Respecting Our Frontline Workers Act

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, day after day here on the floor of the Senate and back in their States, many of my colleagues talk to the American people about how deeply concerned they are about the deficit and the national debt. They tell us that we just don't have enough money to expand Medicare, to cover dental care for seniors, to cover hearing aids, to cover eyeglasses. We just don't have enough money to do what every other major country on Earth does, and that is guarantee paid family and medical leave.

At a time when hundreds of thousands of bright young people are unable to afford a higher education and millions are struggling with student debt, my colleagues tell us that we just don't have enough money to provide 2 years of free tuition at community colleges.

When we have over 500,000 Americans sleeping out on the streets, including a few blocks away from the Nation's Capitol, we just don't have enough money to build the low-income and affordable housing this country needs.

At a time when the scientists are telling us that we face an existential threat in terms of climate change, we are told that we just don't have enough money to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and create a planet that will be healthy and habitable for our kids and future generations. Just don't have enough money.

Yet, today, the U.S. Senate will begin consideration of an annual defense budget that costs $778 billion--$778 billion for one year. That is $37 billion more than President Trump's last defense budget and $25 billion more than what President Biden requested.

By the way, all of this money is going to an Agency, the Department of

Defense, that continues to have massive cost overruns year after year, wasting enormous amounts of money, and is the only major governmental Agency in the Federal Government not to successfully complete an independent audit.

Now, isn't it remarkable how, even as we end the longest war in our Nation's history, the war in Afghanistan, concerns about the deficit and the national debt seem to melt away under the influence of the military-industrial complex. People sleeping out on the street, people dying because they don't have any healthcare, kids unable to get the early childhood education they need--not a problem. Can't afford to pay for those things, but somehow, when it comes to the defense budget and the needs of the military-industrial complex, we just cannot give them enough money.

But that is not all, and I want the American people to know this, as I suspect many don't.

It is very likely that in the Defense bill or attached to the Defense bill, there will be a so-called competition bill, and this bill is a $250 billion bill that includes $52 billion in straight corporate welfare, with no strings attached, for a handful of extremely profitable microchip companies.

Now, is there a problem in that our country is not producing the kinds of microchips and the number of microchips that we should? The answer is yes. It is an issue we have to deal with, but we can deal with it in a way other than simply handing money to a handful of enormously profitable corporations with no protection for the taxpayers at all.

By the way, I should also mention that as part of the so-called competition bill, there is also a $10 billion handout to Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest people in our country, for space exploration.

Combining these two pieces of legislation would push the pricetag of the Defense bill to over $1 trillion for 1 year. I want people to remember that because when we talk about Build Back Better, we are talking about a 10-year bill. This is 1 year.

Meanwhile, while there is limited discussion about the Defense bill or corporate welfare in the competition bill, Congress has spent month after month discussing the Build Back Better Act, which on an annual basis costs far less than the Pentagon budget, and discussing whether or not we can afford to protect the working families of our country whose needs have been ignored decade after decade, who in many cases are living paycheck to paycheck, can't afford housing, can't afford prescription drugs, and can't afford to send their kids to college. We can't address their needs--no, no, no--because we are too busy worrying about throwing money at the Pentagon and large, profitable corporations.

If there was ever a moment in modern American history when we need to fundamentally review our national priorities, now is that moment. Whether it is transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels; whether it is guaranteeing paid family and medical leave; whether it is providing healthcare to all of our people as a human right, as virtually every other major country does; whether it is taking on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, which charges us by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs; whether it is addressing our crisis of affordable housing or providing childcare and pre-K to the little kids, now is the time to reassess our priorities. Now is the time to fight for real change.

But instead of addressing these major issues that impact the lives of working families all across this country and that the working class of this country desperately wants, Congress comes together, Democrats and Republicans, with minimal debate, to support an exploding Pentagon budget, which is now higher than the next 13 nations combined and represents more than half of our discretionary spending.

After adjusting for inflation, we are now spending more on the military than we did during the height of the Cold War or during the wars in Vietnam or Korea. And I would like to reiterate, this is after the war in Afghanistan has ended. That is why I have introduced an amendment with Senator Markey to reduce the military budget by $25 billion, down to what President Biden requested.

Let's be clear. This is not a radical idea. It is the military spending proposed by the President of the United States and the amount requested by the Department of Defense. I look forward to support on that amendment, especially from the deficit hawks, who I know are very, very concerned about the deficit.

I should also point out that this extraordinarily high level of military spending comes at a time when the Department of Defense is the only Agency of our Federal Government that has not been able to pass an independent audit and when defense contractors are making enormous profits while paying their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages.

Let's not forget that in this so-called competition bill, there will be a provision which provides $53 billion in emergency appropriations for the microchip industry with no strings attached.

Let me repeat that. We are talking about more than $53 billion in Federal funds, and by the way, I suspect there will be more taxpayer money coming to these corporations from State and local government with no strings attached.

Do we need to expand the microchip industry in this country so we can become less dependent on foreign countries? Yes. But we can accomplish that goal without throwing money at these companies with no protections for the taxpayers.

In total, my guess is that five--one, two, three, four, five--major semiconductor companies will likely receive the lion's share of this taxpayer handout. Those companies are Intel, Texas Instruments, Micron Technology, Analog Devices, and NVIDIA.

I should also point out that these five companies made nearly $35 billion in profits last year combined and spent more than $18 billion buying back their own stock.

I should also point out that these five corporations combined paid their CEOs a combined $85 million in compensation last year.

Further, it is important to point out that this is an industry that received nearly $6 billion in government subsidies and loans over the years, and it is an industry that has shut down over 780 manufacturing plants in the United States and eliminated 150,000 American jobs in the last 20 years--29 percent of its workforce--while moving most of its production overseas. In other words, over the years, in order to make more money, they decided to outsource their operations and, in the process, throw American workers out on the street.

So let's be clear what is happening here. In order to make more profits, these companies took good government money and then offshored good American jobs. Now, for that bad behavior, these same companies are being rewarded with some $53 billion in no-strings corporate welfare to undo the damage that they did.

That may make sense to somebody; not to me. That is why I have introduced Senate amendment No. 4722, which would prevent microchip companies from receiving taxpayer assistance unless they agree to issue warrants to the Federal Government. If private companies are going to benefit from over $53 billion in taxpayer subsidies, the financial gains made by these companies must be shared with the American people, not just wealthy shareholders.

In other words, all this amendment says is that if these companies want taxpayer assistance, we are not going to socialize all of the risks and privatize all of the profits.

Let me be very clear. This is not a radical idea. These exact conditions were imposed on corporations that received taxpayer assistance in the bipartisan CARES Act, which passed the Senate 96 to nothing. In other words, every Member of the U.S. Senate has already voted for the conditions that are in my amendment.

CARES was not the first time that Congress passed warrants and equity stakes tied to government assistance. During the 2008 financial crisis, Congress required all companies taking TARP funds to issue warrants and equity stakes to the Federal Government.

The bottom line is that taxpayers should not just be handing out money to large, profitable corporations and well-paid CEOs. They deserve to benefit as well.

