Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 152 (Thursday, September 24, 2026)

[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 152 (Thursday, September 24, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4959-S4962]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

LEGISLATIVE SESSION

______

PROTECT COLLEGE SPORTS ACT OF 2026--Resumed

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of S. 4668, which the clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (S. 4668) to protect the name, image, and likeness
rights of, and provide protections for, student athletes and
to promote fair competition among intercollegiate athletics,
and for other purposes.

Pending:

Thune (for Cruz) amendment No. 6776, in the nature of a
substitute.
Thune amendment No. 6777 (to amendment No. 6776), to change
the enactment date.
Thune amendment No. 6778 (to amendment No. 6777), of a
perfecting nature.
Thune amendment No. 6779 (to the language proposed to be
stricken by amendment No. 6776), to change the enactment
date.
Thune amendment No. 6780 (to amendment No. 6779), of a
perfecting nature.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The President pro tempore.

Healthcare Fraud

Mr. GRASSLEY. Happy news in the fight against fraud: This week, the
White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud took steps to stop fraud and
to prevent bad actors from gaming ObamaCare.
The administration is working to stop fraudulent and improper
ObamaCare enrollment. Now, just think, over 600,000 consumers attested
to unauthorized enrollment or plan switching.
This task force has the potential to save billions in taxpayer
dollars. This action will ensure resources are only going to those who
are eligible and have signed up or authorized their enrollment.
Too often, taxpayer money is lost to fraud, waste, and abuse. This
not only wastes taxpayer dollars, but it also limits how effectively
those dollars could be used to help the most vulnerable: those people
that Medicaid and ObamaCare were intended to serve.
The administration's action complements my work in the Senate and the
work of Iowa's Representatives Hinson, Miller-Meeks, Nunn, and Feenstra
in the House, accomplished when we passed the 2025 Working Families Tax
Cut law.
The tax cuts law not only prevented the largest tax increase in
American history, but it also established program integrity reforms to
stop fraud, waste, and abuse as well as preserve programs like Medicaid
and ObamaCare.
In the past year, I have come to this floor highlighting how my own
oversight along with inspector general audits and Government
Accountability Office reports have found taxpayer dollars being wasted
on deceased enrollment and providers, enrollees participating in two
different State Medicaid Programs and who are dually enrolled in
Medicaid and ObamaCare, excess ObamaCare subsidies not being paid back,
and consumers being fraudulently enrolled in ObamaCare.
The Working Families Tax Cut Act put an end to much of this fraud,
waste, and abuse in the Medicaid and Obama programs.
To bolster these efforts, last month I introduced a bill with the
title ``Healthcare Fraud Prevention and Improvement Act.'' This bill
will improve and will invest in the Healthcare Fraud and Abuse Control
Program. That program was created to combat fraud across Federal health
programs. But that program needs improvement.
Federal healthcare spending is expected to exceed $24 trillion over
the next decade. Through the Working Families Tax Cut Act and by
improving the Healthcare Fraud and Abuse Control Program, we can crack
down on bad actors stealing the taxpayer's money and really protect
resources for the most vulnerable Americans.

[[Page S4960]]

I yield the floor.
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.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Recognition of the Majority Leader

The majority leader is recognized.

