SMART Community Policing Act

Madam President, first I would like to associate myself with the remarks from the distinguished senior Senator from North Dakota who spoke so well about the issues that are facing the American people, both in terms of inflation and in terms of energy.

So I join my colleagues today on the floor to talk about this crisis that we are facing under the Presidency of Joe Biden and the Democrats in this body.

We found out this morning that inflation hit another record high, a 40-year high, and we are now entering a summer of suffering by the American people, suffering brought on by the Democrats and their reckless spending and policies.

The inflation numbers themselves are shocking. The impact on families is so, so disturbing. In my home State of Wyoming, the people that normally volunteer to drive meals to shut-ins on Meals on Wheels--who run some of those rural routes and drive around and drop off meals-- these are volunteers with time on their hands, senior citizens who do the driving. They are no longer able to do it because they cannot afford the gas under Joe Biden and the Democratic policies.

The day Joe Biden came into office, gas was $2.38 per gallon--plenty of volunteers paying their own gas. Today, the price has almost doubled what it was when Joe Biden came into office.

That is what the American people are seeing: pain at the pump and pain at the grocery store. And the numbers are disturbing, and people are falling further and further behind. Inflation is up 9 percent, but wages are only up 5 percent, so that gap is growing and people are hurting.

It doesn't seem the President even understands it or can conceive of it, but that is who we have representing the people in the White House today.

Over the last 4 months, working families have paid the highest gas prices in American history. The price of natural gas has also tripled since the day Joe Biden took office. In total, the average American family paid an additional $1,000 last year just for energy compared to the year before, and this year it is going to be a lot worse.

Now, it is the summer. Most Americans are facing the real possibility of blackouts. Two-thirds of Americans are likely to face energy blackouts. That is not me saying it; it is the energy specialists who analyze where the energy is coming from, how much is needed, and where it is going.

During a summer heat wave, blackouts threaten people's lives. To the climate purists and elitists and extremists who are running the administration, they don't seem to care. So why is it happening? America still has plenty of energy--the best energy in the world--and the most. We have some of the largest energy reserves anywhere. States like Wyoming, where I am from, are sitting on a gold mine of energy. The Biden energy crisis is a direct result of the administration's energy policies.

From the day Joe Biden took office, he has waged an all-out war on American energy. He killed the Keystone XL Pipeline--actually bragged about the fact that he did that on his first day in office. He stopped the exploration of oil in Alaska and bragged about it. It wasn't something he was trying to hide. No, he bragged about the fact that he was going to war with America. American energy was in his targets.

Joe Biden has raised the cost to produce energy on Federal land by 50 percent. This is the largest increase in what they call the royalty rate in 100 years--100 years. Does Joe Biden understand that? Does he know that? Does he care that people are suffering all around the country? No wonder we are still producing 1.1 million fewer barrels of oil today than we were at the beginning of the pandemic.

Joe Biden refuses to do the things that would work. He refuses to produce more American energy.

What did the administration say about it? What did the economists say? This is the cost of the liberal world order. This is the price we have to pay for the liberal world order. That is the White House's statement. I don't even know people who talk that way anymore, but that is what we got coming out of this White House and this President who today, at this very moment,

is heading to Saudi Arabia to beg for oil when we have it right here. It is more than disturbing. It is disgraceful. That is what we have with the President of the United States today.

So now what is happening? Joe Biden throwing another Hail Mary pass, hoping something will happen. His Hail Mary passes are uncatchable.

Since November, Joe Biden has released more oil from our strategic reserve than any President in American history. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is designed to be there for emergencies. He is releasing it because he is trying to bring down the cost of oil and the cost of gas. And he caused the problem. It is not an emergency. This was a Joe Biden-caused problem. Previous Presidents only used the Strategic Reserve during wartime or after natural disasters. But Joe Biden is spending down our savings to pay for his anti-American energy policy. He seems to be proud of it. Well, gas prices are still near record highs.