In addition to making sure that companies allow for warrants and equity stakes, this amendment would require that these companies cannot buy back their own stock, nor outsource American jobs, nor repeal existing collective bargaining agreements, and remain neutral in any union organizing efforts.

Here is something else--I think people think that I am kidding here, but I am not; this is really true--here is something else that is in the so-called competition bill that must be addressed. Unbelievably, this bill would provide and authorize some $10 billion in taxpayer money to Jeff Bezos, the second wealthiest person in America, for his space race with Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in America. This is beyond laughable, and I will be introducing an amendment to strike this provision. Frankly, it is not acceptable. It is not an issue that we have discussed terribly much, but it is not acceptable that the two wealthiest people in this country, Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos, take control of our space efforts to return to the Moon and maybe even the extraordinary accomplishment of getting to Mars. This is not something for two billionaires to be directing; this is something for the American people to be determining.

Let me just say a few words about why there is so much waste and fraud and abuse in the military. Again, I always find it amazing how, when it comes to programs directed at ordinary people, low-income people, all kinds of investigations and all kinds of language about how we have to protect the taxpayer from fraud, but when it comes to the massive amount of money that we put into the Pentagon, not a whole lot of attention paid to that.

One of the reasons that we have so many cost overruns and one of the reasons that we have so much fraud and so much abuse is that the Pentagon has been unable to pass an independent audit 30 years after Congress required it to do so--30 years.

I think one of the points that need to be remembered is that on September 10, 2001, 1 day before the terrible attack on our country, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, talking about the Pentagon:

Our financial systems are decades old. According to some

estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We

cannot share information from floor to floor in this

building--

The Pentagon--

because it's stored on dozens of technological systems that

are inaccessible or incompatible.

Yet, 20 years after that statement--a rather profound statement by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld--the Pentagon has still not passed a clean audit despite the fact that the Pentagon controls assets in excess of $3.1 trillion or roughly 78 percent of what the entire Federal Government owns.

Just this week, the Pentagon announced that it will fail its fourth consecutive financial audit in a row. That is why I have introduced an amendment with Senator Grassley that would require the Pentagon to pass a clean audit this year. If it fails to do so, 1 percent of its budget would be returned to the Treasury each year until it obtains a clean audit operation. I think 30 years is maybe just enough time to make that demand.

I think that at this moment in American history, it is appropriate for the American people and for my colleagues here in the Senate to remember what former Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in 1953 when he was President.

As we all recall, Dwight D. Eisenhower was a four-star general, not a politician, who led the Allied Forces to victory in Europe during World War II. So this was no peacenik. This was a man who saw more death and more military battles than probably any human being should have to.

This is what Eisenhower said:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every

rocket [fired], signifies in the final sense a theft from

those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are

not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its

scientists, the hopes of its children.

That was Dwight D. Eisenhower, and that is what he said 68 years ago. It was true then. It is even more true now.

If the horrific coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything--a pandemic which has cost us now almost 700,000 lives--it is that national security means more than just building bombs or missiles or jet fighters or tanks or submarines or nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction. National security also means doing everything that we can to protect the lives of ordinary Americans, many of whom have been abandoned by their government for decades. These are people, right now, who are struggling to put food on the table, people who are now experiencing a lower life expectancy than was the case in the past, and these are people who, in many instances, when they get sick, can't even afford to go to a doctor.

When we analyze the Defense Department's budget, it is important to note that Congress has appropriated so much money to the Defense Department that the Pentagon literally does not know what to do with it. According to the GAO, over the course of 11 years, the Pentagon returned an astonishing $128 billion in excess funds back to the Treasury.

And, over the past two decades, while we have funneled out money to the defense contractors, it is important to note that virtually every major defense contractor in the United States has been fined for misconduct and fraud, all while making huge profits. Since 1995, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and United Technologies have paid over $3 billion in fines or related settlements for fraud or misconduct. Meanwhile, the CEOs of these large defense companies enjoy incredibly large compensation packages--in fact, on average, over 100 times more than does the Secretary of Defense.

I have also filed an amendment with Senator Markey and Representative Ro Khanna, in the House, to finally end all U.S. support for the Saudi war effort in Yemen. This amendment simply codifies the prohibition on support for the Saudi war, and it already passed both Houses of Congress, in 2019, in a bipartisan way. At that time and in 2019, various officials now in the Biden-Harris administration signed a letter supporting this measure. The House has already passed this amendment for the third consecutive year. It is long overdue for this provision to be included in the final Defense policy bill that is sent to the President's desk.

In addition to Yemen, I have longstanding concerns about the situation in Gaza. That is why I have introduced an amendment to request a series of reports on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and on steps that the United States can take to ease that crisis and bring desperately needed humanitarian and reconstruction aid to the Palestinian people in Gaza.

I would also point out that, when I talk about healthcare, I talk about dental care, and I think most healthcare experts understand that dental care is part of healthcare. In my home State of Vermont, veterans who are eligible for dental care at the VA have no access to a VA dental facility. That is why I have introduced an amendment to the NDAA to require the Department of Veterans Affairs to maintain a dental clinic in every State of this country so that all veterans have access to the dental care that they need.

I believe in a strong military, but I do not believe that we can keep throwing more money into the Pentagon than it needs at a time when working families all across this country are struggling to put food on the table for their kids and when 140 million Americans can't afford the basic necessities of life without going into debt.

In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., warned us that ``a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.''

Dr. King was right. That was true in 1967. It is true today.

Let me just conclude with another quote from one of the great Republican Presidents in American history, and he is Dwight D. Eisenhower. This is what he said as he was leaving office back in 1961.

He said:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the

acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or

unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential

for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will

persist.

That was Dwight Eisenhower, and what he was talking about was the incredible power then of the military-industrial complex--of the revolving door, where people go from the military into defense companies. It was true then; it is truer now; and that truth is manifested in the fact that we have a bill which is now spending $25 billion more than the President of the United States requested.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, earlier this afternoon, I convened a meeting of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee as its chairman. We had noted an agenda to act on the nomination of Dilawar Syed to be the Deputy Administrator of the Small Business Administration.

This was not our first attempt, and I am going to outline all the efforts that we have made to get a vote on Mr. Syed. But to my disappointment, the Democrats were there ready to vote on the nomination.

We also had two important pieces of legislation that we were scheduled to vote on, and every Republican refused to show up, denying us a quorum to be able to conduct business.

Let me share with my colleagues the state of play on this individual and on this nomination. President Biden nominated Dilawar Syed to be the Deputy Administrator of the Small Business Administration on March 3. He is a well-qualified entrepreneur and a small business advocate.

After reviewing his paperwork and ethics agreement, the committee held a hearing on Mr. Syed's nomination on April 21. Now, during that hearing, Ranking Member Paul raised serious concerns about PPP and Economic Injury Disaster Loan--EIDL--received by Lumiata, a tech company from which Mr. Syed serves as the CEO. After weeks of negotiations, I brokered a compromise between Ranking Member Paul and the SBA that provided access to the company's loan applications.

