Inspector General Access Act of 2021

Mr. President, Pfizer released a study this week showing how antibodies from its vaccines respond to the Omicron variant in a lab.

The company claims that three doses should provide some protection against the variant. It also showed that those who had previously had COVID and recovered demonstrated stronger immunity to the Omicron variant.

While natural immunity comes at a cost, studies have shown throughout the pandemic that it works. Those who have recovered from COVID have significant protection from both catching the virus again and from the most severe symptomatic infections. While this is not always the case, and vaccination may improve immunity further, natural immunity is real. There are data to prove that.

A study conducted in Italy showed that natural immunity is more effective than vaccines at reducing risk of future infection. Another study of half a million people in Denmark showed that natural immunity provides significant, lasting protection against infection.

Finally, a study from three separate hospitals in Israel found that natural immunity from a previous COVID infection was ``twenty-seven times more effective than vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic infections.''

This, of course, is good news, especially considering that natural immunity is combining with vaccinated immunity in the general population. Recent data from the Nationwide Blood Donor Seroprevalence Survey shows that almost 92 percent of Americans over the age of 16 have COVID antibodies from vaccination or infection. The vast majority of Americans have at least some protection against COVID-19--92 percent.

I believe the vaccines are generally safe and effective. I have been vaccinated, as has my family. I see these vaccines as a miracle, one that is helping protect many millions of Americans from the dangers associated with COVID-19.

But I also recognize that millions of Americans are separately protected, separate and apart from anything else that might be there, as a result of immunity built up through their natural defenses because they have previously contracted and then recovered from COVID.

Now, the science shows that this immunity is strong, that it is effective, and that it is really widespread in America. Astoundingly, that information is not frequently shared in the media and never mentioned by the Biden administration. In fact, the administration makes no effort to recognize natural immunity in its mandates or in its formal guidelines.

I have asked the Biden administration to provide clarity on its research on natural immunity as well as meaningfully address the research being conducted by other countries that show natural immunity is strong and effective and valid. However, the Biden administration has yet to respond to my inquiries, inquiries that I asked, reasonably, to be answered no later than the beginning of this week.

Tragically, tens of millions of Americans have superior protection against the virus, even from new variants, and yet this administration would still fire them if they don't comply with the administration's mandates regarding vaccination. It is as irrational as it is cruel.

I have heard from hundreds of Utahns who are worried about losing their jobs due to the mandate. They are just a few of the half a million workers who are at risk of losing their jobs in my State. There are 45 million Americans altogether who could lose their jobs due to this unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral overstep.

The Senate, thankfully, recognized that these jobs were worth saving last night. Fifty-two Senators, including Democrats and Republicans, stood with American workers. Now, that resolution could, of course, fail in the House, but it could, of course, be vetoed by the President. Nevertheless, regardless of that outcome, the Senate's statement last night rings loud and clear.

Moreover, I hold out hope that the American people are being heard-- they are being heard in the Senate, as evidenced by last night's vote; they are being heard in the House of Representatives, which will take up this measure in the coming days.

I hold out hope that the House, too, will pass this measure, and I implore the President to consider allowing it to become law.

But regardless of what else happens, these workers need immediate, real, lasting protection from the threat of the mandates. One way to have a significant portion of these jobs protected is to recognize the benefits of natural immunity.

So today I am offering a bill that would require that Federal Agencies recognize, accept, truthfully present, and include natural immunity in any regulation. This bill does not say that vaccines are bad or unhelpful; it merely asks the Federal Government to respect widely available science.

I am glad to be joined in this effort by Senators Braun, Tuberville, and Sullivan, who are with me as cosponsors.

This bill would keep Americans employed and help us beat the pandemic in a smart way. I urge my colleagues to support it.

To that end, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 2846 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. 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, it is important to remember that the fact that someone holds a government post and is an expert in a field does not make that person capable of making laws.

Yes, there are lots of experts in our government; some of them hold high bureaucratic or other executive posts. It doesn't mean that they may make laws.

By operation of the Constitution, we are the experts for purposes relevant to making law. We are the only organ of the Federal Government that may make law.

And so anytime someone starts to say they are the experts, therefore, they get to make the law, that is a problem.

To call this a ``nonsense idea,'' to refer to this as an idea that wastes the time of the American people, ignores the plight of almost 45 million Americans whose jobs are being threatened right now.

My friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Washington, has made an argument against this that doesn't match her conclusion. What she is stating is not that natural immunity makes no difference-- although her conclusion would seem to suggest that--what she is saying instead is that someone who has had COVID and recovered and therefore developed natural immunity could develop additional resistance to future infections by also being vaccinated.

I understand this argument. In fact, it is an argument that I myself have used. I had COVID, I recovered from COVID, and I have been fully vaccinated. But the question is not whether you can gain additional protection from that; it is whether or not you can look at an original COVID infection from which someone has recovered and accept the fact that it offers at least a comparable degree of protection as one can obtain from a vaccine.

So let's be honest about what we are and are not talking about here. We are talking about 45 million Americans whose jobs are being threatened as they head into the holidays at a time when economic conditions make that unusually intolerable--intolerable as a result of many conditions that the Federal Government itself put in place.

In all events, this is really a bare minimum of what we can do for the American people. The burden should not be on them to prove why they should not be fired--fired by a company being threatened by the President of the United States with crippling fines. This is cruel. It is barbaric. It is not authorized by statute or the Constitution. And in this circumstance, they are ignoring science.

I object.

Mr. President, it is important to remember every Agency within the Federal Government has an inspector general. Inspectors general play an important role in every Agency, and they are there for the purpose of independently reviewing the actions of those who operate that Agency.

Everywhere you look, these inspectors general serve with independence, and what we see from them is work product that is publicly released and can be digested by the public. It is a helpful resource not only for the American people but also to us personally as Members of the U.S. Senate, who, in our capacity as Senators, have the ability and, in fact, the duty of exercising oversight over Federal Agencies.

With respect to the U.S. Department of Justice, a body that really is all about law and has a lot of lawyers, to put it very mildly, you end up with a dichotomy--a dichotomy that can't be found anywhere else.

In every other Federal Agency, the inspector general is able to do his or

her job, to conduct research, to do evaluations, issue public reports. And those reports allow us to exercise our oversight responsibilities. They also allow the American people to know what is going on in the Agency in question.

We have got a difference within the Department of Justice. If you are a lawyer within the Department of Justice, you are covered by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

Now, I want to point out a couple of differences within the Office of Professional Responsibility--between OPR, as it is called, and the Office of Inspector General. These don't reflect any idea that one is bad and the other one isn't. They are just different.

The Office of Professional Responsibility does operate on a confidential basis. It operates in secret. And I don't use that term denigratingly. It is there to perform a specific, highly specialized role.

See, lawyers have a separate set of ethical rules and standards they are expected to abide by. The Department of Justice, employing a lot of lawyers, wants to make sure that there is some degree of consistency and discipline within the practice of law. They want to make sure that the relative interests, the privacy, and the professionalism of the attorney can be balanced with their other investigative demands.

