Enhanced Election Security and Protection Act

Madam President, if this body were to look at the tests and the homework, the quizzes, and the essays of the Department of Homeland Security and give them a grade based on their performance for the last year and a half, what would the grade be?

DHS says they have six missions, and they detail out those missions. One of those missions reads: Secure U.S. borders and approaches. Then they give this little piece behind it to describe that.

The Department of Homeland Security secures the Nation's air, land, and sea borders to prevent illegal activity while facilitating lawful travel and trade. What would their grade be on that? And is anyone going to hold them to account for their grade or is this body going to continue to just ignore what is happening on the southern border?

It is the role, it is the task, it is the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security to help secure our Nation, but this Department is currently facilitating illegal immigration, not stopping illegal immigration.

I wish I was wrong on that, but I am not. In fact, as recent as the last 2 weeks, I met with DHS leadership who described to me the new method they have laid out so you can apply for asylum, come to the United States and come to any airport in the country. So you wouldn't have to come through the southern border; you would just come in. But it would be the same process as what is happening on the southern border where people from 150 countries just this year have crossed our border. They have been checked in by Border Patrol, who know full well they are not legally present here. Then they are released into the country and given 8 years until their hearing--8 years.

Instead of responding to be able to slow down the more than 2 million people who have illegally crossed in just the last year, this administration is actually working to say it is actually not enough people. They are increasing the access points to increase the number of people rather than decrease.

The administration was proud to be able to say in May and in June that the numbers went down slightly from what they were in the previous months. The problem with that is, the previous month was a record, and so was the month before that. If you look at just the June number that, yes, was slightly down from May, it is still the highest June ever recorded by the administration.

We are being overwhelmed with the number of people coming in illegally across our border. The administration is currently releasing people, and their sole focus seems to be on making illegal immigration more efficient rather than more enforced.

What grade would you give DHS? A more specific question: Mr. President, do you want to stop illegal immigration? Because I don't think you do. And I think it is clear that the policies you put in place are directly leading to this record influx of illegal immigration from all over the world.

I wish you could even say: Well, at least we vetted them, but I know that is not true, and so do you. Not a single one of these people entering the country has their criminal background check from the country they are from. We are doing a quick fingerprint analysis to see if they have committed a crime here, but we have no idea of the 150 countries-plus that they are coming from because right now the goal is not to check their criminal history; it is to get them released in the country within 8 hours. Keep it moving. Keep it moving. You don't want to have a clog up at the border. When they cross the border, the goal is to just keep them moving into the country.

Last weekend, I spent the weekend again at our southern border. Serving on the Homeland Security Committee, I spend a lot of time back and forth across that border to be able to evaluate what is happening now because it changes from week to week.

I was in the Rio Grande Valley last weekend spending time with CBP, the Border Patrol, individuals from Air and Marine Operations, from the Department of DPS in Texas, from the National Guard. All of them expressed incredible frustration.

When I got there last Thursday night late, we went on a midnight patrol with Border Patrol. Literally within minutes, we ran through our first group of folks coming across the border, a group of teenagers. Minutes later, literally while that group was being processed, another group was interdicted coming across the border not far away. This time it was 6- and 7-year-old children and a couple of families. While we watched them being processed, they called us on the radio and said that about 2 miles down, they just picked up another group. This time, it was adults, including one pregnant lady who was deep into her eighth month coming across the border to make sure she delivered here in the United States.

One hundred fifty-plus countries just this year are crossing the border because it is open.

I hear the Secretary of DHS say they have secured the border. As I just came from the border, I wonder when the President of the United States is going to actually go to the border to be able to see what is actually happening on the border and the policies they put in place, because so far the President has been able to make it to Saudi Arabia but has not been able to make it to our own southern border to even look once at what is happening on our southern border.

If he goes--someday, I hope--I hope he meets with Border Patrol because the Border Patrol agents I talk to tell me about a time when the border was secure. They tell me about a time not long ago that we added forcible borders and where the policy wasn't to release within hours and the enforcement priority wasn't to get them moving as fast as possible; it was to actually secure the border.

You could meet with the landowners, like I did last weekend, who live in that area. Some of them have lived there for generations, and they are absolutely furious because although they have lived there--and their family--for generations, they have never ever experienced this.

They tell me about how, when they were children, they used to play in this area, and now literally they will not walk out their own door without a firearm on their hip. They told me about multiple vehicles being stolen from their property, windows being smashed at all hours of the day and night, and people walking up to their windows and peering inside.

