Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 195 (Wednesday, November 19, 2025)

[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 195 (Wednesday, November 19, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8218-S8226]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2026--Motion to Proceed--
Continued

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to resume the
motion to proceed to Calendar No. 136, H.R. 4016.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 505

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, it is hard to believe that we are
nearly at the end of the year, and that is the end of the year since we
started this session of Congress and also President Trump's second term
in office.
And in that time, there is so much that we have done to get this
country back on track and to begin to undo the damage that was
inflicted on so many Americans by the Biden administration. We could
take a look at the economy because under the Biden administration,
inflation reached its highest point in over four decades; far-left
regulations killed jobs, and it held industry back; and our trade
deficit exploded. Now, in Tennessee, that hurt our farmers and our
manufacturers.
Today, the U.S. economy is on the path to being stronger than ever
before, thanks to the President's pro-growth agenda, trillions of
dollars in new investments, the largest tax cut in history. All of that
came about through the Big Beautiful Bill.
Inflation is down 67 percent; jobless claims are beginning to come
down;

[[Page S8219]]

and the most recent data shows that the U.S. economy is growing at an
annual rate of 3.8 percent. Now, that is the fastest pace in nearly 2
years.
At the same time, President Trump and his administration have
completely reversed the Biden policies and failures at the southern
border. For 4 years, President Biden claimed that there was nothing
that he could do--nothing at all--to stop more than 10 million illegal
aliens from entering our country, including tens of thousands of
convicted criminals.
At one point, the daily average of border encounters topped 15,000,
and across the country, Americans suffered the tragic consequences,
including rampant migrant crime. Today, our border is secure, thanks to
President Trump's strong enforcement of the rule of law. Last month,
there were just under 8,000 Border Patrol apprehensions at the
southwest border--95 percent lower than the monthly average under
President Biden. And unlike the Biden administration, President Trump
is turning these lawbreakers away instead of welcoming them with
taxpayer-funded benefits.
For the sixth straight month, there were zero parole releases into
our country. By comparison, in October of 2024 alone, Biden released
more than 10,000 illegal aliens into the country.
President Trump and Republicans are also working to undo the damage
done by President Biden's two-tiered justice system. Under his watch,
the Justice Department and the FBI were rotten to the core, targeting
anyone who stood up to the deep State.
They raided Mar-a-Lago, indicted President Trump on baseless charges,
and weaponized America's top law enforcement Agency against
conservatives, parents, and people of faith. Through Jack Reed Smith's
Arctic Frost probe, this abuse of power reached the Halls of Congress,
surveilling lawmakers over our political beliefs. The American people
want one tier of justice: equal justice for all.
That is why President Trump and Republicans are fighting for full
accountability for those who weaponized our government. We must ensure
that this abuse of power never ever happens again.
Under the President's leadership, our Federal law enforcement
Agencies are focused on their core purpose, enforcing the rule of law
and fighting crime. Now, when we talk about fighting crime in
Tennessee, we look at Memphis. Last year, the city recorded the highest
crime rate in the country, and, for years, Memphians have demanded
action to address the crime crisis.
Now President Trump is delivering it with the Memphis Safe Task
Force. By coordinating efforts between more than a dozen Federal and
State Agencies, including the Memphis Police Department, Tennessee
National Guard, FBI, Justice Department, and U.S. Marshals, the task
force is delivering incredible results.
In just over a month of operations, authorities have made more than
2,800 arrests, including 164 warrant arrests for aggravated assault,
185 for domestic violence, 83 for narcotics, 34 for robbery, 22 for
sexual assault, 25 for homicide. The task force has also located more
than 110 missing children. In many ways, the Memphis Safe Task Force is
serving as a national model for President Trump's broader mission to
reduce violent crime across the country.
Mr. President, that is why I am asking unanimous consent that the
Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 505, which is at the
desk; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed
to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the
table with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, my
understanding is this is a resolution that has been fairly recently
introduced, so I just got a chance to look at it just really minutes
ago.
But it is a concerning resolution. I just want to talk about why I am
going to object. First of all, my friend from Tennessee is right,
Tennessee has a crime problem. Tennessee has the sixth highest rate of
gun crime in the Nation. If you look at the list of the top 10 States
with the highest rates of gun crime, it is Wyoming, Mississippi,
Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Montana, Oklahoma, all States
represented by Republican Senators, all States with Republican
legislatures, all States with Republican Governors.
These aren't States that skimp on law enforcement, but they are
States that have wildly irresponsible gun laws. They are States that
don't invest in interrupting cycles of violence, so it is true that
there is a pretty significant violent crime problem in Wyoming and in
Mississippi and Alabama and Louisiana, Arkansas, Montana, Oklahoma, and
in Tennessee.
But I just came across this article from the Tennessee Lookout which
quotes data compiled by the University of Memphis, and it says that the
increase in arrests in Memphis has been for nonviolent offenses. In
fact, a quote from General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer says:

This is supposed to be a ``Make Memphis Safe Task Force,''
and really what it is, is a ``Make Memphis Drive the Speed
Limit Task Force.''

