[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 190 (Friday, December 20, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7277-S7281]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4772

  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, as we know, our colleagues in the House 
of Representatives are, at the moment, trying to pass a continuing 
resolution to keep government open. As we also know, our government is 
supposed to shut down if the House and the Senate don't act tonight, I 
think, at midnight.
  Part of the efforts of our colleagues in the House would be, of 
course, not only to keep government open but to extend the National 
Flood Insurance Program, which is also scheduled to expire, I think, 
tonight at midnight.
  The National Flood Insurance Program, as I think most people know, is 
hardly perfect, but it is important. It is almost impossible to buy 
flood insurance in the private sector. Many people, unfortunately, when 
they buy homeowner's insurance, think their homeowner's insurance 
covers them for flood. It does not.
  Many Americans, unfortunately, found that out, for example, with the 
horrible flooding in Appalachia. Virtually all of our friends and 
neighbors in the Appalachia area and in South Carolina and Kentucky and 
in Florida who were victims of Hurricane Helene did not have flood 
insurance. I think many of them had homeowner's, but they were not 
covered for flood.
  The private sector--I don't want to overstate this--but for the most 
part, it is almost impossible to get flood insurance in the private 
sector. That is why we have a National Flood Insurance Program. The 
National Flood Insurance Program is not exactly a model of efficiency. 
Under President Biden, it has been screwed up even more. FEMA, which is 
in charge of our Flood Insurance Program, implemented something called 
Risk Rating 2.0. It has been a disaster. It is a mess. It looks like 
something that my beagle used to hide under my back porch. But it is 
better than nothing. It is better than nothing.
  We are going to have a new chair of our Banking Committee in the 
Senate, as you know, Madam President, Senator Tim Scott. Senator Scott 
has asked Senator Mike Rounds and I to work on trying to start over 
with our National Flood Insurance Program, maybe even extend to some 
other hazards. But Tim has asked Mike and I to try to design a brandnew 
program that looks like somebody designed it on purpose. And we are 
going to get started on that. Indeed, we have already started.
  But in the meantime, the current program, as bad as it is, expires 
tonight at midnight, and we want to continue it. What would be the 
result of that? It would mean that as of 12:01 tonight, the Flood 
Insurance Program can no longer write new policies.
  I don't want to scare people. If you already have flood insurance 
through what we call the NFIP, which is just an acronym for the 
national program, your policy won't expire. If it is not at its 
termination date, you will continue to have coverage. But you can't buy 
a new policy. That will have a huge impact on the real estate market in 
America. Many institutions will not loan money to a new homeowner or a 
homeowner who is trying to buy a home if they can't get flood insurance 
because the mortgage companies just don't want to take that risk.
  We have already seen, for a variety of reasons, the extraordinary 
increase in the price of a home in America. I was reading the other day 
that 10, 15, 20 years ago, the average age of a first-time home buyer 
in America was 28. Today, it is 38. Why are people having to wait so 
much longer to buy a home? It is not because they don't want to buy a 
home. It is because they need time to save up the money for a home.
  But my point is that the price of homes, for a variety of reasons--in 
part because of inflation--the price of a home has just risen 
dramatically. I don't think any of us want to do anything to make the 
price of a home go up even further.
  I want to say a word about Louisiana. We have about 5 million people 
who have flood insurance in our Flood Insurance Program. About 10 
percent of those are in Louisiana. Those who have flood insurance in 
Louisiana are, for the most part--I am trying to think of a stronger 
way of saying it--the vast majority of the people in Louisiana who have 
flood insurance are working men and working women. Our coast, for 
example, is a working coast. Some people like to paint the picture of 
the National Flood Insurance Program serving multimillionaires with 
multimillion-dollar homes on the coast. That is not Louisiana, I can 
assure you.
  My people are working people. We don't even have a coast like some 
States that have those type of homes. If you travel to Grand Isle or 
Port Fourchon in my State, you would see that. These are middle-class 
Americans that depend on the National Flood Insurance Program.
