[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 55 (Wednesday, March 26, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1856-S1864]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL UNDER CHAPTER 8 OF TITLE 5,
UNITED STATES CODE, OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE INTERNAL REVENUE
SERVICE RELATING TO ``GROSS PROCEEDS REPORTING BY BROKERS THAT
REGULARLY PROVIDE SERVICES EFFECTUATING DIGITAL ASSET SALES''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the joint resolution by
title.
The bill clerk read as follows:
A joint resolution (H.J. Res. 25) providing for
congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United
States Code, of the rule submitted by the Internal Revenue
Service relating to ``Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers
That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset
Sales''.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to the provisions of the
Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 802, there will now be up to 10
hours of debate equally divided between those favoring and opposing the
joint resolution.
The Senator from Rhode Island.
Climate Change
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, earlier this month, Environmental
Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced he would
reconsider over 30 rules and policies that protect human health and the
environment, calling it ``the greatest day of deregulation our nation
has seen.'' With a barrage of press releases, Administrator Zeldin
threatened to replace the central mission of EPA--to protect the
environment and the health of Americans--with a newer and more sordid
mission: to protect the financial interests of President Trump's Big
Oil polluting mega donors.
EPA's mission to protect human health and the environment has guided
the Agency for more than 50 years, with bipartisan support. The Agency
was created by Republican President Richard Nixon, and conservative
Presidents like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush chose administrators
like Bill Ruckelshaus and Christine Whitman, who took the Agency's
mission seriously.
EPA's bipartisan pedigree and mission matter little to Trump, Zeldin,
and their crew of fossil fuel donors.
Administrator Zeldin claims that slashing these protections will
``unleash American energy.'' Huh. In reality, these rollbacks will keep
Americans dependent on expensive dirty fossil fuels, while other
countries keep moving forward with energy innovation, developing
cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient energy. We are deliberately losing
a competition.
Trump is exalting an antiquated polluting fossil fuel industry and
degrading the lives of the American people.
Administrator Zeldin gleefully declared, ``We are driving a dagger
straight into the heart of the climate change religion.'' But the
protections EPA threatens to roll back mostly relate to keeping air and
water clean. In the wealthiest country in the world, does it make sense
to increase uncertainty about whether water is safe to drink?
Administrator Zeldin likely can't juice substantially more fossil
fuel production, but slashing these protections will unleash tons more
pollution--more pollution from oil and gas producers, powerplants,
manufacturers, cars and trucks; fewer protections for drinking water,
wetlands, and streams.
Coal-fired powerplants will release more mercury into the air we
breathe, settling into our water and our soil and eventually finding
its way into our food.
We will experience more bad air days like we get in Rhode Island from
upwind out-of-State polluters, when the air is thick with soot and
other pollutants, triggering asthma attacks and respiratory diseases.
They threaten even to overturn the good neighbor rule that gives
States the ability to push back when upwind States foul the air, as
happens to us in Rhode Island.
The ability to pollute another State with impunity deliberately is a
core thing for EPA to stop, and yet they are caving in to the polluter
States.
And, yes, these rollbacks do threaten to remove limits also on carbon
pollution from powerplants, oil and gas facilities, and vehicles,
turbocharging the ongoing heating of our planet.
Let's be clear: Climate change ain't religion; it is science--and
well-understood, established, mature science at that.
My Republican colleagues in this building all have home State
universities that teach climate science.
Greenhouse gas emissions--science knows--from the production and
combustion of fossil fuels are heating our planet, raising sea levels,
increasing the severity and frequency of violent storms, worsening
droughts, and causing more intense wildfires. Even the fossil fuel
industry's own scientists understood the climate risks of unchecked
fossil fuel emissions. Exxon's own climate scientists warned that the
burning of fossil fuels was changing our planet's climate and correctly
modeled the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on global temperatures.
When Zeldin testified in January before the Environment and Public
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Works Committee, he pledged to ``work with the scientists'' and ``leave
the science to the scientists.'' What happened to that Lee Zeldin?
Where did he go? Because the Lee Zeldin of January has been replaced by
a Lee Zeldin willing to ignore his own scientists and ignore the facts
for the benefit of President Trump's Big Polluter donors.
These fossil fuel industry favors will increase costs for American
families. The fossil fuel industry spent almost $100 million--that we
know of--to boost Trump in the last election and hundreds of millions
more on Congress. Trump famously asked industry executives for $1
billion in exchange for delivering an industry wish list, and here is
Zeldin producing that industry wish list. But for people who are not
fossil fuel billionaires, the growing exposure to hazardous pollutants
and the increase in carbon pollution will increase costs.
Tonight, colleagues will talk in more detail about various
protections that Zeldin threatens to end and the safety and health
policies he is curdling. I will discuss Zeldin's mischief with the
social cost of carbon.
What is the social cost of carbon? It is a measure of the costs of
each additional ton of carbon pollution released--increased mortality,
for instance, from heat and storms; increased sickness from heat and
air pollution; damage to agriculture and infrastructure from droughts
and floods; even insurance collapse.
The Biden EPA estimated the social cost of carbon at around $190 per
ton, which is consistent with most knowledgeable estimates, and the
Office of Management and Budget ordered that this number be used in
cost-benefit analysis for regulations as well as in a wider suite of
government actions.
This analysis is nothing more than common sense. If the government is
considering taking a step that would increase carbon pollution, it
should consider the costs of doing so. If it is doing something that
would decrease carbon pollution, it should understand and enjoy the
economic benefits.
Zeldin is proposing to have the government ignore the facts. He wants
to ignore the science, he wants to ignore the economics, and he wants
to utilize a social cost of carbon whose value is deliberately and
falsely set close to zero. If he succeeds, the Federal Government will
no longer accurately assess the true costs and benefits of climate
decisions.
This isn't new math or even fuzzy math; this is fake math--fake math
to benefit Trump's oil and gas donors, who get to pretend, falsely,
that the American people aren't picking up the tab for their industry's
carbon pollution.
The International Monetary Fund, which is not a green institution,
pegs the costs the public bears from fossil fuel pollution at more than
$700 billion every year in the United States alone.