In fact, the University of Memphis discovered that there hasn't been
any influx of new cases involving violent crimes. It seems as if the
statistics that the Senator just referenced aren't really different
than any other month. What is happening is that there are just a lot
more traffic arrests and a lot more nonviolent drug arrests.
I came across another article entitled `` `I Don't Feel Safe': Black
Memphis Residents Report Harassment by Trump's Police Task Force.''
This is a long article detailing several instances of pretty horrific
treatment of Memphis's Black residents, including racial profiling and
other civil rights offenses.
I came across another article--this is just in like the last 5
minutes because I didn't have a lot of time to prepare for this--which
details a disturbing pattern under President Trump of law enforcement
resources being diverted from combating child abuse, sex trafficking,
and terrorism because of this apparent obsession with safe driving in
Memphis or this obsession with harassing and locking up peaceful
immigrants.
So it just doesn't feel like the words in this resolution match up
with the reality right now. It seems as if this task force is locking
up people and arresting people for nonviolent offenses. It seems as if
we are diverting resources from really serious crimes, like terrorism
and child abuse. It feels like there are some potential civil rights
abuses happening in Memphis.
But it also is just written in a way that is probably much more
appropriate for a campaign flyer. The resolve clause is ``recognizing
the monumental success of Donald Trump's decisive leadership.'' It
calls Donald Trump the most pro-law enforcement President in history. I
think this is probably better in a flyer for Donald Trump's reelection
campaign in 2028 that he wants to run rather than on the Senate floor.
By the way, in closing, talk to the Capitol Police here about whether
Donald Trump is the most pro-law enforcement President in the history
of the country. Talk to the police officer who was beat over the head
by a flagpole by a rioter in this building who was pardoned by Donald
Trump. Ask the police officer who was tased in the neck by one of
Donald Trump's supporters and then pardoned whether Donald Trump is the
most pro-law enforcement President in history.
This President pardoned every single violent rioter. All you guys
said: Oh, well, you know, there were some nonviolent rioters here, and
they should be let off the hook, but, no, we shouldn't let off the
violent rioters. Donald Trump pardoned every single violent rioter--
rioters who viciously beat Capitol Police officers. All of my
Republican friends just looked the other way and said: Well, if Donald
Trump thinks that is OK, then so be it.
So, yeah, it seems like the story in Memphis is a lot more
complicated than my friend from Tennessee would have us believe, which
is why today we shouldn't pass this resolution. We should probably get
to the bottom of what is happening.
But it is just offensive to call this President the most pro-law
enforcement President in the history of the country when he is
endorsing--endorsing and excusing violence being perpetuated on the
people that serve us and

[[Page S8220]]

protect us here in the U.S. Capitol, and for that reason, I will
object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Tennessee.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, what the Senator fails to mention is
that the cities with the high crime problem are blue cities. They are
blue cities.
Also, what he should know is that 63 percent of the residents of
Memphis support having the Memphis Safe Task Force fighting the crime
that is there.
Now, Memphis had the highest rate per capita in the Nation in 2024,
with 2,501 instances of violent crime for every 100,000 people. Now,
that is a stat that came from the FBI, and it is why the people in
Memphis wanted us to move forward and do something about this.
Since the start of the task force, overall, violent crime rates have
fallen 46 percent when compared to the same period last year, and
homicides are down 50 percent. Carjackings and sexual assault are down
60 percent.
So when my colleague objects to this, he is objecting to what the
good people of Memphis in this fabulous, iconic city are seeing--the
results they are seeing. They want Memphis to be the safest city in the
country, not the most violent.
They have objected to the arrest of nearly 2,900 criminals in the
last 50 days, including sex offenders, murderers, and other violent
criminals. They have objected to the rescue of 116 missing children--
116 children who have been recovered. They have objected to over 300
known gang members being apprehended. They have objected to the seizure
of 470 illegal firearms.
We are going to continue to work to make certain that Memphis is the
safest city in the United States.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I think what Senator Murphy was
objecting to was calling Donald Trump the most pro-law enforcement
President in American history, and I think he laid out all the reasons
why that simply isn't true.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1975

Mr. President, I am here because today marks the 50th anniversary of
the Senate's passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act, known as IDEA. It was just a few weeks after the Senate passed
that bill that it was signed into law on November 29, 1975, by
President Ford--a bipartisan achievement and a landmark achievement for
the United States of America.
I am grateful that my colleagues Senator Kaine and Senator Hirono are
also on the floor with me today to discuss this important achievement
50 years later.
When that passed the Senate and, of course, when it was signed into
law, it guaranteed the right to a free, appropriate public education
for children with disabilities. For the first time in America, the law
required that schools meet that commitment to all our kids, including
kids with disabilities. That is why schools have now developed
individualized education programs for students who need them, to meet
that requirement. Now children with disabilities share classrooms with
kids without disabilities. And it created a process for families to
challenge schools that don't uphold their child's right to a good
education.
This was a watershed moment in our history and the history of
education. IDEA helped end a very dark chapter in our not too distant
past when our public schools excluded 80 percent of children with
disabilities, and many States forced disabled people to live out their
entire lives hidden away in institutions.
For decades, the Federal Government wrote off people with
disabilities as ``uneducable,'' and they claimed they could not learn
in schools, and they claimed that they could not fit into our society.
The government was wrong. It was dead wrong. It was wrong on the
facts because people with disabilities can succeed in school and in the
workforce with the right accommodations, and it was wrong morally
because that discrimination violated one of the most fundamental
American values--that all people are created equal, and all deserve
equal dignity and opportunity. It was IDEA that helped right that
wrong.
I would be remiss if I did not take the occasion of this anniversary
to acknowledge all the people who make special education work every day
in America. They are the students with disabilities and their families
and their caregivers. They are the teachers, the special education
teachers, the paraprofessionals, and the teachers' aides. Then there
are the researchers, the advocates, and so many more--the people who
created IDEA and the people who keep it alive today. I commend and
salute all of them on this important anniversary.
But I can't say the same about this Congress or, in fact, any of the
Congresses that convened between that passage 50 years ago and today
because while today marks the 50th anniversary of the Senate's passage
of IDEA, it is also true that today, 50 years later, we are seeing the
continuation of Congress's failure to actually fund the IDEA at the
level we promised, at the level the Federal Government committed to.
You see, when Congress established IDEA, when they passed it into law
and gave schools new responsibilities to uphold the rights of students
with disabilities, Congress also pledged to cover 40 percent of the
cost per pupil so that schools had the resources needed to meet these
new responsibilities. In other words, we established a Federal mandate
for a very good purpose, but then we failed to fund that mandate at the
level we promised.
As a result, every year since it was first passed into law 50 years
ago, Congress has failed to provide the promised funds for IDEA. In
fact, today, we find that IDEA is funded at 12 percent--a little under
12 percent, in fact--of the cost per pupil instead of the 40 percent,
leaving schools and students short a whopping $38 billion every year.
In my State of Maryland alone, we are getting $670 million less per
year than was promised. All across the country, States--Virginia,
Hawaii, other States--struggle to make up that gap for themselves.
When we don't live up to our obligations at the Federal level, it
strains the entire education budgets at the State and local level,
hurting disabled students and also all other students.
Now, 20 years ago, when I was in the House of Representatives, I had
the privilege of passing a number of bills related to helping people
with disabilities. That included the ABLE Act, which was a bipartisan
piece of legislation to help provide families with kids with
disabilities with access to tax-advantaged accounts so that they can
help those kids and better prepare for their futures.
I have had the great opportunity both in the House and the Senate to
pass many other pieces of important legislation, but one of my greatest
disappointments has been the fact that the Congress has never fully
funded IDEA, never did what we promised we would do.
Way back in 2003, I introduced a bill to end the funding gap, to
fully fund IDEA, to require that the funding be phased in over a period
of time until the Federal Government met its responsibilities. I have
introduced that legislation every Congress for the last 22 years.
I have watched as Democrats and Republicans from the Senate and the
House go back to their States and to their districts and tell people
that they really support IDEA and that they really want to make sure
kids with disabilities have that education, that quality education.
They say to families that we are all in to support IDEA. But too many,
when they come back here to Washington, DC, and have to make real
decisions as to where funds are allocated in the Federal budget, when
they have to choose between kids with disabilities and another tax
break for the ultrawealthy, somehow many have a way of forgetting what
they told folks back at home.
You know, I introduced this bill again this Congress, and I am glad
we have 39 Democratic Senators as cosponsors, and we may get more. We
have zero--no Republican Senators as cosponsors. I hope that will
change. I really hope it will change.
As I said at the outset, it was President Ford, a Republican
President, who signed into law the IDEA 50 years ago this year. He
signed that law. That law requires that the Federal Government provide
that 40 percent, and we are at 12 percent today.

