Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2021

Mr. President, like many of my constituents in New Mexico, I am a gun owner. I have a sincerely held respect of law- abiding gun ownership.

Many of my own most cherished memories involve the responsible use of a firearm to feed my family and to forge memories with my sons and my closest friends. But those same sons grew up doing active shooter drills in their classrooms, something that would have been absolutely unimaginable when I was their age. And just this spring, my son's high school was on lockdown when I arrived, due to a nearby shooting that actually involved students from that high school. That type of experience has become all too common in our country.

The gun violence our communities are experiencing is appalling, and it is unacceptable. It is evident from the unthinkable mass shootings that we have witnessed in Uvalde and Buffalo and Tulsa and Vestavia Hills and El Paso. And it is evident in the mounting number of gun homicide and gun suicides that have taken tens of thousands of lives each year.

My home State of New Mexico continues to struggle with one of the highest rates of gun deaths in the country; and in recent years, far too many New Mexicans have lost friends and family members to this epidemic of violence.

I personally refuse to accept the idea that we are so divided in this country that we can't do something to make this situation better. That is why I join my good friend Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut and a number of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to try and chart a meaningful path forward. Over these past weeks, we have engaged in challenging but productive conversations. We found areas of agreement on real solutions that we can and we will pass here in the U.S. Senate.

Our bipartisan negotiations and the legislation that they have produced prove that we can work together in this body. And they show that when we set aside the vicious politics that have held us back for too long on this particular issue, we can actually create policies that save lives.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act includes Federal resources to help States and Tribes implement crisis intervention programs.

New Mexico passed a law to establish one of these programs just last year. The goal was to ensure that deadly weapons were kept out of the hands of those that a court, with due process, determined to be a significant danger to themselves or others. But as of last month, New Mexico had only used our law nine times, primarily due to a lack of funding and resources and training.

Just last month, on Mother's Day, New Mexico tragically lost two teens, shot and killed by a man who very likely could have had his firearm removed using New Mexico's crisis intervention law.

The alleged suspect had been issued a temporary restraining order at the request of his former girlfriend and the mother of one of the victims. The restraining order showed that he was in possession of two firearms. Unfortunately, the local sheriff's office failed to recognize the threat that he posed and didn't use our State's law to remove the firearms that he used to take the lives of two young New Mexicans.

If we can provide our law enforcement officers and courts the funding and training they need to make crisis intervention laws effective, we can protect our communities and ensure that future lives are not lost. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act will help us do just that.

Our legislation also enhances the review process for firearms buyers under 21 years of age. This new process will require an investigative period to review criminal and mental health records, including checks with State databases and local law enforcement.

Over the last 4 years, six of the nine deadliest mass shootings were by people who were 21 or younger. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act ensures we respond to this deadly trend in a meaningful way.

Our legislation also makes clear who the Federal firearm licensing requirements apply to, leading to more firearm sales that require a background check.

We are finally making sure that convicted domestic violence abusers and individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders are included in the Federal background check database, whether or not the abuser is married to the victim. That has long been a major failure in Federal law, and it has allowed dangerous abusers, who are dating but not married to their partners but whom we know pose a violent threat, to acquire deadly weapons. This provision alone will save an enormous number of lives.

Our legislation will also make historic investments in community behavioral health and school-based mental health services, and it will increase access to behavioral health services through telehealth.

The bill will help support school violence prevention efforts and provide training to school personnel and students so that they can recognize the signs that so often precede some of these violent shootings events.

Over the course of our negotiations, I worked especially hard on a few key provisions with my colleague from Maine, Senator Susan Collins. Our provisions will crack down on straw purchasing and trafficking of firearms. These provisions will directly reduce gun violence in our home States and internationally. Let me take a moment to explain how.

Under current law, it is a minor paperwork offense to buy a gun for someone else. And even then, that only applies if you buy the gun from a Federal firearm licensee. Under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, we are making it a serious crime to buy a gun for someone else when you know that person will use the gun to commit a felony or that they are not allowed to buy a gun themselves. That applies whether you buy the gun from a Federal firearm licensee or not.

The consequences of this simple change will be real. It will keep deadly weapons out of the hands of people who would use them to hurt others, and it will level serious consequences for those who break the law.

