Securing Inspector General Independence Act of 2021

Madam President, in February of this year, there was bipartisan conversation about what is the next step dealing with COVID. We knew we were coming out of it. Vaccines were going in arms. States were opening up. My State in Oklahoma was rapidly opening in February, and there was this dialogue about what would happen in the economy.

Unfortunately, in the middle of that dialogue, my Democratic colleagues determined: We were going to go this on our own.

We still stay engaged. One of the big issues, though, was unemployment. Would there be additional unemployment benefits that would be done?

Now, myself and multiple others raised the issue on both sides of the aisle: How would this be handled?

If it was a year before--literally, in March of 2020, there was an extension of unemployment because unemployment was at 15 percent at that point, and there were no jobs to be had. But in March of this year, when the agreement was finally made and a straight partisan bill was passed, we weren't at 15 percent unemployment. It was at 6 percent and driving down to the floor. Now we are below 4 percent.

The challenge that we have is, there is additional unemployment benefits that have extended all the way until September.

Now, that bill passed--a straight partisan bill--in March. By the Sunday after Palm Sunday, when I was back in my State, I was already having businessowners catching me and saying: What in the world? I can't hire now because I am competing for wages with someone in the Federal Government.

What has that meant for right now? Now and May, what does that mean for us in Oklahoma?

In Oklahoma, there are 37 percent more jobs available now than there were a year and a half ago before the pandemic began, when we were at the best economy in 50 years. Literally, there are more job openings in Oklahoma now than there have ever been in the history of our records.

Let me run that past everybody again. There are more openings in Oklahoma right now for jobs than ever in the history of our recordkeeping for our State, but we can't fill jobs because people are making so much money on unemployment and they get the first $10,000 of that written off on their taxes. Those two pieces together incentivize people, literally, to be able to stay home.

Our State has had to take a pretty radical step, quite frankly. We have stepped in with 20 other States and have ended the unemployment assistance, but we have had to take it the next step because we have so many job openings in our State. We are literally giving a $1,200 bonus to anyone who will go back to work. For the first 20,000 people who will actually get off of unemployment benefits and go back to work, we are paying a $1,200 bonus to those individuals to return to work. What in the world? Why would we have to do this as a State? Our State is taking leadership, and I am grateful to Governor Stitt and his continued leadership to be able to help navigate our economy and our families. But why would we want to have a situation where we have literally disincentivized work and encouraged people to not return to work? What Governor Stitt has set up is an encouragement to actually get back to work. That is better for families. That is better for children. That is better for our economy.

Right now in Oklahoma, if you are going to build anything--and I mean build anything--good luck finding building supplies. And it is not because we don't have lumber. It is not because we don't have bricks. It is not because we don't have windows and shingles and all those things. Good luck getting it because they can't get enough labor to actually do the manufacturing. So everyone is running behind simply because there is a shortage of labor because we are incentivizing people to stay home rather than to be able to come back.

Shots are in arms. Our rates of COVID have decreased dramatically. It is time for us to return to work. But now we are going to have a situation where we have right now--where half the country is incentivized to stay home. Now you have 21 States--slightly less than half the country--that are trying to incentivize people to get back to work.

We need, as a nation, to incentivize work and to encourage families to be able to be engaged in productive activities. It is right for families. It is right for our economy. It is certainly right for us as a nation. And I thank Governor Stitt for his leadership in this area and for what we continue to do, but we have to get back to basic policies that don't disincentivize work.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, there is a lot going on right now. I have already spent time on the floor today to talk about some of the economic issues--inflation, unemployment--that are happening. There are a number of jobs that are open in my State. In fact, there is a record number of job openings in my State. There is unrest in the Middle East right now, and there are all kinds of things that are happening in the world.

Yet I can't help, just for a moment, pausing to be able to reflect on a friend of mine who, in a few days, will be sitting and hanging out with his 12 grandchildren and enjoying a moment of retirement.

His name is Roger Beverage. Roger Beverage just retired as the CEO of the Oklahoma Bankers Association. He is not the big banker guy. He is the community banker guy. For 30 years, he led our State in banking and engaged in issues from the smallest of the small banks in rural Oklahoma to family-owned community banks that are scattered around our State. He worked tirelessly to help individuals get access to banking who were blocked out, and he made sure that everyone had a shot. He has been a remarkable leader, and he is just a great grandpa.