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So I hope, on this 50th anniversary of the time the Senate passed it,
our Republican colleagues will join us on this legislation because the
consequences of failing to fund IDEA are visible all over the country.
Expenses are only rising as more students struggle with disabilities.
The good news is that we are developing new techniques for screening
our children and helping them succeed in school. Some of those
techniques require more resources, not less. Yet we are continuing to
fail to meet our responsibilities.

Today, because we don't fully fund the IDEA here at the Federal
level, schools make IEPs for their students, but many cannot follow
through on their own plans, those individual education plans. Deaf
students are going to class without sign language interpreters.
Students with intellectual and developmental disabilities are going
without the one-on-one aides--the aides who help them learn and make
sure they don't get physically hurt.
Underresourced special education staff burn out huge numbers, leaving
tens of thousands of vacant positions. In classrooms all over America--
in each of our States--there is a child who is sitting at the back of
the room, struggling to follow a lesson, falling further and further
behind.
While that child is trying, the Congress is not doing its job. It
would cost $38 billion for Congress to keep its promises to fund
special education this year--$38 billion. That could be made up by the
entire funding gap, three times over, that was included in the so-
called Big Beautiful Bill--more tax cuts for very wealthy people. If
you were to add up all of those tax cuts, it would be $132 billion only
for the part of the population that was in the top 1 percent. So folks
in the top 1 percent income category got $132 billion in tax cuts. That
is three times what would be needed to simply fulfill our obligations
under the IDEA this year.
The Trump administration chose tax cuts for the top 1 percent over
the IDEA just like it chose to give away trillions of dollars to the
very wealthy and pay for it, in part, by defunding programs that
working families depend on, including healthcare, Medicaid, SNAP, and
public education funding, while failing to fully fund the IDEA.
It actually gets worse because, since March, the Trump administration
has fired half of the people at the Department of Education. Then,
during the recent shutdown, the Trump administration attempted to fire
the remaining staff--all of the remaining staff--at the Office of
Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. Those are the people who
implement the parts of the IDEA that we do fund. These are great
American patriots, these Federal employees. Some of them are
Marylanders, some of them are from Virginia, and some of them are from
other parts of the country. They have experience in helping these kids,
and they have knowledge that is very difficult to replace.
Fortunately, a Federal judge paused the firings of these individuals
during the shutdown. The judge wrote that those attempted firings were
nothing more than ``political retribution,'' and that judgment was
reflected in the recent continuing resolution, at least through the end
of January. Nevertheless, the Trump administration keeps looking for
new ways to take resources away from our schools.
In fact, just yesterday--just yesterday--it announced the near total
dismantling of what is left of the Education Department's advancing
education programs. Secretary McMahon has said that her mission at the
Department of Education is to shut down the Department of Education, to
put out of business the Federal Department of Education. She claims
that her objective is efficiency. She claims that kids won't be hurt.
She, obviously, hasn't talked to the parents of kids all over the
country, including the parents of kids with disabilities.
You know, she specifically said at a Senate Appropriations Committee,
on June 3, that ``we are not cutting any of the IDEA funding.'' That
claim covers up what is really happening here because, in September,
the Department of Education and the administration cut 34 grants for
special education, saying that they conflicted with the Trump
administration's priorities. Their targets included teacher training,
parent resource centers, and assistive technology for children with
both hearing and vision loss. Somehow, helping those kids did not meet
with the Trump administration's priorities.
Let me just say that what we are witnessing in realtime is an effort
to gut the special education programs that exist today at the
Department of Education. At the same time, we see a refusal to fully
fund the IDEA program at levels promised by the Federal Government when
it was first launched 50 years ago.
You know, there has always been a credibility gap since that first
commitment was made 50 years ago. I have been standing on the floor--
first in the House and now in the Senate--and making remarks about the
IDEA and the importance of closing this funding and credibility gap for
over 20 years. We still haven't moved ahead.
Again, as I said, every Member of Congress, when they go back home
from here, says they really want to support the IDEA. Now, it is time
that people actually mean what they say and follow through because we
are now at the 50th anniversary of the IDEA.
Some of the children I was hoping to help back in 2003, when I first
introduced the full funding legislation, now have children of their
own. Some of the children we promised to help in 1975--``we'' being the
Congress back then--are now grandparents. We should not allow another
generation to grow up under the shadow of our broken promises.
We passed the IDEA 50 years ago in the same spirit in which we signed
the Declaration of Independence almost 250 years ago. In both cases, we
made great and noble promises. We promised that all men and women were
created equal and that the government would uphold that equality. But
when it comes to funding education for kids with disabilities, that
promise remains broken.
Judy Heumann, who is the mother of the disability rights movement,
once wrote:

Change never happens at the pace we think it should
[happen]. It happens over years of people joining together,
strategizing, sharing, and pulling all the levers they
possibly can. Gradually, excruciatingly slowly, things start
to happen, and then, suddenly, seemingly out of the blue,
something will tip.

