CRACK Act of 2022

Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues--I think they are all going to do this--to support S. 3614. That is the United States-Russian Federation Seafood Reciprocity Act of 2022, a pretty simple bill that will require reciprocity between Russia and the United States of America as it relates to our seafood industry and seafood trade.

Now, let me give you a little bit of background on this because it actually relates to what is going on in the world today. All eyes are currently on the Russian aggression toward Ukraine right now and for good reason. We have seen the stories that the authoritarian dictator Vladimir Putin is going to invade Ukraine. We hope, and I think every one of us hopes, that doesn't happen, but it is looking like it may.

But what is less talked about is the last time there was an invasion by Russia of Ukraine, what ended up happening in terms of sanctions and, in particular, American seafood sanctions, and the ramifications of the last Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Here is what actually happened. In 2014, when Putin invaded the Crimean Peninsula and eastern Ukraine, President Obama put sanctions on Russia. Now, I wasn't here as a Senator then, but I supported them. Russia then retaliated in terms of sanctions in 2014, and here is one of the things they did. They banned all seafood exports from America-- whether it is Alaska, Massachusetts--into Russia. So that was about 9 years ago. That ban still exists today.

Let me repeat this. If you are a big fisherman in Massachusetts or the great State of Alaska, as the Senator from Massachusetts knows, we both have thousands of great fishermen, you cannot export one fish to Russia. Nine years of a ban, and guess what. The United States lets Russia's seafood into America almost duty-free.

Let me repeat that. A ban on American exports to Russia, a 9-year blockade, not one Massachusetts fisherman or Alaskan fisherman can export his great American seafood product to Russia. Russia gets to import Russian seafood into America duty-free. That is called unfair by any measure--by any measure. And it certainly is unfair to the great fishermen of my State as well as the fishermen of Massachusetts.

Now, I have talked about Alaskan fishermen for--well, as long as I have been a Senator. About 66 percent of all seafood harvested in the United States comes from the great State of Alaska. So we are big exporters.

What has happened, though, in this regard, is that as we export--we Alaskans, fishermen from Massachusetts--as we export seafood around the world, we have not been able to export anything in that market, the Russian market, for 9 years, and at the same time the value of Russian seafood imported into the United States--surprise--has skyrocketed because there is no tariff on it. It skyrocketed 173 percent since 2013. That was the year before the embargo was imposed--again, directly competing against American seafood producers, American fishermen.

As a matter of fact, the Russians are actually starting to steal market share from American fishermen, whether Massachusetts or Alaska, and we are talking hundreds of millions of dollars. This is unfair by anybody's definition.

So my bill is very simple. It says, like we need in all trade around the world, we need just straight-up reciprocity. Right now, we can't export a thing to Russia, and they export their fish to America duty- free.

So the bill is simple. It just says, until we can export into the Russian market, they shouldn't be able to export into our market.

I can't imagine any U.S. Senator objecting to this. It is called reciprocity. It is called fairness. And it is righting a wrong that has been in the works for 9 years now, whether you are a fisherman in Massachusetts or a fisherman in Alaska.

I have raised this issue with the Obama administration, the Trump administration, now the Biden administration. We are still waiting on reciprocity. So it is time to act. The U.S. Senate can act, and I am hopeful that we are going to act on this today. As a matter of fact, I checked with all my Republican colleagues, and every single one of them is supportive of basic reciprocity for fishermen.

So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 3614 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, I ask unanimous consent 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.

Madam President, I appreciate my friend Senator Markey, his offer to work through this.

He and I have worked together on a number of issues, actually a number of issues particularly related to America's fishermen. As he mentioned, Massachusetts has a lot of fishermen, and I have tens of thousands of my fellow Alaskans involved in the industry. And, again, I think he and I certainly agree with this concept. I think every U.S. Senator agrees with the concept of basic fairness in trade, basic fairness, in terms of reciprocity, in trade--all trade but especially the seafood trade. We have had 9 years of no reciprocity from Russia-- Putin, the thug. We shouldn't have to take it anymore, and it is hurting my constituents.

Now, my understanding of the issue raised by Senator Markey is that it is primarily Russian pollock that is imported into Massachusetts. As Senator Markey knows, in Alaska, we have a huge number of fishermen engaged in that fishery. So maybe what we should look at is making sure Massachusetts' workers are actually processing American--Alaskan-- pollock, not the authoritarian pollock in Russia. That would be a fair way to resolve this.

I appreciate the offer to work together on this, but I will tell the Senator we need to work quickly because it has been 9 years of nonreciprocal seafood trade. I am almost certain that Massachusetts fishermen who once exported to Russia have been hurt by this seafood blockade as well as my fishermen. I take Senator Markey's offer and suggestion in good faith. Hopefully, we can work over the work period in the next couple of weeks and get to a result on this.

Alaskans will supply Massachusetts' workers pollock or cod or whatever you are processing, and then we will bring reciprocity in terms of trade, which currently does not exist, between Russia and the United States. It is wrong. It is unfair. It needs to be fixed by us, and it needs to be fixed by the Biden administration as well.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to commend my colleague and friend from Kansas. He said very, very eloquently that the administration's policies right now, which are anti-energy--they are driving up energy prices on working families. And it is national security suicide to unilaterally disarm energy when Putin uses energy as a weapon. We all know that.

Some of the window dressing here on these bills lately from my Senate Democratic colleagues is just that--political window dressing. We all need to go to the White House and say: Get your act together, Mr. President, your team. Produce more American energy.

That is what we all need. It will help with inflation and will help with national security.

So to my colleague from Kansas, thank you very much. We all come from States that produce energy. And these are great American workers, too, by the way, who sometimes get maligned because they produce energy. Imagine that.

Tribute to Doug Keil

Mr. President, I want to move on to my favorite time of the week. It is Thursday, so I usually come down on the Senate floor and talk about the Alaskan of the Week.