Last Congress, as chair of the Senate Budget Committee, I organized
hearings on the economic and financial costs of climate change. We
heard warnings from economists, scientists, medical professionals,
insurance and investment executives, the new Prime Minister of Canada,
a former Prime Minister of Australia, and even a former Republican
Senate majority leader. Throughout the hearings, witnesses emphasized
the systemic economic risks that climate change poses and warned that
if we don't shift away from our dependence on fossil fuels, things will
get much worse.
``Systemic'' was the word I emphasized in that last sentence.
``Systemic'' may sound like a bland academic term, but a systemic risk
in economics is one which threatens to bring down the entire economy,
much the way failures in the mortgage market led to the great recession
of 2008.
Zeldin's promised rollbacks will have real economic consequences for
families. American families will bear increased healthcare costs. Even
with an honorably functioning EPA, healthcare costs from fossil fuel
air pollution and climate change are estimated to total nearly $820
billion in the United States each year. Doctors appointments, emergency
room visits, rehab and home health support, and prescription drugs all
strain the pocketbooks of American families. Lost work and school days
and reduced labor productivity cost both families and the broader
economy.
Last year, the United States suffered a recordbreaking 27 separate
billion-dollar disasters, pushing up prices, damaging insurance
markets, and burdening the families who were in harm's way. Economic
losses from natural disasters reached more than $200 billion.
Climate-related extreme weather--hurricanes, wildfires, and floods--
damages property, damages infrastructure, damages agriculture, and
damages supply chains. These recurring disasters are disrupting
insurance markets across the country.
Turmoil in the insurance markets bleeds over into turmoil in the
mortgage and housing markets. If you can't get insurance on your house,
the next buyer can't get a mortgage on your house, and that reduces the
pool of buyers and results in plunging property values. If your
insurance premium quadruples, say from $2,000 a year to $8,000 a year,
your home's value will fall, as the carrying costs associated with
owning it have dramatically increased.
Last year, the Budget Committee obtained county-level data for the
entire country, showing the evolution of nonrenewal rates for
homeowners insurance from 2018 to 2023, and what we showed is that
nonrenewal rates were rising--indeed, skyrocketing--as insurers retreat
from areas of the country battered by the storms and wildfires that
climate change makes both more likely and more intense. While the usual
suspects are Florida, California, and Louisiana, nonrenewals are also
skyrocketing across areas of southern New England, the Carolinas,
Oklahoma, New Mexico, the Northern Rockies, and Hawaii.
We found that nonrenewals increased the most in the counties most
exposed to climate risk--not surprising--and also that where
nonrenewals were spiking, premiums were surging as well.
Earlier this year, the nonpartisan First Street Foundation took a
look at the data we had looked at in the Budget Committee and looked
forward and made some prediction about what increasing premiums and
declining availability of insurance will mean for property values. They
looked at the 30-year period of a mortgage entered into today, and they
found that property values will decrease--decrease--in many counties by
20, 40, 60, or even 100 percent. Change in home value due to insurance
costs: minus 100 percent. If you are in that category--and there are a
few of them and more coming in the future--your home will lose all its
value during the period of your mortgage, and you can bet the people
selling you that mortgage are going to notice.
Let's not forget that for most Americans, their largest asset is
their home. Home ownership is how most families build wealth. So
something that is going to systemically reduce home values is hurting
Americans. In a future gripped by climate change, the home ownership
path to economic security breaks. What Zeldin is proposing will
accelerate that danger forward, bringing the inevitable day of
reckoning closer.
In Administrator Zeldin's home of Suffolk County, NY, for instance,
nonrenewals nearly tripled from 2018 to 2023 and annual premiums have
already increased by almost $800. And that is just a taste of what is
to come.
By the way, it is not just me saying this. Fed Chair Jerome Powell
warned the Senate Banking Committee that in 10 to 15 years, there will
be entire coastal and wildfire-exposed regions of the United States in
which it will no longer be possible to get a mortgage. That is our
future.
When your insurance premium goes up by hundreds or by thousands of
dollars, that is Republican climate denial in action. When your grocery
bill goes up because orange juice, sugar, coffee, chocolate, and olive
oil are more expensive because of climate-related extreme weather, that
is climateflation in action.
Before I yield, I will close with one last thought. We are where we
are, entering the era of climate consequences, because American
politics failed to get this right. Our political system failed because
the American political process became corrupted by the big money
influence of the fossil fuel industry. Our politics got corrupted, and
that is why we have so grievously failed at addressing climate change.
We have Senators here from States whose State universities teach
climate
[[Page S1858]]
science pretending that climate science isn't real.
Mr. President, history will look back at us with anger and disgust,
justifiably.
I yield the floor to my wonderful senior colleague from Rhode Island.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague Senator
Whitehouse, the ranking member on the Environment and Public Works
Committee and the foremost voice for sensible climate policies, someone
who for years has warned us of the approaching dangers of climate
change and today once again has demonstrated his great insights--
particularly with respect to the cost to homeowners--of climate change.
He is raising the alarm about President Trump's environmental policy
and the effect it will have on the health and well-being of Americans.
I want to thank him for his leadership on this important issue.
Earlier this month, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that his
Agency would move to repeal 31 environmental and health protections.
This Trump environmental plan will undo restrictions on air pollution
from powerplants, cars, and trucks. It would allow harmful discharges
into our water systems, relax restrictions on emissions of mercury and
other known neurotoxins, ease limits on soot and haze pollution, and
the list goes on and on and on.
These rollbacks appear to be a quid pro quo for President Trump's
fossil fuel donors, whom he reportedly asked to donate a billion
dollars to his campaign last year.
One of Trump's most concerning proposals is the repeal of the EPA's
longstanding scientific finding that greenhouse gases are pollutants.
After losing in the Supreme Court in 2006, the fossil fuel industry has
been out to overturn this so-called endangerment finding for nearly two
decades. Repealing it would degrade the EPA's authority to regulate
greenhouse gas emissions, meaning it could no longer act to curb
emissions from vehicle exhaust, factories, powerplants, and many, many
more locations. Relaxing these standards will result in more pollutants
in our air and in our water.