  I worked very hard--many of us have--to try to improve the National 
Flood Insurance Program through the years. I have been working on it 
since the first day I came to the U.S. Senate. Frankly, I didn't get a 
lot of cooperation from leadership of the Banking Committee, which has 
jurisdiction over the National Flood Insurance Program.
  I don't want to make a promise I can't keep, but our Banking 
Committee is going to be under new leadership, as I just said. And 
Senator Scott, the new chairman, has directed Senator Rounds and I to 
try to come up with a program that is a vast improvement over what we 
have.
  I sum up by saying, what I am going to propose to do here in a moment 
is to extend the status quo until September 30. It will extend the 
National Flood Insurance Program that we have right now, imperfect as 
it may be, ugly as it may be. And it is. It really does look like 
something my beagle used to hide under the back porch. The American 
people deserve better, but it is better than nothing. Without it, it 
will have a huge impact on the real estate market.
  So my bill would extend the program--no changes--until September 30,

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2025. Hopefully, by then we will have a new bill to present to you, 
Madam President and my colleagues. And it will contain a National Flood 
Insurance Program that is much better than what we have right now.
  As if in legislative session, Madam President, notwithstanding rule 
XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, 
and Urban Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 4772--
that is the bill I just talked about--and the Senate proceed to its 
immediate consideration; and I further ask that the bill be considered 
read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be 
considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, once again, 
we are asked to extend the flood program without any reforms to protect 
the taxpayers.
  Like many Federal programs, the flood program is well-intentioned, 
but it may very well be the best real-life example of a moral hazard.
  The program covers about 5 million policyholders and provides over $1 
trillion in coverage. We were told that the program is funded through 
insurance premiums. But charging below the market price on insurance 
and capping how much these rates can rise inevitably has led to 
shortfalls. They are out of money.
  They are always out of money.
  A 2014 report by the Government Accountability Office found that the 
flood program collected as much as $17 billion fewer in premiums than 
the market would have demanded.
  So when the program inevitably found itself in need of money, it, in 
theory, ``borrowed'' from the taxpayers--not that the taxpayers had any 
choice in the matter. As they often are, they were on the hook 
regardless of whether we want to be or not.
  Just a few years ago, the flood program owed over $30 billion to the 
taxpayers. Congress later just canceled that debt.
  Poof, it is gone. It disappeared.
  But the flood program has not made any further repayments to the 
taxpayers and today still owes over $20 billion in debt. So the 
taxpayers are expected to cough up money whenever the program needs it, 
but the program doesn't seem to be in a hurry to pay the taxpayers 
back.
  But perhaps the greatest insult to the taxpayers is the lack of true 
limits on this delinquent program. There are no limits on how many 
claims can be filed or how much money can be received by a policyholder 
filing multiple claims. Rather than encourage people to leave flood-
prone areas, it encourages people to stay and rebuild where it 
continues to flood.
  In thousands of instances, the program encourages people to rebuild 
and rebuild and rebuild again. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, 
over 150,000 properties have been rebuilt over and over again.
  They say the definition of insanity is doing things over and over 
again and never understanding you are doing the wrong thing.
  In fact, 25 to 30 percent of flood program claims are made by 
policyholders whose properties flood time and time again. Over 2,000 
properties have flooded over than 10 times. We bail them out every 
time.
  One home in Batchelor, LA, flooded 40 times and received a total of 
$428,000 in flood insurance payments. It doesn't seem like we are 
learning our lesson. It doesn't seem like that is encouraging good 
building behavior. It is encouraging the opposite.
  If you can believe it, that isn't even the most times a house has 
been paid for. In Virginia, one home flooded 41 times and received more 
than $600,000 in payments. It is argued, no matter how much a home is 
worth, that the Federal Government will only cover the first $350,000 
in flood insurance coverage--$250,000 for the structure, another 
$100,000 for the contents.
  That is true.
  But the $350,000 limit is only applied per event. That is how you 
wind up with a home that floods 40 times and gets paid over $400,000. 