Let's recount: the day Joe Biden came into the White House, $2.38 a gallon; today, in many places, over $5 a gallon and on average, $4.60 a gallon. And the peak summer driving season isn't even here yet.

Today, the Strategic Reserve is at the lowest level since 1986. So what if there is a real emergency? Then what do we do? This last week, we found out that some of this energy, the oil he has reserved--a million barrels of oil--went to an energy company owned by the Chinese Government. Thank you, Mr. President. Surrender to China. Give it to them. Joe Biden is sending our oil to China in the middle of an energy crisis that he created.

So, on Monday, Joe Biden's National Security Advisor practically admitted that Joe Biden is going to beg the Saudis to sell us more oil. He left for Saudi Arabia last night, and he is going as a weakened President.

He wrote an editorial in the Washington Post about why he was going. I will tell you how he is going: He is going as a weakened President, weakened at home and weakened in the eyes of the world.

Rather than send oil to China and money to the Saudis, let us use the energy we have right here in the United States in the ground, where we do it in the finest environmental ways compared to the rest of the world and we have the energy workers who know how to do it.

What is he thinking?

At the same time, astonishingly, Joe Biden decided to spend the time around the Fourth of July tweeting threats to gas stations. For the moms and pops who are running little gas stations in our communities and our neighborhoods, this is basic economic illiteracy. Prices aren't set by the local gas stations; prices are set by supply and demand. If you want low prices, you need more supply, more American energy.

The prices may have ticked back a little bit now because people cannot afford to drive. They can't afford to fill their tanks. They cannot afford to fill their tanks.

I was at a gas station the other day in Casper, WY, and I talked to a couple.

One of them said: I have $100. That is as far as I can go. I can only fill it with $100 worth. I can't fill the tank. I will see how much gas I get.

What have we come to?

Joe Biden brags about killing the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have brought over 800,000 barrels of oil a day to the United States. He killed it on day 1 in office and bragged about it.

The Democrats in the Senate are now proposing to make the Biden energy crisis even worse. Senate Democrats in this very body, in this very room, are talking about raising taxes on energy production. This is going to raise energy prices for half of the households in America. It will raise prices for thousands and thousands of businesses. Higher prices will get passed on to customers.

If Democrats pass another reckless tax-and-spending bill--and it looks like they are all lined up to do it, save one or two--inflation is going to get much worse, and working families will be paying more. If I were one of those Democratic Senators and were on the ballot this November, I would be shaking in my boots, knowing that the people of my State are mad at me for adopting policies that are hurting them directly in their wallets.

What they are talking about is $300 billion for more of the old Green New Deal. It is going to give more power to the climate alarmists, to the climate elitists, and to the climate extremists, who run the Democratic Party and are running it into the ground. The professional climate activists will never be satisfied. The activists will never stop. You can never go far enough for them. They weren't satisfied a year ago when they started this inflation crisis, and with the liberal world order, they will never be satisfied. The professional activists want energy prices to remain high. They are happy with $5 gas. They want to punish us for using fossil fuels.

Joe Biden's advisers keep telling us about this incredible transition. They call it an incredible transition. Well, ask people around the country and in your home State. It has been a transition to a crisis: a transition to higher prices, a transition to a lower quality of life, to pain at the pump, and to pain at the grocery store. It has been a transition to stress for working people and families who feel stuck and squeezed. If Democrats don't change their energy policies, there is going to be an incredible transition. It is going to be a transition of power right here in Washington this November.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, a few years ago, a police officer in Pueblo, CO, was kind enough to let me join him in a squad car for a few hours to get a sense of what his daily beat was like. It was in the middle of the night. It didn't take very long to appreciate that our country asks law enforcement to do a lot more than simply enforce the law.

Washington has underinvested in the American people year after year after year in areas like housing, education, and mental health. It has left law enforcement to pick up the pieces. It has put them in a position wherein they are not only having to serve as law enforcement officers but also as social workers, as mental health professionals, and as responders for issues like homelessness or drug addiction, even though nobody has trained them for it necessarily.