The fact is, these pollutants are not just numbers on a chart; they
are the reason millions of Americans are suffering from asthma, heart
disease, and other respiratory conditions. Several studies have shown
that air pollution can negatively impact maternal health and lead to
miscarriages and low birth weights. These health impacts will
particularly harm low-income communities, where the effects are
disproportionately severe.
Mr. Zeldin claims these actions will ``unleash American energy,'' but
really they will just unleash more pollution on the American people.
Mr. Zeldin claims that these actions will drive down costs for American
families, but the evidence shows otherwise. Indeed, EPA previously
found that for every $1 the country spends to reduce air pollution, it
is estimated to yield $30 in economic benefits in return.
These actions will worsen climate change and contribute to more
flooding and coastal erosion, which have cost homes and businesses in
my home State of Rhode Island millions of dollars in just the past few
years.
Mr. Zeldin claims that by rolling back these protections, he is
simply giving power back to the States, but we know that pollution does
not respect State lines.
We are all in this together to protect our air, water, and human
health. The Trump administration is taking us backwards and hurting
hard-working families in the process.
I firmly oppose the Trump EPA's misguided plan and will continue to
join Senator Whitehouse and my other colleagues in pushing back against
this administration's harmful agenda.
Once again, let me salute Senator Whitehouse for his leadership on
this critical--indeed, this existential--issue.
I yield the floor to Senator Welch.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleagues. You know,
this issue of the environment is being completely--completely--ignored.
Worse than that, the problems we have in our environment are being
intensified by what the Trump administration is doing.
You know the EPA mission is clear. It is about protecting human
health and the environment. EPA regulations are intended, in some
cases, to prevent mercury--that is what I am talking about--
contaminating our drinking water. They protect us--some of those
regulations--from toxic gases, soot, and ash polluting out of the air.
They keep lead out of our drinking water and asbestos out of our
homes, and they do help fight climate change and prevent premature
deaths caused by pollution.
Now, there is a mantra in the Trump administration that regulations
are bad--bad. There is not a single Member of this Senate--and that
includes every single Democrat--who is not willing to make the most
efficient regulations we can have to do the job that needs to be done
to protect the health and safety.
If there are regulations that need to be looked at, they need to be
revised, they need to be reformed, let's do it. But the idea that the
Federal Government would turn a blind eye to active pollution that is
produced because it results in profit to the polluters is something not
a single Member of this body should ever tolerate--ever, ever, ever.
What you are seeing from the administration is that the repeal of
these regulations is not about improving them; it is about giving
license to the polluters.
You know, Mr. President, shouldn't the polluter pay for the pollution
that a polluter causes? Should large corporations have free rein to
pollute our air and water, contaminating the environment, threatening
the health and welfare of our kids?
The Trump administration is trying to decimate the Agency that has
protected us and the environment since the 1970s. Let me just
emphasize: It is not their intention to reform it or to improve it. It
is to, basically, destroy it.
That is why the President has fired the members of EPA's Scientific
Advisory Board and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. Get rid of
the scientists is the answer they present as a way of getting rid of
pollution. It doesn't work that way.
So as I said, I have absolutely not only no problem, but I am
completely--completely--committed to doing anything I can to make
regulations to be practical and effective. I am absolutely, adamantly
opposed to giving polluters a free rein to make profit at the expense
of the health and welfare of the people that I represent and that we
all represent.
Nowhere is the Trump administration more clear than their attempt to
rescind the endangerment finding, which affirms that greenhouse gases
pose a threat to the health and welfare of the American people. That
was a finding based on science
You know, it is one thing if you don't like the finding. It is
another thing to deny that the finding has a solid basis in fact and
science. You can pretend climate change doesn't exist. You can pretend
dirty air doesn't exist. You can pretend dangerous water doesn't exist.
You won't be able to breathe it or drink it for too long without
finding out that you are wrong. But when you are the President and you
have a responsibility to the health and welfare of the American people,
that is not a luxury you are entitled to take.
Firing the EPA scientists on the SAB and on the CASAC, that won't
change the facts. You can fire the scientists, but you can't change the
facts. But it is the preference of the administration to want to
blatantly ignore those facts so they can follow through on the
President's campaign promise and make it easier for the polluters to
pollute.
Mr. President, I oppose--and oppose firmly--the Trump
administration's attempts to weaken the EPA. I will always support
making it more efficient, more effective, but the mission that the EPA
has--an organization started during the Nixon administration--is to
protect the health and welfare of the American people. And we can never
step back from our commitment to do that.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Tribute to Robert Nelson
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, before I begin my remarks, I want to take
a few
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minutes to thank Bob Nelson, the Small Business Administration's
District Director for Massachusetts upon his retirement on Monday after
30 years of Federal service.
Bob is a paragon of public service--commuting each day more than 100
miles from Connecticut to Boston to serve Massachusetts' small
businesses.
For 26 years, Bob has helped small businesses recover from everything
from the economic downturn after 9/11 to the great recession of 2008 to
the COVID-19 pandemic. Bob is known for giving small business owners
his direct cell phone number so that they never have to go through a
moment of uncertainty.
His career is a testament to the impact that steady and passionate
public service can have on everyday people and local economies.
Everyone who has worked with Bob respects him; and that goes for me,
my staff, and all of the SBA employees that he has worked with over all
of the years and the thousands of small businesses that he has helped
during those years.
Bob Nelson is a small business champion, and because of him,
countless business entrepreneurs and communities are strengthening our
Nation, creating jobs, and making our economy the envy of the world.
Thank you, Bob--thank you, Bob--for everything that you have done,
for bringing a public servant's heart to your work, and for your many
years of service making the Massachusetts Small Business Administration
district office the best in the Nation.
Climate Change
Mr. President, over the last 2 months, the Trump administration has
made one thing painfully clear: They do not have an ``all of the
above'' energy strategy. They have an ``oil above all'' energy
strategy--oil above the law, above the economy, above the health and
wallets of working families in our Nation.
Gas prices are up. Electricity bills are up. Home heating costs are
up. Yet instead of investing in working families, Donald Trump is
launching a full-scale assault on the very programs designed to bring
costs down and create jobs, all while spewing baseless lies that begin
in the White House and then spread across his entire administration,
but especially focused on his energy policy.