Now, we all believe our States are the best. Each State loves to brag a little bit about their own State. That is great. It is what makes our country competitive, a little bit of competition here in the Senate. But I happen to speak the truth when I talk about how Alaska is the best State, and it is because of the people.

I am going to talk a little bit about Doug Keil, who is today's Alaskan of the Week. I always like to start--you know, the pages enjoy this speech a lot because we get to talk a little bit about Alaska and the adventures and what is happening in the great State of Alaska. So I will give a little update on that.

On January 22, that was the polar night in Utqiagvik, AK, the northernmost town in all of North America. What happened on January 22 is that polar night--as they call it there--finally ended. That is 65 days of darkness finally ended. That is 65 days of darkness.

On January 22, the Sun crept a little over the horizon briefly. Like a long lost friend, the community gathered to say hello to the Sun. It has been cold up North. It has been a cold winter. It is about 20 below in Utqiagvik today. It has been relatively balmy in Anchorage where our Alaskan of the Week lives--warm enough to be sleeting right now.

But in all weather, all around the State, people are getting out, gathering, enjoying the Sun that stays in our skies a little bit longer each day. They are dogsledding--training for the Iditarod. They are snow-machining, playing hockey, skiing, snowboarding--so many winter sports.

We, in our State, are chockful of excellent winter athletes--great winter athletes. We punch way above our weight in terms of Winter Olympics. Many Alaskans are competing now in Beijing, as we speak, and we are rooting for all of them. Of course, we are rooting for all of America's athletes.

We are also preparing to root for the amazing athletes who will be competing in the Paralympics, also in Beijing, starting March 4. Again, many Alaskans will be there competing: cross-country skier, Grace Miller; snowboarder, Katy Maddry, a former Alaskan of the Week alum; and former gold medal Paralympian, Andrew Kurka. He will be competing in Beijing in the sit-ski events.

Now, I am mentioning all of this because our Alaskan of the Week, Doug Keil, says every one of these athletes--both in the Olympics and in Paralympics and all of our amateur athletes across the State--are there because of athletes who have gone before them. I think that is true.

Paving that path, of course, has been all the more challenging for America's Paralympian athletes. But it is a path that Doug, our Alaskan of the Week, has really paved for Alaska--for America--a deep one. And he has done it through grit and pain and determination.

In 1980, Doug Keil brought home two gold medals from the 1980 Paralympic Games in Norway. That was the second-ever Paralympic Games. He was the first American male to bring home gold in those games, and he spent the next 30-plus years building not only the structures and the organizations but, importantly, the culture in Alaska and in America to make sure other athletes with disabilities could come after him.

Let me tell you a little bit about our Alaskan of the Week, Doug Keil. Doug was born in Beirut, Lebanon. His parents Don and Margaret, who went by ``Midge,'' were adventuresome. From New York, they were on a 4-year overseas trip. Don, the father, was teaching high school physics and Midge was working at the United Nations in the Palestinian refugee camps when they had Doug, the oldest of what would be five children, four girls and Doug. I know one of the girls really well, Carrie, Doug's sister, who works as part of my team in Anchorage doing constituent casework. She recently hit the milestone of successfully helping 2,000 different Alaskans. Carrie, great job. You are amazing-- just as amazing as your brother Doug. Her success rate is off the charts. I see it every day.

When Doug and Carrie's family came back to America, they moved to Alaska. Don's brother--that is the dad, Don--built houses, and Don helped him for a while. Eventually, Don the father--Doug's father--got a senior job with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Doug, our Alaskan of the Week, was an active kid. He loved sports, mostly baseball and skiing. His plan was to follow in his father's footsteps and go to Springfield College in Massachusetts. He wanted to be a physical education teacher and to play baseball, but he had some tragedy. When Doug was 15, he took a trip to Juneau to visit a school friend. And on August 28, 1968, he and his friend were exploring an old gold mine in Juneau. Doug got struck by 24,000 volts of electricity-- 24,000 volts of electricity. In the process, he lost an arm and lost a leg. As we can all expect, the next few years were very difficult ones for Doug and his family. As he said, ``When you get hit by 24,000 volts of electricity, it messes you up physically. Mentally, my whole world was gone.''

Talk about grit and determination. He spent about 2 years in the hospital and his dreams, he thought, had died. To make it all the more difficult, his father had to move the family to the DC area for a job with the FAA when Doug was just a sophomore in high school, still learning how to use an artificial arm and artificial leg. But the family stuck together. They had faith, and they pulled through.

Back in Alaska, though, something remarkable happened. At this point, Doug hadn't tried to ski again because he thought those days were over without an arm, without a leg. But someone in their church told his parents about a program in Colorado--in Winter Park, CO--where they were training athletes to ski with disabilities. The first day he was there, Doug went to Winter Park. It coincided with the first day of what was then called the National Handicapped Championships.

Doug said:

I saw amazing athletes. I saw men and women who had come

back [many disabled veterans from Vietnam]. . . . I saw them

skiing and it opened up my eyes to a completely different

world.

Doug was inspired in many ways by our disabled Vietnam veterans who helped train him, helped inspire him. He came back to Alaska to train in this area and went back to Winter Park in 1977 to race in the Nationals in the slalom event and did so again in 1979, both of which qualified him for the 1980 Paralympics.

Along with two gold medals from those Olympics, he brought a mission back to Alaska: starting a skiing program for people with physical disabilities. He said at the time that skiing was amazing. It would give him a ``feeling of motion. It's like running again. It can be fluid. When it feels good up through your body, your body smiles and when your body smiles, you smile.'' And he wanted others to have that experience.

In the 1980s, of course, Alaska had mountains and snow and landscape begging to be played in but did not have a culture that encouraged people with disabilities to be part of those winter activities. Doug explained to a reporter in 1980 that as a one-legged skier, he was an anomaly in Alaska.

He said:

I've been skiing [there] for 5 years by myself. Up . . .