But the inspector general has a different function. The inspector general isn't there to evaluate whether or to what extent and in what way any of the highly specialized, sometimes complex, nuanced rules of professional responsibility affecting lawyers in the practice of law are concerned. No. The inspector general has a much different role.

So that is one difference, is that one has a public-facing role; the other one has a private-facing role affecting the individual attorney or attorneys under investigation.

Secondly--and this one is perhaps even more significant in its impact--the inspector general operates independently of the Attorney General. The head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, by contrast, reports directly to the Attorney General of the United States and can be fired by the Attorney General of the United States.

This is a big difference, and it is a difference we don't see replicated in any other Federal Agency--not with lawyers, not with any other regulated professional class that I am aware of--nor should we, because, if we were to do that, we would end up creating problems.

So this is not about a perceived inadequacy or a perceived culture of corruption within the Department of Justice created by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

That is not at all what I am saying. In fact, I believe the people who operate the Department of Justice, the lawyers of the Department of Justice, including those who operate the Office of Professional Responsibility, by and large do their job and do their job well and faithfully. But insofar as we allow them to do their job in such a way that it precludes any ability by the inspector general of the Department of Justice to penetrate section 8E of the Inspector General Act insofar as it insulates the operations of the U.S. Department of Justice from investigation of the sort that we have come to expect and rely on from the Office of Inspector General, it is going to be a problem.

Within the Department of Justice in particular, it is a big problem. I think it would be unwise in any Federal Agency for us to say: OK, the IG can do anything that the IG needs to do unless there is a lawyer involved. I think that would be dangerous anywhere because you do have lawyers involved, but it is especially dangerous at the Department of Justice because so much of what they do is law, is necessarily performed by people who are lawyers.

What happens is that we see countless dead ends where, because the Office of Professional Responsibility has jurisdiction, the inspector general may not tread. They hit dead end after dead end. In the absence of evidence of actual criminal misconduct, they can't proceed, and nobody else can penetrate it. It ought not take evidence of criminal accountability--of criminal liability to enable the inspector general to do his or her job.

There are myriad circumstances where someone might engage in unseemly, unethical, unwise behavior within the Department. Whether they are lawyers or whether they are not and separate and apart from whether those deviate from the professional standards imposed by the State bar of any State, by the rules of any court, or the professional standards for lawyers operating within the U.S. Department of Justice, there is an adequate, independent, freestanding interest that the American people have in being able to gain access to that information. But, alas, since 1988, section 8E of the Inspector General Act has precluded his visibility. This needs to stop.

As my friend and colleague the Senator from Illinois stated so well moments ago, this bill is not either Republican or Democratic; it is not liberal or conservative. I have been a proud supporter of this bill and sponsored this bill during a Republican administration because I believe that regardless of who is in power, we need visibility into the Department of Justice--visibility that we have in every other Federal Agency, every one. We lack it here. We lack it here with respect to a whole lot of what the Department of Justice does because of this loophole in section 8E. What benefit does this bring to the American people? To the extent there are benefits there, I respectfully submit, they don't even come close to offsetting what we lose in terms of visibility.

We need this. We need it now as much as ever. I implore my colleagues to support it.

Mr. President, I agree with and echo the observations made by my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Illinois. I would like to add a couple of things in response to the observations and remarks presented by the Senator from Arkansas.

One of the points that he made that I feel compelled to respond to is he expressed concern about what he describes as potential weaponization of--I feel compelled to respond, in particular, to his argument that the Inspector General Access Act could result in the weaponization of allegations of attorney misconduct within the Department of Justice and that this could be used in circumstances to intimidate, threaten, and harass Department of Justice attorneys, including prosecutors, for either taking or not taking actions in retaliation to the same.

This is always a concern. It is a concern that follows government, generally. It is, in particular, a concern that follows Federal prosecutors. It is also not a concern that is unique to the Inspector General Access Act.

With or without passage of this, there is always a risk of that happening. Nothing about that risk that we immunize ourselves from by leaving intact the loophole--and it is a loophole. It is a deliberate carve-out in Section 8E of the Inspector General Act. It is a loophole. And my friend from Arkansas is right, it is not unintended. It is intentionally created. It was there for a reason. I don't mean to suggest any nefarious motive on the part of those who created it, but it might have been a shortsighted move at the time. It has, at least, in time, exposed a vulnerability in Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

If the risk is weaponizing allegations of professional misconduct against Department of Justice lawyers, that is not something that we are immune from today. It is something that I am certain the Office of Professional Responsibility deals with all the time. It doesn't mean we make ourselves more vulnerable to it. It is simply by allowing the inspector general of the Department of Justice to do his or her job without regard to who is a lawyer and who is not, and without regard to this special carve-out for this one Federal Agency that makes it different from every other Federal Agency, including what makes Department of Justice lawyers different from attorneys in every Federal Agency.

If the risk is that you might have people who, for bad reasons, might make up allegations of misconduct, there is no more risk of that with an inspector general than there is with the Office of Professional Responsibility.

Here, again, they perform different functions. One of them is there specifically to deal with the rules of professional responsibility within the practice of law by Department of Justice lawyers. That is their focus. Their focus is not a broad one. Their focus does not include or extend to issuing a public report to inform the public about abuses of power.

My friend from Arkansas is right. They can go in--if there are allegations of criminal misconduct and if they have evidence of the same that they have to pursue--yes, they can do that. That doesn't mean we don't need an inspector general capable of doing the job of the inspector general.

He also made the argument that there is no expertise among and between inspectors general with regard to handling allegations of attorney misconduct. If that is true, the same can be said of all other attorneys and all other departments.

My friend from Arkansas does correctly point out that attorneys within the Department of Justice--at least some of them do--perform different functions than what we see from attorneys in other Federal Agencies. That part is true. But that doesn't mean inspectors general assigned to the Department of Justice don't have the expertise necessary to investigate the types of allegations that they typically investigate.

My friend from Arkansas also points out inspectors general tend to focus on allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse. Yes, this is absolutely true, and this is absolutely why we should not limit the access that inspectors general in the Department of Justice have to attorneys. Remember, this is a department that is all about law. It is focused on law. It is, therefore, not surprising that they have an unusual abundance of lawyers.

You know what the Office of Professional Responsibility is not focused on--is not really their role; they are not involved in; they are not trained in--their focus is not on issuing public reports and informing the American

people of allegations of things like waste, fraud, and abuse, generally. They have a much narrower function and perform that function especially well. They perform it laudably, and they do a great job of doing it.

It is not the same thing as an IG. We need IGs with access to visibility into the Department of Justice. We don't have it now. We haven't since 1988. Thirty-three years is long enough. Let's close the 8E loophole and give the Department of Justice inspector general the access needed.

Madam President, when the Grinch stole Christmas, it was a relatively simple operation, one that required a relatively simple solution.

Unfortunately, cold, unfeeling regulations and entrenched bureaucracies do not have undersized hearts; hearts that can somehow grow three sizes.

Protectionist laws and labor support shortages do not warm to holiday cheer.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused our already deeply troubled economy problems, and it has caused our already deeply troubled supply chain to become mired with challenges of all sorts, including truckdriver shortages, outdated port technology, lack of container storage capacity, port labor difficulties, and scarce freight equipment.