What if the home that flooded 40 times was paid 350,000 times? What if 
it is a $10 million home, and it has $300,000 worth of damage 40 times? 
That would mean the policyholder would receive $14 million from the 
government program.
  It was also mentioned during previous debates that there really isn't 
a private flood insurance market. Well, there is a private insurance 
market that will cover beyond $350,000. Rich people use the government 
to insure their beach house up to 350, and then they buy private 
insurance on top of that. So there is a market and would be a market at 
whatever number we set.
  The government flood program is a disaster for many reasons, but 
chief among them is that it crowds out the private market for the first 
$350,000 in losses. That is why the private flood insurance market is 
so small.
  Madam President, $350,000 coverage per event may be enough for most 
people, but instead of allowing private markets to work, the government 
has put the primary responsibility of flood losses on taxpayers.
  Can you imagine having to withstand the ordeal of your home flooding 
10, 20, or 40 times? Well, the taxpayers do not have to imagine paying 
to rebuild the same home time and time again because that is the 
reality of the current program.
  Adding insult to injury, the Congressional Budget Office found that 
the flood program tends to benefit the wealthy and that 23 percent of 
the subsidized coastal properties were not even the policy's primary 
residence.
  So one out of five homes that the taxpayer--people who don't live on 
the gulf shore, people who don't live on the Atlantic coast, people who 
don't live on the Pacific Ocean--people who live in Middle America are 
insuring the second homes of rich people. One in five of the homes 
being insured are rich people. Ordinary taxpayers in Kansas or Kentucky 
are asked to pay for the insurance for the second home of rich people.
  How in the world would that make any sense? The government forces the 
taxpayers to pay and rebuild the elite summer homes of the rich. It is 
estimated that the national average replacement cost of homes in 
government flood insurance programs--that these homes are valued at 
over $400,000. So the average home of this government program that is 
supposed to help the poor--the average home that we are insuring, that 
the government is insuring--is worth over $400,000, and it is people's 
second house.
  How in the world is that something we should keep borrowing billions 
and billions of dollars to insure rich people's homes?
  In fact, sometimes it seems the flood program caters directly to the 
wealthy. Nearly 80 percent of the flood program's policies are located 
in counties that rank within the top 20 percent of income. Enough is 
enough. It is an insult to rob the taxpayers to give to the wealthy.
  This is why I offered an amendment that would require the flood 
program to only cover your primary residence. So if this is your only 
house and for some misbegotten reason you have to keep building in a 
flood zone, you would be eligible. If it is your beach house, you are 
not eligible. If it is your second house, you wouldn't be eligible.
  We also might put a cap on it. We might say: Well, if you have more 
than a half-a-million-dollar house, you have to buy your own insurance; 
the government doesn't pay for that.
  These are reasonable amendments, reasonable reforms, reasonable 
changes that have been offered for years and never get done because 
people come with the song and dance of people needing help and we must 
help people, but nobody ever says: Are some of these people, people who 
should be helping themselves?
  And that is why it is always bankrupt.
  So what I would recommend is that my amendment be added to this bill. 
We can reauthorize the program. We can re-fund it. But we would now 
limit who it goes to. The money would not go to homes over $500,000, 
and it would have to be your primary home, not your second home. To me, 
that is a modest proposal. It won't fix the whole thing, but it is 
very, very reasonable.
  So I will offer that today. If the Senator from Louisiana wants to 
pass this tonight, we can pass it tonight. All he has to do is agree to 
my amendment.
  No one is here to object. It is a unanimous consent arrangement. He 
can

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agree right now. We will pass it. The program will, from now on, 
exclude people with homes over half a million, and it will exclude 
people where it is their second beach house. How reasonable is that? He 
can do it tonight.
  So, therefore, I ask the Senator to modify his request so that the 
Paul amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; the bill as 
amended be considered read a third time and passed; and the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Does the Senator so modify his 
request?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Reserving the right to object, Madam President, to the 
request by my colleague from Kentucky to modify--reserving the right to 
do that--I wanted to make a couple of points.