[in Alaska]--

Someone with disabilities--

[T]hey see me coming down the slopes and they say ``What the

[heck] is that?'' People just [weren't] used to [seeing] it

[in 1980].

And this is where the story moves from one individual, Doug, to thousands. Doug and a handful of others got busy. They formed a nonprofit called Challenge Alaska, and they hit the road. Doug, who had a full-time job in cable, still made the time for starting this great organization, Challenge Alaska. They got people out on the slopes. They trained them. They gathered all the adaptive equipment they could get their hands on, and they dug in.

Forty years later, with an expanded mission now including all outdoor activities, including summer activities--kayaking, cycling, wheelchair Frisbee, fishing, camping, and so much more--Challenge Alaska, started by Doug Keil, has helped over a thousand people in Alaska get out into Alaska's great outdoors in winter and summer. Some of the most incredible athletes you have ever met started their careers in athletics with Challenge Alaska.

Just two weekends ago, my wife Julie and I had the opportunity to attend Challenge Alaska's 40th anniversary gala dinner. Now, I know a lot of my colleagues here--we go out to a lot of events when we are back home. This was one of the most inspiring events I have attended in a long, long time. Julie and I got to sit with the current executive director of Challenge Alaska, Nate Boltz; his wife, Leah; daughter, Anna; his parents, Jim and Laurie; his grandmother, Adeline. There were amazing speeches. One young man named Ryan Johnson, a recent high school graduate with cerebral palsy, spoke. Incredible. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.

And, of course, Doug was there. Doug was there, the founder of Challenge Alaska--40 years of work--and he was honored for this great life achievement.

In that 1980 article I mentioned earlier, I talked about when he was talking about skiing on the slopes alone as someone with one leg, he said that if he could have a plaque that said he was instrumental in starting a program to help other people with disabilities in Alaska to learn to enjoy the outdoors--skiing, winter, summer--he would be a happy man. That was 40 years ago when he said that. Well, he should be happy. He has done that and so much more. Thousands of people have been positively impacted by what he has done.

Here is another remarkable thing. His inspiration went far beyond Alaska. It has literally touched the globe. He tells the story about how in the nineties, 13 people with disabilities from Japan came to ski with and learn from the people in Challenge Alaska. Doug was working at Challenge Alaska. He, unfortunately, wasn't able to ski with our Japanese visitors. But when they were leaving town, he met them at the airport to say goodbye. One of them, who was also missing an arm and a leg from a construction accident, stepped forward and, through an interpreter, told Doug that after his accident, he thought about taking his own life. Then this young Japanese man said to Doug that he saw a documentary about Doug. And he said to Doug:

I vowed that I would learn to ski, [I would] come to Alaska

and ski with [Challenge Alaska]. Thank you [Doug] for saving

my life.

That is pretty powerful stuff right there--one person in Japan whose life was saved by Doug Keil and all the great people at Challenge Alaska.

So, Doug, thank you for saving lives. Thank you for your inspiration to so many. Thank you for what you have done for Alaska, for Challenge Alaska, for the State, for the Paralympian athletes we are going to watch and cheer on here in a couple of weeks. And congratulations on being our Alaskan of the Week.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I want to begin my remarks today with a few words to specifically urge American seniors and the immunocompromised to continue to protect themselves against COVID-19 by ensuring that you are fully vaccinated, including a booster shot and by wearing a high-quality mask.

As States around the country begin to unwind mask and vaccine mandates, I implore America's seniors to remain vigilant against this virus. First, get boosted. The vaccine is the most powerful tool we have to protect yourself against COVID-19 infection. We know that the vaccine continues to be highly effective at preventing serious illness and death from COVID-19, but we also know that thousands of Americans have died from breakthrough cases of COVID-19, and the vast majority are over the age of 60.

In Massachusetts alone, 2,200 vaccinated individuals have died of COVID-19, and more than 93 percent of those deaths were over the age of 60. We are 2 percent of America's population. So you can multiply that 2,000 to get an idea as to what has happened with people who are ``fully vaccinated'' but who are older and who still contract the coronavirus.

So we have to just make sure that everyone gets this message straight. For many Americans, they are going to be told: You don't have to wear masks. But for many others there has to be a strong message: You should continue to wear your mask to protect yourself.

And although I have called upon the CDC to track and share this data about the deaths over the age of 60, they just haven't done so. So if we extrapolate the Massachusetts number, there may very well have been already over 100,000 Americans--overwhelmingly, seniors--who have died, despite the fact that they have received two shots of the vaccine. So let's just make sure that we deliver that message correctly. Keep your mask on.

This is a very good mask. There are KF94s. We have a very good N95 mask here that is absolutely certified by NIOSH. But many of these other masks that people are wearing just aren't going to give you the protection, which you need, so we need a strong message that goes out to seniors especially but to anyone who is immunocompromised and to children who have not been vaccinated. When this ``You can take off your mask'' era begins, let's just understand that there are going to be very many vulnerable people out there.

So from my perspective, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also reported that the unvaccinated seniors were 90 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those who received the vaccine booster. But I will say it again: If you haven't already, get vaccinated and get a booster.

An average of 2,300 people died from COVID nationwide in the past week per day--overwhelmingly, people over the age of 60--and each death is a tragedy for their families or their communities. They are our grandmothers, our grandfathers, our parents, our veterans who fought for democracy. They are irreplaceable members of our lives, and we have already lost too many to COVID-19.

But we have a powerful way to help, and that is to wear a mask. Again, if you put on these masks--here is a KF94--this will give you most of the protection you need. But please do not take it off because everyone else is indoors now saying the mask mandate indoors is off-- not if you are in this vulnerable category. It should not be. Understand that the risk is still there.

Here is the second point. I am urging you to continue to protect yourself, wear a high-quality mask. The CDC updated in January its masking guidance to recommend that the general public and especially seniors and those who are immunocompromised use higher quality masks, like the N95s, the KF94s, and the KN95s. We are seeing welcome decreases in rates of new infections right now, but these populations are still the most vulnerable to COVID. Just because younger people may be using their masks less, it does not mean that those at higher risk should stop being vigilant. Continue to use a high-quality mask to protect yourself when you are indoors and around others.

