Luke and Alex School Safety Act of 2021

Mr. President, farmers across Iowa are finishing their planting of corn and soybeans. As for the Grassley farm, Robin and Pat Grassley finished planting last Thursday.

Most people have never stepped foot on a family farm, let alone know all about the complexities that go into planting, growing, and harvesting a bountiful crop. That is why I often use my social media to show my followers what is going on in farming--hashtag ``corn watch,'' hashtag ``soybean watch.'' I like to show how only 2 percent of the population raises food for the other 98 percent, plus exporting one- third of our production to feed people overseas. Food doesn't just magically appear on grocery store shelves.

When so few people know what it takes to produce food, we often run into obstacles at policymaking tables here in Congress and around Washington, DC. I often quote something Dwight Eisenhower said, and he said it best:

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and

you're a thousand miles from the corn field.

There has never been a more important time than right now for farmers to have a successful year. We are facing a world threatened by food shortages and food insecurity the likes of which we haven't seen since the Arab Spring a decade ago, in large part today because of Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

The productivity of the American farmers and ranchers this crop season will have a big impact on the security and prosperity of countries around the world, as well as to make sure we don't get into a devastating shortage of food.

With so much at stake, Washington, DC, must provide farmers across the country a consistent policy when it comes to regulation of inputs and crop protection products. One State out of fifty can't go another direction without bringing harm to food production.

When it comes to the regulation of these products, public policy must be based on the best science available to make informed decisions. Science-based decisions shouldn't surprise anybody in this town because science was the Golden Rule in every coronavirus decision made in the Trump administration and still being made in the Biden administration.

The best science is why Congress enacted, in 1972, the regulation that goes by the title of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act or FIFRA for short. Since 1972, FIFRA has expressly preempted State law, vested the EPA with final authority over pesticide labeling and the usage of that pesticide. Specifically, FIFRA gave the EPA authority over pesticide labeling and the usage of that pesticide. Under FIFRA, it is the EPA's responsibility to undertake very extensive scientific review of regulated products and then determine what disclosures, if any, must be on the product labels. FIFRA provides that EPA conduct studies to determine product safety.

Congress intended that there be a Federal regulatory regime that would impose warnings, impose disclosures, and impose restrictions on the use of products under FIFRA. Congress made it very clear that Congress wanted science-based certainty and predictability for farmers and the resulting benefit that is to the farm entire economy.

Unfortunately, we have seen politically motivated environmentalists pushing for restrictions on regulated products that the EPA has determined are not necessary. This fundamentally undermines trust in the EPA and trust in Federal regulation of these products used in farming.

Make no doubt about my stand or anybody's stand here in the U.S. Senate, we all strongly support thorough vetting of regulated products to ensure public safety. However, I strongly support ensuring Iowa farmers have the supplies they need to feed families across America.

I hope President Biden would agree with me. His administration should be putting forward policies and taking positions that protect public safety, while ensuring farmers can produce the food that we need here in America and that we are able to supply one-third of our production for overseas. As we look at the world with a growing shortage of food-- as I emphasized, partly because of what is going on in Ukraine--we must then ask ourselves what more we can be doing to support farmers.

Unfortunately, some recent decisions just made by this administration do just exactly the opposite. I said ``just made by this administration'' because 2 weeks ago, President Biden's Solicitor General filed a brief in a case involving widely used pesticides. In that brief, the Solicitor General flipped the government's long-held position that FIFRA preempts State law and instead argued against EPA's authority. So it looks to me like politics overcomes science.

You would think such a significant change would be firmly based on the law and science, just as I said. However, the Solicitor General explained this astounding change wasn't based on science because it was based on politics. Perhaps that is why the EPA general counsel's name doesn't appear on the brief.

I heard from many constituents about how serious of an impact the position taken by Biden's Solicitor General would have on the farming industry at-large. If the Court, meaning the Supreme Court, effectively adopts the Solicitor General's position and that of the lower court decision, it will fundamentally disrupt the Federal regulation of use and of warnings under FIFRA related to substances such as these that farmers rely on every day in production agriculture.

