[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 74 (Tuesday, April 28, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2070-S2073]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DIRECTING THE REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM HOSTILITIES
WITHIN OR AGAINST THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA THAT HAVE NOT BEEN AUTHORIZED BY
CONGRESS--Motion to Discharge
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I am about to make a motion with respect to
the War Powers Resolution, but I understand there will be a point of
order offered that is not debatable. So I just want to say that my
understanding is that the point of order will suggest that what is
currently being engaged in, in Cuba, is not hostilities.
The War Powers Resolution clearly contemplates a resolution being
within the contemplation of the body of hostilities that are ongoing or
are imminent because Congress wanted an ability for Congress to stop a
war before it started, and that was contemplated in the War Powers
Resolution.
I would also point out that the United States is using force to block
energy from going to Cuba, and that has led to the cancelation of
100,000 surgeries in hospitals, including 11,000 for children. It has
led to massive power blackouts. It has led to the unavailability of
clean water because water systems depend upon electric pumps.
My argument would be, if anyone were doing that to the United States
and affecting our citizens in that way, we would certainly view that as
hostilities that we would want to do everything we could to stop.
With that, Mr. President, pursuant to section 1013 of the Department
of State Authorization Act for fiscal years 1984 and 1985--that is 50
U.S.C., section 1546(a)--and in accordance with section 601(b) of the
International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976,
I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further
consideration of S.J. Res. 124.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to discharge S.J. Res. 124 from the Committee on
Foreign Relations, a joint resolution to direct the removal
of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or
against the Republic of Cuba that have not been authorized by
Congress.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to yield back all
remaining time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Florida.
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I just want to say I am from
Florida, and I probably have more Cuban Americans in my State than
anywhere else in this country. This is really important. The Cuban
regime has just been despicable. They have killed Americans, and they
have destroyed the lives of Cubans for decades. So this has to change.
Point of Order
Mr. President, I make a point of order that this joint resolution is
not entitled to privilege under 50 U.S.C. 1546(a) due to U.S. troops
not being engaged in hostilities.
Vote on Point of Order
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair submits the question to the Senate
for its decision.
The question is, Is the point of order well taken?
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. 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 Senator is necessarily absent: the
Senator from Alabama (Mr.Tuberville).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Virginia (Mr.Warner) is
necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 51, nays 47, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 108 Leg.]
YEAS--51
Armstrong
Banks
Barrasso
Blackburn
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
[[Page S2071]]
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fetterman
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Murkowski
Ricketts
Risch
Rounds
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Wicker
Young
NAYS--47
Alsobrooks
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt Rochester
Booker
Cantwell
Collins
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Gallego
Gillibrand
Hassan
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Paul
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schiff
Schumer
Shaheen
Slotkin
Smith
Van Hollen
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden
NOT VOTING--2
Tuberville
Warner
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 51, the nays are
47.
The point of order is well-taken.
The motion to discharge falls.
The Senator from Louisiana.
Tribute to Rebecca Streidel and Charlie Kay
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today are two of my interns that
I have enjoyed working with, Ms. Rebecca Streidel and Mr. Charlie Kay.
And I wanted to--also with me--he is not a summer intern. He is one of
my permanent colleagues Mr. John Lowery.
But I want to thank Rebecca and Charlie for working with me and for
their good work. It has been a pleasure, and I hope you learned a lot.
Thank you for being part of our team.
White House Correspondents' Association Dinner Shooting
Mr. President, I want to talk about a couple of subjects today.
First, I thought it would be appropriate to make a comment about the
White House Correspondents' Association dinner Saturday night.
I want to be clear, I was not there, so I don't know whether that
helps my perspective or hurts it. But I was at home watching the NBA
playoffs. The Timberwolves won, by the way.
I am sorry it happened Saturday night. I am glad no one got hurt. I
think what happened is as straightforward as it is tragic.