On June 8, I personally sat down with Ranking Member Paul and a representative of the Small Business Administration outside the Senate Chamber to review those documents and ensure that the loans were properly attained, which they clearly were. The

following day, the documents were made available to all of the committee members on the Small Business Committee.

Now, what that record showed is that those loans were taken out in regular order, that they were entitled to the PPP loan and the EIDL. But it also showed something that was quite remarkable. Mr. Syed returned the PPP loan without forgiveness. He was entitled to forgiveness, but, as he said, he was able to get access to additional capital and didn't need the government help and thought it was the right thing to return the loan without forgiveness. What exemplary action.

Satisfied that we had resolved the issue, Senator Paul agreed to my request that the committee schedule a vote to report out the nominee on June 16. After achieving a quorum of Senators, I moved to report the nomination by voice vote, as requested--a common practice in the Senate. A few Republican members asked to be recorded as voting no, which is also a common practice in the Senate.

However, we were later informed by the Senate Parliamentarian that the nomination could not be reported to the full Senate because a Republican staff member raised an objection that there had not been a rollcall vote in our committee.

A new objection was then raised based on Mr. Syed's involvement in Emgage, a nonprofit organization that supports the Muslim-American community. One Republican office even circulated an email that focused on Mr. Syed's Muslim religion and place of birth.

Two weeks after the meeting, on June 30, I received a letter from eight Republican members suggesting that Mr. Syed's involvement in Emgage was evidence of an Israel bias and support for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction movement--the BDS movement. This is 2 weeks after we have already had our first committee vote.

Mr. Syed had a relationship with this company, and this company had no record of this type of bias. Mr. Syed responded to these concerns in a letter that he stated he is ``a proud first-generation Muslim- American but also pro-Israel.''

He clearly stated that he does not support the BDS movement and believes ``Israel to be a major partner in supporting the growth of America's innovative small businesses.''

Several Jewish organizations have come to Mr. Syed's defense. For example, the American Jewish Committee wrote:

The unsupported accusation that somehow Jewish businesses

are those with ties to Israel may not fare as well under Mr.

Syed's leadership in the Small Business Administration . . .

has no factual grounding. Indeed, he has specifically

disavowed support for the . . . (BDS) movement. . . . AJC

rejects the charge that simply an affiliation with Emgage

would reflect negatively on an individual, organization, or

agency.

And AJC went even further and called the Republican accusations against Mr. Syed ``un-American.''

On Thursday, July 15, the committee again attempted to hold a business meeting to report out the nomination.

We thought we had resolved all the issues. We resolved the issues concerning the loans. Everybody agreed they were proper. There was no concern about Mr. Syed's views in regards to Israel. That had been resolved.

So, Mr. President, I was puzzled that, on the July 15 meeting, all 10 Republican members boycotted the meeting and a reporting quorum was not achieved. We couldn't take action. I couldn't understand why because we had resolved the two issues--the first issue, and then it changed to a second issue.

But it was not until a week later that committee Republicans changed course again and developed a new line of attack, this time linking the nomination to PPP loans received by entities of Planned Parenthood.

On July 22, all 10 committee Republicans released the following statement:

The SBA has wrongfully approved nearly $100 million in

taxpayer-funded Paycheck Protection Program loans to Planned

Parenthood branches across the country. On June 30th alone,

SBA approved four PPP loans to Planned Parenthood affiliates

despite a determination from the last Administration that

these entities were ineligible for the program. We will not

allow a vote on this nominee until the SBA takes action to

recover the wrongfully acquired PPP funds by Planned

Parenthood entities.

Mr. President, I am going to go through in detail as to how these loans were not improperly given and that the ground rules we set up were followed by Planned Parenthood and other nonprofits of similar type of organization.

Where they came up with this line is still somewhat of a puzzlement to me since my Republican colleagues were engaged with us in developing the PPP program and the eligibilities for the PPP program.

Since that date, I have tried several times to hold business meetings to report out the nomination, but Republicans would not attend markups that I attempted to hold on September 21, November 4, and again today. On September 29, I attempted to discharge Mr. Syed's nomination from the committee by unanimous consent--that is after our voice vote that had already approved his nomination--but Ranking Member Paul objected to my request on the Senate floor.

The Planned Parenthood issue predates the Syed nomination and even the Biden administration. It goes back to March of 2020 when this committee took the lead--the Small Business Committee took the lead in drafting the bipartisan CARES Act.

I was proud to be part of a team that includes Senator Shaheen, Senator Rubio, and Senator Collins. We sat down and went line by line drafting the PPP legislation that we are talking about. We negotiated back and forth in good faith on the provisions of this bill. It was truly a bipartisan effort.

Republicans controlled the Senate. We worked with the Republicans, and we came up with a bipartisan bill to help America's small businesses. That legislation made 501(c)(3)s--nonprofits--and veteran nonprofit organizations with up to 500 employees eligible for the PPP loans. This was a mutual decision. We knew it had some controversy associated with it. There are faith-based groups that people have some concern about getting government support. There are different organizations that people might have a concern. But we felt that during this pandemic, it was important to preserve our small business entities, whether they were for-profit or nonprofit, and that was a bipartisan decision that was made by Democrats and Republicans.

During the negotiations of March 2020, then-Chairman Rubio added language to an early draft that would have prohibited nonprofit entities that receive Medicaid assistance from getting PPP loans. This was presumably an effort to deny Planned Parenthood the opportunity to participate in the program. But because of the way it was drafted, it also affected a lot of nonprofits. It affected programs such as domestic abuse centers or homes for the disabled. It was soundly rejected in our group as not being a workable restriction, that we could not support that type of prohibition.

So we negotiated back and forth, and we could not resolve the issue. Eventually this issue, along with other issues that we couldn't resolve, was taken up to the joint leadership of the Senate Republicans and Democrats who were trying to resolve issues that we couldn't resolve in our committee deliberations. It was at that level that a compromise was reached to add language that applied the SBA affiliation rules to nonprofits--not the Medicaid language but the affiliate rules. We had no objection to that. We felt that nonprofits should be subject to the same restrictions as for-profit entities as far as whether they were truly independent or part of just a national group, whether there was control on the affiliate. So we thought that made sense.

In April of 2020, the SBA, under the Trump administration, released guidance on applying the affiliation standards to nonprofits, which is where we are getting to the determinations made by Planned Parenthood.

The part of the affiliation that applies to nonprofits relates to common management. I am going to quote for the Record. I have the full statement here of what the affiliate rules were, but let me just read into the Record the relevant section that applies to the controversies--I don't think it is controversies--the Republican controversy on Planned Parenthood.

Affiliation arises where the CEO or President of the

applicant concern (or other officers, managing members, or

partners who

control the management of the concern) also controls the

management of one or more other concerns. Affiliation also

arises where a single individual, concern, or entity that

controls the Board of Directors or management of one concern

also controls the Board of Directors or management of one

[or] more other concerns. Affiliation also arises where a

single individual, concern or entity controls the management

of the applicant concern through a management agreement.

Now, the question is, Does the national group control the personnel and board of the affiliate? That is how the rules apply.