In the days ahead, I celebrate his getting time with his 12 grandchildren because he has given so much to so many others. As he spends time with his five kids--just the five kids who carry around the 12 grandchildren at this point--and as he spends time with his bride of 43 years, Paula, I want to say thank you to him.

Roger wasn't born in Oklahoma; he was born in Nebraska. If you know Nebraska and Oklahoma's long heritage of football, you will know there has been quite a rivalry for a long time. Roger graduated from college and went to law school. When he finished up law school in 1971, he enlisted in the U.S. Army right in the middle of the Vietnam era. He served 2 years in the Army, working as a lawyer. He then served 6 more years in the Reserves after that. He retired as Captain Beverage. He is also a person who has never been shy or would walk away from a challenge and is one who has constantly been focused on service.

In the middle of times that people up here in Washington, DC, wanted to equate big banks and community banks the same and to say: Let's put the pressure on the big banks but ``leave the little banks alone,'' often the little banks got caught up in that fight, and he was one of the folks who was constantly stepping out and saying: Allow community banks to serve communities.

In rural communities, like many of mine in Oklahoma, that bank was essential to the economic development of what is happening in farming, in ranching; what is happening in every single person getting access to a car loan or a home loan or just being that friend when they need a chance to talk about financial advice.

Now, Roger is a leader, and you can imagine, with bankers, who all have

lots of opinions and lots of great leaders, he didn't agree with everybody all the time, but I would tell you something I know about Roger: He always listened. Always.

People would ask me about Roger and what I think of him, and I would say: He is a servant leader. He is a hard worker. He is a person who listens. He has strong opinions, but his strong opinions are based on his own experience in the facts of the day, but he is also a humble worker who is actually working for the best of everyone.

He will be missed in my State--21 years of serving in the State chamber and leadership in so many areas in our State--but I am grateful today and in the days ahead that he is going to finally get a chance to just be grandpa and hang out with those 12 grandchildren.

Enjoy those days, Roger. Thank you for what you have done to be able to help lead our State in this area and to be able to serve so many community bankers all across the Nation.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to complete my remarks before the scheduled vote.

Madam President, I am fortunate enough to live in Baltimore, and I say that because I can commute every night to home, which is a real pleasure, to be able to be with my family in the evening. My wife Myrna and I normally take a morning walk before I start the day, and I can get the morning report from my neighbors as to what is on their minds.

So, this morning, you might be surprised to learn that the major topic of discussion was the Brood X, also known as the cicadas. These are the cicadas that appear every 17 years. Now, I must tell you, that became our subject because we were all trying to avoid stepping on them as we were walking.

Most of us would describe world events of the past calendar year as unprecedented, and this characterization is not wrong. For public health, for the economy, and for our democracy, the year 2021 has indeed brought us challenges previously unimaginable. However, 2021 also marks a predictably predictable natural phenomenon: the emergence of what is known as the 17-year cicadas. Reliably, every 17 years, these insects emerge in the Mid-Atlantic in droves. People greet their visits with equal amounts of scorn and excitement. Some of that is depending upon age.

I hope that we can use this 17-year marker to celebrate the scientific contributions of an unappreciated Marylander and reflect more broadly on the history of the relationship between humans and the natural environment in the Mid-Atlantic, especially the Chesapeake Bay.

Maryland sees the highest concentration of cicadas on the east coast. Scientists estimate that in some places, we have more than 25 or 30 cicadas per square foot or more than 1 million per acre. In addition to this astonishing quantity, male cicadas will perform a mating song that, in large groups, can reach the same decibel level as a lawnmower.

The cicadas' visits last only a matter of weeks for the purpose of mating, molting, and laying eggs that will eventually burrow into the ground and repeat the process in another 17 years.

In the words of prominent Maryland scientist Benjamin Banneker, ``If their lives are short, they are merry,'' noting that ``they still continue on singing till they die.''

Benjamin Banneker's original handwritten document describing the cicadas in 1800 is at the Maryland Center for History and Culture in Baltimore. He accurately predicted the next 17-year cycles. Over the course of his life, he witnessed four 17-year cycles of cicadas. Benjamin Banneker may have

been the first scientist to observe and record the 17-year lifecycle of cicadas.

