[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 80 (Wednesday, May 8, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3575-S3589]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    SECURING GROWTH AND ROBUST LEADERSHIP IN AMERICAN AVIATION ACT--
                               Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.


                       Unanimous Consent Request

  Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, I rise today to ask this body for 
unanimous consent to call up and make pending our amendment to add the 
Credit Card Competition Act to the substitute amendment for the FAA 
reauthorization bill.
  Kansans elected me to fight for them in Washington, to give them a 
voice at the highest levels of government. I humbly took this job and 
that responsibility seriously. For that reason, I stand here today to 
say that I will not fall in line and cower to the standard operating 
procedures up here that puts U.S. Senators in the backseat and blocks 
us from bringing our priorities--the priorities of the people--to the 
floor.
  Kansans want their voices to be heard and not sidelined by DC 
lobbyists and special interest groups who are blocking and tackling our 
priorities behind the scenes. Every Senator in this Chamber should have 
the right to hear and vote on their amendments. Many of my colleagues 
and I welcome this debate. It is healthy. Let's have the debates. Let's 
take the hard votes. What is the harm? I ask everybody: What is the 
harm of these discussions of these debates and then letting the cards 
fall as they may with each vote? Each Senator deserves the opportunity 
to bring their amendments to the floor and make their case.
  Back home, I crisscross Kansas, meeting with small businesses and 
owners across the State. And at every meeting, they look me in the eyes 
and they say they need some type of relief. The price of business is 
simply too high and unfair. Outrageous swipe fees from Wall Street and 
the Visa-Mastercard duopoly are pulling the rug out from under them, 
making it unaffordable to do business. Americans pay seven times more 
than our friends in the European Union do for the same swipe fee, four 
times more than our friends in Canada.
  So we took these concerns to Washington, and we got to work. But I 
never could have imagined the uphill battle we would face up here to do 
the right thing, for doing what is best for hard-working Americans who 
are living paycheck to paycheck.
  As a physician, once we diagnose a problem, we think the treatment 
should be quick. Our patients demand that quick turnaround. Once we 
figure out what is wrong: ``Here is the solution. Let's do it.'' I 
don't want our patients to wait any more longer than they have to.
  But in Washington, I have learned and realized that, too often, we 
see the problem, but we sit on the solutions if they are not popular 
with the people who cut the biggest checks up here. For too long, the 
Visa-Mastercard duopolies use money and influence in Washington to turn 
politicians' eyes away from predatory swipe fees. Right now the Visa-
Mastercard duopoly and four mega banks are robbing our American small 
businesses at the highest rate in the world with credit card swipe fees 
totaling over 90 billion--that is 90 with a ``b,'' billion--dollars 
each year.
  These swipe fees are inflation multipliers on businesses and the 
consumers. Often, credit card swipe fees are one of business's highest 
costs, often topping utilities, rent, or even the employees' healthcare 
costs.
  Mom-and-pop shops across Kansas, hotels across Kansas, franchise 
owners across Kansas, consumers are all asking for relief to be able to 
sell their goods at a lower price and hire more employees, which I know 
this Chamber all agrees with is a good thing. If only they could get 
Wall Street out of the way of Main Street's success.
  The National Federation of Independent Businesses, the voice of small 
businesses, said 92 percent of their members are asking for this--92 
percent. So 92 percent of small businesses are telling Congress how we 
can help them, yet this body refuses to vote on it. It is not going to 
cost taxpayers a dime. And 92 percent of businesses want this.
  It has been 2 long years since Senator Durbin and I introduced this 
bill--2 years of fighting, asking, begging for a vote. For 2 years, we 
have gotten nothing but excuses and empty promises and assurances. We 
begged for committee hearings, with no results. Crickets. Why are they 
so afraid to have a committee hearing up here even on this? It is 
because they are afraid of the truth. We jumped through every hoop 
asked of us by leadership to try to advance this legislation for a 
vote. Enough posturing.
  Kansan legend and Statesman Bob Dole once said.


[[Page S3576]]


  

       Leaders stand ready to make the hard decisions and to live 
     with the consequences. They don't pass it off to somebody 
     else.

  I know this won't be popular for beltway insiders and Wall Street 
lobbyists, but it is good for small businesses. It is good for hard-
working Americans.
  I made my decision. I am sticking with Main Street every single time. 
I am sticking with hard-working Americans who take their lunch pail to 
work.
  Madam President, I will close today with a reminder to this Chamber: 
I will not stop fighting until we get this vote.
  I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment in order 
to call up amendment No. 1936.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, reserving the right to object--and I 
will object--I thank my colleague from Kansas for his comments, but we 
are on the FAA bill.
  The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board need 
reauthorization by this Friday. So the leadership, both the House and 
Senate, have decided to best move forward to meet that deadline--the 
best thing we can do is to keep the subject of this debate to germane 
amendments. We have all four corners, not one person, not one 
individual, but all four leadership teams saying we need to get this 
bill done, and we will consider amendments that are germane to this 
subject.
  I hope my colleagues will turn down my colleague from Kansas' request 
and move forward with an FAA bill so we can get this done to make sure 
that we are implementing the most important safety standards possible 
today--more air traffic controllers, more near-runway-miss technology, 
25-hour cockpit recording--and make sure that we are giving consumers 
the refunds they deserve.
  Madam President, therefore, I object to the Senator from Kansas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Kansas.


                            Motion to Table

  Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, I move to table the Motion to Commit, 
and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  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.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Indiana (Mr. Braun) and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Tuberville).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 12, nays 85, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 160 Leg.]

                                YEAS--12

     Cassidy
     Cornyn
     Ernst
     Hawley
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lee
     Marshall
     Schmitt
     Scott (FL)
     Sullivan
     Vance

                                NAYS--85

     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blackburn
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boozman
     Britt
     Brown
     Budd
     Butler
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Fetterman
     Fischer
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Lujan
     Lummis
     Manchin
     Markey
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Mullin
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Paul
     Peters
     Reed
     Ricketts
     Risch
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott (SC)
     Shaheen
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Welch
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Braun
     Sinema
     Tuberville
  The motion was rejected.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from Virginia.


                               H.R. 3935

  Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise today, certain that, by now, some 
of the desk staff have memorized the speech I am about to give because 
it is the third time that I will have given it in the last few weeks on 
a topic that is really important to Virginia--the FAA reauthorization 
bill that is now pending before the body.
  I want to thank Chairwoman Cantwell, Ranking Member Cruz, and the 
members of the Commerce Committee because, as a general matter, this is 
a necessary bill with a lot of good provisions in it--in particular, 
the work on air traffic control recruitment and training and pilot 
training hours.
  I feel very, very good about that work that has been done. But the 
gist of this bill is to promote air safety, and there is one provision 
in the bill that is dramatically contrary to the thrust of this bill. 
It will not increase air safety. It will reduce air safety, and it will 
reduce air safety in the Capital of the United States--at Reagan 
National Airport, otherwise known as DCA.
  I am going to summarize quickly the arguments I made in the last 
couple of weeks, but then I want to respond to at least three questions 
that folks who take a position opposite to me have raised and use some 
data to demonstrate that those questions, though honestly raised, have 
answers, and the answers actually verify and uphold the position that I 
and my Maryland and Virginia colleagues take: that we should not be 
jamming more flights onto the busiest runway in the United States.
  Reagan National Airport, DCA, was built a long time ago. It is a 
postage stamp; it is 860 acres. By order of comparison, Dulles Airport 
is about 12,000 acres; Dallas-Fort Worth is about 19,000 acres; and 
Denver is 32,000 acres.
  When Reagan National was built, it was a little bit the trend to 
build these smaller airports near downtowns because the airplanes were 
smaller, they were props with fewer passengers, they were lighter, and 
they didn't need as much runway space to take off or land.
  When Reagan National was built on these 860 acres--and if you have 
been there, you know that it is 860 that can't be expanded because it 
is surrounded on three sides by water and on the other side by the 
George Washington Parkway; there is no way to expand this--it was built 
with three runways: a primary runway and two commuter runways.
  The estimate was, in the 1960s, that Reagan National, with these 
three runways, could accommodate 15 million passengers a year--15 
million passengers a year. Well, where are we today, circa 2024? Reagan 
National has now 25\1/2\ million passengers a year--25\1/2\ million 
passengers--an additional two-thirds over what it was built for on a 
landlocked footprint, with three runways.
  There have been a couple other important changes at Reagan National. 
The idea was to spread the 15 million passengers over three runways, 
but that was when the planes were smaller and they were props. Now they 
are jets, and they can't land on the shorter runways. So today at 
Reagan National, 90 percent of the traffic into Reagan National has to 
use the main runway.
  Think about this: If it was 15 million equally divided, then each 
runway would bring about 5 million passengers a year. Now the main 
runway doesn't have 5 million, it was 22\1/2\ million passengers a 
year, with only about 2\1/2\ to 3 million on the other two runways.
  There has been another major change since this projection of 15 
million a year was made, and that is 9/11. In the aftermath of 9/11, we 
imposed dramatically more stringent security requirements on the air 
patterns over Reagan National to make it much harder to get into a 
landing zone to land or to take off.
  So what does that mean? Built for 15\1/2\ million on a landlocked 
spot, now at 25 million--what does it mean? Well, it means that the 
main runway at Reagan National is now the single busiest runway in the 
United States. Reagan National, because it is small, is not the busiest 
airport in the United States. It is only 19th in terms of total 
passengers in and out. But that main runway, with 90 percent of the 
traffic, is the busiest runway in the United States.
  What does that mean? What does it mean to have one primary runway 
with 90 percent of the traffic that is the busiest in the United 
States? Well, it is pretty easy to predict. It means very

[[Page S3577]]

significant congestion. Let me give some stats about that.
  Reagan, as the 19th busiest airport in the United States, has the 8th 
most daily delays. You calculate daily delay by the percentages of 
incoming and outgoing that are delayed and multiply it by the average 
delay. More than 20 percent of flights into and out of Reagan National 
are delayed. They are not delayed by a little. There are some airports 
that have worse on-time records, but the delay is a little bit of a 
delay. The average delay of flights in and out of Reagan National, once 
delayed, is 67 minutes already. That accounts to over 11,000 minutes of 
delay every day.
  What does delay mean? Delay means, OK, you are late arrival or you 
are late taking off. But if you are taking off, you might be trying to 
make a connecting flight. It also means you take off late, and you are 
likely to miss your connecting flight. If you are coming in late and 
the plane is supposed to leave to take some people out and go somewhere 
else, the delay cascades down, and it affects the entire system.
  Delay isn't the only measure of this airport's congestion; the second 
one is the number of canceled flights. Some airports have 
cancellations--I mean, maybe in Madison when the weather is not so 
great or Anchorage or the Windy City or Minneapolis. DCA has the third 
worst cancellation rate among these airports. And it is not because of 
weather. The weather here in DC may not be great, but it is not 
catastrophic either. The delay is a function of congestion.
  Here is another measure: Planes that are landing, that upon landing 
have to get rerouted into a looping pattern--DCA is the third worst in 
that. Why does that matter? Well, first, it creates delay, but second, 
if you are looping planes through a constricted airspace as planes are 
taking off and landing every minute, you are increasing the risk of 
accident.
  By all these measures--delay, average daily delay, cancellations, 
looping patterns--this airport, built for 15 million and now at 25 
million, has serious problems already before you add any more flights 
to it.
  The problems are more than just delay; the problems are also safety. 
I mean, we are all experienced folks, and we know that on roads, the 
more congested the road, the more likely an accident. Roads that are 
lightly traveled are less likely to have accidents. Roads that are more 
heavily traveled are more likely to have accidents.
  I talked about this before I had a chance to play the air traffic 
control tape for colleagues of mine. I can't do that on the floor of 
the Senate. But about 2 weeks ago, there was a plane maneuvering on the 
main runway to take off and another plane trying to maneuver to one of 
the smaller runways to take off, and they almost collided. The frantic 
voice of the air traffic controller can be heard shouting ``Stop! 
Stop!'' These planes ended up stopping within 300 feet of each other, 
inside 100 yards of each other, at this super-busy airport.
  Thank God a collision and a catastrophe were averted, but more and 
more planes on this busiest runway in the United States is just going 
to increase the chance of a significant incident. Don't take my word 
for it. Even though as Senators I know we like to think we are experts 
about everything, there are experts on this--the Federal Aviation 
Administration and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. What 
does the FAA say about this? They point out--all the statistics I have 
just given you come from the FAA.