In fact, as situations become more dire with the supply chain crisis, with inflation, and with shortages all over the country, our own regulations do a whole lot to delay and disrupt solutions that we need the most at the time we most need them.

Americans are feeling the pain of skyrocketing prices, of shipping delays, and empty shelves as our laws and bureaucracies fail to respond to shipping backlogs and labor shortages. The system just is not working. And President Biden's press release policies have not fixed it. In fact, they have made it much, much worse.

Like so many problems during his Presidency, President Biden is not touching them with a 39\1/2\-foot pole.

As the holidays are here, we see the problems continuing to mount. And these problems needed solutions many, many months ago, but there is still hope. My STOP the GRINCH Act can help us fix the supply chain crisis and save Christmas.

This is a bill that focuses on the problems that are actually slowing down our supply chain, and it is a bill that, if enacted, would get products off of ships, onto trucks, and into stores so that people in Utah and across the Nation could get the things they need for everyday life and especially for Christmas.

By suspending a number of Federal restrictions on ports, on ships, and on trucks, we can help clear the backlog at our ports, get products onto shelves, and get the presents under the trees.

The bill will help solve our truckdriver shortage by temporarily lowering the commercial driver license age to 18 for interstate travel, and it would waive for 1 year the hours-of-service requirements, specifically, for those involved in transporting containers into and out of ports.

The bill would allow for more ships to move more freely and to move cargo between American ports by waiving the Jones Act, and it would also allow for Federal land that has been designated as appropriate for multiple use to be used to temporarily store cargo containers. That would do a lot in and of itself to help us break our port logjams. A combination of these things would do so masterfully.

And, finally, my bill would help ease the lack of freight equipment by allowing excess Department of Defense equipment to be used to help move cargo. A lot of our problems can be traced to a lack of available truck chassis, and if we open up those that are deemed excess, we can do a lot to move freight.

While this bill doesn't address every challenge with our supply chain, it does provide tangible solutions that, if enacted into law, would solve real problems right now.

Look, we can end this nightmare before Christmas. We can stop the Grinch, save our holidays, and secure our economy.

My STOP the GRINCH Act is the start to a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

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

Mr. President, the Senate, today, will pass a bill that, quite literally, gives a blank check to President Biden and the Democrats. They will use it to pass the ``destroy America bill,'' which they call Build Back Better.

There is literally a blank check in the bill. It is literally a blank check. The Senators who gave that blank check don't want you to know that they did it. They used procedural jiujitsu to hide their votes. Republicans are hiding behind Democrats, and Democrats are hiding behind Republicans, but the American people see through it.

They closed the doors, held their noses, and created a new way to pass bad bills and claimed that it was just this one time.

Mark my words: This bill will be one more tool repeatedly used to abuse the American people.

This debt ceiling increase is a blank check for the Democrats' reckless tax-and-spending bill. It should have never happened.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to support a number of our nominees for Ambassadors and positions within the State Department.

As the chair of the European Affairs Subcommittee, I am particularly concerned about the number of openings we have in Europe for Ambassadors.

I want to support today Mark Gitenstein, again, to be U.S. Ambassador to the European Union; Kent Logsdon to be U.S. Ambassador to Moldova; Michael Murphy to be U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina; Clair Cronin to be U.S. Ambassador to Ireland; Denise Bauer to be U.S. Ambassador to France and Monaco; and Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon to be Ambassador to Spain and Andorra.

Those are the Ambassadors in Europe whom I wanted to raise this afternoon, but I also want to raise concern about Rufus Gifford, who has been nominated to be Chief of Protocol for the Department of State.

As I said, I am chair of the European Subcommittee, so I have had the opportunity to attend the hearings for these nominees and to see just how qualified they are and how important to American foreign policy they are.

Earlier this week, Victoria Nuland, who is an Under Secretary at the Department of State, testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the U.S. foreign diplomacy is operating at quarter-power as a consequence of the numerous holds that have been placed on ambassadorial appointments by just a few of our Republican colleagues.

I have some maps here that I think really very vividly demonstrate the consequences of this inaction in the Senate.

The first map shows where we have U.S. Ambassadors to Europe. You can see that anything blue is where we have Ambassadors. On this map, everything from Spain to Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Ireland--we have no U.S. Ambassadors approved in those countries.

Compare that to what Russia and China have in terms of their diplomatic ability in Europe. The gold color is Russian Ambassadors, countries where Russia has their Ambassadors--virtually every country in Europe. Red is where China has its Ambassadors--virtually every country in Europe. Again, the United States, our Ambassadors in Europe--it is basically empty. Finland, Sweden, Norway, Spain, France, Germany, Poland, Ireland, the EU--we are desperately in need of Ambassadors because right now, we have very little presence in Europe.

This is happening at a time when we know there are significant challenges taking place in Europe, particularly in Ukraine, where Russia is threatening to invade Ukraine, its sovereign territory, again, and where we need--if we are going to be successful in responding to Russia--where we need to take a unified approach among our allies. We need to be working with the EU, with NATO, with all of our European allies.

Yet, in most of the countries where we need to be working, we don't have Ambassadors, and we don't have Ambassadors because of opposition from just a few of our Republican colleagues.

I see Senator Cruz on the floor, so I know that he is going to be here to object to my effort to move these. But this is the impact of what is happening as a result of the holds of Senator Cruz. We can't put our national security in the hands of those people who don't have the status of Ambassadors. We know that our Embassies are doing a great job in all of those countries. They are working hard. But it makes a difference to have someone who has been approved by the Senate, who has been nominated by the President, who has the rank of Ambassador.

As I think about the challenges that are facing this country, I can't think of anything that is more harmful to our foreign policy than deliberately hampering this country's ability to advance American interests on the international stage.

I want to say a few words about each of these nominees before I move for unanimous consent. Again, I would like to begin with Mark Gitenstein, who has already served our Nation before. He was the U.S. Ambassador to Romania. He has spent over 25 years working on energy issues. And as we think about the negotiations that are happening around energy and Nord Stream 2 in particular, which I know is a concern for Senator Cruz because it is a concern that I have, we don't have an ambassador to the EU at the table for those discussions. Mr. Gitenstein's nomination is critically important in responding to Russia's weaponization of gas flows to Europe and strengthening the transatlantic alliance as we face escalating aggression from Russia.

Similarly, Kent Logsdon's nomination as Ambassador to Moldova couldn't come at a more critical moment where Russia is, again, using energy there as a weapon.

Maia Sandu--the newly elected, pro-EU, pro-reform President there-- has every intention of steering Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, toward a better path, and she is looking west to do that. But, of course, she has already faced pressure from Putin and his cronies, who have threatened to weaponize gas flows into Moldova.

We can't allow Moldova to become the next Ukraine or the next Georgia, and we can only prevent that by conveying strong U.S. leadership to support its pro-European aspirations.

I also want to say a few words on Michael Murphy's nomination as Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. America played a critical role in bringing peace to Bosnia through the Dayton Accords, but we are seeing now that peace and stability in Bosnia and unity in Bosnia are under increasing attack.

Earlier today, I had a chance to meet with the Bosnian Foreign Minister, and I am seriously concerned by the deteriorating political situation there. It requires an expert career diplomat like Michael Murphy to provide the commanding leadership to help Bosnia through this moment.