One rancher told me about his wife, who is pregnant, and his child, who is 2--how they literally fear for their lives every day because of the number of people who are coming across their property and for him personally, the number of dead bodies that they found on their property just this year. This wasn't happening before.

They had a very simple request. Their simple request was: I am an American. Why does my property not count? Why do my rights not count?

The only rights that seem to count are people who are illegally crossing the border. Their rights seem to count, but the rights of Americans do not.

Mr. President, would you be willing to answer his question? Would you be willing to talk to his wife and explain to her why there are bodies on their ranch and people are peering in their windows at all hours and they can't live in safety on their own ranch? That was different just 3 years ago. Would you be willing to explain to them what has changed in your policies, because the goal of this administration seems to be efficient movement of illegal immigration, not stopping illegal immigration.

I met this Monday with leadership from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, who explained to me about the

overwhelming amount of methamphetamine that is coming into my State and the number of people who are dying in my State because much of the meth is laced with fentanyl, and it is killing people in my State.

I asked them if the meth is being cooked in Oklahoma, as it used to be, and they said: No, we hardly ever find a lab making meth anymore. It is all coming from Mexico--all of it.

Mexican cartels are actively working in my State to distribute methamphetamine, partnering with Chinese groups who are doing not only the supplies but the distribution network in my State.

When I was in the Rio Grande Valley this weekend, individuals with Customs and Border Protection showed me the numbers. Just this year, just in the Rio Grande Valley, 144 pounds of fentanyl has come in and 27,550 pounds of meth that they have interdicted just in the Rio Grande Valley just this year. Let me run that past you again: 27,550 pounds just in that one area, just this year.

Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics has explained to me that if you go back to 2020, we didn't have the drugs moving this way because the border was not open at that time. Now the drugs are flooding into our State because the border is open.

What grade would you give the Department of Homeland Security when they are allowing our country to be flooded with drugs, when they are choosing to make illegal immigration more efficient rather than stopping illegal immigration? What grade would you give them?

When is this going to change?

I have to tell you, I believe one of the main roles of the Department of Homeland Security is to be able to shut down transnational criminal organizations from functioning inside my State, but instead, just in the Rio Grande Valley, when I talked to them this week, just in that one sector, they estimate that the cartels make $153 million a week-- $153 million a week just in that area of the Rio Grande Valley, moving people across the border illegally, because each of them has to pay the cartels. In fact, we saw the wristbands that they all wear. Once they pay the cartels, they are marked that they can actually be moved across the border; they paid their amount.

That is $153 million a week the Biden administration is facilitating in payment to transnational criminal organizations just moving people, based on a liberal policy of ``We are going to open the border up to be nice.'' That policy is facilitating the cartels in Mexico being enriched. They make more a week--a week--in moving people than is the budget for Border Patrol in a year in that area. That is all being facilitated based on this administration making it easier to cross the border and more efficient to cross the border than stopping it.

I am tired of hearing about the number of people who illegally cross the border. And many in this body just ignore it. I am tired of hearing from the FBI in my State that the price of methamphetamine is going down in my State. It seems like the price of gasoline has soared, the price of food has soared, the price of housing has soared, but the price of meth is going down. Why would that be? Because the supply of meth is going up because it is coming from the cartels in Mexico, and this administration is just looking the other way.

When is this administration going to talk to the landowners in South Texas like I did and hear from them the threats that they face? They are American citizens. When does their life matter?

It is time we address this issue. It is time we actually step up and say that DHS is failing in its most basic task of securing the Nation.

It is time we stopped the illegal drugs coming into our country and killing our kids. It is time. And I am going to continue to come to this floor and to show what the media will not show anymore. They have looked away, and my Democratic colleagues have done the same. They just look away like it doesn't exist, while 2 million people illegally cross the border.

One more stat: Right now, we have somewhere between 4,500 and 8,000 people a day illegally crossing the border--between 4,500 and 8,000 a day illegally crossing the border. May I remind you, President Biden, years ago, called it a humanitarian crisis when 2,000 people a day crossed the border. Now we have between 4,500 and 8,000 a day, day after day after day.

This administration is not only opening up the borders, they have also changed the enforcement priorities here in the United States. So we have round numbers--6,000 people a day illegally entering the country. The Biden administration has changed the role for ICE in deportations. We are currently allowing 6,000 people a day to cross the border, but we are only deporting 161 people a day from the country.