At the Department of Energy, staff have been ordered to draw up a hit
list of clean energy programs--programs Congress already funded,
programs workers are counting on.
These are not hypothetical investments. These are real dollars that
could unleash real jobs and real benefits for communities across the
country. And now they are being sacrificed to serve a political agenda
that rewards polluters and punishes the public.
Nowhere was this agenda more proudly displayed than at this week's
CERAWeek--or as I like to call it, the Olympics of oil--where Energy
Secretary Chris Wright gave a speech that would make Big Oil blush.
Although, it is more likely that they just turned with a flush because
of the incredible way in which they were treated.
Big Oil had a big treat coming from the speech by Energy Secretary
Chris Wright. Let's take a moment to fact-check Secretary of Energy
Chris Wright's Big Oil-sponsored big lies at CERAWeek in Houston.
Chris Wright said:
The previous administration's policy was focused myopically
on climate change with people as simply collateral damage.
False. Chris Wright is wrong. When Democrats controlled the White
House and Congress, we invested in solutions that centered smart
communities and a livable future. Since the Inflation Reduction Act was
passed in 2022, the clean energy boom has created more than 400,000 new
jobs and spurred $420 billion in investments, most of it in red
districts; 70 to 80 percent of the funding is in red districts. That is
a people-powered economy.
That is an ``all of the above'' strategy. Everyone is included. So if
we are talking myopic, look no further than Trump. It is the pot
calling the kettle black.
Trump has been exclusively focused on tax breaks for the rich with
extensive collateral damage. New reporting shows that more than 50,000
energy jobs have been lost or stalled since Trump was elected and that
over $56 billion in U.S. clean energy investments were canceled or
stalled in that same time.
If he continues down this road and guts the IRA, he will be driving
an estimated 790,000 jobs off a cliff while wiping $160 billion from
our economy by 2030 and raising household energy costs by $32 billion
over the next decade.
In other words, President Trump and his energy policy are engaging in
economic sabotage. So let's continue fact-checking Secretary Wright.
Secretary Wright also said in that speech:
Wind and solar . . . supply roughly 3% of global primary
energy.
The truth: Renewables powered 30 percent of the world's electricity
in 2023. Got it? Not 3 percent; 30 percent of the world's electricity
in 2023. And in the first 9 months of 2024, 96 percent of all new
electrical generation capacity installed in the United States was
renewable--wind, solar, battery--96 percent of all new electrical
generation capacity installed, with the majority actually coming from
solar. It is the fastest growing, cheapest energy out there.
Big Oil isn't just losing its monopoly; it simply cannot compete. The
natural gas industry, they are petrified. Can you imagine if you are
saying: Well, we are the only way in the future in which you can have
predictable electricity which is generated; natural gas is the answer--
when in 2024, 96 percent of all new electrical-generating capacity was
wind and solar and battery storage technology?
If you knew that, for 10 years in a row, the natural gas industry is
facing an existential moment, that is what they are afraid of. They are
afraid of competition. They are afraid of alternative energy sources.
Oil, gas, and coal, they got a tax break for 100 years from the Federal
Government, and they were able to squash all of the competition over
all of those years.
But when finally we leveled the playing field and the alternatives
show out that are nonpolluting, that don't have any greenhouse gases to
go up into the planet, that don't warm the planet, all of a sudden, we
are hearing: The Secretary of Energy in the Trump administration is
lying about that? Because they have to lie. Otherwise, they would have
to explain why they are planning on killing hundreds of thousands of
new jobs in these industries, which are absolutely bursting at the
seams.
But, wait, there is more. Here is what else Secretary Wright said at
the SARA conference down in Texas:
The last administration recklessly pursued policies that
were certain to drive up electricity prices.
Once again, false. False. The fact, however, is that onshore wind is
the cheapest source of new electricity in America. It has been for
nearly a decade. It beats fossil fuels even without subsidies and costs
half as much as new natural gas on average.
Again, existential threat to the natural gas industry--onshore wind
beat it in the marketplace every day for 10 years in a row.
So what is Secretary Wright saying? He is saying he is going to lead
the effort to kill it and to kill solar--to kill all of it. And
building new solar? Well, it is cheaper than running existing coal or
building new gas projects in the United States. Solar is winning in the
marketplace, and it is frightening to the natural gas industry--just
absolutely frightening. It is fossil fuel volatility that has hammered
families at the pump and on their power bills, with fossil fuel exports
going to the highest bidder abroad. Now, in my home State of
Massachusetts, many gas bills are double what they were last year. That
is unacceptable.
Let's keep going with the fact checks.
In a pathetic attempt to justify the benefits of deadly pollution,
Secretary of Energy Wright said:
We've raised atmospheric CO2 by 50 percent in
the process of doubling human life expectancy.
Then he said:
Everything in life involves trade-offs.
Well, let me be clear. In the United States, climate-fueled disasters
already kill more than 1,300 people every year. More CO2
doesn't mean more life; it means more floods, more fires, suffering,
deaths. There was $300 billion worth of damage between Hurricane
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Helene and Hurricane Milton last fall and $150 billion worth of damage
in Los Angeles from climate-driven storms. By the way, only $50 billion
of it was covered by insurance--catastrophic for all those communities.
So let's talk about the real tradeoffs. Clean air traded for asthma.
Safe homes traded for billion-dollar climate disasters. Lower bills
traded for Big Oil windfall profits. This administration has made its
tradeoff clear: your future for their profit. That is Trump's art of
the deal, and what a great deal for the oil, gas, and coal industry.
All they have to do is just raise money for Donald Trump, and in
return, they kill the competitors which are killing the oil, gas, and
coal industry in the market.
Adam Smith is spinning in his grave so fast that he would actually
qualify for a tax break under an IRA. That is how much they are lying
about the marketplace and how it is responding to finally the
incentives that are there to compete against oil, gas, and coal, which
brings us to the Environmental Protection Agency because what is a
fossil-fueled agenda without a full-on assault on the very Agency
tasked with protecting our air and our water and our climate?