The same is true in Ireland. Claire Cronin's nomination as Ambassador to Ireland is not just a symbolic gesture to a longstanding ally of the United States. Peace in Northern Ireland is hanging by a thread as the UK, Ireland, and the EU handle the fallout from Brexit.

I was concerned by the release of a report on Tuesday which indicated that the paramilitary gangs embedded in Northern Ireland's divided communities pose a ``clear and present danger'' of violence fueled by post-Brexit tensions. By stalling our confirmation of Ms. Cronin, we risk tarnishing our legacy in fostering peace in Northern Ireland through the Good Friday Agreement.

Of course, Denise Bauer's nomination to France is necessary as the country prepares for national elections next year. These elections have significant implications for our bilateral relationship, in addition to the role France will play in the EU and NATO.

Similarly, Julissa Reynoso's nomination to Spain requires swift confirmation. Spain will host the Madrid Summit next year, where NATO will elect the next Secretary General and finalize the strategic concept. What happens in NATO is critical to America's national security, and we want to have an ambassador on the ground there who can monitor what is going on with those talks, in addition to the other officials we need to send.

Finally, Ambassador Rufus Gifford has been nominated to be the Chief of Protocol for the Department of State. He previously served as our Ambassador to Denmark, where the Queen there acknowledged him for his meritorious service to the Kingdom of Denmark. His background and service will make him an excellent Chief of Protocol, and we urgently need him in place to assist Secretary Blinken.

Combined, these nominations are all critical to immediate challenges facing our national security interests.

With that in mind, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Executive Calendar Nos. 320, 440, 447, 448, 450, 454, and 519; that the Senate vote on the nominations en bloc without intervening action or debate; that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the Record; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

My colleague and I agree on our opposition to Nord Stream 2, but I am not looking at it, despite your accusations, through the same partisan lens that you are, Senator Cruz.

And I would go back--I think you threw out a lot of red herrings in your initial objection there, one of which was to suggest that I said that you had a hold on our Ambassador to Ukraine, and I actually agree with you. I think this administration needed to appoint that Ambassador to Ukraine 8 months ago.

And if you agree with me right now, then will you agree that you will not put a hold on the Ukraine nomination, once we get it--if we get it within the next couple of weeks, before the end of this year?

I will ask you to think about that for a minute because I do think we need to have an Ambassador there. And that is certainly on my list of places in Europe where we need Ambassadors.

But I think the bigger question now, you suggest that the mere action of sanctioning Nord Stream 2 would be enough to deter Putin and his ambitions in Ukraine. Sadly, I think that is a simplistic analysis of the situation that we are in because the biggest deterrent we can provide right now to what Putin is thinking about is to let him know that we are united with our allies in Europe on our opposition to any action he might take in Ukraine, that we are united with our NATO allies, that we are united with our European allies. And, unfortunately, one of those major allies is Germany.

And I don't think it would be good for the unity message that we need to give to Putin to, at this point, sanction Nord Stream 2 because I think the Germans are going to come to that conclusion on their own. They have a new administration. They have a new administration that has issued some contracts--what they call contracts in developing their coalition government--that have a very different tone with respect to how they are talking about Russia and China, for that matter, and so I think it is more prudent.

I also have real concerns about the current legislation on Nord Stream 2. But I think it is more prudent for us to continue to work with our allies to make clear to Putin what is at stake. And Nord Stream 2 is at stake if he goes into Ukraine. There is no about that. And right now, as we know, the certification of the pipeline has been delayed, and it has been delayed until well after the first of the year. We are not sure what the timetable is, but it is going to be sometime after the spring.

So I just came to a different conclusion than you did, Senator Cruz, about the best way to deter Putin at this point. I think it is to work together. It is not to poke a finger at our most prominent ally on this issue and suggest that we create those divisions, which is what you would like to do.

And I think, furthermore, that the efforts to undermine our appointment of Ambassadors and our ability for the State Department to conduct foreign policy further weakens our ability to negotiate with Putin. And it sends a message about divisions within Congress that is really not helpful. It is not helpful as Putin is watching us; it is not helpful as China is watching us.

So you and I just have fundamentally different views of how best to address this issue and how we can achieve the goal that we both want, which is to end Nord Stream 2 and reduce Europe's dependence on Russia and to prevent Putin from invading Ukraine.

So, Mr. President, I object.

Will my colleague let me ask a question?

I just want to correct what I said because I think the Senator mischaracterized it.

What I said was, we know that the certification has been delayed until after the first of the year, and it is not likely to happen until after the spring, which is well later than January, February, So I just want to correct for the record that. And I think if you look at what is being proposed, you will find that it is even later than that.

Then I went on to say, after the spring, as well. I just want the Senator to listen to what I said.

Mr. President, I just want to clarify a couple of things that Senator Cruz said. One is that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was completed, despite those sanctions, because what Russia did was to employ their own ships with Gazprom and complete the Nord Stream 2 pipeline despite the sanctions that we had threatened. And it was, in fact, not until right before he left office that President Trump actually invoked some of those sanctions.

So, again, I think the response has been somewhat simplistic in terms of what we really need to do now to address what is happening with Russia and Ukraine. And I certainly applaud our allies: Poland and Ukraine. But I think we need to stand united with many more of our allies in Europe in order to deter Putin that the United States, Poland, and Ukraine probably are not going to do it on our own, and we need all of us to act together.

Also, you know, maybe if we had our Ambassador to the EU, he could have reported to the Senate what the vote was in the EU about Nord Stream 2, but because he is still on hold, we haven't had a chance to hear from him.

I would also point out that at this time in the first year of the Trump administration, 44 of his Ambassadors had been confirmed, compared to 13 for the Biden administration. And, you know, it seems like there ought to be a number of things we can agree on. And by the way, there was going to be a vote on Nord Stream 3 before some of your colleagues objected to the process under the Defense bill. If that hadn't happened, we would have actually had a vote on Nord Stream 2 and we could see what the view of this body is. But, unfortunately, it was because of those objections that we didn't get that vote.

I think, again, if you look at our ability to conduct our foreign policy and to be effective against Vladimir Putin, one of the most important things we can do is to put in place our diplomats so that they can help advance American foreign policy.

What is happening right now, in addition to those people you have on hold, we have over 50 State Department nominees on hold because of your objections and the objections of some of your other colleagues. Again, I don't think that is where most of the Members of your caucus are. I think most of them, while they may not agree with all these Ambassadors, they would agree that we should go forward and allow our foreign policy to move forward with diplomats.

I understand your objection to Nord Stream 2. As I said, I have objected to Nord Stream 2. But I think at this point what we need to do is look at how we can conduct our foreign policy in a way that best puts pressure on Vladimir Putin, and I just disagree with you that that is going to do it right now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, you know, in Washington, there is always political rhetoric that goes around. The Senator from New Hampshire just moments ago described the Embassies in Europe that are missing Ambassadors. She said they are missing Ambassadors because of Republican objections, and she highlighted in particular Ukraine.