  First, the majority of the homes covered under the Flood Insurance 
Program are not second homes, and it is not a giveaway for 
millionaires. If you just come and spend some time in Louisiana and in 
other States that aren't even on the coast, you will see that these are 
working people--working men and working women.
  Point two, the most that you can receive--the most coverage that you 
can buy--under the National Flood Insurance Program is $250,000. That 
is it, and that is for structural damage. You can buy an extra hundred 
thousand dollars for contents.
  Point three, everybody in America is not rich who owns a home. The 
median--median--cost of a home in America today is $406,000. That means 
that half of homes cost less, but half cost way more. That is the 
result of a lot of factors, including, but not limited to, inflation. 
As I said earlier, it is one of the reasons that the average first-time 
home buyer in America today is no longer 28; it is 38. It just costs a 
lot to buy a home today.
  So when someone talks about a $500,000 home and somebody being rich 
who owns a $500,000 home, I don't think that accurately reflects 
reality. I just don't.
  No. 2, the idea to extend this only to a primary residence, I know a 
lot of hard-working women and men who work a day job and have also 
saved their money and bought rental homes that they rent out and try to 
build equity in to give them something to live on during retirement.
  These are not wealthy people. These are working women and working 
men. And I don't know--they are not millionaires living on the coast. 
That is just a jaundiced view of the Flood Insurance Program, at least 
in Louisiana.
  And I don't know why we would deny those people the right to buy two 
or three more rental homes to rent out and build equity in for their 
retirement. They are not going to be able to borrow the money to buy 
those homes if they can't get flood insurance. No institution will loan 
it to them.
  Finally, the point I will make--and I say this with all due respect. 
I just spent 4 years listening to some of my colleagues talking about 
the big, bad, nasty, rich people in America. You know, when I came up, 
success--financial success and otherwise--and, certainly, there are 
ways to define success other than finances. But one of the ways in 
America we do so--we do assign success--is financially.
  And I was raised in America to admire people who worked hard and 
saved their money and invested their money and became successful 
financially. I regret that we have reached the point in America--and I 
hope it ends under the new administration--where we just constantly go 
around denigrating success in America, including but not limited to 
financial and otherwise.
  And for that reason, with respect, I decline the request to modify.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection to the modification is heard.
  Is there objection to the original request?
  The junior Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. Reserving the right to object, let the record show that 
what I have offered is a way to limit government insurance to regular 
people of modest income but to say rich people with beach houses 
shouldn't have government-subsidized insurance. The program costs 
billions of dollars. It is $30, $40, $50 billion in the hole, anyway 
you want to measure it. Something has got to be done.
  What would those reforms be? What would the most obvious reform be 
for a flood program that is billions of dollars in the hole? Why don't 
you tell rich people: Buy your own insurance.
  Does that mean I don't like rich people? No. Probably nobody in this 
body more appreciates success and people who work hard and make a good 
living--nothing against that, other than we shouldn't give them free 
stuff.
  I mean, I am all for them. If you have got a yacht, invite me over. 
But I am not for buying insurance for your yacht with taxpayer money. 
That doesn't mean I don't appreciate that you are wealthy and you have 
got a yacht. I will ride on your yacht. I will come to your party. But 
I am not going to buy your insurance with the taxpayer money, which is 
billions of dollars in the hole with this just one program. The whole 
government is $2 trillion in the hole.
  So let the record reflect that I offered to amend this program, let 
it go on, and we exclude only the homes of people who have homes--
second homes--over $500,000. And that was rejected.
  So I have another offer. This will be the second amendment, and this 
offer will be, if $500,000 for your second home means you are still 
poor and you need help from the government, what about if your second 
home costs $2 million or more, should we buy your insurance? Should the 
government subsidize your insurance?
  So I brought along a couple of pictures, and these are pictures of 
some people that you might have heard of their homes.
  This is President Biden's home in Rehoboth Beach, DE. It is worth 
$2,700,000, and, yes, it is eligible for government insurance. Does 
anybody think we should be buying insurance for President Biden's home?