  There is a Senate proposal before us that would add 10 flights into 
Reagan National. That is called five slots. Each slot is a flight in 
and a flight out--a total of 10 more flights a day.
  What does the FAA say about it? They have given the committee and 
they have given the Senators from the region the same set of data, and 
what they say is that you can't even add one flight in without 
increasing delay, which is already significant, but if you add 10--5 
slots--the delay will increase by 751 minutes a day.
  There are already more than 11,000 minutes of delay a day. If you 
take the flights that are delayed and you multiply it by the minutes 
that they are delayed, adding 5 slots--10 flights--will add to that 751 
additional minutes of delay; 751 minutes that make people late, that 
jeopardize their ability to get a connection, that cause cascading 
delays in the other airports, which are going to maybe be the 
recipients of planes taking off later from Reagan National.
  That is what the FAA, charged with the safe and efficient operation 
of American airspace, is telling the U.S. Senate.
  The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority--Congress created it 
in the late 1980s. Congress appoints its Board and charges it with the 
operation not only of Reagan National but also Dulles Airport. What 
does the MWAA say? MWAA says: Stop. Stop. Don't add any more flights 
because the delay is already unacceptable, and if you jam more flights 
onto the busiest runway in the United States, you raise the safety 
risk.
  Again, we Senators like to think we know a lot. We don't know as much 
about efficient and safe air traffic operations as the Federal Aviation 
Administration. We don't know as much as the Metropolitan Washington 
Airports Authority.
  So when the delay statistics already point out that this is 
unacceptable, when the cancellation and looping into loop statistics 
are dangerous, when we have had a near collision that is a flashing red 
warning signal right in our face before this vote, when the FAA has 
said you can't even put one flight in without increasing what is 
already unacceptable delay, and when the Metropolitan Washington 
Airports Authority that we created, and we appoint their Board, says 
don't do this, why would we do this? Why would we do this?
  The Senators from the region who have the most at stake stand 
uniform--Senators Cardin, Van Hollen, Warner, and I--opposed to the 
slot increase that is in the Senate bill that is pending before us. We 
have an amendment that would strip those 5 slots--10 flights--out so 
that we don't make this worse.
  Since I last appeared on the floor to talk about this last week, 
colleagues have come up to me with some questions. They have raised 
three.
  Here is one: DCA is under capacity because DCA was approved for more 
than 1,000 flights a day in the 1960s, and there are only 890 flights 
in and out today, so therefore there must be more capacity at DCA.
  Those who ask that question are stating a truth. DCA was approved for 
over 1,000 flights a day in the 1960s when most of the flights had 
props, not jets; when most of the craft were smaller and had fewer 
passengers and could take off and land on shorter runways. So, yes, in 
the aviation world of the 1960s, DCA was approved for over 1,000 
flights, but in the aviation world of 2024, where it is jets with more 
passengers that take more time to land and take off, that isn't that 
relevant. It is not that relevant.
  In fact, another change that has happened that is important, that I 
alluded to earlier, is we were set up for more than 1,000 in and out in 
the 1960s--well, 9/11 happened since then. After 9/11, thank God, we 
have imposed much more stringent criteria on air traffic over the DC 
region--the Capitol, the Pentagon, the White House, Congress--to make 
sure there aren't challenges in the airspace that would lead to really 
serious harm and risk to people on planes and people who live in the 
area.
  So the FAA has said: You are right, we did approve a higher capacity 
in the 1960s, but the changes in the number and size of planes have 
constricted them to the one runway, and changes in the airspace have 
made it harder. That is why even though we are not at the capacity that 
was established in the 1960s, you can't even put one more flight--one 
more flight--into DCA without expanding delay.
  So that is the first argument. Yes, the 1960s was different, and 2024 
is a completely different kettle of fish. You shouldn't be jamming 
flights onto this runway.
  The second thing I have heard said is, well, DCA actually has pretty 
good on-time percentage--not bad delay, good on-time percentage.
  It is true, if you just look at the percentage of planes that land or 
take off on time, DCA is better than some airports. Now, it is kind of 
sad to say that 20-plus percent of our flights are delayed in and out, 
and that is better

[[Page S3578]]

than some others. But here is what you have to know: Which airport 
would you feel more comfortable flying into--one with an 80-percent on-
time record but where the average delay in that 20 percent was 67 
percent or what if you flew into one with a worse on-time record but 
where the average delay was 10 minutes? Sixty-seven minutes is a 
hassle. Sixty-seven minutes means a missed connection. Sixty-seven 
minutes means cascading delay throughout the system. Three minutes or 
ten minutes doesn't.
  So just looking at the on-time percentage doesn't give you the full 
picture of this airport, and that is why the FAA measures delay not in 
on-time percentage but in total daily delay. Based on that measure, DCA 
is not a high performer. It is already a poor performer, and we 
shouldn't add to it.
  The last thing I will say, and then I will yield to other colleagues 
who wish to speak, is that some have said: Oh, this is just a fight 
between some airlines. You know, United likes it one way. Delta likes 
it another way. Maybe some other airlines aren't expressing their 
position.
  Who cares about them? Who cares about the airlines? We ought to care 
about safety. We ought to care about passengers. We ought to care about 
the 25\1/2\ million people who are using this DCA airport on an annual 
basis, and we ought to weigh that 25\1/2\ million a lot heavier than a 
couple of dozen people in the Senate who would like to have more 
convenience on flights at DCA.
  And this is ultimately about the Senate, because, as I have said to 
my colleagues, the House took up the same issue in the FAA 
reauthorization bill, and in the committee, they chose not to jam more 
flights into DCA. Then, when the bill was on the floor, someone tried 
to make the amendment that is the same amendment that is before us 
today: Hey, why not add 5 flights, 10 flights?
  And the House rejected this. So this is not a battle with the House. 
The House has accepted the advocacy of the FAA and MWAA and the 
regional delegation. They paid heed to the potential impacts on delays 
and cancellations and even potential collisions, and they said: We are 
not going to run this risk. The last thing we want is for there to be 
something bad happen out at that airport, and people stick a mic in our 
face and say: You knew all this, and you were warned. But you voted for 
it anyway?
  So the House rejected this, and what Senator Warner and I and 
Senators Van Hollen and Cardin, the four Senators from the region 
affected by this bill--affected very dramatically by the bill--are 
asking is, we hope our Senate colleagues will too.
  We want to support this FAA bill. It has a lot of good in it. But 
when it comes to jamming more flights on the busiest runway in the 
United States, we are saying exactly what this air traffic controller 
said, narrowly avoiding a collision: Stop! Stop! For God's sake, stop!
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I return from a weekend at home. And last 
week, on the floor, I spoke about the same topic, and I rise today to 
again discuss the legislation that is now pending before the U.S. 
Senate, a long-term, 5-year reauthorization of the Federal Aviation 
Administration.
  I appreciated the opportunity to work with you and others on the 
Commerce Committee as we worked our way through this process. I think 
we have been at this about 14 months, and the time is for us to bring 
this to a conclusion.
  A long-term reauthorization must be a priority. It should be a 
priority as it was in our subcommittee, and, certainly, it should be a 
priority of this Senate.
  I am disappointed to learn, just a few moments ago, that it appears 
that the House of Representatives is set to vote on a 1-week extension. 
I hope that we do not utilize that development in the Senate to delay 
our consideration and passage of the legislation. Perhaps, that is the 
way for the House next week to finish the work, but as we often do here 
when there is extra time, we take every moment and much more than what 
is really available. After 14 months of negotiations, the most recent 
extension expires Friday of this week, May 10. It is time to come 
together and pass a long-term FAA reauthorization.
  I am the ranking member of the Aviation Subcommittee, where I worked 
closely with Chairs Cantwell and Duckworth and Ranking Member Cruz to 
balance the priorities of the FAA, the aviation community, its academia 
partners, and the flying public in a bill that demonstrates Congress's 
commitment to aviation safety and excellence.
  This legislation strengthens the standards for air safety, bolsters 
the aviation workforce, modernizes American airports in urban and rural 
settings, promotes innovation in American aviation, and enhances 
consumers' air travel experience.
  My home State of Kansas is steeped in aviation history and will 
continue to contribute to the greater industry as a result of the 
passage of this legislation.
  The FAA reauthorization safeguards the Essential Air Service Program, 
ensuring that rural communities and small airports are connected to the 
national airspace system, increasing business and tourism and access to 
educational opportunities and employment throughout the country--
invaluable to States like mine, States like Kansas.
  This allows small airports in rural communities to continue to have 
regional air service. Previous FAA reauthorization bills created the 
Aviation Workforce Development Grant Program, aimed at strengthening 
the pool of pilots and aviation maintenance workers. The text of 
agreement expands this highly competitive grant program to grow the 
aviation workforce and is broadened to open eligibility for aircraft 
manufacturing workers. Whether you are an airline looking for a pilot 
or an airplane manufacturer looking for a worker, there is great demand 
in our country for those who have those technical capabilities, that 
engineering experience, and those who love the joy of flying.
  Bolstering this grant program means increased competitiveness, which 
only drives innovation and will create more opportunities and economic 
development for our State and my colleagues' States. Every place you 
go, people are looking for workers. In America, we are known as the 
place in which aviation is king. Aerospace is a driving force in our 
country. A workforce is critical to its future.
  Similarly, this bill encourages research on how best to introduce 
emerging aviation technologies in the airspace, including electric 
propulsion and hypersonic aircraft. As the ``Air Capital of the 
World,'' Kansas is the leader in new aviation research, development, 
and technologies. These are significant components of our educational 
system in our community colleges, technical colleges, and our 
universities. This legislation also provides a unique opportunity, not 
only to address current demands of the industry, current technical 
needs, but also to address the future ones.
  The FAA oversees the world's busiest and most complex airspace system 
in the world, managing approximately 50,000 flights and 3 million 
passengers every day. In order to address shortcomings in air safety 
and modernization, Congress must do its job and pass a reauthorization 
bill that is tailored to the needs of the aviation community and the 
flying public. Recent incidents and near misses have made clear the 
urgency of this responsibility. No matter what else we do, we need to 
make certain that flying is as safe as it possibly can be.
  This bill also makes considerable investment in modernization of the 
National Airspace System and FAA's systems for oversight.
  As air traffic increases and new manned and unmanned aviation 
technologies are deployed, this bill provides essential updates to the 
FAA and to the NTSB's regulatory mandate. This bill addresses the need 
for additional numbers of air traffic controllers.
  With an eye toward the future of aviation, this bill invests 
extensively in research and development around advanced materials, 
including at Wichita State University, innovative fuel research, and 
emergent aviation technologies.
  The bill equips the FAA to meet its mission, to provide a safe and 
efficient operating environment for civil and commercial aviation in 
the United States.