An overeducated, underemployed, self-righteous punk from California
who thinks he is smarter and more virtuous than the American people and
who thinks if you disagree with him, you are not only in error, you are
in sin and deserve to die, tried to crash the function and assassinate
the President and some members of his administration.
Many members of our media--and, look, I am glad no one was hurt. I
said that, but I want to emphasize that. Some members of the media will
portray him as a victim. They will say his mom or daddy didn't love him
enough, or maybe he was just mixed up or confused or had a mental
defect.
They can say what they want. But I believe in free will and
responsibility. And this punk was responsible for his actions, and he
is going to be punished. And he, frankly, should be punished.
I want to also say a word about security.
Look, we are going to hold hearings. We love to hold hearings on
Capitol Hill. That is one of our favorite things to do. And there are
going to be hearings held about the security provided by our Secret
Service and others. I am not saying those hearings shouldn't be held. I
am not a security expert.
But I want to thank the members of law enforcement who prevented what
could have been a very serious tragedy Saturday night.
I am pretty familiar with the Washington Hilton hotel, and the truth
is, those who are also familiar with it know that this guy never got
close. He was on a different floor. He never made it to the right
floor, and that is because of our brave women and men who provide
security. In fact, I thought our security showed great restraint. I was
frankly very surprised that this punk didn't end up like a piece of
Swiss cheese.
Mr. President, could I ask my colleagues here to hold it down for a
minute? Maybe they could take their discussions off the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Could we have order on the floor?
Mr. KENNEDY. I know they have got work to do. But I have got work to
do too, and I can't hear myself think here.
Joint Meeting of Congress
Mr. President, let me say a word about King Charles.
King Charles spoke to a joint session of Congress today. I thank him
so much for coming. He was eloquent. He was charming. He was funny. He
talked about the special relationship between the United States and the
United Kingdom. And we do have a special relationship, and I hope it
can continue.
And I want to come back to the King's visit.
In preparation for the King's visit and the King's speech, I read an
article, in particular, in The Economist magazine. I read The Economist
magazine, anyway, every week. In my opinion--I have read it cover to
cover. It is really--some call it a newspaper, but it really is a
magazine.
I have read it cover to cover for 25 years. It covers the world. I
have always enjoyed the reporting because it is very in depth, and it
is very factual. Just about every author of every article offers his or
her opinion. But it is subtle, and it is nuanced. And usually they
offer their opinion after presenting both sides of the story.
It hurts me to say--it disappoints me to say--that, in the past year,
The Economist has really changed. Their reporting has crossed the line,
in my opinion, and they are so angry at the President and angry at
America that it has seeped into their reporting. And I really regret
that. I am going to keep reading, but I really regret that they have
given in to their appetitive desires and lost some of their
objectivity.
And the article, in particular, that I read, I read it on the plane.
I don't remember whether I was going home or coming up. But the article
that I read in preparation for King Charles' visit was entitled:
``Britain rethinks its `special relationship' with America.''
``Britain rethinks its `special relationship' with America.''
And this was the question that The Economist was asking: Should
Britain, the United Kingdom, which we do have a special relationship--
should the United Kingdom keep hugging America or embrace Europe?
Like it was a buffet, like they have a choice--and the article
startled me. The article also points out--and this also surprised me
and disappointed me--that the author of the article pointed it out,
almost gleefully, that today, when you poll the American people and ask
them if they approve of Britain, 76 percent of Americans approve. When
you ask our friends in Britain if they approve of America, only 34
percent do. That one surprised me.
I want to set the record straight that, regardless of what the polls
show, America does have a special relationship with the United Kingdom,
and it is an important relationship. And that is why the American
people spilled their blood and spent their treasure in 1917 to protect
the British Empire. That is why the American people spent their
treasure and spilled their blood in 1941 in World War II to protect the
British Empire, which would not have won without America's help.
After World War II, in Great Britain, it was horrible. They were
devastated, flat on their back broke. America--still, they were our
friends--our special friends. America lifted them up, bankrolled their
reconstruction. We went in, loaned them money, helped them to get back
on their feet.