It is clear that it wasn't the intent of Congress when it enacted FIFRA for there to be 50 State standards in addition to Federal standards because we all know the purpose of FIFRA was to create a uniform regime with authority vested in the EPA to set such standards, and that has never been questioned until now.

It is shocking that President Biden chose to put forward an argument that undermines the public trust in the EPA by putting politics ahead of the longstanding and consistent EPA regulation that enables farmers to grow the food that we and the world need. This abrupt change in the administration's position will have serious implications for the farm economy and our food supply.

Again, there needs to be a consistent regulatory regime to ensure the public's trust and to support U.S. agriculture so farmers can produce food, again, I say, that the Nation needs and the world needs.

So I hope the Solicitor General reverses her position, and even if she doesn't reverse her position, I hope the Supreme Court of the United States will be willing to hear this case.

I want to now quote Dr. Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, I think, in 1970. This winner was born and raised in Iowa:

If you desire peace, cultivate justice, but at the same

time cultivate the fields to produce more bread; otherwise

there will be no peace.

I think what he is referring to there is--at least what I believe and I have heard--that societies are only nine meals away from revolution. In other words, if you are a father and a mother and you can't feed your kids for 3 days, you will go to almost any end to make sure they get the food. So if you want social cohesion in America and around the world, we have to have enough food to feed our people.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, today America grieves. There is nothing partisan about being a parent and grandparent. I cannot imagine--I cannot imagine--the grief felt by the parents of those children. Unless you have experienced it, none of us can.

What is the solution? There is no one solution. Let's be honest about that. Following Sandy Hook, following Parkland, I met with the parents of those horrific and senseless tragedies. I have been blessed to get to know three parents quite well: Tom and Gina Hoyer, and Max Schachter. Tom and Gina are the parents of Luke Hoyer; Max is the father of Alex Schachter--two of the 17 victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School slaughter in Parkland, FL, that occurred on February 14, 2018.

In getting to know Tom and Gina and Max, you get some sense of the level of grief. I mentioned there is nothing partisan about grief. I listened to President Biden's remarks last night, I think the point he made that pierced my heart, because President Biden has known tragedy, is when he said that those parents in Texas, they are asking themselves will they ever sleep again.

So we all grieve. We are all looking for solutions. The good Senator from Delaware said: ``We must take action.''

So what I have always valued about Tom and Gina and Max is these are three individuals, parents who do know the pain, that still grieve the loss of their sons, and yet they have not approached trying to find solutions in any partisan way whatsoever. They are trying to find areas of agreement.

They advised the Federal Commission on School Safety. They came up with a pretty commonsense action. It may not solve all the problems, but it is a good idea. It is such a good idea that as chairman of the committee--Subcommittee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, we codified it, we passed it unanimously out of our committee in November of 2019. It is called the Luke and Alex School Safety Act. It is pretty simple. It just creates a clearinghouse of information of the best practices for school safety.

It involves numerous Departments--Department of Health and Human Services, Justice, Homeland Security. All must approve what these best practices are. It ensures the parents, teachers, school officials, other stakeholders have input into what those best practices are. It doesn't allow the clearinghouse to mandate any school take any certain action.

And maybe, most importantly, it publishes the available grant programs and Federal resources available for school safety. Again, it passed out of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs twice, unanimously, once under my chairmanship, once under the chairmanship of Senator Peters. There is nothing partisan about this bill whatsoever. It is just a good idea that can save lives.

It was such a good idea that under the previous administration, they set up that clearinghouse. It is up and it is operating. So all this bill does at this point is serve as a model for what is happening. All this bill does now is codify it, to make sure this clearinghouse stands the test of time, that it will always be there to provide those best practices on school safety.