Something tipped 50 years ago, when the Senate, on this day, passed
the IDEA bill. It has been a long, excruciating length of time since
then. I hope that now, 50 years later, we will see another tipping
point wherein Members of the House and Senate finally live up to the
obligations that were made 50 years ago to really fully fund special
education at the levels which we promised. We celebrated the passage of
the IDEA 50 years ago. Let us commit ourselves to finally fulfilling
that promise now.
With that, I am happy to yield the floor to the great Senator from
Hawaii, who has been so focused on education generally and special
education in particular, Senator Hirono.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moreno). The Senator from Hawaii.
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Maryland
for his passionate advocacy for IDEA. IDEA is a critical program of the
U.S. Department of Education.
Let me tell you what is happening to the U.S. Department of Education
under President Trump.
We have a regime--that is what I call the Trump administration. It is
a regime hell-bent on dismantling the Federal Government. From
withholding billions in Federal funding to conducting mass firings of
Federal workers and shuttering critical Agencies with hardly any notice
at all, to implementing countless, harmful Executive actions, the Trump
regime has sown chaos, corruption, and cruelty from day one. It is no
wonder that there are now over 300 lawsuits to stop Trump's illegal
actions.
It is clear Trump doesn't give a rip about our government or the
millions of Americans who rely on the services it provides. That
includes the U.S. Department of Education, which does critical work to
ensure our country's more than 50 million--50 million--public school
students can get a quality education.
Instead of trying to strengthen the Department of Education's support
for our Nation's public schools, Trump and his allies are trying to
eliminate the U.S. Department of Education completely. This has always
been part of

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his plan. He began his second term by summarily firing nearly half of
the Department's workforce. He did this in one fell swoop. These
committed people at the Department of Education were told: You don't
have to come to work tomorrow. So this followed the plan laid out,
basically, for President Trump and Project 2025. Then, just this week,
his Secretary of Education laid out plans to slash and dismantle the
Department even further.
Education is foundational. It certainly was for me. As an immigrant,
I came to this country not knowing any English. I didn't read or write
English. It is the education system that this country afforded me that
provided me the opportunities that resulted in my standing here, giving
these remarks.
So, while we can all agree that there are ways we can improve our
education system, we should also be able to agree that there is a role
for the Federal Government in helping to ensure that all students--50
million--receive a quality education. For decades, the Department of
Education has played that role of working to protect students against
discrimination and ensure equal opportunities in our schools.
Of course, one of the ways it does this is by supporting students
with disabilities. Signed into law in 1975, the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, protects the rights of more than 7
million students with disabilities across the country--7 million. The
IDEA helps to ensure these students receive free and appropriate public
education that meets their needs. It also provides funding--yes, we
need to fund the IDEA to the extent that is required--to help support
these students and ensure the oversight of services for students with
disabilities.
Before the IDEA was enacted, we did not have these kinds of Federal
protections for students with disabilities. As a result, there was no
way to ensure that students with disabilities were not denied access to
education or were not neglected in our schools. As noted by my
colleague from Maryland, many of these students didn't even get to go
to school. They didn't have IDEA.
So, later this month, we will celebrate the 50th year of IDEA--the
landmark law that has provided millions of young people with access to
a free and appropriate public education.
Despite the success of the IDEA and programs like it, this regime is
accelerating plans to dismantle the Department of Education and roll
back the progress it has enabled by moving important programs to other
Departments with no education expertise.
Recently, for example, Trump tried to take advantage of the shutdown
to illegally fire hundreds more workers from the Education Department,
including the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services
and the Office for Civil Rights.
Education Secretary McMahon--herself one of Trump's billionaire
buddies--has made the preposterous claim that the shutdown proved the
Education Department is unnecessary. This is the kind of
unsubstantiated--I can hardly believe that she would consider this
proof of any kind, but this is the kind of stuff that the Trump
administration always claims. The regime makes these kinds of
unsubstantiated claims on a regular basis to justify its ill-conceived
and often illegal acts.
In reality, I had constituents reaching out to my office during the
shutdown to share concerns about how furloughs of the Department of
Education were impacting Hawaii's public schools and the students they
serve, including the students with disabilities.
I heard from the mother of a 4-year-old boy who attends a title I
school in Hawaii. She was concerned about how the mass firings of
special education staff threatened the services her child received.
Every public school child who receives special education must have,
as mentioned, an individualized education program, or IEP--a plan to
help meet the unique needs of each student. But without the necessary
trained staff to support oversight of these programs, there is no one
to help guide teachers or schools in developing these plans and
ensuring that they are implemented or followed.
As mentioned, just yesterday, Secretary McMahon released a detailed
plan for reorganizing the Department of Education by moving dozens of
programs and services to other Agencies that do not have the necessary
staffing, funding, or expertise to oversee these programs. We can
expect that she will try to move IDEA too.
I heard from a middle school teacher on Hawaii island who emphasized
just how unrealistic Trump's plan is to move oversight of IDEA to
another Agency outside of the Education Department. He rightly pointed
out that other Agencies have ``no expertise in the complex education
law that is I-D-E-A.''
Education specialists, officers, and analysts within the Office of
Special Education programs are trained to best support IDEA. It is not
as though you can just move this program to Homeland Security or Human
Services and expect them to be able to provide the kind of support that
IDEA requires. Moving this program would mean a loss of expertise that
will not be rebuilt quickly, leaving our most vulnerable students to
pay the price.
As another example of moving programs out of the Department of
Education as part of the dismantling of the Department--I could not
resist this example--President Trump proposes to move the student loan
portfolio to the Small Business Administration, which has neither the
capacity nor the expertise needed to handle this massive program. The
SBA is one of the smallest Federal Government Agencies. How is it
supposed to handle a Department of Education program with over 40
million borrowers and over $1.5 trillion in loans? It can't.
Clearly, neither Trump nor Secretary McMahon see a Federal role in
education because they are just moving programs without figuring out
how these programs are even going to be continued. In fact, that is not
their intention. Their intention is to get rid of the U.S. Department
of Education, and they can't do that because only Congress can do that.
So what do they come up with? These alternative ways to dismantle the
Department.
Shouldn't supporting our public schools and our children's education
be a national priority? I mean, obviously President Trump and Secretary
McMahon don't think it is a national priority. Certainly, it is a
national priority in other countries. Why? Because these other
countries know, as I said earlier, that education is foundational and
that an educated populous is an engaged populous.
By gutting staff and funding that students rely on and attempting to
eliminate the Department altogether--a plan that will inevitably hurt
our students, no question--this regime's actions make it abundantly
clear that they don't want an engaged populous. One can't help but
wonder why.
This regime is not committed to public education. They are not
committed to public education. They don't see a Federal role for public
education, and that is the long and short of it.
We can and must do better to support the education of 50-plus million
children in our country.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise together with my colleagues from
Maryland and Hawaii to celebrate 50 years of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act. I will not speak long because I have a
separate matter that I will take up after this.
My colleagues did a good job, I think, of shining a spotlight on the
challenges that exist with the IDEA at 50--the chronic underfunding of
this program, the Federal Government not meeting the commitment that it
made in 1975 to fund 40 percent of these extra costs for kids with
disabilities, the firing of staff recently.
These are serious issues, but I want to spend my time more focused on
the celebration of what these 50 years of the IDEA have done.
When it was originally passed 50 years ago this month, the bill was
called the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, the EHA. It was
renamed the ``IDEA'' in a reauthorization in 1990.
Guess what the vote was in Congress around the passage of this law
that was signed by President Ford. In the Senate, the vote to pass this
landmark civil rights and education law was 87 to 7, and in the House,
the vote was 404 to 7. For a big, landmark civil rights and education
law to pass with that kind of a margin is really near miraculous.