Planned Parenthood of America determined its entities were eligible because it does not exercise control over its member organizations and does not have a common management. Each member organization is its own independent, not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization with its own independent board of directors that is solely responsible for the hiring and retention of its CEO. Planned Parenthood of America does not have the power to remove CEOs or directors from its individual member organizations.

Now, Mr. President, this type of federated structure is common in the nonprofit world, and it is the reason why nonprofits such as the YMCA and Boys & Girls Clubs also qualified and received PPP loans, forgivable loans. We recognize that they have a large national structure, but the individual entities are small entities and are independently managed and controlled.

In May of 2020, under the Trump administration, 38 Planned Parenthood entities received correspondence from Associate Administrator Bill Manger with a preliminary finding that the entities may not be in compliance with the affiliation rules.

To my knowledge, Mr. Manger only sent letters to Planned Parenthood entities, not to any of the other similarly structured entities. Now, I say that because we now have learned that there was a list--a hold list of a much larger number of entities that there was a concern as to whether they qualified under the affiliation rules, but only Planned Parenthood received the May 2020 letter, not the other groups that had a similar structure.

The letter that was sent out is titled ``Notice of Investigation and Request for Records.'' This was sent out in May 2020 to 38 Planned Parenthood entities. The Planned Parenthood entities responded to these letters. They contested the finding. Every Planned Parenthood company that received correspondence in May of 2020 contested its findings. The letter is pretty detailed in what it spells out. It spells out all the reasons why they comply with the affiliation rules, and it talks all about it, about all the different reasons why they were qualified to receive their funds.

Mr. President, it ends with this line. This is how Planned Parenthood responded to the May 2020 letter:

I trust that this response resolves the matter.

May 2020.

Nine months later, under the Trump administration, no additional action that we are aware of was taken by the SBA to contest Planned Parenthood's eligibility for the PPP money, so it was clear that the Trump administration decided not to take action.

So where are we now?

It is also important to note that PPP loans were not used by Planned Parenthood to provide any health services. We are not talking about providing health services here. The law is very specific as to what the funds can be used for: payroll costs, healthcare benefits for the employees, paid leave for the employees, allowance for dismissal or separation, interest on mortgage expenses, rent and utilities, interest on debt prior to February 15, 2020.

I was somewhat puzzled by all of this, but in an attempt to broker another compromise, after dealing with whether the PPP loans and the business entity were proper, whether there was any semblance of concern about his attitude in regards to Israel--having satisfied that, I made another effort to try to deal with Senator Paul and the members of the committee to see what they wanted.

Mr. Syed had nothing to do with these loans. Mr. Syed is fully qualified. The SBA needs a Deputy Administrator confirmed to deal with all of the programs that we have passed in the last 2 years to help small businesses. They need a confirmed manager to work between us and our constituents and make sure these programs are working effectively.

So what else could I provide? Yesterday, I invited all of the Republican members to come to my office--or come to the small business office and we would make available all of the information SBA has in regards to these Planned Parenthood loans. They will make it available--all the loans that were given out, when they were given out, what was forgiven, what was not forgiven, second-round PPP loans, all of it. I don't know what else we can do. Not one showed up to review the information.

I can appreciate the fact that this issue may make Republicans who oppose Planned Parenthood politically uncomfortable. I can understand that. But Democrats also disagree with views of many organizations that received PPP loans.

Last December, the Washington Post reported that 14 organizations designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center or the Anti-Defamation League received PPP loans. These are legal entities that qualified for the program because we can't draft it based upon the mission of a particular organization; we have to draft it in a way that those that are legitimate businesses and operations can qualify for the loans. And we did that. We don't judge who we are giving the money to, whether we like what they are doing or not. That is not what this is about.

As I said in the committee a little earlier today, it is important for the Small Business Committee to get back to its bipartisan tradition.

I hope that my Republican colleagues will accept the information that we have made available, work with us, and let's get Mr. Syed confirmed. Let's get him confirmed because he is the right person for this position at this time. The SBA desperately needs a confirmed Deputy Administrator, with all the work that we put on them, and all the help. Our small business community needs to have an accountable, confirmed Deputy Administrator so that they have an accountable person who can work with us to make sure our programs are not only administered properly but we get the information to modify these programs to make them work moving forward. We are already in the process of considering additional legislation. It is so important to have a confirmed Deputy Administrator of Mr. Syed's experience in order to help us with that.

I must tell you, Administrator Guzman is doing a fantastic job. She is one person. She needs a Deputy. It is time that we get this person confirmed. There has not been an articulated reason why this person should not be confirmed.

Mr. President, I know we have had this debate on nominations that are here on the floor. We are wondering why people vote against them. I can't even get a vote in our committee on this because the Republicans won't show up for a vote.

I think, in respect for the system, it is important that the Small Business Committee have an opportunity to vote on Mr. Syed's nomination, which I hope then would be on the floor promptly for confirmation.

I see that Senator Lee seems to be on the floor.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022.

I want to make two basic points at the beginning and then discuss some of the specifics of the bill.

The first is the word ``deterrence.'' The cornerstone of our defense policy is deterrence. The best battle is the one that doesn't occur. The best war is the one that doesn't occur. And there are those who will say that this bill authorizes a very large amount of expenditures. I can assure you that war would dwarf the expenditures in this bill.

And deterrence is the whole idea of having a force that would convince any potential adversary that attacking the United States is a losing proposition, that it would cost them more than they would ever gain.

That has been our strategy for many years. It is our strategy going forward, and I will talk about it in some specific terms with regard to this bill. But it is important to understand that that's why we are doing this defense bill, is to provide and strengthen and ensure that this country has the forces and the weapons that are necessary to deter any potential adversary.

The second concept that, generally, I want to discuss is consensus. When I go home to Maine, people are amazed that we do anything together, because all they see on the TV news and read in the newspapers is about conflict--bickering, arguing, differing. Why can't they get anything done? What they don't know is that we do get a great deal done, and a lot of it is by unanimous consent, by consensus.

This bill is a good example. This is the 61st year that the National Defense Authorization Act has come to Congress, and we hope it is going to pass this year. For the past 60 years, every single year, we have passed a National Defense Authorization.

And we usually--well, not usually, not almost always--we always pass them on a bipartisan basis. This bill came out of the committee 25 to 1. That is pretty close to unanimous. And we always get substantial support in our committee, the Armed Services Committee, but also on the floor of the United States Senate.

Why?

Because the Members of this body, just as the people across this country, are committed to those who serve in uniform, and they are committed to the idea of peace and the idea of deterring adversaries and avoiding conflict and war.

They all think that all we do is argue, and this bill is proof that that is not the case.

When I first got here, my first two chairs of the Armed Services Committee were Carl Levin and John McCain, Senators who represented, in my mind, the best of the tradition of this Senate. They argued fiercely in favor of their positions, worked hard to resolve conflict within the committee, and were absolutely committed to the values of the United States of America.

Despite all the partisan differences that exist in the country, this bill is an example that we are still united when it comes to the defense of the United States.