Now, I am very sensitive to the moment in time we are sitting here right now. We should let the Nation and those parents grieve. I don't want to politicize anything about this moment.

So I called up Max, I called up Tom and Gina and asked them what would you like me to do? They have been trying to get this codified, passed into law for 4 years. I can't explain why it is not law. Just last month, the Senate passed the Pray Safe Act, which was basically it took that bill, the Luke and Alex School Safety Act and just applied it to churches. That passed by unanimous consent--no objection.

I tried to attach this bill to that bill, but for whatever reason, somebody is objecting. I have no idea why. None.

Again, it passed our committee unanimously twice. It is a good idea. It could save lives. It is an action when people are calling for action following this tragedy.

So I know I see the Senator from Florida that would also like to speak to this bill before I ask consent.

I thank the Senator from Florida for those comments.

I just want to again emphasize the fact that I just spoke with Max and Gina and Tom. These are parents of children who lost their lives in a school shooting. These are parents that have come up with a solution--a nonpartisan solution--got it recommended by the Federal Commission on School Safety.

They told me that the day after Parkland, had a parent from Sandy Hook had a piece of legislation that they had been trying to get passed but couldn't, it would help. They would have been 100 percent supportive of that piece of legislation, come to the floor, and pass it by unanimous consent, irrespective of the timing.

They asked me to come to the floor today to ask my colleagues to lay aside partisanship, to do something for these families, provide them some measure of comfort by passing a completely nonpartisan bill that could make a difference, that could save a life. There is no reason not to pass this bill today in this Chamber at this hour.

So, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 102, S. 111.

I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

As chairman of Homeland Security, I have passed more than 300 pieces of legislation out of committee, and over 130 of those became law. Very few of those--almost none--were partisan in any way, shape, or form. The approach I used to have that kind of legislative success is, rather than focus on issues that divide us, I concentrated on areas of agreement.

Today, I brought to the Senate floor a nonpartisan bill, a bill crafted by the parents--the parents--who lost their sons in one of these horrific tragedies. It passed out of our committee twice unanimously. Those parents asked me

to come today to please pass this bill; take some action; provide some comfort to all the parents who are grieving, to a nation that is grieving.

So I came to the floor today, and I will not engage in partisanship other than to say it is just sad--it is just sad that this body can't pass this bill when, about a month ago, they passed an identical bill that applied to churches. This one applies to schools. Yet it is inappropriate, according to the majority leader, to pass this nonpartisan bill by unanimous consent? This is a very sad day for the U.S. Senate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, like a lot of other Americans, I didn't sleep much last night, didn't sleep much at all. I couldn't shake the overwhelming feeling of sorrow that I felt for the community of Uvalde, TX. Nineteen innocent children, fourth graders, were gunned down in their classroom 3 days before summer break--3 days. Two teachers were murdered as well. Countless children witnessed their classmates and teachers shot and killed as they climbed through windows to try to escape the massacre. Twenty-one families are living every parents' worst nightmare--the loss of a child. Instead

of planning their summer vacations, those families are now planning their children's funerals. Their nightmare is our national nightmare.

Though my own boys are now grown adults, I can't help but think when my wife and I used to help them with their homework and tuck them into bed at night. I can't help but think of when they were the same age of the 19 elementary children gunned down at their school yesterday. Like millions of American parents across our country, my wife and I are brokenhearted today.

Millions of Americans dropped their children off at school this morning, and my guess is they probably hugged them extra tightly. They said goodbye and watched those kids walk into school. And they left to hope and pray today that their children will be there, alive, at pickup at the end of the day or that they will be on the bus ride coming home at night. They are left to hope and pray that they never get the shattering call that those families in Uvalde received yesterday.

We are the only country in the world where parents have to hope and pray that their children will not be murdered at school by a gunman. We are the only country in the world where a fourth grade classroom can be turned into a battlefield by a madman with an assault weapon.

