[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 79 (Wednesday, May 10, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1585-S1587]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1192

  Mr. HAGERTY. Mr. President, title 42 will terminate tomorrow with the 
expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency. Title 42 is one of 
the last tools available to Border Patrol agents, and the President is 
surrendering it during a record-shattering border crisis. It is 
unconscionable for Congress to stand aside and do nothing to preserve 
this critical authority.
  Title 42 authority was initially based on the pandemic. While I agree 
that the pandemic is over, the border crisis is worse than ever. 
Whether to keep effective border security policies in place should not 
depend on the pandemic.
  There is a new epidemic that is plaguing our Nation, one that demands 
immediate action. Deadly fentanyl--produced with the help of the 
Chinese Communist Party and smuggled across our southern border by drug 
cartels--has flooded into our communities. More than 100,000 Americans 
died of drug overdoses in the last 12 months alone--most from synthetic 
opioids like fentanyl. It is the No. 1 cause of death for Americans 
between the ages of 18 and 45.
  The rise of fentanyl overdose deaths affects every State and every 
congressional district. It kills the young, the old, the rich, the 
poor. It affects cities and small towns alike. It is not a partisan 
issue, and finding a solution shouldn't be partisan either.
  With the end of title 42, even the Biden administration is openly 
preparing for an already-recordbreaking crisis to get far worse by 
sending 1,500 Active-Duty troops to the southern border. It is an 
admission of the impending invasion.
  To allow title 42 to end without creating a permanent new authority 
to replace it only empowers drug cartels. It enables them to illegally 
send migrants across the border at strategic points, bogging down 
Border Patrol agents with paperwork and processing that takes five 
times longer than under title 42. This dramatic increase in processing 
times will significantly decrease scarce resources available to 
actually patrol our southern border. Cartels will use the longer and 
more frequent enforcement gaps to move fentanyl across our border. We 
cannot allow this to happen.
  Title 42 is an effective and important tool for controlling the flow 
of illegal migration at the southern border, but it is also an 
effective and important tool for dissuading migrants from making the 
dangerous journey to the southern border, to ultimately be exploited by 
drug cartels. But the current administration has no interest in 
dissuading migrants from coming to the United States. Instead, through 
Biden's border policies, they entice thousands more migrants per day to 
illegally cross into the United States, risking their lives as they 
magnify the humanitarian crisis at our border.
  That is why I introduced legislation to add drug smuggling as an 
additional basis for invoking title 42 authority. It is called the Stop 
Fentanyl Border Crossings Act. Overdoses have become an epidemic in 
America, and no one can deny that. My legislation would allow the 
Secretary of Health and Human Services to use title 42 to combat 
substantial, dangerous drug trafficking across our southern border. 
This bill would give Border Patrol a necessary tool to focus on 
stopping drug traffickers.
  It seems like an obvious step to take. Everyone agrees fentanyl 
trafficking is a dire problem. Yet, in the last Congress, Democrats 
blocked this legislation three times. Now that title 42 is

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actually coming to an end, it is time to get past the political 
posturing, and I hope my colleagues will join me. We cannot sit idly 
by. Without this authority, the recordbreaking border crisis and deadly 
drug overdose crisis that will follow will become unimaginably worse.
  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. 1192 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?
  Mr. SANDERS. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Senator Hagerty's bill aims to expand the use of title 
42 to restrict the entry of people and goods from countries where 
``substantial'' drug smuggling exists.
  I am very concerned about the increased use of fentanyl in this 
country. Everybody is. As you just heard, we have seen over 100,000 
Americans die from drug overdoses in the last year alone. 
Unfortunately, this isn't the way to address this problem. Title 42 is 
a public health authority, and the use of it should be dictated by 
public health experts.
  Instead of proposing real solutions to address drug trafficking based 
on what will keep people safe, some of my Republican colleagues want to 
use title 42 as a political stunt to keep out people seeking asylum. I 
welcome the opportunity to work with my Republican colleagues on 
serious solutions to address drug trafficking. Unfortunately, this is 
not one of them.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. HAGERTY. Mr. President, my Democratic colleague is objecting to 
legislation that simply gives the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services the authority to limit border crossings when necessary to 
combat substantial, dangerous, illicit drug smuggling. It doesn't 
provide authority to stop all asylum claims. It only applies where 
substantial illicit drug smuggling is endangering health. More than 
100,000 Americans are dying annually of drug overdoses, many of which 
result from drug smuggling at the southern border.
  This legislation isn't a mandate; it is a tool to help save American 
lives whenever that is possible. Everyone acknowledges that an already 
recordbreaking crisis will get worse without title 42. American lives 
and American communities hang in the balance. Yet my colleagues across 
the aisle are categorically opposed to any commonsense policy that will 
help us address this problem.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.


