ``transitory.'' It ended up that 
they couldn't have been more wrong by using that word.
  Since President Biden took office, Iowans have seen prices rise 13.7 
percent. That adds an extra $666 to their monthly budget. Couple that 
with falling real wages, and Iowans have been strapped very thin.
  This combination of rising prices and falling real wages has hit 
rural Iowa communities particularly hard. As a result, according to a 
report issued by Iowa State University, the disposable income of rural 
Iowans fell 33 percent over the past 12 months alone. It is no wonder, 
then, that the high cost of living is the number one concern that I 
hear about from Iowans as I travel all of our 99 counties.
  However, here in DC--and remember, DC is an island surrounded by 
reality--here in this town, the primary concern of President Biden and 
congressional Democrats has been enacting their very partisan agenda.
  They have refused to work with Republicans on sensible policies to 
tame inflation and provide targeted relief. In the process of doing 
that, they haven't even followed the advice of their own brethren. And 
I will use Larry Summers as an example, that Harvard professor and 
former Secretary of Treasury. He said, way back in January, before this 
President was sworn in, that the economy was turned around: Don't spend 
any more money or you are going to have inflation.
  And, immediately, within 60 days of being in office, this new 
President and this new Congress passed a $2 trillion appropriations 
bill to feed the fires of inflation.
  So instead of taming inflation, they rebranded the reckless tax-and-
spending spree that they had pursued for more than a year as a bill 
recently passed called the Inflation Reduction Act, which I call the 
``Inflation Enhancement Act''--never mind that outside experts 
uniformly concluded the bill's hodgepodge of the Green New Deal and the 
subsidies that go with that program and the tax hikes would do nothing 
to address inflation today.
  Of course, if you want to stop inflation, now caused by excessive 
government spending, the first thing you should do is stop spending; or 
another way you can say it--and common sense dictates this: When you 
are in a hole, quit digging.
  Instead, Democrats doubled down with Big Government spending and 
coupled it with job-killing tax hikes. The National Association of 
Manufacturers said they would lose about 217,000 jobs. Democrats' 
policy decisions made even less sense given that, only a week before, 
we learned our economy had shrunk for two straight quarters, indicating 
recession.
  And everyone knows, as President Obama once said--and this seems to 
be the third term of the Obama Presidency, but this is what he said 
when he was actually President:

       The last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the 
     middle of a recession.

  And yet it was done in that bill in August by more than $300 billion. 
The last thing our economy needed was another tax-and-spending spree, 
but Democrats just couldn't let go of their wish list.
  What is more, at the height of hypocrisy, Democrats touted the 
Inflation Reduction Act as an example of fiscal responsibility. Yet the 
supposed savings they claim will result from the bill was then 
immediately dwarfed in just 1 day of actions by President Biden's 
unilateral student loan announcement, which will cost American 
taxpayers at least $500 billion. And some people are saying it could 
cost up to $1 trillion.
  When President Biden announced that he was wiping out $10,000 to 
$20,000 of student loan debt for people making as much as $150,000 or 
$250,000 for households, that likely illegal action will send the bill 
for this student loan giveaway to Americans who did not attend college 
or people who graduated from college already paying off their college 
expenses. And at the same time, it is going to fuel the fires of 
inflation.
  So much, then, for the lip service about deficit reduction and 
inflation. But we now know that that inflation was not transitory. It 
is persistent. Iowans are sick and tired of paying the price for the 
failures of this Biden economy.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                          Biden Administration

  Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss how 
consumers are paying more for less reliable energy as a result of the 
policies of the Biden administration and congressional Democrats. North 
Dakotans are paying 60 percent more for gasoline since January of 2021, 
and diesel remains at nearly $5 a gallon.
  Prices are high because we have a supply problem. Our friends and 
allies in Europe are facing an even worse supply crisis, and unless the 
Biden administration changes its approach, American families and 
businesses will continue to face these inflationary pressures.
  Fortunately, the solution is clear. More energy supply means 
consumers pay less. More supply is what helps us get prices under 
control, get inflation under control, and consumers relief.
  In 2019, the United States was producing nearly 13 million barrels of 
oil a day. Today, that production is down at about 11.8 million barrels 
a day. That is because the policies of the Democrats in Congress and 
the Biden administration include blocking energy production on Federal 
lands, and that is curtailing supply. Our vast supply of taxpayer-owned 
oil, gas, and coal resources on Federal lands are a national strategic 
asset. Yet President Biden and his ``keep it in the ground'' allies 
treat our NG reserves as a liability.
  Recent analysis by the Wall Street Journal shows that the Biden 
administration leased only 130,000 acres for new oil and gas production 
in the first 19 months of this administration. Let me repeat that 
number. The Biden administration has only leased 130,000 acres for new 
oil and gas production in its first 19 months. For comparison, 
President Reagan leased 47.6 million acres during the same time period. 
The Biden administration, in just under 2 years, leased 130,000 acres. 
The Reagan administration leased 47.6 million acres during the same 
amount of time.
  That is the point. We need to take the handcuffs off our producers if 
we are going to produce more energy here at home. And nobody produces 
energy better, more cost effectively, more dependably, and with better 
environmental stewardship than America. We do the best job of anybody 
in the world. New energy leases are needed to grow oil production and 
supplies for the long-term, otherwise production will continue to fall, 
and that means higher energy costs for our consumers.
  Instead of defending previously held lease sales, the Biden 
administration is relying on litigation from environmental allies to 
block permits needed for energy development. That only further 
increases our reliance on adversaries like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, 
countries with little or no regard for environmental stewardship or 
human rights. They are our adversaries. How in the world can we put 
ourselves subject to their energy production? Energy production is part 
of national security. Energy security is national security.
  Natural gas prices also remain high and families are being hit with 
higher utility bills. Electricity prices are up nearly 16 percent 
compared to last year. As we approach the winter months, natural gas 
bills are up 33 percent over the same period, and with winter coming 
on, they are going to go up more.
  The Biden administration's policies are undermining our energy 
security, and because the cost of energy is built into our entire 
economy, inflation has been driven to record heights. Everything you 
buy has an energy component in it. When energy costs go up because the 
administration won't let us produce more here at home, it causes 
inflation in everything you buy--everything you buy, not just at the 
gas station but in the grocery store or anywhere else because of the 
energy component.
  Despite these challenges, President Biden and congressional Democrats 
doubled down by passing their partisan

[[Page S4895]]

tax-and-spend bill that will make it more expensive to produce energy 
in the United States. The bill includes a new tax on natural gas. That 
doesn't make energy cheaper; that makes it more expensive. The bill 
includes a new tax on natural gas and also makes oil and gas production 
on Federal lands more expensive through higher fees and royalty rates. 
So they are driving up the cost of energy.
  In addition to levying $739 billion in new taxes on hard-working 
families, the bill was loaded with $370 billion in Green New Deal 
spending. Instead of tax hikes and wasteful spending, President Biden 
needs to take the handcuffs off our domestic energy production. Instead 
of higher taxes and fees, more mandates, and less energy development, 
we need to take the handcuffs off our domestic energy producers to 
lower energy costs and help reduce the burden of inflation, which harms 
every American but particularly those low-income Americans who are 
struggling with the higher cost of everything from putting food on the 
table to gas at the pump, to anything and everything they buy. We need 
to change this policy direction, and it needs to happen now.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. ROSEN). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Wyoming.