This has to stop. We can't go on this way. We are mourning this tragedy, and I refuse to accept inaction. I refuse to accept that the mass slaughter of children in their fourth grade classroom is somehow normal. This has to stop. We can't go on this way.

For as long as I have been in this Chamber--that is some 21 years--we have been failing to address the epidemic of gun violence in this country. This has to stop. We can't go on this way. I refuse to believe that Congress can't reform our gun laws in a way that the American public broadly support. I refuse to believe that changing our laws won't reduce gun violence and make these tragedies less likely from recurring in the future.

We are long overdue to make commonsense reforms to our Nation's gun laws. To put it bluntly, this is not going to be easy. I know it. I think we all realize that.

Many of our friends in this Chamber revere the Second Amendment and respect the tradition of lawful gun ownership in this country. I myself am a gun owner and have been one since I was 12 years old when I bought my first BB gun. However, the Second Amendment does not give us the right to murder children at school or gun down worshippers at church or kill African Americans at a grocery store.

In our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote these words that we all remember. He wrote:

All men [and women] are created equal, that they are

endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of

Happiness.

These 19 children were denied the right to life, to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

So in Uvalde, there is no little league game this weekend. There is no fifth grade next year. They will never get to be teenagers, go to the prom, graduate, go on to college, have a career, or have children of their own, and, if lucky, maybe grandchildren someday. Their lives were stolen from them by a gunman; and, tragically, we can never bring them back.

What we can do though--what we can do though--is to try hard, really hard to prevent this from ever happening again.

We need to be able to say to the American people: We have had enough. This has to stop. We can't go on this way. We won't go on this way.

Today, we are a nation in mourning. We also need to be a nation working together to address this epidemic, working to reform our gun laws, and doing whatever it takes to prevent another massacre in an American school, in a place of worship, or in a grocery store.

May God bless the community of Uvalde. May the Lord be with those 21 families during this time of unfathomable heartache and anguish.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, as we heard from previous speakers, we will shortly vote to invoke cloture on the nomination of Dr. Christopher Frey to be Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Research and Development. I rise today in strong support of his nomination.

Chris Frey, as he is known to his friends and colleagues, is an outstanding public servant, a deeply respected scientist, and an excellent choice to fill this leadership role at EPA.

The Office of Research and Development provides the bedrock of scientific analysis upon which we establish our Nation's critical environmental protection regulations. The EPA is able to fulfill its responsibilities to protect our air that we breathe, to protect the water that we drink, and the land we build our communities upon because of the robust scientific research provided by what is called O-R-D, the Office of Research and Development.

Dr. Frey's nomination received a bipartisan vote in the Committee on Environment and Public Works. He has the experience, intellect, and integrity to lead this indispensable office. I am eager to see him confirmed.

I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting cloture on his nomination. This is about restoring science as the guiding force in EPA's work.

I yield the floor.

Vote on Thompson Nomination

Madam President, I know of no further debate on the nomination.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Reserving the right to object.

Madam President, the American people have had to endure two of the worst mass shootings in recent history in just the span of 10 days. One of them happened to be in my home State of New York in the dear city of Buffalo; the other happened yesterday in Texas, the worst school shooting since Sandy Hook, and we can't get out of our minds--I can't--the picture of 10, 11, and 9-year-olds being shot, killed, just ready to burst into the adolescent and adult phases of their lives.

What the American people want is real solutions to our Nation's gun violence epidemic. We have had too many moments of silence, too many thoughts and prayers. Americans are sick of it. Many in this Chamber are sick of it.

Here is the sad truth about what happened yesterday and why I plan to object to my colleague's UC: hardening schools would have done nothing to prevent this shooting. In fact, there were guards and police officers already at the school yesterday when the shooter showed up. One was a school police officer, two were from the Uvalde Police Department. The shooter got past all of them with two assault weapons that he purchased. They couldn't stop him.

The bill would not have protected those children. More guns won't protect our children. That is the wrong answer. There are too many guns and too many options for the wrong people to get guns.