Just last year, a New Mexico State Police officer was tragically killed during a traffic stop in Deming, NM. Officer Darrion Jarrott was shot and killed by a convicted felon whose wife had allegedly purchased the gun for him. She is now being prosecuted under the paperwork offense that is currently on the books. But under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, she would be facing more severe and deserved consequences for her role in the death of a State police officer.

This legislation will also stop the type of organized straw purchasing and trafficking that we have seen too often in New Mexico and elsewhere. Right now, law enforcement has to watch as an organized chain of straw purchases happen one after another, intended to protect the person most at fault--the mastermind of the operation--by keeping them far removed from the purchase that happens at an FFL, at a Federal firearm licensee.

Our law enforcement watched this happen, but they can only go after the person who walked into the FFL and made the very first of that series of straw purchases--that is usually the person least involved in the scheme. But that is about to change. Soon, these ringleaders won't be able to distance themselves from the law anymore.

With our new straw purchase provision, law enforcement will be able to go after every link in the illegal chain of purchases to take down the entire ring, not just the vulnerable individuals these rings sometimes rely on to make the initial purchase.

There is more. While trafficking firearms into the United States is a major Federal crime under existing law, trafficking firearms out of the United States has not been. For years, this has meant that firearms trafficked out of the United States are the primary supply of guns used to commit violent crimes in Mexico, in El Salvador, in Honduras, and in Guatemala.

It has also invited dangerous firearm trafficking into communities on both sides of our Nation's southern and northern borders. We saw this in my home State about a decade ago when a major firearms trafficking ring was uncovered in Columbus, NM. This trafficking operation involved the chief of police, the mayor, a village trustee, and an estimated 190 firearms, including large numbers of handguns and assault rifles. And the crime they were charged with? Lying on their paperwork.

Not anymore. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act takes this violence on with the severity that it deserves. It gives law enforcement the tools they need to stop this activity and the violence it directly and indirectly creates in our communities and within our borders. By taking on the violence that families are fleeing in their home countries-- violence that our inadequate gun laws have actually contributed to--we are also taking meaningful action to address a root cause behind so many refugees coming to our country.

Now, I fully recognize that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is a compromise. Many of the parents and students who have raised their voices to demand action on gun violence would like us to go further. But progress has to start somewhere. The hardest part of every negotiation is letting go of the perfect for the possible, and I am confident that the legislation we are voting on will make a real difference in reducing gun violence--a difference that will be measured in lives. It will boost public safety, it will invest in mental health, and it will keep more firearms out of the hands of those who would use them against their communities.

The painful truth is that we can never bring back those precious children whose lives were cut short in Uvalde, TX; in Parkland, FL; in Newtown, CT; or Aztec High School, West Mesa High School, Deming Middle School, and Washington Middle School in my State. We can never offer enough words to heal the grieving families all across the country who have lost their sons and daughters and their brothers and sisters and their fathers and mothers to gun violence. But what we can do by voting to pass this legislation in the Senate is to honor their memory--not just with condolences and hopes and prayers but with concrete action.

I would encourage all of my colleagues to support the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Each life that we save by passing this legislation will mean literally everything to that person's loved ones, and that is what this is all about.

Madam President, I rise today to speak about a really important victory in Virginia yesterday--a victory for the Monacan Indian Nation, and it is a victory that I have had a hand in over the course of many years. I want to describe it and celebrate it.

When the English came to Virginia first in 1607, there were thriving Virginia Native populations. The populations east--in eastern Virginia, east of Richmond--were part of a larger confederacy called the Powhatan Confederacy, and they spoke an Algonquian-based language. There were Tribes in the southern part of Virginia that spoke an Iroquois-based language, and Tribes in the western part of Virginia spoke a Sioux- based language. One of these Tribes was the Monacan Tribe.

John Smith, in 1607, 1608, and 1609, traveled all around the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries and did some very detailed mapmaking of the area, including a town that he called the chief Monacan town named Rassawek. Rassawek is on a point of land in what is now Fluvanna County, VA, where the Rivanna River and the James River combine.