Banneker was born in 1731. His father, Robert Bannaky, was a formerly enslaved Black man. His mother Mary was a free woman of mixed racial heritage.

Banneker demonstrated a keen interest in the sciences after his maternal grandmother taught him to read and write, and he continued his education at a Quaker schoolhouse in Baltimore County. He quickly excelled in the area of mathematics and astronomy and is now considered one of the first African-American intellects to gain widespread fame.

He is probably best known for authorizing a series of commercially successful farmers' almanacs that predicted weather and tidal patterns for farmers and fishermen. Banneker also predicted lunar and solar eclipses, contributed to surveying the land for the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, and reportedly built the first domestically produced wooden clock in the country.

In addition to his contributions to science and agriculture, Banneker advocated for abolition in a series of letters he exchanged with President Thomas Jefferson.

Mainstream historical narratives have largely excluded Banneker's accomplishments as a prominent Black intellect in the early days of our Nation. As we consider the enormous interest in the arrival of cicadas, it is appropriate that we acknowledge Banneker's early leading role in predicting the 17-year cycle.

There are few historical artifacts from Banneker's home in Maryland, which burned down shortly after his death. Fortunately, we have the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Catonsville, MD, which Baltimore County administers. The park tells the story of his remarkable life and the impact the natural environment of the Chesapeake Bay had in sparking his intellectual curiosity.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan issued a proclamation declaring May and June 2021 as Maryland Magicicada Months to recognize the return of the 17-year periodical cicadas and to generate public awareness about this phenomena.

Fortunately, cicadas' buzz is worse than their bite. Cicadas do not chew, bite, or sting, so they are not a threat to humans, pets, animals, or most plants.

The unit of time marked by the arrival of the periodic cicadas in the region is a useful interval to observe how the local environment has changed over time.

Two years after the last emergence of cicadas in 2006 was the first year the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science's report card was released. The habitat health values were generally poor overall in 2006, with a dramatic reduction in bay grasses. In 2019, the overall score for Chesapeake Bay was a C-minus. This means the bay is in moderate health and is slightly improving over time. For its first ever score, the Chesapeake Bay scored B-minus. That means the larger watershed is in good health.

The path to success for Chesapeake Bay's restoration remains steep and is only becoming more challenging due to the harmful effects of climate change. Warmer and wetter weather conditions work against progress on removing pollutants and creating habitats conducive to population regrowth. The Chesapeake Bay Clean Water Blueprint set forth a timeline for the six watershed jurisdictions that end in 2025.

Now more than ever, we need State, local, and Federal partners working in tandem to meet these goals. The Chesapeake Bay Program will play a central role in that effort, bringing various Federal Agencies, State and local governments, and nonprofit organizations together to meet these goals.

A 17-year review of progress for the Chesapeake Bay should energize the community to work hard to meet our goals. In order to do so, we need the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to play its role as the referee for the Chesapeake Bay Program. The success of the effort depends on the stringent enforcement of statewide pollution reduction plans by the EPA.

As we consider the next arrival of cicadas in the area in 2038, it is impossible not to look ahead to the climate goals the Biden administration has enumerated. By 2030, President Biden has pledged that the United States should have reduced economy-wide net greenhouse gas pollution by 50 to 52 percent. This goal is also referred to as the nationally determined contribution, which is formally submitted to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. President Biden made this announcement during the Leaders Summit on Climate, which serves to demonstrate the return of the United States to leadership on climate issues.

The natural environment is probably one of the most obvious markers of the passage of time and provides an appropriate moment of reflection. Seasonal changes, growing trees and crops, and even the arrival of the cicadas can push us to acknowledge where we have met our objectives and where we have fallen short on our goals. In terms of our local and global environmental restoration goals, we have a lot of work to do before 2037.

Tribute to Louise Foster

Madam President, as we reflect on change, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate a member of my personal staff, Louise Foster, on her matriculation at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs this fall.

``Weezie,'' as everyone who knows her calls her, has spent the last 3 years providing outstanding public service in my Washington, DC, office, first as a staff assistant on the frontline of constituent service and now as a legislative aide, applying science to environmental and infrastructure policy.

While my staff and I will miss her, we wish her the very best of luck and a little cicada magic in her academic pursuits.