So I plan to object to passing this measure today through consent, but I would tell my colleague from Wisconsin, tomorrow we can begin voting on a bill that will take us--that will let us take action on guns, and we could consider amendments like this then, along with others.

Tomorrow, the Senate is scheduled to take the first step--the first step--in responding to the shooting that happened in my home State of New York 2 weeks ago and so many other mass shootings over the years that have been motivated by race.

The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, which I set in motion earlier this week, is a necessary and timely step to honor the memories of the dead in Buffalo and to make sure mass shootings motivated by race don't happen again.

I urge all my Republican colleagues to vote to get on the bill. All we are asking is a vote ``yes'' on the motion to proceed.

I urge my colleague from Wisconsin to vote yes on that bill.

If Senator Johnson helps us get on the domestic terrorism bill, we could consider amendments related to guns--his and others' who have a different point of view. If Republicans can vote with us to get on that bill, we can have a debate on considering commonsense, strong gun safety amendments, hopefully with bipartisan support. The Senator from Wisconsin says his bill is bipartisan. There are five Republican sponsors.

The bottom line is, if you want to have bipartisan debates, you don't just say: My bill must pass by unanimous consent, and no other bill can pass. I am providing a path that we can have a debate on these amendments.

Let me be clear. We are going to vote on gun legislation, and the Republicans could let us start doing that as soon as tomorrow if they simply vote yes on the motion to proceed, and I give them a pledge that we will then start debating gun amendments--Senator Johnson's and many others' who have a different point of view. I repeat, though, we are going to vote on gun legislation. The American people are tired of moments of silence, tired of the kind words offering thoughts and prayers.

We can use the domestic terrorism bill tomorrow to begin--I repeat, to begin--considering gun safety amendments, and we can consider the proposal he brings to the floor today. So we won't just have this amendment; we will have a lot of amendments to debate. That seems perfectly fair and, in fact, bipartisan. Alone, the Johnson bill is not in any way, shape, or form a sufficient solution, and so I object.

Madam President, gas prices have set new alltime record highs every day for more than 2 weeks. Overall inflation is the worst it has been in more than 40 years. And the Biden administration is preparing to follow their botched Afghanistan retreat with a disastrous nuclear deal that would help Iran and hurt America.

But this week, the Senate Democrat majority is not taking action on any of those things; the Senate is instead spending the week cramming more far-left bureaucrats into the executive branch, where they will keep making these problems even worse.

Later today, Senate Democrats want to confirm as Assistant Administrator for EPA someone who has previously researched the environmental impact of football tailgating and concluding it would be best for the environment if the authorities--listen to this--banned charcoal grills and gas generators. This is no joke. Dr. Christopher Frey literally coauthored a research paper that argued that ``the most environmentally responsible policy would be . . . a universal ban on idling, charcoal grills, and old generators''--just the nominee the American people need confirmed by Memorial Day weekend.

So, honestly, where do they find these people? The same nominee wrote in defense of the illegal, job-killing so-called Clean Power Plan. As a past chairman of the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, he worked to politicize its work from outside.

Things aren't going any better at the committee level. This morning, the HELP Committee deadlocked on the nomination of Kalpana Kotagal, whom President Biden wants to put on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Ms. Kotagal is a liberal plaintiff's lawyer who is best known for rewriting Hollywood legal contracts to push movie casting toward racial quotas, gender quotas, and sexual orientation quotas. The President has found the one person in America who thinks liberal Hollywood is not woke enough.

The nominee also has a record of hostility to American energy. She has been both an official spokeswoman and a registered lobbyist for a far-left group that wants to eliminate fossil fuels. She is on the board of another organization that has frivolously sued the State of West Virginia over energy issues.

The American people know Washington Democrats' policies hurt working families. They have seen that in our colleagues' legislation. And it is more of the same when it comes to the nominees they are picking to design and carry out their tsunami of regulations.