Rassawek was the headquarters, or the chief administrative town, of the Monacan Tribal Nation. The story of the Virginia Tribes is one of triumph, but also one of tragedy. Many of the Tribes made peace treaties with the English in the 1670s. All of these Tribes were discriminated against, and some were driven far from their homes.

The Monacan Tribe was driven by the English settlers from Rassawek, further west into Amherst County, and then many of them were driven even further west into the middle west end and other places. But Rassawek maintained its sacred status to the Monacan Nation for many reasons, including the fact that so many of Monacan families were buried there and their remains are still there.

An aspect of the tragedy of the Virginia Tribes is that: When I was elected to be a Senator in 2012, none of the Virginia Tribes had ever been recognized, even though many still live intact in communities in Virginia. There were over 500 Tribes that had been federally recognized. The Virginia Tribes are part of exhibits at the Smithsonian Museum at the foot of Capitol Hill; and yet they had never been recognized. And they had never been recognized for three reasons.

One, they made peace treaties with the English rather than with the United States. Often, recognition begins with the treaty entered into with the United States. Second, often, recognition is determined by extensive submission of land records and other records. Many Virginia courthouses were burned during the Civil War, and so records establishing Tribal lands, for example, were destroyed.

But, finally, and most cruelly, Virginia had an official named Walter Plecker who served as the State's director of the Department of Vital Statistics from 1920 until the 1960s. And he was a eugenicist. He believed there was no such thing as Indians, that they were all color. And, systemically, he determined to take every record he could find of Tribal communities in Virginia and change the racial designation of those records--birth certificates, marriage licenses, death notices--of Indian members to ``color,'' even to the point of disinterring Indians who had been buried in cemeteries that were primarily cemeteries for Caucasians. This made it, again, very difficult for these Tribes. They refer to this as the ``paper genocide'' for them to assert their claim for Tribal recognition.

I started working with the Monacan and six other Tribes when I was mayor of Richmond on this issue because I became friends with a guy named Steve Adkins, who is the chief of one of these Tribes, the Chickahominy Tribe.

We worked over the course of many, many years--these Tribes coming to Congress and asking for Federal recognition. And when I came into office in January of 2013, this was very, very high on my to-do list, to finally right this historic wrong and correct an injustice and allow these Virginia Tribes--whose stories are so well known and still live in these communities--to finally be recognized.

Now, we have gotten seven Tribes recognized--one through the Bureau of Indian Affairs process, the Pamunkey Tribe, and six through an act of Congress. I thank the Presiding Officer because all of my colleagues joined together at the end of 2018 and, in a unanimous vote, finally did justice by the Virginia Tribes, including the Monacan Tribe.

Now onto Rassawek. The Monacans were driven further west and now have their, sort of, Tribal headquarters in a place called Bear Mountain in Amherst County. The chief of the Tribe is a man named Ken Branham. Ken is a good friend.

In 2014, a local authority, the James River Water Authority in Fluvanna County, decided that strategic location at the merger of two rivers would be a perfect place to build big water treatment intake and treatment facility. It

is a growing community. There are more water needs in the community. The facility was needed, but the site they chose for the construction of the facility was Rassawek.

The authority proceeded forward to purchase the land and then undertake engineering studies to build this water treatment facility. At the time, 2014, the Monacans had not yet been federally recognized. They could complain, and they could argue, but they didn't have the clout that Federal recognition would eventually give them. Yet many people rallied to the Monacans' cause and said, ``Look, we preserve other sites all the time.''

Virginia is first in the Nation in preserving, for example, Civil War battlefield sites, and we preserved the ancestral home of the Powhatan of Werowocomoco on the York River, which is soon to be a national park. Should we allow Rassawek to be essentially destroyed and the remains of Monacans buried there for generations to be disturbed?

Armed with Federal recognition, the Monacans attracted even more support. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, in 2020, named Rassawek as one of the most 11 endangered sites in the country. A huge grassroots effort developed because of the hard work of the Tribe that assembled thousands and thousands of supporting individuals--some very nearby Rassawek, but some very far away--to advocate that there has to be a better solution for this water treatment need in Fluvanna County than to disturb and destroy Rassawek.