[[Page S8223]]

The reason that it passed so overwhelmingly was because society
realized that we had been treating kids with disabilities in a very,
very tragic and unforgiveable way.
Get this: In 1975, more than a million school-age children in this
country were essentially locked out of public education because of the
fact that they had a disability--either not being educated at all or
being educated in institutions often far away from their homes and
families, far away from their friends and neighbors, in a way that was
not providing them adequate educational support.
So think about that million that has now grown to 7 million--nearly 1
in 7 students in our public school system receives special education
services--what the trajectory of their lives was like before the IDEA
passed and after the IDEA passed.
Students with a designated disability under the IDEA receive an
individualized education plan so that their particular disability can
be focused in a meaningful way to enable them to be all they can be.
Isn't that what we want for all children? Let all children be all they
can be.
It is not often noted, but it should be noted that many students who
receive individualized education plans--the IEPs--only require special
education services for a couple of years because even a couple of years
of speech therapy or other kinds of special services is enough to get
that student completely successful without additional services.
I know this from my own family, my own three kids who went through
public schools, that sometimes the IEP and the services provided only
need to be provided for a short period of time. Students who receive
these services early in their educational careers often don't need them
for more than a couple of preschool years or early grades, and then
they are perfectly successful.
The IDEA works. It works. It works to enable these students who had
been consigned to the shadows of life for generations to be able to
achieve all that they can.
You know, one of the measures of success of the IDEA at 50 is this:
As a mayor, public education was the biggest part of my city budget. As
a Governor, it was the biggest part of my State budget. And, man, did I
hear a lot of complaints from people about the IDEA. My educator said
that Congress isn't funding it well enough. My educator said that the
paperwork to do an IEP and then to assess its compliance is way too
complicated. But I never had a single person, an educator or anyone
else, say we should undo the IDEA.
For all of the challenges about underfunding, for all of the
challenges about paperwork, there is uniform recognition in this
country that the passage of the IDEA, the 50 years of a commitment by
society that every child should be all they can be, is a good thing.
Can we make it better? Of course, we can. But that bedrock promise that
was made in 1975 is a good thing, and it has worked to enrich the lives
now of tens of millions of people, to make them productive adults, just
like any of us aspire to be. What a great thing to be able to
celebrate.
That is why I join my colleagues today to celebrate what the 50 years
have meant to the tens of millions of students who benefited from the
IDEA and the commitment that we must do better.
I am very, very troubled by the underfunding and applaud my
colleagues for focusing on that, but I am also very troubled by the
actions of this administration to shed the staff who are needed to work
with States and work with local governments to make sure that services
are being appropriately provided.
I remember being on the HELP Committee during President Trump's first
term and examining his nominee for Secretary of Education in the first
term, Secretary DeVos. She was talking about letting the IDEA just be
run by States, with no Federal role.
I remember questioning her at the hearing: Well, what about States
that decide not to do it?
Because it is expensive, there would be some States, without Federal
oversight, that would just decide they would rather not provide
services, not fund services for students with disabilities.
I asked her the question: Do you think a parent of a child with a
disability should just have to move to another State that is more
compassionate?
No. We have a Federal, national commitment that a child born with a
disability, whatever ZIP Code in this country they are born in, should
be entitled to receive these basic services.
That promise is being threatened right now by the firings. That
promise has always been threatened by the chronic underfunding.
So while I join with my colleagues in committing to continuing to
work to improve it, I don't want this moment to be lost without
acknowledging the tremendous good that has been done by this most
bipartisan law to enrich the lives of tens of millions of children and
their families.
With that, I yield the floor on this topic and would ask to continue
on now a second matter.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 473

Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, in a moment, I am going to ask unanimous
consent for the passage of S. Res. 473, and that is a resolution
commemorating the seventh anniversary of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi
and calling for accountability for his murder.
This resolution is to honor the life and the absolutely gruesome
death of the Washington Post journalist and Virginia resident Jamal
Khashoggi.
For those who are not aware of Jamal Khashoggi's story, he dedicated
his life to uncovering the truth. His work shed light on the repressive
nature of the Saudi Arabian Government, and it exposed him to great
personal danger. He fled Saudi Arabia in 2017, and his family found a
home in Northern Virginia.
The Khashoggi story is now, unfortunately, too well known. On October
2, 2018, Mr. Khashoggi was brutally murdered by the Saudi Government
agents at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkiye--murdered within a
consulate, a place that is supposed to be a safe haven. His body, by
all accounts of the United States and other intelligence, was
dismembered by those Saudi agents within the consulate.
Mr. Khashoggi was not killed because he committed a crime. He was
killed for speaking the truth as a journalist and shining a spotlight
on the repressive nature of the Saudi Arabian Government. He was killed
for standing up for the rights of his fellow Saudi Arabians.
Mr. Khashoggi's death is not a mystery. This is not a cold case
waiting to be solved. We know exactly who is responsible for this
killing.
The U.S. Government's Office of the Director of National
Intelligence, as well as other U.S. intelligence Agencies, determined
the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman, or MBS as he is
often referred to, approved an official governmental operation in
Istanbul to capture or kill Jamal Khashoggi.
As a result of that operation approved by MBS, Mr. Khashoggi was
ambushed as he went to the consulate to get some paperwork regarding
his marriage. He was strangled, killed and his body was dismembered,
and then evidence of that crime was attempted to be destroyed.
Seven years later, there has been no accountability for the person
most responsible for the horrifying murder, no real justice for Jamal
Khashoggi, no justice for his family, no justice for the many others
who have raised their voices in Saudi Arabia and who, for something as
simple as tweeting, are being threatened with execution.
Instead, the leader who approved the operation to kill Jamal
Khashoggi, the man who is proud to oppress his own people, MBS, is
being celebrated today at our White House. MBS was welcomed with a
black-tie dinner. He is being offered F-35 fighter jets--one of the
crowned jewels of our security apparatus over the open objections of
our ally Israel and potentially in violation of the law. He is being
offered extremely high-tech computer chips and other valuable U.S.
technology. He is being offered a major mutual defense agreement.
It is, frankly, outrageous to me that the President of the United
States would assert that American servicemembers should put their lives
on the line to defend the oppressive regime in Saudi Arabia.
Yesterday, when President Trump was asked by a reporter from ABC

[[Page S8224]]

about Jamal Khashoggi, he said ``a lot of people didn't like'' Jamal.
He said, about the killing, ``things happen.'' Things like a gruesome
strangling in an Embassy and the dismembering of a body of a journalist
for the Washington Post with a bone saw--things happen.
And then our President threatened ABC's broadcast license because the
reporter had the audacity to ask him a question he didn't like.
I have said it many times, and I am going say it again: Standing with
this regime with no accountability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi is
not ``America First.'' It is not consistent with our values as a world-
leading democracy.
I was very vocal in my frustration about this matter not only during
President Trump's first term but also during President Biden's term.
When President Biden visited Saudi Arabia in 2022 and fist-bumped with
MBS, I was vocal in my dissatisfaction.
I was vocal in my disappointment over this effort when the Biden
administration's State Department sided with MBS in his efforts to gain
sovereign immunity in the United States to avoid accountability for
this murder. I was frustrated when Biden administration Middle East
policy officials left the White House in January of 2025 and in short
order, started signing lucrative contracts with the Saudi Government.
And I continue to be appalled as the families of senior Trump
administration officials--Kushner family, Witkoff family, and President
Donald J. Trump's own children--signed major deals with the Saudi
regime in cryptocurrency or real estate development.
Just a few days ago, on November 15, the New York Times reported that
the Trump organization was in talks to bring Trump-branded property to
one of Saudi Arabia's largest government-owned real estate development.
I have huge questions, as I think many Americans do, about whether
the intertwining of cryptocurrency or real estate deals is behind the
President's casual reference to ``things happen'' to whitewash and
excuse the assassination and dismembering of a Washington Post
journalist who lived in my State.
When the Saudi-backed LIV golf tour made overtures about maybe
acquiring the PGA in 2023, there was bipartisan outrage about that. But
I have heard little outrage from any of my colleagues on the other side
of the aisle regarding MBS's visit.
Is the PGA more important, more worth raising concerns about than the
transfer of F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia?
Shouldn't we ask: What is the Trump administration's priority? Is it
democracy? Is it human rights? Is it national security? Or is it real
estate or cryptocurrency deals that benefit family members of those in
the administration?
Why is the administration willing to move so far to accommodate this
regime, this individual, that our own intelligence Agencies have said
is responsible for the murder of a Washington Post journalist who lives
in my Commonwealth?
What is the United States getting from offering MBS all of this? Or
is the United States getting anything? Is it instead individuals are
getting their pockets filled at the expense of our Democratic human
rights values?
Standing with Saudi Arabia against the interest of the American
people, against our national security, against our human rights
proclamations, against the security of our ally Israel, and against the
freedom of the press right here at home is unconscionable.
Mr. President, I would like to ask unanimous consent that the
Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration
and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 473; further, that the resolution
be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would like
to make a few observations about this resolution.
First of all, this couldn't come at a more inappropriate time. I
think my good friend knows that there is a very large delegation from
Saudi Arabia visiting Washington, DC, right now. They are a long, long-
term ally of the United States going back almost 100 years. We have had
a long relationship with them.
Certainly, nothing I am saying here is to denigrate the murder of
Jamal Khashoggi. That happened. There is absolutely no question about
it. But nothing that--this resolution will do nothing to achieve
accountability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi more than has already
accrued.
When Jamal Khashoggi was killed in 2019, President Trump and the
administration conducted a thorough investigation into his death and
determined that 17 Saudi nationals were responsible for Mr. Khashoggi's
death, and they were subsequently sanctioned.
In addition, the Saudis themselves took action. President Trump also
understands--and we should all understand--that the United States needs
stable and invested security partners in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia
has played an increasingly important role over the last 100 years and
an even more important role recently as we have had diplomacy, economic
growth, and especially regional security in the Middle East.
Justice and accountability for the past are important, but with a
thorough investigation complete and the responsible individuals held
accountable, we can look to a better and brighter future for the United
States-Saudi relationship.
With all of this in mind and the fact that, at this time and place,
this resolution is not in the best interest of the United States, I
object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Senator from Rhode Island.