With that, I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 1517

Madam President, one of the benefits of vaccine rates going up is that school districts will no longer have an excuse to keep kids and teachers at home for virtual learning. But if I know kids--and as a mom and a grandmom, I can assure you, I understand the kiddos-- getting them back in the classroom won't get them away from the screens.

These big tech companies in China and the Silicon Valley have done their jobs well. For many American kids, devices are integrated into their everyday lives. There is no escaping that 4-inch plate of glass in their pockets. It has become a part of their culture.

Now, this addiction to tech doesn't sit well with many parents and watchdogs. We have all heard arguments that in order to break this addiction, we need to somehow change the culture and persuade young people to break their own ties with Big Tech. I have a different argument: It is Big Tech that needs to change its culture.

As we all know, many of these companies are little more than glorified ad agencies. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and TikTok have all been successful because of their advertising strategies. Their job is to get eyeballs on content and keep fingers scrolling up and down the screen. This means that with every shiny new update, their advertising algorithms have also gotten an update.

The more complex and pervasive these tracking figures become, the harder it is for users to understand what data these companies are collecting and how that data is going to be used. Not even tech-savvy adults can keep up with the legalese in those updated privacy policies.

I think if I went around this Chamber and asked ``When is the last time you read the terms of service on an app update?'' I am willing to bet the answer for most of us would be ``Well, it was a long time ago,'' or it could be maybe even never.

Big tech companies have taken advantage of that, and they have created

within their sphere a culture of pushing boundaries. It is do first, apologize later, and never ever respond to questions about their policies with a straight answer.

This Congress, I reintroduced the BROWSER Act as a way of pushing that culture toward a more consumer-friendly consent model. It would require tech companies to add opt-in and opt-out features to their data collection policies and inject some transparency into the relationship between the user and the service provider. It is a great place to start and a key element of my virtual new protection agenda.

Regulation hasn't kept up with innovation--that much is clear--but neither has demand for corporate responsibility and transparency. It is time to change that, and I encourage all of my colleagues on each side of the aisle to take a look at the BROWSER Act.

But what about those kids? Tech companies are increasingly catering to young demographics, which means the kids are exposed to more of the online world every day, which, depending on what corner you find yourself in, is a productive educational experience, or it could be a life-and-death situation

Now, the science tells us that, physically, children do not have the cognitive ability to understand the advertisements and data collection scenarios that they are being thrown into. Their brains are simply not developed enough. But the security moms out there are keeping an eye on all of this, and they will tell you they do not need an anatomy lesson to know when their child is in over their head. They see their children following trails left for them by predators, and they are bothered. They see their daughters falling apart over body image and self-esteem issues made worse by photoshopped images. They see the violence and the sexual content in music and movies that is created for adults, but children are being exposed to this.

They have a really bad feeling about the expanding role of technology in their child's life. The stats and the scandals we are seeing every day back up their concerns.

According to Common Sense Research, 98 percent of children in this country--98 percent of children in this country--under the age of 8 have access to a mobile device at home. In 2011, just over half of the children had that kind of access. This means that 98 percent of children under age 8 are subjected to unprecedented levels of surveillance, data collection, and advertising attacks, even in supposedly kid-friendly apps.

Alphabet, Google's parent company, got caught tracking children on their school-provided devices outside of school hours. Amazon got caught collecting recordings from children's Echo Dot Kids devices. Parents and regulators have raked Google, TikTok, and Facebook over the coals for pushing products to children that would increase social media addiction.

In 2020, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a recordbreaking 21.7 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation, and 21.4 million of those reports came from electronic service providers. If you are looking for the danger, there it is.

During yesterday's meeting of the Commerce Committee's Consumer Protection Subcommittee, Baroness Kidron had it right when she said that Facebook has not earned our trust, and I would encourage my colleagues working with me on this issue to apply this fact to Big Tech in general.

These companies are entangled in our daily lives and in the lives of our children, and they have no incentive to loosen their grip on our attention by making things easier to understand. Therefore, we have no incentive to assume they are acting with the interest of their customers in mind.

Remember that terms of service agreement we talked about earlier? Well, imagine standing by and asking a child to read, understand, and make an informed choice about whether to click the ``accept'' button. This is preposterous. We need to bring the parents back into the conversation and inject accountability and transparency into the process.