Six thousand a day, every day, day after day after day, illegally coming into the country; 161 people now that we are deporting a day. What would be your grade for DHS in their task of securing the country?

I know what mine is. It is time this body actually does something rather than just look away.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I come to the floor this evening--I have been talking about this subject for nearly the 3\1/2\ years I have been a Senator. And I will tell you why I think it is important.

We have grown the Federal Government to a level where all the people who look to it, where they are dependent upon it, try to work with it, need to know honestly where this all ends up if we do not change the trajectory.

I think the easiest way to understand how we have gotten to where we are now is to look to what we used to do in the past.

The country was never founded upon the principles that you borrow money to consume it. Any household, any local or State government knows you can't be successful doing that.

Money should only be borrowed if you are going to invest it or get a tangible return on it; even maybe an intangible one, when you look at investing in education or something like that.

But there has been no system that has ever worked that ends up borrowing money from the future, from its kids and grandkids, to where that is a good business plan. You get immediately derailed in the real world. Imagine in a household, if you take in money and you spend 20 percent more than whatever that is, you will go to a financial counselor. They may get you out of trouble. You keep doing it, you end up in bankruptcy court.

Businesses have the rigor of competition in addition to earning revenues, balancing their own budgets, and being able to invest into the future.

If you follow principles that work everywhere else, it can work here, too, and we owe it to the American public. Like I said earlier, so many look to this place to be their partner in some fashion, and it ought to be one that is going to be there in the future.

Let's look where we have come.

From the founding of the country, we raise revenues, generally, on the basis of need. You would go into debt; you would pay it off.

If you look at 1920, World War I--it is way over here--you borrowed money, defend the country, save others, and you paid it off.

Look what happened during the Great Depression, World War II. That is the deepest we have ever been in debt until we just eclipsed it recently. That is generally measured by how much debt you have as a percentage of your GDP--Great Depression; World War II.

Look where we went after that.

We were savers. We were investors then. We weren't consumers and spenders by nature, and we especially didn't do it through the Federal Government. We kept our debt in check. Even through the great recession, which occurred 2008, 2009, you were starting to see problems crop up. That happened when we put two wars on a credit card.

Like the other side of the aisle said: Well, if you are going to do that, there are a lot of needs in our own country, and certainly there are, from healthcare, education, across the spectrum--Social Security, Medicare.

Look what has happened since then. We have gone from being in relatively good shape pre-Gulf war, Afghanistan. We borrowed that money and then ran into the great recession and spent what

seems like very little compared to how significant that was--$800 to $900 billion.

And from that time to the present, I think we just said: We are borrowing money, and we might as well do more. And then you start doing it for things that don't make sense.

I got here 3\1/2\ years ago, 18 trillion in debt. We were just approaching the percentage coming out of World War II. Here. We have now passed that and doubling down and going way beyond that.

We are now, here, after the pandemic, where we spent close to $4 trillion in 2020--a lot of it out of uncertainty. We didn't know much about it. We should have treated that with respect. We now know a lot about it, and we probably didn't need to shut the economy down, which cost us a lot, but we are through it. We certainly shouldn't have doubled down and spent another 3 trillion in 2021.

I am not going to go over--you hear it on the news, you see it. We have got inflation embedded in the economy currently. The last time this occurred, back in the late seventies and the early eighties, when inflation peaked around 10 or 11 percent, it took 5 years to get it back to 2 percent, where we were pre-COVID. We can expect probably something similar. We don't know.

The big difference between now and then is we have got a lot more debt, especially in government, so it is going to be trickier.

So how do we get out of it?

Well, unless we turn the tide, unless we start doing things differently, Medicare, which isn't even being addressed here, has completely depleted its trust fund in about 4\1/2\ or 5 years-- automatic benefit cuts when that occurs.

Social Security, which has been around since the Depression paying into it, that is depleted in about 10 years.

Those are two large trust funds that will have no balance in them, and then you would have to borrow even more money to pay the benefits.

Let's show a comparison of where we stack up now with other major economies.

Look at that. We have known for a long time Japan, which is the third largest economy, has struggled to figure out how it is going to grow, how it is going to do for future generations what it has done since World War II. It has taken debt to where it is a stranglehold on its economy. Its debt is 237 percent of its GDP.

Now look who is in second place, and this isn't something you want to be in second place on--United States. Our debt currently is 107 percent of our GDP.