That result has been really tough for officers on the ground in Colorado and across the country. It strains their resources, adds to the workload, and accelerates burnout. It has also been hard for communities. It diverts law enforcement from violent crime, and it means we are forcing officers to address mental health issues and problems instead of dealing with the underlying issues that produce many 9-1-1 calls in the first place.

I am sad to say that all of these underlying issues that everybody is familiar with have gotten worse during the pandemic. It is one reason there has been a spike in crime that started in 2020, before the current administration, and it has continued ever since. In 2020, murders rose nearly 30 percent. Aggravated assault was up 12 percent. Motor vehicle theft was up 12 percent. Again, this was in 2020, before the current administration, but, sadly, many of these trends have continued. In a survey of small businesses, 54 percent of American small businesses reported an increase in shoplifting last year.

To deal with this rise in crime, we need to increase funding for the COPS Program, which I strongly support, so we can hire more officers and strengthen community police. I think we should pass a bill that I am introducing today, called the SMART Community Policing Act. The bill is based on 28 highly successful programs across Colorado, in places like Denver and Grand Junction.

As I mentioned, you know, a lot of 9-1-1 calls involve lower risk situations that don't always require a police officer, but some combination of an EMT, a mental health specialist, or a social worker can get the job done, allowing law enforcement to focus on violent crime, but in most of the country, law enforcement has to answer every one of those 9-1-1 calls.

The SMART Community Policing Act creates resources for law enforcement to partner with local organizations and service providers so they send the right responder depending on what the problem actually is. That lets law enforcement focus on violent crime and lets other responders with the right training deal with lower risk situations, like when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis or a severe drug withdrawal. These trained professionals can deescalate the situation. They can connect people with the right resources and do the comprehensive followup to keep them from requiring emergency services again and again and again.

Grand Junction's Co-Responder Unit has answered over 3,200 calls since the program began in 2018. Denver's STAR Program has responded to almost 4,600 calls since 2020.

I had a chance to hear about the STAR Program from Denver's police chief, Paul Pazen, 2 years ago. He told me about a mom who had called 9-1-1 because she was having a lot of trouble with her child. You don't need a police

officer for that, so they sent responders from STAR, who deescalated the situation and saved law enforcement precious time.

If you add it all up, those are thousands of hours that officers in Denver and Grand Junction and across Colorado could spend focusing on violent crime instead of on issues that other people might have greater expertise to deal with, people with the right training in nonviolent situations. It allows us to reduce the strain on the system.

None of this is speculation. When Stanford University studied Denver's program, they found that in neighborhoods patrolled by STAR, reports of less serious crimes dropped by more than a third and that the program saved a lot of money, a ton of money. It cost about $150 when STAR responded to an offense compared to nearly $650 when the Denver PD responded on their own.

I can appreciate what these savings would mean for a local police department. My colleagues may remember that before I was in the Senate, one of my jobs was serving as chief of staff to John Hickenlooper, who was then the mayor of Denver. I don't know what became of him, but he was a very good mayor for the city and county of Denver. In that job, I heard all the time from community leaders as to how they wished there were resources beyond law enforcement for situations that were better suited for a social worker or a mental health expert.

I would have loved to have had the STAR Program when I was working for the city and county of Denver, and I would have loved it when I was the superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, where a lot of my job was working with the Denver Police Department to keep our schools safe and to reduce the ticketing of kids so they weren't cycling through the criminal justice system prematurely.

All of this experience led me to write this bill, and I view this as one more area wherein Colorado offers a model for the country to take on the rise in crime in a smart and thoughtful way.

Americans have a reasonable expectation--a reasonable expectation-- that Washington cares as much about their safety as they do, and they expect the people they send to Washington to actually come up with useful solutions. I think this bill meets that test. It responds to the needs of law enforcement and to the needs of communities. I don't know how anybody here could object to it.