                               Inflation

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk 
about the Biden economic crisis that the American people are facing 
every day.
  Last week, Democrats threw a big party at the White House; even 
Hollywood celebrities flew in to celebrate. If you take a look at what 
was going on, on the split-screen television all across the country, 
they saw Democrats celebrating and the stock market collapsing; 
people's savings, retirements evaporating; Democrats dancing.
  It was the worst day on Wall Street since the pandemic, and by the 
time the party at the White House was over, $1.6 trillion was erased 
from the value of those who hold American stocks.
  So why did this happen? The reason that this happened was because 
just hours earlier the world found out that inflation in America went 
up once again.
  Prices people have to pay for things are up more than 13 percent 
since the day Joe Biden took office. Costs which economists predicted 
would go down last month, actually went up instead.
  Well, the economists made a prediction, but the American people know 
what they are facing every day when they go to the grocery store, pay 
their rent, pay their energy bills, try to buy back-to-school supplies 
for their kids.
  Inflation is now going up after the Democrats passed a reckless tax-
and-spending bill. This is nothing to celebrate even though they were 
down at the White House celebrating. The American people aren't 
celebrating; they are suffering. They are suffering the worst inflation 
in over 40 years.
  Prices have risen faster than wages for 17 consecutive months--17 
months in a row, prices rising faster than wages. With each passing 
month, the American people can afford less and less. Now people have 
cut into their savings, borrowed money, just to get by.
  Credit card debt is climbing. Reports across the Nation are more and 
more people are buying on layaway. People on fixed incomes cannot keep 
up; they are falling further behind. And it is no wonder then that many 
seniors are delaying their retirements.
  Rising costs are hitting our troops. Right now, our troops are 
watching their paychecks disappear, melt away. According to a recent 
report, the Army is now recommending our troops sign up for food 
stamps.
  The U.S. Army--can you imagine such a thing?--is recommending troops 
sign up for food stamps. After the deadly and disgraceful evacuation of 
Afghanistan, people knew Joe Biden had very little respect for our men 
and women in uniform. What we are seeing today is a national failure by 
Joe Biden and the Democrats. Our heroes in uniform should not have to 
rely on welfare in order for them to serve the Nation.
  Our soldiers should not have to find themselves in a battle against 
Joe Biden's inflation.
  Now, the U.S. Senate still hasn't passed a defense bill this year. We 
are waiting to go. Senator Schumer says, well, we will do that next 
month. It just shows that Democrats do not prioritize our national 
defense. It always goes to the bottom of the list--leave it for last. 
Democrats have other priorities like their James Taylor concert last 
week at the White House on the lawn.
  Democrats have been too busy paying off the climate activists to pay 
our troops. The Senate ought to get to work on a defense bill 
immediately. We should ensure that our troops, whether they are serving 
at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, Luke Air Force Base in 
Arizona, or Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, or Buckley Space Force 
Base in Colorado, that they get a raise so they won't further be hurt 
by Joe Biden's inflation.
  Now, many Democrats seem oblivious to the pain and suffering that 
they have caused American families. When Joe Biden took office, 
inflation was essentially nonexistent. A gallon of gas was $2.39. In 
today's prices, it is almost $3.70 a gallon, higher in States like 
Nevada, Washington State, and others.
  When Joe Biden took office, economists were predicting an economic 
boom. Now our economy continues to shrink, and just in a matter of 
months, Joe Biden took us from recovery to recession.
  And recovery right now is nowhere in sight. Consumer confidence is 
worse today than it was during the lockdowns of 2020, hard to believe 
but true. This summer, we saw the lowest consumer confidence ever 
recorded in the history of polling for these sorts of things.
  Families feel very stressed about the future, and prices continue to 
climb. Now, ultimately, this means that we are going to have layoffs at 
a time when people are running out of savings.
  A poll last week showed that people across the country are cutting 
back on spending on just about everything just to keep up, just to 
avoid falling further and further behind. Some are cutting back on 
groceries. Some are growing their own, trying to grow their own food 
instead of going to the grocery store.
  At the same time, the Federal Reserve is getting ready to raise 
interest rates again, maybe as soon as today.
  This year, we have already seen the largest rate hikes in 40 years. 
Rates are going higher and higher and higher as the Democrat-caused 
inflation wildfire continues to burn.
  There is no end in sight and no relief for the pain being caused to 
American families. Mortgage rates have almost doubled this year. They 
are the highest they have been since the great recession, and they are 
going to go even higher.
  At the same time, mortgage applications have dropped significantly. 
More and more people are giving up on the American dream of even owning 
their own home. To make matters worse, it doesn't look like interest 
rates are coming down any time soon.
  You know, it is very easy to cause inflation, very difficult to get 
rid of. Last March, Joe Biden caused inflation with the stroke of a pen 
on a bill that every Democrat in this body voted for, and working 
families all across the country have suffered ever since.
  Interest rate hikes are designed to slow down the economy. And yet we 
have an economy that is already shrinking, and they want to slow it 
down some more. It shrank for the first 6 months of this year. That has 
always been the definition of a recession. The administration is even 
trying to redefine recession while we are in the middle of one because 
they don't want to own it, but they do.
  The pain and suffering that people are being subjected to has no end 
in sight, and the policies of this President and the policies of the 
Democrats who have all voted for it--every one of them--have brought us 
inflation and recession.
  The wealthy elites that run the Democratic Party are doing just fine. 
It is the hard-working men and women all across the country who are 
suffering. Republicans are committed to help lower prices for working 
men and women all around America.

