Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 180 (Wednesday, October 29, 2025)

[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 180 (Wednesday, October 29, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7811-S7825]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

TERMINATING THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY DECLARED TO IMPOSE DUTIES ON
ARTICLES IMPORTED FROM CANADA

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
execute the order of October 7 in relationship to S.J. Res. 77.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Committee on
Finance is discharged and the Senate will proceed to the consideration
of S.J. Res. 77, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

A joint resolution (S.J. Res. 77) terminating the national
emergency declared to impose duties on articles imported from
Canada.

[[Page S7812]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I want to speak on two topics, one after
the other, healthcare and then tariffs.

Healthcare

Mr. President, open enrollment will begin across the country on
Saturday. Many have already received notice of new sky-high premiums,
including, by the way, notices that went out to my fellow Vermonters.
Many across the country will log on to the Marketplace on Saturday. It
is a scary day for them because they will be checking to see what it
will cost them next year to purchase the same healthcare that they have
this year. Twenty-four million Americans are going to be doing that
this Saturday.
Folks across the country are going to get some bad news; that without
the tax credits that are in place now and are set to expire by the end
of the year, their healthcare premiums are going to double, triple,
and, in some cases, quadruple and even worse.
What Vermonters are finding--our website went up on October 15--is
truly a shocking increase in premiums, and it is not affordable. By the
way, these are folks, some of whom voted for Trump, some of whom
didn't, but all of whom deeply care about their families and their
small businesses and their farmers. I will give you an example.
A family of four making $130,000 a year--a very good income in
Vermont--would have paid $1,200 a month in 2025. Next year, they are
going to have to pay $3,035. That is a $22,000 increase. A family of
four making about $64,000 a year is going to pay 920 percent more for
healthcare premiums. Obviously, that is going to mean they have to
decide whether they are going to go without or somehow, some way, try
to find a way to pay that, which they really won't be able to do.
Let me give some starters to make it very concrete about Vermonters.
A woman named Sarah is going to see her premium go from $217 a month to
$1,200 a month. This is a person who is 63, self-employed, and might
have to go without healthcare for the first time in her life.
Cara, also self-employed, has had the same income for 20 years,
really scraping by. She pays about $100 a month for healthcare through
the Marketplace. Her premium goes up to $1,200.

Erica is paying $1,166 for her family. The deductible for her family
of three is $15,000. This is barely insurance. Erica and her family
make this premium work somehow, but I am sure it is not easy. Without
the tax credits, her monthly premium goes to $2,650.
Maria and her husband run a small food business in Vermont. He spends
half the year fishing in Alaska. They pay just under $240 a month, but
they are looking at $1,740 per month unless the Senate acts. That is
for bronze plan, which you know is the lowest level plan. They will be
paying about $21,000 per year with a deductible of $7,700 per person.
The examples I gave of Vermonters are going to be true in Indiana;
they are going to be true in Louisiana; they are going to be true all
across the country. We have been having this debate about a shutdown,
but what we haven't been having is a negotiation about how to protect
families from a rate shot that they can't afford that means they are
really going to lose healthcare.
I do urge us and I urge the President to act aggressively to resolve
this. It will help folks. Whether they are in a red State or a blue
State, whether they identify as a Republican or Democrat or
Independent, it just doesn't matter. We have a healthcare system that
is too, too expensive--beyond reach--and it is crippling to our small
businesses, our farmers, and our families.

Tariffs

Mr. President, I want to address another topic, and that is the topic
of tariffs. They are doing incredible harm to our economy in Vermont.
In my view, they are doing long-term damage to our economy here in the
United States.
I want to commend my colleagues Senator Paul, Senator Kaine, and
others, Senator Shaheen, Ranking Member Wyden, and Leader Schumer for
sponsoring the bipartisan legislation we voted on yesterday suspending
the emergency authority on which the President was acting to impose a
tariff on Brazil, a country, by the way, with whom we have a trade
surplus.
We are 9 months into this trade war with tariffs at the forefront. It
is a war with Canada. It sort of started with them. That is a big deal
for Vermont. We are a border State. But it is a big deal for all of our
States because Vermont is 1 of 34 States whose major trading partner is
Canada.
For Vermont, Canada has been our largest export market and the
largest source of imports. Trade with Canada accounted for 35 percent
of our State exports and 67 percent of Vermont's imports and 56 percent
of its total trade.
We have small businesses now that are really struggling to keep their
lights on. We have farmers across the country but also farmers in
Vermont who are incredibly worried about whether they are going to be
able to make it into the next harvest. We had a drought. We had early
floods. And now we have these tariffs that are increasing the input
costs. I know, Mr. President, as a Senator from Indiana, you are very
sensitive to the challenges that our agriculture economy and our
farmers face.
Things were bumping along, and then President Trump just recently
announced an additional 10-percent tariff on Canada, which already had
a 35-percent effective rate. We don't even know what that applies to.
Is that 10 percent on top of 35 percent or on specific products? Of
course, all of that was done because the President was irritated about
an ad that was run, apparently, by the Province of Ontario that was
quoting a speech that President Reagan made some years ago about how
destructive tariffs are. Maybe that does irritate the President. But
the constant changing of what a tariff is from day to day creates havoc
for our businesses that are trying to plan and control their expenses
and deal with all the other uncertainties that they face.
These tariffs are hurting our farmers. Just think about this.
Fertilizers--those costs are up 16 percent and in some cases, 39
percent. The effective rate on tractors and other farming machinery is
16 percent and 13 percent, respectively.
We have also had, as a result of the tariffs that are seen by our
trading partner in Canada that was the participant in the U.S.-Mexico-
Canada Trade Agreement--negotiated, by the way, by President Trump, an
agreement he bragged about as being really effective and the best trade
agreement--that is getting ripped up in many ways. And then when you
add to it the insults that were hurled at Canada--the ``51st State,''
the ``Governor of Canada''--it has had a catastrophic impact on the
tourism Vermont has depended on from our Canadian neighbors with whom
we have enormous respect.
That is not just true for Vermont. New Hampshire, Maine, Montana are
seeing an incredible drop in tourism that is related to this tariff
battle and the rhetoric associated with it.
Also, in Vermont, just as in Indiana, our small businesses are really
a big deal. I have been hearing from them. I am hearing from bed and
breakfasts, hotels, brewers, distillers--any industry. I will give a
few stories, a few quotes.
Simon Perkins at Orvis in Manchester:

The reality is that, in a rapidly changing tariff
environment, one that's forced on companies too quickly, it's
really hard for a business to respond quick enough to make it
work.

Orvis, which was founded in 1856, announced the closure of 31 stores
and five outlet locations by 2026. Orvis had to lay off 50 employees,
citing tariffs.
Another business, Peter Case of Burrows Sports in Brattleboro:

We love what we do and it's under attack! For 90 years,
Burrows Sports has proudly served Brattleboro, growing with
our community through good times and hard ones. Today's
economic pressures, rising costs, and shrinking margins are
testing small local businesses like never before.

Jim Hall from Vermont Country Store:

This is the lull before the storm. . . . Do they realize
this is a tax on Christmas?

These tariffs are a tax. They are paid for by our businesses. They
disrupt our businesses. They are passed on to consumers, and there is
nothing but a downside, especially when you add the fact that these
tariffs are a tax. They are imposed and implemented in a totally
arbitrary way, wherein a person who is running a business has to
contend with all the uncertainties of a

[[Page S7813]]

volatile marketplace and has to deal with the constant uncertainties
that are the result of an ever-changing tariff policy.

I urge all of us in the Senate to reassert our own authority under
article I, which gives to the Congress the power to tax, the power to
impose tariffs or not, and to not have us continue to relinquish the
authority and responsibility to the Executive that we have as the U.S.
Senate.
This is our responsibility, and part of the reason is that we are
close to people who are affected by these policies. It is a shirking of
our responsibility for the U.S. Senate to essentially cede that
authority to a President, particularly when we are seeing in every
single State the harmful impacts on folks in our States--on the
businesses in our States, on the farmers and ranchers in our States--
who are working hard to try to pull things together and keep their
businesses going, our economy going, and contributing to the well-being
of our country.
I call on the President to reconsider what these tariffs are doing.
I call on our U.S. Senate to reassert its authority and be the
decider of what the tariff policy shall be in this country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.

S.J. Res. 80

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to join my
colleague from Alaska Senator Sullivan in support of S.J. Res. 80, as
Senator Sullivan explained earlier.
This resolution will disapprove the integrated activity planned by
the administration, issued back in 2022, to manage the National
Petroleum Reserve in northwest Alaska. He sponsored it and I
cosponsored it because the Biden administration imposed this management
plan over not only our objections but the objections of leaders from
across Alaska's North Slope. The third member of our delegation,
Congressman Begich, has introduced H.J. Res. 124, which is identical
and is pending in the House of Representatives.
I think it is important to outline a little bit of the history on
this issue, but I don't want to go into all of it.
The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska--we call it NPR-A--is a 23
million-acre tract of land. It is roughly the size of the State of
Indiana. It was specifically--specifically--designated for responsible
energy development.
The petroleum reserve dates back a century, to President Harding's
withdrawal and initial control by the U.S. Navy.
More recently, Congress has come to understand not only the naval
value but the national value of the area. They have directed the
Department of the Interior to ``conduct an expeditious program of
competitive leasing of oil and gas in the Reserve'' to help boost our
energy security.
What I just shared there is a word-for-word requirement from existing
Federal law, so this is what is in law: ``to conduct an expeditious
program of competitive leasing of oil and gas in the Reserve.''
The Department is mandated to do that while protecting important
values, including sensitive areas, as well as providing for subsistence
use for Alaskans. This is generally Alaskan Natives who live in the
North Slope area.
Congress really envisioned this as a balance here, where you had
responsible exploration and development moving in tandem with strong
environmental protection and subsistence rights. The statute is pretty
clear. It kind of spells it out. And we are OK with that. We don't have
a problem with that. That is kind of the Alaska way.
But, unfortunately, the Biden administration ignored that. Instead of
providing for balanced management, the last administration ignored what
I think was a good plan that was already in place. They ignored Federal
law. They ignored the congressional delegation. They ignored the people
who live on the North Slope. I think they also ignored or overlooked
our history of responsible production, our energy security, and they
instead prioritized conservation over everything else. So that is why
we are here.
The 2022 Integrated Activity Plan cut off access, to cut off leasing,
to cut off development in our petroleum reserve. That was not an
accident. That was the goal here. That was the intent. The 2022 plan
admits--they admit--that it will reduce oil and gas activity, which was
fine in the eyes of the Biden administration because, right as they
were putting sanctions on Alaska, they were taking them off of places
like Iran and Venezuela to free up those nations to produce more.
Let me reiterate how the Biden administration went about doing this.
The 2022 plan replaced the 2020 plan, which was put in place after an
environmental review process that featured public comment and
significant consultation with communities and leaders on the North
Slope.
Under that 2020 plan, the BLM concluded that 18.6 million acres--this
was 82 percent of the NPR-A--should be open for potential leasing, but
in the 2022 plan, just 11.8 million acres--52 percent of the petroleum
reserve--were left open for that purpose.
Under the 2020 plan, 4.3 million acres were closed to new
infrastructure, with development across millions of additional acres
subject to requirements for no surface occupancy, seasonal timing, and
other sensible protections, but then the 2022 plan rejected that,
closing off 8.3 million acres to any new infrastructure.
The 2020 plan was well received by most Alaskans because it was
viewed as balanced. BLM crafted a plan that was, as the Agency wrote at
the time, ``suitably specific for broad-scale management decisions. . .
. Additional site-specific analysis will occur when BLM receives an
application to approve an action on the ground. This will be done
through subsequent NEPA reviews and analysis, which will be conducted
before BLM issues permits or approvals for any ground disturbing
activity.''
In other words, what you had was a high-level management framework.
No individual projects were approved. Any seeking to advance would
still have to go through a separate permitting process before being
allowed to do so.
But unfortunately, BLM abandoned that approach after the Biden
administration took office. They didn't base their 2022 plan on any new
scientific analysis or new environmental review process; they based it
on a political agenda and their preference to what they called ``keep
it in the ground.'' They issued a ``determination of NEPA adequacy''
and then went into the 2020 plan and selected a far more restrictive
alternative from it.
So with virtually no public process, no public comment, no
consultation with Alaska Natives who call the North Slope home, the
Biden administration unilaterally cut off access to 6.8 million acres
of our petroleum reserve. That is an area that is larger than the
individual States of Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and
Hawaii. It is clearly not what the delegation wanted. It is not what
most Alaskans wanted. And, as I explained when discussing the
administrative withdrawals in the Central Yukon plan just a few weeks
back, it violates multiple Alaska-specific statutes.
I should add that this was just one plank in the Biden
administration's plan to shut down development in our petroleum
reserve. In addition to cutting off access, they refused to hold a
single lease sale in the NPR-A during their time in office. They
dragged the Willow Project through years of additional process, sending
a signal that nobody else should dare try to develop there. They issued
a management rule that turned the law on its head by establishing a
presumption against new development. They initiated another process to
expand and designate new special areas where no development would be
allowed to occur. Then, just a few days before leaving office, an
Acting Deputy Secretary issued a memo with interim management measures
to further tilt the balance away from any potential development.
So what you had was an administration that wanted nothing to do with
responsible development in Alaska's petroleum reserve, and that was
enough to cause some whiplash for those of us who not only know the law
but also remember the Obama-Biden administration repeatedly urging
companies: Go over there. Go to the National Petroleum Reserve.
This was the big fight over ANWR. They said: Don't go to ANWR; go to
NPR-A.
I have kind of outlined the history of this, some of the politics of
it, but I