Last Congress, I introduced the SAFE DATA Act with my colleagues, Senators Wicker, Thune, and Fisher. This bill contained a requirement that companies not transfer data collected from children between the ages of 13 and 16 without the explicit consent of their parent or guardian. This Congress, I hope my colleagues, Democratic and Republican, will be willing to work with me on similar legislation that truly targets this problem of child exploitation online.

We will never change the culture of Big Tech--the culture Big Tech has created for itself--if we don't take steps right now to deincentivize the monetization of children's attention and browsing habits. This is a bipartisan issue.

The Zuckerbergs and the Dorseys and the Pichais of the world who have come to testify before the Commerce Committee--they understand this. It wasn't a pleasant experience for them, but I do believe they have gotten the point. They need to understand that when it comes to privacy and safety mistakes, there is no safe harbor to be found here in the U.S. Senate, especially when it concerns the exploitation of our precious children.

What we have going on is going to be even more unpleasant when these security moms start upping the ante and start cutting off the flow of all that valuable underage data that is produced by their children online that is being data-mined by these big tech companies and then sold to advertisers, sold to the highest bidder. That is the breaking point we are rapidly approaching.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, in a moment I will propound a unanimous consent request. Before I do, I want to make some brief remarks.

Right now, gas stations all over the eastern seaboard are suffering from a week-long gas shortage that has left thousands of stations completely out of gas. What we have seen is reminiscent of the 1970s, when Americans had to sit in long lines to fill their cars with gas.

Why are we experiencing this crisis? Because Russian hackers attacked the Colonial Pipeline, which had to shut down operations on May 7.

What is the reward Russia gets for attacking our infrastructure? Well, on the topic of Russia, just yesterday, President Biden doubled down on what is becoming a consistent ``soft on Russia'' position from the Biden administration, making the decision to disregard bipartisan legislation that passed through this body seeking to shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that Putin is desperately trying to complete between Russia and Germany.

That pipeline had been shut down. We had succeeded in a bipartisan victory, stopping that pipeline, but, sadly, Putin resumed building the pipeline shortly after Joe Biden was elected. Yesterday, President Biden made the decision to refuse to enforce the bipartisan sanctions on the company building the pipeline for Putin.

If that wasn't enough, it is clear the Biden administration does know how to shut down pipelines--the Keystone Pipeline. His first day in office, Joe Biden signed an Executive order shutting down the Keystone Pipeline, destroying 11,000 jobs, including 8,000 union jobs--all destroyed by the Biden-Harris administration. For whatever reason, the Biden-Harris administration seems to have a philosophy that American pipelines and American jobs are bad, but Russian pipelines and Russian jobs are apparently good. And Russian hackers should get rewarded with Putin getting billions of dollars because Joe Biden refuses to stand up to Putin.

On the impact here at home of the Russian hacking, Colonial Pipeline transports 100 million gallons of fuel all over the east coast every day. It is responsible for transporting 45 percent of the fuel on the east coast, running from Texas to New Jersey.

The Colonial Pipeline is a critical piece of infrastructure, and when it shut down, it gravely disrupted the daily lives of millions of Americans--fuel for cars, for aviation fuel, for heating homes, all completely shut down. I am standing here today because one thing this crisis has shown us is that we need to diversify how we transport energy in this country so that if our critical infrastructure is attacked again--and we know it is going to be attacked again--that we have other reliable ways to transport energy.

One way to strengthen redundancy and to strengthen our ability to make it through another attack is to allow liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to be transported by rail.

Last year, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration finalized a rule allowing the safe transportation of LNG by rail. What this rule does is enable natural gas that is used for transportation, that is used for generating electricity, for heating homes, for manufacturing, to be transported by railroad, which helps Americans in hard-to-reach areas access the fuel that they need. It also takes pressure off of other critical infrastructure to meet our energy needs.

Yet, now that Joe Biden is President and he has empowered officials in his administration who have a repeated and demonstrated hostility to American pipelines and American jobs and American energy independence, this rule is in jeopardy. When the Secretary of Transportation was before the Senate for confirmation, I repeatedly asked the Secretary to commit to maintaining the existing rule of allowing the safe transport of LNG by rail, and, repeatedly, the Secretary refused to make that commitment. The foolishness of that position is now evident

to everyone as we have gas lines and skyrocketing gas prices on the east coast and throughout the country.