India, Germany, China--China, our main geopolitical competitor, under half of the sovereign debt as a percentage of its GDP. That is not a good place to be. They are our geopolitical competitor, and I sense they know that you need to be savers and investors if you are going to be successful in the future, if you are going to give your people what they are going to need out of a government.

Financially, we are going to be up against them, and they, to me, look like they are doing a lot of things that someday pivot to where we are caught by surprise, and then you don't have the options. We start increasing to be more indebted than what we are, it will be even harder to compete with somebody like them.

We now have a 9.1-percent inflation rate. That is a pay cut for everyone. We now know, I think, what caused it. We need to just quit digging the hole deeper. Let's get out of it. Let's go back to what we know was working, at least financially, pre-COVID. We had no inflation, nominal that is built into what is considered zero inflation, wages rising in the toughest places, and a growth rate that was better than what we had before, close to 3 percent.

We need to start spending less through government, return the productive capacity back to the private sector, and then look at--once we get the ship righted here--what we do better policywise. I am a believer. We need to fix healthcare; it is a broken system. It drives our structural deficits more than anything. Medicare each year--like Warren Buffett says, healthcare in general is a tapeworm on the economy.

What I want to do is face reality. Regardless of the tax rate, over 50 years, we average about 17\1/2\ percent of our GDP in Federal Government revenues. If that is all you can get, regardless if you have high tax rates that gives you a lower economic growth or lower tax rates that maybe gives you a percent or more in economic growth, we need to acknowledge it.

My plan does two simple things: acknowledges what our revenue has been over 50 years--17\1/2\ percent of our GDP--tapers what we spend into it, takes what we have done here as a maneuver to escape budgeting and appropriating by putting spending on mandatory versus discretionary, which is nothing other than saying: I don't want to budget. I don't want to allocate resources. We are just going to do more each year.

If we keep doing it, we are not going to be able to fund the programs that we all consider important.

So it acknowledges a reasonable revenue level. It moves 375 billion that used to be discretionary that is now mandatory back to discretionary. And then it is going to be up to all of us, as stewards of the Federal Government, to see how we are going to make the right decisions to take that amount and get it down to where we cut it out of the budget.

That would put us, in 10 years, in primary balance, meaning that the only thing that contributes to our deficit is our interest. It would clearly show, too, how the big drivers of our current deficit-- Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, other mandatory spending features--are driving it.

And, yes, if we want to get to a real balanced budget that covers your interest, you would have to actually find ways to do the same things with less money.

Defense is always a topic on my side of the aisle. This spends on defense--arguably the most important thing we need to do as a Federal Government. I think there is a lot of bipartisan interest in defending our country and financing it accordingly. This spends on defense above the CBO line and gets its numbers from the Senate Armed Services Committee, plugs it in.

It is going to be more robust there than what the CBO has by a little bit because I am a believer that what has driven this issue over the long run is what I call the unholy alliance. Folks on my side, whatever it takes, will spend it on defense. I said it is the most important thing we do. Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid--those are important too. They are going broke over time. So we need to work on all of that to rein it in. But defense, the most important thing, is going to be at a level that keeps us secure.

If we don't exercise fiscal restraint, if we don't make the tough decisions that everybody does in running their own budgets, whether it is in a business, a local or State government or even a household, it is going to be a hard landing someday that none of us will like.

A lot of what is about running anything successfully is having a good plan. I don't think our plan makes sense for the future.

But the other component--and I will never forget the first budget meeting I was in here. One of the Senators said: Mike, the reason this keeps coming back and back is we do not have political will.

And whether it is political will that you need to make things work here, whether it is determination, whatever you want to call it--it is the marketplace when you run a business, it is a balanced budget amendment in statute when you have got a State government--there has got to be more discipline.

Let's put that last chart up here.

And I want to re-emphasize, because I got some on my side that think we are not being robust enough on defense. We just looked at that chart where it is the most robust. But I want to go back to this one again. This one says it all. Look at where we have come from where the ``greatest generation'' left us. Remember, they paid off the debt from World War II and built the Interstate Highway System--to where we are now in literally 40 years.

That is shameful.

All I am saying is, my budget makes it to where we have got 10 years. We don't even have to cover the interest, but we need to bring it back into what is called primary balance.

I would hope we have some friends on the other side of the aisle that see that this makes sense, because we will need it for their priorities. All I can tell you

is, if we have to remediate this by running the system into the ditch, it will be a lot harder of a proposition to get it back to where it was when the greatest generation left us in good shape.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to acknowledge the months of bipartisan hard work that have gone into two bills that we are filing today: the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act--I repeat--the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act--and the Enhanced Election Security and Protection Act.