Two weeks ago, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that he is
taking more than 30 actions to unravel our bedrock environmental
safeguards in a nauseating attempt to shock and awe us into submission.
These are the regulations that keep our air breathable and our water
drinkable. These are the standards that keep us healthy instead of
sick. And all so that their Big Oil BFFs can make a few more big bucks
while the rest of us will foot the bill with our health conditions that
will be created by these fossil fuels, these pollutants going up into
the atmosphere.
These rollbacks are not a revolution for American progress and
energy; they are a return to the same, tired fossil-fueled program of
the past. For starters, they are attempting to eliminate EPA's
authority to regulate dangerous greenhouse gases based on the threat
they pose to public health or welfare--known as the endangerment
finding.
This finding came from a Supreme Court ruling in my very own home
State, which brought the case to the Supreme Court--Massachusetts v.
EPA--in 2007, which said something we all know: Greenhouse gases pose
an ``actual'' and ``imminent'' threat to people everywhere.
And it doesn't stop there. They are hoping to roll back air quality
standards for particulate matter pollution that are projected to avoid
4,500 premature deaths and 800,000 cases of asthma over just 6 years.
That is all going to get wiped out if they have their way.
We are going to fight them, by the way. We are going to fight them
every single step of the way on this dangerous, health-endangering
strategy which they are seeking to put on the books.
They are aiming to gut wastewater regulations so coal plants can
contaminate the water we drink from and swim in. They are trying to
pump the brakes on clean car and truck regulations that reduce harmful
air pollutants and save families money at the pump. The list goes on
and on.
They are dismantling the Federal Government before our very eyes.
This isn't about efficiency; this is about sacrificing the health of
our communities for the health of their pocketbooks.
And just like Energy Secretary Chris Wright's speech, we know it is a
lie. They aren't making America great again; they are selling America
to the highest bidder--to the oil and gas and coal industry. That is
what they are doing. They are just selling us out. We must continue to
speak up for the truth and continue to fight.
The natural gas industry--they are threatened by a wind and solar and
battery revolution that will generate the electricity we need in our
country. Natural gas doesn't like it. They want to kill it.
The oil industry--we put 70 percent of all the oil we consume into
gasoline tanks. They don't want to see the all-electric vehicle
revolution continue to grow exponentially. They are going to try to
kill that, too, so that we do not have that reduction in the amount of
oil we put into the cars we drive around our country that spew that
pollution up into the sky.
So the oil and gas industry--they go to the White House, they go to
Donald Trump, they go to Mar-a-Lago in order to get the protection they
need against competition, the protection they need against clean
energy, the protection they need against the creation of a million new
clean energy jobs in our country that should be our future. And it is
what young people want more than anything else. They want that
revolution. They are the Green New Deal revolution. That is what they
want. They want to see it happen.
Because it is happening, oil and gas are having, unfortunately, this
White House, Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright, his entire
Cabinet, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin--all of them just dismantle all
of the protections which have been put on the books over a generation.
This is a historic moment, and all we can say to you, oil, gas, and
coal; all we can say to you, Trump White House, is that we are going to
fight. We are not going away.
There is a young generation out there that is rising up, and they are
not happy with what is happening in this White House. They do not want
to see their future sold for campaign contributions from polluters in
our country.
So we are ready to fight, and we are going to align ourselves with
the young people in our country that want a different future, a better
future, a clean future, and that is what we are going to get because we
will not lose.
I can't thank Senator Whitehouse enough for being our leader on the
Environment and Public Works Committee and for bringing us out here
this evening to have this incredibly important, historic discussion
about the direction of our Nation.
Thank you.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Would the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts
yield for a question?
Mr. MARKEY. I would love to have a conversation with the Senator from
Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Well, you referenced the value to the fossil fuel
industry of being able to run to Congress or run to the White House and
throw money around and, as a result of that expenditure on politicians,
earn the right to pollute for free and get enormous competitive
advantage against clean energy.
The industry clearly spends a lot of money. We know they spent a
hundred million dollars getting Trump elected. He asked them for a
billion dollars, which could have come through dark money, in order to
deliver on this subsidy program they want.
How lucrative do you think the fossil fuel political operation is?
Mr. MARKEY. I think it is the most well-financed lobbying effort in
Washington, DC. I think they have had an ownership of this building for
a hundred years, and they are afraid it is about to slip away. Would
the gentleman from Rhode Island agree with me?
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I would not be surprised, actually, if the political
lobbying and dark money influence operation of the fossil fuel industry
was not actually its most lucrative line of business because for the $1
billion or $6 billion or $7 billion spent manipulating our politics,
they protect a $700 billion annual subsidy, according to the
International Monetary Fund. That is a $100 return every year for every
$1 invested. They don't make that much off their tar sands. They don't
make that much off their oil wells. They don't make that much off their
methane leaks.
Mr. MARKEY. You know, the Senator from Rhode Island is wise and
precise in his analysis of the agenda of these companies.
The Senator from Rhode Island and I have for 12 years led the effort,
along with the Senator from Connecticut, to have offshore wind all
along the Atlantic coast, and the Biden administration put in place a
plan to deploy 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind.
What Donald Trump, what Chris Wright, the Secretary of Energy, and
the Secretary of Interior are now planning is to kill that entire
revolution capturing the winds that blew the Pilgrims to our shores,
capturing the wind that had the whaling crews go out in order to fuel
the energy of the 19th century. But when it wants to be used for the
energy of the 21st century, the oil and gas and coal industry say:
Absolutely not. We can't allow that to happen.
Why can't they allow it to happen? Because it would replace natural
gas-
[[Page S1861]]
generated electricity that pollutes, it would just transform the way in
which electricity powers our businesses and powers our homes all across
the east coast of the United States, and we could wave goodbye to that
natural gas-fossil fuel polluting future for the 21st century.
So what is Donald Trump doing? After receiving tens and tens of
millions of dollars in contributions from the natural gas industry, led
by Harold Hamm, who promised Trump--the No. 1 natural gas guy in
America--that he would raise the money for him in the campaign, well,
the payoff, the payback is, kill offshore wind.