[[Page S7814]]

would suggest that folks just shouldn't take the delegation's word for
it either. We received a letter from the North Slope trilateral. This
is the political leadership on the North Slope consisting of the North
Slope Borough, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, and the
Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. They weighed in with their strong
support for this disapproval resolution.
In their words:

Despite that, the 2022 plan ``imposed sweeping restrictions that
curtail responsible development, undermine congressional intent, and
disregard the well-being of the people who depend on these lands for
both subsistence and livelihoods.''
The letter then goes on to explain how the impacts of the 2022 plan
``are especially severe for the North Slope. Oil and gas development in
the NPR-A funds the Borough's schools, emergency services, and
infrastructure. It supports jobs for Inupiaq shareholders and
residents. It underwrites the continuation of our communities, even as
we maintain our subsistence way of life. By arbitrarily locking away
vast portions of the NPR-A, BLM's rule threatens these essential
services and imposes disproportionate burdens on our people.''

Equally concerning, BLM failed to engage in meaningful
government-to-government consultation with ASRC, the Borough,
and ICAS. This omission contradicts federal consultation
requirements and disregards the voices of the very
communities most affected. Our leadership has consistently
raised concerns about this process and its outcomes, yet
those concerns were ignored.

I think the words from the North Slope trilateral are particularly
strong and powerful, and I thank them for their leadership on the
issues.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of their
letter be added to the Congressional Record immediately following my
remarks.
There is a good chance you will see Senator Sullivan and me here on
the floor of the Senate seeking to disapprove any administrative action
that unreasonably restricts access to public land in our home State.
That is exactly what happened in this 2022 plan. Like we saw so much in
the Biden administration, it lacked balance, and it failed to adhere to
the law.
We feel pretty strongly back home that we don't need Washington, DC,
to try to protect Alaska from Alaskans. We need Washington, DC, to
understand that no one--no one--cares more about Alaska, our lands,
than those who live there and to partner with us on the balanced
management of our lands. That is true across our State, and that is
true within the NPR-A.
We had a good framework for responsible development in our petroleum
reserve back in 2020. Today, we can vote to nullify the 2022
replacement and go back to it.
I would urge my colleagues, when we have this measure before us
tomorrow--I would urge support for the resolution.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

October 3, 2025.
Re Support for S.J. Res. 80 and H.J. Res. 124--Congressional
Review Act Disapproval of the BLM NPR-A Integrated
Activity Plan (IAP) Record of Decision (ROD).

Hon. Lisa Murkowski,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Dan Sullivan,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Nicholas Begich III,
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators Murkowski, Sullivan, and Representative
Begich: On behalf of the North Slope Inupiaq leadership--
including Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC), the North
Slope Borough (Borough), and the Inupiat Community of the
Arctic Slope (ICAS)--we write in strong support of S.J. Res.
80, introduced by Senators Sullivan and Murkowski, and H.J.
Res. 124 in the House, each providing for congressional
disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code,
of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management
relating to the ``National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska
Integrated Activity Plan Record of Decision.''

Background

The North Slope Inupiat have called the Arctic home for
over 10,000 years. We are proud of our self-determination
efforts to ensure future generations of Inupiat continue to
reside in our communities and have access to essential
services. Without a stable economy, our communities will
suffer, along with our ability to fully engage in and sustain
our Inupiaq cultural traditions, including our vital
subsistence way of life.
The North Slope of Alaska spans an area nearly the size of
the state of Minnesota and, within that expansive area, there
are eight Inupiaq communities--Anaktuvuk Pass, Atqasuk,
Kaktovik, Nuiqsut, Point Hope, Point Lay, Utqiagvik, and
Wainwright. None of our communities are connected by a
permanent road system; all supplies must be flown or barged
in, making the cost of living extremely high and economic
opportunities generally low.
Over fifty years ago, the Federal Government directed
Alaska Native people to organize into a new structure of
indigenous representation. The Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) was a dramatically different
and transformative approach by the Federal Government to
federal Indian policy. The fact that our ancestral lands were
claimed by the Federal Government before our people had a
right to settle aboriginal land claims should inform every
decision the Federal Government makes in managing those
lands.
Unlike the Lower 48 model of indigenous representation
where tribal governments typically administer the delivery of
services such as healthcare, public safety, education, land
management, and economic development, the passage of ANCSA
created a shared system of Alaska Native representation and
delivery of services. Our region has a multitude of Alaska
Native entities that work together to effectively serve,
provide for, and enrich the lives of the North Slope Inupiat
we represent. Our three regional entities, the ICAS, the
Borough, and ASRC are three of those entities. While our
roles differ, our constituencies overlap, which is why we
work closely together to protect the cultural and economic
interests of the North Slope Inupiat.
While our leaders over fifty years ago were initially wary
of any development on our lands, our Inupiaq leaders have
spent decades prioritizing open communication and
transparency in planning with industry. We have exercised
true self-determination through a unique framework of Alaska
Native governance--a framework that relies on our tribal
governments, municipal governments, and Alaska Native
corporations established by Congress to serve our indigenous
constituents. For millennia, Inupiaq ingenuity has
transformed our relationship with industry into a partnership
that has both protected our environment and our way of life
and has brought significant economic benefits to the region
that would have otherwise been absent. Our North Slope
residents are keenly aware that advances in our communities--
running water, local schools, health care, public safety,
electricity, and more--have come because of the coordination
and cooperation of Alaska Native leaders and entities across
the region.
ICAS
Established in 1971, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic
Slope is the federally recognized regional tribal government
for the North Slope and represents over 14,000 Inupiaq tribal
members. The mission of ICAS is to exercise its sovereign
rights and powers for the benefit of tribal members, to
conserve and retain tribal lands and resources including
subsistence. For millennia Inupiaq ingenuity has transformed
our relationship with industry into a partnership that has
both protected our environment and our way of life and has
brought significant economic benefits to the region that
would have otherwise been absent. Our North Slope residents
are keenly aware that advances in our communities--running
water, local schools, health care, public safety,
electricity, and more--have come because of the
coordination and cooperation of Alaska Native leaders and
entities across the region.
Borough
The Borough is a home rule government located above the
Arctic Circle that represents roughly 10,000 residents. The
Borough's jurisdiction includes the entire National Petroleum
Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) and the eight villages within it. In
1972, the North Slope Inupiat formed the Borough, in part, to
ensure our communities would benefit from oil and gas
development on their ancestral homelands. It was the first
time Alaska Natives took control of their destiny using a
regional municipal government. The Borough exercises its
powers of taxation, property assessment, education, and
planning and zoning services to serve our communities. Taxes
levied on oil and gas infrastructure, not development, have
enabled the Borough to invest in public infrastructure and
utilities, support education, and provide police, fire,
emergency, health, and other services. Elsewhere in rural
Alaska, these services are typically provided primarily by
the State or Federal Government, or both.
ASRC
ASRC is a for-profit, land-owning Alaska Native regional
corporation formed pursuant to ANCSA. ASRC represents the
same region as the Borough and ICAS, and the same eight
villages whose residents are predominantly Inupiat, and who
comprise many of our over 14,000 Alaska Native shareholders.
ASRC holds the title to approximately five million acres of
land on the North Slope, including

[[Page S7815]]

both surface and subsurface lands. These lands--the ancestral
lands of the North Slope Inupiat--were conveyed to ASRC by
the United States pursuant to ANCSA to provide for the
economic and cultural well-being of our Inupiaq shareholders.
ASRC is committed to both providing sound financial returns
to our shareholders, through jobs and dividends, and to
preserving our Inupiaq way of life, culture, and traditions,
including the ability to maintain a subsistence lifestyle
that supports our communities. In furtherance of this
congressionally mandated mission to provide benefits to our
shareholders, ASFIC conducts and continues to invest in a
variety of activities related to infrastructure and natural
resource development and other economic initiatives.
ASRC's perspective is based on the dual realities that our
Inupiaq culture and communities depend on a healthy ecosystem
and subsistence resources, as well as infrastructure and
resource development as the foundation of sustainable North
Slope communities.

Disapproval of the 2022 NPR-A IAP ROD

The NPR-A lies entirely within the homelands of the North
Slope Inupiat. Congress established the NPR-A with a clear
purpose: to ensure energy security for the Nation while
respecting the needs of Alaska Natives. Instead, the 2022
Record of Decision (ROD) issued by BLM has imposed sweeping
restrictions that curtail responsible development, undermine
congressional intent, and disregard the well-being of the
people who depend on these lands for both subsistence and
livelihoods.
The impacts of the 2022 ROD are especially severe for the
North Slope. Oil and gas development in the NPR-A funds the
Borough's schools, emergency services, and infrastructure. It
supports jobs for Inupiaq shareholders and residents. It
underwrites the continuation of our communities, even as we
maintain our subsistence way of life. By arbitrarily locking
away vast portions of the NPR-A, BLM's rule threatens these
essential services and imposes disproportionate burdens on
our people.
Equally concerning, BLM failed to engage in meaningful
government-to-government consultation with ASRC, the Borough,
and ICAS. This omission contradicts federal consultation
requirements and disregards the voices of the very
communities most affected. Our leadership has consistently
raised concerns about this process and its outcomes, yet
those concerns were ignored.
The 2022 ROD ignores congressional intent under ANCSA, the
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980
(ANILCA), the National Petroleum Reserve Production Act of
1976 (NPRPA), and the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1980. The
2022 ROD also disregards the economic needs of North Slope
communities, and creates unnecessary obstacles to
infrastructure, energy, and community health across the North
Slope of Alaska.