  Let's see what else we have.
  Oh, Nicholas Cage--boy, that is a nice house--4.2 million, in New 
Orleans, also eligible for government insurance.
  Look, I love Nicholas Cage. I would go to parties at his house too. I 
love his movies. I would pay 20 bucks to go to the movies. Actually, I 
don't want to pay 20 bucks. I would pay to go see his movies, but I 
don't think we should buy insurance for his home. If he can get a $4.2 
million home, I bet you he can buy his own insurance.
  Let's see who else is eligible for government insurance. Oh, Matt 
Damon--he has had a lot of good movies. Man, he must be doing great. 
His place costs $20 million, and it is eligible for government 
insurance too.
  Do you think Matt Damon would be embarrassed to find out that the 
government is subsidizing his first $250,000? Shouldn't we all be 
embarrassed?
  The program is $16 billion in the hole, and we want to renew a 
program without any reforms. Just keep doing it. Keep losing money. 
Just keep doing the same thing.
  Maybe Matt Damon can buy his own insurance.
  Who else has a house that would be eligible for insurance? Oh, Phil 
Collins--he made some good music. He must have made some great music. 
His home is worth $40 million, in Biscayne Bay, FL, also eligible for 
government insurance.
  So I can't imagine how we couldn't come to a compromise. So if 
ordinary people have second homes that are $500,000 beach homes, if we 
just went up to $2 million, then we are only going to be clipping Phil 
Collins and Nicholas Cage and a few others.
  Do we have anybody else? Let's see who else we have.
  Oh, now Cher, she has been doing well for a long time. She has a $42 
million place in Miami Beach, also eligible for government insurance.
  You know, we could go on and on. But the thing is, this doesn't mean 
we don't like rich people or appreciate their success. I am all for it. 
I am just not for giving them free stuff. Why would we give them 
subsidized insurance?
  So what I will offer now is a second amendment, and this one might be 
easier to accept. And realize that this could be accepted right now. 
This entire program could be reauthorized with these amendments tonight 
if the Senator from Louisiana will accept this amendment.
  This amendment would say that if your house is worth more than $2 
million, and it is your second home, that

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it wouldn't be eligible for government insurance.
  That would be pretty easy. You know, it still would have significant 
savings, because there are quite a few homes out there. And do you 
think they would figure out a place to buy insurance? Sure, they would. 
A market would develop immediately. So therefore I ask the Senator to 
modify his request so that the Paul amendment at the desk, the second 
Paul amendment, be considered and agreed to; the bill, as amended, be 
considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator so modify his request?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, reserving the right to respectfully 
respond to my colleague's request for a modification, let me just say 
that I love Cher. I mean, I just remember Sonny and Cher when they were 
both on TV. Sonny was a Congressman for a while. But I think Cher is 
what cool looks like. I don't agree with much of her politics, but Cher 
is equaled in her coolness only by Nick Cage.
  I love Nick Cage. I just saw a movie that he did not long ago. I 
can't remember the name of it. But he was--typically in his movies, he 
plays these deeply weird characters, you know. He was a truffles 
hunter, and he had a pig, a special pig that would hunt for truffles, 
and the bad guys hurt his pig. Well, Nick hurt them. I think he ended 
up killing them, but before he killed them, he hurt them the entire 
time they were dying. It was a great movie. I love Nicolas Cage, and I 
appreciate Rand reminding me of it. I might go home tonight and watch a 
Nick Cage movie.
  But let me get out of la-la land and go back to reality. No. 1, I 
know my friend didn't mean to give you this impression, but nobody 
gives you flood insurance. Let me say that again. Nobody gives you 
flood insurance; you have to buy it. So this idea that the government 
is somehow giving Cher and Nick Cage and President Biden and--I don't 
know--who else did you mention? I don't know. Whoever else he 
mentioned, they don't get free insurance from the government; they have 
to buy it. That is point one.