Yesterday, the James River Water Authority, in a unanimous vote, decided to set aside their plan to do the water intake facility in Rassawek and to donate the land that they have purchased for that facility to the Monacan Tribe. The Monacan Nation, in gratitude, pledges to work together with the James River Water Authority to find a more acceptable site. A number of alternatives have already been identified.

This summer, I was canoeing on the James River. I canoed the entire James River from where it starts, the Allegheny Mountains, to Fort Monroe in Chesapeake Bay--350 miles. It took me 26 days that I spread over the spring, summer, and fall. One day in August, I was canoeing from a town called New Kent to Columbia, passing Rassawek, which was on river left as I went downstream.

So I reached out to Chief Branham, knowing that the fight about the future of Rassawek was underway. I said: Could you and Tribal leaders meet me? I will pull my canoe onshore when I pass by. Meet me and talk to me about the status of this fight and why it is so important to the Monacan Nation to win.

So coming down the river with a friend, my former State director who used to work on this Tribal recognition issue, John Knapp--I want to thank him, as well as other staffers, Evan and Nick and Tyee and Mary and other staffers in my office, who worked on this. John and I pulled our canoe over on the shore in this beautiful spot in rural Virginia where the two rivers come together. We beached the canoe on a sand point, climbed a bluff, and met Chief Branham and other members of Monacan leadership to see the beauty of the site and to share a meal but also to talk to them about the importance of Rassawek and why they really, really needed to win this battle. They don't have a plan to develop Rassawek. They are not going to build anything there. They just want it to be preserved in its natural beauty out of respect for Monacan people who have lived there for nearly 5,000 years. Yesterday, this unanimous vote by the local water authority--a vote of respect, a vote of acknowledgment--recognized that this is a sacred site.

We in Virginia, we love our history. We love our history, and we don't want to lose it. The history of the Monacan Nation, the history of all of our Tribes is worthy of battling. You don't win every battle. The Monacan Nation won a really important one yesterday, and it might not have happened. Ninety-nine of my colleagues joined with me to make sure that the Monacan Nation and the other Virginia Tribes were finally, after hundreds of years, given Federal recognition.

I just wanted to express my congratulations to the Monacan Nation and my appreciation to my colleagues for helping me do something good.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, the Senate Commerce Committee recently voted on the nomination of Gigi Sohn to be a member of the Federal Communications Commission. I voted against her nomination for a number of serious reasons, as did the 13 other Republican committee members.

I was deeply disappointed that not one of my Democratic colleagues on the committee stepped forward to affirm what should be glaringly obvious: that Ms. Sohn is not an appropriate candidate for a position on the Federal Communications Commission.

One substantial concern I have with Ms. Sohn's nomination is her extreme position on net neutrality.

Back in 2014, the Obama administration decided that the Federal Government wasn't regulating the internet enough. So in 2015, the Obama Federal Communications Commission passed what was known as the Open Internet Order--mislabeled, I would add, but which dramatically expanded the Federal Government's power over the internet. The justification for this massive regulatory expansion was net neutrality.

Now, net neutrality is a concept that enjoys broad support in both parties. I support net neutrality and rules that prevent blocking, throttling, and the paid prioritization of internet traffic. I don't think a major service provider should be able to block a small news startup. But what the Obama FCC did in 2015 went far beyond net neutrality. The Obama FCC asserted broad, new government powers over the internet using rules that were designed for telephone monopolies back during the Great Depression. This opened the door to a whole host of internet regulations, including price regulations, and unsurprisingly, broadband investment declined as a result.

That was a problem for Americans generally, who benefit when the United States is at the forefront of internet growth and expansion, and it was particularly bad news for Americans in rural States like South Dakota. Getting broadband to rural communities is already more challenging than installing broadband in cities or suburbs, and the possibility of heavier regulations acted as a further disincentive to expanding access.

Fast-forward to 2017, and the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Pai voted to repeal those heavyhanded regulations passed by the Obama FCC, and here is what happened: Broadband investment rebounded, and broadband access expanded. Internet speeds increased. Our Nation positioned itself at the forefront of the 5G revolution. While European internet providers were slowing internet speeds during the pandemic, American providers were increasing them. All this despite the repeal of the heavyhanded internet regulation Democrats claimed we needed--or more accurately, because of the repeal of the heavyhanded regulation Democrats claimed we needed.