Support for S.J. Res 80 and H.J. Res. 124

For these reasons, our trilateral organizations strongly
support passage of S.J. Res. 80 and H.J. Res. 124 to
disapprove the 2022 NPR-A IAP ROD. Overturning this rule is
necessary to restore balance to federal policy, reaffirm
Congress's intent for the NPR-A, and uphold the economic,
cultural, and subsistence well-being of the North Slope
Inupiat.
Our identity, resilience, and survival are deeply rooted in
our traditional lands that the NPR-A boundaries encompass. We
take great pride in our ongoing efforts toward self-
determination, focused on securing a future where future
generations of Inupiat can continue to live in our
communities with access to the essential services they need
to thrive. We thank you for your leadership on this important
resolution and look forward to continued collaboration to
ensure that federal policies in the NPR-A reflect both
national priorities and the needs of the people who call the
Arctic home.
Sincerely,
Nicole Wojciechowski,
President, Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope.
Josiah Patkotak,
Mayor, North Slope Borough.
Rex A. Rock, Sr.
President and CEO, Arctic Slope Regional Corporation.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schmitt). The Senator from Minnesota.

S.J. Res. 77

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of our
bipartisan resolution, which Senator Kaine and I lead, along with our
colleagues Rand Paul, Mark Warner, and Leader Schumer.
Our resolution terminates the President's so-called emergency
declaration related to the Canadian border and restores stability and
common sense to our trade with our close ally and neighbor to the
north, Canada.
The administration has used that declaration as a pretext to impose
sweeping tariffs on a friend, on a neighbor, on an ally--which are
taxes, paid by American consumers and businesses, on Canadian imports.
Back in April, this same resolution passed the Senate with bipartisan
support. Under the National Emergencies Act, Congress must review and,
if necessary, vote again every 6 months. Because the administration has
refused to lift this so-called emergency and instead doubled down by
raising tariffs on Canada to 35 percent as of August 1, with a threat
of more, we are back on the floor today, and we will be back on the
floor until this passes.
Just this past week, the President announced, as I noted, yet another
10 percent tariff hike on Canada--this time in retaliation for an
Ontario ad--Ontario, one province. This would be as if the Governor of
Texas put out an ad or if the Governor of California put out an ad. But
President Trump used this as a pretext for another threat. And that ad
accurately used President Ronald Reagan's 1987 remarks criticizing
tariffs.

So that is a good way to begin: with President Reagan's remarks. He
said, in 1987, though there are economic and national security
circumstances during which tariffs are necessary, that, generally,
``high tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and
the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens: Markets
shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions
of people lose their jobs.''
This new tariff hike isn't about security. It isn't even about our
economy. It is just about the President's personal grievances, and
Americans are the ones paying the price.
Since these chaotic, on-again, off-again tariffs began in March,
cross-border travel and trade have both fallen precipitously. In
Minnesota, we say we can see Canada from our porch. Our people go back
and forth all the time--sometimes for jobs, sometimes to visit
relatives and friends, and sometimes, of course, for vacations. We
welcome Canadians all the time.
I was, in fact, at the Minnesota Frost game in which they played the
Charge, a Canadian team, a women's professional hockey team. It was a
joyous event with our Canadian neighbors.
You see, we know now, the World Series, one of the most exciting
World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
This isn't just some faraway place to us. These are our friends and
neighbors. But yet, despite all of this incredible history of
friendship and booming economic gains because of all the back-and-forth
and travel, trips from Canada to the United States are down roughly 20
percent from last year. Towns in the United States are having to put up
signs that say ``We love you, Canadians'' because they feel so dissed
by this administration.
They are saying: What is happening? We were the first ones on the
ground after 9/11 from another country.
The Canadians were there.
We were the ones that stood by your side in so many foreign wars. We
are the one that, for so many of our States, is the No. 1 trading
partner. How can this be happening?
And, frankly, it pisses them off, and so individual families are
making decisions--are deciding: Well, we are not going to go to
America. Maybe we will go to Mexico. Maybe we will go to another
country. Maybe we will stay in Canada. But we are not going to travel
there.
The average foreign visitor spends about $4,000 when they come to
America.
We are not going to eat their food. We are not going to go to their
restaurants. We are not going to stay at their hotels. We are not going
to fish in their lakes.
You name it, that is what the people in my State are seeing. And
everything from manufactured parts to whiskey have dropped sharply. And
small businesses, farmers, and manufacturers are losing business.
This is not how our economy was supposed to work, if you believe in
capitalism, if you believe in trade, if you believe you just can't put
your head in the sand and think, ``Well, we are just going to be on our
own,'' when 95 percent of our potential customers, particularly in the
agriculture area, are outside of our borders. We should be exporting
more goods, and we should be encouraging more trade.
The President shouldn't be able to just wake up one day and see an ad
he

[[Page S7816]]

doesn't like on TV featuring a Republican President by a province in
Canada and decide, ``I am just going to hike up another 10 percent''--
or something happened in Brazil--and I congratulate Senator Kaine and
Senator Paul on their recent overturning from this body--finally,
enough is enough; we are asserting our power. You are not going to be
able to just put a 40-percent tariff on Brazil, a country with which we
have a trade surplus, simply because the guy is facing a trial there,
and the President doesn't like it. No, this is not how this works. It
is not how it works under the Constitution. It is not how it works
under the law.
This resolution is about drawing a line in the sand and saying you
cannot abuse your emergency powers to start an unjustified trade war;
you cannot abuse your emergency powers to hurt one of the finest
relationships in the world; and you cannot drive up prices, eliminate
jobs, and put in place a national sales tax that experts now predict
will altogether--the tariff tax--cost the average family nearly $2,000
per year.
And they are seeing it every day in their grocery bills. They are
seeing it when they want to go out and buy tools. They see it when they
are going out to buy audio equipment.
Minnesota's No. 1 trading partner, one of our country's top 2 trading
partners, and one of our most trusted allies--that is Canada. We export
more goods to Canada than we do--in Minnesota--to our second, third,
and fourth largest markets combined. In 2024, Minnesota's goods trade
with Canada, including ag products, machinery, and medical devices,
amounted to roughly $22 billion--$22 billion. That is more than a
quarter of all the goods that we export, a major hit for our State.
I chair the Canadian-American Interparliamentary Group. I frequently
meet with our partners in Canada. A number of Senators, including
Senator Kaine and Senator Shaheen and Senator Welch and Senator Kevin
Cramer of North Dakota, a Republican--we went up there together to
Ottawa a few months back, met with Prime Minister Carney. And as the
Prime Minister said recently, the U.S.-Canada relationship has become
``mostly transactional.''
That is not the story of our friendship with Canada. Canada, as I
mentioned, fought alongside us in two World Wars. They are our partners
in NORAD and NATO. They helped us get our supply chain back in order
after the pandemic--and, yes, we helped them. Canada is setting
historic new goals to contribute to our collective defense, planning to
triple defense spending over the next decade--new equipment, new
infrastructure, new technology--to strengthen our NATO alliance, which
means strengthening our own national security.

But rather than supporting a thriving Canadian economy that would
enable the government to fulfill those goals, the tariffs that the
President keeps slapping on this great ally will hinder our potential
and Canada's. These tariffs also undercut the very trade deal the
President himself once called the most ``modern and balanced agreement
in history''--that is, the USMCA, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
I supported that agreement. I was one of the first Democrats--in
fact, the first one during that election, the 2020 election--that
actually came out and said I supported that trade agreement on the
debate stage because I felt it was so important.
So why would the President take this jewel of a trade agreement--that
albeit needs to be changed as we go forward and reviewed, which is
mandatory this coming year, for things like dairy and other things--
that has been acknowledged. We would like to see some changes to it.
But why would he take this incredibly important agreement and just say
it doesn't matter?
The kind of uncertainty that we are seeing with these tariffs shakes
business confidence across North America. These tariffs are paid by
families: groceries, clothes, housing. Homebuilders say higher material
costs from tariffs are adding as much as $10,000 to the cost of a new
home. Americans looking for a new car are paying more than $3,000 more
for an American-made vehicle. And of course it is increasing the cost
of cars made in America because parts come from Canada.
And this is an important point: The tariffs are not just about
raising the prices on the goods that we import; they are also driving
up prices across the board on all types of goods and services--
electricity costs. If we continue down this path, as I noted, the
average family will likely see a $2,000 increase per year.
This might not mean a lot to some of the President's friends and
family members, billionaires on his Cabinet. They are not going to care
about this $2,000 a year. That is true. They are not going to care. But
people right now, that are already faced with all these problems with
healthcare, which is a fight that is raging right now, about this
budget, they can't handle it.
Tariffs, as I noted, can be an important tool for countering other
countries' unfair trade practices. I supported some of the steel
tariffs that were more narrow from the former Trump administration and
the Obama administration and the Biden administration in order to make
sure that our iron ore--very key to my past and our future--mined in
northern Minnesota--my grandpa was an iron ore miner--that that
continue.
But that is not what we are talking about with the President's action
here. The broad emergency power statute enacted from 1977 that the
President has used to justify these across-the-board tariffs didn't
even mention the word ``tariff.''
My colleagues and I have filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court.
That case is going to be heard next week. But it is not the only
answer. The answer should be that Congress asserts its power, even
though I believe that the use of the statute is clearly illegal and I
believe, as the underlying court--which was made up of the initial
trade court: a Trump judge, an Obama judge, and a Reagan judge--yes,
they still exist. They unanimously, the three of them, said that this
was an illegal use of the statute.
But this, today, is about something else. It is about us asserting
our own power, stopping the chaos with changes over 100 times in these
tariffs: small brewers paying for aluminum cans that can't afford them,
furniture makers paying more for lumber, and family-owned tourism
businesses in my State suffering.
If the Trump administration wants to address trade disputes with
Canada--and the Prime Minister is clearly open to that--it should work
in good faith with our neighbors to strengthen the USMCA trade
agreement that the President himself originally negotiated.
Our bipartisan group of cosponsors understands this. This isn't about
politics. It is about jobs, economic stability, and respect for the
successful agreement that we committed to in the past. It is why this
resolution has support from the United Steelworkers, the International
Association of Machinists, North America's Building Trades Unions, and
the AFL-CIO. The Chamber of Commerce, the National Taxpayers Union, and
the National Retail Federation have all endorsed this resolution.
These are voices from every corner of the political spectrum, every
part of our economy. Maybe we should be listening to them and not be a
rubberstamp, I say to my colleagues. It is time to stand up. Otherwise,
why are you here?
I yield the floor, and I see that my friend from Virginia, who has
been such a leader on this, is here.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to thank my colleague from Minnesota
Senator Klobuchar for her hard work on this effort and her work over
many years in leading the U.S.-Canada interparliamentary dialogue. That
is a dialogue that we have with some nations, nations that are
longstanding allies of the United States, and I maintain that the U.S.-
Canada relationship is really the model for what a relationship between
two neighboring nations should be.
I primarily object to the Canada tariffs because I don't think there
is an emergency that should trigger the use of this statute, but there
are many other reasons I object to them, and the fracturing of this
longstanding, powerful relationship is one of them.
I spoke yesterday with respect to the Brazil tariffs, and I talked
about the wrecking ball that Donald Trump is

