Drug Cartel Terrorist Designation Act

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we are all watching the news this morning, as a very, very threatening and ferocious hurricane is bearing down on Florida, a storm that is causing great anxiety. Hopefully, people are as prepared as they can be, but the consequences of these storms, these disasters that we are seeing, are ravaging in ways that are seemingly more ferocious than before.

We saw that last week in Puerto Rico, and, just about 10 days ago, we felt the effects of Typhoon Merbok on the western coast of Alaska. I would like to take just a few minutes here this afternoon because, as I was watching the news as this Hurricane Ian is approaching the coast of Florida, I can't help but think about what the folks back home are facing as they have lived through a very terrifying disaster like the typhoon and then what happens next, because, unfortunately--and you know in your State very well with the fires that ravaged New Mexico-- disasters come through and the attention of the country is focused on that, and we all want to be there to be of help and of assistance.

We have FEMA and we have the Red Cross, and we have everybody that is there, and it is all very important and very well intended. But then the next disaster comes. So maybe--I don't know--maybe, the people in New Mexico are thinking that we have forgotten them. I don't want the people of Alaska to think that we have forgotten what happened in their communities.

Typhoon Merbok came up from Japan, came across the gulf, up into the Bering Sea, and impacted an area of land on the coast of Alaska in excess of 1,000 miles.

To put it into context, it is as if the entire west coast of the United States--from the Canadian border all the way down to Mexico-- were impacted and inundated by one massive storm. That is the size and the scope of what we experienced: hurricane-force winds and, in the Bering Sea, waves as high as 50 feet.

The impact to the land was extraordinary, with the strength of the wind, but it was this massive storm surge that came. We get tough storms in the Bering Sea. We get really tough storms in the Gulf of Alaska. But what we saw this year was a storm that was earlier in its intensity than we have seen in previous years.

Oftentimes, people think about Alaska and think, man, it must be tough when the ice is formed out over the whole sea and everything is locked in. Actually, that is when we have safety, because when there is ice, it takes you all the way up to the shoreline, and these massive storms with the wind can't build the waves to that level to eat away at the shore, to cause the destruction that we are seeing with, again, the intensity of the impact of this storm.

We in Alaska are lucky. There were no people who were killed or injured. Really, it is astonishing, given all that the area sustained. I think part of that was just due to being prepared, knowing that everybody had to hunker down. But when your community then is, literally, separated in two, as they were in Hooper Bay, where on the old side of town you are cut off from your evacuation center, which is the school, because the waters have risen to the point where it is no longer accessible, there is no way to get to safety, and it is blowing 80 miles an hour in the middle of the night, the only place that you can go to is the next house up, hoping it is going to be a little bit higher above the water.

And so it is a recognition that preparation is going to be key to saving lives, but it is also making sure that our coastal communities that are so exposed, as the many in Western Alaska are, that they are able to push back or hold back to the extent possible.

For some of the erosion, the threat that comes their way, we have seawalls that are nothing more than boulders that are built up, dunes and berms that have been built over the years. But, again, we recognize how minimal that

is in terms of a protective barrier when you have the extent and intensity of these storms.

This is where many Alaskans are feeling very exposed and very vulnerable, knowing we made it through this storm, but what happens with the next one, because now that berm in Shaktoolik is completely eroded away. For a good portion of the seawall in Nome, the rocks are just jumbled and scattered. What we saw in Elim, around their front street there, they had a seawall of sorts. It was like a giant had come in and just picked up those boulders and sprinkled them, threw them all around. The front street there that had just been asphalted a couple of years ago--the pieces of asphalt almost lifted up, peeled back like a piece of taffy, just curled over the beach there. You look at that and you cannot comprehend the strength of that storm surge, the strength of what had caused that to just buckle and heave and, literally, melt.

I had a chance over this weekend to go and visit the area. I flew up to Nome, and we were able to go out to Golovin and Elim on the first day. Elim is a community of about 125 people--pretty small. It is pretty small but pretty important in terms of what they do. They are trying to build a little subsistence harbor there. They are resilient people. But some of what we saw with the erosion and what that will mean to them and their community--what it is going to mean to them and their water supply.

Golovin is a little bit bigger of a community, several hundred people. Golovin was impacted in a way and a manner that was just almost mind-boggling. The surge from the storm came up over this isthmus there, literally lifting homes up off their foundation, floating them and depositing them in different locations.

We went down a couple of different streets, and you come around and there is a house literally in the middle of the road, and people are moving their four-wheelers on either side of it because the house is in the middle of the road. Another one on another corner that had been floated across was just kind of catawampus. These homes will never be habitable again.

Sand--you look at it from the air, and it is lovely golden sand, not something you would expect to see on the coast of Western Alaska. But this sand now has inundated the entire lower part of the community, making it a thick, spongy, soft--interesting, but it is really very, very impractical in terms of how we move this wet, soggy sand out of everything that has come into the community here.