[[Page S3579]]

  Beyond innovative safety and workforce solutions, the bill provides 
the aviation industry, academia, and regulatory Agencies with the 
resources needed to maintain and extend America's leadership in 
aviation.
  The path to a long-term FAA reauthorization has not been easy; nor 
has it been a short one. But this critical legislation can no longer 
take a backseat. Delaying this important legislation any further only 
exacerbates the challenges that the American civil and commercial 
aviation industries face and essentially condones bad behavior and lack 
of incentive by Congress.
  Madam President, I hope that we do not use--if the House does pass a 
short-term extension, I hope we do not use it as an excuse to not 
proceed further today, tomorrow, and Friday to complete our work.
  It is time we come together. It is time we get this bill done. It is 
past time for us to come together and get this bill done. The flying 
public and our aviation industry partners want it and our country and 
our citizens deserve it and need it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from Rhode Island.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am back with my trusty battered 
``Time to Wake Up'' chart here to talk about the climate warnings that 
now predict climate-related damage in the trillions of dollars--
trillions of dollars.
  A full third of our national debt already comes from economic shocks 
like COVID and the 2008 mortgage meltdown. I have been using the Budget 
Committee to spotlight warnings that the next big economic shock will 
be caused by climate change. Climate change is not just about polar 
bears or green jobs. It is about economic storm warnings to which we 
had better start paying attention. Today, I will talk about three.
  The most recent comes from the Potsdam Institute.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have the report summary 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

            [From Nature, volume 628, pages 551-557 (2024)]

               The Economic Commitment of Climate Change

          (By Maximilian Kotz, Anders Levermann & Leonie Wenz)


                                Abstract

       Global projections of macroeconomic climate-change damages 
     typically consider impacts from average annual and national 
     temperatures over long time horizons. Here we use recent 
     empirical findings from more than 1,600 regions worldwide 
     over the past 40 years to project sub-national damages from 
     temperature and precipitation, including daily variability 
     and extremes. Using an empirical approach that provides a 
     robust lower bound on the persistence of impacts on economic 
     growth, we find that the world economy is committed to an 
     income reduction of 19% within the next 26 years independent 
     of future emission choices (relative to a baseline without 
     climate impacts, likely range of 11-29% accounting for 
     physical climate and empirical uncertainty). These damages 
     already outweigh the mitigation costs required to limit 
     global warming to 2  deg.C by sixfold over this near-term 
     time frame and thereafter diverge strongly dependent on 
     emission choices. Committed damages arise predominantly 
     through changes in average temperature, but accounting for 
     further climatic components raises estimates by approximately 
     50% and leads to stronger regional heterogeneity. Committed 
     losses are projected for all regions except those at very 
     high latitudes, at which reductions in temperature 
     variability bring benefits. The largest losses are committed 
     at lower latitudes in regions with lower cumulative 
     historical emissions and lower present-day income.


                                  Main

       Projections of the macroeconomic damage caused by future 
     climate change are crucial to informing public and policy 
     debates about adaptation, mitigation and climate justice. On 
     the one hand, adaptation against climate impacts must be 
     justified and planned on the basis of an understanding of 
     their future magnitude and spatial distribution. This is also 
     of importance in the context of climate justice, as well as 
     to key societal actors, including governments, central banks 
     and private businesses, which increasingly require the 
     inclusion of climate risks in their macroeconomic forecasts 
     to aid adaptive decision-making. On the other hand, climate 
     mitigation policy such as the Paris Climate Agreement is 
     often evaluated by balancing the costs of its implementation 
     against the benefits of avoiding projected physical damages. 
     This evaluation occurs both formally through cost-benefit 
     analyses, as well as informally through public perception of 
     mitigation and damage costs.
       Projections of future damages meet challenges when 
     informing these debates, in particular the human biases 
     relating to uncertainty and remoteness that are raised by 
     long-term perspectives. Here we aim to overcome such 
     challenges by assessing the extent of economic damages from 
     climate change to which the world is already committed by 
     historical emissions and socio-economic inertia (the range of 
     future emission scenarios that are considered 
     socioeconomically plausible). Such a focus on the near term 
     limits the large uncertainties about diverging future 
     emission trajectories, the resulting long-term climate 
     response and the validity of applying historically observed 
     climate--economic relations over long timescales during which 
     socio-technical conditions may change considerably. As such, 
     this focus aims to simplify the communication and maximize 
     the credibility of projected economic damages from future 
     climate change.
       In projecting the future economic damages from climate 
     change, we make use of recent advances in climate 
     econometrics that provide evidence for impacts on sub-
     national economic growth from numerous components of the 
     distribution of daily temperature and precipitation. Using 
     fixed-effects panel regression models to control for 
     potential confounders, these studies exploit within-region 
     variation in local temperature and precipitation in a panel 
     of more than 1,600 regions worldwide, comprising climate and 
     income data over the past 40 years, to identify the plausibly 
     causal effects of changes in several climate variables on 
     economic productivity. Specifically, macroeconomic impacts 
     have been identified from changing daily temperature 
     variability, total annual precipitation, the annual number of 
     wet days and extreme daily rainfall that occur in addition to 
     those already identified from changing average temperature. 
     Moreover, regional heterogeneity in these effects based on 
     the prevailing local climatic conditions has been found using 
     interactions terms. The selection of these climate variables 
     follows micro-level evidence for mechanisms related to the 
     impacts of average temperatures on labour and agricultural 
     productivity, of temperature variability on agricultural 
     productivity and health, as well as of precipitation on 
     agricultural productivity, labour outcomes and flood damages 
     (see Extended Data Table 1 for an overview, including more 
     detailed references). References contain a more detailed 
     motivation for the use of these particular climate variables 
     and provide extensive empirical tests about the robustness 
     and nature of their effects on economic output, which are 
     summarized in Methods. By accounting for these extra climatic 
     variables at the sub-national level, we aim for a more 
     comprehensive description of climate impacts with greater 
     detail across both time and space.

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. The institute warns that ``global annual damages are 
estimated to be at 38 trillion dollars, with a likely range of 19-59 
trillion dollars in 2050.'' Thirty-eight trillion dollars is the 
midpoint in a range that could go as high as $59 trillion. That is 
pretty bad.
  But it gets worse. This is not a complete accounting of the expected 
damages. It does not fully account for damage from weather extremes, 
things like storm and wildfire damage.
  To quote the Potsdam report about its damage predictions, 
``accounting for other weather extremes such as storms or wildfires 
could further raise'' these predictions.
  And even that is not the end of it. It gets worse still. The Potsdam 
economic estimates leave out damages that are hard to monetize but, 
nonetheless, can be very real to real people. Again, quoting from the 
report, ``that is without even considering non-economic impacts such as 
loss of life or biodiversity.''
  If your grandfather taught you to fish in a certain place and you 
can't pass that on to your granddaughter because the fish aren't there 
or because the creek isn't there, that is a real and genuine harm, but 
they can't monetize it. So they don't even count it.
  I am sorry to report that it gets even worse. The Potsdam global 
damage estimates are based on existing levels of fossil fuel pollution.
  Back to the report:

       These near-term damages are a result of our past emissions. 
     We will need more adaptation efforts if we want to avoid at 
     least some of them. And we have to cut down our emissions 
     drastically and immediately--if not, economic losses will 
     become even bigger in the second half of the century.

  Well, with an entire industry and an entire political party, 
dedicated here in Congress to make sure that we do not cut down our 
emissions drastically or immediately, this damage estimate is virtually 
certain to be worse in the out years.
  In sum, economic damages could be as high as $59 trillion annually in 
2050,

[[Page S3580]]

plus whatever added damages come from storm and wildfire, plus whatever 
added damages come that are hard to monetize, plus whatever economic 
damages come from failing to reduce emissions drastically and 
immediately.
  How do these damages hit us? Here is the report:

       These damages mainly result from rising temperatures but 
     also from changes in rainfall and temperature variability.

  Those factors lead to ``income reductions . . . for the majority of 
regions, including North America . . . caused by the impact of climate 
change on . . . agricultural yields, labor productivity or 
infrastructure.''
  The result:

       Climate change will cause massive economic damages within 
     the next 25 years in almost all countries around the world, 
     [including] the United States.

  That is report one: ``massive economic damages'' to the United 
States.
  Let's move on to report two, the cover article from a recent issue of 
the Economist magazine, titled ``The Next Housing Disaster.''
  From the Economist's opening paragraph:

       About a tenth of the world's residential property by value 
     is under threat from global warming--including many houses 
     that are nowhere near the coast. From tornados battering 
     Midwestern American suburbs to tennis-ball-size hailstones 
     smashing the roofs of Italian villas, the severe weather 
     brought about by greenhouse-gas emissions is shaking the 
     foundations of the world's most important asset class.

  Going on, the article says:

       The potential costs . . . are enormous. By one estimate, 
     climate change and the fight against it could wipe out 9 
     percent of the value of the world's housing by 2050--which 
     amounts to $25 trillion.

  We have had testimony in the Budget Committee about how this works. 
There is the potential direct cost of damage from wildfires or major 
storms. Hurricane Ian cost Florida more than $100 billion, and it was 
just a category 4 storm at landfall, below the maximum category 5 
strength.
  Some scientists believe we will actually need category 6 in the 
future for storms that are made even more powerful due to ever-warming 
seas.
  There is the related risk of insurance coverage failing to pay claims 
after such a major disaster, leaving homeowners stranded economically 
in ruined homes. Then, there is the broader risk of insurance collapse, 
even without a single devastating storm.
  How does that work? Again, from Budget Committee testimony: First, 
unprecedented, unpredictable wildfire or flooding risks drive up 
insurance costs. We are already seeing that happen.
  Then, continued unpredictability and worsening risk make properties 
in certain areas uninsurable. We are beginning to see that. You can't 
get a policy for any amount of money.
  Without insurance, then, it is near impossible to get a mortgage. And 
by the way, a 30-year mortgage doesn't look just at today's conditions; 
it looks out 30 years.
  So a mortgage crisis follows the insurance problem. And when 
properties can't get a mortgage, the only buyers for the property are 
cash buyers. Buyer demand crashes, and your property values crash along 
with that.
  This is how the chief economist of Freddie Mac predicted, years ago, 
a coastal property values crash that he said could hit the American 
economy as hard as the 2008 mortgage meltdown and subsequent global 
economic crisis: first, insurance crisis; second, mortgage crisis; 
third, coastal property value crisis.
  And unlike the mortgage meltdown of 2008, when property values could 
recover and did recover from an economic shock, properties that are 
predictably going to be underwater physically or repeatedly burn down 
during the 30-year period of a mortgage, they won't recover their 
value. This is not a temporary market panic that crashes and then 
rebounds to something near normal.
  In this kind of crash, the unpredictable conditions and the 
underlying risk that caused it just get worse--for decades, if we get 
serious, finally, about fossil fuel emissions, and for centuries or 
forever if we don't. We are playing near the edge of an economic 
precipice.
  Back to The Economist:

       The $25 trillion bill will pose problems around the world. 
     But doing nothing today will only make tomorrow more painful.

  This is what is called a systemic shock. It does not stay confined to 
the affected homeowners and industries.
  To quote The Economist here:

       The impending bill is so huge, in fact, that it will have 
     grim implications not just for personal prosperity, but also 
     for the financial system.

  I continue here:

       If the size of the risk suddenly sinks in, and borrowers 
     and lenders alike realize the collateral underpinning so many 
     transactions is not worth as much as they thought, a wave of 
     repricing will reverberate through financial markets.

  The punch line:

       Climate change, in short, could prompt the next global 
     property crash.

  Now, The Economist article is a prediction just as to property 
markets.
  For report three in this speech, let's go to Deloitte's research arm, 
which looks at broader economic trajectories: A, if we do respond 
effectively to climate change and, B, if we don't. The stakes are huge.
  Deloitte is a corporate consulting firm; it is not a Green New 
Dealer. And Deloitte estimates that the global cost of doing nothing on 
climate will be around $180 trillion in economic damage by 2070--$178 
trillion to be exact.
  To quote the Deloitte report:

       If we allow climate change to go unchecked, it will ravage 
     our global economy.
       Ravage our global economy.

  But the Deloitte report goes on to say that if we act responsibly and 
enact policies that limit warming to 1.7 degrees Celsius, we can save 
ourselves from that ravaging and actually grow the global economy by 
over $40 trillion--$43 trillion to be exact.
  So the swing in our economic future, based on what we do on climate, 
is over $220 trillion, the difference between a negative $178 trillion 
bad climate outcome if we keep shirking and dawdling, and a positive 
$43 trillion good climate outcome if we shape up. And to be clear, that 
$220 trillion, that is adjusted to present value.
  Dialing down to the United States, the report predicts:

       For the United States, the damages to 2070 are projected to 
     reach $14.5 trillion, a lifetime loss of nearly $70,000 for 
     each working American.

  On the upside, a responsible climate path could add $885 billion in 
economic benefit for the United States for a swing of over $15.3 
trillion, again, net present value, depending on which path we choose.
  The Deloitte report warns:

       [W]e have squandered the chance to decarbonize at our 
     leisure. Given the costs associated with each tenth of a 
     degree of temperature increase, every month of delay brings 
     greater risks and forestalls the eventual economic gains.