Democrat Party

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, if there is one thing that quickly became
clear at the start of the 119th Congress, it was that anything we were
going to accomplish for hard-working Americans we were going to have to
accomplish alone. There is always some partisanship in Congress--and
healthy disagreement--but it became clear very quickly that Democrats
were going to be taking partisanship to a new and rarefied level in the
119th Congress. That started with Presidential nominations.
It has long been standard practice in the Senate to expedite
uncontroversial nominations to allow a President to get his team in
place. But from the very beginning of the 119th Congress, Democrats
made clear that the history of bipartisan cooperation was over.
Democrats chose to slow down every single nomination, no matter how
uncontroversial, for the majority of the 119th Congress. But slow-
walking nominations was just the beginning.
At the top of our priority list for this Congress was preventing the
massive tax hike that was set to hit hard-working Americans. And for a
party that claims to be the party of working men and women, you would
think the Democrats would have been eager to work with us. They
weren't. Not only were they not interested in working with us, but
every single Democrat in both Houses of Congress voted against tax
relief for the American people. They voted against preventing a massive
tax hike, and they voted against all the new tax relief Republicans
implemented--from no tax on overtime to a new bonus deduction for
seniors.
And just in case you thought Democrat opposition was a matter of
high-minded principle, since Republicans passed the Working Families
Tax Cuts, a number of Democrats have tried to associate themselves with
some of the tax relief in the bill despite universally opposing the
legislation in Congress.
And the partisanship continues. Last week, the Senate attempted to
take up legislation on an issue of great importance to working
families; namely, energy prices. The legislation we tried to take up,
the Ratepayer Protection Act, would have protected hard-working
Americans from the increased energy costs associated with data centers.
The bill was so obviously commonsense that it passed the House
overwhelmingly, with almost every Democrat as well as Republican
supporting it. But in the Senate, Senate Democrats objected to passing
the bill, and so it failed. Presumably, Democrats wanted to deny
Republicans the legislative success in the lead-up to the elections,
even though hard-working Americans are the ones that are going to pay
the price.
The same thing happened yesterday. Republicans and the White House
have been negotiating for the better part of a year with Democrats over
permitting reform legislation--a long-overdue priority that would help
lower energy bills for American families by streamlining Federal
regulations for energy projects. And we closed a deal with them that we
could bring to the floor that incorporated essentially all of the
Democrats' demands. But when it began to look like we could consider
the bill this work period, Democrats changed their tune. Because while
they may acknowledge the need for permitting reform, what they really
care about is denying Republicans another legislative win. This is an
example of, again, just blatant partisanship.
Republicans and Democrats have been working for months on a
bipartisan basis with two committees of jurisdiction: the Environment
and Public Works Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources
Committee, the two committees that have jurisdiction over all of the
elements related to permitting reform. And I have had Democrats come up
to me on the floor countless times and say: We really want to get this
done. We are working together. The White House will work with us on
this or that.
So we communicated with the White House. The White House has been
engaged in these conversations and discussions for the past several
weeks and essentially gave the Democrats the things they were asking
for. Democrats can't take yes for an answer. It is like they caught the
car and they don't know what to do. They said ``we want to work on
this'' because permitting reform affects not just energy projects but
projects in every sector of the economy. Energy projects--of course,
obviously, both conventional energy and renewable energy projects are
being affected by the delays and the bureaucracy and the redtape and
the excessive litigation that comes with trying to do anything in this
country of major consequence.
So both sides had agreed this was a worthwhile objective: Let's work
together. Let's see if we can sit down and hammer out a compromise that
incorporates the concerns, the issues, that both sides bring to the
table. And that has been going on for months. I have been watching it,
getting regular readouts, talking to Members on both sides--Democrats
and Republicans--on both committees of jurisdiction and others who are
interested in this issue. And we get to a point where Democrats flat
can't take yes for an answer.
So why is that? Well, if you agree on the substance, if you come to
an agreement on the policy, which they had--I mean, everybody in these
negotiations, in the discussions, have basically said: OK. This is the
deal. Here is the counteroffer; counteroffer back; counteroffer back.
The last counteroffer from the Democrats was agreed to by the White
House, by our Senate Republicans. They couldn't take yes for an answer.
So the only conclusion one can draw is that the Democrats have
concluded that it is good politics for them not to allow
the Republicans to ``get a victory'' or the President to ``get a
victory'' in the middle of a political season. That is really the only
conclusion you can draw, after literally months and months and months
of bipartisan negotiations in which the very last offer put on the
table was one made by Democrats and accepted by the White House and
Senate Republicans.