The areas underneath the homes--the homes in most of these western communities are elevated on stilts, not very high but they are all elevated. They are elevated because you do have instances of flooding. But the flooding was so high that it came up underneath the belly board of these homes and saturated the insulation underneath with water. But worse to the point is that water was mixed with the diesel, the diesel that had come from people's home heating fuel, their stove oil, the fuel they may have had for their snow machines or their four-wheelers. You could smell, going into the homes, the diesel that was below. What everyone was doing was literally ripping the insulation out from underneath their homes and buckets full of--dozer loads full of wet, soggy, contaminated insulation was being hauled off to the dump.

So that is all the activity that is going on now, and it is fast and it is frenetic. And it needs to be because on the day that I was there in Golovin and Elim, then 2 days later when I was in Hooper Bay and Chevak, the weather was kind of nice. It was decent. But in about 2 weeks--in about maybe 3 weeks--winter comes. Winter is on its way.

When winter comes, you can't move around. When the ice comes down out of the north, you don't have fuel barges that return to the area until the spring. That fuel barge comes in maybe May; in the upper river regions, June. Think about that. If you lost your fuel and the last fuel barge has come and gone and you weren't filled up, it is a long wait. What do you do? If you can't barge it in, you fly it in. Imagine what it means to fly in your fuel into these villages.

Construction materials. How do we get the construction materials up there, whether it is the sheetrock or the plywood or the insulation? You put it on the barge. Well, the last barges are like the fuel trucks. Barges won't be back until the spring. Right now, people are planning on: I need to fix up my home, but I am not going to be able to get the materials until June. What happens in the meantime? What happens in the meantime as winter comes? If you don't have any insulation under your home, if you haven't been able to get your home situated, you are going to be pretty vulnerable.

You may have made it through the storm, but it may be a very, very difficult and cold winter. It may be that your family of eight is now going to have to move in with another family that is already in an overcrowded situation. We don't have extra housing. There is no extra housing.

Everybody is moving as quickly as they possibly can to try to bring relief. We have the National Guard that are doing amazing things. Red Cross was out there analyzing. We were out there with the FEMA administrator. I took her to Nome, was able to take her to Golovin. She was able to see the destruction that came to the fish camps right outside of Nome. Fish camps are not where people go for a holiday. Fish camp is where people work. This is where they harvest and they process and they prepare their food, whether it is the salmon nets to catch the salmon, the Beluga nets, the gear that they have for their fishing. If they are able to get caribou or moose, this is where they come and they process. They harvested their berries. Everything kind of comes together at fish camp. Then you are ready for winter.

What happens when you have harvested and gathered and fished and you put it all in your freezer and then the power goes out, as it did for multiple days, and you lose everything in your freezer? The power went out here in Washington, DC, when I was back in Alaska in August, and I lost the stuff in my freezer. You know what? I am just fine. I can go down to the grocery store here. Folks in Elim don't have that opportunity.

The people in Golovin and Chevak and Hooper Bay and Shaktoolik and all the other places that have been impacted--the outdoors is their grocery store and the outdoor grocery store is now shut down because salmon season is over, fishing is pretty much over, berries are gone, moose and caribou--maybe they will be able to get a little bit of game, maybe not.

Think about what that means when your food source is now gone. You lost your boat because that was swept away or demolished. You have lost your motor. This is not a recreational boat. This is how you feed your family; this is how you live. The four-wheelers are just thrown up and crumbled and crushed. That is not recreation; that is how people move around. When you think about the ability then to--what do you do now? What do you do now?

I am sharing this with people because this is what has been keeping me up at night and getting me up really early in the morning to figure out what more we can do--what more we can do to help the people in these small communities that lived through a very scary natural disaster but who have looming in front of them perhaps a very frightening winter--a cold winter, one where their food resource is gone, where the expense of living has always been high, but now--we don't even know how to account for how high it is.

I was talking about this with a guy in Chevak who said he had ordered a little bit of lumber. He was working on something. He didn't even say what it was. It was $1,500 worth of lumber, but it cost him $2,200 to get it there, to freight it up.

I went into the grocery store, as I do in as many of the small towns and villages as I can. I always price things like, What is a box of Tide? I know what it is in Anchorage, I know what it is in Fairbanks, but in Chevak, it is $45 before the tax is added on to it.

But I had heard--I had heard this crazy story that water, bottled water, was more expensive than fuel. That can't possibly be. Fuel is $7 a gallon out there in Nome and probably more than that in Chevak. A 24- pack of bottled water--I don't know what the label was, it was like generic bottled water you probably get at Costco--$91.

That did include tax. It was $91 for bottled water. And this is in a community where they were still on a boil water notice because they were just still checking out their water systems.

We are working hard. Nobody is sitting back and waiting for the Federal Government to come in and help them because they don't have time. They are cleaning things up.

The FEMA administrator saw in Nome--in fairness compared to where she was in Puerto Rico, it probably didn't look that bad. But when you peel it back and you look at the damage and you realize the vulnerability going forward into this winter, that is where it looks scary.