  They continue:

       The global economy needs to execute a rapid, coordinated, 
     and sequenced energy and industrial transition.

  This is not the speech to lay out how we do that; that speech will 
come later, so stand by.
  This speech is simply to highlight that there are now multiple 
damages assessments out there looking at the climate threat and 
assessing that threat into the tens of trillions of dollars.
  There is much that we don't know, but the common level, moving into 
the tens of trillions ought to be a wake-up call for all of us.
  There are some things that we do know. We do know that getting 
serious about these warnings will require breaking the filthy political 
hold of the fossil fuel industry on Congress.
  It will require exposing and defeating fossil fuel's dark money 
influence and disinformation armada. And it will require learning to 
deal with the facts as they are, not as a deeply, ill-motivated 
industry would have us wrongly believe.
  Wow, is it ever time to wake up.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Butler). The Senator from West Virginia.


                                  EPA

  Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, well, here we go again. The 
Environmental Protection Agency is back with a barrage of rules and 
regulations to accomplish two main goals: kill coal and natural gas 
once and for all, and in doing so, appease the climate activists who 
the President feels he needs to keep happy in an election year.
  So what just happened? Well, in the last 2 weeks, the Biden EPA 
finalized a slate of four policies as part of their

[[Page S3581]]

latest--and punishing--climate crusade.
  The first is the Clean Power Plan 2.0 that will eliminate coal power 
generation and block new natural gas plants from coming online in the 
future.
  The second is the updated Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule that 
is designed to put coal plants out West out of business by saddling 
them with unrealistic emissions requirements.
  The third is the Coal Combustion Residuals Rule.
  And the fourth is the Effluent Limitations Guidelines, sounds pretty 
technical, for coal plants which both impose unattainable requirements 
for disposing and discharging waste at these plants.
  The ELGs will orphan millions in investments made just in the last 4 
years. So our plants have readjusted to make sure they are following, 
and now they come back 4 years later and say, that $300 million? No 
good anymore; you have to spend another $340 million.
  Again, this administration isn't being shy about what the desired end 
game is here.
  These rules are meant to put coal and natural gas employees out of 
work. Now, let me tell you, the energy mix in this country now with 
coal and natural gas is 60 percent of our energy comes from the two of 
those combined. And the goal here is to shutter these baseload power 
plants once and for all.
  But as I alluded to earlier, they have tried this before. We all 
remember when the Obama administration attempted to implement a 
similar, overreaching set of mandates, and the Supreme Court remembers 
that as well. They turned it down.
  So why try again? Why get rejected by the highest Court in the land 
and then come back with the same playbook? Well, it, sadly, comes back 
to two of the overall--the same two overall goals: close down reliable 
American power plants, and try to prop up disappointing poll numbers.
  The administration doesn't seem to care whether these regulations are 
struck down in the end. They are betting that by threatening the 
electricity sector with rule after rule, investment will be forced away 
from reliable, baseload power towards the energy sources of their 
choices, which, by the way, cannot produce the energy that is needed.
  Beyond these four rules recently announced, the EPA has rolled out an 
electric vehicles mandate, an air rule meant to halt manufacturing 
projects, and a Federal plan that has already suffered legal blows in 
court because it dictates to States how to address their own unique 
environmental concerns.
  Much of the regulations in the environment space--and we all want 
clean air and clean water--are left to the discretion of the States 
with oversight by the Federal.
  But the EPA's broader strategy that costs hundreds of billions of 
dollars and purposefully violates legal constraints set by the Supreme 
Court is creating a massive problem that every member of the Biden 
administration just can't seem to see, or perhaps it is one that they 
choose to ignore.
  All of President Biden's environmental regulations impacting 
everything from power plants to the kind of cars that we drive are 
working against each other and putting us on a path to an energy 
crisis.
  They are driving up demand for electricity, so think electric 
vehicles, AI, higher manufacturing, more, more, more demand for energy, 
straining a grid that even the administration projects will see 
explosive demand in the coming years. We have seen instances where it 
has been too stressed, and it has had to pull back, while 
simultaneously cutting off the electricity supply from our baseload 
power needed to sustain that grid--more demand, less supply. It is kind 
of like a parent telling their child that they have to practice for 
hours and hours every day to make the high school baseball team, but in 
the same breath telling that same child: Well, you know what? I am 
going to take your bag, your bag of balls, your glove, and your bat, 
and I am going to put them in the garage. So good luck. So go get them.

  The Biden administration and many on the left desperately need a 
reality check, and here it is: The inconvenient truth is that coal and 
natural gas are the backbone of America's current electric grid. I 
mentioned that earlier, 60 percent.
  Many, many people know that I am a huge advocate for nuclear energy 
and hoping to get a bill passed to really spur the development of small 
modular nuclear and the advanced nuclear production because we want to 
see it grow to help with this baseload energy demand that we are going 
to see. I want energy sources of all kinds to continue playing an 
increased role, including renewables--wind and solar--in our energy 
mix, and I believe that with innovation and time, this absolutely will 
happen.
  But, as I said, the reality is roughly 60 percent of electric 
generation in the United States comes from the two sources of power 
that the Biden administration is trying to close forever. Not only do 
these attacks on coal- and gas-fired powerplants make no sense, they 
pose serious threat to our grid reliability. That means: Is our grid 
going to be able to sustain the great energy appetite that we have?
  And experts have sounded the alarm. Public utilities commissioners, 
nonpartisan grid operators from Blue States and Red States, the Federal 
Energy Regulatory Commission--better known as FERC--and the nonprofit 
North American Electric Reliability Corporation all shouted from the 
rooftops about the ways the Biden administration's proposed Clean Power 
Plan 2.0 and other rules would jeopardize the reliability of our 
electric grid. It would ``undermine reliability''; ``materially and 
adversely impact electric reliability''; ``potentially catastrophic 
reliability problems.''
  These are just a few of the warning signs that we heard about when 
the EPA brought their plan forward.
  The finalized rules announced by the EPA largely brushed aside these 
concerns. This is what gets me. They ask you for comments and concerns, 
and then they never listen to the comments or concerns. They brushed 
aside these concerns and pressed ahead to close down major sources of 
baseload power with no plan to replace it.
  So let's take a step back and look at these rules and regulations 
from the outside. The results of the EPA's latest action means--what 
will happen? Americans will lose their jobs, and certainly in my State 
of West Virginia that will occur. American families and small 
businesses will pay more for their electricity at a time when 
Bidenomics is already causing inflation. Just go to the grocery store. 
Every time we go, we see it.
  America's entire grid will be in jeopardy, our electric grid will be 
in jeopardy. And with an inexplicable ban on new natural gas exports 
still in place, America's allies will have to go to Russia and Iran and 
ask for extra help.
  It is plain to see that the President's entire energy and 
environmental strategy actually hurts America and helps our 
adversaries. So as the Biden administration attempts to put the final 
nail in the coffin of America's baseload power sources, remember their 
objectives. To them, it is about accomplishing a decades-long goal of 
closing down coal and gas plants and hoping it is enough to get over 
the finish line in an election year. They have shown they have no 
regard for the opinions of our Supreme Court, no regard for the workers 
in West Virginia, and no regard for the truth about what happens when 
you undermine our Nation's electric grid.
  The Biden administration has chosen whose side they are on: They are 
on the side of the climate activists over the well-being of Middle 
America, and they have chosen to shut the lights off for the rest of us 
without so much as a ``good luck.''
  With that, I yield the floor to my friend from Mississippi.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Madam President, the Biden administration continues 
to fail the American people with its consistent attacks on our Nation's 
energy supply and production. These attacks are happening as Americans 
continue to suffer through the burden of record inflation caused by 
this administration.
  Energy is the lifeblood of civilization: lighting our homes; fueling 
our transportation; powering innovation; and for those of us in rural 
America, heating our poultry houses--much like the area where you and I 
come from, Madam President.

[[Page S3582]]

  Energy of all forms--from oil and gas to nuclear, to wind, to solar--
not only powers our world, but it protects our world. To threaten any 
energy source is to threaten the vitality of our Nation and its 
communities. But from day one, President Biden did just that. It 
started with a barrage of excessive Executive orders aimed at American 
energy production, including the cancellation of the Keystone XL 
Pipeline, and only got worse from there.
  Agencies under this administration have been emboldened to ram 
through harmful policies and rules that are driving us straight toward 
a cliff. The Department of the Interior continues to hold domestic 
energy production back by releasing a 5-year leasing plan for oil and 
gas production that contains the lowest amount of lease sales in 
history, with the option for the Secretary to cancel any one of them as 
she deems necessary.
  The Bureau of Land Management has issued rules that weaken our 
domestic energy production and create additional more redtape. The 
Environmental Protection Agency has issued rules that weaken our 
domestic energy production and limit consumer choice for vehicles. The 
Department of Energy has issued rules that weaken our domestic energy 
production, limit consumer choice for natural gas appliances in our 
houses, and place a pause on liquefied natural gas export. It makes no 
sense.
  Even the Securities and Exchange Commission has now decided it wants 
to get involved with climate policy, releasing a greenhouse gas 
disclosure rule that would lead to mountains of burdensome paperwork 
for companies and higher costs for consumers. The SCC is meant to 
protect investors, facilitate capital formation, and maintain markets. 
It has absolutely no authority to address political or social issues, 
much less serve as a climate change taskmaster.
  If you threw a dart at a dartboard labeled with all the Biden 
Agencies that have a hand in targeting energy production, chances are 
that you will hit an Agency that has committed an overreach of its 
statutory authority.
  The administration continues to slow-walk permitting, most recently 
attacking LNG facilities for climate considerations, whatever that is.
  Well, is the administration aware that by continuing to ignore the 
law and not holding lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, it hamstrings 
future GOMESA funds that would come back to the Gulf States to support 
critical coastal protection activities, including conservation, coastal 
restoration, and hurricane protection? That is right. The 
administration's Interior Department is jeopardizing actual climate and 
conservation goals for my State, and we aren't the only State sounding 
the alarm on these terrible policies. These policies are driving up 
energy costs and emboldening our enemies.
  President Biden and his allies continue to paint the fossil fuel 
industry as the enemy, but both the Secretaries of Energy and Interior 
have stated that fossil fuels will be around for a long time because 
they are needed. Yet they continue to try and diminish its production 
without the necessary technology and grid capacity replacements.
  Not only could we see higher energy costs under these policies, but 
we could see more blackouts during extreme weather events, something 
that has Mississippians very concerned.
  The American people deserve better than failing energy policies from 
a tone-deaf administration and Agencies that are doing everything they 
can to circumvent Congress and force their radical energy agendas on 
this entire Nation.
  Still, the hard-working people in our energy industry are not letting 
President Biden crush their spirits. My colleagues and I are battling 
back with everything we can to challenge these rulings on behalf of the 
American people.
  With CRA resolutions of disapproval, appropriations, and committee 
hearings, we have the opportunities to try to hold these Agencies 
accountable for their continued overreach.
  I will keep fighting alongside my colleagues until this ship is back 
on the correct course of independent energy production for the 
betterment of the United States.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the Biden 
administration's regulatory blizzard that is restricting energy 
development and making energy more expensive and less reliable for 
homes and businesses not only across my State but across the country.
  According to data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or 
FERC, electricity demand is expected to increase almost 5 percent over 
the next 5 years. At the same time, FERC Commissioners and grid 
operators are warning of more blackouts and brownouts because 
powerplants are retiring before new generation capacity can be brought 
online.
  Simply put, energy prices are high because demand is outpacing 
supply, and Americans are being forced to pay higher prices at the pump 
and higher utility bills. Because the cost of energy is built into 
every good and service across the economy, higher energy prices are 
fueling persistent inflation.
  Instead of bringing more supply online to reduce prices, the Biden 
administration is imposing a regulatory blizzard that seeks to curtail 
energy production. It starts with the EPA, which is imposing new, 
costly, unworkable mandates specifically designed to reduce traditional 
energy production.
  Just 2 weeks ago, the EPA finalized four new regulations targeting 
the power sector, including an overly stringent, new mercury and air 
toxic standards, or MATS, rule, despite the EPA's own regulatory 
analysis stating that the existing rule is adequately protecting public 
health; also, the Clean Power Plan 2.0, requiring existing coal-fired 
and new gas-fired plants to reduce CO2 emissions by 90 
percent--90 percent--when carbon capture and storage is not yet 
commercially viable; and new burdensome requirements on water discharge 
at powerplants and costly new coal ash management requirements as well.
  On top of all these burdensome regulations on the power sector, the 
EPA is placing onerous new methane regulations on oil and gas 
producers, and the EPA is implementing a new tax on natural gas.
  Collectively, these EPA rules will require the power sector to spend 
billions of dollars to comply with these regulations or, worse, force 
the premature retirement of reliable coal-fired baseload plants.
  Ultimately, these costs are passed along to electric ratepayers--
families and businesses across the country.
  To push back against this regulatory blizzard, I will be introducing 
a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval to overturn the 
MATS rule. Also, I am joining Senator Capito in her efforts to overturn 
the Clean Power Plan 2.0 rule.
  All these things are driving inflation. Essentially, the Biden 
administration is putting handcuffs on our energy producers, and they 
are forcing up the price of energy. They are doing it not only with the 
regulatory burden that creates costs for the plants to continue to 
operate, but they are also putting baseload energy out of business. 
That puts us at risk of blackouts and brownouts across the country, and 
it undermines the stability of the grid. It also forces energy prices 
higher for every single consumer--every business and every individual. 
Who does that impact the most? Low-income people. So it goes right at 
low-income individuals.
  If you live in a place like, I don't know, California, maybe Texas, 
it can get pretty warm, and you want those air-conditioners running. 
You don't want a brownout right at peak time when you need that power.
  On top of the EPA's regulatory onslaught, this blizzard is continuing 
at the Interior Department, which manages 245 million acres of public 
land and 700 million acres of subsurface minerals.
  Our vast taxpayer-owned energy reserves are a national strategic 
asset, ensuring that our Nation remains energy dominant. Why, then, is 
the Biden administration doing everything it can to seemingly lock away 
access to our taxpayer-owned energy reserves? It makes no sense.
  Last month, the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, or 
BLM, issued its public lands rule. This rule allows environmental 
groups to utilize a new conservation lease that will directly conflict 
with longstanding multiple-use stewardship of Federal lands, including 
energy development.