I would like to commend my dear friend Senator Susan Collins for her leadership throughout this process. She has been shepherding this through and working diligently, as only she can do, and she does it so well.

We started these discussions back in January, when partisanship around here was at a fever pitch, a toxic environment that was absolutely not conducive to things that needed to be done. But for those who may not remember, we were in the middle of a heated debate over voting rights with both sides--Democrats and Republicans--equally dug in on their positions, and it was kind of hard to move people off of that.

The insurrection January 6 and the situation that has been going on since 1887 and should have been corrected and had not been--but no one ever felt that we would have what we had. So now, we needed to take care of it. And everyone stepped to the plate.

By January 19, my Democratic colleagues were so frustrated that they forced a vote on repealing the filibuster to allow that bill to pass with a simple majority, along party lines. It appeared to many, both inside and outside of Washington, DC, that the Senate was fundamentally broken. But Senator Collins and I have worked together for a long time, and we never gave up. We were not convinced it was broken, and you just have to work a little bit harder.

They call us the most deliberative body. Well, to deliberate means to talk, to converse; and when that fails, then, basically, the deliberative body is no longer the deliberative body. And we were not going to let that happen to us.

We asked our colleagues and friends to come together to start trying to see if we could work together and find a pathway and find common ground. Well--guess what--they did. So I am here to thank those who sat down: Senator Portman, Rob Portman; we had Senator Murphy; we had Senator Romney, Senator Shaheen, Senator Murkowski, Senator Warren, Senator Tillis, Senator Sinema, Senator Capito, Senator Cardin, Senator Young, Senator Coons, Senator Sasse, and Senator Graham.

Now, that was truly a team effort when you think about it. And this has gone on for quite some time.

What we learned through those discussions was that there was bipartisan support for some important, commonsense reforms that would help restore Americans' faith in our democracy and how we basically apply our democracy, how do we select our representative form of government. Specifically, most of our group felt that we could and that we should:

Reform the Electoral Count Act to remove the ambiguity that we saw weaponized after the last election. We were all in agreement.

Enhance the protections for local election officials who were facing unprecedented threats and intimidations. These are people who volunteer, most basically. And it is basically a family handing down generation after generation, people who always believe that their civic duty is to be able to perform during election times.

We wanted to establish best practices for the U.S. Postal Service to improve the handling of mail-in ballots. Mail-in ballots have been so convenient to older people, shut-ins. And in the situation where we had this pandemic, my goodness, it was the only way that people could vote.

So reauthorize the Election Assistance Commission to help States improve the administration and the security of Federal elections.

The most important thing that we can do is that when that vote is cast and that vote is counted accurately, it has to be counted and reported accurately. And that is what we have to do and make sure that there is not even a shred of a thought where a person might think that count is not valid--it is not a valid count. And we have done everything we possibly can to make sure that we have cleared that up.

This is not everything that people on both sides of that wanted. Some on our bipartisan committee wanted a lot more, and some didn't want to basically interfere with the States' rights. So we were caught in betwixt and between. We worked back and forth on different things we could. We tried to put the guardrails on that gave guidance, and we think that we came up with a piece of legislation.

And when you have every Member I just mentioned all sign on, with the diversity of these memberships--we have almost 20; 20 Senators have been involved, coming equally between Democrats and Republicans, and able to come to an agreement--this is a bill that we should put forward.

I was proud to be an original sponsor of both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and I still believe that we can and we must continue working to protect every American's sacred right to vote. But we also have an obligation to the American people to do the most good that we can right now--right now.

The confusing and antiquated language that we have on the books today from the 1887 Electoral Count Act is a real and present danger to our democracy. We can fix that, and that is exactly what we intend to do.

The increased threats and attacks we are seeing across the country on poll workers and election volunteers--we can fix that, too. But even more important than the policy provisions contained in these two bills is the fact that we have Democrats and Republicans standing arm in arm proposing commonsense election reforms that can begin to restore Americans' faith in our democracy. That is our solemn commitment and promise.

When Benjamin Franklin was asked whether the Constitutional Convention had given us a republic or a monarchy, he famously replied ``A republic, young man, if you can keep it.''

He qualified his answer because he understood a democracy is fragile and can be lost if we are not careful. And while today's introduction is an important step in this process, we do have much work yet to do.