So we are using every resource that we have--every volunteer, every agency. People are there and they are putting their muscle into it. We have asked for the same support that President Biden has given to Puerto Rico with a 100 percent cost-share waiver for the first 30 days to get things cleaned up. I am hopeful--I am desperately hopeful--that the administration hears us on that.

For us, right now, it is this immediacy of time to get things pulled back together as fully as we possibly can because we cannot--they cannot--be in a situation where, in the middle of winter, when resources may be there but they are a long way away and they are very expensive, that we then realize that we have to provide additional support and additional relief.

There is a resilience in Alaska and, certainly, a resilience in Western Alaska. These people have lived in these villages for thousands of years--maybe not exactly the same place, but they are not going anywhere. They are not going anywhere.

And what I feel compelled to do is everything in my power to make sure that they are not forgotten and that they and their families are able to move forward in these next months.

With that, I just share that my thoughts and my prayers are not just limited to those in Alaska, but we think about all those who have suffered due to disasters, whether in New Mexico, in Puerto Rico, or those who are very, very fearful in Florida right now.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, before I begin my remarks, I was just watching the ``TODAY'' show. That is why I was late.

They have a surprise neighbor of the month, and when they come in and surprise him, all his neighbors are there because he is such a great neighbor.

Well, Ernie Mann--who is the father of Steve Mann, who has been my deputy State director since I have been Senator for over 20 years--a teacher in the community, a volunteer firefighter for 60 years, and just a great guy and a wonderful Yankee fan. They had Nestor Cortes get on the phone and speak to him. He was just made the neighbor of--I think it is of the month, but maybe it is of the year. Anyway, he deserves it. It was wonderful. It was beautiful to see.

So, Ernie--and to all the Mann family, including the great Steve, who has done such a great job for me--congratulations. Good luck. It was beautiful. It was beautiful.

Continuing Resolution

Mr. President, now let's get to the substance of the day.

Last night, by a vote of 72 to 23, the Senate agreed to advance a shell for a continuing resolution to keep the government open until December 16 and avoid a needless government shutdown.

As my colleagues know, government funding runs out Friday at midnight, whereupon a partial shutdown would begin if we do not act. We must work fast to finish the process here on the floor, send a CR to the House, and then send it to the President's desk before the clock runs out. With cooperation from our Republican colleagues, the Senate can finish its work with keeping the government open as soon as tomorrow. There is every reason in the world to get to yes, and I look forward to working with Leader McConnell to make sure we can do that and not bump up into the Friday midnight deadline.

I urge my colleagues on both sides to work with us together to speed this process as quickly as we can through

the floor, especially since the CR contains many things both parties support.

I am talking about billions in disaster aid to help communities in Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, Alaska, and Puerto Rico, battered by floods and disasters over the past year; as well as help for New Mexico to recover from its worst wildfire in the State's history.

We must also renew the FDA user fees for the next 5 years to prevent the slowdown of innovative drugs and medical devices so needed by our people and to prevent thousands of workers--good, hard-working workers--who help approve these drugs and make sure they are safe from being furloughed.

And, crucially, we must also approve critical emergency aid for the people of Ukraine. Over the past few weeks, it has become clear that U.S. assistance has made an enormous difference in helping Ukraine defend itself.

I want to salute President Biden. He has done a masterful job in helping the Ukrainians and leading us. But the Congress in a bipartisan way has gone along in the past. We have not only got along, but we enthusiastically supported our help for Ukraine. I certainly enthusiastically support it, and we have to continue. The conflict in Ukraine is far from over and our obligation remains to help them, however we can, to beat the brutal, nasty, vicious Putin.

I want to also thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who worked day and night to put this CR together, especially my friend Senator Leahy, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and Ranking Member Shelby for his good work. They are both retiring. Let's hope this is the last CR they do so we get an omnibus done in December.

I also want to recognize all of my other colleagues on the Appropriations Committee and in the Senate and all their great staffs, who have worked hard to make sure we don't have a needless shutdown.

Twenty months into the Democratic majority, I want to take a moment to highlight the many, many accomplishments we have secured in this Chamber, the most in recent memory. This is one of the most productive Congresses we have had in a very long time, and we have worked hard every step of the way to improve the lives of the American people, to help those in the middle class stay in the middle class, and to help those struggling to get into the middle class, making it a little easier for them to get there.

A few months ago, for instance, after the tragedies in Uvalde, Buffalo, and so many others, the Senate came together on a bipartisan basis to break the grip of the NRA and pass the first gun safety bill in three decades. It was the first gun safety bill since the Brady Act, which I was proud to author as a Member of Congress, 30 years ago. It took 30 years to get some real progress made, but we did, and we have to continue.

A few weeks later, we passed the largest expansion of veterans' benefits in a generation to help veterans suffering from cancers, lung diseases, and other ailments stemming from toxic exposure. Again, it was a bipartisan bill. Senators Tester and Moran led the way. It was a really good bill, and thousands and thousands and thousands of veterans who risked their lives for us are now getting the help they always needed and deserved.

And, as Ukraine fights for survival, we strengthened NATO--again, bipartisan--by adding Finland and Sweden to its ranks, sending Putin a clear message that he can't intimidate America or Europe.