That is where we are. That is what it is. Let's call it what it is.
It is blatant politics.
So my Democrat colleagues may talk a good game about working
families, but the truth is that hard-working Americans take a distant
back seat to Democrats' political priorities.
Perhaps the most spectacular example of the party of ``no'' came last
fall when Democrats shut down the government for 43 days--the longest
full government shutdown in history--over a clean, temporary, and
nonpartisan spending bill. That is right. It was clear that Congress
would need more time to get the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bills
finished, so Republicans proposed a clean, short-term funding measure
free from poison pills or partisan policies. Let's just fund the
government so we can continue the conversation about how we are going
to fund it for the full year.
Democrats, well, they just said: No, not going to do it. It didn't
matter to them that the bill was nonpartisan. It didn't matter to them
that it would only be in effect, actually, for a few weeks. And it
certainly didn't matter to them that they were putting literally
thousands of Americans out of work. They blocked it. A clean,
nonpartisan spending bill, and they shut down the government for 6
weeks.
Of course, the fall 2025 government shutdown wasn't the only time
this Congress that Democrats just said no to government funding. In the
spring, Senate Democrats initiated the longest partial government
shutdown in history due to their unwillingness to fund immigration law
enforcement or border security. That is right. The Democrats kept the
Department of Homeland Security--the Department of Homeland Security--
shut down for an unprecedented 76 days. And while they eventually
agreed to reopen most of the Department, they still refused to fund
immigration enforcement or Border Patrol.
Clearly, democratic socialism and its philosophy of zero immigration
enforcement and open borders has gained a lot more than a foothold in
the Democrat Party.

[[Page S4961]]

Whether the subject is protecting opportunities for women and girls
in sports or tax relief for hard-working Americans, Democrats have
spent the past 21 months throwing up every roadblock that they can. And
I am proud that, despite the incredible amount of Democrat opposition,
we still managed to accomplish a lot for the American people--from
regulatory relief and border security to the Working Families Tax Cuts.
There is more work to be done, and I hope that we will get the chance
to continue our work not only in this Congress but also in the next.
Given the Democrats' obsession with opposing President Trump and their
demonstrated opposition to bipartisan cooperation, I think it is safe
to say that hard-working Americans would undoubtedly take a back seat
in a Democrat-led Congress. And the American people, they deserve
better than the party of ``no.''
I yield the floor.
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.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

The Democratic leader is recognized.

Freedom of the Press

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on the Trump media ban, you can tell
Trump's desperate, repressive media ban is flagrantly unconstitutional
when it gets blocked by a judge he appointed.
Trump can attack the First Amendment all he wants, but the roots of
our democracy run deeper than he could ever fathom. No President should
be able to use censorship to escape accountability, to deprive
Americans of the truth, and to take our country down the path to
authoritarianism.
Is Trump so fragile, so thin-skinned, so desperate that he can't
handle reporting that reflects the truth that he doesn't want to hear?
If Trump's Presidency and economy are going as well as he claims they
are, then he should have nothing to fear from the cameras.
We all know what this media ban was about. Trump himself told the
real truth when he said he was trying to protect his reputation with
this ban. To protect his reputation--can you believe it? The chutzpah
of a President to say, ``I am going to shut down the media because I
don't like what they are saying,'' when he knows that 250 grand years
of freedom of speech has been the hallmark of this country.
Of course, his statements were so out of line--and even his
supporters criticized it--that Trump had to backtrack by trying to
label these news outlets a so-called ``national security risk.''
No one bought that excuse for a second. The only thing Trump was
trying to defend was himself.
Trump knows he is in rough shape. He knows the American people are
furious with him and his party. He knows just how much of a disaster
his record is. And since Trump can't clean up his mess, he tries to
sweep it under the rug, and he failed miserably.
Trump can't outrun the press, and he can't outrun his record.
You hear that, Donald? You can't outrun the press, and you can't
outrun your miserable record.