Why do I go into all this history? Well, because Ms. Sohn not only wants to bring back the heavyhanded internet regulation of the Obama administration, but she wants to go further and have the FCC regulate broadband rates and set data caps.

Just as service providers are working to implement nationwide 5G networks, Ms. Sohn wants to reinstate rules that will discourage broadband investment and diminish access opportunities for Americans outside of major cities and suburban areas. That is a big problem. The light-touch approach to internet regulation that the Federal Government has historically taken has resulted in growth and access, both of which would be threatened by Ms. Sohn's agenda.

Now, while I was very pleased that the FCC under Chairman Pai repealed

President Obama's heavyhanded internet regulation, I believe the best solution for the long term is for Congress to step in and pass bipartisan net neutrality legislation. Swings in net neutrality policy from administration to administration do not encourage long-term broadband investment.

I believe there is bipartisan support for a long-term legislative solution but not, it would seem, from Ms. Sohn, who has openly disparaged bipartisan work on this issue. Now, I think Ms. Sohn would be fine if Congress produces a bill to her liking, but I have serious concerns that if she thought a bipartisan solution didn't go far enough, she would ignore the will of Congress and use her position at the FCC to impose the heavyhanded regulatory regime she favors.

As a resident of a rural State, I am also concerned about Ms. Sohn's position on expanding broadband access to rural communities--an issue every Member of this body cares deeply about. She has been publicly hostile to the efforts of rural broadband companies in expanding reliable internet access to rural areas, while at the same time supporting the use of scarce government dollars to build new internet networks in already well-served urban areas.

As someone who has worked long and hard to expand internet access for unserved Americans, I find her hostility to rural broadband companies very troubling. The vast majority of these companies have spent years building out reliable networks to some of the most remote parts of the country, allowing more rural areas, like those in South Dakota, to reap the benefits of advanced services in healthcare, education, and economic development.

It is not only Republicans who have taken note of her hostility to the needs of rural Americans. Our former Democratic colleague from North Dakota has also questioned how one could support rural broadband and Ms. Sohn.

Ms. Sohn's policy positions alone would lead me to oppose her nomination, but there are other even more troubling factors that should be leading Members of both parties to oppose her nomination.

To start with, Ms. Sohn was not forthcoming to the Commerce Committee about her past history on the board of a company that was ordered to cease operations after being found in violation of copyright laws. This raises serious concerns about her fitness to sit on the FCC.

After questions were raised about her involvement with this company's settlement with broadcasters, she did volunteer to recuse herself, if she is confirmed, on a variety of issues related to broadcasting and copyright violations. But why on Earth--why on Earth should we choose a Commissioner who would have to recuse herself from participating in substantial parts of the FCC's work? How does it serve Americans to have an FCC Commissioner who can't fully do her job? Surely, there are other qualified nominees who don't have Ms. Sohn's conflict of interest.

But my objections don't end there. While I am concerned about Ms. Sohn having to recuse herself from doing parts of her job, I am most concerned about whether or not Ms. Sohn can do any part of her job in a fair and impartial manner.

Ms. Sohn has a history of virulent partisanship and far-left activism, including support for such far-left initiatives as defunding the police. She has publicly expressed her disdain for Republicans, and she has a record of outspoken criticism of the very same conservative media outlets that she would be responsible for regulating. Perhaps the most notable example is her hostility towards FOX News, which she has referred to as ``state-sponsored propaganda'' and accused of playing a role in ``destroying democracy.''

``Destroying democracy.''

And yet we are supposed to believe that she would approach cases involving the FOX corporation impartially? I think it is pretty clear that would not be the case.

I don't expect a Democrat nominee to the FCC to agree with Republicans on all the issues--far from it. But I do expect a Democrat nominee to do his or her job and do it in an impartial and unbiased manner.

In the case of Ms. Sohn, President Biden has nominated someone who cannot fulfill part of the responsibilities of FCC Commissioner and whose record strongly suggests that she cannot be relied upon to fulfill any of her responsibilities in an impartial manner.

