[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 24 (Friday, February 9, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S565-S593]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

  REMOVING EXTRANEOUS LOOPHOLES INSURING EVERY VETERAN EMERGENCY ACT--
            MOTION TO PROCEED UPON RECONSIDERATION--Resumed

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 815, 
which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 30, H.R. 815, to amend 
     title 38, United States Code, to make certain improvements 
     relating to the eligibility of veterans to receive 
     reimbursement for emergency treatment furnished through the 
     Veterans Community Care program, and for other purposes.


                   Recognition of the Majority Leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.


                          Supplemental Funding

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I will be brief.
  Yesterday, the Senate cleared the first major procedural hurdle to 
passing the national security supplemental. It was a good and very 
important first step. We now resume postcloture debate on the motion to 
proceed. If we don't reach a time agreement, we will hold the next vote 
on the motion to proceed at approximately 7 p.m. tonight, but I hope 
our Republican colleagues can work with us to reach an agreement on 
amendments so we can move this process along. Democrats are willing to 
consider reasonable and fair amendments here on the floor as we have 
shown on many occasions in the past 3 years. Nevertheless, the Senate 
will keep working on this bill until the job is done.
  I yield the floor.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is 
recognized.


                          Supplemental Funding

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, when the Biden administration released 
its request for supplemental appropriations in October, I said the 
Senate would need to do its own work to meet the demonstrated needs of 
our national security.
  The President's decisions over the past 3 years have directly 
contributed to the web of serious security challenges demanding the 
Senate's attention--from an embarrassing retreat from Afghanistan that 
emboldened terrorists and shredded credibility with our allies, to a 
halting response to Russian escalation that kept lethal capabilities 
off the frontlines of Ukraine's defense, to an Iran policy that tried 
trading deterrence for detente.
  The Senate can and will continue to urge the Commander in Chief to do 
the right thing, but we also have a responsibility of our own to 
provide for the common defense and equip the next Commander in Chief 
with the tools to exercise American strength.

[[Page S566]]

  That responsibility is in front of us right now, and addressing 
national security challenges with serious legislation starts with 
recognizing some pretty basic realities about how the world works:
  First, America has global interests and global responsibilities, and 
to the extent the President has neglected them, the Senate ignores them 
at the Nation's peril.
  Second, alliances and partnerships are essential to advancing our 
interests. They lower the costs of keeping the peace, reduce the direct 
risks to America, and facilitate the commerce that drives our economy. 
But these alliances and partnerships rely on American leadership and 
American credibility.
  Finally, there is a growing list of adversaries who wish us harm. 
There is growing evidence that they are working together, and there is 
no doubt that they are emboldened by American weakness.
  These are not opinions. They are plainly observable facts borne out 
by history. Denying them does a disservice to the American people, and 
it is impossible to engage productively on decisions about U.S. 
national security without acknowledging them.
  So a great number of our colleagues have worked diligently on 
legislation that confronts Russian aggression against the West, Iran-
backed terror against Israel and U.S. forces, and the rise of an 
aggressive China head-on. The product before the Senate resolves the 
significant shortcomings of the President's request.
  For example, thanks to Senate Republicans, it requires the Commander 
in Chief to submit a strategy that identifies the specific objectives, 
requirements, and metrics from our assistance to Ukraine. It shifts $4 
billion away from direct budget support to Kyiv into security 
investments instead. And it fully funds the special inspector general 
for Ukraine created by the NDAA last year, further expanding already 
unprecedented visibility into how U.S. assistance is actually being 
used.
  The legislation also designates $9 billion above the President's 
request for U.S. defense needs, including $2.4 billion for ongoing 
operations against Iran-backed terrorists in the Middle East. And, 
thanks to Republican efforts, it imposes strict new oversight measures 
on humanitarian assistance and ensures that not a single penny of U.S. 
taxpayer funds goes to the U.N. agency whose employees stoke hatred in 
Gaza and actually participated in the slaughter of Jews in Israel.
  Underneath these essential provisions sit historic and urgent 
investments in American hard power, which is critical to our national 
defense.
  Our allies and partners in Ukraine and Israel are fighting our shared 
adversaries, degrading their military capacity, and working to restore 
deterrence. Our friends in the Pacific are working to deter yet another 
one.
  Together, they are facing the raw end of authoritarian aggression and 
terrorist savagery. Our colleagues have heard me say this before: 
American assistance to these efforts is not charity. It is an 
investment in cold, hard U.S. interests.
  This is not a rhetorical device. It is not referring to some vague 
lines of efforts from which America expects to receive some trickle-
down benefit. I mean quite literally spending tens of billions of 
dollars here in America, upgrading our capabilities, creating American 
manufacturing jobs, and expanding our defense industrial capacity to 
help us better compete with advanced adversaries.
  Of just the funds this supplemental designates to support Ukrainian's 
defense, $19.85 billion of it will be spent right here in America on 
replenishing our own arsenal. Another $3.5 billion will be spent--
again, here in America--to expand our industrial base's capacity to 
produce artillery and air-defense and long-range weapons. And $15.4 
billion will be spent--one more time, here in America--on weapons for 
Ukraine to continue degrading the military strength of a major U.S. 
adversary.
  These investments create capacity that we, the United States, need 
for serious competition with our adversaries.
  Of course, this doesn't even account for the massive streams of 
funding our allies and partners around the world are investing in 
American capabilities themselves, including more than $120 billion and 
counting from NATO allies.
  Overall, even accounting for direct assistance sent to allies like 
Israel, more than 75 percent of this legislation is bound for 
investments right here in America, and more than 60 percent of it goes 
to the defense industrial base, where increasing capacity is a direct 
investment in long-term strength abroad and prosperity here at home.
  This is about rebuilding the arsenal of democracy and demonstrating 
to our allies and adversaries alike that we are serious about 
exercising American strength.
  I can present these facts as frequently as necessary. It is what I 
have been doing quite literally for years.
  Every one of our colleagues is capable of understanding that security 
assistance appropriated in support of Ukraine is money invested right 
here in America. Every one of our colleagues is capable of 
understanding that the investments this legislation makes in expanding 
production capacity--from artillery rounds to rocket motors, to 
submarines--are investments in readiness for long-term competition with 
China, a competition America cannot afford to lose.
  Every single one of us knows what is at stake here, and it is time 
for every one of us to deal with it head-on.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me say at the outset that I thank the 
Senator from Kentucky for his words on the floor in support of 
assistance to Ukraine in its hour of need. I thank him for being 
consistent in that message.
  Yesterday, after months of delay, 17 Republican Senators joined in a 
bipartisan effort to advance critical security and humanitarian aid. I 
want to thank them for stepping up and urge them to continue moving 
this bill to final passage and moving it to passage in the House of 
Representatives.
  All the while, while we were giving our speeches here on the floor of 
the Senate and other places, Vladimir Putin has been sitting back and 
waiting for the United States to finally walk away from the Ukrainians, 
as they fight bravely to repel his bloody onslaught. Putin is hoping 
that Donald Trump will be reelected and that this Congress will 
discontinue aid to Ukraine. Meanwhile, the ``message man'' for the MAGA 
movement, Tucker Carlson, was in Moscow interviewing the former 
communist KGB agent Vladimir Putin, hoping, no doubt, to further his 
cynical strategy.
  Is there anyone here who could remotely have imagined that many in 
the party of Ronald Reagan and John McCain would be actively voting 
against aid to stop Russian tyranny, that they would bend to the will 
of former President Trump, who has spoken favorably of the Russian 
despot?
  This photograph captures a moment a few years ago. It captures a 
moment, 37 years ago, at the Brandenburg Gate, between East and West 
Germany, where President Reagan stood resolutely for freedom and told 
Gorbachev to tear down the wall.
  This second photograph is more personal to me. About 10 years ago, 
when Senator John McCain and I were part of a delegation that 
represented colleagues from Arizona, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and 
Wyoming, we went to Ukraine's Maidan Square in Kyiv to honor those who 
had been killed in the fight for freedom.
  I am not alone in asking the same question that was asked yesterday 
by the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk. He said, ``Ronald Reagan, 
who helped millions of us win back our freedom and independence, must 
be turning [over] in his grave'' with what is happening now in 
Washington.
  The Polish people are staunch allies of Ukraine and the United 
States, and they have long memories of Soviet tyranny. They know that 
critical American resolve is part of overcoming that tyranny, and we 
should never forget it.
  I am proud to represent the city of Chicago and the State of 
Illinois. There are many Polish Americans there--great people. I think 
what they have done during this Ukrainian war is an amazing story. They 
have literally embraced the refugees from Ukraine. As one of the Polish 
officials told me: Senator, you won't find a refugee camp for 
Ukrainians in Poland. We bring them into our homes.
  It is an amazing outpouring. When you ask them, what is motivating 
you?

[[Page S567]]

  He said: We remembered no one would do that for us when we faced the 
same tyranny in our own history.
  They have made a difference. It is not just because of their love for 
their neighbors in Ukraine, but it is also the realization that, if 
Vladimir Putin conquers Ukraine, the next target could easily be Poland 
or the Baltic nations. They know that this fight, which is being waged 
against Putin in Ukraine, is their fight. We should realize the same.
  Next week, a bipartisan group of us are attending the Munich Security 
Conference. It is an annual conference in Germany where we bring 
together the European nations and many others to discuss topics of the 
day. You can bet the No. 1 topic will be Ukraine. God forbid we fail to 
pass this defense supplemental before the Munich Conference. I don't 
know what I will say to our friends and allies in NATO and in Europe 
who stood by us and by the Ukrainian people for so long if we abandon 
them here in the U.S. Senate.
  The first question that they will ask is, Will we approve the money 
necessary to buy the ammunition and equipment for the Ukrainians to 
fight on? We are going to answer that question here in the U.S. Senate 
in just a matter of hours.
  NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg recently said that if Putin isn't 
stopped, he will continue his war beyond Ukraine, with grave 
consequences.
  And make no mistake, it is not only Putin watching and savoring our 
failure to act. It is Iran, China, North Korea, and many others.
  So let's get this done. Let's show Putin and the other tyrants of the 
world that they cannot divide and weaken us at home or with our allies 
abroad.
  For months, my Republican colleagues refused to provide critical aid 
to Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and Taiwan and to address urgent national 
security and humanitarian needs until we would consider and pass 
legislation to secure the American border. This week, we had an 
opportunity to vote on a bipartisan bill that would help us to secure 
the border and provide this essential national security funding. I had 
some concerns about the language in this, but I realized it was a 
bipartisan compromise.
  Senator James Lankford, speaking for the Republicans, had been 
negotiating literally for weeks to get the right language that could 
appeal to both Democrats and Republicans.
  I want to thank Senator Murphy and Senator Kyrsten Sinema for their 
resolve as well.
  While I had some concerns about the proposal, as I said, I was 
prepared to support it with some changes. I am happy to report that it 
received the support of the National Border Patrol Council, the union 
that represents Border Patrol agents.
  Despite all of this, Senate Republicans said they wanted to offer 
amendments. Well, the way to offer an amendment is, first, to pass a 
motion to proceed to the bill. When that measure came up for support, 
we didn't have enough Republican support to pass it on the floor. 
Almost immediately after the bill was released, numerous Senate 
Republicans had come out in opposition to it.
  And when the bill came to floor, they voted not to even consider it. 
Why? Why? Because Donald Trump told them not to. And he was very bold 
about it. He said: Blame me, if you will. But any attempt to make 
border security changes should be stopped now so he can use the issue 
in the campaign. He said: ``Blame it on me'' if the bill fails.
  Well, we will. Trump is apparently fearful that a bipartisan effort 
to secure the border would undermine his campaign rhetoric.
  His interference could not have come at a worse time. We are facing 
the worst refugee crisis in modern history. With outdated laws and 
underfunded agencies, our immigration system is not up to the 
challenge. As a result, many migrants are stuck in our processing 
backlogs for years, without a work permit.
  Most people don't know this fact, but I want to make it for the 
record. We have had about 36,000 migrants come into the city of 
Chicago, primarily from Texas. They were sent there under false 
pretenses that there were accommodations waiting and a job waiting for 
them. That was not the case. But the Governor of Texas didn't care, and 
he didn't care about their outcome and their plight--36,000, trying to 
find shelter for them. Some went to police stations and slept on the 
floor. Some slept in churches. The Catholic charities did an amazing 
job, as well as many others, to try to take care of them. And it has 
been a real hardship on the city of Chicago and the State of Illinois--
36,000 people.
  There is one thing most people don't realize. In the past year and a 
half, we have absorbed, in Chicago, 30,000 Ukrainian immigrants who 
have come from war-torn Ukraine to the city of Chicago.
  Now, I hope you can understand that a city that has a section known 
as Ukrainian Village certainly welcomes these people. Families that 
sponsor them said that they would stand by them. And they became part 
of our society and part of our economy quickly, without a lot of rancor 
and with the understanding of people that they were going to add to 
America. And they were in desperate need.
  So 30,000 Ukrainians were absorbed into Chicago without much fanfare. 
I have seen them at the churches and their schools, working in 
restaurants, doing the kind of work that immigrants are used to doing 
in America.
  But the 36,000 who came in as migrants from Texas were sent in by the 
busload, without any warning and without any effort to try to 
assimilate them into the area before they arrived. The difference is 
very stark.
  The legislation that we were going to consider before the Republicans 
killed it would have created a new system to process migrants quickly. 
It would have funded our frontline officials and immigration officers 
with $20 billion to ensure that they are processed efficiently.
  Think about that. The Republicans have been saying publicly for 
months that we need more resources at the border to stop the onslaught 
of people who are arriving. And they also believe--and I share the 
belief--that we need more surveillance at the border, not only for 
those coming across the border but also for those bringing across the 
border narcotics and other contraband dangerous to America.
  So the bill, which they stopped this week with their vote on the 
floor, would have provided $20 billion to ensure that they would be 
processed efficiently at the border and provide $20 billion, at least, 
in new technology and resources to stop the onslaught of narcotics and 
drugs.
  It would have ensured that asylum seekers with legitimate claims can 
get a work permit quickly and start working, as so many businesses 
across the Nation need.
  Despite my concerns about this legislation, because it left out 
Dreamers, I was prepared to consider it and support it. The DREAM Act 
was a measure that I introduced some 22 years ago in an effort to give 
these young people, who were brought to this country by their parents 
and who grew up here and became part of America, a chance to finally 
prove themselves and earn their way into citizenship. I think it should 
be included in any measure that addresses immigration from this point 
forward.
  I hope we can all agree on one thing: We need to work together in a 
bipartisan way to secure the border, after years of congressional 
failure. Bipartisanship requires compromise.
  After all of the Senate Republicans' TV appearances, campaign photos 
at the border, and impassioned speeches on the floor, it only took one 
man to destroy this agreement, this hard-fought bipartisan agreement--
Donald Trump.
  I know my Republican colleagues understand the urgent need to secure 
the border. I am disappointed that they would let their fear of one man 
stop this body from doing its job.
  We still have a chance to do the right thing when it comes to 
security. We can stand behind the people in Ukraine who are fighting 
bravely every single day.
  I cannot imagine how America can explain to the world why it would 
walk away from this battle against Vladimir Putin. We know his 
ambitions beyond Ukraine are terrible, and innocent people will suffer. 
Let's let the Ukrainian soldiers fight bravely with our support with a 
vote in the Senate today.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Montana.

[[Page S568]]

  

  Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I don't need to tell the people in this 
body or on the other side of the Capitol that the public view of 
Washington, DC, is not very good. Our numbers in public opinion numbers 
oftentimes are in the single digits, and they are there for good 
reason. They are there because oftentimes people only see politics here 
all the time. They see bodies and individuals who work for the parties; 
they don't work for the good of America.
  What we saw earlier this week just confirms that, where we had a bill 
that came out to address border security--particularly on the southern 
border, but it does good things for the northern border too. It 
addresses border security in this country, where we are seeing people 
coming across the border--the southern border in particular. We don't 
know who they are, and it is just flat a national security issue.
  When I go home to Montana, I hear it from everybody. I hear it from 
families, from business owners, from policemen to mayors--you name it. 
In Montana--and I don't think Montana is different from any other 
State--this is a big issue. People understand the southern border is 
broken, and they want us, the folks who serve in Washington, DC, their 
representatives to the government, to do something about it.
  Over the last many years, multiple administrations, we have seen 
people go to the border and talk about how things are really bad down 
there: They are bad because we have undocumented folks coming across 
the border in record numbers. They are bad because we have fentanyl 
coming into this country that is killing people and ruining families.
  Then they come back and go around the country talking about how 
miserably bad it is on the southern border and how it needs to be 
fixed. They are right.
  Unfortunately--this shouldn't be about press releases and emails and 
newsletters and interviews at night; this should be about getting 
something done to fix the problem.
  So what transpired about 4 months ago is that we had a bill on the 
floor then--funding for Ukraine. I believe there was funding for 
Israel, and I believe there was funding for the Indo-Pacific. There 
were some in this body who said: This bill is going nowhere until we 
get something that addresses the problems at the southern border.
  I was standing right over there when one of the Senators said: We get 
southern border--Republicans; Democrats get Ukraine funding.
  Well, he was wrong. The truth is, the United States gets southern 
border protection, and U.S. citizens get to help Ukraine and support 
democracy and make sure that Putin isn't successful in taking over 
Ukraine and ultimately the rest of the Europe.
  But nonetheless, there are three people who went out. They were given 
the blessing to negotiate a bipartisan--which is the way things should 
be done around here and are done around here--a bipartisan southern 
border bill. The two people, the Republican and the Democrat or the 
Democrat and the Republican--however you want to place it--happen to be 
the chairman and ranking member of the Homeland Appropriations 
Subcommittee. The other was a Member who is an Independent who lives in 
a State that borders the southern border, Arizona.
  So these folks went down and they worked and worked and worked. I 
have been part of these negotiations. Quite frankly, they are never 
easy. Nobody gets everything they want. There is compromise. There are 
negotiations. In the end, you thread the needle, and you come up with a 
bill that actually secures the southern border, that, by the way, any 
one of those three negotiators would tell you they would not have 
written themselves, but through the negotiating process, they came up 
with a bill.
  I am going to tell you, it was a pretty darn good bill. They rolled 
it out last Sunday night for all of us to see, some 300-plus pages. I 
got to read that bill. But the interesting thing is, before the bill 
was even rolled out, some of the folks who serve in this body said ``I 
oppose it.'' Before they even had a chance to look at it, they said ``I 
oppose it'' because they were told to oppose the bill.
  Now, look, we are all elected by our citizens in our States to come 
here. I would hope we all have a mind, I would hope we all can think, 
and I would hope we could all discern fact from fiction. But when 
somebody says ``Vote against it'' and you just vote against it after 
you have been in your State--you have heard what a big issue this is, 
and you have considered what can happen if we do nothing versus what 
could happen if we do something. Yet, for political purposes--not 
because it is bad policy but for political purposes--a person says 
``Don't fix it,'' and, almost like a cult, people here said ``We are 
voting no.'' Many of them have not read it.
  It is unbelievable to me. I have seen a lot of hypocrisy in this 
place, but it is unbelievable to me the hypocrisy in that vote, as a 
condition of national security--and folks in this body turn their backs 
on fixing the problem. Why? Because they want to keep it a political 
issue, which is exactly why the people look at Washington, DC, and say: 
Do you know what? Those folks don't represent us. They are in it for 
themselves. They just want everything to be an upheaval.
  It confirms that thought.
  So what does the bill do? What does this compromise bill do for 
America? It funds $20 billion in security for the southern border--for 
manpower, for technology, and to attack the fentanyl crisis, which is a 
scourge on this country. It includes the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, which 
puts serious harm to China's wallet for putting the precursor elements 
of fentanyl into Mexico.
  It changes the asylum laws. It raises the bar--exponentially--and 
stops folks who come to the border illegally from gaming the system.
  It requires--it requires--the President to shut down the border when 
they can't handle the people. Look, don't take my word for it. The 
National Border Patrol Council, some 18,000 Border Patrol agents have 
endorsed this bill. These are the folks that are charged, by the way, 
with keeping our border safe.
  The acting director of Customs and Border Protection endorsed this 
bill and said it ``would provide the strongest set of tools we have had 
in decades.'' The chief of the U.S. Border Patrol said on FOX News that 
``this bill that would have added additional hundreds of border patrol 
agents to our rank and file, that would have given us more technology, 
would have given us more equipment infrastructure. Of course I'm going 
to be supportive of that.''
  And one of the Senators that negotiated this bill--a strong 
conservative I might add--Republican Senator James Lankford from 
Oklahoma said that this would have stopped 800,000 entries in the past 
4 months if it had already been signed into law.
  The hypocrisy is stunning. Senators and House Members, who went back 
to their home States and talked about how bad the southern border was 
and how we needed to act, now have flip-flopped.
  These are politicians who claim to work bipartisanly, but they oppose 
bipartisan solutions. They are the same ones who have cried loudly for 
years that we need changes--policy changes--on the border, but they are 
revealing in plain sight that it isn't about policy issues; it is about 
politics.
  And the disinformation campaign that has come along with this is 
rich. Claims that 5,000 migrants would be allowed into this country 
every day is patently false; and if they had read the bill, they would 
have known it.
  There are those who say that Congressional action isn't needed. That 
also is false. We control the purse strings; we control the policy 
language. And only Congress can fix our asylum laws; only Congress can 
make sure we are giving the Border Patrol the resources that they need 
to secure the border.
  I wish this place worked; I really do. This is the greatest country 
in the world--not by accident, because our forefathers acted 
responsibly that we didn't have campaign seasons that never end; that 
we could actually sit down and negotiate, not as Democrats and 
Republicans but as Americans, to do what is right for this country.
  If we don't start acting like adults in this place and start thinking 
and acting reasonably and listening to our constituents--not listening 
to one person but listen to the folks that sent you here; even when you 
disagree with them, you should be listening to them--to try to fix the 
problems, I fear for this country's future. And I don't say that 
lightly.