[[Page S7817]]

taking to the American economy. There have been three academic studies
of the Virginia economy in recent months, and they were recently
summarized by a publication called Cardinal News in Virginia earlier
this month. The takeaway line about how Virginia is faring under Donald
Trump's economic mismanagement is this: fewer jobs, higher prices,
slower growth.
The firing of Federal employees, the cancellation of celebrated
economic development projects, the imposition of tariffs in a chaotic
on-again, off-again, pause-again, give-you-an-exception, we-will-
renegotiate regime--all of these things are deeply hurting the Virginia
economy, and I know my colleagues around the country are experiencing
the same thing.
That economic wrecking ball composes many elements beyond the
tariffs, but the tariffs are really the central item that is causing
damage to our economy right now.
The tariffs that have been imposed by President Trump on Canada, like
the Brazil tariffs we discussed yesterday or the ``Liberation Day''
tariffs we will talk about tomorrow, are proposed under the statute
IEEPA.
Yesterday on the floor, as I talked about the Brazilian tariffs, I
told everyone what IEEPA was meant to do. It was meant to give the
President power to take action in the event of an international
emergency.
An international emergency is defined in a pretty significant way so
as to not be used in minor instances. The definition under IEEPA says
that a President may take certain actions when there is an
extraordinary and unusual threat to the national security, foreign
policy, or economy of the United States--an extraordinary and unusual
threat.
Before President Trump, what kind of emergencies have been triggered
under IEEPA by Democratic and Republican Presidents? The existence and
activities of transnational criminal organizations, malicious cyber-
enabled activities that target the United States, human rights
violations that affect the United States, corruption that affects the
United States, pervasive strategies by foreign nations to evade
sanctions imposed by the United States, foreign interference in U.S.
elections.
These are the kinds of unusual and extraordinary actions originating
in whole or substantially in part outside the United States that have
been labeled by Presidents an ``international emergency'' under IEEPA
to enable a President to take certain action. President Trump has
stretched this notion of emergency far beyond the language of the
statute and far beyond what anyone contemplated when this statute was
written.
You have heard me talk about the President declaring an energy
emergency when the United States is producing more energy than at any
time in our history. You have heard us talk about the President
declaring the prosecution of a friend of his in Brazil a national
security emergency. If President Trump can define anything as an
emergency, then so can any President henceforth. That is why my
colleagues should be pretty careful in striking down overuse of
emergency power.
So what is the emergency with respect to Canada that has inspired the
President to impose these tariffs on Canada and then add to the tariffs
because he saw a television advertisement he didn't like? The emergency
the President has cited is the challenge of fentanyl.
Now, fentanyl is an emergency. I am not standing here on the floor of
the Senate to deny that it is so. The President has used the fentanyl
emergency to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and I haven't
challenged those uses of emergency power. I have questions about
whether tariffs are the right solution to the declared emergency. But I
would not stand here on the floor of the Senate and claim that fentanyl
is not an emergency that had significant origin in China and Mexico.
But fentanyl is not an emergency from Canada.
In the most recent year that we had statistics, the United States
seized nearly 40,000 pounds of fentanyl on the southern border of the
United States coming from Mexico. That is an emergency. How much
fentanyl was seized on or near the Canadian border during the same
year? The answer is 21 pounds--21 pounds.
Much of that fentanyl was not necessarily seized at the border; it
was seized near the border. It may have been coming from Canada, but in
all likelihood, it was actually on its way to Canada because more
fentanyl goes from the United States into Canada than vice versa.
So this claim that Canada is responsible for a fentanyl emergency and
thus we need to punish both Canada but more especially American
consumers is completely without factual basis, and it is completely
illogical.
What is the emergency? The emergency apparently got augmented in the
past weekend. The President saw an advertisement, as my colleague said,
with a direct quote from President Ronald Reagan about why tariffs are
bad, and he said: We caught the Canadians redhanded, and so we are
going to add another 10-percent tariff on top of what I have already
done, and we are going to stop any trade negotiations with Canada
because I have such thin skin that an ad on television quoting Ronald
Reagan hurts my feelings.
How about that as a rationale for trade policy? How about that? There
is no emergency in this situation, and that is the reason this
resolution should be supported.
But while there is no emergency, there are consequences. There are
consequences to what President Trump has done with Canada.
In the economic space, my colleague talked about visitation.
``Canadian Visitors To U.S. Plummet 33% In June--Sixth Straight Month
Of Steep Declines.''
Canadian visitors are the most common foreign visitors to the
Commonwealth of Virginia. They tend to love Virginia Beach, and we love
Canadians coming to Virginia Beach. But we have seen Canadian
visitation drop. All States in the country have seen Canadian
visitation drop.
There are so many other stories that I hear out on the road. I was
with a baker in Virginia who has three pie shops--Mom's Apple Pie. We
were talking about this back in the spring after the tariffs had been
announced but before they had really bit.
She had seen tariffs in Trump's first term, and she said to me on
behalf of Mom's Apple Pie--I mean, this is almost too good a story to
be true--Mom's Apple Pie, for gosh sake.
She said: Senator Kaine, you have got to do something about these
tariffs.
I said: Tariffs? You have three bakeries--one in Occoquan, one in
Purcellville, one in Leesburg. How do tariffs affect you?
Pie tins. Pie tins. All pie tins are made of aluminum, and they all
come from Canada. If you jack up the cost of aluminum with aluminum
tariffs by 25 percent, apple pie gets more expensive. Nobody has to buy
apple pie. If it gets more expensive, people will choose not to buy
apple pie, and I got to lay people off. I saw it in Trump term 1. I am
going to see in Trump term 2.
Farmers. Farmers have seen commodities be pretty darn flat. Commodity
prices have not been going up. They have been getting a lot more for
agricultural commodities, but the inputs aren't stable. They are
getting more expensive.
One of the most significant inputs for any farmer of an agricultural
vegetable or grain product is fertilizer. One of the key ingredients in
fertilizer is potash, and about 80 percent of potash that goes into
fertilizer used by American farmers comes from Canada.
So the initial effect of these tariffs is to raise the cost of these
inputs--building supplies, food, fertilizer, pie tins. The input costs
go up. And then there is never a one-way trade war, so a nation will
say: Well, then, we are going to retaliate against you. We are not
going to take this sitting down.
So Canada doesn't want to, but after Trump imposed the tariff, Canada
retaliates on products in the ag sector, and suddenly it becomes harder
for American businesses to sell products in Canada.
One of the products that is an important one in Southern States like
mine is whiskey. ``The U.S. Alcohol Industry Is Reeling From Canada's
Booze Boycott. Trade fight prompts pullback in purchases by the biggest
export market for U.S.-made wines, costing American brands tens of
millions in sales.''

[[Page S7818]]

Virginia is one of the top 10 States in the country in the volume of
wine production. We also produce a lot of whiskey and other spirits.
And Canadians like to buy American products. But the retaliation and
the anger at the United States has caused many to decide to pull all
American products off their shelves--all American products off their
shelves. And I speak with a number of businesses in Virginia who would
face this.
So the consequences are very real. My colleague from Minnesota talked
about estimates that this could be already costing American families on
average between $1,800 and $2,000 a year.
But it has consequences bigger than that. Canada is an ally. We are
trying to convince Canada to increase their NATO expenditure up to 2
percent of GDP and related expenditures on infrastructure up to 5
percent of GDP. The new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, has gone to the
Parliament and gotten their commitment to do so.
We are asking Canada to participate with us in one of President
Trump's most significant military priorities, called Golden Dome. In
Canada, they call it Continental Shield. They have a different name for
it, but it is the same thing; it is missile defense for North America.
And we are trying to get Canada to heavily invest, as they should, to
try to provide missile defense in North America. It is much harder to
convince an ally to spend hundreds of millions, if not billions of
dollars on a joint defense platform when you are punishing their
economy and when we are punishing our own citizens.
So that is why we need to vote for this resolution.
There is a right way to resolve this, and my colleague mentioned it:
the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It was one of the highlights, the
stellar achievements of Donald Trump's first term. NAFTA was 20 years
old; it needed to be renegotiated.
Donald Trump said: We are going to renegotiate it and make it a lot
better.
Guess what. He did. He and his team did make it better.
So when it came to the Senate, my recollection is it came to the
Senate, and it passed by about 89 to 10. We can't get that vote on a
Mother's Day resolution here. Donald Trump should be proud of USMCA.
USMCA had a provision that, in 2026, we would look at the first 5
years of its history and then make it better. Those discussions had
just started when I was in Ontario about a month and a half ago. The
Canadian Government felt really good about sitting around the table
with the United States and Mexico and making this deal better. Donald
Trump has stopped the discussions because a TV ad hurt his feelings.
The right answer to the U.S.-Canada relationship on trade is to go
back to the table on USMCA, find anything that hasn't worked, anything
that can be made better, negotiate it, and make it better.
Tariffs are hurting our economy, hurting our citizens, hurting our
businesses. Let's terminate this bogus emergency and let our households
and businesses save some money.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for this
resolution, and, indeed, the full series of tariff resolutions my
colleagues Senators Kaine and Wyden and others have put forth. And I
want to take this opportunity to personally commend Senator Kaine for
his leadership and for his understanding of the complexities of the
issues we face.
Our resolution would overturn President Trump's tariff taxes on
American consumers. These tariffs are part of the President's effort to
use trade policies to benefit his friends and himself at the expense of
American families.
He has used trade to prop up Argentina's President before a key
election because that country's President has said nice things about
President Trump, hardly the basis for a fundamental economic decision
affecting the life of every American.
And he has used trade to punish the entire country of Brazil for the
prosecution of its former leader, another friend and political ally of
Trump.
These are not economically based decisions. These are purely
personal, whimsical decisions that harm American families.
The hope is that any Chief Executive is going to look thoughtfully
and rationally, measure benefits and costs, and make decisions that
benefit this country. That is not the case with President Trump.
And while he is cutting these special-interest trade deals, President
Trump is really whacking households with more than $15 billion in
additional costs each month. This includes the tariffs on Brazil, one
of the main sources of coffee for the United States of America. And,
you know, we are just waiting for our constituents to roll up to their
Dunkin Donuts, if you are in Rhode Island, and order a small coffee:
That will be $15, please.
That is where we are headed. And it is going to hurt our
constituents, particularly the most vulnerable, and working families
that are struggling to get by.
Grocery prices continue to climb with essentials like coffee and
beef, with a 19-percent increase and 15 percent increase, respectively,
more expensive than they were a year ago.
The average new car price just crossed $50,000 for the first time in
our Nation's history. Investment bank UBS reports that tariffs have
increased home construction costs by $9,000, and we have an affordable
housing crisis in the United States in every State.
And Ashley Furniture, the largest U.S. and, indeed, global furniture
manufacturer, announced this month it was raising prices by as much as
12 percent due to the President's tariffs, and that was before new 25-
percent furniture-specific tariff came into force.
In total, researchers at Yale report that tariffs are costing
families $1,800 this year. The President has essentially claimed these
costs are a figment of our imagination, repeatedly claiming that
foreign companies--not Americans--pay his tariffs. But his claims don't
match Americans' reality or the economic data.
A recent Goldman Sachs report found that foreign exporters have been
paying only about 9 percent of tariff costs.
In fact, Goldman, the nonprofit Peterson Institute, and investment
bank Morgan Stanley have all reported that most of the President's
tariffs are being absorbed by American companies, small businesses, and
consumers.
Indeed, our Nation's two largest auto manufacturers, General Motors
and Ford, have each reported billions of dollars in new tariff-related
costs. Nike told its investors it will pay $1.5 billion in tariff costs
this fiscal year, and defense manufacturer Raytheon announced $220
million in tariff costs in the third quarter alone.
Make no mistake, businesses, large and small, in every corner of our
country, are paying these costs but with much tighter margins--much,
much tighter margins--than previously.
Many of the Main Street businesses may not survive because of it.
And, increasingly, companies are passing the costs of these tariff
taxes on to American consumers. It is not just higher costs. When
companies shoulder new costs, they hire fewer workers. And we are
seeing that in many parts of the country. We are seeing it in Rhode
Island.
Unsurprisingly, job growth, as a result, has stagnated under
President Trump. Payroll company ADP found the private sector actually
lost 32,000 jobs last month, while those Yale researchers estimate that
Trump tariffs will eliminate half a million jobs this year.
It used to be the chief responsibility of the President of the United
States to create economic programs and policies that stimulated
employment--not eliminated employment.
And while President Trump wants to demonize any dissent toward his
policies as political or the work of his enemies, data and economic
warnings around his tariffs are coming from every corner of our
country.
I will close by noting that I do not want to be on the floor
delivering this speech. I do not want to have to criticize the
President for his economic decision making, but instead of pursuing
thoughtful, impactful, and cost-reducing policies, President Trump has
decided to take a whack at American small business and families with
billions and billions in new costs.
And as a Member of the Senate, I cannot sit by quietly while our
President makes Americans suffer simply because their needs do not
match his priorities.