I would like to point out there is some irony in her doing so because actually the reason there is no Ambassador in Ukraine is because of one thing and one thing only: President Biden has not nominated anybody to serve as Ambassador to Ukraine. We are in December of the first year of his Presidency, and Biden has yet to name an ambassador. So there are no Republican holds, there are no Republican objections to an ambassador that Biden has not even named.

In addition, there were multiple Ambassadors who have been named whom the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has yet to hold a hearing on. For every one of those nominees on whom there hasn't been a hearing, again, there are no Republican objections; it is simply that the Senate Democrats have failed to move forward with hearings.

But there are a number of nominees who have been nominated and who have had hearings on whom I have holds. And we are here today once again because the Democrats in this Chamber have been unwilling to do the one thing that would stop Vladimir Putin from potentially invading Ukraine, which is sanctioning the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline and making sure that it never becomes fully operational.

Now, Senator Shaheen, along with every other Senator in this Chamber, knows exactly why I have holds on these nominees. Right now, as we speak, over 100,000 Russian troops are massed on the border of Ukraine, waiting to invade. And it is Joe Biden's fault because it is a direct consequence of President Biden's surrender to Vladimir Putin on Nord Stream 2.

For those watching at home asking ``What is Nord Stream 2?'' it is a pipeline being constructed from Russia to Germany to carry natural gas. Putin is building Nord Stream 2 to go around Ukraine because right now, Russian gas gets to Europe through Ukraine.

Putin didn't just wake up one day and decide to invade Ukraine; he has wanted to invade Ukraine for years. He did it in 2014, but he stopped short of a full invasion because he needed to use Ukrainian energy infrastructure to transport Russian gas to the European market. Ukraine's energy infrastructure is their insurance policy against a Russian invasion.

Nord Stream 2 is all about Putin building an alternative avenue to get Russian gas to Europe. So if Nord Stream 2 comes online, it leaves Ukraine exposed to Russian aggression.

Just 2 years ago, we had a bipartisan consensus in the Senate that we needed to stop Nord Stream 2. Now, Senator Shaheen knows that well because she and I authored the legislation together. She and I worked together to get the support of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and the support of Democrats and Republicans in the House. The Cruz- Shaheen legislation sanctioning Nord Stream 2 passed both Houses of Congress overwhelmingly and was signed into law. The Cruz-Shaheen legislation worked marvelously well, so well that Putin stopped construction of Nord Stream 2 the day that President Trump signed our legislation into law--not even a week later, not a month later, but the very day that our sanctions were signed into law.

It was an incredible, bipartisan national security victory that we won together, and that victory continued for over a year. For over a year, Nord Stream 2 lay dormant on the bottom of the ocean, dead, until, unfortunately, Joe Biden became President.

Almost from the moment of election day, Biden and the incoming administration began projecting weakness to Russia and Putin, and to understand just how much that message was received: Joe Biden was sworn in as President on January 20, 2021. Putin began building the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline again on January 24, 2021, 4 days after Biden was sworn in.

In the Senate, I introduced legislation again in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that passed in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--in this Senate--with overwhelming bipartisan support to sanction Nord Stream 2 yet again. But this summer, the Biden White House made a political decision to surrender completely to Putin on Nord Stream 2, and President Biden waived the sanctions on Nord Stream 2. He did so overruling the recommendations of his own State Department that argued that this protects U.S. national security interests, this stands up to Russia, and this protects Ukraine. The Biden White House didn't care about any of that--overruled it all.

Then, unfortunately, Senate Democrats lost their willingness to hold Biden to account. This is an issue on which Democrats and Republicans are agreed on the substance. But it can be difficult to stand up to a President of your own party, and on Nord Stream 2, Senate Democrats have not been willing to do so. They were eager to do so when Donald Trump was in the White House, but when a Democrat was in the White House, suddenly their willingness to stand up to the President evaporated.

So the holds that I have placed are directly in order to try to force Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to follow the law and stand up to Russia and stand up to Putin.

So I will offer my colleague Senator Shaheen a deal that I have offered many times to the White House, to the State Department, to the Department of the Treasury, and to Senate Democrats--a deal that if we, as the Senate, will impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2, CAATSA sanctions--yet another Russia sanctions bill that both Senator Shaheen and I voted for, that we both advocated and supported, and that the Biden administration is refusing to apply--if the Senate will impose those sanctions, I will happily, enthusiastically lift my holds on these nominees, and Senator Shaheen can take her map of Europe and color in all of those countries. We can do that right now by doing the right thing substantively.

By the way, this is the one step which has a real possibility of stopping a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This past weekend, the Biden administration declassified their own internal projections that an invasion is imminent; it could happen as soon as January or February. And if we see Russian tanks in the streets of Kiev, it will

be because Joe Biden surrendered to Putin and Senate Democrats weren't willing to hold him to account.

I hope that is not the case. We can act right now to sanction Nord Stream 2 to stop the pipeline from being operational, to stop Putin and the soldiers at the border to prevent the invasion, and to clear these ambassadorial nominees that my Democratic colleagues want.

Accordingly, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 3322 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; 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, reserving the right to object. You know, I would note that Senator Shaheen said it was simplistic to say that sanctioning Nord Stream 2 would stop a Russian invasion of Ukraine. And in that, Senator Shaheen may well be right.

I cannot guarantee that Nord Stream 2 sanctions would prevent an invasion of Ukraine. What we do know is, it has in the past--what we do know is that in 2014, when Putin invaded Ukraine in the Crimea, that he stopped short of a full invasion because he needed the Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

And we also know that, during the more than a year in which the Cruz- Shaheen sanctions were in effect and Nord Stream 2 was dead, that Putin didn't amass troops in preparation for an invasion. So we know that it has been effective.

And we also know, although I cannot promise that sanctioning Nord Stream 2 would prevent an invasion--we know the obverse is true, which is that allowing Nord Stream 2 to go online and become operational would invite an invasion.

Senator Shaheen noted that the certification process is expected to be concluded in January or February of next year.

I would note that according to the Biden administration's own documents, the Russian invasion is expected, potentially, in January or February of next year. I do not believe it is coincidental that the instant Putin can turn on the switch of Nord Stream 2 is when the tanks are preparing to invade.

If the Senate Democrats continue their partisan blockade of sanctions, they are inviting a Russian invasion.

I would happily consent to a colloquy.

Well, I will accept that correction. I don't believe the Senator said the spring. I think the Senator said after the first of the year, but--

I do not think it is coincidental that the timing of Nord Stream 2 and the timing of an invasion are intertwined.

Now, Senator Shaheen also suggested the way to prevent an invasion is to be united with our allies. I actually agree with that.

I would point out that this summer, when President Biden waived the sanctions on Nord Stream 2, do you know what our allies said? Ukraine and Poland put out a joint statement. I would encourage you to read the joint statement from the Foreign Ministers of Ukraine and Poland because they denounced the Biden administration for waiving sanctions on Nord Stream 2.

And do you know what Ukraine told us? That waiving those sanctions makes a military attack on Ukraine much more likely. That is what Poland told us.

Senator Shaheen knows that. She has spoken with the governments of both countries, I am sure. I have spoken with the governments of both countries. And they adamantly believe that waiving those sanctions is a major force increasing the likelihood of a Russian invasion.