[[Page S569]]

  There is plenty of evidence out there that shows that China would 
love to replace us as the premier economy and the premier military in 
this world. That is not something that we should take lightly. That is 
something that we should take very, very seriously.
  And when Congress doesn't do their job, when Congress doesn't even 
debate a bill to deal with a serious problem in this country, it does 
not speak well of us, and it only empowers our opponents out there, the 
countries that want to replace us in the world.
  I don't know what will transpire with this negotiated border 
agreement, but I do hope that we get another opportunity to vote on it, 
on the policy that was negotiated by Lankford and Sinema and Murphy. 
They worked hard. At a bare minimum, they deserve--they deserve--but 
more importantly, the American people deserve--to hear a debate on this 
bill and find out not what Facebook or Twitter or what the internet 
says about this bill but find out exactly what is in this bill.
  Because I can tell you Montanans are tired of DC political games and, 
quite frankly, so am I.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kelly). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Child Tax Credit

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, we have an opportunity. We have an 
opportunity to come together to cut taxes for American families in my 
State and for the families of more than 500,000 children, and to cut 
taxes for American manufacturers.
  The deal negotiated by Finance Chairman Wyden, a Democrat, in the 
Senate and Ways and Means Chairman Smith in the House, a Republican, 
along with their colleagues of both parties, has overwhelming 
bipartisan support. It passed the committee in the House 40 to 3. It 
passed on the House floor with 357 votes.
  When does that happen here? It is how Congress is supposed to work.
  We talk with the people with whom we serve. We hear their concerns, 
and we act. Families are dealing with costs that are far too high 
because corporations continue to raise prices to pay for executive 
bonuses and stock buybacks and higher profit margins.
  I often think of this, because I hear, when my wife and I are at the 
grocery store near our church in Brecksville, when I am out talking to 
people at a roundtable, or just at an airport, people talk about high 
food prices. One of the reasons--the biggest reason--when people go to 
the grocery store, they realize they are paying for stock buybacks and 
executive bonuses.
  The American manufacturers have been telling us they can't compete 
with countries like China without more investment in research and 
development, but expiring provisions mean the Tax Code isn't rewarding 
that kind of investment as much as it should.
  I heard in Ohio from people in East Palestine. I am going for, I 
believe, the ninth time there next week. They are worried. This is the 
place, the community in Ohio on the Pennsylvania border in eastern 
Ohio, where the Norfolk Southern train derailed, causing all kinds of 
hardship for people. But people in East Palestine are worried, they 
tell me, that they can be hit by a surprise tax bill for the payments 
they rightly received from Norfolk Southern after the derailment last 
year. It is unacceptable. People in East Palestine have endured enough.
  So we came together to write a bipartisan, consensus bill that does 
all of those things. At a time when Washington seems pretty broken, we 
have an opportunity to come together and show the American people we 
can get things done. We can cut their taxes, we can support their 
businesses, we can help keep intellectual property in this country, we 
can help create jobs, and we can help families.
  The expansion of the child tax credit will help Ohio working families 
keep up with rising costs, including all the extra expenses that come 
with raising kids. It has broad support. Everyone--from the Nuns on the 
Bus to the National Association of Evangelicals--supports expanding the 
child tax credit.
  I know the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Arizona, and I have 
talked about how important the child tax credit is.
  It supports work. The nonpartisan scorekeepers at the Joint Committee 
on Taxation confirmed that this bill won't reduce work.
  When I hear from Ohio parents, the No. 1 thing they say they use 
their tax cut for is childcare, so they can work. We know how expensive 
childcare is.
  Also, when we passed this child tax credit--it is a tax cut for 
working families, where 90 percent of children and the families of 2 
million children in my State benefited from it. We passed it 3 or 4 
years ago, and it expired, unfortunately. But I got letters from 
families all the time saying: Now my daughter can play soccer, and we 
can afford the school fees. Now my son can be in a school play and 
afford the fees. Now we can maybe go to a movie once a month. These are 
all the kinds of things that families living on the edge or families 
not quite living on the edge contend with. It gives them that.
  It is key for Ohio manufacturers that invest in research and 
innovation. It is expensive. It is vital for keeping up with global 
competitors. These tax credits will allow Ohio companies to compete.
  Last month, I did a news conference with two longtime friends of 
mine, two former Ohio Republican Congressmen, Steve Stivers and Pat 
Tiberi. Steve Stivers is now president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of 
Commerce and Pat Tiberi is now CEO of the Ohio Business Roundtable. 
They both talked about how crucial these tax cuts are for Ohio 
businesses.
  They are a major priority for American companies, as my Republican 
colleagues in the Senate have made clear to us all year. That is why 
Chairman Wyden and many of us worked with Republicans to write a bill 
that is a win-win for everybody. It is a true bipartisan process from 
the start. It includes ideas that have support from both parties.
  Take the lookback provision in the child tax credit, allowing parents 
to use the previous year's income to make sure they get the maximum 
possible tax cut. This is an idea that Senator Cassidy from Louisiana 
and I worked on together during the pandemic. We got support from both 
parties. This will make this bill work better. It will enable this bill 
to help children and families more. It is the same option that 
corporations have in the Tax Code. Why not make it available to 
families? Corporations often do lookbacks to look at the year before in 
calculating their taxes. Why wouldn't we make it available to families 
too?
  The way Chairman Wyden and Chairman Smith negotiated this bill is how 
we should do this. We listen to the people we serve.
  I know that Chairman Wyden spoke with a number of Republican members 
on the Finance Committee. He spoke with me often during this process as 
we worked on both the R&D tax credit and the child tax credit.
  I know that Chair Smith worked with members of both parties on his 
committee. That is why he passed it out of his committee 40 to 3. 
Imagine 40 to 3 on a tax bill in a Congress that has difficulty getting 
a consensus and getting things done.
  We made sure Members of both parties were in the room in these 
negotiations or were in the room in terms of having discussions. We got 
something done that brought people together. It supports families. It 
supports businesses. It includes priorities of both parties. It 
supports work. It supports American innovation. It won't add to the 
deficit. It is paid for by cracking down on fraud. There is no reason 
not to pass this deal.
  I mean, again, 357 votes in the House, overwhelming bipartisan 
support in the committee, then in the House--there is no reason to wait 
other than playing politics. We see it far too often here.
  We need to move. Tax season is underway. Families and businesses need 
these tax cuts now. Why would we walk away from a bipartisan bill that 
we could pass today if Members would put aside egos and politics and 
all that too often gets in the way. Let's come together to cut taxes 
for working families and cut taxes for Ohio manufacturers.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page S570]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Smith). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                            Border Security

  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, the Senate will be in session this 
weekend--including Super Bowl Sunday, which is fine by me--to deal with 
this bill that now, as everyone knows, is about Ukraine, funding for 
Ukraine and its war effort, funding for Israel, funding for Taiwan, and 
some other matters.
  I will dispense with the Israel and Taiwan funding because that is a 
pretty straightforward one that I think has very strong support here. I 
am for it. I am also for helping Ukraine against Russia. I do believe 
we have a national interest in helping Ukraine against Russia.
  I would just summarize it this way: If you look at China, which most 
people would agree is the U.S.'s biggest adversary at this point for 
global influence, the Chinese are hoping one of two things is going to 
happen. The first is, they are hoping that we are going to get stuck in 
Ukraine, along with what is happening in the Middle East, and that we 
are going to be drained by it and we won't be able to focus on the 
Indo-Pacific. But if we do become disengaged, then what their hope is--
they will go around telling people: See, we told you America is 
unreliable and a power in decline. So I believe our goal when it comes 
to Ukraine is to be helpful to Ukraine in a way that doesn't drain us, 
in a way that doesn't harm our alliances around the world.
  I have my own personal views on this. I have shared it in the past. I 
have had further confirmation of it over the last 24 hours--that where 
I think Ukraine eventually winds up is, I don't believe the Russians 
can ever achieve their initial objectives no matter what happens, which 
is to take all of Ukraine, all the way to Kyiv. I also think it is 
going to be very difficult for a country the size of Ukraine, no matter 
how much help it gets, to completely destroy the Russian Federation, 
which, no matter how bad they have been militarily, just has a size 
advantage.
  But I do believe that at some point, both of these countries are 
going to try to figure a way out. The question is, Which one of the two 
is going to have the most leverage and the best deal possible, and will 
Ukraine be able to emerge from this as a democracy, as a nation that is 
not under the thumb of Vladimir Putin--another Belarus, as an example? 
I think we have a national interest in the outcome. It is not an 
unlimited national interest. It doesn't mean we spend however much they 
need for however long it takes. But there is an interest.
  I just wanted to say that at the outset. I say that because obviously 
I am informed by my work on the Intelligence Committee, the Foreign 
Relations Committee, and my interest in foreign policy, because I think 
our job here in the Federal Government--we get involved in a lot of 
things that are none of our business, but foreign policy and national 
security are a key part of the Federal Government and what we are 
supposed to be doing here.
  I do believe that in the short and long term, there are things 
there--I don't think I need to convince anyone about Israel and 
Taiwan--that involve the national security of the United States and 
what the world is going to look like in 5, 10, 15 years.
  That said, I would imagine--not that I imagine, actually--I know that 
there are people--if you walked into many places in this country right 
now and you explained to them what was happening, they would be 
puzzled. People would say, no matter how they may feel about Ukraine--I 
think for most Americans, frankly, it is not a priority, not because 
they like Putin and they like Russia but because we have a lot of 
problems that people are dealing with in their everyday lives. I think 
most people would say: OK. But if we are going to do that for Ukraine, 
if we are going to help Ukraine deal with their invasion, shouldn't we 
first or at least at the same time deal with our invasion, what is 
happening to our country?
  So you guys are going to meet all weekend. You are going to fight. 
You are going to call each other names. You are going to drag this 
thing out. You are going to have this big thing that we never do. We 
never stay here on Sundays--it is fine with me. But we never do all of 
this, but when we do it, it is always for somebody else or something 
that is not as important to us. But for something that is important to 
us, something that has to do with America, with our country, it never 
happens.
  How, in essence, can you be helping Ukraine with their invasion but 
not be helping America with its invasion? And it is an invasion, what 
is happening at our southern border.
  These are very conservative numbers, but they are incredibly 
accurate. They come right from both public and nonpublic--not 
classified but nonpublic--information. They are products that are 
produced from the House committee, for example. Let's just say that 
from January 20, 2021, 3.3 million people have entered the United 
States illegally and been released into the country. Of those 3.3 
million people who have entered the country illegally, 99.7 percent of 
them are still here. They have not been deported or removed. Of the 3.3 
million who have been released into this country, over 617,000 of 
them--and these are old numbers; these are numbers from last month--of 
the 3.3 million people who entered the country illegally and were 
released, 617,000 of them either have criminal convictions or pending 
criminal charges. So we have had at least 600,000 convicted criminals, 
suspected criminals, enter the country illegally, free to roam the 
country now.

  People ask, well, how did this happen? Because it has never been 
zero. Let's be clear. It has never been zero. There have never been 
zero illegal people entering into America. But how did this happen? 
Well, let's first start with our law.
  When people talk about immigration around here, they pretend it is 
completely unregulated: We need new laws to fix it because the laws are 
all messed up, and we don't regulate.
  No. The immigration laws in America can be summarized. I mean, it is 
a complex area of law, but at its core, it is quite simple. Immigration 
law in America says this: These are the people who are allowed to be in 
the United States of America, and if someone who is not allowed to be 
in the United States of America enters illegally, you are to detain 
them through removal, meaning you are to detain them in immigration 
detention until their case is either resolved or they are removed from 
the country. That is the law of the United States, and that has been 
the law of the United States for quite some time.
  With that detention requirement that you hold them until they are 
removed, we have always had exceptions, narrow exceptions. For example, 
if the Dalai Lama shows up at the border of the United States and says 
``Hey, I am here because the Chinese are trying to kill me''--
exception, right? There have always been exceptions.
  These are supposed to be narrow exceptions, and they are supposed to 
apply to individuals case by case--humanitarian, things of that nature. 
But for the first time in American history, the current President of 
the United States decided to make the exception the rule--the rule. It 
became the rule that if you arrived here, we would not detain you. The 
exception became those we were detaining. I just gave you the numbers 
of the people who were released. So the exceptions ate up the rule, and 
that is how this happens.
  Why it happens is not hard to understand. I assure you guys--listen, 
I live in an immigrant community. When it comes to immigration, I have 
been in the game for 10 years making these things--you know, looking at 
these things longer. I live it. I live it. My entire family are 
immigrants. My wife's entire family are immigrants. All of my neighbors 
are immigrants. I can't drive two blocks and go anywhere and not be--
other than Miami, FL--surrounded with immigrants from all over the 
hemisphere and all over the world. So when I talk to you about these 
things, I didn't read about it in a magazine; I didn't see a 
documentary; I didn't have some briefing; I talk to people who show me. 
They have shown me. They said: Look, this is the cash-

[[Page S571]]

out payment that I sent to some guy to bring my sister and her husband. 
Here is the Venmo that I sent to some guy to help my family get from 
Cuba to Nicaragua and from Nicaragua to the United States.
  They don't know what the immigration law is. They don't know about 
exceptions, asylum. Here is what they know: They know people who have 
come here, turned themselves in, said ``I am here,'' blah, blah, blah, 
and they were released. They know people who did it, and those people 
tell other people, and the traffickers advertise it.
  So what happens is that when people figure out--and they figure it 
out pretty quickly. Human beings are incentive-based creatures. All of 
us are. That is why we pass laws to punish crime. That is why we raise 
taxes on cigarettes--we want people to smoke less.
  We are incentive-based creatures, and when people know that if you 
can make it inside of the United States and turn yourself in, your 
chances of being released are 85, 90-something percent, more people are 
going to come.
  The numbers don't lie. I don't have it with me. I tried to blow it 
up; couldn't print it on time. But there is a graph that shows--it 
looks like one of those things, you know, those echocardiograms, except 
this one goes straight up. It basically says, here is the number in 
December of 2019, January of 2020. February of 2021, it just spikes 
right up. Why did it spike?
  It spiked because we told people, by the way, if you are a single 
adult--which was the biggest driver that really changed everything--if 
you are a single adult and you come into America illegally and you turn 
yourself in, we will interview you--maybe not even interview you--and 
we will release you into the country. People figure it out.
  And the way you solve it is to reverse that. The law didn't change. 
The immigration law today looks the same as it did in 2019. No 
immigration law has changed in America. What changed is this policy by 
Executive order.
  Remember, when we pass laws, it has to be executed. So look what is 
happening with crime. It is illegal in every jurisdiction in America to 
shoplift, but the places where you see a spike in shoplifting are the 
places where the prosecutors have decided we are not going to prosecute 
those cases.
  And when you tell people, yes, it is illegal to do something but we 
are not going to prosecute it, we are not going to go after it, you are 
going to get it.
  So how do you solve this? You solve it the same way you created it: 
by reversing what created it. That is how you solve it.
  And so a lot of us said: Well, look, if we are going to do all this 
for Ukraine and all of these other countries--but Ukraine was really--
and this is something that you really want, it is important, can't we 
also--so that we look, at least, half sane to the people in this 
country that can't understand how we can spend all this time and energy 
not helping ourselves before we help other countries--can we at least 
deal with the border?
  So they said: OK, we are going to do something on the border.
  And they spent three, four--what, I don't know--8 weeks, whatever, 
negotiating a deal, and then they produced it. I didn't have anything 
to do with that deal. I am not condemning the people that did it. I 
have done immigration negotiations in the past; it is difficult. This 
is even more difficult because it is in the midst of a mass-migration 
crisis.
  But they negotiated a deal, but I didn't negotiate it. I didn't even 
know what was in it until Sunday. And I read it--I read it twice, 
actually--went through it with the knowledge base that I have. But they 
negotiated a deal that most of us, for the most part, to be fair, had 
nothing to do with negotiating. And I realized pretty quickly, this is 
not going to reverse.
  You can call it whatever you want. You can call it border security; 
you can label it anything you want. But this is not going to solve our 
problem. And, immediately, they said: Oh, the Republicans are a bunch 
of liars. The first is: These Republicans, they wanted a border deal; 
we gave them a border deal; and now they want to tank the whole thing. 
They changed their minds.
  I think that was the President: We gave them the exact deal they 
asked for, and they changed their mind.
  You didn't give me the exact deal I asked for. I asked for measures, 
steps, that would actually solve the migration crisis. This bill 
doesn't do that. In fact, I never even asked for a bill. I am not 
against some of the language that is in there. You want to change the 
standard on asylum? Long overdue; but that alone is not going to stop 
the migration crisis. That is what I asked for.
  I didn't negotiate it. I didn't even know what was in it, like I told 
you, until Sunday. And so the solution that I want to see and did want 
to see and continue to want to see, the solution that we could actually 
go back to people and say: Guys, we did something real on the border. 
Yes, we are going to help Ukraine with their invasion, but we actually 
did--something real is also going to happen with our invasion. That was 
not this bill, despite whatever people may say about it.
  We rejected the toughest border deal imaginable, is the other thing 
that people say. You know, like, if somehow, they figured out a way--
you know, they sprinkled holy water upon a vampire with this thing. 
Look, I could spell out a bunch of problems in this bill. I don't have 
time; I am not going to spend the time going through every detail.
  This emergency thing they brag about, emergency power to shut down 
the border, they don't tell you it is limited to 270 days, and the 
President can suspend it at any time. All the President has to say is: 
It is not in our national interest. We need to suspend the emergency.

  By the way, even in the emergency, you still have to process 1,400 
people a day, illegal immigrants a day, even in the midst of an 
emergency.
  But let me focus on what I think is--what I believe to be the most 
blatant trap that was put in place in this bill. And it is one that 
people don't necessarily spot right away if you don't understand 
immigration law and how it has been applied over the last decade.
  So there is this thing in the bill--remember, one of the things that 
people use about immigration is asylum. It takes too long; it takes 8 
to 10 years; huge backlog; courts; the like. It is true. And it is one 
of the incentives, by the way, because people know if you release me 
pending a hearing, 10 years from now you won't even know where I am, 
much less show up at a hearing.
  So they come back and say: Oh, we are prepared to solve that. How did 
they solve it? Well, they create what I call the asylum corps. In 
essence, they are going to go out and they are going to hire thousands 
of Department of Homeland Security agents--bureaucrats, agents--not 
judges--to process these claims, potentially right at the border. 
Right?
  So right at the border, these agents will be able to interact with an 
illegal immigrant, interview them, ask them some questions, and they 
will have the power, they will have the power right there at the border 
to do three things.
  The first is they could say, no, you don't qualify, you are out of 
here. Or we are going to detain you, and you are out of here. They 
could do that. That has not been the history of what has happened until 
now.
  And let me just tell you, from what I know, most of the people who 
sign up for these jobs and this duty do not sign up to kick people out; 
they sign up to help people get in. But that is the asylum, so that is 
the first power.
  The other two things are the likeliest one. The first is: We think 
you might have a claim. We are going to release you pending a hearing 
before a judge, and you get an immediate work permit.
  Right now, you have to wait 6 months for a work permit, even if you 
are released like these people. An immediate work permit--you want to 
talk about a migration magnet? When people figure out, if I get there, 
I have an X percent chance of being given an immediate work permit, 
that is a migration magnet.
  But here is the third thing they can do: They can give you asylum 
right there and then--not a judge; a member of this new asylum corps 
can literally give you asylum right there and then.
  Now, let me be fair. The law says they can do it under the convention 
against torture, which is an international treaty.
  Well, what is that? Well, let me tell you how that has been applied. 
How it

[[Page S572]]

has been applied is that the convention against torture isn't just 
like, we are going to send you back somewhere where they are going to 
waterboard you.
  The convention against torture that has been applied in most of the 
activists' groups that argue means we cannot remove people from this 
country if we are going to send them back to a place where they might 
be kidnapped or where they might be assaulted, not by just the 
government but by nongovernment criminal gangs.
  So, basically, if you come from a country where gangs kidnap people, 
where gangs kill people, where gangs extort people, where gangs 
threaten people, where gangs assault people--if you come from a country 
where that happens, we cannot send you back there under the convention 
of torture. That is their interpretation of it.
  My friends, that is like 100 countries on Earth. That is like almost 
every country represented in the number of people that arrive at the 
border. So, basically, what you will have is an asylum corps with the 
power to grant people asylum right at the border. And let me tell you 
the difference between the asylum corps and an immigration judge: If an 
immigration judge makes that decision, the Attorney General can still 
step in and reverse it. These are irreversible decisions.
  And let me tell you what asylum means. Asylum is basically a green 
card. You are now 5 years away from being a U.S. citizen. That number 
is not going to be zero. If that law and that provision had been in 
place today, some of these 3.3 million people would have already been a 
year or two into their 5-year wait to become citizens and voters of the 
United States of America. That is in that bill.
  And that is what it means when you read past the language and the 
shalls and the this and that and all of that, that is what that 
language means. And you want me to vote for a bill so that a year or 
two from now when the news reports come out that the asylum corps has 
granted asylum and a 5-year path to citizenship to 500,000 people and 
everybody here goes: Well, I didn't know that was in that law--that is 
in the law; that is in that bill; that is there.
  And I could go on; there are other things. The point is this was a 
trap. It was put in there in place, that was the goal. This is not a 
border--that would actually incentivize immigration, knowing what it is 
that incentivizes people to come.
  The other lie is, whoa, without a law, we can't do anything about the 
border. I already explained to you how we got here in the first place: 
We stopped detaining everybody.
  Remember, a few years ago it was--again, let's go back and be clear. 
The children who were being detained was because before we turned them 
over to some guy who claimed to be their uncle, we had to make sure he 
wasn't Jeffrey Dahmer; we had to make sure he wasn't some pedophile; we 
had to make sure it was really their uncle. And in the meantime, you 
have to put them somewhere. But that was inhumane.
  But now it has spread. Now it is the detention of anybody is 
inhumane. You have people out there saying: By the way, we shouldn't 
even put ankle bracelets on people who are released; that is inhumane.

  But the incentive that drove the immigration was we stopped detaining 
single adults. And the word got out really fast. And the traffickers--
this is a business for them. They traffic people; they move people; 
they move drugs. They move contraband, and they move people. And they 
knew this. And they sell it. They advertise it.
  I wish I would have brought some of the pamphlets that they hand out 
or pictures of some of the things they put up on social media in these 
countries advertising the service.
  You don't need a law to fix that because the law hasn't changed. What 
you need is to reverse the Executive orders, the decisions of the 
administration. And the President can do that. In fact, I heard 
yesterday--I think it was NBC News or something reported the President 
is now considering executive actions on the border.
  So at least they have acknowledged that they have that power. A 
reporter asked me yesterday, well, you guys are always against 
executive actions. Well, the executive action I think they need to take 
is to reverse the executive actions that he has taken which created 
this crisis.
  And there are other things that he can do. He can do the ``return to 
Mexico''; he can do the ``safe third country.'' By the way, the ``safe 
third country'' one is an interesting one. I was kind of involved when 
that was put in place. And initially--because it is counterintuitive. 
Initially, a lot of people said: Why would these countries agree to 
that? So let me tell you why Honduras would agree to it, why El 
Salvador agreed to it. Let me tell you why. Because those are transit 
countries.
  And safe third country basically said: If you come through that 
country, once you step foot in that country, you are automatically 
disqualified from getting asylum in the United States.
  Now, I have nothing against these countries, but I promise you that 
the migrants that are going through El Salvador, Honduras, and 
Guatemala were going through. They didn't go to Guatemala, Honduras, El 
Salvador, or Nicaragua, for that matter, to stay there. They went there 
because it was on the way to where they were trying to go.
  The minute migrants realized if I go there, if I go to Honduras, I 
automatically cannot get into the United States, they stopped going to 
Honduras or they stopped going to El Salvador. The countries figured it 
out. I bet you we can get many more countries to sign up for something 
like that, because they are bearing the brunt of being in the middle of 
the migration corridor. We could return to that as well.
  And, yes, we can build barriers. I remember after the horrible events 
of January 6 here in the Capitol, the first thing that went up around 
this entire building was a fence with barbed wire and National Guard. 
The first thing they did to protect the Capitol and themselves was to 
deputize National Guard from all over America and to put fences around 
the Capitol, some of the biggest fences you have ever seen. And they 
went up like that.
  But, somehow, when our country is being invaded and you put up a 
fence and you send the National Guard, this administration will go to 
the Supreme Court and try to stop you. So they will do it to protect 
themselves, but they won't do it to protect America.
  My friends, the truth is that Biden doesn't want to stop the border 
crisis, and the reason why is politics. I know his memory is probably 
not the best, but I remember that he spent 3 years repeatedly saying--
not just him, all the deputies, people in this Chamber, all these know-
it-alls on television: There is no crisis at the border. There is not a 
crisis. It is being exaggerated, exaggerated by a bunch of xenophobes 
and racists.
  But now it is a top issue in the country to voters. It wasn't a 
crisis until it became a crisis in New York and Chicago and all these 
major cities around the country who now suddenly--you know, when it was 
happening to Texas, when this was happening on the border in Arizona, 
as if somehow all the people that came here were--3.3 million people 
were all going to stay in Eagle Pass, TX. But once it got into their 
cities, once it started impacting them, now it became a problem too. 
Once you had to start closing schools because you needed to make it a 
migrant shelter, now it was a crisis. Now when you have a gang of 
pickpocketers running through New York assaulting police officers, now 
it is a crisis. Now, when the residents of your own city are screaming 
at you, ``Why are you spending all this money when we have our own 
homeless problem?'' now you have a crisis. And voters were saying it 
too.