I look forward to continuing our bipartisan effort to get this bill to the President's desk as quickly as possible and signed into law. And our journey begins.

And with that, I would like to yield to my dear friend from the great State of Maine, Senator Susan Collins.

Mr. President, while my dear friend is here, I want to tell her, you know, 6 months ago--we have worked on this for 6 months. It started in January, and it was 14 Senators who came at that time. We just started talking, and 14 Senators--with all of your support, Mr. President, also--we had support from everybody saying something had to be done. But as delicate as this was, knowing that some might think we are picking on one side or the other or supporting or defending one side or the other, there was only one thing we were concerned about: How do we defend this country and the Constitution and this wonderful Capitol that we have so this could never happen again?

January 6 is a black mark on the history of the United States of America. And if you want to erase it, you better do what we did for 6 months, bringing people together to find a pathway forward so that type of opportunity--for some looking for an opportunity--to degrade our government and our country and our form of governing ourselves could never, ever encourage them thinking they could do something here at this Capitol and disrupt us.

When that day happened, the thing I was most proud of, we were all down in a secured room--and Senator Collins remembers--and it went on; we didn't know what the extent of this was going on. We knew one thing: They didn't come for a friendly visit. But we were down there talking; and, all of a sudden, someone said: Well, let's just conduct our business down here. Remember that? And to a T, everybody in that room says, No, no, no. They are not going to run us out of our body here. And we all came back here later that night and finished our business.

What we did--and Senator Collins has led this admirably--is make sure that we are finishing our business. We are just starting it now to protect this democracy. This form of democracy that we have is a representative form and the Republic that we are responsible for. And I am just so proud to be part of it. And she is my dear friend. We worked many, many years together, and we will continue to.

But I just want to thank the Senator for the hard work--our staffs worked together. I am very proud of all our staffs that they worked together for the betterment of our country.

So when people think that bipartisanship is not capable of happening in Washington, I want to say: Watch, we have proved them wrong. We have done so many things together, and we will continue to. Again, I say thank you to all those who participated for just hanging in there. It took us 6 months to get here, but we have just begun.

Mr. President, I rise today to acknowledge the months of bipartisan hard work that have gone into two bills that we are filing today: the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act--I repeat--the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act--and the Enhanced Election Security and Protection Act.

I would like to commend my dear friend Senator Susan Collins for her leadership throughout this process. She has been shepherding this through and working diligently, as only she can do, and she does it so well.

We started these discussions back in January, when partisanship around here was at a fever pitch, a toxic environment that was absolutely not conducive to things that needed to be done. But for those who may not remember, we were in the middle of a heated debate over voting rights with both sides--Democrats and Republicans--equally dug in on their positions, and it was kind of hard to move people off of that.

The insurrection January 6 and the situation that has been going on since 1887 and should have been corrected and had not been--but no one ever felt that we would have what we had. So now, we needed to take care of it. And everyone stepped to the plate.

By January 19, my Democratic colleagues were so frustrated that they forced a vote on repealing the filibuster to allow that bill to pass with a simple majority, along party lines. It appeared to many, both inside and outside of Washington, DC, that the Senate was fundamentally broken. But Senator Collins and I have worked together for a long time, and we never gave up. We were not convinced it was broken, and you just have to work a little bit harder.

They call us the most deliberative body. Well, to deliberate means to talk, to converse; and when that fails, then, basically, the deliberative body is no longer the deliberative body. And we were not going to let that happen to us.

We asked our colleagues and friends to come together to start trying to see if we could work together and find a pathway and find common ground. Well--guess what--they did. So I am here to thank those who sat down: Senator Portman, Rob Portman; we had Senator Murphy; we had Senator Romney, Senator Shaheen, Senator Murkowski, Senator Warren, Senator Tillis, Senator Sinema, Senator Capito, Senator Cardin, Senator Young, Senator Coons, Senator Sasse, and Senator Graham.

Now, that was truly a team effort when you think about it. And this has gone on for quite some time.

What we learned through those discussions was that there was bipartisan support for some important, commonsense reforms that would help restore Americans' faith in our democracy and how we basically apply our democracy, how do we select our representative form of government. Specifically, most of our group felt that we could and that we should:

Reform the Electoral Count Act to remove the ambiguity that we saw weaponized after the last election. We were all in agreement.

Enhance the protections for local election officials who were facing unprecedented threats and intimidations. These are people who volunteer, most basically. And it is basically a family handing down generation after generation, people who always believe that their civic duty is to be able to perform during election times.