[[Page S7819]]

I was hopeful that President Trump would come to his senses before
Congress and the courts act, but he has not, and that is why we are on
the floor. And that is why we must pass this resolution, which is one
of the first steps to eliminating these Trump-induced costs on
households and businesses.
Passage today would signal to Americans that Congress's priority is
their financial well-being, not the well-being of the wealthy, the
well-connected, and Donald Trump's personal pals.
Most importantly, it would start the process of eliminating over $15
billion in new monthly costs for families.
I urge my colleagues to prioritize hard-working Americans, not Donald
Trump and friends, by passing this resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Rhode Island, as
well as Senator Klobuchar and Senator Kaine. We have all been teaming
up to terminate Donald Trump's blanket tariffs on products Americans
buy from Canada.
Once again, we have an opportunity to cancel a Trump trade tax and
put money back into the pockets of the American people.
This is a chance for Senators to show our constituents that we are
going to act for them, not for special interests or some new
Presidential obsession.
Unlike many of the nations Trump has slapped with taxes, there is
already a comprehensive trade deal between the United States and
Canada. It was written with input from the Senate Finance Committee,
and it was bipartisan. USMCA was a trade deal negotiated by Donald
Trump himself, and it got a significant bipartisan vote.
Congress approved the deal, put it into black-letter law, and we made
sure--with Senator Brown, in particular, leading the fight--to have a
bill with tough enforcement--enforcement teeth--to make sure the United
States could hold Canada and Mexico to their commitments.
This is the only way to ensure that farmers, workers, and businesses
get the full benefit.
But Trump's trade taxes aren't addressing enforcement issues with
Mexico and Canada, or making the USMCA work better. Instead, he is
unilaterally undermining supply chains across the board.
He has imposed new tariffs on scores of products we buy from Canada,
making groceries, housing, energy, and cars more expensive.
He put a 50-percent tariff on steel and aluminum, a singularly bad
idea. Beer, appliances, auto parts--all of them--are getting hammered
by that tax.
There are 8 million American jobs that depend on trade with Canada.
Canada is the biggest export market for 32 American States.
With this trade war, Trump is destroying jobs and harming America and
making our people poorer.
Since national security was one of the rationales for the Trump trade
taxes on Canada, I have to point out that his trade war against our
close ally is making American allies and us less safe.
For one, Canada is a reliable source of energy, raw materials, and
critical minerals that China has repeatedly used as a bargaining chip
in trade talks. Critical minerals are essential to manufacturing in the
high-tech and defense industries. The Trump administration has invested
millions in developing the Canadian critical minerals industry as an
alternative to China's near monopoly.

But here is a key point: instead of developing Canada as an
alternative to China for raw materials, Donald Trump is driving our
closest ally straight into the arms of China.
The Canadian Prime Minister said last week that his country is
looking to reengage with India and China to find new markets and new
allies that are more reliable than the United States. America would get
better results on trade by buying spells from an Etsy witch.
Trump's stated reason for blowing up commerce is fentanyl
trafficking. Now, I don't take a backseat to anybody when it comes to
cracking down on the scourge of fentanyl. Oregon is no stranger to the
devastating effects it has wreaked in our communities.
But, in reality, there is no crisis at the northern border. Less than
0.2 percent of fentanyl entering the United States comes from Canada.
Some of my colleagues on the other side have voiced concerns about
tariffs but said they want to give Donald Trump more time to strike a
deal. I would ask: what in the past 6 months makes you think that this
is somehow magically going to get better?
Instead of negotiating, Donald Trump spends his energy having
tantrums about TV ads that accurately quote Ronald Reagan's position on
tariffs. He has already increased these tariffs on Canada once. He is
now threatening to jack up Canada tariffs by another 10 percent because
one of their provinces--just one--took out the Reagan ad.
Who would make a deal with a person who acts like this, who ignores a
deal that was made just a few years ago and who constantly threatens to
annex their country?
That is what Donald Trump has done with Canada.
These tariffs are doing nothing to help Americans. They are unrelated
to trade disputes.
I hope every Senator will vote to repeal the taxes on Canadian goods
and help lower costs for our constituents.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Kaine for his
leadership on this issue, highlighting it, meeting on it, bringing it
to the attention of the American public. The same thing is true for
Senator Wyden and Senator Klobuchar.
Thank you so much for your leadership.
And I rise to join them in highlighting the devastating impact
President Trump's economic policies are having on small businesses
across our country. Small business owners are struggling in President
Trump's economy.
Let me just say this: 97 percent of all the companies in America that
engage in trade are small businesses, and those small businesses
represent one-third of all trade that our country engages in.
They are not big companies. They can't buy a year or 2 years'
inventory in advance. They live week to week. They live month to month.
And that is pretty much where they have been since April. They have
been trying to survive. They have been trying just to make it through
this hectic, unpredictable, roller coaster of tariffs, which the
President has been imposing.
And these small businesses, they are unbelievably struggling in this
economy right now. Thanks to President Trump, just this year,
electricity costs are up 11 percent. Food prices are up. The cost of
coffee is up 19 percent this year. Bananas are up 7 percent. Beef is up
13 percent. The cost of healthcare for millions of small business
owners will increase by an average of 114 percent.
This is going to be a massive hit on small businesses and small
business workers if the Affordable Care Act tax premiums expire. It is
going to be 10 million small businesses and small business employees in
our country that are going to see a spike that is going to be dramatic
for their healthcare.
And 42,000 jobs we have lost in manufacturing this year--42,000 down,
not up--not as promised. And that is supposed to be at the center of
his tariff policy? We are losing manufacturing jobs at an accelerated
rate after Joe Biden increased manufacturing jobs.
And I would like to, again, really point out what a great job you
have been doing, Senator Kaine, on this in putting a great big
spotlight on all of this, because this is absolutely central to the
economic well-being of our country.
So back in May, I introduced and tried to pass my Small Business
Liberation Act, a bill that would have protected small businesses from
Trump's tariff chaos, just saying: Get those 97 percent of all the
businesses engaged in trade--the small businesses--get them out of this
war. They can't survive that war. Big businesses, maybe, but not little
businesses. They just can't do it. But the Senate Republicans blocked
that proposal.
Then I did it again. Republicans blocked my proposal just to spare
the small businesses, and, unfortunately, Republicans have not shown
the courage yet on Trump's tariffs, just capitulation, as they do on so
many other issues.

[[Page S7820]]

By opposing my bill and preventing those sensible resolutions from
moving forward in the House, Republicans are allowing Trump to tax any
good from any country for any reason--no rules. And the only reason is
Trump doesn't have the legal authority to do that. He doesn't have the
legal authority to do what he is doing right now.
Trump claims to have authority under a 1977 law signed by Jimmy
Carter, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. This law was
so uncontroversial in 1977 that it was passed on a voice vote.
Now, can you imagine? Jimmy Carter is President. There is a bill that
is going to allow Jimmy Carter to become a dictator, to impose tariffs
on any country in the world, to jack up the price anywhere they want on
any product, at any time; anything that ticks him off, including some
little commercial about Ronald Reagan, and all of a sudden, boom, we
are smashing you, Canada.
Does anyone here really think the Republicans and the Congress, in
1977, at the height of Jimmy Carterism, were giving him unlimited
authority to be able to impose tariffs?
You know that did not happen. He doesn't have the legal authority to
do this, and I can tell you because I was there on the floor of
Congress when it happened in 1977. I know there was no debate on this.
And so that is what we are talking about right now. The Congress did
not give Jimmy Carter King-like powers--I can guarantee you that--on a
voice vote. But Trump, he thinks he can exercise these emergency powers
and tax any import for any reason. Our latest emergency? It is a
television ad, a Canadian-produced and featured audio of former
President Ronald Reagan denouncing the tariffs. And, in retaliation,
President Trump decided everyday Americans and small businesses should
pay 10 percent more on imports from Canada.