  And so I imagine--I am certain--that the people involved in the Biden 
reelection effort came to him and said: Sir, we need to have a plan. We 
need to have a plan, and the plan needs to be something that, at least, 
looks like we are trying to stop it but doesn't upset that element of 
our base who actually believes that anyone who comes here should be 
allowed to come here.
  And that element exists. That element exists. There are people in 
American politics and in American political discourse who believe that, 
if you make it across the border, virtually anyone who comes here--
unless, like, the worst possible human being--if you make it across the 
border, you should

[[Page S573]]

be allowed to stay, even if you came illegally.
  They had to come up with a plan. So what was the plan? Here was the 
plan, and I called this out in December. The plan is: Let's do a border 
deal. Let's call it a border deal, but let's make sure it doesn't stop 
migration because we don't want to upset our base. But let's also make 
sure it is bipartisan. Let's get some Republicans to sign on to it, and 
then let's get it passed through the Senate. And then when the House 
kills it, we can say: I, Joe Biden, tried to fix the border, but these 
Neanderthals, MAGA House members, they killed it. So blame them from 
now on.
  In fact, I am not speculating here. There is nothing that I am just 
like psychically coming up with. There is an article in POLITICO in 
which an unnamed source in the Biden campaign was saying: This is 
perfect. If they pass it, we can claim credit for a bipartisan deal and 
tell people: Now, be patient. It is going to take time to work, but it 
is bipartisan. If it doesn't pass, he can blame the Republicans and say 
they own it.
  And those talking points were already being said, including by some 
of my colleagues here on some Sunday shows that I saw. They were 
already saying that even before the deal was already out there. That 
was the plan.
  But he will never fix it--one, because there are people in the base 
that don't want it to be fixed. There are people in American politics, 
as I said already, who think anyone who comes here should be allowed to 
come and stay. There are others, frankly, who see a bunch of voters. 
They see a bunch of future voters.
  Do you know what? Let's find a way to get people asylum. Asylum is 
perfect. It puts them instantly on a path to citizenship. In 4 to 6 
years from now, we are going to have a bunch of new voters, and they 
will vote for us, and they will remember we are the ones that let them 
in.
  So that is another element of it.
  But I want to go back to the one about the elements of their base 
that believe in open borders, whether they admit it or not. And some of 
them actually do admit it. There are actually people who have told me 
to my face, ``People should be allowed to live in any country that they 
want,'' which, I suppose, in a free society, you can have a right to 
any opinion you want. I assure you, it is not a majority position in 
America. In fact, I assure you, it is not a majority position in any 
country. But, somehow, they think it should be our position.
  And if you don't think that the elements of a base have influence 
over our politics, I submit to you what is happening right now with 
Israel policy. So we have already seen, I would imagine, a small 
minority--but nonetheless a minority--of radical, anti-Semitic pro-
Hamas activists who are out there. They are threatening to vote against 
Joe Biden. They have said it: We will vote. Do not count on our vote. 
We are going to vote against you. Your name is ``Genocide Joe''--they 
call him.
  They disrupt his speeches. He tried to give a speech the other day. I 
think there were like 40 interruptions. They have been in the hallways 
here. It is not just the weirdos from these CODEPINK communist groups, 
but it is others, screaming at us: You need to do this; you need to do 
that--all this stuff that is out there.
  But they say: Sir, you have a problem. We have an element of our base 
in some States that say they are not going to vote for you because you 
are helping Israel too much.
  And that is where you see the leak. The first leak that came out is: 
Oh, the President hung up on Netanyahu.
  Then you see another leak a couple of weeks ago: We are going to have 
a two-state solution.
  Never mind the fact that the two most prominent Palestinian groups, 
sadly, in the region are groups--one of them is going to wind up in the 
government of the second state--and these are groups that do things 
like give cash rewards for killing Jews. The more Jews you kill, the 
more money your family gets if you are a martyr. Pay to slay--it is 
real. Groups that, for example, in their schools, when their kids are 
4, 5, 6 years of age, their school books, their textbooks teach them: 
Jews are subhuman, and they are evil--groups that are not interested in 
a two-state solution. These groups are calling for a one-state 
solution: ``from the river to the sea''--no Jews, only them.
  So let's give them their own country. Now, I would love for that to 
be possible, but not as long as those people are around. But that is 
the other thing they threw out there.
  And then, yesterday, we read that the White House has sent 
emissaries. Top aides from the White House went to Michigan to meet 
with some of these upset activists to see if we can somehow bring them 
along so they will vote for him in November and stop being mean to Joe 
Biden over Israel.
  Well, do you know who some of these people were? Multiple--more than 
one of them--were people that have openly--openly--been supportive of 
both Hamas and Hezbollah and call them ``freedom fighters.'' At least 
one of them is a guy who has publicly said, on multiple occasions, that 
the U.S. Government is controlled by Zionist money, by Jewish money. 
That is who the White House went to meet with yesterday.
  And then, last night, we are treated to a press conference by the 
President of the United States, and in what I imagine was an unscripted 
moment--maybe not--he said Israel's response to Hamas ``has been over 
the top,'' which is ironic, because I support Israel funding, but here 
we are today being asked to pass a bill that has all this money for 
Israel, which I support.
  So what are we funding? We are funding Israel's ``over the top'' 
campaign against Hamas?
  So it doesn't make any sense, except for the politics. That is how 
politics influences all of this. You know, I would conclude by just 
taking us back to the original point, which is, the reason why I have 
voted already to move to proceed to this. I just don't know how you go 
to people in everyday life, hard-working people, and say to them--
people who are upset because they feel like our country's border is 
being overrun, and it is--and they say: How come we are not doing 
anything about that, something real? Like, why aren't we making that a 
priority? Why don't we ever read that the Senate is staying in through 
the weekend arguing and fighting and working on something real to stop 
the border? How come that never gets a priority?

  The growing number of Americans who always feel like, when it comes 
to a major issue and a major fight, they are always second--behind 
another country, behind another group, behind somebody else--who have 
been, for the better part of 20 years, told: We have to take care of 
others before we focus on your problems. Let's send our jobs and our 
factories to other countries because it is good for the global economy. 
I know we have homeless veterans committing record amounts of suicides 
and these tragedies, but let's spend more money housing migrants in 
this country illegally to begin with.
  People who watched the news last week, OK, a roving gang of migrants 
from Venezuela--I mean, it is interesting because, for a year now, the 
Venezuelan community in South Florida has been telling me to be careful 
because some of the people who are coming from Venezuela now are 
clearly gang bangers. And, you know, you have to prove that. I am not 
saying it is zero percent, but they were right. They warned me a year 
ago, and now we are seeing it. And you saw it last week when--what?--
five or seven of them assaulted police officers, were arrested, were 
released within an hour without any bail, flipped the middle finger to 
America, and walked right out, back to the migrant shelter, paid for by 
taxpayers.
  You saw it last Sunday, when an illegal migrant of Palestinian 
descent went to Nassau County in New York, walked up to some guy's 
house and tore down his Israeli and American flags. When the guy 
confronted him, he assaulted the guy and started screaming things like: 
We are going to kill all the Jews.
  Those are just two examples. I could give you more, but they are 
there. People are watching this stuff, and they are angry. They say: 
Why don't you guys do something about that? Why aren't you staying 
through the weekend about that? Why aren't those people being deported 
immediately?
  How about these people here on student visas? You are a visitor to 
the

[[Page S574]]

United States of America on a student visa--on a student visa or 
whatever visa--and you are in the street calling for ``intifada,'' but 
we can't deport you. They won't deport you. We know who you are. You 
are not here illegally; you are here on a visa. If you had said all 
that stuff, we probably wouldn't have given you the visa, but now that 
you are here, you get to keep the visa? Deport those people. They 
won't. Why aren't you fighting about that?
  Most Americans have nothing against Ukraine. Most Americans want to 
help Ukraine, but I don't think it is unreasonable for them to say: 
Well, what about us? What about our country? What about our invasion? 
What about our border?
  And I want to say this with as much respect as I can. There is nobody 
in the Senate that can lecture me on immigration. This is not a 
political drive. I have lived it my whole life.
  This is not immigration--3.3 million people released into the 
country. And 5 to 10,000 people a day illegally arrive in the country. 
That is not immigration. Immigration is a good thing. Mass migration is 
a bad thing, and that is what this is. This is mass migration, and it 
is not good for anyone. It is not even good for the migrants, many of 
whom are raped and killed along the way.
  It is good for the traffickers. It is good for the enemies of this 
country, but it is not good for the migrants. This is mass migration, 
and it reminds me, well, if you are against this and you want to be 
strict about immigration, that is anti-immigrant, which is silly, at 
least if they say it to me.
  But I remember, like, I am not anti-rain. I think rain is a good 
thing. I think we need rain, right? I am anti-flood. I am not against 
the rain. I am against flooding. Does being against flooding make you 
anti-rain? No. And being against mass migration does not make you anti-
immigration, because mass migration is not immigration.
  And beyond the issues of sovereignty and common sense and the costs 
involved--beyond all of that--do we really think that you can release 
600,000 people with either criminal convictions or pending criminal 
charges into the country and nothing is going to happen? Do you think 
you can release 600,000 people with criminal histories and they are, 
all of a sudden, all going to become entrepreneurs and start some tech 
company? No. The chances are that a lot of them are going to continue 
to be criminals. You are going to have a crime wave. It is already 
starting, and no part of this country will be immune from it.
  And do you think ISIS and, for that matter, every terrorist 
organization in the world, no matter what sewer they live in or some 
cave they are hiding in--you don't think they are aware that the 
largest, most effective human smuggling operation in all of human 
history is operating right on the border of the United States? You 
don't think they are aware of it? Because the guys that were involved 
in 9/11--those animals, savages--they actually came here on a visa 
pretending to be flight students.
  The next 9/11, God forbid, they don't have to pretend anything. All 
they have to say is: I come from a country where people are kidnapped 
and where people are often victims of crime, and you must let me in. 
And, for all we know, some of them may actually become citizens because 
they are going to get asylum.
  You don't think that these terrorist groups are aware? I can't and 
won't divulge any intelligence information. So let's just use common 
sense. Common sense tells you that these groups and these terrorist 
organizations understand that the largest human smuggling, migrant 
smuggling operation in the history of mankind operates right at border 
of the United States. And we don't think anything is going to come out 
as a result of it?
  Something bad is going to happen. Something bad--really bad--is bound 
to happen, and, when it does, remember this day, because, when it does, 
when something really bad happens, when we are overrun by a horrible 
crime wave and multiple cities--guys, we lived it.
  I was a child. I actually didn't live in Miami at the time. We had 
moved away for a few years. The Mariel boatlift brought 200,000--less 
than 200,000--people from Cuba all at once. It took Miami 10 years to 
dig out of that. Bill Clinton lost his reelection because he agreed to 
take in some of those people into a Federal facility in Arkansas, and 
they set it on fire.
  And there are a lot of people who came through Mariel who did fine, 
and there were a bunch of criminals and sadists and lunatics as well, 
because you take a lot of people from anywhere, and you are going to 
have the good, the bad, and the ugly.
  Well, we have something just like this happening not once, over a 
span of weeks, but, literally, every month we have two Mariels. And you 
think that you are going to allow a flood of people into America and 
something bad is not going to happen? Sadly, it is. It is just a matter 
of time. And when it does--when it does--things that might sound 
extreme to some aren't just going to sound reasonable, they are going 
to sound overdue. And do you know what they are going to ask us? How 
could you have allowed this to happen?

  So I end where I began. I know that if all you do is spend your time 
here and watch those networks and read these columnists and newspapers, 
you may lose this perspective; but I promise you, in the real world, on 
planet Earth, in this country among everyday people, most of them are 
asking themselves: Do you want to help Ukraine? We are for it. Do you 
want to help Israel? Of course. Yes, we should help Taiwan.
  But who is helping America? Why isn't helping our country deal with 
this migrant crisis No. 1 before those other things? Don't they tell 
you on the airplane, if the oxygen mask deploys, put on your mask and 
then put the one on your kid? What good are we, how do you suppose--
America, to anyone in the world, to any country on this planet--if we 
are falling apart inside?
  And then, who do we work for? We work for Americans. I am a U.S. 
citizen, a U.S. Senator. I care about things that are going on in the 
world. No one has ever accused me of being an isolationist. And those 
things do matter in America. But you have to start with fundamentals, 
and that means you have to be strong here at home in order to be strong 
for our allies.
  We are being invaded every single day. Today, 8 to 10,000 people will 
enter the United States illegally and unlawfully. We don't know who 
most of them are. Don't let them tell you that they do. You can buy a 
fake passport. You can buy state travel documents in Brazil. In 
multiple countries in Latin America, you can buy them. It is an 
industry.
  So I am just telling you, we are going to have something bad happen 
and people are going to ask: Why didn't you guys fight over that? Why 
didn't you stay over the weekend about that?
  So why are we focused on an invasion of another country--which is 
important--but not focused on the invasion of our own country?
  And it can be solved. The President's executive orders created it, 
and he can reverse it, but he won't. So here we are.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Butler). The Senator from Indiana.


                       Tribute to Abraham Lincoln

  Mr. YOUNG. Madam President, as a Senator from the State of Indiana, I 
just can't let February pass without offering a tribute to one of our 
State's favorite sons, Abraham Lincoln.
  As we approach his birthday, we celebrate how Lincoln's story is 
perhaps the ultimate example of American opportunity. Lincoln spent the 
formative days of his childhood in the Hoosier wilderness, and he 
ultimately rose from the humblest of circumstances: a log cabin all the 
way up to the White House.
  As President, he helped preserve our Union and end slavery, setting a 
course so that all Americans, regardless of race or circumstances, 
could follow his upwards path. Lincoln challenged America to honor the 
promise in its Declaration of Independence, that all men are created 
equal. And he reminds us still today that if we fail to do so, 
government by consent of the governed cannot long endure.
  I think all of us here in the U.S. Senate today can attest these are 
difficult times. We face all sorts of challenges, foreign and domestic; 
and therefore, our politics are difficult. But I would argue--and I do 
so here today--that the politics we are facing today aren't nearly as 
difficult as those that Abraham Lincoln faced.
  During a week like this, where passions run high, we have had 
numerous

[[Page S575]]

debates behind closed doors and on this floor, we should keep 
perspective, and we should avoid dramatic comparisons and take dire 
predictions with a grain of salt.
  But concern about the national discourse which informs our political 
system is indeed well founded. Dialogue between Americans so essential 
to the maintenance of a democratic republic has coarsened and reached 
the point that at times, it scarcely resembles conversation. This form 
of estrangement leads to hurt feelings, separateness, civil 
dysfunction. And my fear and what brings me down to this floor--not 
just to honor a great man--I fear that this portends much worse 
divisions moving forward.
  Abraham Lincoln knew this. He understood this dynamic. Decades before 
the Civil War, he identified a remedy in an address that upset the 
residents of Springfield, IL. You see, 19th century America was awash 
with passionate reform movements, much like today, in the great 
American tradition. Many of their followers sought to cure societal 
ills with great zeal and commitment.

  One example was the temperance movement--sort of a dated term--but 
the temperance movement was a campaign against drinking the ``demon 
rum,'' alcoholic beverages. On February 22, 1842, the 110th anniversary 
of George Washington's birthday, Abraham Lincoln spoke to a gathering 
of reformers at Springfield's Second Presbyterian Church, as part of a 
temperance festival. It must have been a grand old time.
  Lincoln was 33 years old. He was a member of Illinois' House of 
Representatives. And as he later said, he was ``an old line Whig.'' It 
was a political party whose base, to borrow a modern term, included 
members of social reform movements. But Lincoln did not use this 
occasion to curry favor with his base. No. Instead, Abraham Lincoln 
offered advice that is still relevant to us today.
  The invitation to speak came from Springfield's chapter of the 
Washingtonian Temperance Society. This organization was founded 2 years 
prior in Baltimore by six friends, all recovering alcoholics. In a 
short period of time, the Washingtonians started a revolution in 
treating addiction. The society's numbers quickly swelled just a few 
years after its founding. Chapters spread across the country, into the 
frontier.
  In the Washingtonians' success, Lincoln recognized a particular means 
of building coalitions and addressing intractable problems. At its core 
was something especially relevant, I would argue, in our era of 
addition by subtraction, as he put it, ``persuasion''--``. . . 
persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion.''
  Previous efforts to curb alcoholism, you see, as Lincoln recounted, 
were often self-righteous in their nature--perhaps that 
characterization sounds familiar to some when we reflect on the current 
discourse--self-righteous in their nature and impractical in their 
demands. Lest I sound quaint, that rings a bit true to me when we 
reflect on present-day Washington and the debates we sometimes have on 
this floor.
  The Washingtonian's approach and expectations differed, and that is 
why they were successful. They damned the drink but not the drinker. 
Their cure, such as it was, was based in compassion, based in 
understanding, not condemnation. They saw a fellow citizen suffering 
from the disease as a friend in need of help, not a helpless sinner.
  Lincoln contrasted the approach and effect of the Washingtonians with 
their predecessors, the older reformers. The older reformers, Lincoln 
recalled, communicated ``in the thundering tones of anathema and 
denunciation.''
  Now, we are all, no matter our political persuasion, familiar with 
those ``thundering tones.'' The truth is, we are all guilty. We are all 
guilty of those ``thundering tones'' from time to time. And perhaps, 
from time to time, those thundering tones are appropriate and 
necessary, and they have a great deal of impact when used sparingly. We 
are all guilty from time to time, forgetting that we are erring men and 
women.
  But Lincoln suggested a gentler alternative: ``It is an old and a 
true maxim,'' he reasoned, ``that a `drop of honey catches more flies 
than a gallon of gall.' '' That is how the Hoosier put it.
  It is that drop of honey, Lincoln continued, which draws men and 
women to our sides, convinces them we are indeed friends. Friends--this 
from one of the most intelligent, successful, effective, polemicist 
debaters, litigators, and politicians in all of human history; he 
regarded his opponents as friends.
  And this, in his words, is ``the great highroad'' to their reason:

       [W]hen once gained, you will find but little trouble in 
     convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if 
     indeed that cause really be a just one.

  Some Lincolnian humanity mixed in with age-old wisdom.
  Now, across our politics and in our media, we seem so convinced 
sometimes of our justness, of our cause, that it has become in vogue to 
cancel--a modern term, ``cancel''--the other side and chase away those 
on our own who do not see them, that other side, as enemies--tribalism, 
unleashed.
  Where does this tribalistic impulse to cancel and ostracize lead us? 
It is an easy way to get booked on television these days. It is 
guaranteed to increase the number of social media followers you have. 
It might even rile up a rally or a crowd from time to time. But Abraham 
Lincoln, before the age of social media, predicted exactly where this 
would lead us.
  Deem a fellow citizen a foe ``to be shunned and despised, and he will 
retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart 
. . .''--it is human nature and, therefore, unchanged and unchangeable. 
``Such is man,'' he continued, ``and so must he be understood by those 
who would lead him, even to his own best interest.''
  Abraham Lincoln believed that the American Revolution defied human 
history by proving men and women capable of governing themselves. Our 
original birth of freedom led to the design of a republic, a republic 
in which citizens decide what is in their best interest. Determining it 
often requires passionate, loud, angry debates properly circumscribed 
by a social, moral, ethical framework. It includes a balance with 
generous measures of trust and understanding. An absence of this 
balance gives way to discord, and that discord makes us all weaker--
collectively weaker, even individually weaker.

  On the surface, Lincoln's speech in 1842 was about a means of 
combating alcoholism and achieving reforms. Look deeper, though. Its 
passages still today illustrate how we can continue to prove history 
wrong together. Remember--remember the power of reason even in our most 
passionate arguments. Find the empathy to form a bridge to our 
estranged countrymen--they are out there--and allow forbearance toward 
those among them we may disagree with--forbearance.
  Abraham Lincoln relied on these values throughout his career even in 
America's darkest hour. They remain vital to our national harmony and 
to our common good. So, as we mark the occasion of Lincoln's birthday 
in 2024, we should call on these values once again.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator withhold his request.
  Mr. YOUNG. Yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, let me start by thanking my friend 
and colleague from Indiana for providing those wise words and good 
examples from Abraham Lincoln.


                          Supplemental Funding

  Madam President, I come to the floor today to discuss the National 
Security Act, which has many important components, including support 
for Ukraine, for Israel, and for countries in the Indo-Pacific, as well 
as humanitarian assistance to help respond to crises around the world, 
including in Ukraine, in Gaza, the West Bank, Sudan, and elsewhere. It 
also includes funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to 
better protect those nonprofits here in the United States, including 
places of worship, that face elevated risks from hate crimes.
  I have spoken many times on this floor about the imperative of 
providing the people of Ukraine with more desperately needed military 
assistance to protect their sovereignty and to protect their democracy. 
We must not abandon them to Putin's brutal onslaught. The Ukrainian 
people are putting their blood and their lives on the

[[Page S576]]

line to defend their freedom. The least we can do--the least we can 
do--is provide them, together with our allies, with the weapons and 
other support they need to do that.
  It is not only the freedom of Ukraine that is at stake; abandoning 
the people of Ukraine to Putin would destroy our credibility with our 
allies and our adversaries. It would undermine our word with both 
friend and foe not only in Europe but around the world.
  Let there be no doubt that President Xi is keeping one eye on what 
happens in Ukraine as he keeps the other eye trained on Taiwan.
  To my Senate colleagues, you cannot say that you want to deter 
President Xi from attempting the forcible takeover of Taiwan if you are 
prepared to wave the white flag in the face of Putin's aggression. You 
can't say you are tough on China if you are weak on Russia and Putin.
  This bill also provides important security assistance to partners in 
the Indo-Pacific region to protect their sovereignty and support our 
common vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific. As the chair of the 
Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, I 
have worked hard on a bipartisan basis to advance that goal.
  Today, I want to focus the remainder of my remarks on the provisions 
in the supplemental to provide more U.S. security assistance to Israel.
  The horror of the October 7 Hamas terror attacks against Israel 
cannot, must not, and will not be erased or forgotten. About 1,200 
people were brutally murdered, and 240 people were taken hostage. As I 
have said many times in the aftermath of that heinous attack and those 
kidnappings, Israel not only has the right but the duty to defend 
itself and take the actions necessary to prevent any future October 
7's. Never forget and never again.
  I stand steadfastly with the people of Israel in pursuing that 
objective and securing the release of all the hostages. Given the 
terrible news of the deaths of as many as one-fifth of the remaining 
hostages, the urgency of bringing the rest home could not be more 
clear.
  I also believe that, while it is a just war, a just war must still be 
fought justly. As President Biden, Secretary Blinken, Secretary Austin, 
and many others have repeated, how a war is conducted matters. It 
matters for both moral and strategic reasons.
  As Americans, we remember the collective anguish we experienced after 
the 9/11 terror attacks. We are also acutely aware of the unintended 
consequences of strategic overreach stemming from shared anger and 
pain. These were important lessons--lessons that apply today.
  We all recognize that Hamas's despicable tactic of operating from 
among the civilian population makes it more difficult to target the 
enemy, but that does not absolve the Netanyahu government of the duty 
to take necessary measures to avoid civilian casualties. That is why, 
back on December 2 of last year, Secretary Austin said:

       Protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is both a moral 
     responsibility and a strategic one.