So they say ``all of the above''--nah, they don't mean ``all of the
above.''
Chris Wright, the Secretary of Energy, says: People really don't like
wind, so we have to make an exception because people don't like wind.
Do you know who doesn't like wind? The natural gas industry. They
hate wind. They hate it because it is the competition, because it is
working, because it is cheaper, and because it is also cleaner, in the
same way the oil industry hates the all-electric vehicle revolution
because it kills oil as a business as we move to a renewable way of
generating electricity that then powers the vehicles we have in
America.
So the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee as
usual has just put his finger right on the problem, and it is the money
that is sloshing through Mar-a-Lago and Washington, DC, the White
House. It is an absolute disgrace, and I can't thank him enough for
bringing this up on the floor for a full exposition.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. And we welcome our colleague from Connecticut to join
the festivities here on the Senate floor.
All three States are downwind States from the pollution of the
Midwest, of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio. There is nothing we can
do about it, other than breathe in the waste that they don't clean up.
Mr. MARKEY. What does that mean by ``downwind,'' just so people can
understand it? What do you mean by that?
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Well, it means that the prevailing winds that blow
over West Virginia, that blow over Pennsylvania, that blow over Ohio,
blow over their smoke stacks that have been deliberately built high
into the air so that the pollution coming out of the smoke stacks gets
caught up in those prevailing winds and ends up falling down in the
form of ozone and particulate matter in Massachusetts, in Connecticut,
and in Rhode Island. And the Rhode Island Department of Environmental
Management and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection
and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection can do
nothing about it because those States have chosen to put it up into the
sky above them so that it lands on us.
Mr. MARKEY. And it blows into the lungs of the people in Connecticut,
Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
I yield to the Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. A perfect segue to my remarks, if I may be
recognized, Mr. President?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, it is the perfect segue to my remarks
because ``downwind'' means we are the recipient of their air and their
pollution, which are the small particulates. They are often the size
of, literally, a quarter of the head of a pin, and the reason that they
are so dangerous is that they are inhaled to the very deepest parts of
our lungs, where they do the most damage.
And so I am grateful to be talking about the good neighbor rule. That
is actually the purpose of my coming to the floor, to talk about the
rule that applies to those powerplants and States that are supposed to
be good neighbors. And, according to this rule, they would be good
neighbors, but the EPA is rolling it back, withdrawing it.
And so I am grateful to be here with two champions, my great friend
and neighbor the Senator from Rhode Island, Senator Whitehouse, who has
made this battle a constant struggle from his seat on the floor, in
meetings, in townhalls, in forums, literally, around the world; and my
neighbor from Massachusetts, the author of the Green New Deal, which I
was proud to join in its first day and still represents a milestone in
environmental advocacy. And we are here today to advocate.
I am joyous, even though saddened by the need to be here--joyous--to
be amongst this band of brothers and sisters who are going to stand
strong and steadfast against the Trump administration's sellout.
You heard it from Senators Whitehouse and Markey: These rollbacks are
a gift. They are literally a payback to the lobby--the anti-environment
lobby, the fuel and oil and gas lobby--that has so infiltrated and
permeated our government, including, now, the Environmental Protection
Agency.
And so let me begin by highlighting for people who care, and that
should be everyone. It really should be everyone who has children, who
will inherit the mess we are creating. It should be everyone who cares
about the planet and what we are leaving for others, our stewardship of
the environment.
The EPA is becoming a shell. Literally 65 percent of its workforce
has been fired; 65 percent are planned to go. There is no way that the
EPA, as a law enforcement Agency, can function with the remaining 35
percent of its staff.
But perhaps most egregiously, the Administrator of the EPA announced,
just 2 weeks ago, that he was targeting 31 climate and health
protections to roll back. He called it ``the largest deregulatory
announcement in U.S. history.'' He said it was the most momentous day
in the history of the EPA. In my view, it is a day that will live in
environmental infamy. It marks a step back by decades.
And for people who think, well, we need some disruptors like Elon
Musk, who is behind these steps to decimate the Agency, disruption can
sometimes be constructive, but not when you burn down the house, burn
down an Agency, burn down a framework of laws that have been carefully
built and reflect not only an intellectual commitment but also a
deliberately constructed way to balance the needs of environment and
energy and other interests that serve the public.
This administration is destroying that balance. It is easy to destroy
things. It is easy to burn down a house. It is much harder to construct
it. And this administration is blatantly and malignly and cruelly
destructive, firing 65 percent of a workforce that has dedicated itself
to caring about the environment and acting on our statutes to protect
the environment.
So let's just call it what it is. Elon Musk and Donald Trump are
using Lee Zeldin--I am tempted to say he is their puppet; certainly, he
is their instrument--to take a wrecking ball to environmental
protections that have safeguarded Americans from toxic air and water
pollution for decades.
And so, far from ensuring clean land, water, and air for all, Elon
Musk and EPA are giving Donald Trump's big polluters a carte blanche to
trash the planet--no exaggeration, really. I mean, come right down to
it. Let's call it for what it is. The administration is running
roughshod over our Federal environmental protection laws, writ large.
I am going to focus today, as I mentioned just moments ago, on one of
the rules that EPA is rolling back: the Good Neighbor Plan. And it is
appropriately called the Good Neighbor Plan because it is a landmark
environmental protection law that literally safeguards Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New York, and other States of
New England against the pollution generated in Ohio and other
Midwestern States that is brought by the prevailing winds.
The polluters didn't create those prevailing winds, but, nonetheless,
the pollution is carried on them toward the east coast. The funny thing
about those little pieces of soot created in fuel-burning powerplants
is they have no respect for State boundaries, none.
I don't know why. You know, we have in Connecticut--as Rhode Island
and Massachusetts do--strong laws that protect our air and water. And
those pieces of soot, the nitrogen, the other pollutants have no
respect for our boundaries.
The Clean Air Act, through its good neighbor provision, empowers the
EPA to step in when States' emissions are significantly contributing to
the air quality problems of another State.