It is very clear, Trump is just making all of this up. He is making
it up as he goes along.
And, for Massachusetts, it is very important. Every fifth grader--
when I was in the fifth grade and all fifth graders in Massachusetts--
in the geography book there is one chapter entitled: ``Our Friends the
Canadians.'' And why is that? Because they are our leading trading
partner. It is only like a 3- or 4-hour ride to get up to Canada. It is
who we are. We trade with them every single day. We do $10 billion of
trade with Canada. That is whom we do business with.
And this 10 percent additional tariff, you know who it cascades down
onto? The small businesses of Massachusetts. Ordinary citizens, they
are going to be further crushed. That is whom we partner with.
And he knows he doesn't have this trade authority. Small businesses
have had enough of Trump's illegal actions and have successfully
challenged the tariff authority twice already. He lost in the district
court. He lost in the circuit court. And next week, this case is going
to be heard in the Supreme Court. So small businesses have already won
twice, and now they are going for the final round in the Supreme Court,
hoping that they won't engage in creative legislative history
reinterpretation of that Republican unanimous vote in 1977 that allowed
Jimmy Carter to become a King on tariffs.
So the President says it is ``enemies of the country'' who are suing
him. If that is how you view Main Street in America--Kiwanians,
Rotarians, small business, chambers of commerce all across the
country--they are the ones bringing the suit and have already won twice
and are now heading for the showdown on the Supreme Court.
For small businesses, this isn't about politics; it is about
survival. And right now, Trump's tariffs are taxes for them. So far, it
is $30 billion coming from small businesses that Trump then transfers
into tax breaks for the wealthiest people in our country or for the
Argentine Government, but it is not staying on Main Street. They are
not getting the rewards for the work which they have done.
A small business in Massachusetts that designs and manufactures and
sells outdoor recreation equipment told me that they have paid an extra
$500,000 this year because of Trump's tariff taxes. Earlier this week,
they received a $40,000 bill from imports from Taiwan. It is just a
small business.
And, meanwhile, big businesses have CEOs meeting directly with the
President and receiving generous exemptions.
It is Robin Hood in reverse. Trump is taking from hard-working,
regular people, and he is transferring the wealth to the millionaires
and billionaires in our country. It is absolutely economic craziness
that the President is engaging in. He is punishing Main Street. He is
turning Main Street into ``Pain Street'' in every single State in our
country.
And that extra increase in the tariffs from Canada puts a special
burden on Massachusetts and our small businesses, our workers.
So it is very clear this tax is not being paid by other countries.
American small businesses pay the tax. Main Street is paying this tax.
And President Trump is taxing food and clothing and toys and even tea.
And as a small business owner reminded me, the last time there was a
tax on tea, there was a revolution in our country that began in Boston.
Small businesses have no lobbyists, no Mar-a-Lago, no golden gifts
for President Trump, no margin for error. There will be no invitations
to the new ballroom, but I am not going to back down. I am going to
continue to stand up for small businesses across the country, across
Massachusetts, from red States to blue States, who are bearing the
burden of these tariffs, and I hope that our Republican colleagues will
join us today by voting to pass this resolution.
And, again, I thank you, Senator Kaine, for your leadership, and the
same to you, Senator Wyden and to Senator Klobuchar. This is a very
important moment in the economic history of our country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moreno). The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to S.J. Res. 77, which
would terminate the fentanyl national emergency declared with respect
to Canada.
I agree with my colleagues that tariffs should be more targeted to
avoid harm to Americans. I made precisely that point at a hearing in
the Finance Committee in May.
We should consider more exemptions, whether for unavailable natural
resources, capital equipment, or other key inputs.
It is equally as important that enforcement guidance provides the
clarity that U.S. companies need to comply with the tariffs and to make
critical business decisions.
Similarly, as the administration continues to negotiate with our
trading partners, I appreciate that my colleagues, as well as our
constituents, may be nervous about what comes next. However, at this
juncture, this resolution is counterproductive to helping American
families and businesses of all sizes.
What my colleagues across the aisle have not discussed is the
ubiquitous tariffs and nontariff trade barriers that our small
businesses and large businesses alike face across this globe from
countries that are not allowing fair trade to happen with the United
States, and the cost of that is being borne by the American people--
small businesses and large businesses alike.
The President's historic trade negotiations recognize that this
cannot continue, and nations across the globe need to reduce their
tariff barriers and their nontariff trade barriers to American
companies and American citizens.
The President's negotiations are bearing fruit. President Trump
already announced new trade deals with major trading partners,
including the United Kingdom, Japan, and the European Union. Other such
announcements we expect to be forthcoming.
And I urge other trading partners of the United States to reach
similar deals.
Consequently, S.J. Res. 77 is counterproductive to the progress
already made by the President and to new gains he can still achieve in
the ongoing negotiations with our trading partners. Let's truly get a
balanced, fair playing field in trade.
On April 30, the Senate rejected the joint resolution of disapproval
of IEEPA-based reciprocal tariffs for the same reasons. I recommend we
do the same thing today and reject this resolution.

[[Page S7821]]

I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, in conclusion, I want to say this: One,
thank you to Senator Kaine and Senator Warner, the two Senators from
Virginia, for their leadership on this important resolution; Senator
Wyden for all of his work; Senator Rand Paul and others who have stood
with us, who have stood with capitalism, who have stood with this idea
that trade matters and that our country is stronger when we do business
and sell our goods across the seas and to our friendly neighbors like
Canada.
Let me start with Canada. As the head of the Inter-Parliamentary
Group with Canada, I spent a lot of time working with the Canadians. It
was one Embassy, years ago, when America was disliked by a lot of
countries, that displayed on their Embassy huge banners that said:
``Friend, Ally, Partner.''
For so many of our States, they are our biggest trading partner. They
fought alongside us in two World Wars. They are our partners in NORAD
and in NATO. They worked with us together on supply chains and getting
them back working after the pandemic. They are setting new historic
goals, Canada is, to contribute to our collective defense, planning to
triple defense spending over the next decade.
So what does this administration do? Slap them with a 35-percent
tariff. And then, just because the President woke up in the morning and
didn't like an ad that quoted a beloved Republican President, Ronald
Reagan, didn't like it, he said: Well, I am going to give them 10
percent more.
Yet this is a country with which we share a trade agreement that this
President negotiated with Mexico and Canada. If you want to make
changes, like for dairy or other things, do it in the review of that
agreement. Don't do it like this to a neighbor and friend.
Secondly, what do these tariffs mean to America? mean to the people
in our country? Combined, they have been changed over 100 times--total
chaos. Inflation is up. Manufacturing jobs are down. Small farm
bankruptcies are at their highest levels in 5 years, and every Senator
in this Chamber has heard from their beef producers or heard from their
soybean farmers. What is happening right now, as one of my farmers
called it, is a ``perfect storm of ugly.''
For an individual family right now, these tariffs mean a $2,000 tax
per family. Tools are up. Audio equipment costs more. This is the
effect of this tariff policy on individual families in America.
So we can have high-ended debates here, but at home, they are looking
at their grocery prices. They are looking at their markets, their
family farms--that they spent a century there, they are next in line to
take it over--drying up. That is what these tariffs are about.
Then, finally, this President cannot keep abusing his power like
this. There is a reason, when you look at the numbers, who supports
this resolution: United Steelworkers, International Association of
Machinists, North America's Building Trades Unions, the AFL-CIO, the
Chamber of Commerce, the National Taxpayers Union, the National Retail
Federation have all endorsed this resolution.
But, unfortunately, with a few exceptions, our friends on the other
side of the aisle are just rubberstamping what this President wants.
Well, it is time for us to stand up. This vote is about reasserting
Congress's constitutional role, article I, section 8, of the
Constitution gives Congress--not the President--the power to impose
tariffs and regulate commerce with foreign nations. We must stand up
for American workers, businesses, and consumers and remind our allies
and ourselves that America keeps its word.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, first, I want to thank our great Senators
Klobuchar and Kaine and Wyden for leading the charge here on the Senate
floor against Donald Trump's destructive, self-defeating, and often
utterly juvenile trade war.
Today, the Senate will vote to end Donald Trump's national emergency
declaration against Canada and put a stop to the asinine trade war with
our neighbors to the north. This has been the most peaceful
relationship over the centuries, and Donald Trump seems to throw a hand
grenade to undo that relationship. We need to put a stop to this
asinine trade war with our neighbors to the north.
And if Americans want proof that Donald Trump's trade war has been a
catastrophe, consider this: While he capitulates to Beijing, he is
raising tariffs on Canada.
How nonsensical. How stupid. How thoughtless.
Canada--one of our strongest allies, one of our most important
trading partners. I don't know of two large economies that are more
entwined than America's and Canada's. And after a year and a half of
failed trade war, Americans have not gotten liberation. Instead,
Americans have been saddled with a national sales tax. That is what
Trump's tariffs are, a national sales tax on Americans.
The average family--America, listen to this--the average family,
American family, is paying $2,000 more a year thanks to Trump's
tariffs. Our farmers are taking a beating.
In New York, Donald Trump's 35 percent tariffs on Canada have been
devastating. We depend on tourism. More than a quarter of the tourists
who visit Niagara Falls and the wine country in the Finger Lakes region
are from Canada. So many from Canada flood New York City every year.
And yet, this year, tourism and border crossings are down 20 percent.
Western New York and Buffalo depend on those border crossings all the
time.
Trade between our Nations has been hurt. Jobs have been squandered.
The economy of every northern border State--as with Minnesota--has
suffered.
And now Donald Trump wants to add another 10 percent tariff on Canada
because his feelings were hurt over an ad featuring Ronald Reagan. Can
you imagine what an infantile leader we have in America? He sees an ad
and then hurts the American people with these tariffs.
Yes, that is right. Donald Trump's pride has become so fragile that
he is threatening to increase tariffs on Canada by another 10 percent,
from 35 percent to 45 percent. Why? Simply because the government of
Ontario released an ad that included a radio address from President
Reagan, warning about the danger of tariffs, and, apparently, that got
Donald Trump's feelings all hurt.
Trump is letting his delicate little ego drive U.S. trade, whether it
is with Brazil, Argentina, or with Canada. The consequence is that
Americans are paying more.
This isn't a laughing matter, really--no. Struggling families have to
pay thousands of dollars more each year because Donald Trump doesn't
like the internal goings on in Canada or Argentina or Brazil. That
hurts Americans, and we pay more for construction materials, for
aluminum, for paper, and so much more.
But do you know what? The truth hurts. What President Reagan said,
back in those years, about the danger of tariffs was true back then and
remains true today. And I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle
disagree.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the radio address
delivered by President Reagan on free trade and on the harms of tariffs
on the economy, on April 25, 1987, be printed in the Congressional
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade

(April 25, 1987)

My fellow Americans: Prime Minister Nakasone of Japan will
be visiting me here at the White House next week. It's an
important visit, because while I expect to take up our
relations with our good friend Japan, which overall remain
excellent, recent disagreements between our two countries on
the issue of trade will also be high on our agenda.
As perhaps you've heard, last week I placed new duties on
some Japanese products in response to Japan's inability to
enforce their trade agreement with us on electronic devices
called semiconductors. Now, imposing such tariffs or trade
barriers and restrictions of any kind are steps that I am
loath to take. And in a moment I'll mention the sound
economic reasons for this: that over the long run such trade
barriers hurt every American

[[Page S7822]]

worker and consumer. But the Japanese semiconductors were a
special case. We had clear evidence that Japanese companies
were engaging in unfair trade practices that violated an
agreement between Japan and the United States. We expect our
trading partners to live up to their agreements. As I've
often said: Our commitment to free trade is also a commitment
to fair trade.
But you know, in imposing these tariffs we were just trying
to deal with a particular problem, not begin a trade war. So,
next week I'll be giving Prime Minister Nakasone this same
message: We want to continue to work cooperatively on trade
problems and want very much to lift these trade restrictions
as soon as evidence permits. We want to do this, because we
feel both Japan and the United States have an obligation to
promote the prosperity and economic development that only
free trade can bring.
Now, that message of free trade is one I conveyed to
Canada's leaders a few weeks ago, and it was warmly received
there. Indeed, throughout the world there's a growing
realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is
rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and
free competition. Now, there are sound historical reasons for
this. For those of us who lived through the Great Depression,
the memory of the suffering it caused is deep and searing.
And today many economic analysts and historians argue that
high tariff legislation passed back in that period called the
Smoot-Hawley tariff greatly deepened the depression and
prevented economic recovery.
You see, at first, when someone says, ``Let's impose
tariffs on foreign imports,'' it looks like they're doing the
patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And
sometimes for a short while it works--but only for a short
time. What eventually occurs is: First, homegrown industries
start relying on government protection in the form of high
tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative
management and technological changes they need to succeed in
world markets. And then, while all this is going on,
something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to
retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce
trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and
higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So,
soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs
that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop
buying. Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse;
businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people
lose their jobs.
The memory of all this occurring back in the thirties made
me determined when I came to Washington to spare the American
people the protectionist legislation that destroys
prosperity. Now, it hasn't always been easy. There are those
in this Congress, just as there were back in the thirties,
who want to go for the quick political advantage, who will
risk America's prosperity for the sake of a short-term appeal
to some special interest group, who forget that more than 5
million American jobs are directly tied to the foreign export
business and additional millions are tied to imports. Well,
I've never forgotten those jobs. And on trade issues, by and
large, we've done well. In certain select cases, like the
Japanese semiconductors, we've taken steps to stop unfair
practices against American products, but we've still
maintained our basic, long-term commitment to free trade and
economic growth.
So, with my meeting with Prime Minister Nakasone and the
Venice economic summit coming up, it's terribly important not
to restrict a President's options in such trade dealings with
foreign governments. Unfortunately, some in the Congress are
trying to do exactly that. I'll keep you informed on this
dangerous legislation, because it's just another form of
protectionism and I may need your help to stop it. Remember,
America's jobs and growth are at stake.
Until next week, thanks for listening, and God bless you.