[[Page S4896]]

  Certainly, in my State of Wyoming, it is a major concern, major 
discussion. It is what I hear about. What I heard about Friday at our 
Victoria's football game and the tailgate party is what things cost, 
trying to just stay ahead, trying to keep ahead, trying to fall less 
far behind.
  We are committed to getting the economy back on track. It is time for 
the Democrats to get their priorities straight. We need to pass a 
defense bill to take care of our troops. We need to stop the reckless 
spending and the tax hikes.
  These are the policies that have caused the cost of everyday items to 
continue to go up. The Democrats need to stop strangling American 
energy. That is what is driving up the price, not just at the pump but 
electric bills, home heating, natural gas, all of the things that the 
American people need and want, energy that is affordable, available, 
and reliable.
  The American people deserve much better than what we have been 
getting from the Democrats, and the Democrats--let me point out--are in 
full control of the House, the Senate, and the White House.
  It is their policies and their positions that brought us 40-year high 
inflation, food going up faster and faster, 13 percent inflation since 
the day Joe Biden and the Democrats took over. It is time for a change.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.


                           Amendment No. 5518

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 5518 and 
ask that it be reported by number.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Alaska [Mr. Sullivan], for himself and Mr. 
     Lee, proposes an amendment numbered 5518 to the resolution of 
     ratification to Treaty Document No. 117-1.

  The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To ensure that the People's Republic of China is not treated 
                        as a developing country)

       In section 1, in the section heading, strike 
     ``declaration'' and insert ``declarations and a condition''.
       In section 1, strike ``declaration of section 2'' and 
     insert ``declarations of section 2 and the condition of 
     section 3''.
       In section 2, in the section heading, strike 
     ``declaration'' and insert ``declarations''.
       In section 2, strike ``following declaration'' and all that 
     follows through the period at the end and insert the 
     following: ``following declarations:
       (1) The Kigali amendment is not self-executing.
       (2) The People's Republic of China is not a developing 
     country, and the United Nations and other intergovernmental 
     organizations should not treat the People's Republic of China 
     as such.
       At the end, add the following:

     SEC. 3. CONDITION.

       The advice and consent of the Senate under section 1 is 
     subject to the following condition: Prior to the Thirty-Fifth 
     Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol, the 
     Secretary of State shall transmit to the Secretariat of the 
     Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer a 
     proposal to amend Decision I/12E, ``Clarification of terms 
     and definitions: developing countries,'' made at the First 
     Meeting of the Parties, to remove the People's Republic of 
     China.

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, about 4 years ago, I was part of a 
meeting with several Senators--there were about 11 of us--here in the 
U.S. Capitol with the Chinese Ambassador. And in the meeting, I had 
raised a number of issues about the lack of reciprocity that China has 
with regard to the United States: market access on our trade; their 
ability to invest here but we couldn't invest there; the fact that they 
have all kinds of journalists in America and we can't have journalists 
over there--just across the board on so many things--Confucius 
Institutes in American universities, no equivalent in Chinese 
universities. No reciprocity on so many topics.
  And I will never forget the response of the Chinese Ambassador to the 
United States. With 11 U.S. Senators right there, he said: Well, 
Senator, I agree there is a lack of reciprocity in a number of areas, 
but that is because China is a developing country.
  China is a developing country. That is what he said just 4 years ago. 
And my response was: Mr. Ambassador, with all due respect, can you 
please stop using that talking point about your country being a 
developing country? It is kind of an insult to all of our intelligence. 
And to be honest, you are not a developing country. The American people 
know it; the world knows it; and you need to stop telling everybody and 
using that as a crutch.
  What does that have to do with the amendment that I just called up?
  Well, today, before we vote on the Kigali treaty, I have an amendment 
that I am asking all of my colleagues here in the Senate to support. I 
am not talking about the merits of the Kigali treaty itself. There is 
an element of this treaty that raises a principle that is at stake 
right now that is so important with regard to China, the United States, 
and the rest of the world.
  This treaty that we are getting ready to vote on continues to 
classify China as a ``developing country.''
  Why does that matter?
  Well, as I mentioned, it is a facade. China is not a developing 
country; it is the second largest economy in the world. It is one of 
the most industrialized countries in the world. It has one of the 
biggest militaries in the world. The World Bank even now considers 
China an upper middle income country.
  But what China keeps trying to do in international organizations and 
in international treaties is continue to get the same benefits as truly 
developing countries, such Ghana, Somalia, Nigeria, Bangladesh. These 
are the countries that need global assistance, not China.
  So my amendment today is very simple to this treaty. It first says 
that the U.S. Senate concludes:

       The People's Republic of China is not a developing country, 
     and the United Nations and other intergovernmental 
     organizations should not treat the People's Republic of China 
     as such.