And then, shortly after World War II, we, of course, discovered that
we--we meaning the United Kingdom and the United States--had a new
enemy, the Soviet Union. We protected the United Kingdom all through
the Cold War. I am proud of that. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
In fact, if you look at the numbers today, we still protect the
United Kingdom and NATO and our friends in Europe. If you look at the
money--I know there has been a lot of rhetoric that our allies in
Europe are going to do better and spend more money on their own
defense, but the numbers are the numbers. The American taxpayer still
puts up 60 percent of total NATO defense spending today. We put up $845
billion a year to protect our cousins in the United Kingdom and in
Europe.
I support NATO. I support continuing to do that. And so I agree with
King
[[Page S2072]]
Charles. We do have a special relationship, and we should nurture it,
and we should make it better.
But friends tell friends the truth. And to my friends in the United
Kingdom, as we try to appreciate and reset our relationship, I would
say to them gently and respectfully: The world has changed. You have to
pay your own bills for a while.
This isn't the fault of the good people of the United Kingdom. This
is the fault of their political leadership. It is especially true of
their current political leadership. But they have castrated their
military. They have. They are weak as rainwater. This doesn't happen in
a week or a day or a month. This happened over a long period of time.
I remember when Great Britain ruled the seas. Now, when Iran fires a
missile at their base in Cyprus, they can barely find a ship to send
down there. And that ship barely made it.
On the political leadership in the United Kingdom, I have watched it
hollow out its industrial base. I have watched the political leadership
in the United Kingdom spend all their money on welfare.
And do you know what? It is their money. That is none of my business.
If that is what they want to do in a democracy, Godspeed.
But they have depended on the American taxpayer to defend them, and
the political leadership--and, again, I say this gently. I don't want
to do anything to take away from the King's speech. I say this gently
and respectfully: It is time for the political leadership in the United
Kingdom to embrace adulthood. And it is time for them to start paying
their bills and time for them to start spending money on the military.
Now, I know the Prime Minister said: We are going to do better. And
he and some of our other allies in Europe are talking about spending
3.5 percent of their GDP on defense and another 1.5 percent on
infrastructure in support of defense. It is a lot of talk so far.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of the UK, published his plan
for the military and military spending. I actually read it. I thought
this part was special. Yes, he is going to start spending more money,
but it is back-end loaded. It is not going to happen. They are not
spending any serious money until 2030, and I can assure you that Sir
Keir will not be around as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in
September or October or January of 2030. He is struggling now. His poll
numbers--I probably shouldn't say this, but it is true. He is polling
right up there with gonorrhea in terms of popularity. It is just a
fact.
So I do celebrate the special relationship that we have, and I do
want us to be closer. But the political leadership in the United
Kingdom has got to do its part. This is supposed to be a partnership.
For my final comment, the King, I think, is here through the rest of
the day--the King and the Queen. And, of course, even though it was a
beautiful speech that King Charles gave, the real heavy lifting is
done, as we all know, in private. The King is going to meet privately
with President Trump, and they are going to talk about the world, and
they are going to get down to the specifics of things we can do to help
each other.
I don't know what the King is going to talk to the President about. I
don't know if he is carrying messages from the political leadership in
the United Kingdom. That is all above my pay grade. But if the King is
carrying a message from the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to try
to convince our President to give away the Diego Garcia military base
to an African country which is the BFF of China, I hope our President
will continue to resist. I hope he will respond to that request, if it
is made, by saying: The short answer is no. The long answer is hell no.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom--as you know, Mr. President,
the Chagos Islands are owned by the United Kingdom. They are in the
Indian Ocean. On one of the islands, we built a military base with the
United Kingdom called Diego Garcia. And it is a really important
military base for both countries.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has decided because the
United Nations has made him feel guilty about Britain's colonial past--
the United Nations has told Prime Minister Starmer that he has got to
give away this military base to the African country of Mauritius, even
though Mauritius has never owned Diego Garcia or the Chagos Islands.