It comes on the heels of Monday's signing of the historic bipartisan infrastructure bill. I think it is interesting that the bill has in its name--it has a name, I am not even sure what it is, but everyone refers to it as the ``bipartisan infrastructure bill'' because it was supported by bipartisan majorities in both Houses. And in this bill, we are coming together to do something similar, to support our country and, particularly, to support those who put their lives on the line to defend this country.

And I want to stop there for just a second. We all go through life getting various jobs, signing up for jobs, applying, and then you sign a form and you join the company. There are very few jobs in our society when you sign on the dotted line, you are literally putting your life on the line. Members of the military and first responders are the only people I can think of that do that. It is something we need to remind ourselves. In addition to all the other responsibilities that you are taking on when you join the military, you are literally signing to commit your life, if necessary, in defense of this country.

I believe this bill is essential to protecting our servicemembers, the industrial base which serves the defense of our country, and, collectively, our national security. The Armed Services Committee has produced a bill that will make our Nation safer and stronger.

For example, taking care of our servicemembers: 2.7 percent pay raise for military servicemembers and the Department of Defense civilian workforce. That pay raise is important, and if this bill doesn't pass, it won't happen. So that is one of the immediate reasons that we need to pass this bill, to provide a pay raise to our military personnel.

They will also receive 12 weeks of parental leave for birth, adoption, and foster care placement of a child.

One of the provisions that I am interested in is that there is substantial support in this bill for our naval infrastructure. It authorizes funding, for example, to Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which Bath Iron Works in the State of Maine will be able to compete for, and this, in furtherance, supports our Navy's ability to deter adversaries around the world.

It is no secret that the Pacific is an important area of potential conflict. And the Pacific is an ocean and it requires ships in order to project power, and those ships are built here in America. And this bill demonstrates Congress' intent to support the Navy, to support shipbuilding, and to support the industrial base.

One of the things the bill does is provide for a new--what they call a multiyear contract, where the Navy commits to buying more than one ship at a time, which gives them a better price per ship. That is good for the taxpayers and also gives some assurance to the industrial base that the jobs will be there and the work will be there in order to maintain the support.

We often forget that the companies that do these--produce these amazing products cannot be turned off and on like a switch. I have visited shipyards. I visited in Norfolk; I visited in Maine, Portsmouth, and at Bath Iron Works many times. And these are amazingly complicated pieces of machinery. I believe that the destroyers built at Bath Iron Works are quite possibly the most complex product built in America.

And the people who build them have to know that they are going to have a job a year from now and 2 years from now. We can't go herky- jerky from one year to the next. Once you lose a welder who goes somewhere else, it is hard to get them back.

So the maintenance of the industrial base, whether it is in shipbuilding, aircraft, humvees, whatever the vehicles are, whatever the platforms are that support our military, it has to be done on a consistent and predictable basis so that those factories, large and small--and, by the way, there are thousands of small businesses that support these larger industries. They have to know that there is some future, and that is why things like a multiyear procurement is very important. This industrial base is not something that you can turn off and on.

There is a research provision in this bill that is very important. University of Maine is one of those universities that provides vital research to the military, because we always have to be thinking not about the last war or the last conflict, but the future. And everybody in this room knows that the future is going to be based upon newer and newer and newer technologies. So research is an essential part of building the strength of this country.

I worked for the last 2 years on something called the National Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Our job was to come together to form and recommend--recommend--a national strategy in cyberspace to defend this country, which we did in March of 2020. A number of the recommendations of our commission were enacted last year, either in the National Defense Authorization Act or in other areas of legislation that we passed. And, this year, there are some really crucial ones in this year's National Defense Authorization Act--crucial provisions to defend this country in cyberspace.

The next 9/11 will be cyber, and if we are not ready for it after all the warnings that we have had, shame on us. Worse than shame on us; it will be destructive of this country. And that is why I am so proud that there are provisions in this bill that will help us to respond, that will help us to understand what is going on, will help the private sector and the Federal Government to work together to meet and defeat this 21st century challenge.

In many ways, cyber is a new manner of conflict. We have to reimagine conflict. Traditionally, we think of conflict and war as Army versus Army and Navy versus Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard, and now the Space Force.

But cyber is all about the private sector. Eighty-five percent of the target in cyberspace is in the private sector, and they are not going to have their own army. So that is where there has to be a new relationship of trust and confidence between the private sector and the public sector in order to successfully defend this country in cyberspace. And, indeed, there is a provision, hopefully, that will enter this bill through the manager's package that will deal exactly with that subject.

This bill also secures the future of the nuclear triad. Strategic forces, otherwise known as nuclear weapons, are hard to talk about. They are hard to think about because they are so horrendous.

But to go back to the beginning of my remarks, the issue here is deterrence, and we have had a deterrent strategy virtually since 1945, and it has worked. Thank God there has not been a use of nuclear weapons since 1945.

Why?

Because of the strategy that every adversary knows that they will pay an awful price, if they attack us, using nuclear weapons.

As chairman of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, we have had hearings, we have had discussions, we have had readings on how do we successfully modernize our nuclear triad--bombers, submarines, and missiles--in such a way as to ensure the vitality of the deterrent strategy.

The problem is that all three of those legs of the triad have basically been

unattended to for 30 or 40 or sometimes 50 years. And as they degrade in capability, so also degrades the capability of our deterrence.

If the adversaries look and say, ``They are trying to fly 50-year-old airplanes, or they are trying to defend themselves with missiles that they are unsure of whether they will work,'' then the adversary says, ``Well, maybe we can get away with an attack.''

And therein lies a path to a horrendous nuclear conflict, which has to be avoided. The best way to avoid it is to be sure that our deterrence is credible. The only way to make it credible is to be sure that it is modernized. That is exactly what this bill contemplates.

Another provision of this bill that, I think, is critically important is a substantial change in the military code of justice, with regard to sexual assault, that puts in place an independent prosecutor system to take the decisions about moving forward on sexual assault claims out of the chain of command and puts it in a special professional prosecutor's decision.

I think that is important not only for the practical effect, but for the message that it sends to soldiers and sailors and airmen and guardsmen that we are serious about this; that they can feel comfortable reporting violations; that they can come forward and that there is no danger that the complaints that they make will be swept under the rug.

I think this is an important provision of this bill, and I want to commend my friend Senator Gillibrand, who has spent as long as I can remember--as long as I have been on the committee, which is 9 years, working on this issue, and, in many ways, this is the culmination of her work.

Another provision of this bill that I am particularly interested in is that we learn the lessons from 20 years in Afghanistan. Senator Duckworth has proposed the creation of an Afghan war commission, an independent commission, not made up of generals, not made of people who were in Afghanistan, but of people who can take a clear-eyed look at the successes and mistakes concerning our engagement in Afghanistan. I think this commission is an important idea. I was delighted to support Senator Duckworth's proposal.

Another provision that we hope will be included within the National Defense Authorization Act this year is the United States Innovation and Competition Act, which we have already passed here in this body, but if we put it in this bill, it will then go to the other body, and there will be consideration there.

This is a critical piece of legislation to enable competition with China. And make no mistake, we are in competition with China. So passing that bill as part of the national defense bill, to me, makes total sense because we are talking about national security, and being competitive in areas like AI and chips and quantum computing is as much a part of national security as bombers and submarines.