  Those sentiments were echoed by Secretary Blinken in December of last 
year when he said that it is ``imperative that Israel put a premium on 
civilian protection.'' The Secretary of State has emphasized that point 
repeatedly since then.
  Nor does the horror of the October 7 attack justify the humanitarian 
catastrophe in Gaza--a catastrophe that began when the Netanyahu 
government imposed a total siege on the people in that very narrow 
strip of land, and that has continued as his coalition places 
unnecessary obstacles in the way of getting vital, desperately needed, 
lifesaving assistance to innocent civilians there.
  Over 2 million Palestinian civilians, who have nothing to do with 
Hamas, are on the verge of starvation and need help to survive. That is 
why Secretary Blinken has emphasized the importance of getting ``more 
humanitarian assistance to people who so desperately need it in Gaza.'' 
The situation is awful, and it is getting worse by the day.
  To those who say that all this aid is being diverted to Hamas, let me 
just say that is factually untrue, and I want to read a statement I 
received not that long ago from Ambassador Satterfield, who is our 
humanitarian coordinator in charge of humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
  His statement reads:

       Today, I have not received any allegations, evidence, or 
     reports of any incidents of Hamas diversion or theft of U.S. 
     or other assistance or fuel from U.N.-delivered assistance 
     from any of our partners or from the Government of Israel 
     since the humanitarian assistance resumed in Gaza on October 
     21st.

  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that his full statement be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                         Satterfield Statement

       To date, I have not received any allegations, evidence or 
     reports of any incidence of Hamas diversion or theft of U.S. 
     or other assistance or fuel from UN delivered assistance from 
     any of our partners or from the Government of Israel since 
     humanitarian assistance resumed in Gaza October 21.
       I have received reports of several incidents of UN and 
     Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) aid trucks being taken 
     for immediate consumption by vulnerable civilians in Gaza, my 
     understanding based on direct conversations with the UN is 
     that these recent incidents are not due to systemic or 
     directed diversion by Hamas but rather undertaken by 
     desperate communities that are experiencing a grave level of 
     scarcity, under threat of constant kinetic operations, and 
     have been displaced, in some cases multiple times.
       While my team and I are routinely in touch with the UN on 
     aid assistance delivery and have asked that they report any 
     indications of Hamas-directed diversion to the U.S., we do 
     not have the same visibility on the distribution of aid 
     consigned from the Egyptian Red Crescent to PRCS for onward 
     delivery in Gaza. We can provide further context in a 
     briefing.
       We continue to have conversations with COGAT and the UN on 
     the looting and diversion risks in Gaza and have asked them 
     to alert us should there be evidence of Hamas-directed 
     diversion of assistance. All humanitarian assistance in Gaza 
     is reviewed, inspected, and monitored by COGAT. Our teams in 
     Israel and Washington, D.C. continue to engage with the 
     Israeli government on this matter.

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Unfortunately, the Biden administration's urgent 
pleas have mostly fallen on deaf ears with Netanyahu's coalition. Just 
a few days ago, we saw Secretary Blinken in Jerusalem, meeting with 
Prime Minister Netanyahu, urging that Israel not take military action 
in Rafah.
  What is Rafah? Rafah is a city in Gaza that is right on the Egyptian-
Gaza border. Before the war started, there were about 300,000, 400,000 
people in Rafah. Today, you have about 1.4 million people crammed into 
Rafah because over a million people who have been displaced from other 
parts of Gaza went to Rafah because they were told it was a safe place 
to go.
  Despite what Secretary Blinken said and despite the fact that just 
the other day, John Kirby, the national security spokesman, said that 
the United States would not support a major military operation in 
Rafah--nevertheless, within hours of Secretary Blinken's meeting with 
the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that they are going 
to go into Rafah. It is just one of many, many examples of where our 
requests have been rebuffed.
  We have made some incremental progress from time to time. For 
example, after many, many requests and urgings, we saw a while back the 
long-delayed reopening of the Kerem Shalom crossing to allow some more 
trucks into Gaza. But the reality is that the number of trucks and the 
amount of aid getting into Gaza is nowhere near what is necessary to 
meet the dire humanitarian situation.
  Here we are 4 months into this war, and over 27,000 Palestinians have 
been killed, over two-thirds of them women and children, and that does 
not include those who are still buried beneath the rubble.
  Wes Bryant, who helped lead the U.S. targeting against ISIS, has 
written about the unacceptably high levels of civilian casualties in 
Gaza.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that his op-ed be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 I Led Strike Cells Against ISIS--Israel's Strike Campaign in Gaza Is 
                              Unacceptable

       Nearly three months into Israel's war in Gaza, the casualty 
     data that has emerged is deeply troubling to me as an expert 
     in close air support and targeting.
       Israel was wholly justified in responding to Hamas's 
     inhuman attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in which the terror group 
     tortured and gunned down hundreds of people and entire 
     families.

[[Page S577]]

     But its aggressive campaign across the Gaza Strip has slain 
     almost 22,000 people, up to 70 percent of whom have been 
     women and children, with the majority of deaths attributed to 
     Israeli airstrikes. If these figures are anywhere near 
     accurate, civilian loss from Israel's strike campaign is 
     completely at odds with the standards that my colleagues and 
     I followed for years, including during major urban offensives 
     against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
       I spent a career as a Joint Terminal Attack Controller 
     (JTAC) in the U.S. Air Force--the airpower experts who 
     coordinate and call in airstrikes. In 2014, I was a key 
     member of the special operations response force sent to 
     Baghdad to establish the strike cells that helped bring down 
     the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. As a senior targeting 
     professional, certified by the U.S. Central Command to 
     conduct collateral damage estimation and analysis, 
     safeguarding the civilian populace from airstrikes was a core 
     aspect of my job. And while the United States may not be 
     perfect in this realm, the reality is that the Israeli 
     military has demonstrated a far higher tolerance for civilian 
     casualties than the U.S. military, even when compared to our 
     most sensitive operations.
       In early December, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated 
     that, thus far in the course of its campaign in Gaza, 
     approximately two civilians had been killed for every Hamas 
     fighter. IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus defended that 
     ratio on CNN, calling it ``tremendously positive'' in light 
     of Hamas embedding itself within the civilian population.
       A modern, first-world military should never view a 2:1 
     civilian-to-combatant death ratio as acceptable, let alone 
     remotely ``positive.''
       This ratio exceeds that of the U.S. operation to destroy 
     ISIS's de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria, which itself became 
     a cautionary tale for civilian harm in dense urban fighting. 
     There, airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition killed more than 
     1,600 civilians during months of bombardment, according to an 
     Amnesty International report. The U.S. military has argued 
     that Amnesty's civilian death for Raqqa is significantly 
     overestimated and can be considered a worst-case 
     approximation. Even so, given that Raqqa was the last ISIS 
     stronghold in Syria and harbored thousands of ISIS fighters, 
     we can assess a civilian casualty ratio nowhere near that of 
     Israel's campaign in Gaza.
       Yet the civilian casualty rates in Raqqa were still 
     considered unacceptable by U.S. standards and became a 
     significant driver of the Pentagon's civilian harm mitigation 
     and response reforms. The differences between Israeli and 
     American-led air wars goes further.
       Nearly half of the munitions Israel has dropped in Gaza 
     since Oct. 7 have been unguided bombs, and Israel has 
     regularly used bombs weighing as much as 2,000 pounds within 
     densely populated refugee encampments and near besieged 
     hospitals. This is almost unheard of in U.S. airstrike 
     planning.
       First, refugee encampments and hospitals are protected 
     sites within U.S. targeting methodology. Intentionally 
     striking in, or even within close proximity to, these areas 
     is almost never on the table.
       Second, unguided bombs can miss their intended target by 
     dozens of meters. The only time we used them was in areas 
     with little possibility of civilians being present, such as 
     to destroy a weapons cache.
       Further, the size of most bombs we dropped in urban areas 
     rarely exceeded 500 pounds--even then, we most often chose 
     warheads with smaller blasts and less fragmentation that were 
     designed to limit collateral damage.
       And in all but the rarest of strike operations, my 
     authorized threshold for risk of civilian casualties was 
     zero, meaning that strikes would not be approved if there was 
     risk of even one civilian being killed. The IDF continually 
     carries out strikes in locations where high risk of civilian 
     death is well understood.
       The justifications Israeli officials have offered for high 
     civilian casualties include Hamas's use of civilians as 
     involuntary human shields. However, in U.S. strike 
     operations, such excuses are never an option. Regardless of 
     how the enemy is conducting itself--how embedded within the 
     civilian populace they are or how many civilians they are 
     intentionally surrounding themselves with--this never 
     absolves us of the obligation to protect civilians.
       Sadly, many U.S. defense analysts have nearly stepped over 
     one another to legally and morally justify the high rates of 
     civilian casualties in Gaza.
       In an interview on CNN in December, a prominent defense 
     analyst from the U.S. Military Academy irresponsibly insisted 
     that the IDF strike campaign has been ``proportional, very 
     discriminate, very precise.'' I can state, without 
     reservation, that it simply has not shown any of these 
     qualities.
       Just one example of what has, unfortunately, become many in 
     the course of Israel's strike campaign in Gaza includes the 
     IDF's deliberate and continued targeting within densely 
     populated refugee camps, even while knowing that these areas 
     have not been successfully evacuated by civilians. Such 
     strikes demonstrate far from any level of discrimination and 
     precision that I was expected to exercise as a U.S. targeting 
     professional.
       I can recount watching our enemies maneuver in real time, 
     or tracking a terrorist cell for weeks to a specific 
     location, yet not being able to strike because we assessed 
     that civilians were potentially within the strike radius. 
     Although it is frustrating to be constrained from striking an 
     enemy when we see him plainly in our sights--this is the 
     humane way to conduct warfare. It is one of the major 
     qualities that separates us from our enemies and, 
     importantly, it is what the international law of armed 
     conflict was created for.
       Since October, members of the Biden administration--
     including President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken 
     and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin--have repeatedly spoken 
     against Israel's strike campaign, acknowledging the 
     devastating scale of civilian loss in Gaza. Yet the 
     administration has, thus far, failed to effect any meaningful 
     change on the part of Israel's strike operations, and 
     continues to send arms and munitions. Israel is the top 
     recipient of U.S. foreign military aid, receiving $3.3 
     billion annually, including the supply of air-to-ground 
     munitions used in their strike campaign.
       This is a conversation that must be had, as our actions 
     demonstrate that we are complicit in the massive civilian 
     toll in Gaza. And this carries strategic, legal and moral 
     considerations. In my career hunting America's enemies with 
     airstrikes, it was my job to be calculated and precise in 
     targeting our enemies while being compassionate and vigilant 
     in safeguarding the civilian populace. We can stand by 
     Israel's right to defend its homeland, and the necessity to 
     defeat Hamas, while also doing far more to influence change 
     in its targeting and strike operations in Gaza.
       A call for the humanitarian revision of the military 
     actions of Israel is no more antisemitic than valuing 
     Palestinian civilian lives is pro-Hamas. This overriding 
     rhetoric is the definition of logical fallacy, and only 
     blinds us.

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. It is not only the extremely high civilian death 
toll; it is the over 67,000 wounded, the over 1.7 million displaced. It 
is the huge damage to civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, 
schools, mosques, and churches. It is the toll from humanitarian aid 
workers killed and journalists killed. The level of death and 
destruction in Gaza is simply inhumane.
  For just one small but still powerful example, I urge my colleagues 
to read the Washington Post story from last Friday--a week ago--about a 
6-year old girl, Hind Hamada, who is trying to get to safety in a car 
with her aunt, her uncle, and her five young cousins. The car was hit 
by tank fire, and all of those who were in the car with Hind died. She 
was severely injured. She got on a phone to try to call for help, and 
there are recordings of her calls for help as her family members lay 
dead around her in the car. The last recording on the phone call she 
made to paramedics who were unable to reach her were:

       Come and take me.

  She was killed.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 A 6-Year-Old in Gaza City was Calling To Be Rescued. Did Anyone Find 
                                  Her?

       The Hamada family was trying to get to safety. An order 
     from the Israeli military had gone out earlier last Monday, 
     ordering them to evacuate their neighborhood in Gaza City. 
     Bashar, 44, and his wife Anam, 43, piled their children and 
     their young niece, Hind, into the car.
       They would never reach their destination.
       The full picture of the tragedy that befell the family 
     remains incomplete. Some details could not be confirmed. What 
     is beyond dispute is that their car came under fire; the 
     parents and most of the children were killed; a 6-year-old 
     girl begged for hours to be rescued; paramedics were 
     dispatched; then communications were lost.
       The Washington Post reconstructed the events of that day by 
     interviewing three family members, five members of the 
     Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and reviewing audio of 
     phone conversations between dispatchers and children in the 
     car. The family's story is emblematic of the ongoing dangers 
     faced by civilians in northern Gaza--even as Israel says it 
     is winding down its military mission there--and the depth of 
     their isolation from the outside world.
       Asked for comment multiple times, the Israel Defense Forces 
     said, ``We are unfamiliar with the incident described.'' The 
     Post provided specific coordinates and additional details to 
     the IDF on Tuesday morning and has not received a reply.
       In the operations room of the PRCS in Ramallah, the 
     landline was ringing. It was 2:28 p.m. Omar al-Qam, the lone 
     dispatcher on duty that day, picked up.
       From 2,000 miles away, in Frankfurt, Germany came the 
     steady voice of Mohammed Salem Hamada: ``My family members 
     are trapped in Gaza City,'' he told Omar. ``They were driving 
     a black Kia Picanto and the car was targeted. Some of the 
     people were killed inside.''
       Mohammed gave Omar the phone number for his 15-year-old 
     niece, Layan, who had

[[Page S578]]

     called her uncle in southern Gaza to sound the alarm. The 
     uncle, struggling with patchy cell service, called his cousin 
     in Germany, hoping he could find help.
       The uncle relayed what Layan had told him: The Israeli army 
     had opened fire on the family's car. Her parents and all four 
     of her siblings were dead--Sana, 13, Raghad, 12, Mohammed, 11 
     and 4-year-old Sarah.
       Layan told her uncle she was bleeding. And that her cousin 
     Hind, 6, was the only other survivor.
       Omar, in Ramallah, called Layan. She sounded terrified.
       ``They are firing at us,'' she screamed into the phone. 
     ``The tank is next to me.''
       ``Are you hiding?'' he asked.
       Then came a burst of fire. Layan screamed. The line went 
     dead.
       In shock, Omar said he went to find his colleague, Rana 
     Faqih, in another room. He was trembling, she recalled.
       Rana said she walked him back to his chair in the dispatch 
     room and stood next to him as he dialed again.
       It was Hind who answered this time.
       ``Are you in the car now?'' he asked her.
       ``Yes,'' came the small voice on the other end.
       Rana took the phone, telling the 6-year-old she would stay 
     on the phone until help arrived. Hind's voice was so quiet, 
     it was impossible to make out her reply.
       ``Who are you with?'' Rana asked.
       ``With my family,'' Hind told her.
       Rana asked if she had tried to wake up her family. Hind 
     responded: ``I'm telling you they're dead.''
       Rana asked her how the car had been hit.
       ``A tank,'' Hind said. ``The tank is next to me . . . it's 
     coming towards me . . . it's very, very close.'' Rana's voice 
     was strong and clear and reassuring. Hind's was faint and 
     shaky. Rana urged her to keep talking. They prayed together. 
     Rana read to her from the Quran.
       Don't cry, she told the little girl, though Rana was also 
     fighting back tears.
       ``Don't be scared,'' she told Hind. ``They're not going to 
     hurt you . . . . Don't leave the car.''
       Minutes passed. Hind appeared to drop the phone. The 
     silences were longer now.
       ``If I could get you out I would,'' Rana said. ``We're 
     trying our very best.''
       Rana was crying now, but tried to keep her voice steady.
       ``Please come get me,'' Hind said. Again and again: ``Come 
     get me.''
       There was a distant rumble of fire in the background.
       ``Come get me,'' Hind repeated.
       Rana, 37, has been working in Crisis and Disaster 
     Management with PRCS since 2009. She had faced situations 
     like this before, she said, but never with a girl so young.
       Her colleagues had located the car in a neighborhood near 
     Al-Azhar University. Getting an ambulance there, inside a 
     closed military zone, would require permission from the IDF. 
     It was a process that involved multiple agencies, 
     communicating on unreliable phone lines. The dispatchers knew 
     it could take hours.
       ``We have received hundreds of calls from people who are 
     trapped,'' said Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for PRCS. 
     ``People just want help evacuating. Unfortunately we do not 
     have safe access.''
       Operators told The Post they reached out around 3 p.m. to 
     the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which 
     coordinates the safe passage of paramedics with COGAT--an arm 
     of the Israeli Defense Ministry. Fathi Abu Warda, an adviser 
     at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, confirmed receiving a 
     green light from COGAT to send an ambulance to the area. 
     COGAT did not respond to questions from The Post, referring 
     them to the IDF.
       The operators said they tried to stay focused on Hind. 
     Nisreen Qawwas, 56, the head of PRCS's mental health 
     department, took the lead.
       ``She practiced deep breathing exercises with us, and I 
     told her we would be with her, second by second,'' Nisreen 
     recalled.
       But Hind began to grow distant, Nisreen said, and hung up 
     multiple times, growing frustrated that no one had come for 
     her.
       Eventually, operators said they reached Hind's mother, who 
     was sheltering elsewhere in Gaza City, and patched her into 
     the call.
       ``Her mother's voice made a real difference,'' Nisreen 
     said. ``Every moment she said to her mother, `I miss you 
     momma.' ''
       Her mother told her, `You will be with me in a little while 
     and I will hug you,' '' Nisreen remembered.
       The Post was not able to reach Hind's mother in Gaza City, 
     where there is limited connectivity.
       At 5:40 p.m.--three hours after the phone had first rung in 
     Ramallah--the dispatchers said they got a call back from the 
     Palestinian Ministry of Health. The ministry told them they 
     had received permission to send paramedics to Hind. Israeli 
     authorities had provided a map for them to follow. PRCS 
     dispatched the nearest ambulance, 1.8 miles away, to the 
     scene with two paramedics.
       Nisreen said she tried to keep Hind engaged. They talked 
     about the sea and the sun and her favorite chocolate cake.
       But everyone could tell the little girl was fading. She 
     said her hand was bleeding, that there was blood on her body. 
     It was dark now. She was hungry, thirsty and cold, she told 
     her mother.
       Dispatchers said the paramedics radioed in as they neared 
     the vehicle. The team in Ramallah encouraged them to move 
     forward, slowly, Nisreen said.
       At that moment, dispatchers said, there was ``heavy 
     gunfire.'' The line with Hind was lost. Hind's last sentence, 
     Omar said, was ``Come and take me.''
       That was at 7 p.m. last Monday, a full week ago. There has 
     been no word from Hind or the ambulance crew since.

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. On the humanitarian front, millions of Palestinian 
civilians are desperately trying to cling to life as we speak here. I 
have met with the leaders of international humanitarian organizations 
who have operated in conflict zones around the world for decades and 
for decades. Every one of them--every one--has stated that their 
organizations have never--never--experienced a humanitarian disaster as 
dire and terrible as the world is witnessing in Gaza.
  That is why 5 weeks ago, Senator Merkley and I traveled to the Rafah 
border crossing between Egypt and Gaza to see for ourselves what was 
happening, to talk to people on the ground.
  What we saw and learned indicated that Palestinians--Palestinian 
civilians--are on the verge of starvation; that injured children are 
having their limbs amputated without anesthesia; that sewage continues 
to spill into the streets and contaminate the water supplies; and 
health officials are warning of the imminent outbreak of cholera and 
other diseases. Diseases like dysentery are already rampant, especially 
in kids.
  That is why last week, 25 U.S. Senators wrote to President Biden 
urging the administration to do more to push the Netanyahu coalition to 
allow more desperately needed assistance to reach innocent civilians in 
Gaza. We outlined five specific measures that need to be taken 
immediately.
  That was not the first time many of us wrote to President Biden to 
express our concerns about the conduct of the war in Gaza. We wrote to 
the President over 3 months ago, posing a series of questions, 
including what mechanisms are in place to ensure that U.S.-provided 
equipment is used in accordance with international humanitarian law? We 
did that because the United States is not a bystander in this conflict.
  Israel is the largest annual recipient of U.S. security assistance, 
totaling more than $39 billion over the last 10 years alone. And right 
now, bombs and artillery made in America and paid for by Americans are 
being used in Gaza. So the U.S. Government and the U.S. Senate has an 
obligation to the American people to ensure that their tax dollars, our 
tax dollars, are used in the manner that aligns with our values and 
aligns with our interests.
  That is why 19 Senators filed an amendment to the National Security 
Act, the supplemental national security provision that is before the 
Senate now and soon will be considered. That is why we filed an 
amendment to ensure that all recipients of U.S. military assistance in 
that bill--whether Ukraine, whether Israel, or whether it is one of our 
East Asian partners--use these U.S. taxpayer dollars in line with our 
values and our interests.
  Our amendment is designed to create an accountability structure to 
ensure that countries that receive U.S. security assistance promise to 
adhere to humanitarian law and other applicable law.
  It is designed to ensure that recipients of U.S. assistance promise 
to help facilitate and not arbitrarily restrict the delivery of U.S.-
supported humanitarian assistance in conflict zones.
  And our amendment included a provision to maintain accountability by 
requiring reporting be presented and provided to the Congress on 
whether or not the recipients of U.S. military assistance were, in 
fact, complying with those commitments on international law and 
allowing humanitarian aid to flow to conflict zones.
  Importantly, the reporting requirements in our amendment also require 
information and an assessment about whether recipient countries--
countries receiving U.S. military aid--are employing best practices to 
prevent civilian harm.
  That is what our amendment does. We filed that amendment to this bill 
just a few days ago. In the meantime, since we first proposed this 
amendment in December, we have remained in regular communication with 
the Biden administration.

[[Page S579]]

  I want to thank all of my colleagues who cosponsored this amendment, 
including the original cosponsors--Senator Kaine, Senator Durbin, and 
Senator Schatz--but also the 15 other colleagues, including the 
Presiding Officer who joined together in this effort to call for an 
amendment that made sure that we better align our military assistance 
with our values.
  Our amendment applied these requirements to every country receiving 
military assistance in the supplemental national security bill, but our 
intention all along has been to expand this worldwide, to make sure 
that as the United States uses taxpayer dollars to provide security 
assistance to countries around the world, that we can tell those 
taxpayers that their money is being used and the military equipment 
purchased with their money is being used in a manner consistent with 
our values.
  We began that conversation with the President's team at the White 
House. We had a chance to talk with them about our goals and the 
purposes of the amendment.
  At the time we introduced this amendment, we said our goal is to get 
these provisions implemented, whether through amendment or through 
other means.
  I want to salute the President of the United States--President 
Biden--because just last night, at 8:30 p.m., the President issued a 
historic national security memorandum, National Security Memorandum No. 
20.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have that printed in the 
Record.