Therefore, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration of S. 1012 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, as the Senator from Massachusetts knows, there is an existing rule that went through the ordinary process in finalizing the rule--the ordinary notice and comment process--that has been promulgated by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The Senator from Massachusetts also knows the reality that accidents by rail are very rare. While we surely don't want to see any accidents occur or have disruptions in transporting LNG by rail, what we have seen by the cyber attack on the Colonial Pipeline is that nothing is certain. There are risks to everything, but by taking precautions and diversifying our transportation methods for fuel, we make our energy industry more resilient to attacks and accidents when they, predictably, do happen in the future.

Furthermore, LNG is already transported by vessels and tanker trucks and has been for decades. Obviously, accidents can happen at sea or with tanker trucks, but that doesn't stop us from transporting LNG in those ways. Accidents on railroads are rare, and if we can transport LNG by sea and in tanker trucks on the road, we should also be able to transport it by rail, where it is safer and more efficient and more effective.

Lastly, to cope with the shutdown, the Department of Transportation granted waivers for hours-of-service requirements to truckdrivers and Jones Act waivers for vessels to continue to transport fuel to try to alleviate the shortage. That just underscores the need for LNG by rail as well.

Unfortunately, as Americans are standing in gas lines, the answer they are being given by Washington Democrats is, the challenges you are facing don't matter to the Democrats. What we have seen from this objection is that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris support higher gas prices--much higher gas prices that you will have to pay at the pumps. They understand that much higher gas prices fall disproportionately on low-income Americans and that they fall disproportionately on African Americans and Hispanics. The Biden-Harris Democrats are willing to jack up your gas prices, to make you wait in line, and to say, essentially, ``tough luck.'' They have no answers, but they are going to block getting energy for your home, for your vehicle, for your life, for your family.

As we stand here today with a crisis at our southern border, as we stand here today with a gas crisis and gas lines, as we stand here today with an inflation crisis on the verge of erupting, and as we stand here today with war in the Middle East, sadly, we are seeing a reprise of the 1970s--the same failed policies producing the same disastrous results--except, in the rerun, Joe Biden is Jimmy Carter 2.0 and Kamala Harris is Walter Mondale. The country, sadly, is paying the price for the extreme and failed policies, and we are just 4 months into it.

I yield the floor

Madam President, I was watching Senator Ernst give this speech. And as to that ``Help Wanted'' sign, I thought I was back in Springfield, MO, my hometown, where I was this weekend. There were occasions when I was driving down a block, and I started looking to see if there was a place that didn't have a ``Help Wanted'' sign up. They were everywhere--``Help Wanted'' signs, hiring bonuses, rates well above the minimum wage. Our minimum wage is $10.30 in our State. There were rates well above that being advertised on the ``Help Wanted'' signs.

You know, we all were disappointed by the job numbers that were issued at the end of April. But, obviously, the job numbers didn't reflect the fact that there weren't jobs to be had. It was just that there weren't people taking the jobs to be had.

We need to think about everything we can to create an environment where people want to go back to work, where people are encouraged to go back to work, and where people who can't go back to work have that basic unemployment benefit. Nobody is begrudging that, but I think it is clear that we have made some mistakes here.

Now, many of us were concerned about this when it initially came up, and we were not able to turn back the additional bonus at the time, though the predictions were just too true about what might happen.

What small businesses in Missouri are saying is pretty consistent all over the State. In St. Louis, the manager of Mary Ann's Tea Room said: ``It is heartbreaking that the business is there, but I can't hire anyone.'' And that restaurant was forced to just close down because they didn't have enough workers.

In Kansas City, the president of the Big Biscuit restaurant said: ``We've never had a hiring drought like this before.'' And according to him, he said, there is ``no doubt we are up against unemployment that has been artificially increased and stimulus payments that give people the opportunity not to show up for work.''

In Branson, just as the busy summer season is getting underway, the general manager at Mel's Hard Luck Diner says he is so short-staffed that they have to close Sunday evenings now--a time when they would normally be open, just to compensate for the fact that they don't have enough people to do the 7 evenings and 7 days of business that they were used to doing. He says he can't even get people to show up for a job interview, let alone show up to work.