[[Page S1862]]
In 2023, the EPA released its final Good Neighbor Plan, which would
ensure 23 States meet the Clean Air Act's good neighbor requirements by
reducing pollution that significantly impacts downwind States, like
Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
Connecticut has some of the worst air quality in the country--let's
be honest here--largely due to pollution traveling from powerplants in
the Midwestern States. Data shows that anywhere from 90 to 95 percent
of air pollution impacting Connecticut on high ozone days originates
from outside our State, and it is causing serious harm to Connecticut
and our residents. Last year, Connecticut exceeded the Federal health
standards for ozone on 23 different days. That is almost a month out of
the year.
Three of Connecticut's cities--Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport--
rank within the top 100 most challenging cities to live with asthma
last year. That is according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of
America Annual Report. One of the top 100 most challenging cities in
which to live with asthma is a pretty lamentable distinction.
These consequences are cumulative. They mean more hospital visits,
more healthcare costs, more missed school and workdays, and,
ultimately, more serious illnesses, more premature deaths.
They are the equivalent of imposing second-hand smoke on children or
people with asthma or other kinds of respiratory problems.
Zeldin, Musk, and Trump's rollback was touted as lowering the cost of
living for Americans--lowering the cost of living. It is going to do
just the opposite.
Not only is protecting the environment the right thing to do for our
planet; it also benefits America economically. The EPA projected: In
2026, the first year the Good Neighbor Plan was set to be implemented,
Americans would see significant health benefits because of this rule,
including preventing approximately 1,300 premature deaths, avoiding
more than 2,300 hospital and emergency room visits, cutting asthma
symptoms by 1.3 million cases, and avoiding 430,000 school absence days
and 25,000 lost workdays.
One estimate found that this Good Neighbor Plan would provide over
$16.2 billion in net monetary benefits when you count the hospital
visits, the lost workdays, the school days, the doctors' treatments--
all that adding to $16.2 billion. That is no bargain for the United
States of America. What you may say on day 1, you pay in multiples on
day 5 or 10, throughout the year.
Only the Federal Government is empowered to protect the people of the
United States who live downwind from these powerplants. Connecticut
cannot do it, nor can Massachusetts, nor Rhode Island on their own. It
is legally and physically impossible.
But protection is impossible if Musk and Trump, through Lee Zeldin,
roll back this rule. And let's be, again, honest about what is
happening here. This Good Neighbor Plan rollback is part of a larger
pattern and practice to undermine and undercut and eventually
eviscerate environmental protections. It is the reason they are firing
60 percent of the EPA's workforce. It is the reason why they are
slashing and trashing other Agencies that are vital to environmental
protection. It comes as Trump's EPA has moved to cancel hundreds of
grants for climate projects across the country.
For every action they take to chip away at our bedrock environmental
protection, the world is less healthy. The world is less healthy and
our planet is more endangered.
I urge my colleagues to stand in strong opposition to the Musk-Trump-
Zeldin shameless attack on the Environmental Protection Agency and on
our environment.
I yield the floor.
Mr. MARKEY. Would the Senator from Connecticut yield?
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Absolutely.
Mr. MARKEY. Thank you. What I would like to talk about a little bit,
if I could, with you and Senator Whitehouse, is this pollution agenda
that they have for us in New England, that they have writ large for the
whole country as well.
Let's just take solar energy. In 2009, the total amount of solar ever
deployed in the United States was 2,000 megawatts. That was it. In
2024, 40,000 megawatts was deployed. It is scaring the natural gas
industry. Combined with battery storage, it is just saying that New
England doesn't have to import any more natural gas, any more
pollution. Slowly but surely, in other parts of the country, they, too,
will deploy wind and solar with batteries and reduce the amount of
pollution that is sent up into the atmosphere that blows our way on the
east coast from the Midwest.
It actually is more economical for us. It is actually a job creator
for us because the jobs are actually in New England, not in other
States. We are doing it for ourselves offshore, on the roofs of
people's homes, out along the highways as we deploy these renewable
energy resources. It is absolutely frightening to them.
In the same way--I will add this number, too--in 2009, there were a
grand total of 2,000 total all-electric vehicles in the United States.
That was all we had from Henry Ford to 2009, 2,000 all-electric
vehicles. Why? Because the auto industry said we can't figure it out.
It is just too hard.
Then we put the incentives in place. The battery technologies were
given incentives. There were incentives to buy all-electric vehicles.
Last year, there were about one and a half million all-electric
vehicles and plug-in hybrids sold in America, not just 2,000 total sold
a year ago.
So the direction is absolutely vertical. It is just taking off
exponentially. And, again, with it goes a reduction in greenhouse
gases, especially as each year goes by and more and more of those
technologies are employed.
I think that what Senator Whitehouse has done on the floor over and
over again, just bringing out the fundamental corruption of how
policies are made in the energy and environment sector, it just becomes
more and more true as we are only 8 weeks into the Trump
administration. But we can see that, almost like an Old Testament
prophet, Sheldon Whitehouse has been shining a light on this
corruption, and now it has all come to pass.
I can't thank the Senator from Connecticut enough for his great
leadership on these issues. We kind of consider ourselves to be
innovation States. We are going to figure this out. And as we figure it
out, it is absolutely frightening to those States that have been
producing energy for generations--good for them and good for their
citizens--but if we figure it out as well, we should not be stopped any
more than we stopped them in the 20th century. We should be allowed to
innovate in the 21st century what they are trying to put in place.
The policies purchased from the Trump administration that block us
from those issues, which were not just for ourselves, but like many
other things invented in New England over the years, we can export them
around the world. We can be the world leader in the development of and
then export of all these technologies.
I can't thank you enough, Senator Whitehouse, for your great
leadership on the floor.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I am delighted to be joined by all of you.
I would make an observation of my own. I think Senator Blumenthal
wants to join in. The observation I want to make is our three States
are known for great universities--Yale University in New Haven, CT;
Harvard University in Cambridge, MA; and Brown University in
Providence, RI. They all teach climate science, and they all teach
economics as well.
But it is not just those three universities. If you go across the
aisle and check in with our Republican colleagues, with their
Republican home States, they have great universities in their own
States, including State universities. And their State universities in
their home States teach the very climate science that Republican
Senators deny on the Senate floor.