Americans deserve an FCC nominee who can do her job impartially, no matter what the matter before the Commission. And I hope that if Ms. Sohn's nomination comes to the floor, at least some of my Democrat colleagues will join Republicans in opposing her nomination.

We should all be able to agree that virulent partisanship and an inability to fulfill the responsibilities of one's job are disqualifying characteristics for a role on the FCC.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider the following nomination: Calendar No. 643, Laura S. H. Holgate, to be Representative of the United States of America to the International Atomic Energy Agency, with the rank of Ambassador; that the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nomination; that any related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Madam President, I appreciate the concerns that my friend from Florida has raised. However, I am just struggling to see how the safety

and security of Ukraine's 15 nuclear reactors, in the midst of the largest reoccurrence of warfare on the European Continent since World War II, has any relationship to the issue which he raised.

Russia is blocking International Atomic Energy Agency access into Ukraine. The proper response by the Senate--by the Senator from Florida--is not to block our Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency at a time when Putin, at a time when Lavrov, are talking about nuclear weapons.

We need a representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That is what the Senator from Florida is blocking right now on the floor--just did it.

All across our country Americans are right now wondering, is a nuclear war once again possible? What if the Russians launch a tactical nuclear weapon into Ukraine against a nonarticle 5 country; what is our response?

They are wondering, does the IAEA have access to the 15 Ukrainian nuclear powerplants that the Russians, with military force, are taking over?

What are the protections that are going to be put in place in order to ensure that we, in fact, have done everything that we can do to avoid a nuclear accident, either a nuclear weapon or a nuclear powerplant accident?

That is where we are right now, and what I hear from the Senator from Florida is a disposition on a subject completely unrelated to those issues, as Americans are all tuned in on a daily basis in a way that they have not since 1962 to the very real potential that there could be a nuclear exchange--nuclear weapons exchange--between Russia and the West.

So, from my perspective, this is a historic moment that we have to come together in a bipartisan way to provide a response--a response to Russia, a response to their allies--that we are deadly serious. Instead, what the Senator from Florida has done is to arrive to object to the confirmation of Laura Holgate so that she can be there.

She is fully qualified. She is an all-star in her knowledge of all of these issues, but she won't be on duty. She won't be there with our allies, with the technical experts on all nuclear issues, because of this objection which we just heard.

From my perspective, we are at a pretty big turning point here. We need to be talking to everyone. We are either going to know each other or we are going to exterminate each other. That is the point in time at which we are at. We are either going to talk to each other or we could potentially slip into an accidental nuclear catastrophe that historians and future generations of young people will look back and say: How did that happen?

Well, one of the reasons why it can happen is we can't even get an American to be confirmed by the Senate at this time of great crisis because of an objection from the Republican Party. I mean, partisanship should stop at the water's edge, but when you are talking about nuclear weapons, there shouldn't even be a discussion about it. We should just let this highly qualified woman get on the job to use her expertise in defense of our country and in defense of everyone on the planet because this could quickly--quickly--trigger accidents that escalate, and then the unimaginable could happen.

So that is where we are right now. We need an ambassador to draw attention to the danger of Russian forces, especially holding Ukraine's nuclear operations at gunpoint. We need an ambassador to demand that Russia accept the IAEA's offer to establish a presence in Ukraine to ensure the continued safe operation of Ukraine's nuclear facilities.

Russia knows from the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the worst in history, that deadly radioactive fallout does not respect borders.

And we need an ambassador at the IAEA to perform a wide array of duties outside of the Ukraine crisis, from keeping nonnuclear weapon countries nonnuclear and making sure that this doesn't trigger attempts by other countries to gain access to nuclear materials and then nuclear weapons. And we have to make sure, ultimately, that we confirm Laura Holgate.

First, she served the same role in the Obama administration. She hits the ground running. She knows these issues. Second, she is a protege of Senator Sam Nunn and Senator Richard Lugar, and like that legendary bipartisan duo, she has devoted her career to dismantling weapons of mass destruction and materials that could be used by terrorists as dirty bombs.

So how is it that we still don't have an ambassador seated at the International Atomic Energy Agency's meetings on Ukraine, given this body unanimously confirmed Ambassador Holgate in December to be our representative to the other U.N. organizations based in Vienna?