They have no connection with it, none whatsoever.
But because the Prime Minister has this White guilt because the
United Kingdom and the good people of Great Britain once controlled
other countries, they are supposed to feel guilty and give away our
military base and their military base to Mauritius, who will promptly
turn the keys over to China.
It is one of the--I think I described it one time as bone-deep, down-
to-the-marrow stupid, and it is.
And eventually, the Prime Minister talked the President into it. And
then President Trump came--as he always does, he thought it through. He
said: No, I am not doing that.
And so they are still sawing on him and working on him. And I don't
know if the King is going to bring it up, and certainly it is the
King's right if he does. But I hope the President will stand firm, and
let's not give away this military base to China.
Carbon Dioxide
Mr. President, I want to spend my last few minutes on another topic.
This one is important to all of us, but it is also important to
Louisiana. I want to talk about carbon dioxide.
We all know, we have all heard carbon dioxide--CO2--is a
gas. It is colorless. It is odorless. It is everywhere. It is actually
a pretty small part of our atmosphere really. I looked at the numbers.
It is 0.04 percent of the Earth's atmosphere. It is a really, really
small part of it, but it packs a wallop.
CO2 is composed of one atom of carbon and two atoms of
oxygen, and it is produced naturally. When we breathe out, for example,
we breathe out carbon dioxide. It is produced naturally when organic
matter decomposes. And it is very important to God's world. Plants use
it for photosynthesis. It also is released when we burn fossil fuels.
You have probably read that.
And even though carbon dioxide has all these extraordinarily
beneficial uses, one of the downsides of it is that it is a fairly
heavy gas. And it rises, even though it is dispersed throughout our
atmosphere. But it does rise, and it is what is called a greenhouse
gas. It acts like a blanket.
If you get enough CO2 in our atmosphere, it is like a
blanket covers the Earth. And what happens when you are under a
blanket? It holds in heat. And that heat can change your natural
temperature and sometimes impacts your weather and your sea levels.
That is why you hear some folks talk about global warming and climate
change. That is what we are talking about. That is all CO2
is.
We don't have a world plan to deal with this problem. President Biden
came up with a plan. It was called ``spend as much money as I possibly
can.'' He spent billions of dollars fighting CO2.
I checked. Do you know how much all of the billions--and he might
have spent a trillion but certainly billions of dollars of American
taxpayer money that he spent--do you know how much it lowered
temperatures? None. Zero. Zilch. He never had a plan. It was always
just throw money at the wall and see what happens. I hope in the future
we can do better.
But here is my point: One of the things that government did to try to
combat CO2--or at least control CO2--is pay
companies to capture it. And we are still doing that. And what do I
mean by capture?
Well, when companies--let's say, take a petrochemical plant. When it
burns fossil fuels, natural gas usually, it produces CO2--
carbon dioxide. And there is a way, under the technology, to capture
that CO2. What do you do with it? One option is to inject it
into the ground, into the Earth, deep beneath our feet.
Now, you would hope that companies--many of them became during the
Biden years very woke, and they criticized anybody who asked questions
about President Biden's climate change plan.
But the other reason they were so high on carbon capture is because
the Federal Government was giving them bucketloads of money to capture
this carbon. It is called the 45Q tax credit.
[[Page S2073]]
We will actually pay these companies--like a petrochemical company--to
capture carbon and inject it into the ground in the interest of our
environment and climate.
We pay 85 bucks. It is your money. You are paying it, not me. I pay a
little bit of it when I pay my taxes, but we all pay it. We actually
pay companies $85 a ton. The lobbyists and many of our friends in the
business community are lobbying right now to increase the money that we
pay them to $250 a ton. But just based on paying them $85 a ton, by
2030, we will be spending about $30 billion.
So while I want to believe that the companies capture the carbon in
the interest of the environment, they are being paid a whole bunch of
money to do it as well. I am not saying they wouldn't do it anyway out
of the goodness of their heart, but the money doesn't hurt. OK?