Getting a high-quality mask should be an easy thing to do, but with less-than-robust information, sometimes limited supplies, and a lot of counterfeits abounding, it has been harder than it should be for consumers to stay educated and protected. That is why I am pleased to see the Biden administration distribute 400 million nonsurgical N95 masks from the Strategic National Stockpile to the public. The masks are available at retail pharmacies and community health centers, so go get one. Ask a friend or a family member to bring one to you.

Make sure you are wearing a protective mask. Understand that surgical masks give you less protection. A cloth mask gives you much less protection. Just understand that, especially if you are in a vulnerable category.

I want to say this over and over again. If you are over 60, you are in that category, so just protect yourself. That small item can be what it is that protects you and your family members.

Just make sure the masks we use are the best, the most accessible, the most affordable, and the most reliable that they can be. It is not always convenient, but we need to continue to protect ourselves. I urge those Americans over the age of 60 and those who are immunocompromised to continue to mask up.

Ukraine

Mr. President, now I would just like to move on quickly to a different topic.

As we watch President Putin amass tens of thousands of soldiers on the border of Ukraine, we must confront the fuel that powers this show of military might--specifically, fossil fuels.

Our global addiction to oil and natural gas from Russia and from Saudi Arabia keeps us locked into dangerous cycles of conflict and corruption, but we have a way out. We can build a pathway to a more prosperous future, a more peaceful future. We can build cities powered by cheap, clean electricity, build all-electric vehicles for our roads, and build homes that are healthier and more energy efficient than ever before.

By putting 25 million new electric vehicles on our roads, we can stop all oil imports from Russia and Saudi Arabia into the United States of America. That is 25 million all-electric vehicles. That is a direct message to the business model of Russia and of Saudi Arabia. That is the U.S. Congress passing legislation that propels the all-electric vehicle revolution here and sets a model for the rest of the country.

But rather than invest in that clean, affordable, healthy future, our country and the global economy are being held hostage by the American Petroleum Institute and their Big Oil buddies. Rather than supporting energy policies that secure our independence and our future, Big Oil pushes policies that secure their profit margins. At the same time that we get crocodile tears from Republicans over American fossil fuel leases, those same leases are feeding the American Petroleum Institute and not the United States of America.

In 2021, we exported one out of every four barrels of oil we produced, and we are exporting them abroad because in 2015, the Republicans voted to end the decades-long oil export ban in the United States. It was the Republican votes that put company profits over consumer protections and climate policies. So our energy prices rose at home while we were left to deal with the

health and climate crisis created in this rush to export and profit. At the same time, we continued to import Russian and Saudi oil. That is what we are doing right now--propping up those regimes and supporting their financial reserves.

The journey to energy independence simply does not run on fossil fuels. How does it run? It runs on solar; on wind; on battery storage; on clean, zero-carbon energy; on a clean energy future for our country. We can reimagine a future that is free from fossil fuel conflict. We can reimagine a future powered by the light of the Sun, not by oil controlled by the barrel of a gun. We can tell Russia we don't need their oil any more than we need their caviar. That is a message we can send by passing legislation that unleashes this clean energy revolution. We can reimagine a future where American ingenuity, manufacturing, and jobs drive our allies forward into a global clean energy revolution.

This future isn't far off beyond the horizon. It is right in front of us, and it is already putting Americans to work and keeping lights on across this country.

In 2010, we had 1 million jobs in solar, wind, and energy efficiency. By 2020, that more than doubled to more than 2 million jobs. Now we have all of those millions of workers out there, and we can double it again and double it again. We can create millions of new clean energy jobs for millions of Americans across this country.

In 2008, we only had 26,000 megawatts of solar. Today, we have upwards of 264,000 megawatts of solar and wind capacity combined on our grid.

The electric vehicle revolution is already on its way. Automakers are pledging to produce 40 million new electric vehicles just in the United States. That is 2 million barrels of oil that are out of our system forever that we don't need. That is the oil from Russia that we import today. That is the oil we import today from Saudi Arabia. That is what we have to do in our country. To put that in context, just 10 years ago, there were only 73,000 electric vehicles sold all year in the United States.

We can do this. Our opportunity is great. We have a chance to use the Build Back Better bill to send a message: We are going to save money, save energy, save industrial communities, save all of us from a world made unstable through fossil fuel creating crisis after crisis on this planet.

This is the power of the American-led clean energy revolution. Looking at the alternative, with troops paid by fossil fuel money on the border of Ukraine, I know what kind of future I want and I think the American people want to fight for.

We have to destroy the business model of Russia and Middle Eastern countries that have been sources of problems for American national security for more than a generation. That is the opportunity we are all presented with right now. That is why Build Back Better--that is why President Biden's vision of wind and solar, all-electric vehicles, battery-storage technologies, and clean energy technologies by the millions being deployed in our country, will create millions of new jobs, reduce greenhouse gases, and improve our national security.

This is the healthcare, the environmental, the national security, and the moral issue of our time. If we haven't learned another lesson from Ukraine, it should be that the time is now for us to act so that 10 years from now, the next generation of young Americans can look back and say we did act, we did destroy that business model.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

Madam President, I just want to say that I sincerely respect the Senator from Alaska's concerns about the Russian seafood imports, and I believe it is unfair. I believe it is improper that Russia has banned American seafood imports since 2014. So I agree with you. And Alaska and Massachusetts are the two fishing giants of the United States of America. We are.

However, I have heard from seafood processors in my home State with concerns about potential sudden effects of a new immediate ban on imports on their workforce, including hundreds of union workers in the seafood processing industry. That would be right now.

So, with that in mind, I am going to object to passage of this bill at this time, but I would say to my friend from Alaska that I would invite a collaboration on this subject because I think we can resolve it so that it benefits not just Alaska, which is very important, but also Massachusetts and every other State. And, again, I think we can, in fact, bring all the stakeholders together, do it very briefly maybe over this break that we are about to begin here in the Senate.