You know, one of the things that is striking in the debates we have had in Nord Stream 2, throughout the course of all of this, we have yet to see a single Democrat stand up and defend the Biden administration's waiver of sanctions on Nord Stream 2 on the merits. They all know it is wrong.

The only arguable benefit that the Biden White House claims is they

earned some good will with Angela Merkel. Angela Merkel had been the leader of Germany. But, as Senator Shaheen noted, she is no longer the leader of Germany. The German people voted her party out of office. And the new administration is expected to oppose Nord Stream 2.

So we literally have a situation in which the Biden White House surrendered to Russia, gave a multibillion-dollar pipeline to finance the Russian military, abandon our Ukrainian allies, and did it all in search of good will from a leader who is no longer in office.

Do you want us to be united? The European Parliament voted to condemn Nord Stream 2. The last vote was roughly 500 to 50 to condemn Nord Stream 2. Do you want to be united? How about if we stand with the 500 and not the 50?

If Senate Democrats would not object to my motion, we would be standing with the whole of Europe, and we would be united.

And a final observation, Senator Shaheen decried the holds as an effort to undermine Ambassadors. I would note that I have offered here, as I have offered many, many times--as I have offered in writing as far back as August of this year--to lift the holds if we adopt policy that actually stands up to Russia.

Senator Shaheen says her changed position is not partisan. I understand why one would want to say that. But her substantive argument is, now, she doesn't want us to disagree with Germany.

Well, when Senator Shaheen and I authored Cruz-Shaheen in 2019, when we authored the second Cruz-Shaheen in 2020, when we passed both of them, we were disagreeing with Germany. The German Government was very unhappy with it. But it was the right thing for American national security. Nothing has changed.

And by the way, when there was a Republican President in the White House, I repeatedly took on the Trump administration and pressed them on this issue. The only thing that has changed--one thing has changed: the letter behind the name of the person in the White House. Now, it is a ``D'' and not an ``R.'' And all the Democrats who gave speeches on Nord Stream 2, suddenly, we hear crickets. That needs to change.

I object.

Mr. President, a brief moment of clarification. Several of the facts that I said in my remarks are undisputed because they are undisputable.

No. 1, it is a fact that Putin stopped construction of Nord Stream 2 the day--the exact day--that President Trump signed the Cruz-Shaheen sanctions into law--that day--and the pipeline was dormant for over a year.

Now, Senator Shaheen said Putin ultimately went back to building the pipeline even with the sanctions on the books. That is true--after Joe Biden was sworn into office. Putin began building the pipeline on January 24, 2021, 4 days after Biden was sworn in. Not a foot of the pipeline was built between December of 2019, when the sanctions were signed into law, and January 24. Putin began building the pipeline because Biden telegraphed his surrender.

Secondly, Senator Shaheen suggested that if only we had an ambassador, we might know what the European Parliament did. Thankfully, we have these magic little devices that let us cross the Atlantic in the twinkle of an eye, so we actually know that the European Parliament voted roughly 500 to 50 to condemn Nord Stream 2. So if we want to stand united with Europe--not just Ukraine and Poland; Europe--we want to stand up to Nord Stream 2.

A final point I will say to Senator Shaheen perhaps is a word of encouragement, which is that I have right now pending an offer with the Democratic leadership to lift a number of these holds--a significant number of these holds--if the Democratic leadership will agree to a vote on Nord Stream 2 sanctions. We are engaged in productive negotiations on that issue. If the Democrats cease obstruction, we can have that vote, and a number of these holds can be lifted. But that ultimately is going to be a decision for Senate Democrats.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, it is a pleasure, and I appreciate my friend, Senator Blunt.

I am here today to rise for the 10th time to talk about the rightwing scheme to capture our Supreme Court.

As the Presiding Officer knows, I have delivered a lot of speeches on the Senate floor, and a majority of them--279 of them, to be precise-- addressed climate change. These were my ``Time to Wake Up'' speeches, many of which focused on the network of phony front groups and trade associations used by the fossil fuel industry to block any meaningful climate legislation.

That vast web of climate denial and climate obstruction is one of the main reasons that we are in the climate crisis we face today. I am here today to report that there is common technique behind that smelly climate denial operation and the rightwing donor operation to capture the Court.

They both rely on massive amounts of dark money. They both rely on a small number of ultrawealthy donors who supply that dark money. And they both rely on an armada of front groups and phony corporate entities, funded by those big donors, to hide their hands. At this point, it is, actually, depressingly, familiar.

But it is worse than just common technique. It is the same entities: the Koch operation, Americans for Prosperity, DonorsTrust, the Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The list goes on and on and on. These are the exact same players on both sides of the operation--on the climate-denying web and on the Court-capturing scheme.

My colleagues and I showed in a number of Web of Denial climate speeches how a few ultrawealthy, rightwing foundations, corporate trade groups, and so-called donor-advised funds supply the bulk of the dark money for modern-day climate denial.

Big oil companies used to do that directly, but they got burned and learned that it is bad for their public image, and I suspect they are hiding now behind those anonymizing entities and trade groups.

The big funding guns included the Koch network; the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation; the Searle Freedom Trust; the Sarah Scaife Foundation; Donors Capital; and DonorsTrust, which has been called the rightwing's ``dark money ATM.''

This is the Web of Denial graphic that we used in many of those Web of Denial speeches, and you will see these groups turning up over and over again. They are central in the web of climate denial.

Now, if you look at the big funders behind the scheme to capture the Court, you will see this--in my last scheme speech, I talked about the flotillas of amici curiae--or ``friends of the court''--who come in and orchestrate phalanxes to file briefs for the rightwing in cases of significance to the scheme's big donors. Well, it turns out that those funders also inhabit the web of denial.

This is an appendix that I filed in the case of Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau--a case that was the rightwing's shot at weakening a consumer watchdog agency they hate. This appendix--a first of its kind in the Supreme Court, which was attached to my amicus brief--looked at some of the other amici who had filed briefs and cross-referenced where their funding had come from.

My point then was that the Court was not told that there was this huge overlap of funding. Each brief came in as if it were independent rather than part of an orchestrated cascade. So nearly every one of these groups is part of the web of denial: DonorsTrust, Donors Capital, the Charles Koch Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, the Searle Foundation.

But the overlay isn't just with the phony amicus flotillas that are orchestrated up at the Supreme Court; it is right in the cases themselves. Take the notorious anti-labor cases of Friedrichs and Janus. According to a trove of documents uncovered in 2016, legal groups funded by the Bradley Foundation brought those cases. They weren't just amici filing briefs; they were the litigating law group in those cases. The law group went out and found the plaintiffs-- plaintiffs of convenience, and they paid the plaintiffs' legal expenses. Those same donors, Bradley has shown in this, funded that whole boatload of amici who came in to support their also-funded group that was bringing the case on behalf of a nominal plaintiff. By the way, they funded a flotilla of amici in Janus. Seventeen Supreme Court amicus briefs came from groups funded by DonorsTrust, Donors Capital, and Bradley.