[[Page S3583]]

  So the law says that on these Federal lands, they have to be for 
multiple use. That is energy development. That is agriculture. That is 
tourism. That is all of these different uses. But with these new 
environmental or conservation leases, that will restrict the use of 
that land to one use. One use is not multiple use. That absolutely 
violates the law.

  Along with Senator Barrasso, I will be introducing a CRA resolution 
of disapproval to block this rule as well.
  The BLM has also finalized a new onshore oil and gas rule and a new 
venting and flaring rule. These are designed as well to and will drive 
up the cost of energy production on Federal lands. It affects small 
businesses. It affects consumers. It affects every single business that 
uses energy, which is just about all of them. It affects every consumer 
because we all use energy.
  In North Dakota, the BLM is proposing a new--just my State alone--a 
draft resource management plan that would close off leasing to 45 
percent of Federal oil and gas acreage. Texas produces the most oil, 
and then it is either North Dakota or New Mexico that produces the 
second most. We produce I think about 1.2 million barrels a day of oil, 
and we have a lot of Federal land. But this resource management plan 
that the BLM is putting forward would close off leasing to 45 percent 
of the Federal oil and gas acreage--45 percent. Half of it.
  As far as coal, we provide electricity I think to as many as 12 
different States with coal-fired electricity. Ninety-five percent of 
Federal coal acreage would be closed off under this new rule.
  Furthermore, given the scattered nature of Federal minerals across 
North Dakota, this plan is particularly problematic because it also 
blocks access to State- and privately-owned energy reserves.
  Think about this: The Bureau of Land Management owns the surface 
acres, but they don't own the minerals. So a private individual may own 
those minerals underneath, but because the BLM owns the surface acres, 
that individual can't develop his minerals for oil, gas, or coal 
because they are blocked by the BLM--patently unfair, absolutely 
unfair, and I just don't think it is going to pass legal muster.
  The BLM's mismanagement of our vast energy reserves reaches to other 
States as well, including the blocking of new oil and gas production, 
for example, in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
  The goal of the Biden administration's regulatory blizzard is clear. 
It is a ``keep it in the ground''--part of the Green New Deal--agenda 
no matter what the economic or geopolitical costs are.
  There is a better approach, and it means taking the handcuffs off our 
energy producers and unleashing the full potential of our Nation's most 
valuable strategic asset: our abundant energy resources--oil, gas, 
coal, all types of energy.
  Instead of this regulatory blizzard, the Biden administration needs 
to work with us to increase the supply of energy to bring down prices 
for hard-working American families.
  So, at the end of the day, it is this simple: The Biden 
administration is handcuffing our energy producers with one onerous 
regulation after the next. We just put a few of them up here on these 
charts. It is just one after the next.
  Simple terms: What does it do? It restricts and reduces the supply of 
domestic energy here at home. That means our cost of energy goes up. 
That fuels inflation. So every single consumer and every single 
business now pays more for energy. And who does it hit the hardest? The 
low-income individual. It goes right at the low-income individual.
  So that is the first thing to think about. Second, we compete in a 
global economy, so if you use energy, that is one of the important 
costs for your business. If you have low-cost, dependable energy, we 
can compete more effectively, create higher paying jobs, more jobs, and 
grow our economy, but all of that is handcuffed as well by the Biden 
energy plan.
  Then let's talk about national security. Energy security is national 
security. Look at what is going on in the world right now. How is 
Russia fueling its war machine? With sales of oil and gas. So when we 
don't produce here at home, that means more people have to buy from 
places like Russia, from OPEC, from Venezuela--including our allies in 
Western Europe. It makes them dependent on Russian energy instead of 
getting natural gas from the United States. That is a national security 
issue not only for us but for our allies.
  It is the same thing with Iran. How does Iran fuel its war machine? 
With oil. How does it fund Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis? With revenues 
from oil and gas. When we produce oil and gas, that mitigates, reduces, 
hurts their ability to continue, particularly if we combine it with the 
right kinds of sanctions, which we should have, on Iran. It not only 
mitigates their ability to fuel terror, but it strengthens America, and 
it strengthens our allies.
  The final point I want to make in this regard is, let's talk about 
good environmental stewardship, good conservation. Who has the best 
environmental standards in the world? Is it Iran? Is it Russia? Is it 
Venezuela? Of course not. So how could it possibly make any kind of 
common sense to produce less energy in America, where we have the best 
environmental standards, and instead forfeit it to our adversaries, 
like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, where they are not only our 
adversaries--not only our adversaries--but they have the worst 
environmental standards? That is an energy policy that makes absolutely 
no sense.
  Instead of regulation after regulation after regulation and tax after 
tax, take the handcuffs off our energy producers. It is good for 
consumers, it is good for our economy, it is good for national 
security, and it is good for the environment to let us produce energy 
here in America. It is just common sense.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. RICKETTS. Madam President, I rise today to join my colleagues in 
opposing the Biden administration's anti-energy policies. From the EV 
mandate to the so-called Clean Power Plan 2.0, the Biden 
administration's war on American energy threatens the livelihoods of 
millions of Americans and American families.
  Let's start with the EPA's delusional and reckless electric vehicle 
mandate. It requires up to two-thirds of all cars and light trucks 
being sold in 2032 to be electric vehicles.
  It is delusional because it will block low-income families from 
owning a car. Owning a car is a pathway out of poverty for many 
Americans, including many people in my State, and Biden's EV mandate 
will drive up the cost of those used vehicles.
  It is delusional because the Biden administration has no plan for how 
we are going to generate the power needed to be able to charge these 
cars or the transmission lines needed to transmit the energy from where 
it is being produced to where it is going to be needed.
  It is also delusional because this EV mandate will make us more 
dependent on the Chinese Communist Party, which controls about 60 to 80 
percent of all the critical minerals that are necessary to be able to 
make the batteries for EVs, and they are leading us in this EV battery 
technology.
  This is how crazy stupid this administration is: They want to mandate 
EVs on the one hand, but they also want to attack any project that may 
allow us to be able to mine the minerals that we need to be able to 
create the batteries for EVs.
  For example, EVs can use up to four times the amount of copper that a 
regular car uses. At the same time, though, the Biden administration 
has blocked a road that would go to the Ambler Mining District in 
Alaska. The Ambler Mining District is one of the places where we have a 
lot of copper. It is a major copper deposit. We need this copper. Yet 
the Biden administration is blocking us from being able to get to it. 
It makes no sense.
  Another thing that makes no sense is an EV mandate that requires 
dramatically increasing our energy production and transmission on the 
one hand, and then, on the other hand, we have the Clean Power Plan 
2.0, which is going to attack our energy production. It is a classic 
example of ``bureaucrats gone wild.'' It forces coal- or gas-generating 
electric plants to reduce up to 90 percent of their carbon emissions by 
the year 2039.
  First, the Clean Power Plan 2.0 is illegal, explicitly countering the 
Supreme Court's decision in West Virginia v. EPA.

[[Page S3584]]

  Second, the rule will stifle our industry not only in Nebraska but 
nationwide. In Nebraska, 49 percent of our electricity comes from coal-
fired plants. It is the baseload generation we have.
  Nebraska, actually, ranks pretty high when it comes to renewable 
energy. We have over 31 percent of our electricity coming from 
renewable energy, but we still need that baseload.
  Nebraska, in 2022, also ranked No. 3 nationwide for the most 
industrial electricity customers of any State. It just ranked behind 
Texas and California with regard to those industrial consumers of 
electricity.
  Fossil fuel plants generate about 60 percent of U.S. electricity 
nationwide, and coal contributes about 16.2 percent of all the 
electricity in this country. Under this rule, more than 78 percent of 
coal-powered plants would have to retire between the years 2028 and 
2040 while coal remains the primary source of electricity in 18 of our 
States. Currently, a quarter of the existing 200 plants are scheduled 
to retire within the next 5 years. We don't have enough new plants 
coming online to be able to replace the power that is going offline. 
This plan will close down the reliable and affordable fossil fuel 
plants, and American consumers will end up paying the price.
  Again, for us in Nebraska, when you are driving up these costs, you 
are hurting our families and, of course, our businesses that create the 
jobs that allow families to be able to send their kids to school, to go 
on the family vacation, and so forth.
  The EPA does not have the authority--the legal authority--to force a 
complete shift in energy production through bureaucratic fiat, but the 
Biden administration doesn't care, and they are going ahead with it 
anyway.
  The Biden administration's anti-energy agenda doesn't just stop 
there. President Biden's imposed moratorium on new oil and gas leases 
is also an attack on our energy system. The administration has slow-
walked these permits for new construction and has added new layers of 
bureaucracy that hinder job-creating energy projects.
  Instead of supporting high-skilled, high-waged jobs, this 
administration has prioritized the interests of coastal elites and 
radical environmentalists. They would rather see fossil fuel plants 
closed and thousands of workers lose their jobs than stand up to these 
activists.
  This appeasement of the far-left, radical, environmentalist wing of 
the Democratic Party is wrong. It must stop. We must reverse course. We 
must have some common sense. I am here today to join my colleagues in 
standing up for American energy, for American workers, and for our way 
of life.
  Together, we are going to do all we can to overturn this anti-energy 
agenda through Congressional Review Act legislation and other means. We 
are going to support an ``all of the above'' energy strategy. We are 
going to continue to fight to make sure our workers remain employed, 
our communities remain prosperous, and our Nation remains energy 
independent.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.