  National Security Memorandum on Safeguards and Accountability With 
      Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services

       As outlined in National Security Memorandum 18 of February 
     23, 2023 (United States Conventional Arms Transfer Policy) 
     (NSM-18), supporting foreign partners of the United States 
     through appropriate transfers of defense articles by the 
     Department of State and the Department of Defense is a 
     critical tool for advancing United States foreign policy and 
     national security objectives, including to:
       (a) strengthen the collective security of the United States 
     and its allies and partners by enhancing interoperability and 
     supporting United States-led diplomacy in building and 
     maintaining international coalitions;
       (b) promote international peace and stability, and help 
     allies and partners deter and defend themselves against 
     aggression and foreign malign influence;
       (c) strengthen United States national security by 
     reinforcing respect for human rights, international 
     humanitarian law, democratic governance, and the rule of law;
       (d) prevent arms transfers that risk facilitating or 
     otherwise contributing to violations of human rights or 
     international humanitarian law; and
       (e) strengthen ally and partner capacity to respect their 
     obligations under international law and reduce the risk of 
     civilian harm, including through appropriate tools, training, 
     advising, and institutional capacity-building efforts that 
     accompany arms transfers. Equally critical is ensuring that 
     adequate safeguards and accountability exist with respect to 
     transferred defense articles and defense services. Under the 
     Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2751, et seq.), both the 
     Department of State and the Department of Defense implement 
     end-use monitoring programs.
       In addition, as a matter of policy, the United States 
     always seeks to promote adherence to international law and 
     encourages other states and partners to do the same. United 
     States policy, including as reflected in Executive Order 
     13732 of July 1, 2016 (United States Policy on Pre- and Post-
     Strike Measures to Address Civilian Casualties in U.S. 
     Operations Involving the Use of Force), is for executive 
     departments and agencies to engage with foreign partners to 
     share and learn best practices for reducing the likelihood of 
     and responding to civilian casualties, including through 
     appropriate training and assistance. In order to effectively 
     implement certain obligations under United States law, the 
     United States must maintain an appropriate understanding of 
     foreign partners' adherence to international law, including, 
     as applicable, international human rights law and 
     international humanitarian law. As a matter of international 
     law, the United States looks to the law of state 
     responsibility and United States partners' compliance with 
     international humanitarian law in assessing the lawfulness of 
     United States military assistance to, and joint operations 
     with, military partners.
       For these reasons, I am issuing this memorandum, which 
     requires the Secretary of State to obtain certain credible 
     and reliable written assurances from foreign governments 
     receiving defense articles and, as appropriate, defense 
     services, from the Departments of State and Defense, and 
     requires the Secretaries of State and Defense to provide 
     periodic congressional reports to enable meaningful 
     oversight. In addition to the requirements of this 
     memorandum, the Secretaries of State and Defense are 
     responsible for ensuring that all transfers of defense 
     articles and defense services by the Departments of State and 
     Defense under any security cooperation or security assistance 
     authorities are conducted in a manner consistent with all 
     applicable international and domestic law and policy, 
     including international humanitarian law and international 
     human rights law, the applicable ``Leahy Law'' (22 U.S.C. 
     2378d, 10 U.S.C. 362), and NSM-18.
       Section 1. Policy. (a) Except as provided below, the policy 
     outlined in this memorandum applies prospectively to the 
     provision to foreign governments by the Departments of State 
     or Defense of any defense articles funded with congressional 
     appropriations under their respective security assistance and 
     security cooperation authorities, including with Foreign 
     Military Financing and Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative 
     funds, pursuant to 10 U.S.C. 333, and pursuant to 
     Presidential drawdown authority under section 506 of the 
     Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2318). Prior to the 
     Departments of State or Defense providing such defense 
     articles to the recipient country and, as applicable, 
     consistent with the timelines set out in subsection (c) of 
     this section, the Secretary of State shall:
       (i) obtain credible and reliable written assurances from a 
     representative of the recipient country as the Secretary of 
     State deems appropriate that the recipient country will use 
     any such defense articles in accordance with international 
     humanitarian law and, as applicable, other international law; 
     and
       (ii) in furtherance of supporting section 6201 of the 
     Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2378-1) and 
     applicable international law, obtain credible and reliable 
     written assurances from a representative of the recipient 
     country as the Secretary of State deems appropriate that, in 
     any area of armed conflict where the recipient country uses 
     such defense articles, consistent with applicable 
     international law, the recipient country will facilitate and 
     not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly 
     or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States 
     humanitarian assistance and United States Government-
     supported international efforts to provide humanitarian 
     assistance.
       The assurances described in this subsection shall be 
     enforceable consistent with subsection (b) of this section.
       (b) Upon an assessment by the Secretary of State or the 
     Secretary of Defense that the credibility or reliability of 
     assurances provided by the recipient country as required by 
     subsection (a) of this section has been called into question 
     and should be revisited, the Secretary of State or the 
     Secretary of Defense, as appropriate, shall report to the 
     President, through the Assistant to the President for 
     National Security Affairs, within 45 days of such 
     assessment and shall indicate appropriate next steps to be 
     taken to assess and remediate the situation. Such 
     remediation could include actions from refreshing the 
     assurances to suspending any further transfers of defense 
     articles or, as appropriate, defense services.
       (c) Recognizing that a reasonable period of time is 
     necessary to obtain the assurances required by subsection (a) 
     of this section from foreign governments already receiving 
     such defense articles from the Departments of State or 
     Defense as of the date of this memorandum, the Secretary of 
     State shall obtain the required assurances from those 
     countries within the following time periods:
       (i) For any country to which subsection (a) of this section 
     applies and that is deemed by the Secretary of State to be 
     engaged, as of the date of this memorandum, in an active 
     armed conflict in which defense articles covered by this 
     section are used, the Secretary of State shall obtain the 
     assurances outlined in subsection (a) of this section not 
     later than 45 days after the date of this memorandum and 
     shall provide an update to the President, through the 
     Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 
     regarding the recipient countries that have provided such 
     assurances. If the Secretary of State does not obtain such 
     assurances within 45 days of the date of this memorandum, the 
     transfer of defense articles and, as applicable, defense 
     services, shall be paused until the required assurances are 
     obtained.
       (ii) For any country to which subsection (a) of this 
     section applies and that is not deemed by the Secretary of 
     State to be engaged, as of the date of this memorandum, in an 
     active armed conflict in which defense articles covered by 
     this section are used, the Secretary of State shall obtain 
     the assurances outlined in subsection (a) of this section not 
     later than 180 days after the date of this memorandum and 
     shall provide an update to the President, through the 
     Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 
     regarding the recipient countries that have provided such 
     assurances. If the Secretary of State does not obtain such 
     assurances within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, 
     the transfer of defense articles and, as applicable, defense 
     services, shall be paused until the required assurances are 
     obtained.
       (d) This memorandum does not apply to (1) air defense 
     systems; (2) other defense articles or defense services that 
     are intended to be used for strictly defensive purposes or 
     are exclusively for non-lethal purposes other than in armed 
     conflict; (3) defense articles or defense services that are 
     non-lethal in nature; or (4) transfers strictly for the 
     operational needs of the Department of Defense.

[[Page S580]]

       (e) This memorandum shall apply to the provision to foreign 
     governments by the Departments of State or Defense of any 
     defense services the Secretary of State or the Secretary of 
     Defense determines to be appropriate under their respective 
     authorities in furthering the aims of the policy outlined in 
     this memorandum.
       (f) in rare and extraordinary circumstances justified by an 
     imperative associated with the national security of the 
     United States, and with concurrent notification to the 
     President, including an articulation of the relevant 
     justification, the Secretary of State or the Secretary of 
     Defense may waive the requirements of this section. Such 
     waiver should be as limited in time, scope, and nature as 
     deemed necessary to advance the interests of United States 
     national security.
       Sec. 2. Congressional Reporting. (a) Not later than 90 days 
     after the date of this memorandum, and once every fiscal year 
     thereafter, the Secretaries of State and Defense shall report 
     in written form and, to the extent additionally appropriate, 
     through verbal briefings by appropriate senior officials of 
     their respective departments, to the Committee on Foreign 
     Relations, the Committee on Armed Services, and the Committee 
     on Appropriations of the Senate; the Committee on Foreign 
     Affairs, the Committee on Armed Services, and the Committee 
     on Appropriations of the House of Representatives; and, upon 
     request, other congressional national security committees as 
     appropriate. The written report shall address defense 
     articles and, as appropriate, defense services, provided by 
     the Departments of State or Defense described in subsections 
     1(a) and 1(e) of this memorandum, and shall include:
       (i) any new assurances obtained since the prior report;
       (ii) an assessment of any credible reports or allegations 
     that such defense articles and, as appropriate, defense 
     services, have been used in a manner not consistent with 
     international law, including international humanitarian law; 
     such assessment shall include any determinations, if they can 
     reasonably be made, as to whether use has occurred in a 
     manner not consistent with international law, and if so, 
     whether the recipient country has pursued appropriate 
     accountability;
       (iii) a description of the procedures used to make the 
     assessment described in subsection (a)(ii) of this section;
       (iv) an assessment and analysis of (1) any credible reports 
     indicating that the use of such defense articles and, as 
     appropriate, defense services, has been found to be 
     inconsistent with established best practices for mitigating 
     civilian harm, including practices that have been adopted by 
     the United States military, and including measures 
     implemented in response to the Department of Defense's 
     Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan or 
     incidents reviewed pursuant to the Department of State's 
     Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance; and (2) the extent 
     to which efforts to induce effective implementation of such 
     civilian harm mitigation best practices have been 
     incorporated into the relevant United States security 
     assistance program;
       (v) a description of the procedures used to make the 
     assessment and analysis described in subsection (iv) of this 
     section:
       (vi) a description of any known occurrences of such defense 
     articles and, as appropriate, defense services, not being 
     received by the recipient foreign government that is the 
     intended recipient, or being misused for purposes 
     inconsistent with the intended purposes, and a description of 
     any remedies undertaken;
       (vii) an assessment and analysis of whether each foreign 
     government recipient has abided by the assurances received 
     pursuant to section 1(a)(ii) of this memorandum, whether such 
     recipient is in compliance with section 6201 of the Foreign 
     Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2378-1), and whether such 
     recipient has fully cooperated with United States Government 
     efforts and United States Government-supported international 
     efforts to provide humanitarian assistance in an area of 
     armed conflict where the recipient country is using such 
     defense articles and, as appropriate, defense services; and
       (viii) a description of any challenges to conducting the 
     assessment and analysis described in subsections (a)(i)-(vii) 
     of this section, including whether or not there is available 
     information responsive to the subsections above.
       (b) The written report and, where applicable, accompanying 
     verbal briefing provided under subsection (a) of this section 
     shall be unclassified but may be supplemented, to the extent 
     necessary, with classified reporting as appropriate for the 
     protection of classified national security information.
       (c) The first report provided under this section shall 
     include available information on the use, since January 2023, 
     of defense articles and, as appropriate, defense services, 
     provided by the Departments of State or Defense described in 
     subsections 1(a) and 1(e) of this memorandum by recipient 
     countries that engaged in armed conflict during calendar year 
     2023.
       (d) The Secretaries of State and Defense shall notify the 
     congressional committees specified in subsection (a) of this 
     section within 7 days following any report provided to the 
     President pursuant to section 1(b) of this memorandum and 
     within 7 days following any notification provided to the 
     President of the exercise of a waiver pursuant to section 
     1(f) of this memorandum, and shall notify the same committees 
     of assurances newly received pursuant to section 1(a) of this 
     memorandum within 30 days of receiving such assurances if not 
     otherwise reported to the Congress within that time period.
       Sec. 3. Definitions. For purposes of this memorandum, the 
     terms ``defense article'' and ``defense service'' have the 
     meanings given in section 47 of the Arms Export Control Act, 
     22 U.S.C. 2794.
       Sec. 4. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this memorandum 
     shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
       (i) the authority granted by law to an executive department 
     or agency, or the head thereof;
       (ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of 
     Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, 
     or legislative proposals.
       (b) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with 
     applicable law and subject to the availability of 
     appropriations.
       (c) This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, 
     create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, 
     enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the 
     United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its 
     officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
       (d) The requirements in this memorandum are not intended to 
     reflect an understanding that they are required by treaty or 
     customary international law, and this memorandum should not 
     be understood or cited to that effect.
                                              Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. What this national security memorandum does is 
effectively implement the terms of our amendment. It makes the 
provisions of that amendment effectively the law of the land and does 
other things as well.
  I not only want to salute President Biden, I want to salute his 
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, the entire NSC team, and the 
entire White House team for taking this very important, deliberate, 
historic action. It is a very big deal.
  What does it do? As our amendment, it pushes forward in a number of 
big areas.
  First, it requires that every recipient of U.S. military assistance 
promise in writing, before receiving that military assistance, that 
they will comply with international humanitarian law and, as 
applicable, other international law. They have to promise in writing to 
do that before the delivery of U.S. military assistance.
  No. 2, it requires that every recipient of U.S. military assistance 
must promise in writing to facilitate and not to arbitrarily restrict 
the delivery of U.S.-supported humanitarian assistance into conflict 
zones where U.S. weapons are being used by the recipient country. That 
promise also has to be made before the delivery of that military 
assistance.
  And this national security memorandum has enforcement mechanisms to 
ensure compliance and to make sure that the U.S. Government has the 
tools to take action in cases of noncompliance.
  It focuses, in the first instance, on countries that are currently in 
armed conflict and using U.S. weapons. That would include Israel. It 
would include Ukraine. It would include other countries that today are 
using U.S. weapons in conflict zones.
  And it indicates that if those countries do not make these 
assurances, make these promises within the next 45 days, U.S. security 
assistance will be suspended.
  It also has a provision that says the Secretary of State will inform 
the President of the United States if there is any information that the 
recipient countries that have made these promises are not keeping those 
promises to the American people and the American taxpayer and when the 
Secretary of State makes such notification to the President, that 
Congress will be informed.
  The national security memorandum also has the robust reporting 
requirements included in our proposed amendment to help monitor 
compliance with the promises made by the recipient countries. They are 
promises to use U.S. military assistance in accordance with 
international humanitarian law and other international law as 
applicable. They are promises to facilitate and not arbitrarily 
restrict the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
  The report will tell the Congress whether or not those countries are, 
in fact, doing those things and provide an assessment of what is 
happening.
  The report will also include other provisions called for in our 
amendment. One of them, very importantly,

[[Page S581]]

is that the report must assess and analyze whether or not the recipient 
countries that are engaged in armed conflict are deploying and using 
best practices to prevent civilian harm. Let me say that again. This 
report will require an assessment and analysis of whether countries 
that are receiving U.S. military assistance, engaged in armed conflict 
now, whether or not they are employing best practices to prevent 
civilian harm.
  The national security memorandum prioritizes this reporting on 
countries that are currently using U.S. weapons in armed conflict. For 
those countries, the first report will be due in 90 days. Those 
countries include Ukraine, include Israel, and any other countries that 
are using U.S. weapons in armed conflict today.
  And, very importantly, the reporting period that is covered will be a 
reporting timeframe starting January of 2023. So Congress will receive 
a report in 90 days on whether or not the recipients of U.S. military 
assistance are in compliance throughout last year and on into this year 
with those requirements set out in the national security memorandum 
requirements that we had in our amendment.
  This really is a historic moment. This is a transformational moment 
in making sure we align U.S. security assistance with American values. 
It is a very sweeping memorandum.
  As of 8:30 p.m. last night, it is the law of the land in the United 
States of America. It will give the President of the United States many 
more tools and more leverage to better ensure that countries that are 
using U.S. military assistance comply with the commitments they now 
have to make in writing--whether it is Ukraine, whether it is Israel, 
whether it is another country.
  I spoke a little bit earlier about the fact that despite repeated 
requests from the Biden administration of the Netanyahu coalition to 
reduce the level of civilian casualties, to allow more humanitarian 
assistance into Gaza, that, for the most part, with some minor 
exceptions, those requests have fallen on deaf ears.
  So we hope and believe and are quite confident that this national 
security memorandum, which adopts our amendment, will provide the 
President with the leverage, additional leverage needed to close that 
gap between our request and reality.
  I urge the President and his team to make effective use of these new 
provisions.
  (Ms. BALDWIN assumed the Chair.)
  I urge the President's team to do that not just with respect to 
Israel but with any country that is receiving U.S. military assistance, 
because American taxpayers must be assured that the U.S. Government is 
doing everything in its power to make sure that as we provide 
assistance to partners around the world, that they are complying with 
their values and complying with the principles of adherence to 
international humanitarian law, international law, that they will help 
facilitate and not obstruct the delivery of humanitarian assistance to 
people in desperate need.
  I want to again thank all of the cosponsors of this amendment, 
because there were many people who opposed this amendment. But I never 
understood the opposition to the straightforward principles that U.S. 
taxpayer dollars and U.S. military assistance should go to countries 
that commit to us that they will use that help that we are providing in 
accordance with international humanitarian law and commit that if they 
are engaged in armed conflict using U.S. weapons, that they will 
support U.S. efforts and other U.S.-backed efforts to provide 
humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians who are caught up in the 
crossfire through no fault of their own.
  These seem like very straightforward principles, and it is about time 
that we took what has previously really been the sentiment of the 
United States and turn it into substance, to take rhetoric and make it 
more of a reality.
  So I want to thank all my colleagues, including the new Presiding 
Officer, who helped make that happen.
  I want to thank the President of the United States. I want to thank 
President Biden, who has said from the beginning that the United States 
must continue to be a beacon of hope and that we must have a foreign 
policy based on values, based on the rule of law, based on human 
rights. If we want to do that, we need to make sure that our laws match 
those ambitions. We need to make sure that we have requirements on the 
books that achieve those aspirations because aspirations that are not 
backed up with real leverage sound good, but they are not made real in 
the world we live in.
  Thank you to all of the cosponsors to this amendment. Thank you to 
the President of the United States. This is an important new chapter in 
how the United States provides military assistance around the world and 
how we conduct our foreign policy, and I hope it will lead to a 
brighter chapter in the years ahead.
  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.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. 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 senior Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to 
pass the important national security package that is in front of us. 
This will reaffirm our Nation's commitment to our partners across the 
globe.
  Earlier this week, many of us felt very strongly that we should move 
forward on the combination of bills that Senator Lankford, Senator 
Murphy, and Senator Sinema had negotiated. I strongly supported that 
bipartisan compromise and worked with them on a portion of the bill 
regarding our Afghan allies who had served with our troops, and I was 
really impressed by the thorough nature of their negotiations.
  We know how important that bill was for our own national security. It 
would have given the President emergency authority to shut down the 
border when our border agents are overwhelmed. It would have made 
changes to our asylum system. It would have addressed processing issues 
and backlogs. It would have actually expanded legal immigration for 
things like work permits and visas.
  I am grateful that the package we are considering today does include 
the bipartisan bill that I am part of to declare fentanyl trafficking a 
national emergency and allow us to impose tough sanctions on criminal 
organizations and fentanyl supply chain hubs, but I will note that this 
bill--because the other piece of this regarding fentanyl was not 
actually included yet in this bill, that would be the resources that we 
need to crack down on fentanyl trafficking at our border and ports of 
entry.
  So not only was the bill that our colleagues sadly voted down good on 
giving the emergency authority to the President on the border to 
protect our own Nation's security--something they had been asking for--
but it also did a very important thing when it came to fentanyl.
  Why is this such a problem? In Hennepin County alone in the State of 
Minnesota, the sheriff recently seized enough fentanyl to kill every 
single person in that county--the biggest county in my State--and we 
are seeing similar things to that across our Nation.
  So what this bill would have done--the original bill would have 
done--with the negotiation is that it would have actually given modern-
day technology, cutting-edge technology to our ports of entry--all 
ports of entry, including airports and the like, including help we may 
need on the northern border, the Canadian border, when it comes to 
things like fentanyl. So that is why I hope that someday our colleagues 
will reconsider and join us in advocating for strong border security as 
well as for the work that needs to be done on the fentanyl epidemic.
  The original package, as we know, is not being considered, but we 
also know how important it is to go forward when it comes to our 
leadership around the world, whether that means standing with our 
allies after the terrorist attack in Israel, whether it means making 
sure that humanitarian aid gets to innocent people in Gaza and across 
the world, or whether it comes to Ukraine.
  I did want to spend some time talking about Ukraine, as I have been 
there a number of times in the last few

[[Page S582]]

years. The first time I went was actually with Senator McCain and 
Senator Graham during the first invasion back in January 2017. In fact, 
I spent New Year's Eve of 2016 on the border with Senator Graham and 
Senator McCain and the former President of Ukraine. It was there that I 
learned so much about the Ukrainian troops. Even back then, there were 
snipers killing the troops at unbelievable rates, but they kept going 
back to protect their own homeland.
  Fast-forward, of course, and we see an even more significant invasion 
by Vladimir Putin and Russia once again. Just as Vladimir Putin has 
shown his true colors, the Ukrainian people have shown theirs, 
defending their democracy in brilliant blue and yellow. They have 
succeeded in taking back a number of lands that the Russians have 
seized, and that is because of their unbreakable resolve, yes, but it 
is also because America took the lead, joined by dozens and dozens of 
allies across the world, from Japan to South Korea to Europe.
  Now is not the time to give up. In the words of the NATO Secretary 
General, the war has become a ``battle for ammunition.'' Russia is 
firing nearly 10,000 rounds a day, while Ukraine is only managing 
2,000. Our friends need our support more than ever.
  In my last visit to Ukraine, with Senator Portman in the middle of 
the war, we visited Irpin. We saw the bombed-out maternity wards and 
the apartment buildings reduced to rubble. We saw the mass graves. 
Those atrocities have been met, of course, with the resilience of the 
Ukrainian people: the chef cooking meals for the troops on the 
frontlines; the nurse who traded in scrubs for camo and now serves as a 
field medic; the martial arts teacher leading an 11-man recon unit to 
keep his village safe. Those are people who stood up, and our country 
must stand with that democracy.
  We must never forget President Zelenskyy's words on that worst 
evening in September, when everyone had counted them out, when all the 
pundits thought Russia would just roll over their country with their 
tanks and with their planes. What did President Zelenskyy do? He went 
down to the street corner and he said this. He said, ``We are here.'' 
Those simple words--``We are here.'' Well, that is our job now. We have 
to say the same thing--that we are here for them.
  U.S. aid has empowered the Ukrainian people to take back the 
territory that is rightfully theirs. It has saved lives. It has given 
families hope that there will be a future--but not if we turn our backs 
on them right now.
  Throughout our Nation's history, we have been there for free nations 
across the globe, and we must be there again. That gets to something 
that is not in the bill right now. It was in the original compromise 
agreement, and just like Ukraine, just like the Pacific, just like the 
help to Central Command and the help we must give given that our own 
troops are being attacked in the Middle East--it is the covenants we 
make.
  I am here talking about the Afghan refugees, 80,000 of them 
approximately in the United States. They served alongside our troops. 
They served as interpreters. They served as intel gatherers. They put 
their own lives and their families' lives at risk. And they have been 
here. They have been in the United States.
  That is why a bipartisan group of Senators have for now, sadly, years 
been working on a simple bill to make it clear that they are no longer 
in limbo. Many conservatives are supporting this bill.
  I am filing a bipartisan amendment--that was just filed--with Senator 
Moran. I thank him for his leadership as the ranking Republican on the 
Veterans' Committee and for joining me on this bill, along with Senator 
Graham, who is a longtime lead author of our base bill on the Afghan 
refugees. Again, Senator Graham, ranking member on the Judiciary 
Committee; Senator Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, ranking lead 
Republican on the Armed Services Committee, is filing this amendment 
with me; Senator Cassidy; Senator Mullin; Senator Tillis; Senator 
Murkowski; Senator Crapo; Senator Rounds; Senator Capito; Senators 
Coons and Blumenthal and many other Democrats as well.