And, as the Chinese Communist Party continues its drive to outcompete the United States, we passed the CHIPS and Science Act, the largest manufacturing, science, and jobs bill we have seen in decades, bringing jobs back to America in high-end manufacturing and in research, to keep us No. 1 on into the 21st century as the leading economy, free and democratic, in the world.

Our efforts, of course, culminated in the crowning jewel of them all, the Inflation Reduction Act--a groundbreaking bill that will lower prescription drug costs, lower the price of insulin for seniors on Medicare, and help Americans save on energy costs with the largest clean energy investments in American history.

I am so proud that my caucus stuck together in getting this important bill done. We needed every vote, and we got it--and that is only what we have done since June.

Over the past year, we have enacted the first infrastructure law in decades--the largest, biggest infrastructure law in decades. We revamped our post office, finally, and put it on a good track. We reinstated VAWA, the Violence Against Women Act, after years of trying. We finally declared lynching a Federal hate crime after a century of delay, and we unanimously ended forced arbitration for sexual harassment and assault in the workplace.

Then, of course, we have confirmed over 80 qualified nominees to the Federal bench, including Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman ever to sit on the Supreme Court. Roughly three-quarters of the President's nominees have been women and two-thirds people of color. With one nominee at a time, we are making our Federal bench a better reflection of our great country.

All of these accomplishments will echo for years in the lives of the American people. They were hard to get done, especially in a 50-50 Senate. While we have gotten so much done, there is a lot, certainly more, we have to do.

I have always said, from my first days as majority leader, that Democrats would be willing to work in a bipartisan way to get things done whenever we could, but of course, on such important issues like climate, when we are unable to find common ground, Democrats will hold firm in the defense of our values and show the American people the choice before them in the coming election, as we did in the IRA. Sadly, since the overturning of Roe, that contrast has come into sharper focus than we have seen in years.

One example is in Arizona. For decades, overturning Roe and eliminating the right to choose had been the North Star for many in the Republican Party--for most, it seems--in orienting much of their legislation, their candidates, and their nominees they elevate to the judiciary. All too often, Republican Senators and legislators--even when they might not agree with the extreme MAGA position on abortion-- go along because they are afraid of the consequences in a primary.

Well, we saw another horrifying consequence of this late last week when a judge in Arizona upheld a radical abortion ban that dates back to the time of the Civil War--even before Arizona became a State. In the blink of an eye, the right to choose has been practically eliminated in Arizona, a devastating blow to the freedoms of millions of Arizonan women.

The law held in Arizona is as cruel and radical as it comes. It dates all the way back to the 1860s--the 1860s, not the 1960s--and provides no exceptions for rape and incest. It tells young women who are raped or who are subject to incest: You have to carry the baby all the way to term. You have to carry the fetus all the way to term.

That is terrible. That is terrible.

It allows for the prosecution of doctors and, even worse, of those who assist women in accessing abortion.

In response, the MAGA state attorney general released a statement, saying: We applaud the court for upholding the will of the legislature.

The 1860s. The 1860s.

MAGA Republicans are making it clear as day exactly where they stand on the right to choose. They want to make freedom of choice extinct across the country--period.

The Arizona ruling is hardly the only example of Republican State legislatures, as we see in places like Indiana, South Carolina, and many others, that have already introduced or enacted restrictions with few exceptions for rape and incest.

Look, at the end of the day, this isn't about States' rights despite what Republicans have claimed. This is about getting rid of the right to choose in its entirety. If anyone has any doubts, look no further than the national ban that was introduced right here in the Senate not 3 weeks ago.

And while Republicans will try to deflect, distort, or mainly distract from their record--they don't like talking about this because they know the American people are not on their side, but their hard- right, MAGA core is--they are stuck. The fact is that every

Senate Republican--every Senate Republican--is already on record as voting in favor of a national ban--sometimes more than once--here on the floor.

So the contrast has become clear--clear, clear as could be: While Democrats want to protect a woman's freedom to choose, MAGA Republicans want to take away that right with proposals to ban freedom of choice in its entirety and to punish women and doctors for carrying out abortions, even past bans, with no exceptions for rape or incest. We are seeing it play out across the country, and it is chilling to the bone.

Democrats will keep fighting these MAGA abortion bans--these radical MAGA abortion bans--and make clear to all that we are the party fighting to protect people's freedoms over their own bodies.

I yield the floor.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

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

Mr. President, the human spirit abhors tyranny.

Since February, the world has witnessed examples of extraordinary courage. In Ukraine, we have watched ordinary men and women mount a defense of their homes and their homeland against overwhelming odds-- people never having handled firearms before who are getting training, getting arms, getting munitions, and joining together in the cause of defending their homes and their homeland. We know what it has cost them. Across the border, we have seen thousands and thousands of ordinary Russians challenge the suicidal thuggery of Vladimir Putin. We know what it has cost them too.

Today, I want to call our attention to the courage on display in a different part of the world. I want to look to Iran.