The front groups in those labor cases actually played a little bit of switcheroo amongst themselves. Think of the pea-and-shell game. The group that brought the case in Friedrichs became an amicus supporting the plaintiff in Janus. The group that brought the case in Janus had been an amicus supporting the plaintiff in Friedrichs. All of those groups--the ones that brought the two cases and the groups that chimed in as amici--were funded by the same organizations. It is a little bit like that pea-and-shell game except, if you know the parties, it is being played with transparent shells; but for some reason, the Court is incapable of noticing this scheme that is being pulled in plain view, in their presence.

Now, some front groups are invented shells--purpose built--just to hide whoever is behind them. Others are preexisting, captured, and co- opted. The key common characteristic, whether invented or captured and co-opted, is that they got to hide the donors. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the easy example of a captured and co-opted group.

According to the watchdog group InfluenceMap, the Chamber is one of the biggest climate obstructors in Washington.

Why?

The Chamber has lots of members who don't support climate obstruction, but someone--someone--gave the Chamber enough money to become a worst climate obstructor. And guess what. The Chamber is also a major player in the scheme. It is the biggest filer of scheme amicus briefs; it campaigned hard for all three of Trump's dark money-chosen Supreme Court Justices; and way back, it commissioned the Lewis Powell memo that launched the entire scheme.

Other major front groups serving both the web and the scheme include the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise.

Again, the common thread?

They all hide the donors so they can provide that vital screening, anonymizing function, which is key to the donors because they have to hide their identities and their motives in order to do their dark work.

On the scheme side, each one of these groups gets gobs of scheme dark money, helps hatch hot-house legal theories to present to scheme Justices, helps locate plaintiffs of convenience to bring cases for and/or joins the orchestrated flotillas of scheme amicus briefs. You see the same players over and over and over again, and how the Court manages not to notice or be curious is a mystery.

On the web side, each is also a central node in the web of denial. Here, for instance, is the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. Here is the Donors Trust, Donors Capital. Here is Koch-affiliated foundations. Here is Searle Freedom Trust. Here is the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. These groups pretty notoriously represent the interests of Big Business and rightwing donors, so you at least know that much, if not the specific identity of who is funding the brief. But some of the web-scheme overlay gets a little bit harder to unravel, so let's drill into one: the Independent Women's Forum.

This group was founded by rightwing donors in the very early days of the scheme to prop up the troubled nomination of Justice Thomas. It has accepted millions of dollars from a who's who of scheme and web-of- denial donors--Bradley, Scaife, Koch, Donors Trust. Its stated mission is to ``improve the lives of Americans by increasing the number of women who value free markets and personal liberty,'' but its real mission is to pop up anytime its dark money donors want to trot out a front group purporting to represent women. In practice, that means they pop up everywhere. They popped up in a pending Second Amendment case before the Court. They popped up in the Americans for Prosperity Foundation case that granted a constitutional right to dark money, signed off on by the dark money Justices. They popped up in the Little Sisters of the Poor contraception case. They popped up in a challenge to the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

The Independent Women's Forum's work in that EPA case brings the overlay between the web and the scheme into focus.

In 2016, the forum joined the dark money amicus flotilla asking the Supreme Court to strike down the EPA's Clean Power Plan, along with other web-scheme front groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Texas Public Policy Institute, and other groups opposing the EPA. These parties asked the Robert Court to stop the Clean Power Plan before it went into effect. Just days before Antonin Scalia died and their 5-to-4 majority evaporated, the Republican Justices obliged.

This was ``shadow docket'' work, for those of you following the Texas abortion case ``shadow docket'' fiasco.

In the EPA case, for the first time, the Court stepped in to stay a regulation before it went into effect and before the lower court had a chance to weigh in.

By the way, it was a purely partisan decision, with all the Republicans behind it and none of the other Justices.

Fast-forward to today. The Trump administration replaced the Clean Power Plan in 2018 with a Trump do-nothing, polluter-friendly rule. When the Biden administration came in, it completely abandoned the Trump do-nothing, polluter-friendly rule, so right now, there is actually no regulation to challenge. But the scheme has replenished its dark money Court and supercharged it with a sixth Justice.

They are out to disable what they call the administrative state for the sake of their big donors, so they sued again, backed by familiar organizations--the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Texas Public Policy Institute, and other web-scheme groups--to ask, as they put it in their brief, that the Court ``finish what it started when it stayed the [Clean Power Plan].''

There is no regulation to challenge. Yet the Republicans on the Court took the case--so much for the ``case or controversy'' principle of the Constitution. Now the Court, I guess, is going to make decisions based on what might happen. Where I come from, that is called an advisory opinion, which our Court is not supposed to do under the separation of powers. But the Federalist Society six on the Court are out for big game. The prize is to bring down the ``regulatory state'' altogether, and where better than where it most helps the fossil fuel industry--the

industry lurking behind this web of denial and likely also working behind the dark money that put the last Justices on the Court and likely also lurking behind the dark money millions that fund the Republican election groups.

This Clean Power Plan challenge opens an avenue for scheme-appointed Justices to delight the donors behind both the scheme and the web. In the short term, it would hobble the EPA's ability to combat climate change--something very much sought by vested interests in the fossil fuel industry. Over the long term, it would accomplish rightwing donors' goal of kneecapping Federal Agency power across the board.

For Donors Trust, the Chamber of Commerce, the Independent Women's Forum, and dozens of other groups that link the web and the scheme, winning cases like this one means big wins for their big secret donors.

To go back to my early speeches about the scheme, they are following Lewis Powell's advice years ago to seize what he called the ``most important instrument for social, economic, and political change''--the Federal judiciary--and to control it with what he called ``an activist- minded Supreme Court.'' The scheme has captured the Court. The scheme's captured Court will deliver for the web. It is the same donors and organizations behind both, and it has got to be cleaned up because this is not how courts are supposed to work.

To be continued.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Indiana. What he didn't have under that Christmas tree or in the stocking was a lump of coal because I guess a lump of coal is not something we would find in Build Back Better. Even though there is a lot of stuff in there that is really bad for our economy right now, bad for our families, bad for our workers. And when you think about it, right now, we are in a time of high inflation, supply chain difficulties, record levels of debt and deficit, and an uncertain economy due largely to the uncertainty regarding COVID and particularly this variant, the Omicron.

So this is not a time for us to be putting forward a massive new spending bill and a massive new tax increase on the American economy. In fact, it is the time for us to retrench a little bit and try to help to get back to where we were before COVID-19.

Remember, that was the time when after the 2017 tax reforms, we had a great economy, by any measure. And it was an opportunity time. It was the lowest poverty rate in the history of our country since we started keeping track in the 1950s.

As of February, just before going into the COVID-19 period, February 2020, we had 19 straight months of wage gain of over 3 percent. By the way, that was over inflation because inflation was so low. So people were feeling it. They were actually getting a wage increase. In my State of Ohio, that was the first time in probably a decade and a half.

Now, it is just the opposite. Wages are actually down when you take inflation into account. And inflation is high, as everyone feared because we have dumped so much on the demand side of the economy, and the supply side is restricted, in part, because of what has happened with COVID, and it creates this inflation. This was warned by not just Republicans like myself, but back in March, when President Biden and the Democrats put $1.9 trillion into this economy--the most ever, the biggest bill ever--it was Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, and NEC, National Economic Council, Chair under President Obama, who said: You know, this is going to stoke inflation. It is going to overheat the economy.