  No. 2, the price of flood insurance under Risk Rating 2.0--boy, 
anybody who has bought flood insurance lately is going to see how high 
the prices have gone. There was a time when the program was subsidized, 
but it is not being subsidized anymore. In fact, a lot of people have 
had to drop their flood insurance because they just can't afford it 
anymore. It is just way too expensive.
  I guess point three that I would make is that 99 and 9999 tenths 
percent of the people who buy flood insurance in America--we are not 
talking about Phil Collins here. We are not talking about Cher. We are 
not talking about Nick Cage. We are talking about working men and 
working women. And this idea that we are going to cap the price of a 
home--I know places in America today where a $2 million home gets you 
virtually nothing. Go check out California. Go check out Manhattan. I 
mean, the housing inflation has just been dramatic. If it hadn't been, 
I might consider what Rand is proposing.
  But the truth is, and I would like the record to reflect this, what 
Senator Paul is proposing to do is that we gut a program that doesn't 
give anything to anybody. You have to buy the insurance that is not 
available for most people in the private sector, without which they 
can't buy a home because their lender won't loan them money. If you let 
this program expire, you are not going to only hurt working women and 
working men who are trying to buy a home, you are going to destroy the 
real estate market as well.
  Finally--I will say it again--I really hope we come to a time when we 
don't spend our time on the Senate floor denigrating success in 
America, trying to say: If you are rich, you are bad. You must have 
gotten rich because you stole the money or oppressed somebody.
  That is not an America I want to live in.
  For that reason, Madam President, respectfully, I object to the 
modification, even though I still do believe that Cher and Nick Cage 
are what cool looks like.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection to the modification is heard.
  Is there objection to the original request?
  The junior Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, the 
argument is made that this is not a gift; this is not subsidized 
insurance. Well, if it weren't subsidized insurance and if it were a 
market price for insurance, it wouldn't lose $16 billion a year. By 
definition, if you lose $16 billion a year, you are not charging enough 
in premiums, so you have subsidized premiums.
  This is a subsidized government insurance program that, even with the 
subsidized premiums, is woefully inadequate. It is accumulating tens of 
billions of dollars of debt. It is currently $20 billion in the hole. 
We have a problem here. I haven't really heard how we are going to fix 
this, and one obvious, easy way would be that people who can afford to 
should maybe pay the full price for their insurance and maybe not a 
subsidized price.
  So I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from Delaware.


                    Tribute to Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

  Mr. COONS. Madam President, it was I believe then-President Reagan 
who famously asked, ``Are you better off than you were four years 
ago?'' I rise to take a moment here at the end of the 118th Congress, 
at the end of the Presidency of Joe Biden, to say: You bet you are 
better off today than you were 4 years ago.
  I wanted to take just a few moments and reflect on the service, the 
career, the values, and the consequence of Joe Biden's service on 
behalf of Delaware in this Chamber for 36 years, as our Vice President 
for 8, and as our President for the last 4.
  I have the honor of having Joe Biden's desk here on the floor of the 
Senate, and in my office in Russell, I have what was his desk as a 
Senator for 36 years and as a Vice President for 8.
  As the son of both Scranton, PA, and Claymont, DE, in many ways, he 
was a role model to me and many others in Delaware and a source of 
inspiration to get involved in public service in the first place.
  If you think for a moment about where we were this time 4 years ago, 
there were three different, profound challenges the United States was 
facing, all really because of the pandemic--a pandemic that had been 
badly mishandled and spiraled out of control and was still killing 
3,000 Americans a day in December of 2020. Violent crime had 
skyrocketed. Healthcare coverage was declining. Jobs had been lost in 
the rates of millions. The United States was divided from some of its 
closest, oldest, and most trusted allies.
  Across those different indicators, just briefly, the numbers tell a 
striking story. We have one of the lowest violent crime rates in 50 
years today. The COVID-19 pandemic is mostly a thing of the past, a 
public health concern that still needs monitoring but that is not at 
any risk of killing another million Americans. Healthcare coverage has 
improved dramatically. The number of uninsured Americans is today at an 
alltime low. While the former President left office with the worst jobs 
record since Herbert Hoover, the private sector under Joe Biden's 
leadership helped create 15 million jobs--an alltime record.