                        Disaster Relief Funding

  Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, disaster survivors are running out of 
time; disaster survivors are running out of money; and they are running 
out of patience. These people have been to hell and back, enduring the 
worst horrors of Mother Nature: wildfires, hurricanes, floods, 
tornadoes. They have lost loved ones. They have lost their homes. They 
have lost livelihoods. And after all that, after having their lives 
totally upended overnight, many have been stuck in limbo for months or 
even years waiting for help to arrive.
  It hasn't always been this way. Over the years, Congress, on a 
bipartisan basis, has consistently stepped up to help hundreds of 
communities decimated by disasters, no matter the political color of 
the State or the size of the town or the pricetag of the cleanup. Why? 
Because we have recognized--correctly--that disasters do not 
discriminate and that helping communities recover is one of our most 
fundamental responsibilities in the Federal Government.
  What is the Federal Government for if not to help our fellow 
Americans in their hour of need? What are we doing here if we can't 
agree that disaster relief is urgent and important and necessary for 
the well-being of our country?
  It is not acceptable to keep survivors waiting. Congress must act. We 
need to pass disaster relief funding with the urgency that it demands 
and get survivors the assistance that they need to fully recover.
  Nine months ago today, fires, fueled by 70-mile-an-hour winds, 
stormed the town of Lahaina on West Maui, incinerating everything in 
their path and leaving behind little more than ash, rubble, and smoke: 
101 people died; 2,200 structures were leveled; and almost 12,000 
people were immediately displaced. Just about everyone in that tight-
knit community lost someone or something that day.
  A few weeks after the fires, when President Biden came to Lahaina, he 
promised the survivors that his administration and the Federal 
Government would be there to help as they recovered--not just in those 
early weeks and months but throughout--for as long as it took; for as 
long as it took.
  Nine months later, cleanup is still ongoing, not a single home has 
been rebuilt. And the infrastructure that was destroyed--the harbors, 
the roads, the water and sewer systems--all of it has yet to be 
restored.
  The recovery was never going to be quick. The damage was so vast, the 
destruction so total and so toxic that bringing Lahaina back to 
anything close to normal was always going to be a multiyear endeavor. 
And that is the case for so many communities across the country that 
have been devastated by disasters.
  When the President declares disaster in a community, it means a very 
specific thing. It not just like it is the President's whim or whether 
they like the place that has been hurt. It means that the community's 
recovery needs are so great that the State and local governments can't 
handle them alone. It means that the capacity of the local government 
has been exceeded, and the President is declaring that this place is a 
Federal disaster, so the Federal Government has to step in and help, 
which is why almost 7 months ago, the President of the United States 
submitted a supplemental funding request to Congress which included 
funding for disaster relief and specifically for the Community 
Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery, or CDBG-DR, Program.
  The CDBG-DR serves a simple but essential purpose. It provides 
survivors with the funding and flexibility to rebuild their homes, 
small businesses, and communities over the long term. For more than 30 
years and in practically every State in the country, the program has 
been a lifeline for people trying to get back on their feet and 
economies trying to get back on their feet.
  But it has been a year and a half since Congress last funded CDBG-DR, 
and in that time, disasters have piled up in every part of the country. 
Unfortunately, we know more are coming, especially with hurricane 
season around the corner. So for Lahaina and dozens of communities 
nationwide, this funding is urgent.
  Rebuilding after a disaster--as a community but also as a family or 
an individual--is among the hardest things that anybody is ever going 
to go through. One moment you are going about your day--going to work, 
dropping off your kids at school, making dinner for your family--and 
the next thing you know, you are living out of a hotel, if you are 
lucky, not knowing where your next paycheck will come from or when or 
where you will have a permanent place to call home again.
  The ordeal of recovery is hard; it is long; it is confusing; it is 
painful; and it is expensive. And, understandably, survivors look to 
their government for help. They have waited a long time. But time is 
running out, and money has run dry. Congress must act and pass disaster 
aid as soon as possible.
  We have done full-year appropriations. We have done an international 
supplemental appropriations bill. We are about to finish the FAA. The 
next big bill that we pass has to be providing disaster relief across 
the country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cortez Masto). The Senator from Vermont.

[[Page S3585]]

  

  Mr. WELCH. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Hawaii. First of 
all, I want to acknowledge my great appreciation for the work that the 
Senator and his committee have done on bringing attention to the 
ongoing challenge that communities that have been hammered, like your 
community of Lahaina and my State of Vermont, from natural disasters, 
and I am going to speak in support of the efforts you are making to get 
supplemental funding for the absolutely essential, flexible funding 
that goes with the block grant Disaster Relief Fund. Thank you very, 
very much.
  You know, we are all in this together. What Senator Schatz said about 
the formality of a Federal disaster declaration--the formality is it is 
an acknowledgement that what happened, through no fault of anybody in 
Hawaii, through no fault of anybody in Vermont, is beyond the capacity 
of the communities in Vermont and Hawaii--beyond the capacity of 
Vermont and beyond the capacity of Hawaii--to handle the entire 
consequence of those events.
  What is more important, more essential for the Senate than to 
acknowledge that all of us as Americans, that there but for the grace 
of God goes our community when a natural disaster occurs? So we have to 
respond.
  There are two times that there is a response. One is in the immediate 
trauma of the event. It is all hands on deck. The community does 
everything it can. And there is one story after another in Lahaina; in 
Ludlow, VT; in Johnson, VT, of people coming together literally to save 
fellow citizens and neighbors and oftentimes people they don't even 
know. And the Federal Government comes in--President Biden was 
immediately responsive in Vermont, as he was in Lahaina--and our FEMA 
administration came in and was immediately responsive, and that really 
helps. It really, really makes a difference.
  But do you know what? This is a photograph of the capital of 
Montpelier right after the flood. It is totally inundated in water. 
Every business on Main Street was basically destroyed, and the 
immediate relief efforts were about the water going down, getting the 
mud out, trying to find some temporary place to live, and see if you 
can save your business. But on that Main Street in Montpelier, our 
businesses are coming back, but they are not all back yet.
  What I have seen is that the money that comes in right away and the 
help that comes in right away gives hope to folks. It gives all of the 
citizens in the State who are sad by what has happened to their 
neighbors but who, by the grace of God, avoided their own home and 
their own business from being flooded, it gives them and me hope that 
those folks are going to get some help from the Federal Government. And 
they did. Our roads and bridges, we are putting them back together. 
Some of the water treatment facilities that were destroyed, we are 
putting some of those back together. But the reality is, there is a 
long and lasting trauma and practical challenge of trying to get 
everybody back on their feet.
  I get asked by my colleagues--and I really appreciate their concern--
Peter, how is Vermont doing? I don't quite know how to answer that 
because on one level, Vermont is doing great. We have moved on. That 
flood in July, we have done the major things that have to be done. The 
help we got from the Federal Government was really essential in doing 
that. The good wishes from my colleagues, I am so grateful for.
  But the other part of that is when I am asked: How is Vermont doing? 
The Vermonters, if it was your home, if it was your business, if it was 
your farm, you are not doing well. You know, it is a lot to try to put 
that business back together. It is a lot to look at that home and 
realize you may not be able to get back in.
  So let me just give an example. You know, I was in Barre, VT. That is 
about 5 miles from Montpelier. You are seeing that here. They got 
flooded, much like Montpelier did. In Montpelier, most of the damage 
was to businesses; in Barre, most of it was the homes.
  FEMA Administrator Criswell joined me and Senator Sanders and 
Congresswoman Balint on the tour of homes. I returned in March, and the 
folks who came to our meeting and took a tour of Barre with me were a 
lot of the folks whose homes had been damaged. They are still trying to 
find out whether they can get bought out. They are still trying to find 
out whether they can get back in their home.
  One couple was at the home when I showed up. They weren't able to get 
back in. They are living in a mobile home about 50 miles from where 
their home is. And there is a lot of confusion about what you can do 
and how you can do it. Those thorny questions about what is available 
and how are you going to implement what is needed for that home or for 
that business, those really linger.
  At this point, FEMA--I don't want to say they are gone because they 
have done what their job is. But the pain and recovery, the pain is 
still very present for those folks: your farm, your business, your 
home. And the challenges of getting through the bureaucracy are very 
complicated. That is what I learned with the folks in Barre who 
basically have a group of volunteers who have managed to stay together 
to try to address concerns and questions that various members of the 
community have.
  But the thing that is absolutely vital--absolutely vital--is the 
flexible funding that comes from the Disaster Relief Fund.
  You know, no matter how hard and how competent and how professional 
our FEMA folks are, the reality is they have to move on to the next 
disaster. That is what is happening in this country.
  But the pain in that community is behind, and it is the folks in the 
community who really have to have the capacity and the tools and the 
resources to do what only can be done by folks in Barre, in Montpelier, 
in Johnson, in Ludlow, in Weston. And I am sure that is true in 
Lahaina. Of course, those are the best people to do the work. They live 
in that community. The most important thing to them is to restore the 
vitality of the community that they love.
  So the disaster relief funding is the absolutely essential component 
to allow the full rebuilding and the recovery for the folks who lost 
their homes, for those farmers whose crops have been wiped out, and for 
those businesses that are so vital, not just to that individual 
business owner but to that downtown community that depends on retail 
downtown so neighbors can come in, shop, see one another, and have a 
sense of community.
  If we are going to have an effective disaster relief program, yes, it 
starts with the Federal declaration. Our President and previous 
Presidents, in my experience, have been very responsive to communities 
that, through no fault of their own, suffered a devastating loss from a 
weather event or a fire, as was in the case of Lahaina. But what 
happens after the waters recede, after the FEMA emergency folks are 
gone? It is the hard work of actually rebuilding that house, repairing 
that business. That is left in the community, and if they don't have 
that disaster relief funding and the flexibility that is required to 
respond to the very particular challenges in that community, then we 
haven't completed the job. And it creates a sense of frustration and 
anguish and pain that we can alleviate by having a disaster relief 
response that starts when the event occurs--that is the disaster 
declaration--but continues until the job is done.
  And that is where the funding for the disaster relief is so 
absolutely essential for us in order to maintain the commitment that I 
believe this Senate has to help folks who have been on the receiving 
end of a catastrophic loss.
  I am fully in support of the supplemental appropriations request that 
the Senator from Hawaii is making because, in my view, he speaks for 
all of us. In my view, there but for the grace of God goes your 
community. We in Vermont, just as Senator Schatz in Hawaii, have always 
been there to support the funding for communities around this country 
that have suffered losses such as what happened in Hawaii and what 
happened in Vermont. I thank the Senator for organizing this, and I 
look forward to working with Senator Schatz and others in order to make 
sure we get that disaster relief funding in the supplemental 
appropriations.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.

[[Page S3586]]

  



                     Remembering Shireen Abu Akleh

  Mr. WELCH. Madam President, May 11 will mark the second anniversary 
of the fatal shooting of a Palestinian American and accomplished Al 
Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh. She was shot in the head while 
reporting on an Israeli raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the West 
Bank. At the time of her death, she was wearing a bulletproof vest with 
``PRESS'' written in large letters on the front and on the back.
  While there had been some earlier exchanges of gunfire between 
Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants, there is no credible 
evidence that has been produced that the shooter acted in legitimate 
self-defense. No one in Shireen's immediate vicinity was armed, and no 
shots were fired from her location. Another journalist near her was 
also shot, but he survived.
  Shortly after Shireen's death, Secretary of State Antony Blinken 
rightly called for a credible, thorough investigation and that the 
individuals responsible should be held accountable.
  Israeli officials first denied responsibility. But when it became 
clear where the shots were fired from, they called Shireen's death an 
unintentional, tragic mistake. The shooter reportedly fired from an 
armored vehicle that was 190 meters away.
  The inescapable conclusion is that she was intentionally targeted. 
The question is: Why?
  My predecessor, Senator Patrick Leahy, asked detailed questions about 
her case, including why the Leahy law was not applied to stop U.S. 
assistance to the unit--the particular unit--responsible for Shireen's 
death. His questions were never answered. Since then, there has been no 
credible investigation.
  I am disappointed that Israeli authorities have failed to fully 
cooperate with U.S. efforts to determine what happened, and nobody has 
been held accountable.
  Shireen Abu Akleh's case has become one of many unresolved shootings 
in the West Bank and Gaza. Since the Hamas attack--the terrible attack 
on October 7--more than 140 journalists have reportedly been killed in 
Gaza. None of those cases have been investigated, and no one has been 
held accountable.
  We have not and we will not forget Shireen Abu Akleh. She was an 
American citizen. More importantly, she was an innocent civilian doing 
her job, which she paid for with her life. She, her family, and her 
colleagues in the press deserve justice.
  On May 3, World Press Freedom Day, Secretary Blinken said:

       In their pursuit of truth, journalists often face 
     unprecedented danger worldwide. On World Press Freedom Day, 
     we recognize their bravery, resilience, and vital role in 
     ensuring the free flow of accurate information. Our support 
     for journalists and an independent media is unwavering.