It also includes a provision about competition in the Arctic, which is one of the areas of the world that is opening to competition and, potentially, to conflict. We don't want that to happen.

Finally, the bill reasserts the fundamental congressional responsibility--I almost said ``prerogative,'' but it is not. It is a responsibility of Congress to make the decision as to when this country is committed to war.

In recent years--well, a little history. The last time the Congress declared war was in 1942. We have had AUMFs, authorizations for use of military force. This bill will repeal two of the early AUMFs that have been used as a kind of blank check by the executive to deploy troops and engage in conflict around the world. In 1991 and 2002, there were AUMFs involving Iraq.

If you go back to the debates of the Constitutional Convention, I think it was--I want to say--August 17, 1787, when there was a debate about the war power, and there were those who said the Executive has to have the power to declare war; Congress is too cumbersome; the Executive can only do that.

There were others who said: Wait a minute. We rebelled against the King of England because we didn't like the King and the prince being able to unilaterally take us into war.

The compromise was to divide the responsibility. The President is the Commander in Chief, but Congress has the responsibility to declare war. This power has not been usurped by modern Presidents. It has been abandoned--it has been given up--by modern Congresses. This bill is a step away from what, I think, is a serious gap in our adherence to the fundamental purpose of the Constitution.

So there is plenty of good in this bill; there is plenty to celebrate. I am delighted to be able to support it. I have only just scratched the surface, but it is a kind of truism that you will never be successful in a military context if you are fighting the last war. You have to think about conflict in the future.

In Maine, sometimes people say: We have never done it that way before.

I am sure the Presiding Officer hears that in Colorado, and you hear it all around the country: We have never done it that way before.

If that is our attitude, we are sunk. We have to think about what is coming at us, about what is in the future.

Cyber will be part of any kind of conflict we may become engaged in, and I hope we never become engaged in a serious conflict. Again, that is the entire purpose of this bill. It is to deter any potential adversary from thinking that they can successfully attack this country.

This bill defends the interests of America. It defends the interests of our military and our wonderful military people who are deployed around the world and, as I say, who are putting their lives on the line for this country.

We can come together, hopefully, in the next few days, in a bipartisan way, to pass this bill, to pass the word, in the words of President Kennedy, ``to friend and foe alike,'' that we will accept the burdens of leadership and that we will meet our responsibility to John McCain, to Carl Levin, to all those who have come before us, and to the people of the United States of America.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, yesterday, I came to the Senate floor and spoke on President Biden's vaccine mandate. I explained that I have now come to this Chamber a total of 16 times and offered 12 different bills that would counteract, limit, or, in one way or another, restrain the vaccine mandate. I also explained that, unfortunately, each of these bills has been rejected by Democrats in the Senate.

I have spoken to Utahns and folks from across country who have expressed to me their frustration at moving goalposts and changing expectations in the middle of the pandemic. President Biden's vaccine mandate, which has been halted now by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, happens to be among the latest attempts to force Americans to make health decisions under the threat not just of unemployment but also under the threat of becoming unemployable.

That is a taxing burden for anyone to bear. Anyone who has kids at home or

if they don't have kids at home, if they are just supporting themselves, these days all Americans are helping someone or something that they love, that they care about, and they ought to have the opportunity do that. They ought not have their ability to make a living threatened by virtue of a distinct religious belief or a particular medical concern or a particular desire not to receive a particular treatment.

I will reiterate here what I have said before. I have been vaccinated. My family has been vaccinated. I believe that the vaccines are helping countless Americans be protected against the dangers of the COVID-19 virus.

Just the same, there is a big difference between believing the vaccine does good and receiving the vaccine, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, saying that anyone who disagrees or who thinks that it is not right for them, for one reason or another, ought to be fired from their job and rendered unemployable as a result. That is very, very different. That is something that very few Americans would agree is right.

In fact, according to a recent Axios poll, only 14 percent of Americans believe that someone who decides not to get the vaccine should be fired as a result of that decision.

Now, in some lines of work, this sort of thing is already coming into play. For example, our military servicemembers and frontline workers who sacrificed so much to care for and protect the American people during the pandemic are already being forced out of work. I have heard from many members of our Armed Services from Utah who are being discharged under less-than-honorable conditions and under conditions that are in no way, shape, or form appropriate in light of their many, many years of faithful, honorable service to this country. They are losing their jobs--and not just their jobs but also their benefits, their dignity, their ability to serve further. You know, I have introduced and offered up a bill that would help them, but Democrats objected to that.

On November 4 of this year, a couple of weeks ago, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services--known as CMS--imposed a requirement that all healthcare workers at facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid be vaccinated by January 4. This requirement, if it takes effect, will affect millions of Americans in tens of thousands of care centers across the Nation. And unlike the mandate imposed by OSHA, which has now mercifully been stayed, at least for the pendency of the litigation pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, this mandate--this particular mandate--gives no option for testing if someone has religious, moral, or medical objections to the vaccine.

Now, let's just think about this on an individual level. There are nurses in this country who worked faithfully and tirelessly throughout the pandemic, without regard to their own circumstances, in some cases without regard to their own health, their own sanity, putting their lives at risk at times. They have gone to work caring for others, and they have saved lives in the process. They accepted the risk, and they were rightfully heralded as heroes for doing that. They still are heroes, and they still should be heralded as heroes. But many of these same nurses caught COVID at work and have recovered. They are, in fact, heroes.

But now the Biden administration is giving them an extraordinary--and I would add extraordinarily cruel--ultimatum; one that I don't think I have ever seen in government; one that I didn't ever expect I would see in government. Those very same doctors and nurses and other healthcare workers--the same people we appropriately described as heroes--can either get a medical procedure they don't want or lose their current employment and any future realistic prospect of employment.

Let that sink in for a moment. What if this were you? What if this were your spouse or your child, someone you loved? What if this were your friend or your neighbor? The truth is, these people fit into all those categories. They are not our enemies. They are our friends, our neighbors, our family members, our loved ones. At a minimum, they are people who served valiantly throughout a pandemic, and they should not be punished; they should be thanked.

These heroes will be thanked for their service with a pink slip and a boot out the door as they become outcasts in the very profession that they have selflessly chosen and the very profession for which they have spent a lot of money and a lot of time receiving training and the very profession to which they dedicated their lives. What a tragedy. What a needless, senseless tragedy.

These are not abstract anecdotes. This isn't just hypotheticals, speculation. No, not at all. I have heard from hundreds of Utahns who risk losing their employment if these vaccine mandates take effect. They are everyday Americans. They are good Americans. They are valiant Americans. Oftentimes, they are struggling to make ends meet and to feed their families. They are our neighbors, our friends, our caretakers, our heroes. They deserve the respect that is necessarily implicit in the ability to make decisions for themselves, including these decisions for themselves.

Additionally, as a practical matter, it is extremely foolish to be pushing healthcare professionals out of their jobs at the precise moment when our healthcare system is under such incredible strain. Hospitals are understaffed as it is. I mean, a lot of places are understaffed. Hospitals are particularly understaffed even without this mandate. So requiring medical facilities to fire perfectly good doctors and nurses and technicians is only going to further strain our system and place more Americans at risk of serious harm.