  We have that magic number to get over what we call our 60-vote 
threshold. We will win this vote, but we will win more than a vote if 
we are allowed to advance this amendment by both sides as they 
negotiate which amendments go forward. We will be more than just 
getting a vote; we will be standing up for keeping our covenants.
  I am thinking of the people I have met, the Afghans, over the last 
year, the women I met with who served in the Afghan national army's 
Female Tactical Platoon. Our troops relied heavily on this platoon 
during the war. As our soldiers pursued missions hunting down ISIS 
combatants in unforgiving terrain and freeing prisoners from the grip 
of the Taliban, these women had their backs. They worked with our 
military's support team and facilitated discussions between our 
soldiers and the Afghan women whom they crossed paths with in the 
field.
  After the war, they and so many others fled Afghanistan to build a 
safer, brighter future in America. One of the platoon's commanders even 
said that once she gets her green card, her plan is to join the U.S. 
Army. That is right. Even knowing everything she sacrificed for our 
country, leaving her family behind, putting herself in peril, she would 
do it all over again if we gave her the chance. I am in awe of her grit 
and her patriotism. Unfortunately--and this is a big 
``unfortunately''--she and countless others like her are living in 
limbo, and it is our turn to do right by the people who stood with us.
  When the Hmong and the Vietnamese came to this country--I know this 
well because my State has a very large Hmong population--we didn't 
leave them in limbo and tell them: Well, you are standing here on the 
ground in the United States of America after helping us out, but there 
is a trapdoor under you because every year you have to reapply, and you 
don't know what is really going to happen if you have to go back.
  Are we going to send these people who stood with our troops back to 
the arms of the Taliban or are we going to do what is right?
  This bill, which I have worked on with numerous Republican leaders, 
has a heavy-duty vetting--vetting--process. And I remind my colleagues 
that the vast majority of these people are here already. They are on 
our soil. We already know what they have been doing. In fact, we know 
that one of them, sadly, was murdered--an interpreter who was working 
as a driver late at night in the State of Virginia. I don't know if 
that is what he would have been doing if he wasn't in limbo. But that 
happened on our soil.
  So all we are saying is that they be vetted and that they be able to 
get out of this legal limbo and treated with the respect they deserve.
  Time and time again, our Nation's history has shown us that people 
who stand with us in combat don't diminish America; they strengthen 
America.
  Our effort has earned the support of more than 60 organizations, 
including With Honor Action; including No One Left Behind; including 
Operation Recovery; the American Legion--was just with them yesterday 
as Senator Moran and I and Coons and Blumenthal and others discussed 
this bill; the VFW--this is a major priority for the VFW; as well as 
some of the Nation's most revered military leaders who have lent their 
names.
  At one point earlier last year, I went through hundreds of names of 
generals, retired generals who led our troops in times of war who 
support this bill, but today I mention Mike Mullen, ADM Mike Mullen, 
William McRaven, and Generals Richard Myers of the Air Force, Joseph 
Dunford from the Marine Corps, and Stanley McChrystal from the Army.
  Maybe we should listen to them when we think about how we treat those 
who saved the lives of our troops, how we must keep our covenants 
because in the next conflict when we are standing up for democracies or 
standing up for American interests, what do you think people are going 
to say if they think they help our country, and our troops make 
literal, individual promises to them, and then they come back, and they 
don't know what is going to happen to them? Some of them are in hiding 
right now across the world because they know that they or their 
families will be killed if this continues.
  We have built such a broad coalition of support because Americans 
from

[[Page S583]]

across the political spectrum agree that it is our moral obligation.
  When I am at home, vets come up to me--as I know they do to you, 
Madam President--they come up to me about all kinds of things; they 
always have: about their service, about their benefits, about what is 
happening with healthcare and burn pits. And we have advanced so many 
things to help them. But I have never seen anything more emotional for 
our soldiers that have served in Afghanistan than this, because they 
know the people that saved their lives and stood with them deserve 
better than this.
  What we are asking for is a vote on this bipartisan amendment, and we 
know we can pass this amendment because we have enough sponsors on it 
to pass this amendment. This is the perfect bill. Why? Because it is a 
national security package. It is about our national security. It is 
about that; it is about standing with our partners; and, most of all, 
it is about showing the world when the United States of America makes a 
promise, makes a covenant, we keep it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, one of the worst humanitarian disasters 
in modern history is now unfolding before our eyes in Gaza today--right 
now. And we, as the government of the United States, are complicit.
  It has been 4 months since Hamas's terrorist attack started this war, 
and what we in Congress do right now could well determine whether tens 
of thousands of people live or whether they die. Already, the human 
costs of this Israel-Hamas war has been staggering. Madam President, 
1,200 innocent Israelis were killed in the initial terrorist attack, 
and more than 100 are still being held hostage.
  And as I have said many times, Israel has the right to defend itself 
against Hamas terrorism, but it does not have the right to go to war 
against the entire Palestinian people. As of today, Israel's response 
has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians and injured more than 67,000--
two-thirds of whom are women and children. Let me repeat: Two-thirds 
are women and children.
  Madam President, 1.7 million Palestinians have been driven from their 
homes, and, unbelievably, some 70 percent of the housing units in Gaza 
have been damaged or destroyed. This is an unheard of level of 
destruction--80 percent of people driven from their homes and 70 
percent of housing units damaged or destroyed.
  And while 1.7 million people are displaced from their homes, they 
have no idea where they will be tomorrow or whether or not they will 
ever return to their homes. And many of these men, women, and children 
have been displaced multiple times. They go here; they go there; they 
go there.
  Most of the infrastructure in Gaza has been destroyed. Very few water 
wells or bakeries are functioning. The electricity has been cut since 
the beginning of the war. Sewage is running into the streets. Cell 
phone service is spotty or nonexistent. Most of the healthcare 
facilities in Gaza are not operational. Bombs falling, people getting 
hurt; and yet healthcare facilities not operational. Many facilities 
have been damaged in air strikes, and numerous, numerous healthcare 
workers trying to keep children alive have been killed. The facilities 
that are operational today lack the basic medical supplies that heroic 
doctors and nurses need in order to save lives and treat their 
patients.
  And as horrible as all of this is, let me tell you what is even 
worse. As a result of Israeli bombing and restrictions on aid entering 
Gaza, only a tiny fraction of the food, water, medicine, and fuel that 
is needed--desperately needed--can get into Gaza. Even then, very 
little of that aid can reach beyond the immediate area of Rafah near 
the Egyptian border.
  And let us be very clear and take a deep breath and understand what 
all of this means. It means that, today, hundreds of thousands of 
children are starving and lack clean drinking water. The United Nations 
says the entire population of Gaza is at imminent risk of famine, and 
some 378,000 people are starving right now. According to the U.N., 1 in 
10 children under the age of 5 in Gaza is now acutely malnourished.

  And when malnutrition impacts young children, it often means 
permanent physical and cognitive damage that will impact them for the 
rest of their lives. In other words, if food got in tomorrow, 
healthcare got in tomorrow, damage has already been severely done to 
tens of thousands of beautiful, innocent little children. If nothing 
changes, we will soon have hundreds of thousands of children literally 
starving to death before our very eyes.
  And, unbelievably, that situation could even get worse in the 
immediate future. Roughly 1.4 million people--more than half of the 
population of Gaza--are now squeezed into the Rafah area. That is right 
up against the Egyptian border. Rafah was a town of just 250,000 before 
the war. It is a very small area, roughly 10 miles by 4 miles. Most of 
the people there are now packed into crowded U.N. shelters or sleeping 
out in tents. It is a daily struggle for them to find food or water.
  Yet Prime Minister Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's extreme-right 
wing government, says that Israel will soon launch a major ground 
offensive against Rafah, where all of these people currently are. He 
will soon be forcing hundreds of thousands of desperate people to 
evacuate once again. In other words, exhausted, traumatized, and hungry 
families will be driven onto the road with no plan as to where they 
will go, how they will receive essential supplies or protection for 
their physical safety.
  I cannot find words to describe how horrific this situation is and 
could become. Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly said that the 
goal of Israel's military efforts is total victory. Yet asked recently 
what total victory would look like, he responded chillingly by saying 
that it is like smashing a glass ``into small pieces, and then you 
continue to smash it into even smaller pieces and you continue hitting 
them.''
  And the question that we as Americans and as the U.S. Congress must 
ask is: How many more children and innocent people will be smashed by 
Netanyahu in this process? It is quite clear that beyond total 
destruction of Gaza, Netanyahu has no plan.
  Yesterday, President Biden acknowledged the severity of this crisis, 
and I thank him for doing that. He said that Israel's response in Gaza 
``has been over the top'' and added that ``there are a lot of innocent 
people who are starving. There are a lot of innocent people who are in 
trouble and dying. And it's got to stop.'' That is President Joe Biden.
  President Biden is absolutely right. It does have to stop. It has to 
now, and that is in our hands. President Biden and Secretary of State 
Blinken have been trying to negotiate an agreement where Israel pauses 
its military operation while Hamas releases the remaining hostages. All 
of us hope that this deal comes together. We all want the hostages 
freed and the slaughter ended. But Netanyahu is resisting this 
proposal. In large part, this is because he is politically weak at 
home. Most Israelis likely blame him for creating this crisis. And in 
my view--my view--he is trying to prolong the war to avoid facing 
accountability for his actions.
  Netanyahu didn't even wait for Secretary Blinken to leave the region 
this week before he publicly dismissed the hostage deal as delusional 
and brushed aside United States' concerns about expanding the ground 
offensive in southern Gaza. The Associated Press called this a 
``virtual slap in the face'' to Blinken and the United States--a 
virtual slap in the face--and they are right.
  Unbelievably--unbelievably--despite all of this, the U.S. Congress is 
prepared to spend another $14 billion on military aid to Netanyahu's 
rightwing government--$14 billion more, and 10 billion of this money is 
totally unrestricted and will allow Netanyahu to buy more of the bombs 
he has used to flatten Gaza and to kill thousands and thousands of 
children.
  This is American complicity at its worst, and it is really quite 
unbelievable. Does the U.S. Congress really want to provide more 
military aid to Netanyahu so that he can annihilate thousands and 
thousands more men, women, and children? Do we really want to reward 
Netanyahu, even while he ignores virtually everything the President of 
the United States is asking him to do? Do we want to give even more 
support to the leader of the most

[[Page S584]]

rightwing government in Israel's history, a man who has dedicated his 
political career to killing the prospects of a two-state solution?
  That is really hard to believe, but that is exactly what this 
legislation before us will do. And what is even harder to understand is 
that in the midst of this horrendous humanitarian crisis, the 
legislation before us contains a prohibition to funding for UNRWA, the 
largest U.N. agency operating in Gaza and the backbone of the 
humanitarian aid operation. Israel's allegations against the agency are 
serious, and they are being investigated seriously. But you don't 
starve 2 million children and people and women--you don't starve 2 
million people because of the alleged actions of 12 UNRWA employees.

  The whole world is watching. Netanyahu is starving the children of 
Gaza. We cannot be complicit in this atrocity. As long as this bill 
contains money to fund Netanyahu's cruel war, I will do everything I 
can to oppose it, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to talk about some of the 
important issues that we are debating here on the Senate floor. 
Actually, they are quite important, and we are having a good debate. I 
want to just talk about some of the votes that we have taken in the 
last couple of days.
  We voted on what I think was termed--really focused on--the Senate's 
border bill. A lot of people worked hard on that. I know the Presiding 
Officer did and Senator Lankford.
  I did not vote to proceed to consider that bill. There are a whole 
host of reasons. I think the most important, from my perspective, was 
this administration--the Biden administration--came in and said: We are 
going to have a policy of full open borders--which they have. There is 
no doubt about that. Every American knows it, sees it. It impacts 
people in Alaska negatively--over 300,000 illegal immigrants in 
December, an alltime record, and on track for 10 million.
  In my view, the border bill did not go far enough, and it is hard to 
trust the administration, even on provisions that we would want them to 
enforce, given their disastrous record for the last 3 years. So I was a 
no on that.
  Then we turned to the national security supplemental. I want to talk 
a lot about that this afternoon because it is very important. I voted, 
actually, to proceed to the debate, to start debating--hopefully, 
amending--this important bill.
  It is being called many things. Some are calling it the Ukraine bill, 
the Ukraine aid bill, the Israel bill. Having read it, having worked 
hard over the last 4 to 5 months to actually shape it, I think it 
should have a different name, maybe this name: the fighting 
authoritarian aggression national security bill. But probably the best 
title for this piece of legislation that we are now debating should be 
the national security industrial base renaissance bill.
  I hope my colleagues take a look at it. I hope they read it. But I am 
going to explain why I think it should be called that, and then we are 
obviously going to have a good debate on this bill.
  I am hoping that this bill--and I have mentioned this to my 
Republican colleagues, in particular--when people look at it and we 
debate it and try to make it better here on the floor, that it will 
unify the Republican conference, and, at the end, hopefully, get more 
support, because I think there is an important reason.
  There are a lot of reasons why I think this can unify Members of the 
Senate, Members of the Republican conference. First, let me just go 
into one of the most obvious, which I think almost everybody agrees 
with. If you don't, maybe you are not reading the news. But we are in a 
real dangerous period, led by this guy--this new era of authoritarian 
aggression, as I call it, where you have dictatorships on the march, 
very aggressive. That is Xi Jinping, the dictator of China. They are 
going through the biggest peacetime buildup in world history of their 
military--biggest peacetime buildup ever, of any country ever.
  I keep close tabs on what the Chinese are doing. This guy likes to 
dress up in fatigues. He is an aggressive, authoritarian dictator, 
working very closely with Putin; working very closely with the 
ayatollahs, the terrorists in Tehran; working very closely with Kim 
Jong Un, the dictator in North Korea.
  These dictatorships are all working together. I won't go into all of 
it, but if you go to Armed Services hearings and Intel hearings, they 
are working closely together, and they are willing to use military 
force, particularly against their democratic neighbors, either directly 
or through proxies--like Hamas, when they invaded Israel--to try to 
undermine American interests and those of our allies. That is 
happening.
  We are in one of the most dangerous periods since World War II right 
now. That is one reason that a bill like this should unify us.
  Another is that our industrial base in the United States has 
dramatically withered, particularly in its ability to protect us. What 
do I mean by ``protect us''? To produce weapons systems, to produce 
ammunition. Again, this is a fact. If you don't believe that, well, 
maybe you should do a little more research.
  Our industrial base is withering. It is a shadow of its former self 
during the Cold War, certainly, during previous wars.
  Mr. President, let me just give you an example. You know a lot about 
submarines. We are supposed to be building 1.2 Virginia-class subs a 
year. That is our goal. We can barely build one a year. This is making 
our sub fleet, which is one of our greatest asymmetric advantages over 
this guy, shrink.
  Even worse, 37 percent of our attack submarine fleet--that is about 
18 subs--are in maintenance or idle or awaiting maintenance, just 
sitting there because we don't have the industrial capacity to maintain 
our submarine base. Anyone who studies this knows this is a giant, 
giant problem.

  We all know this. If the bullets start flying, if a dictator like 
this launches a war against one of our allies, or Putin does or Iran 
does--they are trying to sink U.S. ships in the Red Sea right now, 
anyway, literally troops under attack--when the bullets are flying, 
that is not the time you need to build up your industrial base. So if 
we are in a real dangerous period, which we are, and the American 
ability, in terms of our industrial base, to protect our own country 
has withered, which it has, that is another reason we should be 
thinking: Let's do something about it.
  A third reason the people on my side of the aisle should be taking 
this legislation seriously is that it is an opportunity to make up for 
what has been an incredibly weak Biden administration approach to 
national security. I talk about this a lot, but this administration is 
not serious about national security. The President has put forward 
three times in his budget each year Department of Defense cuts, 
inflation-adjusted cuts. He will crank up the EPA and the Department of 
the Interior 20, 25, 30 percent. The DOD, every year, Joe Biden cuts 
it.
  The current budget shrinks the Army, shrinks the Navy, shrinks the 
Marine Corps. Do you think he is impressed by that? He is not.
  In next year's budget, the Biden budget will bring the United States 
below 3 percent of GDP on military spending. It is probably the fourth 
or fifth time we have been below 3 percent in 80 years. Do you think he 
is impressed with that? He is not.
  We have an administration, led by civilians at the Pentagon, who are 
not focused on lethality, who are not focused on warfighting, who have 
been distracted by some of these far-left social issues, which, in my 
view, have no business being in the Pentagon with our warfighters.
  So this bill that we are debating right now is a chance to start a 
course correction in the dangerous world we are facing because of 
dictators like this and the very weak response of the Biden 
administration's approach to national security and defense, which they 
have always--go look at the budgets--always prioritized dead last of 
any Federal Agency.
  So what does it do? Let's take a look. This is from an article from 
the Washington Post based on a study by the American Enterprise 
Institute on what this supplemental--this is actually where it was in 
November--what this does.

[[Page S585]]

  I think the most important point that I want to emphasize here is 
that this bill is primarily focused on rebuilding our military 
industrial base in this new era of authoritarian aggression. That is 
the principal focus.
  Over half of the dollars that are in this bill--over half, over $50 
billion--go directly to America's capacity, our capacity in States all 
across this great Nation, mostly in the Midwest and on the east coast, 
some out in California, to build weapons, to build ammo, and to be 
ready for war if it comes--over $50 billion. There will be thousands 
and thousands of jobs created by these direct investments in America.
  This is a generational investment in our ability to defend ourselves. 
What do I mean by ``generational''? Some of these investments we will 
see 15 or 20 years from now, hopefully, still producing weapons, 
submarines.
  Let me just give you a few examples. Let's start with submarines. Our 
greatest comparative advantage, relative to China--they are catching up 
in a whole host of areas, but not in terms of subs. This has $3 billion 
to go directly into the American submarine industrial capacity, which 
will unlock another $3 billion from our AUKUS agreement with Australia. 
That is $6 billion to our industrial base for submarines. There is $5 
billion for 155 artillery shells; over half a billion for counter-UAS 
systems. On the other weapons systems, this is directly invested in 
America--Patriots, GMLRS, Javelins, Harpoons, Tomahawks, HARMs, TOW 
missiles--built by Americans for our defense.
  Do you get the picture? Over $50 billion of this bill will go 
directly into our industrial base to defend ourselves. Working-class 
Americans, America's national security will benefit.
  This is replenishing our weapons stocks, our ammunition stocks, for 
the U.S. military and, yes, for our allies to purchase, some of whom 
are at war today--Ukraine, of course, and Israel.
  Now, there is a lot of focus on Ukraine and a lot of arguments about 
whether to provide continued lethal aid. I strongly support that. But 
this bill also focuses on other allies, which, like I said, in the 
Republican conference, I believe unifies us. Ukraine has been a debate. 
But let me start with Israel.
  I have been out to Israel twice in the last year, including about 10 
days after the October 7 attacks, with a bipartisan group of Senators. 
It is, obviously, our most important ally in the Middle East--one of 
our most important allies in the world.
  Here is what I think a lot of people miss. Right now, if you go 
there, you will see it; you will feel it; you will understand it. 
Israel is under an existential threat to the very existence of their 
State and their people, as clear as day--Iran, all the proxies, Hamas, 
Hezbollah, the Houthis. This is not an exaggeration.
  This Defense bill has close to $17 billion for Israel in U.S. forces, 
in U.S. Central Command, that, right now, are being attacked--right 
now: Iron Dome, David's Sling, interceptors--about 2\1/2\ billion for 
CENTCOM operations for our U.S. Forces, who are literally taking 
missiles from the Houthis right now on Navy ships in the Red Sea. I 
think everybody agrees: You have to fund our troops.
  Let me give you another area that I think unifies us; should unify 
all Senators; I think it unifies a lot of Republicans. And that is 
Taiwan and INDOPACOM.
  Taiwan has been kind of--not kind of--a big focus of mine throughout 
my career. I just retired from the U.S. Marine Corps last week, 
actually, as a colonel, after 30 years of service. My first deployment 
as a U.S. Marine was to the Taiwan Strait in 1995 and `96. Two carrier 
strike groups and a Marine amphibious ready group that I was a young 
infantry officer on, we were there as a U.S. commitment when the PLA 
was threatening to invade Taiwan. That is called the third Taiwan 
Strait crisis. It was their first Presidential election. American 
commitment was there.
  I finished out my Marine Corps time as the chief of staff with the 
Marine Force's Pacific Command, which is a whole focus on Taiwan. The 
first time I ever visited Taiwan as a U.S. Senator, I will never 
forget. A number of Senators were there. We got on the bus. The head of 
our AIT embassy, essentially--not really an embassy, unofficial 
embassy--he welcomed us, an American citizen: Welcome to Taiwan. One of 
the most dynamic economies, one of the most vibrant democracies on the 
planet. And the only reason it exists today is because of the 
commitment of the U.S. military and America. For eight decades, we have 
kept Taiwan free.
  The initial supplemental that came up to the Senate, it didn't have a 
lot for Taiwan or INDOPACOM. A number of us knew why. President Biden 
was getting ready to meet with President Xi Jinping. They didn't want 
to ruin the mood music at that meeting, so they didn't put much in to 
defend Taiwan--help us defend Taiwan--as the Taiwan Relations Act 
requires. So a number of us worked together--Senator Collins, in 
particular, and my office. This bill has about $16.4 billion for 
INDOPACOM relevant munitions, security assistance, capacity expansion 
to deter China in the Taiwan Strait and throughout the INDOPACOM 
theater.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the list to be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

    The Supplemental Includes More Than $16.4 Billion for INDOPACOM-
  Relevant Munitions, Security Assistance, and Capacity Expansion To 
                    Bolster Deterrence Against China

       $3.9 billion in security assistance to Indo Pacific allies 
     and partners.
       Unlocking Taiwan Assistance. $1.9 billion to replenish U.S. 
     military stocks so DOD can transfer existing equipment and 
     weapons on hand to Taiwan using Presidential Drawdown 
     Authority provided in the FY23 NDAA. This is the quickest way 
     to arm Taiwan for its own self-defense.
       Indo-Pacific Foreign Military Financing. $2 billion for 
     partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific to purchase U.S. 
     defense articles, services, and training.
       $542 million for INDOPACOM unfunded requirements.
       $134 million for campaigning and Joint Training, Exercise 
     and Experimentation.
       $49 million for Joint Training Team Taiwan.
       $25 million for Joint Task Force Micronesia.
       $19 million for Joint Experimentation and Innovation.
       $51 million for operationalizing near-term space control.
       $147 million for Guam defense system.
       $117 million for Persistent Targeting for Undersea.
       $132 million for cruise missile motor capacity expansion 
     that is chokepoint for long-range missiles such as Harpoon, 
     Tomahawk, LRASM, and JASSM.
       $3.3 billion to enhance the submarine industrial base in 
     support of AUKUS and U.S. submarine production, including 
     $282M for military construction.
       $250 million for Treasury to provide a credible alternative 
     to China's coercive financing practices.
       The following defense investments funded in other 
     categories of the supplemental (e.g. Ukraine, Israel, Central 
     Command) also benefit INDOPACOM.
       $2.7 billion to expand domestic production capacity of 
     INDOPACOM-relevant munitions.
       $755 million to increase production capacity for PATRIOT 
     air defense missiles.
       $158 million for solid rocket motor capacity expansion, a 
     key components for numerous missiles relied upon by the U.S. 
     military.
       $199 million to expand industrial capacity for energetics, 
     precision bombs, and batteries.
       $1.6 billion to increase production capacity of 155mm 
     artillery rounds and components to reach 100K rounds per 
     month by the end of FY2025. Taiwan uses 155mm rounds.
       $5.6 billion to increase U.S. inventories of INDOPACOM-
     relevant munitions.
       $2.65 billion for additional munitions to include air 
     defense and anti-tank weapons.
       $915 million to replenish and modernize anti-radar HARM 
     missiles.
       $550 million to max out production of long-range precision 
     artillery rockets (GMLRS).
       $1.5 billion to procure 600K artillery rounds, a key 
     capability for U.S. Forces Korea.

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, these are areas that I think can unify 
us: industrial base, workers, Taiwan, Israel. Like any bill, there are 
things in here I don't like: too much direct support to Ukraine, direct 
budget support. I think the European Union--Europeans--should be doing 
that, not us. Senator Collins did a good job of limiting that. It still 
has too much.
  If we have an amendment process here, I have an amendment that would 
strip that. Focus on lethal aid, not budget support where the Europeans 
can do that. There are other amendments out here to enhance what we 
give our allies.
  President Biden's team recently said we are not going to send any 
more LNG to Asia or Europe.