We wanted to establish best practices for the U.S. Postal Service to improve the handling of mail-in ballots. Mail-in ballots have been so convenient to older people, shut-ins. And in the situation where we had this pandemic, my goodness, it was the only way that people could vote.

So reauthorize the Election Assistance Commission to help States improve the administration and the security of Federal elections.

The most important thing that we can do is that when that vote is cast and that vote is counted accurately, it has to be counted and reported accurately. And that is what we have to do and make sure that there is not even a shred of a thought where a person might think that count is not valid--it is not a valid count. And we have done everything we possibly can to make sure that we have cleared that up.

This is not everything that people on both sides of that wanted. Some on our bipartisan committee wanted a lot more, and some didn't want to basically interfere with the States' rights. So we were caught in betwixt and between. We worked back and forth on different things we could. We tried to put the guardrails on that gave guidance, and we think that we came up with a piece of legislation.

And when you have every Member I just mentioned all sign on, with the diversity of these memberships--we have almost 20; 20 Senators have been involved, coming equally between Democrats and Republicans, and able to come to an agreement--this is a bill that we should put forward.

I was proud to be an original sponsor of both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and I still believe that we can and we must continue working to protect every American's sacred right to vote. But we also have an obligation to the American people to do the most good that we can right now--right now.

The confusing and antiquated language that we have on the books today from the 1887 Electoral Count Act is a real and present danger to our democracy. We can fix that, and that is exactly what we intend to do.

The increased threats and attacks we are seeing across the country on poll workers and election volunteers--we can fix that, too. But even more important than the policy provisions contained in these two bills is the fact that we have Democrats and Republicans standing arm in arm proposing commonsense election reforms that can begin to restore Americans' faith in our democracy. That is our solemn commitment and promise.

When Benjamin Franklin was asked whether the Constitutional Convention had given us a republic or a monarchy, he famously replied ``A republic, young man, if you can keep it.''

He qualified his answer because he understood a democracy is fragile and can be lost if we are not careful. And while today's introduction is an important step in this process, we do have much work yet to do.

I look forward to continuing our bipartisan effort to get this bill to the President's desk as quickly as possible and signed into law. And our journey begins.

And with that, I would like to yield to my dear friend from the great State of Maine, Senator Susan Collins.

Mr. President, while my dear friend is here, I want to tell her, you know, 6 months ago--we have worked on this for 6 months. It started in January, and it was 14 Senators who came at that time. We just started talking, and 14 Senators--with all of your support, Mr. President, also--we had support from everybody saying something had to be done. But as delicate as this was, knowing that some might think we are picking on one side or the other or supporting or defending one side or the other, there was only one thing we were concerned about: How do we defend this country and the Constitution and this wonderful Capitol that we have so this could never happen again?

January 6 is a black mark on the history of the United States of America. And if you want to erase it, you better do what we did for 6 months, bringing people together to find a pathway forward so that type of opportunity--for some looking for an opportunity--to degrade our government and our country and our form of governing ourselves could never, ever encourage them thinking they could do something here at this Capitol and disrupt us.

When that day happened, the thing I was most proud of, we were all down in a secured room--and Senator Collins remembers--and it went on; we didn't know what the extent of this was going on. We knew one thing: They didn't come for a friendly visit. But we were down there talking; and, all of a sudden, someone said: Well, let's just conduct our business down here. Remember that? And to a T, everybody in that room says, No, no, no. They are not going to run us out of our body here. And we all came back here later that night and finished our business.

What we did--and Senator Collins has led this admirably--is make sure that we are finishing our business. We are just starting it now to protect this democracy. This form of democracy that we have is a representative form and the Republic that we are responsible for. And I am just so proud to be part of it. And she is my dear friend. We worked many, many years together, and we will continue to.

But I just want to thank the Senator for the hard work--our staffs worked together. I am very proud of all our staffs that they worked together for the betterment of our country.

So when people think that bipartisanship is not capable of happening in Washington, I want to say: Watch, we have proved them wrong. We have done so many things together, and we will continue to. Again, I say thank you to all those who participated for just hanging in there. It took us 6 months to get here, but we have just begun.

Thank you to my friends from the great State of Utah and the great State of Florida, Senator Scott and Senator Lee.

Mr. President, I want to explain to any American who is watching just what happened here because, to be honest, it is kind of shocking what just took place.