I am very grateful to the Senator from Alaska for raising this very important issue, and I want to assure him and all of the Alaska fishing industry that we want to have conversations that protect the American seafood industry and its workers and I want to partner with him toward that goal and maybe just use the next 10 days or so to accomplish that goal. So at this point I would object to the motion.

Mr. President, in November of 2017, I spent some time in western Ukraine, sitting down to be able to have a meal and be able to talk to a group of Oklahomans from the 45th Infantry of the Oklahoma National Guard. Some had been in Ukraine since January of that year, and they were still there in November. They spent the entire year in 2017--the Oklahoma National Guard--training the military of the Ukrainians. Why? Because Russians, in 2014, had moved into Crimea and had crossed the border into the eastern part of Ukraine in what is called the Donbas and taken over two different areas that--they said there were separatists that were doing it. They were Russian speakers, so they clearly should be under Russian domination. And they moved in.

It was an entire year that Oklahomans spent with Ukrainians developing friendships, training them, preparing them for battle against a very large Army in the Russians. They hoped to be able to push the Russians out of the eastern side of their country.

And as we sat and visited and talked, they told me about the tenacity of the Ukrainian fighters, their commitment to their families, and their commitment to be able to be independent, to

be a separate functioning democracy, to engage with the rest of the world as any independent sovereign nation would choose to be able to do. That was 2017.

To Oklahomans, this conversation about Ukraine and the Russians surrounding Ukraine on three sides is not theory. Some Oklahomans know the names of Ukrainians that are currently on those front lines. They served alongside of each other, and they have stayed in contact, calling them friends. If you go into the Ukrainian Embassy today for the United States, you will see a picture of some Oklahomans up on the wall because they remember that group of Oklahomans that came to Ukraine to help them prepare for a day they hoped would never come and to be able to be ready to push the Russians out of the eastern part of their nation.

But today--literally, right now--Ukrainians living on the border, especially in the north, can literally hear the sound of Russian artillery practicing just miles away. They have been able to hear that sound for days and days now as they do live fire exercises just on the other side of the border. They are seeing that the Russians have amassed well in excess of 100,000 troops. They gathered troops from Russia from the far east next to their border with China and had moved them all the way to the west to be able to surround Ukraine on three sides with naval forces and with ground forces.

They are very aware the Russians have moved their special operations. They moved in field hospitals. They are very aware they are doing live training exercises in preparation. They hope that it is only saber- rattling, but they hear the sound of the guns just a few miles away.

Since hearing from the Russian perspective, even within the last 24 hours, the Russian diplomats have spoken to the BBC just in the last few hours. And they spoke and said they have no intention of any aggressive moves, that they are a sovereign nation and that they can move their forces anywhere they want to be able to move on any inch of their land, and if they want to put their forces all right there along the border with Ukraine, that is their sovereign right to do that.

And then they replied back in what must be one of the great Russian statements of all time: that the West is not reporting that the Ukrainians have also moved 100,000 troops next to the border with Russia. They must think the entire world is delusional. A Russian diplomat called it ``myth'' that the Russians intend to do aggression and said they would only move into Ukraine if they were provoked.

Now, mind you, U.S. intelligence released publicly just a few days ago a plot the Russians had, that they already created a film--a movie, if I can say it that way, a newsreel--that they had staged a Ukrainian attack on Russians, and it laid out actors that looked as if they were dead and set up all of these Ukrainian implements from war and these different vehicles surrounding burned-out Russian tanks so they could show the world that Ukrainians actually attacked them first, except our intelligence actually exposed that plan. But the Russians are still repeating over and over again that they will only attack if they are provoked, as they work to be able to stage a provocation.

People forget in the world that when the Russians are in Belarus, they are a half-day drive from Kyiv, but they are also a half-day drive from where they are stationed right now from Warsaw.

This is a tenuous time. This is not a new moment for the Russians to act aggressively toward their neighbors. In 2008, Russia invaded the country of Georgia. In 2014, as I mentioned, Russia annexed Crimea and moved in. In 2014, they also moved into the Donbas region. During that time in 2014, Russians--in July of 2014, the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade launched an anti-aircraft weapon against MH17, a passenger aircraft flying from Amsterdam to Malaysia--not even coming to Ukraine. They launched an anti-aircraft weapon against that flight flying over Ukraine, and the Russians murdered 298 people because they flew over an area that they were working to be able to overtake.

It is clear, the Russians, in their aggression, and Putin, in his attempt to make sure the whole world pays attention to him and shows that he is a powerful man because he can round up the entire world to be able to look at him when his economy is literally in tatters-- Russia's gross domestic product for the entire country is smaller than the State of Texas's gross domestic product. Yet, with his nuclear weapons and disproportionate allocation to his military and his control of oil and gas in the region, he continues to be able to saber-rattle and force the world to be able to look at him, the whole while declaring that he is a sovereign and he can move troops anywhere he wants to move. But also, by the way, Ukraine is not sovereign enough to make a decision about their own defense, demanding that Ukraine never become a member of NATO.

Can I remind the world, NATO is a defensive alliance--a defensive alliance. The NATO alliance exists--and it is an incredibly successful alliance--the NATO alliance exists to be able to react if they are attacked. NATO does not cooperate in attacking anyone. NATO is set up to defend each other when attacked. Ukraine is not a NATO nation, but NATO nations surround Ukraine. And we are all extremely aware of Putin's focus on trying to be able to push out and to recreate the USSR again.

We should pay attention. We should not pretend this won't affect the world. We have seen oil prices around the world already accelerate based on just Putin's actions right now. We have seen that he is trying to be able to manipulate oil prices for the benefit of Russia but to the detriment of everyone else. We can see that.