Mr. SCHUMER. Yesterday, the Senate came together in a bipartisan way
to pass legislation to end Donald Trump's bogus emergency declaration
in Brazil, under the leadership of Senator Kaine. Today, we can take
the next step to reverse Trump's trade war on one of America's most
important allies, under the leadership of Senator Klobuchar. I urge--I
urge--my Republican colleagues to join Democrats once again to think
about the families back home that are hurt by Trump's tariffs and put
an end to Trump's tariff war on Canada.
Enough is enough.
I ask unanimous consent to yield back the remaining time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Under the previous order, the clerk will read the title of the joint
resolution for a third time.
The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading
and was read the third time.

Vote on S.J. Res. 77

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint resolution having been read the
third time, the question is, Shall the joint resolution pass?
Mr. SCHUMER. 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 legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Mississippi (Mrs. Hyde-Smith), the Senator from Louisiana
(Mr. Kennedy), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego) is
necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 46, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 598 Leg.]

YEAS--50

Alsobrooks
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt Rochester
Booker
Cantwell
Collins
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Fetterman
Gillibrand
Hassan
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Markey
McConnell
Merkley
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Paul
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schiff
Schumer
Shaheen
Slotkin
Smith
Van Hollen
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden

NAYS--46

Banks
Barrasso
Blackburn
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Husted
Johnson
Justice
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Mullin
Ricketts
Risch
Rounds
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Young

NOT VOTING--4

Gallego
Hyde-Smith
Kennedy

Wicker
The joint resolution (S.J. Res. 77) was passed, as follows:

S.J. Res. 77

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That,
pursuant to section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50
U.S.C. 1622), the national emergency declared on February 1,
2025, by the President in Executive Order 14193 (90 Fed. Reg.
9113) is terminated.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.

Voter Suppression

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, what has always separated America from
other nations around the world is the right to vote. It is a right that
everybody in this body cherishes, as do the American people. Every
person who approaches the ballot box generally has confidence that
their votes are going to be counted and their voice will be heard.
But, as we stand here, this cherished right is coming under attack
because, in 2026, we can expect a continuation of what is happening in
these last 9 months: that the Trump administration is doing everything
it can to undermine the confidence in elections and sow distrust in the
election process.
It is like a spider weaving a web. The Trump administration has
crafted multiple strands that, when combined together, attack and
change the voting landscape in a way that America will not recognize.
Trump is attempting to strip power from the States, consolidate it
for himself, and subvert the will of the people. It is systematic, it
is strategic, and it is deeply and urgently serious.
Today, I am beginning an extended effort to elevate this issue and
sound the alarm--because voters will go to the polls this Tuesday, and
my fear is that it could be the last free and fair election, unless we
rise up and we act. And this fear is not mine alone. I have heard it
all around Connecticut and from my colleagues all around the country,
and it is well founded.
President Trump's crusade of voter suppression and election
subversion started on day one of the administration, when he pardoned
the individuals who participated in the violent attack on the Capitol
on January 6. That January 6 attack was not a protest or even just a
riot. It was an assault on the very heart of our democracy. In
attempting to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020
election,

[[Page S7823]]

the January 6 insurrectionists sought to nullify the votes and shatter
the peaceful transfer of power that has characterized our democracy for
nearly 250 years.
President Trump provided a blanket pardon to the January 6 attackers
and thereby endorsed and placed the Presidential seal of approval on
their actions and their direction and goal of seeking to overturn the
will of the people. So it was no accident that these pardons were one
of President Trump's very first acts in office. It was an unmistakable
signal that his administration would be obsessed with suppressing votes
and undermining free and fair elections.
And since that very first day in office, President Trump and his
administration have been praising and hiring into leadership positions
the very people who attempted to subvert our democracy. In fact, just
this past month, the White House reportedly hired Kurt Olsen, a lawyer
who attempted to overturn the 2020 election results, and he is working
officially as a ``special government employee'' tasked with looking
into the 2020 election and current voting machines.
But rewriting the history of January 6 was only the beginning of a
relentless, purposeful campaign to stoke fear among voters and sow
seeds of distrust in American elections. They have employed Federal
Agencies to help do some of the dirty work. In fact, President Trump
has weaponized several Federal Agencies against you, the voters. He is
using these Agencies as instruments to suppress your vote.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice
have both taken alarming actions in recent months targeting the vote.
At DHS, a senior Department leader, Heather Honey, an election denier
and conspiracy theorist in her own right, reportedly told State and
local election officials that the administration could declare a
``national emergency'' based on the claim that the 2020 election was
stolen to obtain ``additional powers that don't exist right now'' and
act ``without Congress'' to ``mandate that States'' adopt her
preferred, radical election rules.
In addition, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency,
known as CISA, a critical Agency within DHS that works with State and
local officials to protect the security of our elections, has been
gutted. CISA has been instrumental in protecting our elections from
cyber attacks and threats by foreign and domestic actors. These attacks
are growing, not diminishing.
I don't have to reveal any classified information for the American
people to know that attacks by our adversaries on our election system
are an increasing threat, but instead of bolstering CISA, President
Trump has placed on administrative leave or reassigned nearly all of
its election experts. In their place, President Trump has installed
inexperienced political activists who sought to overturn the results of
the 2020 election.
Marci McCarthy, named director of public affairs at CISA, was
responsible for spreading false claims about faulty voting machines in
Georgia.
This past July, Sean Plankey, the nominee to head CISA, refused to
answer me when I asked him in a hearing if he believed that the 2020
election was stolen.
President Trump has also chosen to attack CISA officials. In April,
President Trump issued an Executive order directing the Department of
Justice and DHS to investigate Chris Krebs, the former head of CISA,
calling him a ``bad-faith actor'' who ``weaponized and abused'' his
authority--all because Krebs refused to lie and say Trump's 2020
election was rigged. And because Krebs said there was no evidence in
2020 that ``any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or
was in any way compromised,'' he was attacked, and that Executive order
asked DHS to target him.
At the same time, President Trump has dismantled CISA's election
security programs, including by terminating initiatives that monitor
foreign disinformation and cutting the funding of systems that detect,
deter, and alert States and localities about cyber and physical attacks
on election infrastructure.

This dismantling of CISA is fundamental and deeply alarming, but at
the Department of Justice, things are no better. President Trump took
an ax to the Department of Justice's Voting Section within the Civil
Rights Division, that historic section established to protect and
uplift the vote.
First, he decimated the Voting Section staff. In January, it was
estimated that the section had 30 attorneys on staff to enforce voting
rights laws. Today, it is three. Then he decimated its mission,
transforming the section from a bulwark against voting suppression into
its opposite: a mechanism to suppress voters and stoke fears of voter
fraud.
So instead of lifting up the work of voting rights and serving as a
staunch defender of voters in the courts, the section has withdrawn its
engagement in seven active voting cases. Where it does remain involved,
in redistricting cases such as Louisiana v. Callais, it has taken a
sudden and staunch anti-voter stance.
The Department of Justice has decided to make a mockery of poll
monitoring as well. The Trump DOJ will now use poll monitoring--which
began as an effort to secure minorities' votes when they were denied it
following passage of the Voting Rights Act--to potentially intimidate
and surveil voters and officials alike at polling sites in California
and New Jersey. He is doing it at the request of the Republican Party
officials in those States, ahead of the November 4 election.
Those anti-voter campaigns are coupled with efforts to distort the
electoral maps. Since President Trump took office, he has pressured
Republican State legislators to ignore the will of their voters and
effectively elect representatives through extreme and unabashedly
partisan gerrymandering. This flagrantly abusive redistricting occurred
in States like Texas, representing a top-down campaign directed by
President Trump to eradicate as many congressional districts as
possible that could conceivably elect a Democrat.
For example, the new Texas redistricting seeks to gift Republicans 80
percent of its House seats in a State where Democrats routinely receive
between 40 and 50 percent of the vote in congressional districts. It is
plainly a move designed to target minority voters.
The same playbook follows in Missouri and North Carolina. These are
the actions of desperate politicians--desperate because they know how
deeply unpopular their policies are with voters, policies of stripping
people of their healthcare, cutting taxes for the rich, and sending the
military into American streets. Instead of changing those policies to
win over voters, the Trump administration is seeking to disenfranchise
the voters, suppress votes, and rig these elections by shamelessly
moving voters to new districts.
President Trump and Republicans have started a tit-for-tat
redistricting arms race where Democrats are forced to fight fire with
fire and play catchup to undo Republicans' damage and restore balanced
representation. And the ones who suffer are the voters. Their voices
are ignored and often silenced by frightened partisan politicians.
But it isn't just the voters who are undermined; it is our States as
well. Under the Constitution, it is the States that have the power to
oversee the time, place, and manner of their elections, subject only to
legislation enacted by Congress. The President is given no role--zero--
in that process. States are not agents for the Federal Government,
hamstrung to Presidential orders when it comes to elections. In this
space of elections, they have their own independent, sovereign
authority. Yet President Trump believes he can dictate the rules over
our elections and seize power from the States for himself, and he has
sought to do it in a number of important ways that ought to concern
this body, especially because we represent our States.
Foremost among his tactics, he wants to supplant States in
determining the means, methods, and mechanisms for placing our votes.
Those mechanisms vary. For example, some States use more mail-in voting
than others, and States don't always have the same approach to early
voting. Rather than the States making those calls, he wants to be Big
Brother himself, watching how elections must be run, dictating how it
is done.
The DOJ has already unsuccessfully sought access to voting machines
in

[[Page S7824]]