China

Mr. President, on the Xi Jinping visit, Trump's soft-handed treatment
of the Chinese Communist Party is on full display this week during Xi
Jinping's visit. No sooner had Xi landed yesterday, than the Trump
administration announced it is extending its trade relief to China for
another 2 months.
Really? Trump ought to take that trade war truce up north to Canada,
instead of giving it to China and Xi and his authoritarian regime.
As usual, Trump acts based solely on who flatters him at the moment,
where the nearest photo-op is, and what headline he covers.
If you are foreign or authoritarian, Trump just won't invite you to
America; he will greet you planeside. That is what Trump did, sort of
as a supplicant for Xi yesterday. That is what Trump did for Putin in
Alaska last year.
This man has an atavistic attraction to dictators, to bad people.
Something is so wrong up there with him.
And now Trump and Rubio want to roll out the red carpet for Putin
again at the G20 in Florida this year.
Trump needs to finally show some backbone. America can't afford for
Trump to roll over on blocking China's access to our advanced AI tech,
stopping the flow of fentanyl, protecting oil workers, strengthening
American innovation, and holding the CCP accountable for aiding our
adversaries or any of the other pressing issues we face with the PRC.
Meeting an authoritarian at the bottom of the stairs is easy.
Standing up to them at the negotiating table is the hard part. So far,
Trump hasn't managed it.

Iran

Mr. President, on the Iran war, as Trump tries to tread water as his
disastrous war with Iran gets worse by the day, the American people are
drowning in costs. Gas is nearly $4.50 a gallon, and diesel is still
breaking highs at $6.51 a gallon because of Trump's war.
It is madness. Americans are getting crushed at the gas pumps.
Working families are getting cleaned out at the grocery store counters.
And family farms are going under because Trump took this country to war
without authorization, without a plan, without a second thought to the
consequences.
We have lost at least 19 brave servicemembers. Hundreds are wounded
or maimed, and tens of thousands remain in harm's way. That is just
what we know, since this administration keeps withholding information
from Congress and the American people about the true number of
casualties in this war.
All the while, Iran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz and other key
chokepoints has grown tighter, and the entire situation in the Middle
East has gotten worse. Trump's war has been one of the biggest foreign
policy catastrophes in the history of this country. And, of course, as
I said, the price of gasoline and the price of diesel keep going up.
From the start, I have said this war is bigger than politics, and
Senate Republicans--if they knew what was good for them--would have
joined us in pushing for an end to Trump's war 7 months ago.
Well, Senate Democrats will force a vote on another War Powers
Resolution to end Trump's disastrous war and bring our troops home, at
last, very soon. Americans will remember who votes to end Trump's war
today just as they will remember who voted for the war to continue,
time and time and time again, for 7 long months.

Big Oil

Mr. President, and on the Trump Big Oil corruption report, Donald
Trump's flagrant corruption costs the American people dearly every
single day. We all know that.
Just this morning, I joined Senator Whitehouse to unveil our Anti-
corruption Working Group's staggering new report on how Trump's corrupt
dealings with Big Oil billionaires are costing the American people a
fortune. It is a tale as old as time in Trump's America.
In 2024, this then was brazen. I knew we were headed for trouble when
I saw it back then in the papers, because in 2024 Trump invited Harold
Hamm and all those Big Oil guys down to Mar-a-Lago and asked them for a
$1 billion--$1 billion--for his campaign in exchange for political
favors to boost their bottom line.
It was appalling then--pay-to-play--and openly done, bragging boldly.
I mean, that shows these people have no shame. They have no worries
about the strictures of democracy, of morality, of what America has
always been all about. No, they brag about it: We will give you $1
billion. Help our oil companies, ho ho ho.
But the American people paid the price. Big Oil paid up and, boy, did
Donald Trump deliver.
Trump blocked clean energy projects that would have brought down
families' energy costs and powered millions of homes. The
administration shut down the cheapest and fastest source of energy to
build and get--the cheapest source of energy, the fastest source; it is
the one that goes quickest on the grid--just so billionaires, Big Oil
billionaires, could get even richer.
Many of the same people making these policies are profiting off them.
Trump appointed numerous fossil fuel industry leaders to his
administration.
Trump's corruption is not a victimless crime; it never is. Every