I have been through the syllabuses of home State universities for
Republican colleagues and gone through the classes that teach climate
science, and they teach economics. And you can go to Milton Friedman,
the famous free market conservative economist, and what does he say
about pollution? He says the cost of the pollution has to be in the
price of the product or else it is a big fat subsidy, and it is not
market economics any longer. It is a government
[[Page S1863]]
subsidy; it is corporate welfare; and that is what we see in this
dispute.
The climate science is real. Their own State universities teach it,
and the economics is real. Their own State universities teach Milton
Friedman. And what they are doing in this building, contrary to what
their universities know, is to fight with political power, to keep
polluting, and have the public bear all the cost of their pollution--
have the public bear all the cost of their pollution, not be a real
market economy--which the price of the pollution, as a negative
externality, gets baked into the price of the product--but pollute for
free.
This is a huge pollute-for-free scam, running to about $700 billion
every year. So no wonder it has taken a while for wind and solar to
take off fighting the headwinds of a multihundred billion-dollar
subsidy from an industry that gets to pollute for free.
And who bears all those costs? How are your fishermen doing in Long
Island Sound as that water has warmed or mine or yours? And that is
just one example.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. If the Senator from Rhode Island would yield.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I will.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I would add a footnote to that important
conversation, which is they teach economics, and they teach that those
externalities are, in effect, a subsidy if they aren't charged to the
consumer and made transparent. But they can also distort the market.
When those subsidies caused consumers to buy cars that are more
polluting or to use fuel that is more contaminating to our environment,
they also avoid the benefits, the public-interest benefits, of cleaner
fuel and better cars.
Just to give you an illustration, for many years, Senator Markey and
I crusaded for safer cars--cars that were better built, cars that had
seatbelts, cars that had airbags. The industry resisted--almost
comically now in retrospect--because once they started installing these
devices, once they made cars safe, you know what they found? Consumers
wanted safer cars. They also wanted cars that were more energy
efficient.
Lo and behold, when they saw the benefits of these kinds of energy-
saving and environmentally friendly measures, consumers voted with
their feet and their wallets and their dollars.
If we did not have these kinds of hidden subsidies, consumers would
vote for electric cars if there were more charging stations, if there
were batteries that took them longer distances without having to
recharge.
I am kind of surprised that the President of the United States isn't
having a showroom on the White House lawn for all electric vehicles,
not just for Elon Musk's Tesla. Why not provide that kind of boost and
elevation for electric vehicles generally? And the car manufacturers
would bet on cleaner cars if they were given the true cost and enabled
to enjoy the true benefits of electric cars generally, not just the
ones produced by a billionaire--unelected, unappointed official,
unconfirmed official--acting, in effect, on behalf of Donald Trump with
Lee Zeldin as his instrument to fire hard-working people at the EPA and
to roll back rules that benefit consumers.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank my colleagues for their colloquy.
I see the Senator from South Carolina, whose time we are intruding
on, has come to the floor.
We yield to Senator Scott.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
H.J. Res. 25
Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. President, I rise to talk in favor
of my CRA on the overdraft fees.
President Biden and his politically motivated junk fee conversation
was not about helping consumers. It was about trying to change the
conversation away from the devastation that inflation was bringing to
kitchen table after kitchen table after kitchen table all across
America. The average American, because of Bidenflation, lost $1,000-
plus in spending power, devastated by the Biden economy.
President Biden looked for something to change the conversation and
it changed something called junk fees. One of the junk fees he talked
about was the overdraft fee. Now, some would say: What is an overdraft
fee? Your bank account goes beyond zero; you have to pay a fee; your
bills are paid. Some people who live paycheck to paycheck use their
overdraft option to pay their rent.
So when you start capping these fee structures, you start eliminating
overdraft. You start eliminating the possibility of people working
paycheck to paycheck to make the decision--to make the decision--to
continue to use their resources in the most effective way.
Unfortunately, President Biden's devastating economy has reverberated
for years now. This overdraft conversation is a critically important
conversation, if you are, like me, a guy who grew up in poverty,
single-parent household, who understands the difficulty, the challenge
of single moms making those ends meet. I want every single hard-working
American to have access to our financial system. That sometimes
includes, as it did for us, free checking.
A free checking account is not free, but with the revenue streams
coming into the institutions, they can use those revenues as an option
to provide free checking for those living paycheck to paycheck.
Overturning the Biden CFPB's overdraft fee structure is good for
consumers.
Let me just quote from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that
confirmed the overdraft fee caps hinder financial inclusion. As a study
stated:
[O]verdraft fee caps hinder financial inclusion. When
constrained by fee caps, banks reduce overdraft coverage and
deposit supply, causing more returned checks and a decline in
account ownerships among low-income households.
To do the right thing for the working class is to give them all the
options and let them decide. Trust them with their own resources. That
is in the best interest of our Nation, and that is why I am offering
this CRA tonight.
I yield back all time on Calendar No. 27, H.J. Res. 25.
Vote on H.J. Res. 25
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
The clerk will read the title of the joint resolution for the third
time.
The joint resolution was ordered to a third reading and was read the
third time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint resolution having been read the
third time, the question is, Shall the joint resolution pass?
Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and
nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego)
and the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 70, nays 28, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 151 Leg.]
YEAS--70
Alsobrooks
Banks
Barrasso
Blackburn
Booker
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cortez Masto
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fetterman
Fischer
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Kim
Lankford
Lee
Lujan
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Mullin
Murkowski
Ossoff
Padilla
Paul
Ricketts
Risch
Rosen
Rounds
Schiff
Schmitt
Schumer
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Slotkin
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Warner
Warnock
Wicker
Young
NAYS--28
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt Rochester
Cantwell
Coons
Duckworth
Durbin
Hassan
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
King
Klobuchar
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Peters
Reed
Sanders
Shaheen
Smith
Van Hollen
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden
NOT VOTING--2
Gallego
Schatz
The joint resolution (H.J. Res. 25) was passed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Husted). The Senator from North Dakota.
[[Page S1864]]
Mr. CRAMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that with respect
to Calendar No. 27, H.J. Res. 25, the motion to reconsider be
considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________