  And then my amendment goes one step further, and it makes the advice 
and consent of the Senate for this treaty contingent upon the Secretary 
of State of the United States going to the U.N. and the Vienna 
Convention Secretariat to file an amendment to the treaty that 
clarifies that China should be taken off the annex that defines it as a 
developing country.
  So we have a declaration--China is not a developing country--and then 
it says to the Secretary of State, before you get the advice and 
consent of the U.S. Senate, you shall go to the U.N. and file an 
instrument that says China should be removed from the list of countries 
to this treaty that are called developing countries.
  And, again, this matters. This matters, for example, on this treaty.
  Why?
  Because in this treaty, the developing country annex gives those 
countries under that annex much longer time to implement the treaty, 
and it actually gives them funding from the U.N. to implement the 
treaty.
  Now, where does that funding come from?
  Most of it comes from the United States. So, in essence, right now, 
the way the treaty is organized, the United States gives the U.N. money 
to help implement the treaty, and a lot of that money is going to go to 
China.

  Does anyone in the U.S. Senate think that makes sense? Does anyone in 
America think that that makes sense?
  It does not.
  Furthermore, on this treaty and on so many other international 
agreements, whether at the U.N. or other places, when you give China 
more time for implementation, particularly as it relates to the global 
environment, all you are doing is harming the global environment.
  China is a developed country. China is an industrialized country. The 
U.S. Senate, the international organizations where China is a member, 
need to start recognizing this.
  So I am proud to say I worked closely with Senator Barrasso and 
Senator Lee on this amendment. I actually wish it were stronger.
  Senator Barrasso was here on the floor, talking about his amendment. 
I actually think that is the preferred way to go, but we couldn't get 
agreement in terms of the Barrasso amendment, so I am encouraging all 
of my colleagues to vote on this principle: The U.S. Senate, on any 
international agreement or any international treaty, should no longer 
agree to the obvious. China is not a developing country; it is an 
industrialized country, and we should make clear in the Senate and in

[[Page S4897]]

international organizations that that is the view of the United States, 
and we need to encourage the Secretary of State, which is exactly what 
my amendment does, to make sure the U.N. and other countries agree with 
us on that.
  I encourage all of my colleagues to vote yes on this amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to conclude my comments before the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I rise today to once again urge my 
Senate colleagues to take the bipartisan, practical pro-manufacturing 
step of providing advice and consent to ratifying the Kigali Amendment.
  Each of the four previous amendments to this treaty, the Montreal 
Protocol, have enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate, 
and Kigali should be no different.
  Our companies are clear. They want us to approve this treaty so that 
they can maximize their export potential of cutting-edge chemicals that 
they have pioneered. They want us to approve the treaty. It will 
generate billions of dollars in economic activity and create thousands 
of jobs here at home in the United States.
  They are also clear that if we fail to ratify, they stand to lose. 
They will be locked out of export markets in key products. American 
workers will suffer, which is why the National Association of 
Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and impacted industries 
all support the action we are prepared to take.
  Now, I have heard the concerns that some colleagues have raised about 
China and how it benefits from its antiquated status as a ``developing 
country'' under the Montreal Protocol. Frankly, it is a fair point to 
raise, but it should have no bearing on whether we join Kigali.

  The simple fact is, whether we join Kigali or not has no impact on 
whether China is treated as a developing country--none. On the other 
hand, ratifying Kigali will have a major positive benefit for us 
because China has doubled down on yesterday's chemicals, and we, the 
United States, lead on all the alternatives. Joining Kigali will turn 
the world away from China and its companies and towards our competitive 
strength. It is good for the United States and our businesses, and it 
is bad for China. However, I also recognize the plain fact that China 
is no longer a developing country, and I agree that it should not enjoy 
advantages under the Montreal Protocol that it received because of 
decisions made more than 30 years ago.
  I have been a steadfast champion of addressing the challenges China 
presents as they are, not as we hope for them to be. I led passage of 
the Strategic Competition Act and my Taiwan Policy Act, which was 
recently voted out of the Foreign Relations Committee on an 
overwhelming bipartisan basis. So I have no problem acknowledging that 
China should no longer qualify as a developing country, and for that 
reason, I support the Lee-Sullivan amendment.
  The Senate's constitutional role on treaties is both unique and 
vital. What we are doing today will directly, positively--if we adopt 
ratification--impact American workers, American businesses, and 
American consumers. It will meet our challenge against China. It will 
create greater security at home. It will create great prosperity. There 
are few things that we do in the Senate that can improve our economy, 
create jobs, and meet the challenge of China in this one dimension.
  For all of those reasons, I urge my colleagues to support providing 
advice and consent for the Kigali Amendment after the Sullivan 
amendment is considered.

                          ____________________