That is a good question and it has no good answer and we did not hear that answer on floor of the U.S. Senate just 5 minutes ago, when the Senator from Florida objected. We didn't hear a word about their objections.

I will tell you what, they are creating very risky conditions for all Americans when they deny our country a seat at the table at the International Atomic Energy Agency at this time in history.

I was the same age as the pages on the floor today when the Cuban missile crisis cast a shadow over our Nation. I remember what that was like.

We are slipping day by day into a situation where we could be confronted with similar conditions, and the least that we should be able to say is we tried, we really tried, to avoid that nuclear catastrophe. And the minimum that we should do is have an ambassador who is at the table who is talking to all of our allies and the rest of the world about these issues right now.

Ukraine and the whole of Europe averted disaster when a Russian munition fell just short of Ukraine's nuclear reactors just a couple of weeks ago. We may not be so lucky the next time if Russian forces move on the country's other facilities with the same reckless abandon.

What possible benefit is derived from keeping our ambassadorial post at the IAEA unfilled at a time like this? We make nuclear safety and nuclear security a partisan issue at our own peril and at the peril of every family in our country as well as Europe.

It is just absolutely irresponsible, for unrelated reasons, to deny our country that kind of protection right now.

So we are going to keep coming back with this, and the reason we are is that we can see a continued escalation. We can see, in Putin's own words, reckless intent. And it is not for us to judge whether he is sincere or not in terms of his consideration of the use of nuclear weapons or his lack of full consideration of what the consequences are of having armed attacks on nuclear powerplant facilities all over Ukraine.

We can't get inside of his brain, but the least we can do is have someone go to the table from America, someone who has dedicated her life--Ambassador Holgate--to this work.

That is what happened here on the floor right now. It was a partisan politicization of nuclear proliferation, of nuclear safety, at a time where we are seeing a peril that we have not seen in 50 years in the United States or the planet.

All I can tell you is history will not come back and well receive the partisan objection for the completely unrelated reasons for not allowing us to have that kind of representation at the nuclear table at this particular point in time.

I intend to return on this subject, as many times as it takes, so that we can have someone who is there protecting every family in our country.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, next week, the Judiciary Committee will hear firsthand from President Biden's Supreme Court nominee Judge Jackson. It will be a serious and dignified process. The American people need answers to more important questions than what somebody wrote in the nominee's high school yearbook.

The Senate needs to examine Judge Jackson's qualifications, and we need to examine her judicial philosophy and see if she will apply laws as written and weigh cases without favoritism. And we need to explore why the farthest left activists in the country desperately wanted Judge Jackson, in particular, for this vacancy.

Judicial philosophy is a key qualification for the Supreme Court. There are plenty of smart lawyers in the country, but they don't all understand that a judge's proper role is to apply the text of the laws neutrally. Some would rather start with liberal outcomes and reason backward.

So it is unsettling that senior Democrats have lauded Judge Jackson for the ``empathy'' they suggest shapes her judicial approach. So if you are the litigant for whom the judge has special preexisting empathy, well, it is your lucky day; but the other party is being denied their fair day in court.

The Senate Democratic leader, the House majority whip, and multiple legal academics all say Judge Jackson will rule with ``empathy.'' Helpfully, one professor clarified which kinds of litigants would benefit from her empathy. He proposed that because of Judge Jackson's ``ample criminal defense experience,'' she would ``bring a measure of empathy to the criminal defense cases, the Fourth and Fifth Amendment cases.''

So liberals are saying that Judge Jackson's service as a criminal defense lawyer and then on the U.S. Sentencing Commission give her special empathy for convicted criminals. Her supporters look at her resume and deduce a special empathy for criminals. I guess that means that government prosecutors and innocent crime victims start each trial at a disadvantage.

That isn't my assertion. That is what the nominee's liberal supporters are all saying. In fact, the nominee has all but said it herself. Here is what the Washington Post reported last year when Judge Jackson was nominated to the DC Circuit:

She and her allies credit her work as a public defender as

helping her develop empathy.

And here they quote the nominee herself:

There is a direct line from my defender service to what I

do on the bench, and I think it's beneficial.