  My hope is that Secretary Blinken uses his influence and insists on 
the credible, thorough investigation of the killing of Shireen Abu 
Akleh that he called for 2 years ago and that those responsible be 
brought to justice.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). The Senator from Oklahoma.


                             Anti-Semitism

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, October 7, 2023, was almost 5 years to 
the day after the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue--almost 5 years 
to the day. Anti-Semitism has been on the rise around the world and 
unfortunately here in America. We are seeing it on college campuses. We 
are seeing it in conversations online. It is not new, it is old, but it 
is on the rise in a way that we have not seen in a long time in the 
United States.
  In 2019, Senator Rosen and I launched the Senate Bipartisan Task 
Force for Combatting Anti-Semitism. We started that on the 1-year 
anniversary of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue. Our mission 
was pretty simple: We wanted to create a task force to be able to 
collaborate with law enforcement, Federal Agencies, State and local 
governments, educators, advocates, clergy--any stakeholders who wanted 
to be able to combat anti-Semitism with education, empowerment, and 
bringing communities together in conversation.
  Our goal was to speak out with one voice about hate, to support 
legislative efforts to combat anti-Semitism, to promote Holocaust 
education, and to bring the issue of combatting anti-Semitism to the 
forefront of our national conversation and, quite frankly, 
international.
  She and I have worked together to be able to contact other nations 
and their Parliaments on what we have seen as anti-Semitism in other 
countries, to be able to reach out to Ambassadors, but to also speak 
out on what we see here in the United States. That has not changed.
  The State Department has offered this warning:

       History has shown that wherever anti-Semitism has gone 
     unchecked, the persecution of others has been present or not 
     far behind. Defeating anti-Semitism must be a cause of great 
     importance not only for Jews, but for all people who value 
     humanity and justice.

  That is our own State Department.
  So now what are we going do about what we are seeing on college 
campuses? Interestingly enough, people see this as a new thing just in 
the last 7 months. This has been on the rise on college campuses for 
quite a while. Many of us have been ringing that bell to say that there 
is something happening in the national conversation on our college 
campuses.
  So let's find ways to be able to engage on this. Senator Rosen and I 
have a piece of legislation that is a compilation of multiple pieces 
that we have worked on for a very long time to be able to talk about 
anti-Semitism and to say there are specific ways that our Nation can 
get involved with this.
  I have affirmed President Biden in areas where we agree, and there 
are some areas that he has brought up in the task force that he has 
created on the executive level to take on anti-Semitism nationally. 
Some of those things have been actually executed and carried out, and 
some of them have not.
  So we have continued to be able to nudge in ways that we thought were 
appropriate to be able to nudge and to be able to poke to say things 
can be done. It has been leadership at our State Department that has 
risen up on that, and some, we have been actively involved in trying to 
be able to get into those positions, to be able to lead.
  My friend Tim Scott came to the floor to be able to ask for unanimous 
consent to be able to pass his resolution to condemn anti-Semitism on 
college campuses. I want to thank my friend Tim Scott for his 
leadership on this issue and what he has also done to be able to raise 
awareness. But unfortunately his request to be able to pass that 
resolution was denied.
  We should be able to find common ground on issues that condemn hate. 
His resolution was a simple statement: What are we going to do as a 
body to be able to condemn hatred in this area? We should not ignore 
this.
  The House of Representatives last week brought up the Anti-Semitism 
Awareness Act. It was a bipartisan piece of legislation that they 
passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives that they have 
now sent to this body to be able to take up and to debate and to 
discuss.
  What has been interesting to me is, when they picked up the Anti-
Semitism Awareness Act as a nonpartisan piece of legislation, this is a 
continuance of actually what happened under the Trump administration. 
President Trump used the same definitions and the same process of 
putting it in the Department of Education, using what is called the 
IHRA definition for ``anti-Semitism'' and the examples attached to it 
in Executive order 13899.
  But what has been fascinating to me is, when the House of 
Representatives passed it, there was a whole group of folks and some 
folks from my own party who stepped up and said: No, we can't actually 
do this, because this would inhibit free speech.
  I have smiled at those same folks and said: Did you say that when 
President Trump was actually using it as an Executive order under his 
administration? Because now they are talking about making a statutory, 
long-term change.
  The IHRA definition is not new, by the way. The United States has 
been a party to this definition since the 1990s. The International 
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition--that is IHRA--has been 
recognized all over the world as a basic definition with examples of 
what anti-Semitism is.
  It is not new to the United States. There are many athletic teams 
that

[[Page S3587]]

have recognized the IHRA definition for their teams in their 
conversations to be able to recognize what anti-Semitism is. There are 
34 States, including my own State of Oklahoma, that have recognized the 
IHRA definition within our own States to say: This is how we are going 
to define ``anti-Semitism'' in our States.
  This is a very basic principle. It is difficult to discourage what 
you cannot even define, and when someone makes just a blanket statement 
for anti-Semitism, it is helpful to put some definition to what it 
actually means and what it does not mean. For instance, if someone were 
to say they disagree with the Netanyahu government, is that anti-
Semitic? The IHRA definition would say, clearly, it is not. We can 
disagree on governmental action. That is a normal part of dialogue.
  It also is not something that inhibits free speech. Even hateful 
speech in the United States--even foolish, even stupid speech--can be 
said in the United States. It is a protected right to be able to say 
whatever crazy thing you want to be able to say in the United States, 
but when it shifts from free speech to inciting violence and threats, 
that has shifted. That has moved from just speech to now criminal 
action.
  The IHRA definition in what the House of Representatives passed last 
week in the Antisemitism Awareness Act doesn't limit speech in any way. 
In fact, it very specifically states it is not trying to take away any 
free speech rights of anyone. It specifically notes a protection for 
the First Amendment rights of Americans to be able to say what they 
choose to say.
  What it does say is, if you are on a college campus and you are 
choosing to discriminate against Jewish students, that should fall into 
the same as any other title VI discrimination falls into. It is no 
different. So if they are doing discrimination on a college campus, you 
can't just say: Well, they are discriminating against Jewish students, 
so that doesn't fall under title VI.
  That clearly does fall under title VI areas and makes what has been 
implied clear. What has been done by Executive action in the past under 
the Trump administration makes it clear for every administration. What 
has been done under the Department of State for three decades in the 
United States is clear policy not just for the State Department but 
also for the Department of Education. I think that is a pretty 
reasonable way to take on this issue and to be able to clarify what 
anti-Semitism is on a college campus or any campus that is out there.
  Some of the responses that I have already mentioned have been 
fascinating to me on this, things like I have already said: This is 
going to limit free speech.
  No. You still have the right to say something, even to say something 
dumb. That is still a protected right in the United States.
  We can say things that we both disagree with--that is a protected 
right--but you can't move into criminal activity. That is not 
protected, and a university cannot protect discrimination on their own 
campus. That would not be allowed.
  My favorite thing is that it does not outlaw the Bible. I have had 
folks who have said: If you put in the IHRA definition, it outlaws the 
Bible.
  I have just smiled and said: That is absolutely ridiculous.
  And it is not just me saying this. Christian leaders who I know all 
over the country say that is just a ridiculous statement.
  There is a letter that just came out this week from Pastor John 
Hagee, who leads what is called CUFI, the national Christians United 
for Israel, and Ralph Reed, who is the leader of the Faith and Freedom 
Coalition. They have made this simple statement:

       To the Biblically literate, claims that the Antisemitism 
     Awareness Act is anti-Christian are as insulting as they are 
     injurious.

  I have made it very clear on this as well when people have asked me 
about this, to say that somehow the Antisemitism Awareness Act outlaws 
the Bible or limits speech around the Bible.
  There is a statement in the IHRA definition that talks about using 
symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism, and the 
examples are claims that ``Jews killing Jesus are blood libel'' to 
characterize Israel or Israelis. So they take that one statement and 
pull that out and say: See? You couldn't use the Bible.
  I have laughed, and I have said: Well, I would just say not only have 
Pastor Hagee and others said this--and other faith leaders around--but 
let me add a voice to this as well. The Scripture is very clear from 
John 10 that Jesus laid his life down for others. He had the power to 
lay it down and the power to be able to take it up. That is Orthodox 
Christianity. Orthodox Christianity says: My sin is what put Jesus on 
the cross. That is what Scripture says.
  What the IHRA definition says is, if someone is biased to say ``I 
hate all Jews because Jews killed Jesus,'' they are saying that that is 
an anti-Semitic statement to say that. I would also say it is not only 
inconsistent with the clear teachings of Scripture, but it is 
inconsistent with the faith practices of individuals.
  Not only is the New Testament exceptionally clear about respect for 
Judaism, but the guy on the cross was Jewish. His mom at the foot of 
the cross was Jewish. The disciples were all Jewish. The people who 
wrote the New Testament were Jewish. So to somehow believe that 
Christianity would discount all Jews is to ignore the basic teachings 
of the New Testament, besides the basic fact that the Romans put Jesus 
on the cross.
  So somehow to say that this discounts Scripture--that I have heard 
over and over again on social media over the past week--I think is 
absurd, No. 1, and as John Hagee and Ralph Reed have said, it actually 
is insulting and injurious.
  There are folks who have said that there will be an international 
organization that is now going to police speech in the United States. I 
would encourage them to please read the legislation, not what is on 
social media, to be able to understand what this actually does. It does 
not give authority to an international organization to be able to step 
into the United States and be able to police speech. It is very clear.

  It just says this is what discrimination looks like under title VI, 
just like we have discrimination laws in other areas wherein the 
Department of Education could not say: Well, it doesn't specifically 
outline religion in this area, and so if there is discrimination 
against Jewish students, we can look the other way. That would stop 
under this piece of legislation.
  First things first: Let's actually have real dialogue as a country. 
Are we as a nation going to look the other way when students are 
discriminated against on a campus, or are we going to step in and say: 
``No, we are not going to just look the other way when there is 
discrimination''? Because, as I go back to the statement from our State 
Department, history has shown that wherever anti-Semitism has gone 
unchecked, the persecution of others has been present or not far 
behind. So let's speak out and stop it.
  For individuals who want to have anti-Semitic beliefs, that is still 
legal in America to have an anti-Semitic belief. It is still protected 
as a right. I would say it is hateful, and I would say it is bigoted, 
but it is still your protected right to be able to have that belief. 
But, when that speech moves to threats of violence and intimidation, 
when it moves from a voice to an action, that is criminal activity, and 
we should treat it as such. We should not let it fester as criminal 
activity and think it will not spread. It will.
  My final statement: For the folks who track through social media, 
where you see voices of anti-Semitism on social media, why don't you be 
bold enough to speak out for the people who are being bullied online 
and say every person has the right to their faith and to be able to 
live that faith and have that protected? We as Americans have the right 
to have any faith of our choosing, to change our faith, or to have no 
faith at all, and that would be protected. That should not be any less 
for Jewish students anywhere online or on their own campuses.
  So let's speak out on their behalf. And instead of allowing them to 
be bullied on their campuses or online, why don't we speak out for 
their right to be able to live their faith and practice their faith as 
every other American? That is what I think we should do on college 
campuses, and that is a simple way we can honor the dignity of every 
student.
  We are going to disagree. There are people who have strong 
disagreements

[[Page S3588]]

with the war that is happening right now in Israel and in Gaza. So 
let's talk about it, but let's not discriminate while we do it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.