 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to have the opportunity to 
give some thoughts today on what is going on in the United States and 
around the globe.
  Here in these early months of this new Congress, there clearly is 
broad bipartisan agreement on the importance of the Indo-Pacific region 
for our country's future. We are strengthening our military posture in 
that region, and last Congress, we passed legislation to strengthen our 
strategic industries.
  What is being ignored, however, is a third component essential to our 
success in the region: expanding trade. At a State and Foreign Ops 
hearing in March, I noted the importance of our economic relationships 
around the world and asked Secretary of State Blinken about our 
approach to trade agreements, particularly America's absence from the 
Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership--the CPTPP.
  He told me the original pact in 2015 had real benefits, economically 
and strategically, but since then the world has moved on. I agree with 
him, our allies and our partners have moved on. They have moved on 
without us.
  A year ago this month, President Biden made his first trip to Asia 
and unveiled the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, the administration's 
initiative to reengage the region on standards involving digital trade, 
supply chains, climate change, and corruption.
  This is a small start, but it falls far short of what is needed today 
to advance American prosperity and security--also, the well-being of 
our Asian partners. In particular, the President's proposal fails to 
include greater U.S. market access.
  The United States is belatedly offering a tepid leadership to a 
region that remains committed to open trade.
  We can and must correct this or fall further behind in the most 
economically dynamic region in the world. I call on President Biden to 
enter into--and Congress to ratify--the CPTPP. It would be difficult to 
overstate how important the Indo-Pacific is to American prosperity. The 
region comprises 40 percent of the global economic output, and that is 
expected to grow to 50 percent by the end of the decade.
  The largest economy in the region belongs to China, which is the 
largest trading partner for the region's countries. This provides 
Beijing with leverage to bully our allies and partners into making 
concessions in exchange for access to the Chinese market. It allows 
Beijing, not the United States, the same opportunity to have that 
relationship, so necessary.
  China, for example, used coercion to retaliate against Australia 
after our allies in Canberra called for an investigation into the 
origins of COVID-19. Beijing regularly forces American businesses to 
refrain from criticism of China or conform to communist policies.
  China's leaders can coerce and intimidate because they have economic 
strength. It is clear China will exert that tremendous leverage over 
other nations to achieve its global ambitions. Its attempts to bully 
countries into its sphere of influence are on full display through the 
Belt and Road Initiative, which has left trails of debt traps and human 
rights abuses. Unfortunately, the United States is ceding our economic 
leadership that we established and maintained for the last 80 years.
  Having quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership under bipartisan, 
Republican and Democrat, criticism for that departure, the countries we 
worked with--treaty allies and partners--moved ahead. They moved ahead 
without us and in 2018 brought into force a successor agreement, the 
CPTPP. These countries represent more than 13 percent of global GDP, 
and in the last few weeks, Great Britain has gained membership.
  So important is the CPTPP to the Pacific economies that China has 
applied for membership. They did so last September. It would be a grave 
mistake for us to assume that in America's absence China would be 
denied membership indefinitely.
  China wants in, despite already being the largest member of the 
Regional Comprehensive Economic Agreement, which also includes our 
treaty allies, Japan and South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. This 
trade bloc accounts for nearly one-third of global GDP.
  These two agreements, comprised of nations with diverse ideologies, 
underscore the importance of the economics of the Indo-Pacific region. 
In Asia especially, economics and security are one and the same, and 
for Washington to ignore that is a miscalculation.
  Our allies and partners in this region are noticing. They notice our 
absence. Australia's Foreign Minister said at the end of last year:

       America's decision not to proceed with the CPTPP is still 
     being felt in the region. . . . We have reached a stage in 
     the evolution of our alliances where they will increasingly 
     require a fully developed economic dimension, as well.