S.J. Res. 76

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the CRA related to
the Environmental Protection Agency, now better known as the ``Polluter
Protection Agency,'' trying to unwind methane rules.
So there are three things I would like to say about methane: We all
know that it is a pollutant. We all know that it is dangerous. It is
even explosive. And yet the fossil fuel industry insists on leaking it
in enormous quantities. And for years, they have falsely reported to
the EPA how much their leakage was, but it is a lot, and it makes a big
difference, particularly on the climate side because methane is a super
pollutant in the short run--in the first, say, 20, 25 years. So it is
really important to stop leakage of this dangerous substance.
And there is no value to the leakage. This is just laziness and
sloppiness and bad corporate behavior. It is not like there is a
methane leakage association that wants to see more methane in the
atmosphere. It is just waste and sloppiness, bad corporate behavior.
This body keeps rolling over to those folks. One of the first things
that we did was to undo the methane fee so that the leakers didn't have
to pay anything for their leakage. Now, we had agreed on that, working
with the fossil fuel industry through Senator Manchin, who was their
representative in these negotiations. And what we settled on was that
only the worst polluters would be subject to the fee; only the ones who
couldn't even meet their industry's standards, only they would have to
pay.
Second, the revenues from the fee would go back to the industry to
pay for fixing the mess they were creating.
And third, we front-loaded it so they got nearly a billion dollars
upfront.
What did they do? Took the money and called on their Republican
friends here in the Senate to undo the fee. It was a complete bait-and-
switch.
Now we are here on changes to the methane rules and the effort by EPA
to delay those changes. This adds the additional insult to being a
violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.
I tell my colleagues: If you continue to sanction these procedural
violations of regulatory Agencies, don't think we are going to forget
that when the shoe is on the other foot. This set of extensions of the
methane rules was done regulatorily, without something called notice
and opportunity to be heard--``notice and comment'' is the technical
term under the APA.
It is a basic provision of the APA that you have to go notice and
comment. If you don't want to do notice and comment--as EPA did not in
this case--you have got to show good cause. And what courts have said
good cause

[[Page S8225]]