And that is exactly what it did.

So we have this high inflation. We have these record levels of debt and deficit. We are talking about extending the debt limit right now, and people think the number is going to be--just to extend it for about a year--over $2 trillion; meaning that we are spending so much more than we are taking in. And yet there is this discussion that somehow before Christmas we are going to put forward this Build Back Better legislation that we just talked about.

It is not building back America better. Unfortunately, it is building us worse off than we were and adding to inflation, adding to the supply chain difficulties, adding to the debt and deficits at record levels, and certainly doing nothing with regard to COVID-19.

So why would we do this? And certainly why would we do this now? It makes no sense. Well, because I guess there was a promise made that we are going to have this massive new spending and these massive new tax increases.

What is in there? Well, on the spending side, when you look at it, it is the largest spending bill ever put forward by the U.S. Congress, unless you believe that it is really only $1.7 trillion instead of two or three times that. In that case, it is the second biggest ever. But the analyses I have seen from the Penn Wharton study, from the Committee for a Responsible Budget, and from others said: You know, there are a lot of sunsets in there.

As an example, the child tax credit lasts for 1 year. Does anybody believe it only lasts for 1 year? That wouldn't be the history of this place. So it will continue.

So these sunsets are not going to be effective so the spending will continue to increase. The tax increases don't cover them so there will be a big gap accrued to the deficit, and the projections are it is more like $4\1/2\ trillion in spending. So it is the largest increase in the history of our country by far.

We are talking about doing this, again, at a time when already we have record levels of debt and deficit and high inflation and driven by COVID, a lot of uncertainty in our economy.

On the tax side, I could argue it is even worse because the tax increases are going to be hard on workers because they are taxes on businesses. What the Joint Committee on Taxation says--which is the nonpartisan group here in Congress that advises us--what CBO says, the Congressional Budget Office says, what other outside groups say is the same thing, which is when you tax these businesses, who gets taxed? Well, it is workers--lower wages, lower benefits.

Seventy percent of the benefit of our tax cuts in 2017 went to workers, and 70 percent of this increase in taxes will be coming out of workers' pockets. So it is a bad idea. But let's look a little deeper at what these taxes actually are. There is a 15-percent minimum tax--a new alternative minimum tax, which is always complicated for everybody to figure out what that is. But in this case, it is called the book tax.

Now, I don't know if this was on purpose or not. I assume it wasn't. But the book tax, as you apply it to our economy, will result in real damage to things that most people think are important like defined benefit plans, pension plans. Democrats and Republicans alike have supported defined benefit plans. I support them. Unfortunately, there aren't as many as there used to be. But there will be even fewer if this passes. Why? Because when you calculate your taxes under the book tax, you now have to take into account whatever your asset increase is in your pension. And if you are one of these companies caught up in this, you could well find yourself in a situation where, for the first time ever, you get no deduction for your contribution to your pension. Why would we do that? And then you are taxed on the asset increase, which may be caused by higher interest rates, may be caused by the market going up, but you get no benefit in your company, and your profits in your company may not be enough to pay those taxes.

Here is an example of this. There are some companies that have figured out this problem. By the way, there are some unions figuring it out, too, because a lot of union workers are caught up in this as well because they have defined benefit plans, typically. The company is saying: OK. If I make $100 million in profit and if I have a $2 billion or $1 billion increase in my pension assets and you apply a 15-percent tax to that, I am not going to have enough money to pay my taxes.

So what are they going to do? Well, they could declare bankruptcy. They could get a loan, which again hurts workers. So that, I hope, is an inadvertent part of this, but that is in this legislation.

Why do we want to hurt defined benefit plans?

I think it was an effort to say: OK. We are going to raise taxes, but we are going to do it in a sort of convoluted way so that it doesn't look like we are really raising taxes. But it is real taxes, and it is going to hurt, again, workers in America.

Another thing it would disqualify companies from doing is taking what is called bonus depreciation. All of us, I thought, were kind of supportive of that.

In 2017, that tax bill, this put in place where you can immediately write off expansion of plant equipment. Retailers love it, restaurants love it, and so do manufacturers. And they use it a lot. And those manufacturers are telling me: OK. Now, under the book tax, you have to go back to the regular depreciation so you are not writing things off that first year as you can now under bonus depreciation. Why would you want to do that right now, again, with all the economic uncertainty out there, with COVID, with inflation fears? We want to encourage people to expand plant equipment, and there are a lot of people hesitating. That is in this legislation.

Now let's talk quickly about the SALT provisions. We already know what that is because it has gotten a lot of play. But the State and local tax deduction means that in States like mine, Ohio, we are subsidizing high-tax States. So if you are from Missouri--Senator Blunt is here on the floor--or if you are from Ohio, by having a deduction for your State and local taxes at the Federal level, you are not only encouraging those States to continue to have high taxes and even have further taxes if you are being subsidized by Federal taxpayers, but it is unfair to those States that have done the responsible thing to try to keep taxes under control.

But in this legislation, Democrats say: No, we are going to increase this cap from 10,000 to 80,000 bucks a year; in other words, provide more help to the SALT beneficiaries. Guess what. There is an analysis out this week that says almost none of that benefit goes to Americans who are not in the top 10 percent of wage earners. Almost none of that benefit that is in this bill goes to people not in the top 10 percent. There is $285 billion devoted to this--$100 billion more than is devoted to the cornerstone social safety net program, the childcare credit in this bill. Over $100 billion more for this.

So how does this all shake out in terms of whom it is helping and whom it is hurting?

Well, here are what the numbers are. This is, again, the Joint Tax Committee, folks who are nonpartisan, looking at this. Almost 70 percent--almost 70 percent--of people who make $1 million or more a year are going to get a significant tax cut because of this legislation.

Think about that. It is about 68 percent-plus are going to get a significant tax cut if you make a million bucks a year. If you are a millionaire, you are going to do very well.

If you make between $500,000 and a million bucks a year, 90 percent will get a tax cut under this legislation.

But if you make $30,000 a year--only 30,000--only 30 percent of people who make $30,000 a year are going to get tax relief under this legislation, and that is just in the first year.

In the second year, it goes down below 30 percent to 12 percent; in the third year, 10 percent; and then it goes down to single digits. So the benefit is heavily skewed toward higher income Americans. Why would we do that? It just makes no sense. Are we worried about millionaires? But that is in this legislation.

So, again, I would say, Build Back Better? I don't think so. We were building pretty well when we had the lowest poverty rate in the history of our country, when we had the lowest unemployment rate ever for Blacks, Hispanics, the disabled, when we had 50-year lows in unemployment overall in our economy, when we had a situation where wages were going up--again, 19 straight months of 3 percent or more wage gains. It was real wage gains above inflation.

Let's get back to that. That is how you grow the opportunity economy. That is how you give people a chance. That is how you help everybody.

But let's not do this massive new spending bill that will cause more inflation, massive tax increases that are going to hurt the economy and hurt workers, especially coming into the holiday season. Let's instead do something that gives the American people the gifts they deserve.

I yield the floor.