So today I am offering my 13th bill in the effort to curb the vaccine mandates. My Respecting Our Frontline Workers Act would simply prohibit any Federal Agency from requiring that staff and healthcare facilities be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of that facility being able to participate in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. But this bill would provide certainty to our Nation's healthcare heroes and honor the sacrifices that they have made to help Americans in need at a time when we were, as a country, facing great need. It will keep our healthcare system strong during what is still a really difficult time. This bill is the reasonable, compassionate answer to the current situation. I encourage my colleagues to support it.

To that end, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3225, which is at the desk; I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I appreciate the thoughtful remarks from my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from the State of Oregon.

The Senator from Oregon and I have spent a lot of time working on a number of issues together. He and I agree on a number of issues and have worked together to ensure the privacy of the American people and make sure that they are protected from an overreaching government, one that sometimes has intruded on them in violation of the spirit, if not also the letter, of the Fourth Amendment.

I remember when I first came to the Senate, the Senator from Oregon took me to lunch and we had a good chat. He introduced me to a lot of concepts in the Senate and has always been a good friend to me.

I feel the need to respond to some of these issues. Yes, I, too, like my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Oregon, wish that we didn't have to come to the floor to discuss these things. I wish that it weren't necessary because I wish that we weren't even talking about firing people, about people losing their jobs, becoming unemployed and possibly unemployable as a result of Federal policy that refuses to allow people to make decisions on their own.

Insofar as my friend, the Senator from Oregon, describes the policy of firing people who refuse to get the vaccine as necessary to protect the elderly, I would respectfully submit that quite the opposite is true. We are actually imperiling those who might need medical treatment the most, including the sick and the elderly.

Insofar as we destabilize our healthcare workforce--which, make no mistake, this maximum mandate does; it does that unquestionably-- remember that the CMS mandate that we are talking about, unlike the OSHA mandate, doesn't give any option to allow for testing, for example, if someone has a religious or a moral or a medical objection to the mandate.

So what this really is going to do is it is going to take a lot of people out of the healthcare workforce and sideline them.

Yes, this is going to be devastating to those individuals. You are suddenly taking away their means of providing for their needs and those of their family. It would be absolutely devastating to them, as I mentioned a minute ago.

This is also a field in which they invested a lot of time and money-- sweat, blood, and tears--to getting the education and professional certifications necessary to work in a field that has a lot of requirements attached to it, and with good reason. It is not good for anyone, least of all the elderly, to destabilize that same workforce.

Insofar as we are going to talk about what is better for the healthcare system, I just would respectfully reach the exact opposite conclusion of that proposed by my friend from Oregon. This isn't going to make things better. It is going to make things worse.

My friend from Oregon also described the approach that I am taking of protecting the individual healthcare worker's right to make an appropriate decision without government interference; described that and, as I understood it, my other efforts to try to curb the more egregious impacts of the vaccine mandates imposed by the Biden administration as somehow unnecessarily suppressing access to the vaccine.

I want to make very clear that just is not accurate. I would state that as not at all consistent with what I am doing. Not a single one of my proposals would suppress access to the vaccine.

Each time I have come to the floor and talked about these things, I have made very clear that I have been vaccinated. Every member of my family has been vaccinated. I have encouraged everyone I know to get the vaccine. The vaccine, really, is a medical miracle of sorts, and it is one that is protecting a lot of people.

Not everyone agrees with me. But the fact that they don't agree with me, the fact that they don't agree with President Biden or anyone else in government doesn't mean they should lose their job for it. But it sure as heck doesn't mean that firing them because they won't get the vaccine and then opposing the effort to force their firing would somehow amount to an act of suppressing access to the vaccine.

That is a logical syllogism that just doesn't work. In no way, shape, or form would we be suppressing access to the vaccine if we liberated the American people from an overreaching executive who is insisting that people be fired if they don't agree with the President's officially sanctioned view on vaccines.

My friend also noted that people are safer when they get vaccinated. I believe this is generally true. I don't think it is going to encourage more people to get vaccinated by telling them that they are going to get fired if they don't.

Particularly with the subject matter we are covering today, where we are talking about the CMS end of the vaccine, these are people who work in healthcare. These are people who are highly educated in it, who have professional certifications, in many cases, graduate degrees in healthcare. They can make their own informed decision as to what to do. I tend to believe that people are generally safer when they get vaccinated, but that doesn't mean that firing them is the right thing to do.

Look, finally, my friend from Oregon--and I don't use that term loosely. He and I talk regularly. He was in my office earlier today, and we were talking about an upcoming game between the University of Utah and Oregon. When he refers to frightening remarks regarding the vaccine, I am not sure what he is referring to. I hope he is not referring to remarks debating the merits, or lack thereof, of vaccine mandates. Nothing about these remarks should strike anyone as frightening.

What I think would be frightening would be if tens, if not hundreds, of millions of Americans are threatened with getting fired based on their refusal to get the vaccine. I don't think we will ever reach a point where there are that many people who decide not to get vaccinated. It is certainly not going to be hundreds of millions of people declining to be vaccinated.

But whatever the number is, it still doesn't make it right for the President of the United States to just decide arbitrarily that they either have to follow his medical advice and that of his administration or get fired; to choose between getting an undesired medical procedure, or, on the other hand, losing their opportunity to put bread on the table for their children.

It is not constitutional. It is not within Congress's power. Congress hasn't exercised that power. It certainly hasn't given that power to the President of the United States.

Regardless of all those statutory and constitutional arguments, this is a fundamentally, morally flawed proposition that says everyone has to get

this; and if you disagree, you will get fired; we will render you unemployed and unemployable. This is wrong, and it is especially wrong to do to our healthcare workers.

Let's not do this. I urge my friend and colleague from Oregon to reconsider. We can do better than that. The American people expect more. They demand better, and we need to listen to them.

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

Madam President, yesterday, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Mr. Mayorkas, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is the first time he has been before the Judiciary Committee for an oversight hearing. Of course, our minds were all on the crisis that is currently underway--and has been since the beginning of this year--at the border.

When our colleague Senator Lindsey Graham asked him how he would rate his own performance so far, he gave a bizarre answer. He said: ``I [would] give myself an A for effort.'' Well, that is the type of rating you would give yourself if you offered to cook dinner and completely bungled the recipe, or if you ordered a really thoughtful Christmas gift for your spouse, but it didn't arrive on time, you would give yourself an A for effort. But when you are talking about the person who is responsible for some of our Nation's most critical responsibilities for which there are life-and-death consequences, an A for effort is hardly acceptable, and in this case, it is an overly generous assessment.

Over the last year, Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than 1.7 million migrants along the southern border--the highest on record. In 1 month alone, more than 213,000 migrants crossed the border, including 19,000 unaccompanied children. The Secretary may think he is worthy of an A for effort, but the numbers certainly do not reflect that.