Two weeks ago yesterday, on September 13, Iran's so-called morality police arrested a young woman named Mahsa Amini. They detained her on the grounds that she was wearing her hijab improperly. She was bundled into a van, where eyewitnesses could hear the police beating her. A few hours later, she was delivered to a local hospital, where she was declared brain dead. The police shamelessly claimed that she had had a spontaneous heart attack.

Thousands upon thousands of Iranians have poured into the streets since. Protesters are calling for an end to the savagery that has made absurd arrests and vicious beatings a regular part of the rhythm of life in Tehran. They are demanding dignity for the millions and millions of people who have lost it under Tehran's maniac theocracy. This is no small thing, what they have done--the courage that is on display as they pour into the streets. Protests have erupted now in more than 80 cities and in all 31 of Iran's provinces. This is not a minor demonstration.

The mullahs are facing one of the most significant challenges to their rule since they seized it 43 years ago, in 1979. How has the regime responded? As expected--with more brutality, with more repression, and with more savagery. Human rights groups estimate that 76 people have been killed so far by the authorities.

Meanwhile, the crackdown has also included a shutting off of social media and the internet. They hope that a country and a world that can't see their thuggery won't notice it, will pretend it doesn't exist, won't know. Well, they know, and we know. The Iranians know how this regime operates. We know that these pathetic cowards have no regard for human dignity.

Who are they?

These bloodthirsty men are the goons who hang homosexuals from gallows, who protect child rapists, who deny women education. The regime is rotten to the core. The people who are suffering under it know, and we know. These men have told the world exactly who they are again and again and again.

In 2009, Iranians erupted at the grotesque human rights abuses perpetrated by then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In an election riddled with fraud, the world saw who he was again. During the Green Revolution, thousands of protesters, including key opposition leaders, were arrested and thrown in Iran's dungeon prisons. Many were tortured, and several dozen were killed. A 26-year-old woman, a student, was shot from a nearby rooftop by pro-government militia men. Her dying moments were recorded by cell phone video and were broadcast around the world.

We know who they are.

Ten years later--3 years ago, in 2019--massive nationwide protests erupted again. This time, it was following an announcement of massive, unsustainable hikes on gas prices. The protests and the violence that followed were the worst since 1979.

Hundreds of people took to the streets, and the government responded with a campaign of systemic savagery,

hoping to drive people back into their homes in order to hide the truth and to not admit to what this regime was and the ways that they failed. Protesters were shot from rooftops and helicopters by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Their troops opened fire on unarmed protesters who were attempting to block roadways and entrances. In one southwestern city, IRGC forces pursued several dozen, mostly young, unarmed protesters into a march outside the city and then began massacring them. Most reliable outside observers believe that about 1,500 protesters were killed.

In 2019, Tehran also conducted a near-total internet shutdown, plunging the country's 83 million people into information darkness for about 6 days. That practice, as we are seeing again right now, as we see this month, has become one more regular instrument of terror. These guys are scared of sunlight. They are scared of information. They are scared of the truth.

We know that the despots in Iran who brutalize their own people also export their terror tactics. Look at the last 2 months alone.

In July of last summer, 2021, a group of Iranian spies tried to kidnap Masih Alinejad--an Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist--at her home in New York. In July of this year, she was the target of an assassination attempt again at her home in our country.

We learned in August that a member of the IRGC had plotted to assassinate former National Security Advisor John Bolton on American soil.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Iran Envoy Brian Hook still require personal security details everywhere they go because Iran has put targets on their backs in our country.

It was also just last month that, inspired by the Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 fatwa, an American man attacked and nearly killed novelist Salman Rushdie during an appearance in New York.

Then, in August, Vladimir Putin received his first shipment of Iranian drones--birds of a feather.

Inside its borders and beyond them, the regime in Tehran thinks nothing but bloody thoughts. They think no one has dignity who doesn't subscribe exactly to their theocratic views. It is long past time that American policy and the policies of our friends and allies recognize these blunt facts. We should tell the truth.

In 2009 and again in 2019, we had the opportunity to support and encourage protesters who were agitating against a regime that is their enemy and is ours, and in both cases, under administrations Democratic and Republican, we failed the test.

Last week, President Biden told the U.N. General Assembly:

Today, we stand with the brave citizens and the brave women

of Iran, who right now are demonstrating to secure their

basic rights.

It is a good start, but it is far from sufficient. It is far from the end.

Right now, America's policy toward Iran is hopelessly schizophrenic. We cannot stand on the side of Iranian protesters at the same time that we are trying to re-sign a nuclear deal with the same mullahs who would release billions of dollars back into their hands, help them shore up their power, and do nothing to prevent putting a catastrophic weapon into their genocidal hands. President Obama chased a flawed nuclear deal with Iran's terror state instead of more aggressively standing with the Iranian people. Today, the same hodgepodge of national security advisers is at it again.

Newly announced sanctions against the leaders of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the Army Ground Forces, and the pro- government militias are good, but we cannot stand on the side of the men and women of Iran who are in the streets at the same time we refuse to sanction the leaders who matter most. Ayatollah Khomeini and the circle of elites around him continue to escape serious consequence.