is, is an emergency. There is no emergency here.
Look at some of the things that EPA has done. They claim that the
industry needed time to adopt technologies which had, in fact, already
been widely adopted--flatout lie from EPA.
They said that compliance deadlines were too close. Well, many of
them actually had already been in effect. So that can't be the real
reason.
And then they delayed the Super Emitter Program for the worst methane
leakers, but it had already been up and running for months. So there
was nothing new happening. There was no emergency.
So if you all--my colleagues on the Republican side--if this is the
way you want regulatory Agencies to behave in a Democrat
administration, keep this up because this is flatout rule-breaking by
the EPA.
The last thing is, it is kind of pointless because we are going to
catch your leakers. You can give them anything you want. You can
continue to roll back methane fees; you can continue to roll back
methane rules, but we are going to catch the leakers who are telling
you to do this stuff.
We are going to catch them because satellite technology can now
detect the plumes of methane that they emit, and they can really detect
the big ones. They can source it down to a very narrow point of origin.
UCLA just opened up a website where you can go and see a summary of
the satellite data: what landfills, what oil facilities, what are the
big leak points so the local communities can take action against the
irresponsible members of the fossil fuel industry who are leaking
enormous amounts of methane.
So you may have clawed back the methane fee and bailed out the worst
performers in the industry and you may have violated the APA to
postpone these other rules, including rules against super emitters, but
at the end of the day, you are not going to get away with the methane
leakage.
You are going to be caught. It is going to be visible on satellite.
There is going to be every opportunity for naming and shaming and
enforcement, and we are going to end up getting this right. So it would
be better if you just didn't put us through this, if you behaved
properly for the Senate, if you let the methane fees stand, and if you
didn't allow EPA to break the rules to give polluters yet another break
from this polluter-friendly EPA.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to
speak for 9 minutes and Senator Schumer for 2 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. President, today's vote will determine how much
methane polluters are allowed to belch into the air. It will determine
how many asthma attacks Americans suffer. It will determine how many
Americans will die because we relaxed the standards on how much methane
oil and gas companies are allowed to leak into the air that we breathe.
On July 31 of this year, the EPA decided to delay the enforcement of
the Agency's own standards of methane pollution from oil and gas
companies. For those who aren't aware, methane is a superpollutant.
When it comes to making our air dirtier and contributing to climate
change, it is 80 times worse than carbon dioxide.
EPA itself estimates that their new rule or, more accurately, their
new license to pollute will pump 3.8 million tons of methane into our
air--about the same amount as if we put 66 million more cars on the
road.
It is really staggering when you think of it. By the EPA's new rule--
the rule that we are right now, through my resolution, trying to
repeal--EPA has decided to allow the same amount of pollution as 66
million cars. That is one hell of a rule. That is one hell of a gift to
polluters. That is also really bad news for people who breathe; that
is, all of us.
The decision by the EPA to put forward this polluter-friendly rule is
perfectly emblematic of the administration's approach to our
environment and the Environmental Protection Agency's hostility to
rules protecting the environment. We are going to have to rebrand the
EPA, if it keeps this up, to be the ``Environmental Polluting Agency.''
So how did we get here? It begins during the Biden administration
when an EPA that was concerned about our air quality standards moved to
significantly reduce methane emissions from new and existing oil and
gas operations under the Clean Air Act.
The EPA didn't just put out new standards and say ``good luck''; the
Agency used $1.55 billion in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act
to help companies get into compliance with these new methane pollution
standards. Having made that investment, this action by the Trump EPA
makes even less sense.
Before and during the formulation of EPA's methane standards in the
last administration, several prominent oil and gas companies, including
ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, Occidental, Pioneer, and Devon,
acknowledged the need for Federal standards for methane emissions. That
is because leaking methane isn't profitable for companies. It is
certainly not good PR.
Methane, in fact, is a commodity that can be sold by these companies.
Leaked methane represents billions of dollars in lost profits for the
oil and gas industry because methane is the main ingredient in natural
gas.
By halting our Nation's methane standards, the Trump EPA will help
the worst polluters--those who don't want to bother to control methane
leaks and who therefore waste the very same energy resources that the
Trump administration claims it wants to produce.
What is more, companies already know how to stop methane leaks, and
both the private and public sector have gotten really good at detecting
leaks with advanced technologies, like satellite imagery.
I am very proud that California has been a national leader in using
satellite imagery to protect the environment. In the face of Federal
environmental retreat, California launched its own satellite in March
of this year to help detect and to help stop methane leaks. Just this
year, California has used that methane-tracking satellite to close 10
large methane leaks. I congratulate Governor Newsom for his innovative
leadership on this.
Many companies don't just acknowledge there should be a standard,
they are already complying with the new standard and have been for
almost an entire year.
To summarize, the Biden EPA promulgates new limits on methane
emissions. It provides $1\1/2\ billion for companies to adapt to the
new rules. Many major oil companies do adapt, and now the Trump
administration wants to repeal these rules and let the oil and gas
industry go back to polluting like they did in the not so good old
days. It makes no sense. It makes no sense--that is, unless your real
agenda is to attack climate science, to give industry free rein to
pollute our air, and to pay back an industry that President Trump
promised to reward if they gave $1 billion to his Presidential
campaign.
EPA concluded 16 years ago that the Agency legally had no choice but
to regulate greenhouse gas pollution because this pollution endangers
the public health and welfare of the American people. Let me say that
again. EPA's own scientists closed the case on this 16 years ago, but
this administration is obsessed with reversing the progress we have
made and taking the country backwards.
This isn't just about greenhouse pollution, which fuels wildfires,
supercharges hurricanes, floods communities, and kills crops that feed
us; cancer-causing benzene and volatile chemical compounds that form
smog and choke our air are emitted alongside leaked methane pollution.
If we all vote today for this resolution and restore EPA's smart
methane standards, then we will be voting to avoid up to 100,000 asthma
attacks and to prevent premature deaths of Americans across the
country.
In addition to all the health and environmental concerns with the
rule we are trying to repeal today, President Trump and Administrator
Zeldin's EPA also failed to issue this rule in compliance with the law.
EPA, as Senator Whitehouse made clear, neglected to solicit public
comments and decided to move directly to a final rule, violating both
the Clean Air Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. Clearly,

[[Page S8226]]

the Trump EPA does not want to hear from the American people.
This isn't good policymaking; this is extreme ideological obsession,
with dire consequences for the health and welfare of the American
people.
So this measure today will put every Member of this body on record
about how much methane we want released into the air, but it is also, I
think, worth noting that my Republican colleagues have used the
Congressional Review Act against Democratic States, like my home State
of California, when they repealed our State's clean air rules. My
Republican colleagues have used the CRA even when the Parliamentarian
and the Government Accountability Office said they could not legally do
so, and my Republican colleagues have used the CRA against Agency
actions that have never been targeted before.
It is worth noting that we on the Democratic side are going to be
making a list of a lot of the Agency actions of this administration
because there will come a time when we are back in the majority, and
when that time comes, we will be advocating forcefully for the
interests of communities all across the country, and we will not
hesitate to use the CRA in the same way that our Republican colleagues
are now using it. But instead of making America pollute again, we will
make our air clean again, and we will make our water clean again.
I urge Senators to vote yes and to continue the fight against
dangerous and wasteful emissions of methane into our air.
The leader is on his way, and he will be here shortly.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. I want to thank Senator Schiff and Ranking Member
Whitehouse for leading the charge on such an important resolution.
Around the country, people's gas and electric bills are skyrocketing.
More and more Americans are looking for every penny they can find to
pay the bills, especially with the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays
around the corner.
As families are trying to save, Donald Trump is making it easier for
gas companies to waste--that is, waste as much natural gas as they
want--by delaying an important rule that reduces leaks and waste from
natural gas facilities.
Can we have some order please.
Extracting natural gas costs money, and the more natural gas is
wasted, the more consumers end up paying. That means it gets even more
expensive to heat your home during the winter. It means more stress for
families trying to make ends meet.
It is bad enough that the Republicans cut off all clean energy. That
is going to cause people's electric prices to go through the roof. But
now this is even worse--insult to injury to the American consumer.
So the bottom line is simple: Americans are falling behind on their
energy bills, and Donald Trump and Republicans are doing the bidding of
the natural gas and oil lobby to drive up energy costs, destroying
good-paying American jobs in the process.
That wasted natural gas is poisonous to our communities. It leaks out
into our neighborhoods, causing asthma, lung cancer, heart problems,
even reproductive issues. So Democrats have acted to reduce methane
leaks and waste, saving consumers money and making our communities
healthy. That is a win-win.
But Trump and Republicans, again--America, when your electric bill
goes up, talk to your Senator, if they are Republican, about why they
are cutting wind, cutting solar, and letting oil companies waste
valuable methane.
They are doing it all, and it is going to hurt the American consumer.
I urge strongly that we support this resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Capito). The Senator from California.

____________________