If you want to reduce violent crime, you should support this bill. If you want trained experts responding to nonviolent 9-1-1 calls instead of police officers, you should support this bill. If you want to save taxpayers money, you should support this bill. So I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will take a look at this proposal, and I gladly welcome their support.

Mr. President, a few years ago, a police officer in Pueblo, CO, was kind enough to let me join him in a squad car for a few hours to get a sense of what his daily beat was like. It was in the middle of the night. It didn't take very long to appreciate that our country asks law enforcement to do a lot more than simply enforce the law.

Washington has underinvested in the American people year after year after year in areas like housing, education, and mental health. It has left law enforcement to pick up the pieces. It has put them in a position wherein they are not only having to serve as law enforcement officers but also as social workers, as mental health professionals, and as responders for issues like homelessness or drug addiction, even though nobody has trained them for it necessarily.

That result has been really tough for officers on the ground in Colorado and across the country. It strains their resources, adds to the workload, and accelerates burnout. It has also been hard for communities. It diverts law enforcement from violent crime, and it means we are forcing officers to address mental health issues and problems instead of dealing with the underlying issues that produce many 9-1-1 calls in the first place.

I am sad to say that all of these underlying issues that everybody is familiar with have gotten worse during the pandemic. It is one reason there has been a spike in crime that started in 2020, before the current administration, and it has continued ever since. In 2020, murders rose nearly 30 percent. Aggravated assault was up 12 percent. Motor vehicle theft was up 12 percent. Again, this was in 2020, before the current administration, but, sadly, many of these trends have continued. In a survey of small businesses, 54 percent of American small businesses reported an increase in shoplifting last year.

To deal with this rise in crime, we need to increase funding for the COPS Program, which I strongly support, so we can hire more officers and strengthen community police. I think we should pass a bill that I am introducing today, called the SMART Community Policing Act. The bill is based on 28 highly successful programs across Colorado, in places like Denver and Grand Junction.

As I mentioned, you know, a lot of 9-1-1 calls involve lower risk situations that don't always require a police officer, but some combination of an EMT, a mental health specialist, or a social worker can get the job done, allowing law enforcement to focus on violent crime, but in most of the country, law enforcement has to answer every one of those 9-1-1 calls.

The SMART Community Policing Act creates resources for law enforcement to partner with local organizations and service providers so they send the right responder depending on what the problem actually is. That lets law enforcement focus on violent crime and lets other responders with the right training deal with lower risk situations, like when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis or a severe drug withdrawal. These trained professionals can deescalate the situation. They can connect people with the right resources and do the comprehensive followup to keep them from requiring emergency services again and again and again.

Grand Junction's Co-Responder Unit has answered over 3,200 calls since the program began in 2018. Denver's STAR Program has responded to almost 4,600 calls since 2020.

I had a chance to hear about the STAR Program from Denver's police chief, Paul Pazen, 2 years ago. He told me about a mom who had called 9-1-1 because she was having a lot of trouble with her child. You don't need a police

officer for that, so they sent responders from STAR, who deescalated the situation and saved law enforcement precious time.

If you add it all up, those are thousands of hours that officers in Denver and Grand Junction and across Colorado could spend focusing on violent crime instead of on issues that other people might have greater expertise to deal with, people with the right training in nonviolent situations. It allows us to reduce the strain on the system.

None of this is speculation. When Stanford University studied Denver's program, they found that in neighborhoods patrolled by STAR, reports of less serious crimes dropped by more than a third and that the program saved a lot of money, a ton of money. It cost about $150 when STAR responded to an offense compared to nearly $650 when the Denver PD responded on their own.

I can appreciate what these savings would mean for a local police department. My colleagues may remember that before I was in the Senate, one of my jobs was serving as chief of staff to John Hickenlooper, who was then the mayor of Denver. I don't know what became of him, but he was a very good mayor for the city and county of Denver. In that job, I heard all the time from community leaders as to how they wished there were resources beyond law enforcement for situations that were better suited for a social worker or a mental health expert.