We shouldn't trick ourselves and should not delude ourselves into thinking that economic sanctions are a magic wand or that the mullahs themselves care very much about the economic pain that the people under their regime are suffering. We should not think that the mullahs care about elite opinion in Paris. We have to have a serious top-to-bottom evaluation of our Iran strategy, and a coherent policy must begin by telling the truth over and over and over again.

We cannot stand on the side of the people on the streets demanding dignity at the same time that we welcome Iran's President--someone personally responsible for show trials and mass executions and assassination attempts on our soil, in our country. We can't allow him to spout lies and propaganda on our same American soil as we did last week at the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Now is the time for a serious, coordinated policy that admits the threat that Iran poses, not just to its people and its neighbors but also to America, and to take seriously our commitment to the rights and freedoms of all 7.8 billion people across this globe created in God's image.

We can start by helping illuminate the government-imposed blackout so that Iranians can see what their government and its blackshirts are doing--more light, more information. We can expand and intensify the sanctions regime that has pushed Iran to the brink in the past, before we lost our nerve. We can amplify the voices of the Iranian protesters and stop providing platforms to the regime's propagandists. We can make sure that the voices of the Iranian people are heard by keeping the internet on while Tehran works to put the country back into the black box of despotism.

The courage of men and women on the streets of Iran today has not gone unnoticed. They have imagined the possibility of an Iranian future no longer under the thumb of Tehran's bloodthirsty dictators. We should be able to imagine that future too and to do more to make that a reality.

The Iranian people hate Tehran's blood-soaked tyrants. This is not a regime that has the consent of the governed. The American people are on freedom's side. The administration should drop the fantasy of another nuclear deal, walk away from the table, and turn the screws on these monsters by, first, telling the truth again and again.

We ought to do everything we can to celebrate the heroism of the Iranians in the streets and to expose Tehran's human rights abuses around the watching world. And the best way to do that is by making sure that the internet stays on in Iran--more light, more truth, more information.

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

Mr. President, despite the gridlock that occasionally grips this Chamber, the Senate has managed to advance some great bipartisan bills since the beginning of this Congress.

All of the attention seems to focus on our disagreements, not where we agree, and there is no question that there are big disagreements here and for good reasons. But the media seems to miss the smaller but no less important bills that earn bipartisan support every day.

Over the last couple of years, the Senate has unanimously-- unanimously--approved bills that I have introduced to support victims of child abuse, provide tax relief to survivors of human trafficking, strengthening our trade relationships with Canada and Mexico, and building safer and healthier communities.

It is no secret that our country is in the midst of a mental health crisis. We do not have a mental health delivery system in America. We made some great strides recently with the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act that made an unprecedented investment in community- based mental health care.

We all know that the mental health crisis does not discriminate. It affects people of all ages, from all walks of life, and it is creating serious challenges for law enforcement who are often the first to respond when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis. Police officers will tell you that they don't have the training or expertise, ordinarily, to assist these individuals in the most effective way possible because they are not mental health professionals. We can't expect the police to solve every problem that they face on the streets of our country, whether it has to do with mental health, drug overdoses, homelessness, or the like. They have simply been asked to do too much without the resources or support they need, and that needs to change.

That is where the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program comes in. For nearly two decades, this program has provided critical grants to help law enforcement assist individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. That includes mental health courts, crisis intervention teams, and other programs that promote public safety and improve mental health outcomes and reduce recidivism.

Communities across my State of Texas are working to bridge the gap between criminal justice and mental health, and I was able to hear about some of that work during the August recess.

In the city of Pharr, in the Rio Grande Valley, for example, I sat down with local law enforcement officers and mental health professionals, as well as local civic leaders, to talk about the city's innovative mental health unit.

The Pharr Police Department launched this unit in 2020 to improve the quality of outcomes for individuals in crisis and the community as a whole. Mental health officers are trained to respond to these crises in the most effective and compassionate way possible, and the city of Pharr has experienced great results over the last couple of years. The program has even been recognized as the ``Organization of the Year'' at the Texas Crisis Intervention Team Association annual conference.

It is a shining success story, and the Pharr Police Department is eager to do more. That is why the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Grant Program is important--because it provides additional resources.

In the past, the mental health unit in the city of Pharr received a $550,000 grant, which will be used to expand the reach and impact of the program in the community, and I introduced a bill with Senator Klobuchar, our colleague from Minnesota, to ensure that these grants can deliver even bigger benefits.

Our bill would allow grants to be used for mental health courts and veterans treatment programs--two incredible resources to provide individuals who are struggling with the treatment they need.

Grant recipients could also use these funds to improve officer training. As I said, most police officers aren't trained to deal with people in a mental health crisis, and things like deescalation training are really important for the safety of the person experiencing the crisis as well as the law enforcement officer.

But these grants can also enhance services for substance use disorders and suicide prevention programs, and they would be able to invest in 24/7, 365-day crisis response capabilities.