The issue is, what are we going to do about that? How are we going to actually engage? Well, our Nation has given over $400 million in assistance to Ukraine every year since 2014, including this year--$464 million in assistance to Ukraine. As I mentioned before, Oklahomans and multiple others have gone to Ukraine and been able to train their military for them to be able to defend themselves. We have assisted the Ukrainian people with counterartillery radars, coastal defensive implements, geospatial intelligence, counterunmanned aerial system equipment, electronic warfare, demining equipment, small arms--we have tried to be able to help the Ukrainians defend themselves.

We need to also speak with a unified voice that if Russia decides they are going to move across that border into Ukraine, that there are strong, unrelenting sanctions coming on that nation and that economy that is smaller than the economy of Texas; that we are keenly aware of how they survive based on oil and gas sales; and we are well-prepared to be able to fill in the supply from other nations that are buying from Russia; that they would be welcome to be able to buy from us or from any other nation ready to be able to sell to them; to be able to supplant what Russia is choosing to do; to be able to use energy as a leverage point on every country in the region to say: Don't respond or we will cut off your energy.

We need to make it very clear that the world stands with the free people of Ukraine and we will bring severe consequences on the economy of Russia that will be long-lasting--not only primary sanctions, but secondary sanctions. In other words, if individuals choose to be able to do business with Russia, they have to choose: They can either do business with Russia or do business with the United States of America. You can't do both. You have to pick.

With the largest economy in the world, I believe most would rather work with a free market, a free nation, than to be able to work with an unstable Russia.

But we should be clear. Russia has gone back on its words in the Minsk Agreement. Russia has gone back on its word on multiple different treaty agreements. We cannot trust what they say, but they should be able to trust what we will do if they choose to attack the free people of Ukraine.

Let me just say this: I firmly believe that the best thing that we can do is to work to keep a war from ever starting rather than engage and try to stop it once it starts. We should speak clearly as a nation. We should speak clearly from the administration. We should speak clearly from Congress with a unified, nonpartisan voice that the people of the United States want to do

what it takes to keep a war from starting so that Europe doesn't see yet another land war. That is going to take focus from this body.

So what do we need to do? We should make the clear offer that we will provide energy to the rest of the world, that if Russia cuts them off, we will rapidly move to be able to fill the gap. We should make it clear about our primary and secondary sanctions. We should make it clear on diplomatic channels and in public what we will do. We should continue to be able to work with our allies to be able to build a strong coalition and to reaffirm the NATO alliances there. We should continue to be able to make it very clear to Russia that if they choose to be able to move into Ukraine, it would be not only economically disastrous, but NATO is well prepared to be able to defend our alliance. And we should stand with the people of Ukraine and continue to equip them as they work to be able to protect themselves.

The people of Ukraine, in the times that I have been there--and I have been there several times--the people of Ukraine will be glad to be able to drive you through Kyiv and point out the places where they fought for their independence. They are a proud people. They do not want the Russians taking over their country. And they have fought for their independence once, and they are prepared to fight for it again. They should know we are prepared to stand next to them.

Let's pray for the people of Ukraine who, right now, hear the guns practicing on the other side of their border. Let's pray for peace, but let's also do the work to build the groundwork for peace, as well.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, most people would be stumped by the question I am about to ask, and that is, when it comes to the commission of crime, what is the largest criminal investigation in the history of the United States? The answer is January 6, 2021. Over 725 individuals have been charged with a Federal crime as a result of that insurrectionist mob that descended on the Capitol.

The reason I raise that is that we are going through regular-- sometimes daily, sometimes weekly--lectures from Republicans about who is soft on crime, who is really on the side of the American people when it comes to defending their homes and their families.

I listen to this debate on a regular basis as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Every single nominee who comes from the Biden White House is subject to being challenged as to whether they are going to defund the police or whether they are soft on crime. Yet I have to say that it is hard to explain that these same Republicans asking these pointed questions to nominees are nowhere to be found when it comes to discussing January 6, 2021. In fact, many of them were cheerleaders and apologists for the very

demonstrators who came into this United States Capitol.

To think that a national political party like the Republican Party of the United States of America branded this insurrectionist mob and their attack on the Capitol as ``legitimate political discourse''--that was the official statement, the unanimous statement of the Republican Party.

Now, a few Republican Senators have dissented. Thank you. But why haven't more? Why won't they step up and say a crime is a crime? If over 700 people descended on this Capitol and are being charged with a crime, they should have to pay the price, whatever it happens to be, because this just wasn't some idle political exercise. At the end of the day, we had 6 people dead as a result of that insurrectionist mob, including law enforcement officers, and 140 law enforcement officers attacked during the course of that day. We all saw the videos. There are plenty of them.

Imagine, if you will, the so-called innocent, legitimate political discourse travelers to Washington just happened to bring bear spray with them so they could spray police in the face with a poisonous compound that could, in fact, harm them and did. Does that sound like a group of political tourists to you? It doesn't to me. These are violent individuals who are being called to task for having assaulted this Capitol, broken down the windows and the doors, came in here aping along these desks in the Chamber, forcing the Vice President of the United States and Senators who were there that day--and I was one of them--to exit by the backdoor for their lives. And here we have this ``We are not soft on crime'' message from Republicans who are making excuses, not to mention the former President, Donald Trump, who said that given the opportunity, he would pardon these demonstrators. It is no surprise in light of what he has done in the past.

But being lectured to regularly by the Republicans about who respects law enforcement and who is soft on crime--most of them cannot answer the basic question of what they would do when it comes to the January 6 demonstrators, and the answer they give is totally insufficient.

Madam President, you know personally, because you were here on the floor yesterday, that isn't all of it. I listen to all this talk about prosecutors doing their job, and I can't help but think what we went through yesterday on the floor of the U.S. Senate when the junior Senator from Arkansas, a Republican Senator, stood here and vainly tried to defend what he is doing.