                       Remembering Kurt Englehart

  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I am here today to honor the life of 
Kurt Englehart, my senior adviser, a beloved Nevadan, friend, and 
family member who touched so many lives.
  We lost Kurt very suddenly in April, and his loss is felt deeply by 
everyone in our office, some of whom are in the Galleries today, in the 
communities he impacted, and individuals he met throughout the State of 
Nevada, including--and I so appreciate my colleague Senator Rosen being 
here and her staff as well. You could tell how beloved he was by the 
sheer volume of people who came to his funeral in Reno. Last month, 
there were Tribal leaders, law enforcement, farmers, ranchers, labor 
leaders, former coworkers, and Senate staffers, childhood friends and 
Nevadans from across the State who showed up to pay their respects.
  Kurt touched so many lives, and he was able to make even strangers 
feel as though he was a close friend. Here is a picture of him, a photo 
of him, right here. There was always a smile on his face.
  For the past 8 years, Kurt was an essential part of my team. He liked 
to call it Team CCM, not only because of his intimate knowledge of 
every community in northern Nevada, but because he had this contagious 
warmth that drew everyone in. You couldn't dislike Kurt if you tried. 
He had this way of attacking life that brought so much positivity and 
joy to both my campaign and my Senate offices.
  I got to personally experience Kurt's zest for life on our many tours 
around rural Nevada. Every August, I travel through the rural counties 
in my State, and every August, Kurt was with me. That was when I got to 
know him the best. On the road, in the middle of the desert, I learned 
so much about Kurt's passions--about what inspired him to be so active 
in the community to the things that he enjoyed doing when he wasn't at 
the office.
  One of the favorite things to talk about for Kurt was his deep 
enthusiasm for video games. Kurt loved his gaming community, and they 
all loved him. One of his friends who played World of Warcraft with him 
reminisced about how Kurt, in the game, played a healer, which meant he 
took care of the other players.
  His friend said:

       I would later learn that this was how he was in the real 
     world.

  And that is exactly true. That is exactly how Kurt was in the real 
world, always making people feel at ease and extending a helping hand 
to those who needed it.
  In my Senate office, Kurt was a casework champion, addressing 
constituents' needs head on and working closely with Nevadans whose 
issues required special care and attention. Throughout his time in my 
office, Kurt worked on 638 cases. He was known by the Nevadans he 
worked with as a fierce advocate who knew how to get the job done for 
them.
  One casework story Kurt was particularly proud of--and I was as 
well--happened in 2019. Kurt reached out to a veteran named John, who 
was considering ending his own life because he couldn't afford his 
medical bills. John had been kicked off his insurance the day he 
experienced a massive health issue, leaving him with hundreds of 
thousands of dollars to pay out-of-pocket. Kurt found out about this 
when he talked with John. He worked with John's insurance company to 
make sure that they retroactively paid every penny of John's bill. Kurt 
actually saved John's life, and he was lucky to have Kurt as an 
advocate for him.

  That is just one example of Kurt's dedication to helping Nevadans in 
need. Whether he was working with the IRS to get people their tax 
refunds, advocating for the protection of sacred Tribal monuments, or 
resolving health benefit issues, Kurt gave each individual case his 
all. The Nevadans Kurt helped described him as going above and beyond 
to find solutions.
  Kurt made people feel heard, taking on the issues of complete 
strangers as if they were his own. And after the fact, he followed up 
with them to make sure they had everything they needed because that is 
who Kurt was. Public service came so naturally to him. He believed in 
the power of good government; that our democracy is truly for the 
people; that our work here in the Senate can change people's lives for 
the better, even if it is one person at a time.
  Kurt's determination to do the most good for the people of Nevada 
made him a giant all across the State and especially in our rural 
communities. Everyone from Reno to Elko, to our Tribal communities 
either knew Kurt personally or they knew of him. He drove from county 
to county talking with families, businessowners, farmers, ranchers, 
miners, Tribal leaders, and law enforcement about how our office could 
work with them and deliver for them. Democrats, Republicans, 
Independents--it did not matter--they all trusted Kurt to do the right 
thing by them, and he always did.
  Kurt was originally from Ohio, but he advocated for Nevadans so well 
that he truly became a Nevadan. He was the type of down-to-earth guy 
who could win over even those who staunchly disagreed with him. He 
showed up to every meeting fully prepared and well-informed, no matter 
the topic, and he was ready to have a productive conversation with 
anyone.
  And once Kurt made those connections, he maintained them. He got to 
know people on a deeper level and kept them in mind for future events 
he knew would interest them because he cared.
  He was so loved by his colleagues in all of our offices. My staff 
have described him as someone who ``charted his own path'' and ``always 
found a way.'' He was known for being a straight shooter whom everyone 
could depend upon to tell them exactly what he was thinking, even if it 
meant--and sometimes it did from Kurt--hearing the hard truth.
  When the work got intense--as it often does in Senate offices--Kurt 
would help his coworkers find the levity, even if he was just as 
frustrated as everyone else.
  If you knew anything about Kurt, you knew he loved his family above 
all else. His pride and joy was his son Ender. They shared a special 
bond in so many ways, particularly one, because like his father, Ender 
is a master video gamer as well as being an outstanding young man.
  Kurt cherished his family, and he talked about them endlessly: his 
mother Luann; his brother Matt; his girlfriend Siya; and Ender's mother 
Shaila. And he talked about Ender.
  I got a chance to know Ender growing from a young boy to a young 
teen. And I will tell you, Kurt's proudest moments were with his son, 
always wanting him to have every opportunity to take chances but not to 
be afraid to lean in and take those risks. The good, the bad, all of 
the above, his main goal was to ensure that his son Ender had every 
opportunity in life.
  Our office mourns this devastating loss, but we know Kurt will always 
be with us.
  This is actually Kurt on one of our coal trains in Ely, NV. It is one 
of the many examples of how Kurt spent his time getting around Nevada 
and talking to everyone who lived there. He lives on in the stories of 
the countless Nevadans he helped, and he lives on in the actions of 
those he inspired with his unwavering passion. And he lives on in the 
hearts of those of us who knew him the best. He will be dearly missed.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.


                               REPORT Act

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, this week, we are taking a big step 
forward in the fight to end online child exploitation. The bipartisan 
REPORT Act, which you and I led, has been signed into law, and now law 
enforcement and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children--
or NCMEC, as we call it--will have the resources that they need to 
better protect vulnerable children and track down these predators and 
pedophiles. This legislation has been urgently needed. And, Mr. 
President, I thank you for your leadership on this issue.
  Here is a frightening statistic: In America, a child is bought or 
sold for sexual exploitation once every 2 minutes. In this country, in 
2024, a child is

[[Page S3589]]

bought or sold for sex once every 2 minutes. This abuse increasingly 
happens in the virtual space, where predators distribute child sexual 
abuse material; they recruit minors into sex trafficking rings; and 
they extort children into sharing explicit images of themselves.
  Just last year, NCMEC received 36.2 million reports of online child 
sexual exploitation, a 23-percent increase over 2021.
  NCMEC, whose CyberTipline serves as our country's centralized 
reporting system for online child abuse, does incredible work to track 
down these crimes and report them to law enforcement. But, tragically, 
so many more acts of online sexual abuse against children are going 
unreported.
  Although criminal law requires electronic service providers to report 
any child sex abuse material on their sites, online platforms--
including Big Tech sites, such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram--have 
no obligation to report content involving the sex trafficking or 
grooming of children or enticement crimes.
  Most online platforms choose not to report this abhorrent material to 
law enforcement. And even when they do report the content, electronic 
service providers often omit necessary information to identify victims 
and track down their abusers.
  We have also heard from victims, their families, and law enforcement 
about the need to modernize laws around reporting online sexual abuse. 
For example, children and their parents risk legal liability for 
transferring evidence of online sexual abuse that they have experienced 
when submitting reports to the NCMEC CyberTipline.
  The REPORT Act addresses these issues and more to ensure that they 
are defending children against some of the most heinous crimes 
imaginable. Now, electronic service providers will be legally required 
to report child trafficking and enticement.
  To ensure compliance with the law, the REPORT Act raises the fine for 
first violations from $150,000 up to as much as $850,000, and 
subsequent violations, that fee is raised from $300,000 up to $1 
million.
  At the same time, the legislation enables victims to report evidence 
of online exploitation to the authorities and allows for the secure 
cloud storage and safe transfer of reports from NCMEC to law 
enforcement.
  It also increases the retention period for CyberTipline reports from 
90 days to 1 full year; meaning, law enforcement will have more time to 
track down and prosecute these criminals.
  All together, these measures will do so much to protect the most 
vulnerable among us from online exploitation and help to put an end to 
this horrific abuse.


                                Protests

  Mr. President, across the country, we are witnessing one of the worst 
waves of anti-Semitism that we have ever seen in our Nation's history. 
I appreciate that my colleague from Oklahoma spoke previously to this.
  One of the things that we have learned is a little bit about the 
leading perpetrators of these protests that are taking place. What we 
have found is that far-left activists, including college students at 
some of the most prestigious universities, are involved in these 
activities.
  We have all seen the pro-Hamas demonstrators who are harassing and 
intimidating Jewish students. They are blocking them from attending 
class or even from accessing public spaces. They are doing this with 
these protests and with these illegal encampments.
  Here are some examples of what we have had reported to us and what we 
have seen from individuals who are walking through these encampments 
with their cell phones. At Columbia University, activists chanted: ``We 
are Hamas'' and ``Long live Hamas.'' At George Washington University, 
one pro-Hamas demonstrator walked around campus with a sign calling for 
a ``Final Solution'' against the Jewish people.
  We have seen activists hand out fliers calling for ``Death to 
America'' and ``Death to Israeli real estate.'' And at schools like 
Princeton, students have waved the flag of terror groups, including the 
flag of Hezbollah.
  One thing should be obvious, the anti-Israel protests on campuses 
across this country are hotbeds for terrorist sympathizers and for 
anti-Jewish hatred. Never did I think I would see this in the United 
States of America.
  In fact, some of these college groups who are out protesting, 
including at Columbia, have allegedly held events with the terrorist 
organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. These 
demonstrations have absolutely no place in America, and Tennesseans are 
telling me these demonstrations have no place in our great State of 
Tennessee.
  But instead of cracking down on these activists and the students who 
are out there peddling anti-Semitism and are glorifying terrorism, many 
schools are beginning to bow to their demands. I find this abhorrent 
and disgusting.
  In negotiations with pro-Hamas demonstrators, Northwestern University 
agreed to offer coveted faculty positions to Palestinian academics and 
set aside full-ride scholarships for Palestinian students.
  To appease its pro-Hamas students, Brown University, last week, 
agreed to hold a vote on divesting from Israel.
  After negotiating with pro-Hamas activists for weeks, Columbia 
University has canceled its commencement ceremony.
  We can only bring an end to this disturbing illegal behavior when 
there are actual consequences.
  College students who promote terrorism on behalf of Hamas should be 
added to the TSA No Fly List, and we should deport foreign students on 
visas who support Hamas--a U.S.-designated terror organization. And 
universities that allow anti-Semitism on their campuses should be 
defunded. The Stop Anti-Semitism on College Campuses Act, which I 
introduced alongside Senator Tim Scott, would ensure that happens.

  Instead of standing up for Jewish students, President Biden has 
drawn, unfortunately, a moral equivalence between pro-Hamas activists 
and pro-Israel Americans. When asked about the anti-Semitic 
demonstrations last month, the President said he ``condemn[s] those who 
don't understand what is going on with the Palestinians.''
  At the same time, the President has focused on pushing billions in 
new illegal student loan forgiveness--forgiveness that could very well 
benefit the students who are out leading these demonstrations. So that 
is why I have joined my Senate Republican colleagues in introducing the 
No Bailouts for Campus Criminals Act, which would make any person who 
is convicted of a State or Federal offense in connection with a campus 
protest ineligible for any Federal student loan forgiveness.
  The President is also reportedly looking to welcome Gazans to America 
as refugees. According to a recent poll, 71 percent of Gazans said they 
supported Hamas's horrific October 7 attack on Israeli civilians. 
Seventy-one percent of Gazans said they supported Hamas's horrific 
attack on October 7. More than 300 individuals on the Terror Watchlist 
have entered our country under President Biden, but, for some reason, 
this administration thinks that they can vet Gazans, who elected Hamas 
as their government, who support the terrorist attack. They think they 
can properly vet them and bring them into this country? Have they not 
asked Egypt, Jordan, other countries in the region why they will not 
take these Palestinian refugees? I think it would be instructive.
  Our country cannot afford more failed leadership and not knowing who 
is coming into this country who may wish us harm. We would like to see 
the President rescind this and review his priorities and make it his 
priority to protect 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. 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.

                          ____________________