The American people are clearly concerned about the way things are going. A recent poll found that more than 80 percent of voters think illegal immigration is a serious issue. Nearly two-thirds believe that the President's Executive orders actually encourage more illegal immigration, and, as a result, only 35 percent of voters approve of the President's handling of the border.

Leaders in the administration have tried to play the blame game, saying, well, they inherited policies from the previous administration that led to the crisis. That seems to be part of the playbook--let's blame Trump; let's blame the previous administration and absolve ourselves of any responsibility--but they have simply failed to provide an explanation to why those policies led to 460,000 fewer encounters in fiscal year 2020 but more than 1.7 million in 2021.

There is no question at all that this crisis is a direct result of the Biden administration's words and deeds. Back in February, just a few weeks after President Biden took his oath of office, migrants who were interviewed in their trek from their homes across our border said as much. One woman who crossed the Rio Grande River on a smuggler's raft said that she and her 1-year-old son only came to the United States because of the Biden administration. She said: ``That gave us the opportunity to come.'' The administration has signaled that it is not only OK with the record levels of illegal immigration but that it is actively encouraging more people to make the trek.

Prior to the Biden administration's border crisis, there was a clear and sensible process for migrants who crossed our border to claim asylum. That individual would be processed by the Border Patrol and undergo a credible fear assessment, which is the standard for claiming asylum, essentially determining, at least as a preliminary matter, whether they would qualify for asylum. If so, that person would be issued a notice to appear at a future court hearing--a critical document that tells asylum seekers when and where to show up for their day in court.

But under Secretary Mayorkas's leadership, that is not happening anymore. I have heard from many folks in Texas about the fact that huge numbers of migrants are now being released without a notice to appear. Thousands of migrants have been released with what is now called a notice to report--essentially, a document that says: When you get where you are going, turn yourself in to your local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.

Well, these migrants haven't undergone a credible fear screening, so we have no way of knowing how many of them will likely, potentially, qualify for asylum. We do know, based on decisions from immigration courts, that only about 10 percent of the people who claim asylum actually qualify under the prevailing legal standard.

Because these migrants haven't undergone preliminary screening, we have no information about the validity of their asylum claims. And it is unclear whether the administration has given any teeth at all to the warning that the failure to contact the local ICE office may result in your arrest. In other words, there are no consequences for not showing up.

The Department of Homeland Security is now telling us that they have stopped issuing notices to report, but the truth is, they have just changed the title. They are still paroling migrants into the United States without issuing a notice to appear. When these migrants inevitably fail to turn themselves in to the nearest ICE office--and ICE's internal figures suggest the compliance rate is unsurprisingly low--it isn't clear that the Department of Homeland Security will do anything at all to locate them and remove them from the United States even though they haven't complied with the process that they have been told they must comply with. The Biden administration has made it even easier for migrants to disappear into the great American heartland.

Several weeks ago, Secretary Mayorkas gave migrants another reason to believe that they could make it across our borders and be able to stay. According to Secretary Mayorkas, illegally entering our country is no longer reason enough for ICE to begin removal proceedings. The Secretary's guidance provided a few exemptions. In theory, illegal border crossers are a priority for enforcement but only if they are apprehended in the United States after unlawfully entering after November 1, 2020. It is unclear what the magic is with that date. In other words, ICE agents can't touch them unless another law enforcement agency picks them up first.

It says individuals convicted of serious criminal conduct who pose a current threat to public safety should be a priority for removal, but it is unclear what crimes meet those criteria. Is distributing or receiving child pornography considered serious criminal conduct? What about crimes like embezzlement? larceny? breaking and entering? sex offenses? It is unclear exactly what the standard is, and I think that is on purpose because clearly Secretary Mayorkas does not want the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to actually enforce the law that Congress has written. We are the ones who make the policy, and the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement simply execute that policy. Clearly, Secretary Mayorkas is trying to confuse things such that no apprehension and detention takes place at all.

What if the distribution of child pornography, let's say, happened 4 years ago? Is the perpetrator no longer a priority for apprehension and removal now that the threat isn't ``current''? In fact, the Secretary explicitly says the threat shouldn't be determined according to bright lines or categories. In other words, he wants to continue to fuzz it up and make it ambiguous. I don't understand why if you are actually serious about enforcing our laws. Is there a reason that any migrant convicted of possessing or distributing child pornography should be allowed to remain in the United States?

The Secretary indicates that even certain migrants, like those who are elderly or provide for their families, should be exempt from the law. That clearly is not within the authority of the Secretary to decide against whom the laws should be enforced. Does that mean that someone who committed a sexual assault 20 years ago but now has a family who depends on him should be able to remain in the United States?

It defies all common sense to ask our law enforcement officers to turn a blind eye when they encounter individuals who have clearly broken the law. Imagine calling the police to report an intruder in your home and being told, unless this person is young, childless, and murdered a member of your family, we can't do anything or we won't do anything.

The reality of the situation, however inconvenient it may seem for our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, is that, by entering the United States illegally--by doing that--migrants have broken the law, and there have to be consequences. The Secretary cannot, consistent with his oath of office, refuse to enforce those laws in order to appease his party's political base.

In fact, by clearly outlining who will and who will not be able to remain in the United States, notwithstanding what the law says, the administration is actually encouraging even more migrants to put themselves in harm's way to come to the United States. This is known as pull factors, which actually encourage more illegal immigration. Under this guidance, visa overstays aren't a priority for enforcement at all. If somebody comes in on a visa but overstays that visa, they are illegally present in the United States, but they don't have to worry about the Biden administration actually enforcing the law and removing them. In other words, the guidance is an open invitation for migrants to disregard the terms of their entry into the United States.

When President Biden's nominee for the Customs and Border Protection testified before the Senate Finance Committee, I asked the police chief from Arizona if he agreed that the Biden administration's policy of nonenforcement is a pull factor that is encouraging more illegal immigration. He admitted that, yes, it is.

So, yesterday, I asked Secretary Mayorkas the same question: Does this guidance of nonenforcement send a signal to criminal organizations, human smugglers, and migrants that if they illegally enter the United States and commit no other crimes, they can stay?

He said: No. That is 100 percent false.

But I disagree with Secretary Mayorkas. He is clearly not telling the truth. There is a clear correlation between the Biden administration's reckless policies and the record level of illegal migration.

Any administration, of course, has a certain amount of discretion when it comes to enforcement, but what we are seeing from Secretary Mayorkas isn't an exercise of discretion, and it is certainly not A- for-effort worthy. I don't think anyone expected Secretary Mayorkas to lead the charge to secure our borders and crack down on illegal immigration, but he is not even doing the bare minimum that his job description requires.

The truth is, the Biden administration has fumbled the border crisis at every turn. The President sent smoke signals about open borders before he even took office, and his administration has rolled out incentive after incentive for migrants to continue to break the law, and it has tied the hands of dedicated law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line to protect the American people.

We have got a border czar who once compared ICE to the Ku Klux Klan, and we have a DHS Secretary who gives himself an A even though more than 1.7 million migrants have crossed the border since he took office in February. So, while Secretary Mayorkas thinks he is entitled to an A for effort, there is no question that, on balance, the Biden administration has earned an F for its response to the border crisis.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.