All of these recommendations in this legislation came from the men and women on the frontlines. They come face-to-face with America's mental health crisis every day, and these are the changes that they have suggested and asked for.

But, obviously, I am not alone in supporting the program. As I said, this bill was introduced with Senator Klobuchar, and it has more than a dozen bipartisan cosponsors, including the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And the bill passed the U.S. Senate last summer with unanimous support.

So that is just one example of the bipartisan work we have done here that doesn't get a lot of attention but will go a long way to improve our criminal justice system and how it deals with people who are struggling.

Last year, the Senate approved legislation that I introduced with Senator Whitehouse, the Senator from Rhode Island, to help incarcerated individuals break the cycle of addiction. This legislation updates the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program and expands it to treatment in jails and prisons across the country. The program has already provided incarcerated individuals with access to treatment for substance use disorders. That treatment is coupled with programs to prepare these men and women for reentry and to provide community-based treatment once they are released, hopefully, to help them lead productive, law-abiding lives.

Our legislation opens up even more opportunities for successful rehabilitation and continued recovery, and it

gives providers more options when it comes to treating substance use disorders. It requires program staff to be trained on the science of addiction, evidence-based therapies, and strategies for continuity of care. And it ensures programs are affiliated with providers who can continue treatment after incarceration.

We have done a lot of good work, if I can say so myself, on a bipartisan basis, to try to deal with things like addiction, things like mental health crises because typically what happens in the absence of these programs is law enforcement ends up getting a 9-1-1 call, and they have nowhere to take the person other than to the local jail.

Not that long ago, I met with a group of major city police chiefs, and I was asked by a friend of mine--one of the police chiefs--who said: Would you like to meet the largest mental health provider in the country? He is the police chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.

So in the absence of these kinds of programs, these innovative programs, what you are seeing is people warehoused in jails or prisons, only to repeat their offenses again because the core problems that they are experiencing aren't being addressed. That is true in addiction. That is true with mental health.

So these changes that I am talking about were not drafted in a vacuum. We consulted with law enforcement, criminal justice specialists, and behavioral health experts. And, once again, this bill passed unanimously in the Senate.

Despite the fact that these two bills that I have talked about got support of 100 Senators, both have hit a brick wall in the House. The House has yet to schedule a vote on either one of those pieces of legislation. It is not clear to me why the House won't take up and pass these obviously nonpartisan, important pieces of legislation.

These are two bills to improve the way our criminal justice system supports people who are struggling and gives them the best possible shot at healthy and productive lives.

They were drafted here, as I said, on a bipartisan basis, based on feedback and input of the people who know this topic best, and they will improve public safety and individual outcomes.

So I hope the House will take up and pass these bills without further delay. I hope there isn't a resistance to these bills because some of this money goes to fund police departments.

As we have seen over the last couple of years, some of our Democratic colleagues reflexively oppose any effort to send funding to police departments. We all remember the ``defund the police'' movement.

When this became a major political liability, though, obviously, those who had advocated for defunding the police tried to run for cover.

Last week, the House passed a partisan police funding bill that is loaded down with so many poison pills that it stands no chance of becoming law here in the Senate. In short, they can now say they voted for a police funding bill, even though they know it is guaranteed to go nowhere.

Meanwhile, there are great bipartisan bills that do support the police that are just one vote and a signature away from becoming law. The difference is, these aren't messaging bills. These aren't designed to provide people with political cover or mistaken positions that they have taken in the past. The goal was never to make a point or force a tough vote on our colleagues across the aisle.

Bipartisan, good policy--these bills give law enforcement the tools they need in order to succeed at the very difficult job we know they have, and both of them passed the Senate without a single dissenting vote.

So given the fact that America is facing a mental health crisis and an overdose epidemic, there could not be a more important time to take up and pass these bills.

So I hope if anybody in the House is listening in the leadership, they will consider the fact that by one vote they can get these bills on the President's desk, and we can't let antipolice rhetoric stand in the way of good policy or helping those who deserve and need our help.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Menendez and I be permitted to complete our remarks prior to the scheduled recess.

Mr. President, I rise in support of our legislation to formally designate the major Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations under Federal law.

It would also require the State Department to issue a report to Congress on additional cartels that meet the criteria for foreign terrorist organizations designation and require the Department to designate them as such within 30 days of the report. This bill would give us greater tools to push back against the cartels fueling the White House's deadly open border crisis.

This past March, I was honored and proud to lead five Kansas sheriffs to the border to meet with Border Patrol officers and survey the ongoing immigration crisis at our border. With our own eyes, we saw the activities of the major Mexican drug cartels that qualify them for designation as a foreign terrorist organization, as they are transnational entities that engage in textbook terrorist activity, such as kidnapping, assassination, and endangering lives with explosives and firearms.

Additionally, these cartels are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, especially young Americans in their prime.

Fentanyl has quickly become the leading cause of death among adults ages 18 to 45. Last year, the number of drug overdose deaths in the United States topped 100,000, with fentanyl being the cause of more than two-thirds of them.