[[Page S586]]

  I just spoke with a very senior European elected official who thinks 
that is a real bad idea. We have an amendment that said you can't do 
that, Mr. President. We have to send energy to our allies. So there is 
a lot more we can do to improve this bill.
  I will end with this. You know, one of the arguments against this 
bill will say: Well, you know what, we don't have to do anything in 
Ukraine; we will let Putin roll. But we will be real strong in Taiwan. 
We will be real strong all over the rest of the world. We will deter 
these authoritarians there; don't worry so much about Ukraine.
  But, as you know, that is not really how the world works. It is not 
how the world works. Deterrence is not divisible. American credibility 
is not divisible. You can't say we are going to be real strong in the 
Taiwan Strait, but, you know, no problem in Ukraine or with Israel.
  These authoritarians are working together, and we need a strategic 
response through this very dangerous period. And how do we know 
deterrence is not divisible? I think the Biden administration 
demonstrated it with their botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
  When that happened, a number of us, myself included, said: Watch. 
Watch. The authoritarian regimes around the world are going to test. 
They are going to probe. They are going to go into different areas and 
press. And, of course, that happened. I don't think you have the 
Ukraine invasion by Russia without the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.
  But, again, what I am trying to do here with my colleagues--Democrats 
and Republicans--is say: It is not a perfect bill. I want to amend it. 
I certainly hope we can get to an amendment process. I know a lot of 
people want to get to that. But there is a lot in this bill--more than 
half dedicated to American industrial base, billions dedicated to 
Taiwan, billions dedicated to Israel--that I think should unite us. And 
I am hopeful that is going to happen.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, there have been a lot of discussions over the 
last few days about a bill--a bill many months in the making; a bill 
that has been discussed, debated, and drafted, largely in secret. We 
saw it for the first time Sunday evening, at 7 p.m. eastern time.
  That bill has a lot of material in it. As it was released to us 
Sunday night, it spent somewhere just shy of $120 billion. Since then, 
it has gone through some changes. It now spends just a little under 
$100 billion, about $95 billion. And it has been modified. Its scope 
has been narrowed.
  I want to talk, first, just for a few minutes about how we got here 
or where we are in that process and then about some concerns I have 
with the bill as it now stands.
  Last fall--the fall of 2023--there was a push spearheaded primarily 
by the White House but a push that included most Senate Democrats and 
some Senate Republicans--a push to get more aid to Ukraine.
  Now, remember, the total aid the United States has spent on Ukraine 
throughout the duration of this conflict is somewhere in the 
neighborhood of $113, $114 billion. It is an enormous amount of money. 
The military aid component of that itself--at least until fairly 
recently--was more than the military aid provided by any other country 
or any other group of countries. It is an enormous sum of money.
  All of this is going on at the same time that the American people are 
enduring some challenges--challenges that relate to an economy in which 
the dollar can purchase less and less every day. This is the 
inevitable, foreseeable, and, in fact, foreseen and widely warned of 
consequence of a government--this government based here in Washington, 
DC--that has been spending too much money for many years, that has been 
spending money to the tune of trillion-dollar and then multitrillion-
dollar deficits year after year after year.
  This has happened, by the way, not during a widespread economic 
depression but, really, during the top of an economic cycle in which 
most of the last few years, unemployment has been really low.
  These are not things that the government has borrowed to spend more 
money on because of the fact that the economy has been severely 
sluggish and, therefore, unable to produce as much output as we would 
normally hope to have. No, this is just regular government spending run 
amok at the peak of the economic cycle.
  And as a result of this spending--this spending that has involved 
multitrillion-dollar deficits for the last few years, including and 
especially during this Presidential administration--that many years of 
adding that much debt to our already gargantuan national debt, which 
now stands above $34 trillion, those things have a consequence. When we 
add that much debt--especially that much debt that quickly--because of 
the way in which the acquisition of new debt works in the United 
States, it has the same basic effect on the economy as just printing 
more money. Essentially, what is happening here is that we are 
contributing to the money supply; we have turned up the pace at which 
we are contributing to the money supply; and as a result, every dollar 
buys less.
  How much less? Well, depending on which study you point to, a very 
conservative estimate is that the average American household has to 
spend about $1,000 a month every single month to buy the same basket of 
goods and services of basic necessities--from housing to healthcare, 
from gas to groceries--$1,000 a month more every single month to buy 
just the same basic necessities that they were buying prior to the day 
President Biden took office. And that is not very long. That does 
produce an effect. And it produces a type of misery that looks 
something like the following. Now, if people are on a salary, one way 
or another, it is a relatively fixed budget that most households 
operate on and, usually, a relatively fixed sum of money that they have 
to live on, whether that is through a salary or through a combination 
of sources, if they are independent contractors or if they are retired 
and live on a pension or something like that.
  So that sum of money now has to take into account that everything 
costs about $1,000 a month more for basic necessities every single 
month, working out to about $12,000 a year. For some families, this may 
be more; for some, it may be a little less. But everyone is feeling the 
pinch. It is what happens with inflation. It hurts everyone. But it 
hurts the poor, middle-class Americans more than anybody else.
  Rich people, interestingly enough, can find a way to get even richer, 
even faster, during times of great inflation. So it is one of many 
reasons why we ought to be concerned anytime we are going to spend a 
significant sum of money--a significant sum of money that is in 
addition to the ordinary operations of this government, the Federal 
Government--the government based right here in Washington, DC.
  That is why it is important to think about what we are spending, how 
we are spending it, why we are spending it, and what consequences that 
spending might have.
  For many of these same reasons, when this latest push to provide tens 
of billions of additional dollars over to Ukraine a few months ago, a 
number of Republicans, a number of Members--mostly Republicans, 
including Republicans in the Senate and Republicans in the House of 
Representatives--expressed concern over doing that. There was a wide 
range of concerns expressed. And I won't attempt to enumerate all of 
them. But I will just say that most of them followed along a few 
things. No. 1--the one that I just mentioned--inflation. The fact that 
we are spending a lot more money than we have, that causes inflation to 
become worse. The more we add to that dumpster fire, the more misery 
inflation is likely to create.
  No. 2, this money is going to a war, a war half a world away, to 
which we have already contributed substantially. We have European 
allies that are much closer to the action--European allies that have 
provided some aid, provided far less military aid than we have; who 
have not been as quick to defend their own backyard turf as we would 
like and not nearly as quick to defend their turf as we have been as a 
country.
  This matters. This matters in a number of ways. Remember, many of 
these allies of which I speak that are much closer neighbors to this 
conflict, much

[[Page S587]]

closer to what is happening there, much more likely to be affected by 
the conflict in a direct way, are countries that belong to NATO. 
Remember, through NATO, for decades, the United States has been 
providing a significant portion of the European security umbrella, an 
umbrella that has benefited not only NATO allies but also their 
neighbors for many years.
  Now, an understanding has evolved over time. There should be a 
certain percentage of GDP that NATO allies should be contributing to 
NATO. A certain percentage of their GDP should be devoted to security, 
to defense. A lot of those nations have not kept up with this and have 
missed it chronically and by a pretty significant margin. We have 
continued to provide our portion of the security umbrella to NATO, 
which is huge. It is enormous. It allows it to operate. It allows these 
nations to rely, to a significant degree, on our security umbrella.
  Year after year, when many of those nations failed to fulfill their 
duties, their part of the expectation of what it means to be a NATO 
member, in time they get trained. They get acclimated to the fact that, 
hey, this is OK. This is a pretty good deal. As a result, they can 
spend money on whatever else they want. They can spend more money on 
their social welfare programs or whatever it is that they spend money 
on in Europe--maybe it is more wine, cheese, I don't know--whatever 
their governments are spending money on that is not defense when they 
fail to meet their NATO obligation. So as a result of that, they grow 
more and more dependent on what we spend.
  Then, when there is a bad guy--Vladimir Putin--with a country--
Russia--who goes in and without provocation attacks Ukraine, again, for 
the second time in a decade, then they look to us. It is understandable 
why they do that. They looked to us for a long time. We have shouldered 
a lot of burdens around the world. And in many respects, we have a lot 
to be proud of for that.
  But this is a conversation that needs to happen because at what point 
should they have to match--no--at what point should they have to exceed 
as a percentage of GDP, perhaps collectively, those European nations in 
real dollars, what we have spent before we consider putting more on the 
line? That is a significant concern.
  Some have also expressed the concern that we are devoting all this 
time, attention, and an enormous sum of money to securing Ukraine's 
borders when our own borders are insecure. We have been flooded with 
what some estimate to be about 10 million people who have come into 
this country without documentation since January 2021 when Joe Biden 
took office. They wonder why we are doing so much to secure the borders 
of another country half a world away while doing little or nothing to 
secure our own.
  Some have also noted, whenever we get involved in a proxy war--
spending a lot of money through another country to fight yet another 
country--that is very often how we get involved in a much larger 
conflict. This wouldn't be the first time that has happened or the 
second time. It has happened a number of times. The most familiar one 
people think of is Vietnam. We start out with proxies. We build, we get 
drawn in, and we are eventually direct combatants.
  It is worth considering, worth taking into account, not necessarily 
dispositive of whether we get involved in any war, but this is a war we 
have been fighting through a proxy--Ukraine--against an adversary--
Russia--with a very large nuclear arsenal, one that is large enough to 
destroy the United States many, many times over. That has to be taken 
into account. That question becomes more meaningful every time we 
invest more money, every time we increase the lethality, the type of 
weapons assistance that we are providing to them. Those all need to be 
taken into account.
  Sometimes we don't have those conversations. For those and other 
reasons, a number of people, mostly Republicans--Republicans in the 
House and Republicans in the Senate--have expressed some concern about 
providing additional Ukraine funding.
  Last fall, when this push started in earnest, Republican leadership 
in the Senate suggested: Look, maybe what we should do, given that most 
or all Democrats in the Senate really want this funding to Ukraine, and 
we have some Republicans who want to be supportive but not as many--
maybe we should offer up something else to achieve a compromise, to 
achieve something else that is important to most, nearly all--I would 
hope all Republicans in the Senate--and that is U.S. border security.
  So for the last few months, we have anticipated what would come of 
some negotiations, which, unfortunately, became a lot more clandestine 
than I would have preferred. I speak not critically of our negotiator, 
James Lankford, who is a dear friend and a good man. I think he was 
doing the best he knew how to do with the cards he was dealt. But those 
negotiations, to my great dismay and disappointment and that of many of 
my colleagues, occurred without our day-to-day awareness of what was 
happening. We were not kept informed of exactly what was in there. We 
were given very few details, and those details emerged mostly in the 
last few weeks before this document was made public Sunday night at 7 
p.m. Eastern Standard Time, when we finally saw that measure.
  The reason why we shouldn't have months of secret negotiations in 
which most Senate Republicans were kept out of the loop became more 
apparent. The objectives of the negotiating team had drifted pretty far 
from the original stated concerns of many, if not most, Senate 
Republicans when we embarked on this process.
  The idea was to use the fact that we have a lot of enthusiasm on our 
side of the aisle to secure America's border and to pass legislation 
that would force that, that would virtually guarantee that, that would 
make it very difficult--very difficult to the point of being 
impossible--and that we would continue to set all the wrong records, as 
we did in the month of December and as we have so many times during 
this administration, on the number of people coming across the border, 
the number of people trafficked into the United States by international 
drug cartels.
  The drug cartels, by the way, are earning many billions--probably 
tens of billions of dollars--every year smuggling human traffic into 
the United States and with that human traffic are bringing in a whole 
host of other problems carried by them and inextricably intertwined 
with the human traffic they brought into the country, including enough 
fentanyl that in the last couple of years has killed over 100,000 
people per year, enough fentanyl that if distributed widely enough, 
could kill every American living in this country, every single man, 
woman, and child.

  I was told by the Border Patrol during a recent visit I made to the 
border in the Rio Grande Valley that for the first time since the 1860, 
since the adoption, in fact, of the 13th Amendment prohibiting slavery 
and indentured servitude in America, we now have significant numbers of 
people living in indentured servitude, many of them in the form of sex 
slavery, paying off the debts that they incurred while being smuggled 
into this country by the drug cartels. There was a lot of enthusiasm, 
for that reason, to stop that, to make it more difficult for that to 
continue. And that was the whole point of merging those efforts.
  So when the legislation came out Sunday night and we saw that--you 
know, while there were some changes in law that might have been helpful 
over time--there was nothing in there requiring the border to be 
materially more secure. There were enough loopholes in there, as I read 
it, enough loopholes in there that not only did it not guarantee a 
significantly better result on border security, but in some respects it 
could actually make some problems worse. It could at least prolong the 
problem.
  Those concerns were expressed. On a dime, it seemed, Senate 
Republican leadership turned on that very legislation they had been 
touting for months: It is under development. Wait until you see it. 
Instead of trying to fix that, instead of saying: All right, let's go 
back to the drawing board and see where the problem areas are, what we 
can fix, what we can't fix, they said: Let's not do it at all. They 
started quoting Republican Senators, Senators like me who had said the 
President of the United States can use existing law. And with that 
existing law, he can make material steps toward securing the border to 
the same degree that was achieved in the last administration

[[Page S588]]

using the exact same laws; that the border security crisis, as we see 
it now, is not itself something that exists for want of adequate 
legislative authority in the hands of the President.
  No, it is a willful choice on the part of the President and the 
Secretary of Homeland Security not to enforce those laws aggressively; 
in fact, in many cases not to enforce them and in some cases to openly 
flout the law, as he has, by admitting a couple of million people into 
this country under so-called immigration parole authority, parole 
authority which is supposed to be used only on a case-by-case basis and 
never a categorical basis, as it has been recently by this 
administration, to admit millions of people into this country. The 
President still could enforce the border.
  Republican leadership then made the unfortunate choice to say: Well, 
you Republicans who care about border security have been saying it is 
not the lack of adequate legislative authority that the border is not 
being enforced. Therefore, you guys shouldn't be pushing for any border 
security language at all, so we will jettison that part.
  That was never the point. The point was we were going to achieve a 
compromise. True compromise between the party should entail getting one 
thing one party likes and another thing another party likes and enough 
steam for both of them to pass when neither of them can pass. So they 
missed the point.
  By missing that point, they also missed a real opportunity, perhaps, 
to get something done there. That is unfortunate. Now, we still had a 
chance. I made the case over the last few days that we could still 
offer up something. In order to do that, Republicans would have to come 
together, and they would have to debate both of the cloture motions we 
had over the last 48 hours. And after defeating both of those, say we 
are working on a proposal that could actually get us there--one that 
could include material reforms, like H.R. 2, which has been passed by 
the House of Representatives. I know it is something that Senate 
Democrats don't necessarily dream about passing--not necessarily wild 
about it--but it is something that would materially advance the cause 
of border security and materially change the circumstances on the 
border.
  Even though the President doesn't have to have new legislative 
authority, this would force that, and we could force that by harnessing 
the enthusiasm for Ukraine aid.
  But, alas, 17 or 18 Senate Republicans chose last night to move 
forward--or yesterday afternoon, rather--to move forward and vote for 
cloture on the motion to proceed, notwithstanding the fact by then, 
they had cut off anything having to do with border security.
  This was unfortunate. We waited for months for this language. This 
language didn't do the job. We could have come up with other language, 
but we had to stick together as a team. So much for teamwork. That 
didn't pan out. That really is tragic.
  We now find ourselves faced with a bill that focuses on this 
supplemental aid package, an aid package of $95 billion, the vast 
majority of which--close to two-thirds--goes to Ukraine. Some of it 
goes elsewhere. We will talk more about that in a moment.
  There is a lot in here, a lot to cover, but let's start with the fact 
that in addition to the aid sent to Ukraine or sent to the Pentagon to 
replenish stockpiles of weapons that have been released to Ukraine 
under Presidential drawdown authority or otherwise, in addition to all 
that, it provides some $238 million--roughly a quarter of a billion 
dollars--to cover deployments of U.S. troops to Europe.
  That is significant. It begs all kinds of questions. Why is that 
happening? Where is it going exactly? If we are doing that, does that 
mean we are getting ready to be involved directly or kinetically in 
this war? What does that mean? Why are we doing this, by the way, 
without a plan, a comprehensive strategy for Ukraine? What is it that 
we want to achieve? How far are we willing to go to get there? Are we 
going to be directly involved? At what point will we be adopting or 
must we consider an authorization for the use of military force or a 
declaration of war? All those questions are left unaddressed by this as 
we spend roughly a quarter of a billion dollars on additional troop 
deployments to Europe.
  It allows for an additional $7.8 billion worth of weapons to leave 
our stockpiles, U.S. stockpiles, immediately. This is a pretty big sum 
of money.
  Now, keep in mind that for many of these weapons, especially many of 
the weapons that seem to be the most talked about and the most useful 
here, a lot of them, including the weapons systems known as HIMARS, 
Javelins, ATACMS--those are things that are being deplenished, have 
been depleted very rapidly from our stockpiles, as we have been sending 
them to Ukraine. They also happen to be many of the same weapons that 
may become very valuable, very much in demand, and very much are now in 
short supply should additional need for them break out in, for example, 
Taiwan or Israel.
  So as the planet is becoming a more dangerous place and we are 
depleting those, yes, we are authorizing an additional $7.8 billion of 
weapons to leave our stockpiles immediately. Now, why is this 
significant? Ordinarily, there is a default rule set into law that says 
you can't have more than $100 million in weapons leave our stockpiles 
through Presidential action alone without a new law being passed by 
Congress to allow that--$100 million, one-tenth of a billion dollars. 
This is many times that. And I understand that this is a deliberate 
choice. Congress can do that. After all, it is a statute that imposes a 
cap. Congress, having adopted that cap, can increase or decrease the 
cap anytime it wants to. But let's think about why. Let's think about 
how much this makes sense. Let's think about whether and to what extent 
this is in our interest--$7.8 billion. This is almost 80 times, about 
78 times the ordinary drawdown authority that we would allow absent 
some extraordinary action.
  Now, when those weapons are released--as many of them already have 
been under previous authorities--we are still looking at years before 
many of them can be replenished. This is not stuff that we can just 
produce tomorrow. You can't just turn on a switch or place an order. 
This is not like ordering a new set of double-A batteries from Amazon. 
No, this takes a fair amount of time. In fact, for some of these weapon 
systems--many of them, in fact--I am told it may well be impossible for 
us to replenish them prior to 2030. Who knows where we will be then. 
Who knows what conflicts might require their use by then. And will we 
find ourselves unprepared? One can easily imagine scenarios in which we 
could.
  If we have to engage, for example, in the Indo-Pacific in the near 
future--let's say Beijing fulfills the fears of many for years and 
decides to make a move on Taiwan--what happens then if our shelves are 
barren, left barren because of this conflict? I think that needs to be 
discussed more than it has been.
  That is one of the most unfortunate offshoots--and there are many--of 
the way this bill has been handled over the last few months. We put it 
on the back burner while it has been negotiated and negotiated, we 
thought initially--we hoped, believed initially--under terms that would 
involve our being apprised and informed regularly about what was 
happening and allowed to see text. That didn't happen.
  When we finally saw text, that text didn't contain what most of the 
Senate Republican conference asked for at the outset. Now, because of 
concerns with that part of the bill, that part of the bill was just 
jettisoned, and we are back to just the foreign aid stuff to be spent 
mostly in the same three areas we had talked about at the very 
beginning.
  As a result of all of that, it is as though there has been a 
distraction. One could use this to distract people from conversations 
like this one. So we shouldn't be rushing this one. We should have 
conversations about that and figure out whether it makes sense and what 
we are going to do in order to protect ourselves in current and such 
future conflicts as may arise, as to which we have no ability to 
predict right now.
  The legislation also allows for the Department of Defense to enter 
into new contracts for a total of $13.7 billion in new equipment--new 
equipment specifically for Ukraine through the Ukraine Security 
Assistance Initiative--with no requirement whatsoever

[[Page S589]]

for the Biden administration to prioritize contracts for our own 
readiness, for America's defense.
  Why should we be worried about that? Well, as we are worried about 
replenishing the stockpiles of the weapons I just referred to a moment 
ago, we are placing new orders, new contracts, new money--$13.7 billion 
for additional weapons--and those are all going out without any 
obligation on the part of the Biden administration to negotiate in a 
preference for a priority basis for weapons to be used by the United 
States to be placed back in the U.S. stockpiles. Where does that leave 
us? Well, I think it leaves us back in a similar position to what I 
described a moment ago.
  Look, our military is the most feared force in the world with good 
reason. We have the best and the brightest men and women in the whole 
world ready to fight for us at a moment's notice, and we also have the 
best weapons systems in the world. But when you get to be king of the 
hill, as our military currently is and I hope will be for the entirety 
of the time I am on this planet and I hope in perpetuity, you don't get 
to that point and then consider yourself immune to the risk of being 
thrown off that hill. The minute we deplete our weapons stockpiles is a 
moment that we should be concerned.
  The legislation also funds the Ukrainian National Police. It funds 
the Ukrainian National Police and State Border Guard in Ukraine with 
$300 million. That is great. I am glad that Ukrainians are concerned 
about Ukraine's borders--enough that they have apparently asked us for 
this assistance--but this bill contains nothing to secure our border. 
Last I checked, Ukraine is not being besieged by immigrants from all 
over the world, including a lot of people on the Terrorist Watchlist, 
including people from countries as far from Ukraine as the United 
States is from Afghanistan and Syria and China and all kinds of 
countries that are not in or connected to Latin America.
  See, that is another thing I learned on my most recent trip to 
McAllen, TX, from the Border Patrol, who told me that this is not what 
we have seen in the past, not what we normally expect to see coming 
across the borders. You have people from all over the world, including 
parts of the planet where there are a lot of people who don't like us 
very much and are known to plant people, to come into our country 
without let's say gestures of good will on their minds--yet another 
reason why this bill should give the American people pause. It should 
give us pause.
  If we are willing to spend that on Ukraine's border security, why not 
ours? Yes, I know they are at war, and that is significant. That is 
tragic. Yes, Vladimir Putin is a bad guy, and we don't want him to be 
able to pursue his ambitions. Our job first and foremost is to protect 
this country. When we can protect other countries half a world away, we 
ought to have that discussion, and we ought to have that discussion in 
a way that makes very clear to the American people how that benefits 
them directly, how that makes them safer.
  I don't mean to suggest that any of these questions are easily 
answered, but I do mean to say emphatically that American border 
security, which is at risk in ways that it never has been not just in 
my lifetime but in the entire existence of this country--at least since 
the end of the War of 1812 but in other ways, since it came to be--we 
are in deep trouble with our border security.
  People are pouring across who do not mean us well, and we have to be 
concerned about this. This bill turns a blind eye to that, even while 
fetishizing border security in another nation half a world away.
  I don't think the American people will take enormous comfort when 
they hear these and other concerns, when they learn that $7.8 billion 
to be sent to Ukraine through this legislation will go to ensure that 
Ukrainian bureaucrats don't miss a paycheck. We send this thing over as 
part of the economic support fund for Ukraine, and it is there, as I 
understand it, to make sure that every government employee in Ukraine 
doesn't miss a paycheck, gets paid for an entire year. Billions of 
dollars to subsidize all kinds of things in addition to paying their 
government workforce. My understanding is that it is also going out in 
various grants to subsidize everything from clothing stores to people 
who sell concert tickets for Ukraine, all while making sure their 
budget is fully funded for an entire year.
  All this is happening while Americans are living paycheck to paycheck 
and where that paycheck doesn't last very long, like it used to, 
because they have to shell out an additional $1,000 a month every 
single month, and this trend has been ongoing ever since January 20, 
2021, when Joe Biden took office, and, not coincidentally, this 
inflationary cycle steadily became worse and worse.
  The bill also begins Ukrainian reconstruction. Now, this one is 
interesting. In most parts, it sends $25 million for the transition 
initiatives account of USAID, and it sends this out for frontline and 
newly liberated communities, communities reclaimed from previous 
Russian occupation.
  There are a couple things about this that concern me. No. 1, I am not 
aware of a lot of communities that have been reclaimed. I am sure there 
are some. I am told there are a few, but they are few and far between.
  Sending $25 million--I suppose the only reason it is that small a 
number--you know, most Americans think of $25 million, and they say 
that is an enormous sum of money, and it is. It certainly is. And that 
has been hard-earned by the people who have paid it. But compared to 
the rest of this bill, it is a tiny drop in a very large bucket.
  So why should that be concerning? Well, for setting the predicate now 
for the fact that it is going to be the United States on the line--U.S. 
taxpayers on the line most notably--in order to fund these transition 
initiatives. Does that mean we are going to be responsible for 
rebuilding Ukraine as, if, when this war is won? Is that our job? Do we 
have to rebuild these buildings? Is it a hard-working mechanic from 
Denver, a plumber from Boston, a police officer from Provo? Why exactly 
are their paychecks and their dollars and their bank accounts and their 
hard-earned money being tapped for that? And more to the point, if they 
are going to be on the hook not just for these isolated, Marshall 
communities, then does that mean if--when--this war is finally won, we 
will be doing all of that? They will be concerned about that, and they 
have every reason to be.