  Joe Biden is someone who was a committed public servant who put 
country above self; someone who has been one of the most consequential 
Presidents in our history and the most consequential of my lifetime; 
who came to this body from a blue-collar background, focused on the 
middle class, on unions, on what we could do to strengthen our country 
from the middle out and the bottom up and took that vision to the 
Presidency.
  He worked tirelessly to restore our leadership around the world and 
to reweave together the bonds between the United States and a then-
fractured coalition of alliances and partnerships around the world and 
to strengthen our economy as it recovered from the devastation of the 
pandemic.
  He never gave up on the promise of our democracy, our Nation, and 
this institution in particular. The record of the bipartisan 
legislation that got

[[Page S7281]]

passed under his leadership I think is striking and will stand the test 
of time, whether it was bringing back advanced manufacturing through 
the Chips and Science Act--a generational investment in rebuilding 
infrastructure all over our country of all different kinds and levels; 
investing in protecting our veterans from the harm of burn pits and 
doing right by our veterans, making right on that sacred obligation; 
combating gun violence; investing in community mental health. All of 
these were landmark, bipartisan pieces of legislation.
  He also struck out in a direction that made a lifetime of difference 
in reducing prescription drug prices and in investing in a cleaner 
economy through the Inflation Reduction Act, which was a moment when he 
abandoned bipartisanship in the interest of making a lasting difference 
for all Americans.
  If you look briefly at what he did beyond our shores, the crisis of 
Russia's brutal, broad spectrum invasion of Ukraine catalyzed not just 
the revitalization but the expansion of NATO, moved us from a point 
where only four of our NATO allies had met their spending targets to 
today--two dozen. He led a global coalition in defense of Ukraine. He 
stood strong for our ally Israel after the heinous attacks of October 7 
and ongoing attacks from Iran. In the Indo-Pacific, he has done more to 
create a new security situation than even I could have imagined: the 
Quad in the Indo-Pacific, the reconciliation of Korea and Japan, and 
the innovative AUKUS partnership that will deliver nuclear propulsion 
technology to the Australian submarine fleet and deliver new 
deterrence.
  One of my favorite things he has done was celebrated in his most 
recent trip to Angola: the investment in infrastructure in the Global 
South in a way that has higher transparency, better labor standards, 
better environmental standards. It is more sustainable than our 
competitors, the Chinese, and their investment throughout the world. I 
have had the chance to visit both the Philippines and Angola to see our 
President's lasting work in investing in infrastructure.
  Across all of these, strengthening our alliances, investing in our 
values and our partnerships, finding ways to stand up to aggression--it 
is my hope that we will find in this Chamber bipartisan support to 
continue.
  What I will miss most about Joe Biden's leadership is that he is 
someone who lived a quintessentially American story. He never forgot 
the middle-class roots that gave him the strength to live what was a 
hard life, knocked down by grief, devastating grief, twice in his life. 
He got back up. Someone who believed deeply in the dignity of work. The 
son of a hard-working car salesman. Someone who understood the 
importance of not just a paycheck but having a purpose and the 
importance of respecting work and its role in creating and 
strengthening the middle class.
  Last, President Biden has been someone who knew and believed in this 
institution. I worked with then-Leaders McConnell and Reid, Senator 
Leahy, and Senator Grassley when Joe Biden was leaving his last moments 
as the President of the Senate, as Vice President, to pull together a 
``Recollections of our Vice President Day,'' and dozens of Senators 
came to this floor and told their favorite Joe Biden stories. There 
were stories full of compassion, full of humor, full of dedication, and 
full of service. That is the man I hope we will remember and recognize 
as he comes to the conclusion of his service as President close to a 
month from today. That is the man who I will continue to honor and to 
respect as I continue in my service on behalf of our shared State of 
Delaware going forward.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Oklahoma.