  In other words, we can't have the same relationship with countries 
that we don't deal with in trade in economic relationships.
  At the end of 2022, Singapore's Defense Minister had this to say:

       The U.S. increasing their military presence in Asia as a 
     stabilizing force is virtuous, it is good and we will support 
     that.

  But then he made this key point:

       We think that the U.S. should do more to engage as it did 
     previously, to build an economic framework, which as a tide 
     can lift all boats.

  Despite our own National Security Strategy which declares that ``we 
need to win the competition for the 21st century'' and that we will 
``shape the rules

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of the road for . . . trade and economics,'' the document makes clear 
President Biden believes ``we have to move beyond traditional Free 
Trade Agreements.''
  But given the words of our Pacific friends, it is equally clear they 
have not moved beyond such agreements. In fact, they are doubling down 
on them without us. The President and his administration are either 
oblivious to this fact or indifferent.
  Given the stakes, whichever one it is, it is a serious mistake. 
Dating back to the 1980s, the National Security Strategy is a 
congressionally mandated report issued by the President to convey the 
administration's national security goals and how to achieve them. In 
recent decades, one document is published each Presidential term rather 
than yearly.
  The 2022 document, President Biden stresses upholding the ``rules-
based international order'' but then refuses to engage in shaping one 
of the significant pillars of that order: trade.
  The National Security Strategy invokes four principles, two of which 
are openness and inclusiveness. And as one scholar observed, the 
President's approach to trade is neither open nor inclusive.
  This hurts our goals in this region, and it hurts Americans at home, 
our very national security. Our engagement really is about our own 
well-being. Our own well-being is often dependent upon the well-being 
of our friends and allies or those we want to be our friends or allies.
  Economic partnerships can promote U.S. national security interests by 
protecting critical access to technology, minerals, and food supplies. 
We know what happens when we are so dependent upon one particular 
country for meeting our country's needs in strategic items. It is a 
mistake for us to have all eggs in a basket. Robust trade agreements 
safeguard the intellectual property and manufacturing capabilities that 
underpin our American military dominance.

  Southeast Asia presents a situation in which our agricultural 
producers can score significant market access wins, while U.S. soft 
power can bolster our influence with these critical partners with these 
countries that are or can be our friends.
  America's economy is the foundation of our power. Without the 
creation of wealth, we cannot afford to sustain the world's greatest 
military, which in turn defends the peace that enables the flow of 
goods. As a column in the Wall Street Journal just within the last week 
argued, ``The U.S. must embrace the politics of growth. Our world must 
be, and must be seen to be, the surest, fastest path to raising living 
standards all over the world. That's what we did after World War II. We 
must find a way to do it again today.''
  What that is saying is we can't allow China to be seen as the path to 
economic well-being for people and nations around the world and 
specifically in the South Pacific.
  Southeast Asia presents a situation in which our agriculture 
producers can score significant market access wins while we are making 
a difference in our own capabilities to influence the world.
  America's economy is the foundation of our power, and we must utilize 
it. In competing with China in the coming decades, it is essential that 
the United States provide a positive vision for the region that 
attracts countries to what America offers beyond security support. 
Leadership is more than making clear what we are against. We must offer 
a compelling case of what we are for and how it will benefit those we 
wish to lead, those we wish to be partners with.
  Little in geopolitics is a win-win, but trade is a rare area that 
advances our interests and those of our partners. According to the 
Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the American people understand this. 
Three in four Americans think that trade is good for the U.S. economy, 
but Congress and the President are making a mistake ignoring the old 
idea of open trade.
  To best compete with China in Asia and to help Americans at home, 
joining the CPTPP and providing greater market access is an obvious 
place to begin. Jobs, economic opportunity for us, and most 
importantly, the well-being of our Nation, our national security, 
depend upon trade and that relationship it creates.
  (Ms. CORTEZ MASTO assumed the Chair.)