  (Mr. OSSOFF assumed the Chair.)
  Now, the legislation does ask for a multiyear strategy for Ukraine, 
and it is a good thing to have a strategy. I wish we had a strategy for 
how this war is going to be won and how our role in it helps bring an 
end to that and how to prioritize different actions that we might 
undertake and what they might cost, what they might entail. But this 
strategy of which I speak places the United States at its helm, and as 
I understand it, it doesn't do the things that I just described that 
need to happen, but it does put the United States at the helm, sort of 
in a pole position, as the people in charge of this outside of Ukraine.
  I am not sure that is a great idea. It seems like yet another gift to 
woke and complacent European allies already not meeting their NATO 
obligations that refuse to own up to the responsibility of protecting 
and securing their own continent in their own backyard.
  Now, that takes us to another area of concern, to a different part of 
the world. The nearly $10 billion for humanitarian aid in this bill--
somewhere between $9 and $10 billion when you add up a couple of 
accounts--that by the terms of the legislation may be used in and 
around Ukraine and in and around Israel, some of that money, one has to 
assume--in theory, all of that money--could end up going to Gaza, 
humanitarian relief in Gaza. Of course, there are dire humanitarian 
conditions in Gaza, and that is heartbreaking. But there is nothing in 
this bill that, as I view it, prevents that money or such money as goes 
to Gaza from ending up in the hands of Hamas and benefiting Hamas. And 
as I look at--I am not sure there is a way to do it. And that is one of 
the reasons why I am concerned that there isn't a restriction on aid to 
Gaza here because Gaza itself is under the thumb, not of a state, not 
of a government as we would conceive of it--it is unlike anything we 
have ever known here and hopefully anything we ever will know on this 
continent, certainly in this country. But to say we are

[[Page S590]]

going to give aid to Gaza, but without it benefiting Hamas, it is 
almost impossible to conceive of.
  Let's remember what has happened in the past with other conflicts 
where we have sent humanitarian aid to other entities, places like, I 
don't know, Afghanistan, for example. Don't worry. This is humanitarian 
aid, and it is not going to get into the hands of al-Qaida and its 
affiliates--the bad people in Afghanistan who rule over Afghanistan 
with an iron fist--and it did. It empowered them. It emboldened them. 
It ultimately helped arm them.
  We are fooling ourselves if we think this is going to be any 
different. So it troubles me that we didn't draw a hard line there, 
acknowledging that almost any aid that we make available for Gaza is 
going to end up helping Hamas. And when you help Hamas, you are helping 
Iran and its proxies wage a war of terror, not only against Israel but 
against the United States, against Western civilization.
  This should concern all of us: Democrat, Republican, Independent. I 
don't care. It should be worrisome. We saw the devastation that rained 
down on Israelis who had, themselves, done nothing--nothing--to deserve 
this on October 7. We saw the inhumanity unfolding there.
  It is the tip of the iceberg compared to what they want to do, what 
they have promised to do, what we may well unwittingly equip them to do 
if we are not careful, and we have not been careful here. Shame on us.
  It also perpetuates the cycle of endless, unconditional wars in the 
Middle East, wars bought and paid for by the United States. It 
encourages escalating conflicts in the region to the tune of $2.4 
billion going to Central Command, risking direct engagement with Iran. 
Whenever we do this, we risk that. There is so much in this bill that 
risks imminent conflict with Iran, and you don't think we are talking 
about that?
  We have been so caught up talking about the palace intrigue 
associated with these phantom border security provisions that we didn't 
get to see for months. And when we saw them, we had concerns about 
them. And when we voiced those concerns to Republican leadership, we 
were told too bad, too late. We are going to characterize you as the 
reason this failed, and we are not going to consider anything else. We 
are going to join up with the Democrats to support cloture on the 
motion to proceed to legislation that unites the Democrats--all but one 
in yesterday's vote--and sharply divides Republicans. What were there? 
Seventeen Republicans who voted to support them. Uniting Democrats, 
sharply dividing Republicans, while advancing Democratic policy 
interest. This is deeply concerning.
  I want to get back to Gaza for a moment. I think a lot of Americans 
would be absolutely shocked and horrified to learn that Congress has 
almost no visibility into how our funds are used within the United 
Nations and other multilateral globalist organizations.
  With Ukraine alone, our own government admits that ``routing U.S. 
assistance funds to Ukraine through multilateral institutions . . . 
where U.S. donations will merge with funding streams from other 
international donors [and that that] has the potential to reduce 
transparency and oversight.''
  So I use this here in the context of Gaza by comparison. We know what 
we are doing. This is not a surprise. When we put money out there into 
the stream of international commerce, into the stream of international 
government-to-government business dealings, we know full well that that 
is going to end up in the hands of others, will be placed, in turn, in 
the hands of others. And before we know it, we have lost any 
opportunity to have transparency or to achieve any degree of oversight.

  So why would we expect that routing our assistance for Gaza through 
the United Nations will be any different, that it will be 1 degree 
different. We shouldn't. We are foolish to think that. In fact, think 
about it: decades of the United States bankrolling the entire United 
Nations' system. We are, by far, the United Nations' largest 
benefactor, much to my dismay. We have been for some time. But decades 
of the United States bankrolling that whole system in the United 
Nations has made taxpayers complicit in all sorts of things that 
Americans don't like, don't want, and have every reason to oppose. But 
somehow we, and the United Nations, end up being shielded from this 
because of how many times those dollars change hands.
  Well, it is not on us anymore. It is on this person. It is on the 
United Nations. The United Nations says: Well, we give it to this 
entity. We give it to that entity. Before you know it, nobody is in 
charge. Nobody is accountable for where the money went, how it was 
spent, and whether it harmed those who worked many hard hours to pay 
their taxes in the United States to fund those things.
  And in doing that, we made taxpayers complicit in all kinds of 
things: in terrorism; in blatant, virulent forms of anti-Semitism; and 
in the indoctrination of generations of children living in Gaza.
  That is one of the reasons why, once we are past this phase, once we 
are past the motion-to-proceed phase--assuming we pass it, which 
appears far too likely for my comfort--I will be introducing an 
amendment, an amendment to clarify that not only will our dollars stop 
funding UNRWA--which, mercifully, this legislation does. Mercifully, 
this legislation says none of it can go to UNRWA, a U.N. entity that 
has been particularly problematic in promoting anti-Semitism, violent 
rhetoric, advocating for acts of violence against Jewish people, and 
other hateful rhetoric. Not only will our dollars stop funding UNRWA, 
but they will no longer fund any U.N. organization operating in Gaza.
  Look, we have been down this road before, funneling our aid dollars 
through multilateral institutions, and we know exactly how this ends. 
Without my amendment--I have got others, lots of others, in fact--but 
without this particular amendment of which I now speak, there is 
nothing in this bill to prevent the administration from taking funds 
that would otherwise have gone to UNRWA and redirecting them to any of 
the or any combination of the nearly 2 dozen other U.N. entities that 
happen to operate in Gaza, where we lose all visibility into where our 
dollars end up and how they are used.
  Look, enough is enough. Like most multilateral institutions supported 
by the United States as the principal benefactor or not, the U.N. is a 
bloated, corrupt system far past its prime, and it has proven 
adversarial to U.S. interests, interests of the United States as a 
whole and of its people.
  A truly just outcome would be for us to stop funding the United 
Nations overall, and I have been advocating for that. But that is a 
discussion point for a different day.
  But the point here that I have to make is that we can't trust this 
administration not to fund U.N. programs in Gaza, and we can't trust 
the U.N. not to fund terrorists, which is exactly why my amendment is 
urgently needed.
  Before I close, I also want to talk about another amendment that I 
will be introducing--again, this is a nonexhaustive list--but another 
one that needs to be mentioned here is one that imposes restrictions on 
the economic support fund in the legislation, the economic support fund 
relative to Ukraine.
  Every dollar in economic aid in this bill for Ukraine really is, as 
written, it is a slap in the face to every hard-working American 
battling the cost-of-living crisis created by Bidenomics here at home.
  Now, economic aid isn't going to win the war for Ukraine. On the 
contrary, economic aid may, at best, prove to be a waste of money, may, 
at worst, end up prolonging the conflict, prolonging the problems and 
the agony from it by masking the true cost to Ukrainians and to 
Europeans, more broadly, of this conflict. Americans would be furious 
to learn that billions of dollars out of their paychecks are 
subsidizing clothing stores and concert tickets for Ukrainians, while 
families here live paycheck to paycheck.
  Now, some of my colleagues called the billions of dollars in economic 
assistance provided to Ukraine a small amount. Really? Economic 
assistance makes up 34 percent of the $113 billion in assistance the 
United States has already provided to Ukraine. Calling that a small 
portion is an insult to every struggling American, every American 
family struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.
  But leaders of both parties will tell you that this bill will cut 
economic aid

[[Page S591]]

to Ukraine. Well, that is a lie. One doesn't cut aid by adding to it. 
And let's be clear: Providing $7.8 billion instead of Biden's initial 
boondoggle request of roughly $11 billion is not a cut. It is simply 
starting with a larger number only to reduce it. It is not a cut.

  The bill, as written, mercifully prohibits pension pays out of that 
economic assistance fund, but it allows American tax dollars to keep 
paying the salaries of Zelenskyy and his bureaucrats.
  Now, my colleagues have also said that cutting economic aid to 
Ukraine in this bill sends a message to our European NATO allies to 
step up and do more. But make no mistake, this is a laughable attempt 
at burden sharing.
  Look, my time is expiring. I will be back. I will be back to speak 
more of concerns that I have with the legislation and ways that I have 
come up with that, if passed by this body prior to passage of this 
bill, could make some things better, could make some things less bad. I 
think, at this point, that may be the best thing we can do. We will do 
everything we can do it.
  Make no mistake, this bill is a mistake. It has been written in the 
wrong way, and it serves the wrong people. Our job, first and foremost, 
is to do no harm to the American people, and, on that front, this bill 
fails miserably.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to speak for up to 15 minutes, Senator Murray be permitted to 
speak for up to 5 minutes, and Leader Schumer for up to 5 minutes prior 
to the rollcall vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                          Supplemental Funding

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise to urge strong support for the 
national security supplemental appropriations bill before us.
  Earlier this week, General Kurilla, the Commander of U.S. Central 
Command, told me that this is the most dangerous time in 50 years. The 
threats the United States faces from an aggressive Iran and its 
proxies, an imperialist Russia, and a hegemonic China are 
interconnected, and they require our immediate attention. That is why 
this bill focuses not only on strengthening our allies but also on 
fortifying our military and rebuilding our own defense industrial base.
  Since October, there have been more than 170 attacks on U.S. 
servicemembers throughout the Middle East. We have seen unprovoked 
attacks on our naval ships and the loss of two Navy SEALs at sea and 
three brave servicemembers in Jordan.
  Merchant ships have been attacked in the Red Sea. They have been 
protected by our Navy ships, including, I am proud to say, the USS 
Carney, a destroyer built at Bath Iron Works in Maine, which has shot 
down numerous Houthi UAVs.
  Despite the perilous times we live in, I heard a colleague suggest on 
the Senate floor that we are not ready to consider this bill. I would 
contend that we cannot wait any longer.
  He also implied that it had been shrouded in secrecy. That is simply 
inconsistent with the facts.
  The package before us is the result of months of deliberations, 
starting on October 20, when the President submitted his national 
security supplemental request to Congress, available for all to read 
and review.
  On October 31, the Senate Appropriations Committee held a 3\1/2\-hour 
hearing on the request. Virtually every Member of the Committee 
attended. Secretary of State Blinken and Secretary of Defense Austin 
testified. Prior to this hearing--this public hearing--the last time 
the Committee held a hearing on a supplemental budget request was March 
25, 2010--more than 13\1/2\ years earlier.
  So, under the leadership of Chairman Murray and myself, we have been 
transparent. We have held countless public hearings, including on the 
supplemental before us.
  The following week, our committee held a second hearing. At this 
hearing, the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Health and Human 
Services testified on the supplemental request. In the time that 
followed, there were numerous discussions on the content of the 
supplemental funding bill. Information was gathered on emerging needs, 
particularly with regard to U.S. military operations in the Middle 
East, and the bill's language was refined and improved.

  On February 4, the text of the national security and border 
supplemental was released along with a section-by-section analysis to 
make it easier for Members.
  After it was clear that there was not sufficient support to advance 
the border security provisions, revised text and a summary were 
circulated that excluded the border security sections, and that is the 
package before us today--a package that has taken us months to get to 
this point and that began in October with the submission of the budget 
request and was subjected to extensive public hearings.
  Further delay--or worse, an outright refusal to address these 
challenges--cannot be the answer. There is simply too much at risk.
  The package before us would bolster U.S. military readiness, help 
Ukraine counter Russian aggression, assist Israel in its fight against 
terrorists, and deter a rising China.
  Now let me briefly describe the major components of this legislation.
  First, $35 billion would go to restoring U.S. military readiness. 
This includes $26 billion to replenish Defense Department stockpiles 
with new and, in many cases, upgraded weapons and equipment; $5.4 
billion to increase production capacity for artillery, air defense, and 
long-range precision missiles; $3.3 billion to enhance the U.S. 
submarine industrial base in support of our trilateral security 
partnership with the United Kingdom and Australia, known as AUKUS.
  This funding directly supports our military defense and defense 
industrial base. One of the ways that we support Ukraine, Israel, and 
Taiwan is through the transfer of weapons and equipment from our 
stockpiles. The replenishment funding that I just mentioned allows us 
to replace those articles with new and often more modern, more 
effective munitions and equipment, benefitting both our military and 
theirs. By modernizing our arsenal of democracy and improving the 
readiness of the U.S. military to deter any adversary, this funding 
makes America stronger.
  Second, the bill provides resources to assist Ukraine as it defends 
its territory following the second Russian invasion. And let us keep in 
mind, Putin has made no secret of his plan. His plan is to re-create 
the former Soviet Union. If he is allowed to be successful in Ukraine, 
I believe he will then seize Moldova, invade Georgia, menace the Baltic 
States, and threaten Poland. And then our troops will be involved in a 
European war.
  Today, we are not the one. Our troops are not dying on the Ukrainian 
battlefield.
  We include $15.4 billion to help Ukraine purchase weapons from the 
U.S. industry so that it can defend itself. It includes $11.3 billion 
to support our servicemembers in Europe, principally in Poland and 
Germany, who are helping our allies equip and train Ukrainian forces. 
It also provides $9.4 billion for economic assistance to help Ukraine 
rebuild its economy.
  Now, let me spend a moment on this point. The President's request for 
direct budget support was $11.8 billion. We rejected that amount as too 
much. We reduced it to $7.8 billion, and we further stipulated that no 
funds could be used to reimburse pensions.
  Tonight, I heard on the floor that the Europeans were not doing their 
part. That is simply not true. Many of our European partners--I think 
of the Baltic States, for example, with whom Chair Murray and I met 
with representatives of recently--are contributing a greater percentage 
of their GDP, by far, than we are.
  Why are we joining our European allies in providing economic 
assistance to Ukraine? As part of his plan to try to force Ukraine to 
surrender, Putin has sought to destroy Ukraine's economy, tax base, and 
exports, including grain exports. This funding seeks to help Ukraine 
rebuild so that ultimately it will be able to provide for itself 
economically once again.
  But we are not just giving blank checks. We have included $23 million 
for inspectors general for continued oversight of Ukraine assistance, 
including funding for the special IG that was established in this 
year's National Defense Authorization Act.

[[Page S592]]

  Earlier in this debate, one of our colleagues suggested that our 
country had no strategy for Ukraine. But, once again, the language of 
this bill has been ignored. It requires a strategy with achievable 
objectives with respect to U.S. assistance to Ukraine. And the 
Appropriations Committee did not draft this language alone. We did so 
in consultation with the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services 
Committees.
  Third, this bill fully funds the budget request to support Israel in 
the war against Hamas. It includes $5.2 billion for Israel's missile 
defense programs, including Iron Dome, David's Sling, and Iron Beam. 
The first two of those are coproduced with the United States. It also 
includes funding from--foreign military financing for Israel and 
funding for U.S. Embassy support, oversight, and other assistance.

  This next part is really important. The bill includes--it adds to the 
supplemental $2.4 billion to support our U.S. forces as they face 
ongoing attacks in the region and to sustain U.S. military operations 
in Central Command against the Houthis and other Iranian-backed 
proxies. General Kurilla stressed to me how critical this funding is.
  Fourth, this bill includes resources aimed at deterring a rising 
China.
  It includes $2 billion in foreign military financing for the Indo-
Pacific region, which includes, obviously, Taiwan but also the 
Philippines and Vietnam.
  It provides funding for missile defense for Guam, for new 
technologies to detect undersea threats, and for training and 
exercises.
  Funding is also included to address a chokepoint in the supply chain 
for motors that affects multiple long-range cruise missiles, including 
Harpoons and the Tomahawk.
  The submarine industrial base investments that I previously mentioned 
will also benefit our regional partners as they help the United States 
meet its commitment under AUKUS while protecting the size of our own 
submarine fleet.
  Finally, I want to note that this bill includes $9 billion for global 
humanitarian assistance. This funding would help the State Department 
and USAID respond to critical humanitarian needs around the world, from 
Ukraine and Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Africa. More than 108 
million people worldwide are forcibly displaced today.
  I want to emphasize that only 15 percent of that assistance--$1.4 
billion--is for Gaza, and of that amount, the $400 million that had 
been targeted by the administration to flow through the United Nations 
Relief and Works Agency will not go through UNRWA.
  Despite allegations highlighted in the Wall Street Journal last month 
and numerous other publications that at least 12 UNRWA employees had 
been directly involved in Hamas's October 7 terrorist attack on Israel 
and in taking hostages and that around 10 percent of all of its Gaza 
staff have ties to Islamic militant groups, incredibly, the Biden 
administration continued to push for UNRWA funding.
  I want my colleagues to know that this bill includes an outright 
prohibition on funding in this supplemental and prior appropriations 
from being used for any grants, contributions, or other U.S. payments 
to UNRWA. We can distribute that humanitarian assistance through other 
organizations.
  The bill also includes stringent guardrails on humanitarian 
assistance to Gaza. By March 1, the Secretary of State must certify 
that policies, processes, and guidelines have been established and are 
in use to prevent the diversion of aid by Hamas or other terrorist 
groups. This includes consultations with the Government of Israel, 
which has made clear the importance of humanitarian assistance to its 
objectives in Gaza. Third-party monitoring and intelligence assessments 
provide additional layers of oversight. Finally, we include a total of 
$10 million to the State Department and USAID inspectors general--
funding that the administration did not request but that should 
accompany any assistance for Gaza.
  I encourage my colleagues at this time, this perilous time, to 
support this bill that includes the funding desperately needed to 
strengthen America's military readiness, to help Ukraine counter brutal 
Russian aggression, to assist our closest ally in the Middle East, 
Israel, in its fight against terrorism, and to deter a rising China. 
The stakes are high, and we must meet the moment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Butler). The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, let's be clear. The stakes of this 
moment could not be higher. The question before us is nothing short of 
what kind of future do we want for our kids.
  Our role as the leader of the free world is on the line. If we tell 
dictators like Putin they can trample sovereign democracies with 
impunity; if we tell our allies that they are on their own; if we tell 
suffering civilians help is not on the way; if we tell the world the 
era of American leadership and resolve is over, we will be inviting 
chaos, emboldening dictators, and leaving the world a much more 
dangerous place for our kids. That is exactly why this package is so 
important. That is why we have insisted for months on a serious, 
comprehensive national security supplemental that actually meets this 
moment and doesn't leave any of our allies behind.
  It has been a long, frustrating road, but Democrats have been glued 
to the negotiating table because failure is not an option here.
  Listen, I hope we move forward quickly on this package now. I, like 
many others, want a fair and reasonable, bipartisan amendment process, 
but recognize that those of us who understand the stakes of this moment 
are ready to stay here as long as it takes to get this done.
  I hope all of our colleagues will continue to work with me and the 
Senator from Maine to get this over the finish line because right now 
soldiers in Ukraine are counting their bullets, wondering how long they 
can hold out. Dictators are watching closely to see if this is their 
time to make a move. Civilians, including kids, are caught in the 
crossfire and are in desperate need of food and water and medical care.
  We do not have a second to lose, so let's get this done and show the 
world American leadership is still strong.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, in a few moments, the Senate is going 
to take the next step toward passing the supplemental. Tonight's vote 
keeps the process of passing this emergency national security package 
moving forward on the Senate floor.
  As I said, I hope our Republican colleagues can work with us to reach 
an agreement on amendments so we can move this bill more quickly. 
Democrats are willing to consider reasonable and fair amendments here 
on the floor as we have shown on many occasions in the past 3 years. 
Nevertheless, the Senate will keep working on this bill until the job 
is done.
  I yield the floor.


                             Vote on Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All postcloture time has expired.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion to proceed.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Braun), the 
Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Budd), the Senator from Texas (Mr. 
Cornyn), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), the Senator from Montana 
(Mr. Daines), the Senator from Iowa (Ms. Ernst), the Senator from 
Tennessee (Mr. Hagerty), the Senator from Mississippi (Mrs. Hyde-
Smith), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), the Senator from 
Louisiana (Mr. Kennedy), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford), the 
Senator from Wyoming (Ms. Lummis), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. 
Marshall), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Idaho 
(Mr. Risch), and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Scott).
  Further, if present and voting: the Senator from Florida (Mr. Scott) 
would have voted ``nay.''
  The result was announced--yeas 64, nays 19, as follows:

[[Page S593]]

  


                      [Rollcall Vote No. 42 Leg.]

                                YEAS--64

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Butler
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Fetterman
     Gillibrand
     Grassley
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lujan
     Manchin
     Markey
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mullin
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Reed
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Welch
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--19

     Blackburn
     Boozman
     Britt
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Fischer
     Graham
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Lee
     Paul
     Ricketts
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Schmitt
     Scott (SC)
     Tuberville
     Vance

                             NOT VOTING--17

     Barrasso
     Braun
     Budd
     Cornyn
     Cruz
     Daines
     Ernst
     Hagerty
     Hyde-Smith
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lummis
     Marshall
     Moran
     Risch
     Scott (FL)
  The motion was agreed to.

                          ____________________