Just down the street in Branson, at one of the great theme parks in America, the Silver Dollar City Theme Park, they told me a couple of weeks ago that they could hire 150 people the next day--that would still be their view, by the way--if they could find 150 people. They have 150 jobs, and they have more customers than they have people, so not everybody could get in the park that would normally be able to come to the park.

In Columbia, right in the middle of our State, the owner of Just Jeff's said: ``There's not a person that I come into contact with . . . as a businessowner or manager or something like that, that isn't in a terrible pinch right now for help.''

That is just a snapshot of all we are seeing. I talked to one person who runs a family hotel chain. It is a big family hotel chain based in St. Louis. He said: We have the customers now who are coming back, but we don't have the help. We could fill more rooms than we are filling if we had people who could clean the rooms and get them ready the next day.

Businesses are ready to be back and be fully open, but they don't have the workers they need.

We had an amendment in the CARES Act, one of the five bipartisan bills we passed last year, that would have prevented people from making more when they are unemployed than when they

are working. I said at the time, when I voted for that amendment, that I was concerned that these enhanced unemployment benefits would really create a time when people didn't want to go back to work, and, unfortunately, that is exactly what happened in Missouri and around the country

It has been a tough year, we all know that, for small business owners. We stepped up and tried to think of early ways to keep people on their payrolls rather than on the unemployment rolls. By the way, even at that time, many of those businesses were saying, well, that is a great idea. We would like to keep them on our payroll, but they can make more money on the unemployment rolls. Is that fair to them, to not let them go to this unemployment that the government and its policies made so appealing?

They were trying to fight the worst public health crisis ever and trying to keep businesses afloat. Now they are trying to figure out: As we come out of the public health crisis, what do we do to keep that business going?

You know, that misguided government policy--that comment Ronald Reagan used to make--is one of the scariest things you could hear: ``I am from the government, and I am here to help.'' This seems to be a case where that truly has been a scary thing: The government, trying to help, trying to reach out and do what at least a majority of our colleagues thought was the right thing, has created a situation that is different than it needs to be.

Twenty-one States have now either decided to stop participating already or have announced that they are going to stop participating. Governor Parson in Missouri made that decision. As Senator Ernst mentioned, the Governor of Iowa has made and 19 other Governors have made that decision.

The average unemployment benefit in the States in America right now is $618 a week. That is the average. That includes the $300 that the Federal Government has put into every one of those checks that are still going out at that level. That is $15.46 an hour. Certainly, one way to mandate a $15 hourly pay rate is just to decide that is what you are going to make if you are unemployed. Well, it hasn't worked. It won't work. Our State of Missouri and other States are moving away from this.

In Washington, we make policies, and one of our responsibilities is to be sure that we are keeping an eye on unintended consequences. The law of unintended consequences is one of the great certainties of making law, and we need to watch out for that. We have a huge unintended consequence here. We saw what happened when now the Biden administration is trying to explain why it is not their policies that appear to be slowing the recovery down, but we all know that this is part of that problem.

We have done something to cause this problem. We need to figure out how to solve this problem. This should not be something that States, one at a time, reject. We need to get our economy back on track as quickly as possible.

There is virtue in work, and I hope we make work more appealing again than not working.

Thank you.

Madam President, the situation in the Middle East is a stark contrast from that of just 9 months ago.

Last summer, the United States helped broker the Abraham Accords--a historic step in the relationship between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The UAE became the third Arab country--the first Gulf State-- to recognize and normalize relations with Israel. Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan would follow suit shortly thereafter. These agreements mark historic progress toward peace in decades and appear to open a new era of diplomacy in the Middle East.

Today, though, the optimism we felt just a little less than a year ago has been replaced with more violence--more violence--and more destruction than we have seen in years and civilian casualties that continue to climb every day.

Hamas has fired thousands of rockets into civilian populations in Israel. If not for the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system and the U.S. support and funding that made it possible, the death toll would be significantly higher than it is.

Just as any sovereign state under attack by terrorist forces would do, Israel has defended its citizens. Given the way Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields--a war crime, by the way, for which Hamas alone is responsible--the counterstrikes have carried a human cost.