Missouri, sending a request to ``access, physically inspect and perhaps
take physical custody of election equipment used in the 2020 November
general election.''
In March 2025, President Trump issued an Executive order--another
Executive order--that attempted to mandate that the independent,
bipartisan Election Assistance Commission rescind all previous
certifications of voting equipment and recertify systems under amended
guidelines. That order is currently being challenged in court. It is
plainly unlawful, it is reckless, it is unfair to the States, and it is
a false solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist.
President Trump has called voting machines ``highly inaccurate, very
expensive, and seriously controversial.'' There is zero evidence--
zero--to support these claims. It is all just a pretext to insert
Federal control over States' rights. States do have rights, and
President Trump is trying to override them roughshod.
His tactics are similar with mail-in ballots. In the 2024 election,
nearly one-third of Americans voted by mail. Mail-in voting is
instrumental in helping our troops and making sure that every voice is
heard, even when they are overseas.
President Trump has stated that he wants to ``lead a movement'' to
get rid of mail-in voting, and he posted this past week on social
media: ``No mail-in or `Early' Voting.'' He has assigned lawyers to
craft another Executive order to stop it.
The irony is not lost on anyone that President Trump himself voted by
mail in the 2020 election when he cast his ballot in Florida.
In some States, such as Oregon and Washington, mail-in ballots are
the primary mechanism used by voters. Attempting to illegally strip
States of this right will decimate the way our citizens are heard and
the foundational principle of States' rights.
By law, by tradition, by history, and sound public policy, States
make this call, not the President, and attempting to strip States of
these rights is flagrantly illegal and unconstitutional.
President Trump's lackeys have attempted to bully States into handing
over sensitive and personal information contained within State voter
rolls. DOJ has requested information or meetings about election
administration from States and has demanded 40 States--40 States--
provide their full voter registration lists. In a private meeting,
Michael Gates, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of
Justice Civil Rights Division, disclosed that all 50 States will
eventually receive these requests. The eight States that so far have
refused to turn over that data are now being sued by the Department of
Justice.
Trump is attempting to compile the largest list of voter roll data
ever in our history in order to bolster unsubstantiated and false
claims of illegal voting by noncitizens, despite the fact that
noncitizen voting is essentially nonexistent.
This type of national voter roll collection is totally unprecedented
in our history. Nothing like it has ever been done before. Nothing like
this invasion of privacy and promises to voters would have been
imaginable before January of this year.
The information he is requesting includes your driver's license
number, your Social Security number, your name, your address, your
political party, and your voting history. He wants to know who you are
and potentially use that information however he pleases. He wants to
use that information against States as well--more broadly, to be the
judge and jury of whether States are effectively running their own
elections, despite the fact that States--and I apologize for repeating
it--States are tasked with administering elections under the
Constitution.
In case Trump's DOJ can't dismantle elections using all of these
maligned tactics, the administration is also targeting election
officials who seek to run efficient, fair, honest elections and to
calculate and certify election results in a nonpartisan way. They are
at work in every election. Everybody in this body knows what they do
and knows how important they are to free and fair elections.
President Trump's DOJ has a new weaponization working group with a
focus on targeting election officials as a result of supposedly
widespread voter fraud. It is the product of fever imagination.
The Department of Justice is also exploring whether they can bring
criminal charges against State and local officials if they believe that
those officials have not adequately safeguarded their computer systems
from harm, despite gutting CISA--the very Agency tasked with assisting
them in safeguarding their computers and software.
To instill fear in election workers, the administration is doing
everything it can to signal that it will punish anyone who doesn't bow
to them.
Since 2020, Trump has been posting on social media and publicly
calling for prosecution against election officials he accuses of
working against him. Prosecuting election officials won't make
elections any safer or fairer; it is simply about creating fear and
anxiety. It will lead to an exodus of individuals--it already has
begun--that we need to rely on to run our elections.
The fearmongering seems to be having its effect ever since Trump
began espousing false claims of stolen elections in 2020 and putting
this kind of pressure on the dedicated men and women who show up for
elections to help run them. Election officials have reported
harassment, threats, and abuse locally.
Election officials with institutional knowledge of how local systems
run and who are imperative to registering voters and maintaining voter
processes are leaving their roles at an alarming rate. The turnover was
especially pronounced in large jurisdictions where the Trump campaign
focused its misinformation campaign around 2020 elections.
Now, each of these individual actions of anti-election assault is
serious and significant, but each action needs to be seen together as
something deeper and broader. It is the sum and substance of
totalitarianism--not at some distant point in the future, not a vague
storm cloud on the horizon, but the destruction of democracy here and
now.
As we approach our democracy's 250th anniversary, we can't afford the
luxury of defeatism or despair or complacency. We need to join together
and sound the alarm across differences of political party, geography,
financial interests, personal background, and all the rest. Join in
this body--come together because we have a common interest in making
sure that elections are free and fair.
More than words, we need action--your action as voters registering to
vote and enabling others to do so, volunteering to work at the polls
and supporting election officials and administrators, contributing to
organizations that defend voting rights in court, demanding that public
officials unite against the sabotage of our democracy, and uniting at
rallies, townhalls, and every other forum available to make your voice
known.
I will be reaching out to colleagues on both sides of the aisle and
coming to the floor and reaching out to the American people. Just as we
threw off the yoke of monarchy 2\1/2\ centuries ago, the American
people still have the power to determine their own future. They still
have the courage to make ``good trouble,'' as John Lewis, the historic
voting champion, famously said. Most of all, the American people have
the will and fortitude to stand up to this assault.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.

Government Funding

Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, the government has been shut down for
nearly a month--the longest full government shutdown in American
history. It all began with the Democratic leader's desire to play
politics with people's lives and paychecks.
Americans, including those in Louisiana, are paying the price.
Nationwide, 1.4 million Federal employees--many of whom, of course, are
living paycheck to paycheck--are furloughed or working without pay, and
13,000 air traffic controllers have already missed 1 paycheck and will
miss another soon.
SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and food
stamps--these benefits run out November 1 in many States, like mine,
and that is just 2 days away. In Louisiana alone, that is 804,000
individuals, including 312,000 children, who rely on SNAP.

[[Page S7825]]

Now, this is not an abstract ideological issue; we are literally
talking about food on the table. SNAP can be the difference between a
child having a full belly, going to sleep, waking up the next morning,
and going to school happy and that same child asking their mom when is
the next time they will eat a meal, going to bed hungry, and doing
poorly the next day.
Republicans are working to extend the program. I want a bill to fund
SNAP, but it looks like we will not have Democratic support to pass.
There are a lot of empty dinner tables and a lot of children going to
bed hungry. Democrats have voted against reopening our government 13
times. Thirteen times they have voted to deny children food, sending
families to food banks instead.
I am told that food banks will not be able to keep up. Federal
workers, single parents with young children, walking into empty food
banks. That is coming from a party that regularly claims that they are
the party of children, families, and vulnerable communities.
Republicans and the Trump administration are working hard to mitigate
the worst parts of the shutdown. President Trump found the money to pay
our troops through the generosity of a patriotic American. Senate
Republicans voted for a bill to pay all Federal employees, including
air traffic controllers who are working without pay now. Democrats
blocked it.
They are the party of ``no.'' And the bizarre part is no one is quite
sure why, until one of their leaders said the quiet part out loud. The
House Democratic whip acknowledged that Democrats are allowing people
to suffer because of the shutdown but said:

There will be families that are going to suffer . . . but
it is one of the few leverage times that we have.

This is the second highest ranking House Democrat openly confirming
that working families are being used as political leverage.
This is all about politics, not what is best for the people of our
country. Now, they will tell you it is about healthcare, but their
position crumbles under scrutiny. If it were about healthcare costs,
why would they make people suffer more in order to change healthcare
policy rather than reopen the government and negotiate with Republicans
on solutions which actually lower healthcare costs?
Republicans have repeatedly said we will negotiate to lower
healthcare costs, just not while Americans suffer. Our position is
clear: End the shutdown, and then let's talk about healthcare. It seems
reasonable.
You might ask why they are still voting against reopening the
government. It is because they know that their proposals on healthcare
won't actually lower healthcare costs.
Under Democrats' current plan, premiums still go up next year, not to
mention their proposed solution is just aimed at papering over the mess
that ObamaCare created because the facts are clear: The Affordable Care
Act did not make care affordable.
All of this seems like one elaborate attempt to save face. Well, it
is not working, and, more importantly, Americans are suffering. I
repeat: Reopen the government, then let's have a conversation about the
areas in healthcare we can address to actually lower premium costs and
out-of-pocket costs for middle-income Americans.
By the way, the Democrats' current plan will only affect 7 percent of
the people on ObamaCare. Their plan ignores 93 percent of Americans who
will also see costs go up. We need to help all Americans by fixing our
healthcare system, not just paper over the failures of ObamaCare to
help a few.
I will add, for as much as they talk about healthcare, the Democrat
shutdown is defunding important healthcare programs.
As chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee,
I led a bipartisan effort to protect Americans' access to affordable
over-the-counter drugs. The members of my committees worked together to
remodify the Over-the-counter Monograph Drug User Fee Program,
sometimes referred to as OMUFA. This funds the review process to bring
over-the-counter drugs to market.
Because of the shutdown, because of my Democratic colleagues refusing
to vote to open the government, for the first time in history, a user
fee program has expired, meaning patient access to new over-the-counter
treatments for common ailments is in jeopardy.
I am a doctor. I want to tackle the numerous issues facing our
healthcare system. I spent my whole career fighting for patients. Let's
have a conversation about lowering costs for all Americans like those
on Medicare, those with employer-sponsored insurance, and small
business owners who provide insurance to their workers.
If Democrats are interested in lowering healthcare costs, as they say
they are, reopen the government, pay our troops, and stop taking food
from children. I am tired of hearing people say there is no off-ramp or
way out of the shutdown. Here it is, the way forward: Open the
government.

National Flood Insurance Program

Mr. President, I spoke on this floor a month ago about the
consequences of a government shutdown on our country and upon
Louisiana, particularly the half million Louisianans enrolled in the
National Flood Insurance Program or the NFIP.
I called on Senate Democrats to join me and Republican colleagues in
keeping the government open and Congress working. Unfortunately, the
Senate minority leader shut the government down nearly a month ago to
appease a radical base. That is nearly a month that many people in
Louisiana on the NFIP that have gone without the trust, certainty, and
stability that the program is designed to provide.
Families are unable to close on a new house because they can't
purchase a new flood insurance policy. Homeowners are vulnerable during
hurricane season because they cannot renew existing policies, and that
raises a question the American people are asking every day: How can
they trust a government that isn't even open?
Now, by the way, NFIP is not perfect. It faces financial challenges.
Some reforms are needed. But shutting it down makes the problem worse,
not better.

The Democratic leader said that every day the shutdown gets better
for them. Well, I can tell you every day the government is shut down,
it gets worse for the Americans in my State who are worried about
flooding and losing everything.
The American people want solutions. They want a government that
works. They want flood insurance that protects their homes, families,
and livelihoods. That is why I am working on legislation that would
automatically reauthorize the NFIP if there is any lapse in government
funding; in other words, prevent any future shutdown from interrupting
the NFIP.
It fixes the damage caused by the Schumer shutdown and ensures
stability going forward. My colleague John Kennedy from Louisiana and I
have introduced two bills, one to extend NFIP in the short term,
another to provide a full year of coverage.
We are also working toward broader reforms that keep premiums
affordable and the program sustainable for generations to come.
We must reopen the government immediately. Democrats have voted
against doing so 13 times. Thirteen opportunities they have been given
to end their shutdown, and they have thrown it back in the face of all
Americans.
Government services might be on pause, but hurricane season is not.
Reopen the government, restore certainty to the American people,
protect homes, protect families, protect livelihoods. Republicans are
working to prevent the worst effects of the Schumer shutdown from
taking place, but Democrats keep blocking our efforts.
We want to pay the troops. We want to fund SNAP. We want to extend
NFIP. The American people deserve better. They deserve more than the
Democratic Party is willing to give.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Justice). The Senator from Louisiana.

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