[[Page S4962]]

time Americans see the skyrocketing costs on their electric bill or at
the gas station, they know who to blame: Donald Trump and his Big Oil
billionaire cronies.
Trump's greed isn't just costing Americans more for energy; it is
costing them their health. A report found that the pollution from
Trump's Big Oil blitz is driving up Americans' healthcare costs too.
I want to salute Sheldon Whitehouse, who had a strong hand in putting
together this report. He has been steadfast, brilliant, and hard-nosed
on fighting this corruption, and I salute him again. Americans--all
Americans--should salute him for his efforts.
Trump may think he can hide his corruption in the shadows, but we,
Democrats in the Senate, will continue turning over every rock to
expose how his greed is costing the American people.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The majority whip.

Motion to Table Amendment No. 6779

Mr. BARRASSO. I move to table Senate amendment No. 6779.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.

Motion to Table Amendment No. 6777

Mr. BARRASSO. I move to table Senate amendment No. 6777.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.

Waiving Quorum Call

Mr. BARRASSO. I ask unanimous consent to waive the mandatory quorum
call with respect to the cloture motion on S. 4668.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Unanimous Consent Agreement--H. Con. Res. 89

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that if the
order with respect to H. Con Res. 89 is executed following the cloture
vote on S. 4668, the Senate vote on adoption of H. Con. Res. 89 at 1:45
p.m. today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Vote on Amendment No. 6776

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on adoption of the
amendment.
Mr. BARRASSO. 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 senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
The result was announced--yeas 77, nays 23, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 242 Leg.]

YEAS--77

Armstrong
Baldwin
Banks
Barrasso
Bennet
Blackburn
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Cantwell
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Coons
Cornyn
Cortez Masto
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Durbin
Ernst
Fetterman
Fischer
Gallego
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hassan
Hawley
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
King
Klobuchar
Lankford
Lee
Lujan
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moran
Moreno
Murkowski
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Peters
Ricketts
Risch
Rosen
Rounds
Schatz
Schmitt
Scott (SC)
Shaheen
Sheehy
Slotkin
Smith
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Warner
Welch
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
Young

NAYS--23

Alsobrooks
Blumenthal
Blunt Rochester
Booker
Duckworth
Gillibrand
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
Markey
Merkley
Moody
Murphy
Paul
Reed
Sanders
Schiff
Schumer
Scott (FL)
Van Hollen
Warnock
Warren
The amendment (No. 6776) was agreed to.

Cloture Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The senior assistant executive clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No.
449, S. 4668, a bill to protect the name, image, and likeness
rights of, and provide protections for, student athletes and
to promote fair competition among intercollegiate athletics,
and for other purposes.
John Thune, Ted Cruz, Eric Schmitt, Chuck Grassley, Tim
Sheehy, John Barrasso, Steve Daines, Pete Ricketts,
John Cornyn, John R. Curtis, Alan Armstrong, Ted Budd,
James Lankford, Bernie Moreno, Cindy Hyde-Smith, James
E. Risch, Mike Crapo.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on S.
4668, a bill to protect the name, image, and likeness rights of, and
provide protections for, student athletes and to promote fair
competition among intercollegiate athletics, and for other purposes,
shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant executive clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the
Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 74, nays 25, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 243 Leg.]

YEAS--74

NAYS--25

NOT VOTING--1

Tillis

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagerty). On this vote the yeas are 74,
the nays are 25. The motion is agreed to.
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

Motion to Table

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I move to table the committee-reported
substitute amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion. The
motion is agreed to.
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.

____________________