Do you know what he is doing? You do personally. He is stopping the appointment of U.S. attorneys, Federal prosecutors, in State after State, and he is stopping the appointment of U.S. marshals who keep those courtrooms safe and the judges safe and transport prisoners and seek out fugitives. He is personally stopping them from being appointed in the ordinary course of business in the U.S. Senate.

You have to ask yourself why. There must be a problem with their qualifications. No. There is not a single question being asked about the qualifications of these individuals.

Mr. Frierson in the State of Nevada, a person whom you and Senator Cortez Masto described on the floor yesterday who would be the U.S. attorney there, clearly is well qualified for that position. The same is true in Illinois.

Our choice, Senator Duckworth's and my choice for the U.S. marshal to serve in the Northern District of Illinois, is an individual with 30 years--30 years--of law enforcement experience, a chief of police in one of the larger suburbs in the city of Chicago.

Do we need the U.S. Marshal's Office to be reinvigorated and dedicated to its purpose? Of course we do. It wasn't that many years ago when the family of one of our highly respected Federal judges was literally murdered in their home by a deranged individual who didn't care for the way he was treated by that judge. It is a very real question of personal safety. Yet one Republican Senator from Arkansas is stopping the appointments of these U.S. attorneys and U.S. marshals to execute the laws of the land.

Don't tell me you respect law enforcement, and don't tell me you want to fight crime and then turn around and tie the hands of the Department of Justice, keeping U.S. attorneys off the job and U.S. marshals away from their responsibilities. That is the reality.

If we are going to get serious about fighting crime--and I believe we should--it is all hands on deck. Every Federal law enforcement official should be doing their part. They cannot do their part when the junior Senator from Arkansas stops us from even approving their appointments to these positions. These appointments remain vacant, and we pay a price for it.

When we receive lectures from the minority leader or from others on the floor about respect for law and law enforcement, I would say he ought to start with his own caucus. He ought to call in the junior Senator from Arkansas and say: Enough. You are stepping on our message. We are trying to show that we are for law and order, and you are stopping the appointment of U.S. attorneys and U.S. marshals who are dedicated to that purpose and risk their lives to do so.

That is not consistent with good law enforcement or sound law and order as far as I am concerned.

(Mr. BOOKER assumed the Chair.)

Let me conclude by saying that the nominees who come before the Senate for these judicial positions are a wide variety of individuals with amazing backgrounds--incredible backgrounds--and who are consistently rated unanimously ``well qualified'' by the American Bar Association. It is true that some of them used to sit at the other table in the criminal courtrooms, not at the prosecutor's table, but there is nothing wrong with some balance on the court, making sure that we have all points of view considered and certainly, above all, the law considered.

We hear, from time to time, compelling anecdotes, such as the one given by the minority leader related to Louisville, KY. I am not familiar with the details. But if we are serious about making America safer, we need to pull together on a bipartisan basis. We need to approve President Biden's budget, which provides more resources for law enforcement but also more resources for violence intervention.

The Presiding Officer knows personally, as mayor of a large city in New Jersey, that we can't arrest our way out of the crime problem in America. Certainly, we should pursue law enforcement measures and responses when necessary and apply the law without question, but it takes more than that. If we are going to reach into the communities around America and try to stop this violence before it occurs, then we have to look at other approaches.

I am happy to report that last week we announced the introduction of the Violence Against Women Act. This is a measure which, for 3 years, we have been trying to find common ground. We did it. We finally did it.

I want to salute Senator Feinstein as the lead Democratic sponsor. I was happy to join her.

I also want to salute Senators Lisa Murkowski and Joni Ernst, from Alaska and Iowa, respectively. They have done such extraordinary work in putting together a bill.

You say to yourself: How does this fit in with violence against women, the question of crime in America?

Well, I can tell you--the Presiding Officer knows this personally, and it is worth repeating--that I went to the juvenile facility in Cook County years ago and said: Who are these teenagers who came to the Earth in the usual way and then turned to gangs and guns and killing wantonly? What happened to these kids along the way?

Well, there are plenty of reasons and issues related to mental health, but one of the things that was compelling was the observation that over 90 percent of them had been victims of trauma. Trauma comes in many forms, not just physical trauma but to witness trauma on another person or to be a victim yourself, to have a home where there is no support, no encouragement, and no values being taught. Those kids are the ones who end up, many times, in these predicaments.

What can we do about it?

Well, we can probably arrest them after the crime has been committed, but that really doesn't solve the problem. We have got to do what we can to intervene in their lives at a stage when they can be saved. I don't believe that

everyone can be saved, but I do fundamentally believe in redemption and in our responsibility to engage in it.

That is why this Violence Against Women Act is so important. If we can reach into a home where physical or mental abuse has taken place of a spouse or the children and give that person, first, a caring heart-- someone who will listen and hear them out--and then advise them on what to do to keep themselves safe and keep their kids safe and what to do in relation to law enforcement, that is a positive move toward taking violence out of that family and out of America.

So I hope that when we talk about this whole issue of a safer America, which we all aspire to, we do it in a balanced way; that we talk about effective prosecution by members of law enforcement who are playing by the rules and that we also realize it takes more than that. We need an investment in the communities to make a difference. President Biden knows that. He included it in this year's budget and will again in next year's budget. We ought to be standing up and supporting that as well.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kelly) and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan) are necessarily absent.

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

Madam President, for the first time in 12 years, an outright majority of Americans say crime has gotten worse in their area over the past year.

Many Democrats have spent the last year and a half trying to defund police, smear law enforcement, and go soft on crime. As a result, innocent citizens have spent a year and a half watching murders, carjackings, and other violent crimes literally skyrocket.

On Monday, in my hometown of Louisville, KY, we were stunned by what appears to have been an assassination attempt against a Jewish mayoral candidate by a prominent far-left activist who previously called for defunding our police department.

This far-left Black Lives Matter activist and defund-the-police cheerleader walked into a Jewish Democrat's campaign headquarters and opened fire.

Obviously, every aspect of this is still under investigation, including the suspect's mental condition. But guess what. He has already been let out of jail--already let out of jail.