So, look, nobody is saying that public defenders ought to be disqualified from judicial service. It is an important role. But as the New York Times reported this week, the Biden administration is on an intentional quest to stuff the Federal judiciary full of this one perspective. Even amid a national crime wave, a disproportionate share of the new judges President Biden has nominated share this professional background that liberals say gives judges special empathy for criminal defendants.

Here is the New York Times:

It is a sea change in the world of judicial nominations. .

. . The type of high-profile murder cases handled by some of

Mr. Biden's nominees would have been considered disqualifying

only a few years ago; now the president . . . is actively

seeking to name more jurists who have such experience.

It is not just Judge Jackson.

At least 20 other lawyers with significant public defender

experience have been nominated by the Biden administration.

One soft-on-crime advocate marveled to the reporter:

We have never seen anything like this.

Such enthusiasm.

President Biden is deliberately working to make the whole Federal judiciary softer on crime. Even liberals admitted as much. They actually applaud it. But with murders and carjackings skyrocketing nationwide, I doubt the American people feel the same way.

I look forward to learning more about how Judge Jackson believes her service as a criminal defense attorney leads her to interpret the text of our laws and our Constitution differently than other judges. If any judicial nominee really does have special empathy for some parties over others, that is not an asset; it is a problem.

Energy

Madam President, on another matter, as Democratic policies have unleashed runaway inflation, families have felt particular pain at the gas pump.

Since President Biden took office, gas prices have climbed nearly $2--$2. The Biden administration wants to claim that a full year's worth of price hikes were all caused by a war Putin started 3 weeks ago. But this fictional version of events doesn't fool anyone.

Two years ago, then-candidate Biden told everyone he was ready to wage war on the most reliable forms of American energy:

No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill,

period. [It] ends.

That is President Biden.

I guarantee you . . . We're going to end fossil fuel.

In other words, either the Biden administration has a shaky understanding of supply and demand or soaring energy prices have been baked into their agenda right from the beginning.

For 14 months now, energy policy has followed a disturbing pattern. First, the Biden administration rolls out a direct attack on American energy, then working families feel the pinch, and then Democrats try to deflect the blame. Take the Keystone XL Pipeline. President Biden made canceling it a day one priority. Then, as gasoline, diesel, and other energy prices climbed, the White House justified itself by saying the project would have taken years to affect prices anyway.

The problem is, back during the Obama administration, their own analysis suggested the project would be fully operational by 2013. They spent a decade fighting against a pipeline that would have taken a couple of years to come online by complaining it was not immediate enough.

That was their argument a decade ago, and it is their argument now. The pipeline could have been built multiple times over in the time the Democrats spent resisting it. Besides, if slow construction were really the problem, the administration would be rushing to rein in their own regulatory army that is handcuffing other new and existing pipelines with mountains of extra bureaucracy.

Just weeks ago, while Putin was already amassing forces and trying to make energy hostages out of Western Europe, the Biden administration's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission went out of its way to make permitting new American natural gas pipelines radically more difficult.

Here is yet another example. Last year, the Biden administration directed the SEC to prioritize discouraging loans, capital, and financing for fossil fuel energy projects. But now that a worldwide scramble has sent prices sky-high, the administration blames the industry and says it is ``time for oil and gas companies to work with Wall Street to unleash our productive capacity.'' The administration that campaigned on ending fossil fuels now claims the fossil fuel companies are just layabouts who don't want to drill. It is enough to make your head spin.

Oh, and President Biden rushed to lash America back to the mast of a climate deal that actually gave China a pass to keep increasing their emissions. As Germany prepared to give Putin an even tighter hold on Europe's market for natural gas with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, President Biden fought bipartisan efforts to stop the pipeline.

His response to soaring prices hurting families last year was to go hat in hand and beg OPEC and Russia to produce more. And now that Russia has invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration is reportedly exploring more imports--listen to this--from Venezuela and Iran, totalitarian regimes with contempt for human rights and the environment.

So it turns out the Biden administration doesn't mind fossil fuel production after all. They just don't want to ``Buy American.'' The administration will buy oil from the Supreme Leader of Iran; they will buy oil from Maduro. If North Korea had oil, they would probably try to buy that, too. Anything--anything--to avoid keeping those jobs and that energy independence right here in the USA.