Senator Scott came down to the floor. He had a bill, S. 3086. Normally when you have a bill that is considered pretty noncontroversial, you can come down and do what is called a unanimous consent, which is you ask the Senate: Do you want to pass the bill? And if anyone objects, they actually have to come down and object in the Senate Chamber.

So what does S. 3086 bill do? Here is the language: ``to require the Energy Information Administration to submit to Congress and make publicly available an annual report on Federal Agency policies and regulations and Executive orders that have increased or may increase energy prices in the United States.'' That is it. That is it. That is the bill. It is one page--less than one page. It is two paragraphs.

All we were doing was asking, why are energy prices in America going through the roof, and is the Federal Government contributing to that through its actions and regulations? It is a really important question. Why is it an important question? It is an important question because when you get out of this bubble in DC and you go home--like I was just home in Alaska last weekend--energy costs and inflation are the No. 1 issue hurting American families--the No. 1 issue. So shouldn't we in the Senate want to know why it is happening?

Now, look, what else happened here--a little bit of inside baseball in the Senate--when a Senator comes down and objects to a UC, usually he gives a strong reason why--strong: Here is my reason why this bill is bad for the country, and I am going to object.

You may have seen my colleague object and say ``I am getting the heck out of here; I am not going to explain this'' because there is no reason to object to this--none. So he objected and left. He didn't try to defend objecting to this, because every American wants to know.

It is the biggest issue back home, but here is another reason we need the bill: because this President has come up with excuse after excuse after excuse on why energy costs since he got into office have gone through the roof. Let me give you a couple of examples.

He first said: Well, we are emerging from the pandemic, and the supply chain couldn't keep up with demand.

All right, if that is really true, let the Energy Information Administration--of the Biden administration, by the way--see if that is one of the reasons.

OK. Then he said: Well, shoot, the pandemic is kind of over so it is Putin's invasion of Ukraine that is driving the increase in energy prices. Putin's unprovoked, brutal war--which it is unprovoked and brutal--has led to higher energy prices.

And President Biden then started to say it is Putin's price hike. No one is buying that one either because energy prices were spiking way before the brutal invasion of Ukraine.

So then the President started saying: Well, it is COVID and Putin. OK. Then he started blaming the oil companies. Then he started to say: Well, we have all these amazing permits that we want the oil companies drilling on, but they are not using them.

So we need Senator Scott's legislation because the Biden administration, the President himself, has put out all these ideas on why Americans are getting crushed by inflation and high costs at the pump. Yet the one thing the President hasn't done, has never talked about, is he hasn't looked internally and said: Hmm, maybe it is my own administration's policies that are driving up energy costs. Maybe. By the way, it is not maybe; it is certainly. And my colleagues have talked about this. Heck, I talked about this earlier today. I talk about it every day because it is crushing my home State and my constituents.

But what we want the Energy Information Administration to look at is possibly these reasons: Day 1, this administration came in and said: We are going to limit production of American energy.

Anyone who went to econ 101 in college knows that when you start to limit supply, prices go up. Well, that is a culprit.

No. 2, from day 1, they said: We are going to shut down, kill, and delay moving energy through infrastructure--pipelines, LNG terminals. They are doing that all the time. So that is a policy, those are Executive orders limiting the ability to move energy. That sends up costs.

No. 3 is that they have actively gone to the American financial sector--the Biden administration--and told them not to invest in American energy, choking off capital. That increases prices.

So Senator Scott's bill would simply ask the experts in the Federal Government, the Energy Information Administration, to just take a look: What is driving up the cost of American energy? What is crushing middle-class working families?

And the reason my colleague objected and then ran off the floor without saying anything is because everybody here knows what the answer is going to be: Joe Biden has done this. It is his policies that are driving up energy costs.

And here is the thing that Senator Lee touched on, and this is the thing that should scare everybody. It is likely purposeful. Pain is the point. They are all talking about this wonderful, glorious transition. Gina McCarthy talks about: Hey, if the prices go up, it will accelerate the transition to renewables. They don't give a damn about the people who are suffering. It is all this green utopia stuff.

All we are asking for is what is driving up the cost of energy on the backs of working-class Americans? That is it. A two-paragraph bill, and my colleagues came and objected to it. And

every American should know this. They don't want you to know what we all know, which is this: The pain at the pump is the purposeful policies of the Biden administration, and the American people are paying for it.

We want the Federal Government to look into the details of this, and the Democrats were just now objecting to that transparent information request. And, in my view, it is shameful.

I yield the floor.