A leftwing bail fund partnered with BLM Louisville to bail him out. Less than 48 hours after this activist tried to literally murder a politician, the radical left bailed their comrade out of jail.

This is just jaw-dropping. The innocent people of Louisville deserve better.

Since 2020, a long list of prominent corporations have donated or pledged enormous amounts of money to the radical nationwide BLM parent organization. One wonders if any of their corporate money helped spring this would-be assassin from jail.

Now, I am confident that if an activist claiming to be conservative tried to assassinate a politician, whatever his mental state, the media would open a 24/7 national conversation about rhetoric on the right. Somehow, I doubt attempted murder by a BLM activist will get that same treatment. I doubt we will have a national conversation about the constant chorus of powerful voices calling our society evil.

I raise this double standard because it is not limited to media coverage. We have seen this extend into our legal system itself.

In May of 2020, when Minneapolis was engulfed in lawless riots, one rioter broke into a pawn shop and started a fire that burned it down. His act of arson actually killed somebody. But the Federal attorneys, who were supposed to represent the victim and the people, went out of their way to push for an unusually lenient sentence. They asked for the typical sentencing guideline to be cut in half. Why? Well, because, they wrote, the defendant was an angry political protester who simply lost his cool. They wrote, ``As anyone watching the news worldwide knows, many other people in Minnesota were similarly caught up''--as if that were an excuse. This is the sentencing memo from the prosecutors. It reads like it was ghostwritten by the defense. They even tried to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to explain why this guy burned down a pawn shop. What a backward attitude.

We cannot have Federal officials acting like leftwing political violence is more acceptable than any other violence. If anything, political violence is uniquely unacceptable in a democratic republic.

Now, I placed a hold on President Biden's nominee to take over as U.S. attorney in Minnesota until he pledged he would keep political favoritism out of his prosecutions. Fortunately, he quickly said so in writing. He also knows Republicans will be watching.

The American people need public servants to crack down on crime and defend their safety--crack down on crime and defend their safety--less pandering to woke mobs; more protecting innocent families.

Energy

Madam President, now on an entirely different matter, Washington Democrats' inflation is slamming consumers with the highest prices in 40 years. One of the toughest blows has been the soaring cost of a trip to the gas pump. A gallon of regular costs a full dollar more today than it did a year ago.

So after triggering a historic run of inflation and hammering American producers with anti-energy policies designed to restrict supply, our Democratic colleagues are suddenly talking about gas prices. Here is their bold, creative plan: temporarily suspending the gas tax, to the tune of 18 cents--oh, and excluding diesel--a slap in the face to truckers and a further burden on the supply chain. Oh, and just to make the political games transparent, they want this to expire right after the midterms, as soon as the next Congress is sworn in.

Democrats want to blow a $20 billion hole in highway funding so they can try to mask the effects of their own liberal policies on working Americans. They have spent the entire year waging a holy war on affordable American energy, and now--now--they want to use a pile of taxpayers' money to literally hide the consequences.

As the senior Senator from West Virginia has pointed out, ``People want their bridges and their roads, and we have an infrastructure bill we just passed this summer, and they want to take all that away. It just doesn't make sense.''

He added that this half-baked proposal doesn't make any more sense than the President's pointless decision to take oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve last year.

President Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, called this stunt ``short-sighted, ineffective, goofy and gimmicky.'' That is the Secretary of the Treasury in the Bill Clinton administration.

Back in 2008, then-Candidate Obama himself said this:

We're arguing over a gimmick that would save you half a

tank of gas over the course of the entire summer so that

everyone in Washington can pat themselves on the back and say

they did something. Well, let me tell you, this isn't an idea

designed to get you through the summer--it's designed to get

them through an election.

That is Barack Obama in 2008, and he was right.

Look, if Democrats actually want to help the American people fill their tanks, they wouldn't have been attacking American energy every way possible for the entire year. President Biden made killing the Keystone XL Pipeline his day 1 priority. Democrats voted in lockstep to endorse President Biden's ban on new energy exploration on Federal lands. At every turn, in every way, Democrats have made it harder to produce affordable and reliable American energy. Take any form of energy, and if people in San Francisco don't find it fashionable, the Biden administration has gone after it.

Three years ago, under Republican policies, the United States became a net exporter of oil for the first time in more than 70 years. From a sheer mathematical perspective, for the very first time since World War II, we were producing all that we needed and then some. Alas, a very different philosophy now controls Washington. In President Biden's first year, our own oil imports from Russia--from Russia--hit a new alltime high.

But as we speak, events in Eastern Europe are reminding the entire world that energy abundance is not just about families' pocketbooks; there is a colossal strategic cost when our Nation and our allies become economically dependent on countries that don't like us very much.

Some of our European allies have spent many years voluntarily winding down reliable sources like nuclear and coal and refusing to tap into their own considerable natural gas reserves via fracking. Instead, they gambled on less reliable sources and outsourced their perceived dirty work to places like Russia. Western European elites decided they wanted their energy production out of sight and out of mind, and Putin was all too happy to oblige them.

Even after Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, Germany willingly signed up for Putin's Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. It would negate Ukraine's own pipelines and deny the money and leverage that Ukraine needs to keep Russia at bay, but Germany backed it. Meanwhile, Berlin put off building liquid natural gas terminals, instead choosing to rely on Russian gas and refusing to diversify its import options. I am hopeful the latest indications that Germany is reconsidering this will prove to be accurate.

The Biden administration is scrambling to connect our at-risk allies with some energy resources from everywhere else--everywhere else. But it should not have taken this latest Kremlin misbehavior to remind the West that self-sufficiency actually matters. It matters. And Democrats have still not flinched in their broader war against our own--our own-- U.S. production.

Glitzy summits in Paris and finger-wagging climate rhetoric are one way to approach energy policy. Actually exploring and developing abundant, affordable, and reliable domestic energy is another approach, and that is the approach that will actually work.