You know what the old saying is: You don't have to be rich and famous
to be happy. You just have to be rich.
So, anyway, we are paying companies a whole bunch of money to go
capture this carbon and inject it in the ground. Now, I didn't come
here tonight to debate whether that is a good idea or a bad idea. A lot
of that is up to the States and to Congress for another day. There are
pros and cons, and some say it is a good idea. Some say it is a bad
idea.
I know certain oil and gas companies have been injecting
CO2 into producing oil and gas wells for years to make the
gas and oil flow better without hurting anybody. I know in other cases
there have been CO2 pipelines--carbon dioxide pipelines--
transmitting carbon dioxide that have ruptured and injured people. I
don't know who is right, and I don't know who is wrong.
I do know, though, that to inject it underground, you have got to do
it on somebody's property. And that is where the rub comes in. We take
our property rights in Louisiana seriously. Your right to own property
is a Federal constitutional right. In Louisiana, it is also a State
constitutional right. So important, we put it in our State
constitution. Article I, section 4 of our State constitution says:
Every person has the right to acquire, own, control, use,
enjoy, protect, and dispose of private property.
Now, our constitution also goes on to say, because we are a practical
people in Louisiana:
This right to own property is subject to reasonable
statutory restrictions and the reasonable exercise of the
police power.
What does that mean? Well, as we all know, that means, if I own a
piece of property and they want to put a highway through and I don't
want them to put a highway through my property, but it would cost the
taxpayers of my State three times the amount to move the highway over
here as opposed to putting it through my property--under the law, we
call it expropriation. I think some States call it eminent domain.
In my State, in every other State, and under the Federal Government,
the State can come in and say: Look, Kennedy, we know you don't want to
give up your property, but it is going to cost us a lot more to put the
road over here. So we are going to take your property, but we are going
to pay you full price.
And they do. They have to. It is in our constitution. They have to
pay the full, fair market price. So we are pretty comfortable with
that.
But the people in Louisiana have just discovered that the companies
that I talked about who are being paid this Federal money--$85 a ton to
capture carbon and inject it into the ground--can also take people's
land to put in an injection well. And I don't like that.
I am not taking sides in terms of carbon capture. I am not. But we
have got a lot of people in my State that are very suspect about the
wisdom of this carbon capture. I am not saying they are right or wrong.
But they have learned the hard way that if you trust government, you
failed history class.
And if someone in my State who owns a piece of property--it is
usually in my rural areas--who owns 50 acres that was handed down from
their dad and mom and their dad and mom and their dad and mom, if a
company wants to come in and pay them to put in an injection well and
put carbon dioxide underneath their land and those land owners are OK
with that, I am OK with it.
But I am going to have something to say if a lot of these companies
start coming in and taking people's property and putting in an
injection well. That is a big difference between putting in a road.
This is a new technology. We are still learning about it. And right
now, under Louisiana law--this was passed by the Louisiana Legislature.
The statute is title 30, section 1108, Louisiana revised statute
30:1108. This is what it says:
Any storage operator--
That is the guy or gal who wants to put carbon dioxide under the
ground--
Any storage operator is hereby authorized, after obtaining
any permit and any certificate of public convenience and
necessity from the commissioner--
That means they get the permission of the State.
. . . [can] exercise the power of eminent domain and
expropriate [take] needed property.
So if one of these companies comes to one of my people on their
family land and says, ``We will offer you this. We want to put in an
injection well,'' and the owners of that land go, ``I don't think so.
This property has been in my family for years, and I don't know about
this CO2 stuff anyway,'' they are not going to have a choice
because the State can come in and take that land.
I don't like that, and I think our legislature needs to weigh in on
this. I think we ought to go back to what our State constitution says
and what the Federal Constitution has said even longer: People have the
right to property. People have the right to property.
That concludes my remarks. I can show myself out.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. LUMMIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________