I would have loved to have had the STAR Program when I was working for the city and county of Denver, and I would have loved it when I was the superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, where a lot of my job was working with the Denver Police Department to keep our schools safe and to reduce the ticketing of kids so they weren't cycling through the criminal justice system prematurely.

All of this experience led me to write this bill, and I view this as one more area wherein Colorado offers a model for the country to take on the rise in crime in a smart and thoughtful way.

Americans have a reasonable expectation--a reasonable expectation-- that Washington cares as much about their safety as they do, and they expect the people they send to Washington to actually come up with useful solutions. I think this bill meets that test. It responds to the needs of law enforcement and to the needs of communities. I don't know how anybody here could object to it.

If you want to reduce violent crime, you should support this bill. If you want trained experts responding to nonviolent 9-1-1 calls instead of police officers, you should support this bill. If you want to save taxpayers money, you should support this bill. So I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will take a look at this proposal, and I gladly welcome their support.

Madam President, I am here today, along with my Republican colleagues, because American families are suffering. Florida families are suffering at the hand of the Biden administration's war on energy independence.

Last month, I heard about a church in St. Petersburg--just south of Tampa--that makes hot meals for those who have fallen on tough times. Like many other churches across the country, they started making the meals for Thanksgiving, but this church decided to keep it going, and since, they have made thousands of hot meals for families. Here is the problem: Fewer people are coming because those families who need the food now can't even afford to make the trip because gas is so expensive. The poorest families in my State are having to make the impossible choice of sacrificing a hot meal because they can't afford to put gas in their cars.

I want to reiterate this point because I want my Democrat colleagues who, like Joe Biden, think inflation is a ``high-class problem'' or some ``incredible transition'' to understand the gravity of this administration's inflation crisis. Families in my State of Florida are having to turn down an opportunity for a free hot meal because they can't afford the gas to get over to the church and get it.

It makes me furious to see this happening in my State and all across our country, all the while, while Joe Biden does nothing to fix it. He has done nothing.

As of today, the average price of a gallon of gas is $4.63. The day Joe Biden took office, gas was averaging $2.37 per gallon. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 15 different months of Joe Biden's Presidency, the national average for gas prices has risen. But the Democrats up here don't seem to care.

You all remember how last month the senior Senator from Michigan explained during a hearing of the Finance Committee that, unlike her constituents, she doesn't worry about gas prices because she has the means to afford an electric car. She actually said that. Then, when she gets to work in Washington, she gets to charge her car at the Capitol for free, while taxpayers foot the bill. Good for her, but that is not a realistic solution for the millions of Americans suffering under the Biden administration's failed energy policy.

Democrats in Washington know the effect these high prices are having, and they are celebrating because their radically progressive campaign against energy independence is working. But Americans are not celebrating; they are struggling.

Unlike the liberal elites running our government, I am not going to stand for it. That is why earlier this year I introduced the FREE American Energy Act, to expedite the Federal Agencies' review process of applications for permits, waivers, licenses, or other authorizations related to energy production. It is why I have introduced the GAS PRICE Act. It would direct the Energy Information Administration to report to Congress any policy or rule set by the Biden administration which raises energy costs for American families. I even asked the Senate to pass the GAS PRICE Act by unanimous consent this past October, but Senate Democrats blocked its passage. It is as if they want to keep Americans in the dark on why energy prices are rising.

We also need to speed up the approval process for oil permitting, and Americans need to know that this administration is purposely trying to make life more difficult and more expensive. We have the resources within our borders to be energy independent and for everyday life to be affordable.

While we are ramping up American production, we need to completely halt sales of U.S. oil to communist China. That is right--while gas prices remain sky-high here, the Biden administration is still giving a green light for American oil to be sold to our enemies, like communist China. That is hard to believe.

I was proud to join with my friend and fellow Floridian, Senator Marco Rubio, to introduce the China Oil Export Prohibition Act last month to stop these sales. We shouldn't be helping our enemies or asking foreign nations to increase supply. We should be increasing our American supply within our borders. We did it during the Trump administration, and we can do it again.