The vast majority of fentanyl precursors, as we all know now, are manufactured in China and then chemically

turned into lethal fentanyl by the cartels. Next, the cartels smuggle the poison into the United States via the southwest border. In fact, the DEA reports that an astounding 80 percent of the fentanyl in America comes into our country through the U.S.-Mexico open border.

Last week, we introduced the Cooper Davis Act, a bill named after Cooper Davis, a Johnston County, KS, teen who tragically lost his life to fentanyl poisoning last summer after just taking one-half of one pill of fake Percocet that contained, unfortunately, a lethal dose of fentanyl.

Sadly, Cooper Davis is not the only victim in Kansas from the actions of the Mexican cartels, as most every day, we lose a young person in Kansas due to the actions of these terrorist cartel operations. And I know every single one of my Senate colleagues have victims from their States who have been poisoned and murdered from this same illicit fentanyl.

That is right. Americans are dead, hundreds being murdered every day because of this administration's open border policies and zero respect for border security.

Last year, the Border Patrol seized at the southern border 11,000 pounds of fentanyl. That is over 5 tons of this poison. They seized over 5,000 pounds of heroin, nearly a ton of meth, and almost a thousand pounds of cocaine, and, finally, 10,000 pounds of ketamine.

Of course, this is a fraction of how much of this poison actually crossed the border and was transported into our communities undetected, making every State a border State.

Regardless, this represents many, many multiples of amounts needed to kill every man, woman, and child in the United States. Indeed, this sounds like a weapon of mass destruction.

Joe Biden's open border policies are responsible for the deaths of thousands of young American men, women, and children.

To anyone who knows the brutal tactics and extensive operations that cartels use on both sides of our southern border every single day, there is no question that they should be described, designated, and treated as terrorists.

These are people who hang, behead, and burn people alive to threaten and control government officials in Mexico, and now with cartel members in most likely every State of the Union--yes, even in Kansas--they actively engage in these same dangerous, murderous tactics here domestically.

For more than 10 years, Texas Republicans have been trying to label Mexican cartels terrorists in an effort to try and cripple their empires.

This week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott made a declaration establishing a Mexican cartel division within the Texas Fusion Center at the Texas Department of Public Safety, which his office said will conduct multijurisdictional investigations with local law enforcement and other States.

The unsustainable crisis at the border has impacted not only Americans but the migrants themselves, who have often traveled hundreds of miles on foot and can be exploited by these terrorist organizations.

Just yesterday, the Washington Examiner reported those being brought across the border by coyotes are paying an average of $8,600 in total smuggling fees this year, mimicking what Mafias do who charge a fee-- literally a tax--to enter their territory and pass through.

The Biden open border surge has enriched these terrorist organizations, and we must step up our defenses against them as they continue to wreak havoc on communities all across the country. It cannot go on any longer.

Listen, designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations will give our Federal Government new ways to fight back; that is, if the White House will allow them to.

A foreign terrorist organization designation provides additional tools for law enforcement and national security authorities to take action, including by providing additional investigation and intelligence resources and sanction capabilities.

For example, a foreign terrorist organization designation would, No. 1, make it unlawful for any person who knowingly provides ``material support or resources'' to the cartel to enter the United States. Next, it prevents any member of the designated cartel from legally entering the United States. And, finally, it would allow the Secretary of the Treasury to block all assets possessed or controlled by the cartels.

The cartels are playing a massive role in the ongoing crisis at the border. By exploiting Joe Biden's open border policies, the cartels have increased their power and wealth at the expense of innocent lives that get in their way.

I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation to formally designate the major Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations under Federal law and help stem the tide of dangerous drugs and other illicit goods pouring across our open southern border.

Surely, this is an effort we can all get behind, as every Senator in this body affirmed by oath that they would support and defend the Constitution upon their swearing in. This, importantly, includes providing for the common defense of our people.

Personally, I will not rest until we stop this war on the youth of young Americans.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration of S. 4914 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, I certainly do respect the comments of the chairman.

I would ask him a question: What would you tell the mother of Cooper Davis? What would you tell the mother of the hundreds of Americans who are going to die today from fentanyl poisoning?

Whatever we are doing now is not working. This is a war. Just yesterday morning, at 1 a.m., we were given 250 pages of legislation that we were asked to vote on that evening. This is a 3- or 4-page bill.

I have declared war on fentanyl. Every day in Kansas someone is dying from fentanyl. Every day in the State of New Jersey probably several people are dying from fentanyl poisoning.

I would ask the chairman: Whatever we are doing, it is not working. What more can we do? What do I tell Cooper Davis's mom? What do I tell these people out there whose babies are dying?

They are young adults being taken from the prime of their lives. Whatever we have done is not working. This stuff is coming over by the tons. What we have captured is a fraction of what is reaching America. That is why Kansas is no longer safe. It is not safe for any of our young adults. This is why this Halloween we are going to have to put our kids on special watches as this candied fentanyl comes across the border. I don't see how anyone who cares about our youth and young adults could object to this.

I yield the floor.