Joe Biden can roll back the countless regulations he instituted that are hurting our domestic production. The White House, the EPA, and the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Energy can end their campaign against American oil producers and start working to create an agenda of energy independence.

Congress can pass my legislation to make oil permitting faster and give greater transparency into the impact legislation from Congress has on energy prices. We don't have to throw up our hands and do nothing and give up. Joe Biden and the Democrats who control Washington can and must take real action to start producing energy within our borders safely once again. Our future is bleak if we don't.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I come to the floor today, along with my colleagues, because Americans are continuing to take a financial hit with more expensive, less reliable energy resulting from the Biden administration's harmful energy agenda.

In the middle of the summer travel season, drivers are paying record- high

prices at the gas pump. Gas is now $4.63 a gallon nationwide and an average of $4.57 per gallon in my home State of North Dakota. Sky-high energy prices are fueling record inflation, driving up the cost of goods across the entire economy.

The current CPI rate came out this morning--9.1 percent--9.1 percent, the highest in over 40 years. And it hurts every single American--at the gas pump, at the grocery store, everything they buy. Unbelievable.

Of course, energy is a big part of that inflation. There is an energy component in every good and service that you get. Electricity prices have risen 13.7 percent. Natural gas and heating oil prices have ballooned by 38.4 percent and 98.5 percent, respectively, over the last year.

In addition to higher prices, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, or NERC, warned that homes and businesses across much of the country are facing higher risk of blackouts and brownouts this summer. President Biden's energy policies are threatening the economic well-being of Americans and our national security.

Just a few years ago, our country was producing almost 13 million barrels per day of oil and consumers benefited from historically low energy prices. Production has remained down under this administration at about 11\1/2\ million barrels of production per day. American families are paying record prices because the Biden administration is continuing its regulatory onslaught on domestic energy production.

President Biden's energy crisis began with the administration's moratorium on new energy leases, closing off access to our abundant taxpayer-owned energy reserves on Federal lands. And for leases that the energy companies have on Federal lands, they are being held up either by the administration's bureaucratic redtape that doesn't allow them to get drilling permits or held up by litigation in the courts. And this administration continues to hold up our ability to move more oil and gas across the country by blocking pipelines like the Keystone XL Pipeline. In 2015, I led a bipartisan effort in Congress to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. If the Obama-Biden administration hadn't vetoed our bill which passed both Houses of Congress, this pipeline would be operating today and bringing almost a million barrels of oil a day to our country from our closest friend and ally Canada.

We need to unleash more of our vast energy, our oil and natural gas reserves, all the energy that this Nation produces--our most critical, economic, and national security assets. And if we want to truly cut off the Russian war machine and support our allies, we need to cut off Putin's ability to sell Russian energy.

A good start would be by passing legislation like my American Energy Independence From Russia Act, bicameral legislation that I introduced with nine of my colleagues in the Senate. Our commonsense approach takes immediate action to encourage more U.S. energy production, including things like increasing access to taxpayer-owned energy reserves on Federal land, authorizing the construction and operation of the Keystone XL Pipeline--vital infrastructure to move energy safely around the country--and removing regulatory hurdles to increase liquefied natural gas facilities and exports.

Each additional barrel of oil we produce here at home replaces production from Russia and other adversaries, countries that also have little to no environmental standards. Each additional barrel we produce at home helps reduce prices and lower inflation for the American people.

Instead of asking Saudi Arabia for help--and as you know, the President is on a trip to do that right now--or going to places or asking for help from adversaries like Iran or for energy from Venezuela, President Biden should be empowering our domestic producers to restore and grow our supply of energy here at home.

The solution is simple. The Biden administration needs to take the handcuffs off domestic energy production because more supply is needed to bring down prices. That is just common sense, and the American people know it. The American people need that relief now.

I yield the floor.