As the conflict has intensified, some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have called into question Israel's right to defend itself. They have acted as though there is some moral equivalency between the terrorist acts of Hamas and Israel's right to defend itself. They have called on the President to speak out against the conduct of Israel but not Hamas. It is as though they think that Israel is somehow a terrorist group, not the other way around.

As I said, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets specifically headed toward civilian targets in Israel. The moral equivalency argument between Hamas's attack and Israel's response is clearly divorced from any reality.

Let's be clear, though. This conflict is not a welcome development for anyone. The Israeli and the Palestinian people are bearing the cost of a conflict that they had no hand in creating.

It is important to remember that two things can be true. First, Israel has a right to defend itself. If Hamas or any other terrorist group or state launches an attack on Israel, its government has both the right and the responsibility to respond and protect its citizens. Secondly, the number of civilian casualties on both sides, particularly the number of children, is heartbreaking. Both of those things are true.

The violence and destruction we are seeing is devastating, made even more upsetting by the progress we appeared to have made just last year. But this is not a conflict between two governments; this is a sovereign state defending itself against a terrorist attack.

I am afraid that message has been lost on President Biden. When asked about the conflict earlier this week, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the administration is using ``quiet and intensive diplomacy''--``quiet and intensive diplomacy'' while the rockets are raining down on civilian populations in Israel.

The only democracy in the Middle East is being attacked by a terrorist

organization, and the diplomatic strategy of the leader of the free world includes remaining quiet. I am reminded of President Obama's statement--bizarre now, in retrospect--talking about ``leading from behind,'' an oxymoronic doctrine which gave way to disastrous, albeit predictable, consequences in Libya. We continued to see the dire cost of poor American leadership in other foreign countries. In Yemen, in Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine, leading from behind has done nothing but harm the cause of peace.

I hope this serves as a wake-up call for President Biden of the dangers of a similar quest. ``Quiet and intensive diplomacy'' is not the appropriate course when one of our closest allies in the world is being attacked by an internationally recognized terrorist organization.

But we can't lose sight of the country behind the curtain, the silent financier of this conflict, which is Iran, the No. 1 state sponsor of international terrorism, because this is, in fact, a proxy war waged against the Jewish State.

Iran is a prolific state sponsor of terrorism and has felt growing pressure from the United States and its allies in recent years. The Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and placed sanctions on hundreds of businesses and individuals who have helped finance Iran's illicit activities. And there is no question that Iran stood to lose the most from the peace agreements brokered last year. The threat of Iran was largely responsible for these countries to come together and to lay down their arms and to work together.

The Biden administration has made clear it intends to recklessly revive the Iran deal, while loosening the sanctions that would provide the United States leverage to negotiate better terms. These important sanctions target Iran's support for terrorist groups like Hamas, as well as its ballistic missile development and human rights violations.

Removing them now, essentially unilaterally, is a grave mistake. Simply by signaling this intent, President Biden has already emboldened and encouraged Iran's malign activities through its proxies--Hamas, Hezbollah, and others.

This current loss of life and destruction demonstrate that Iran is capable of wielding deadly force, even with lean resources. Fewer sanctions, though, have meant less cash flowing to their terrorist proxies.

This week, we are reminded of the saying that has been around for years: ``If Hamas laid down its weapons today, there would be no more violence. If Israel laid down its weapons, there would be no more Israel.''

America must remain steadfast in our commitment to support Israel, as well as our responsibility to counter threats posed by terrorist organizations like Hamas and malign nation state actors like Iran.

I hope for a day in the future when the Middle East can be a place of peace, stability, and democracy, but we simply will not reach that point without a strong and secure Israel.

I stand in full support of Israel and will continue to fight for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. The United States does not bow down to terrorist organizations, and we will not allow our allies to be bullied and beaten by Hamas or any other terrorist group.

(Mr. OSSOFF assumed the Chair.

Madam President, earlier this month, the Department of Labor's jobs report showed an uptick of the unemployment rate to 6.1 percent and employers only adding 266,000 jobs, despite widespread projections of approximately 1 million jobs to be gained in April.

To call this a dismal jobs report would be an understatement. It was the worst jobs miss since 1998. Yet it is not

surprising considering the many conversations I have had with Kansans throughout my travels. I have heard constantly how employers are struggling to find people for open jobs, largely because folks are staying at home due to the increased unemployment dollars and the stimulus checks that Democrats continue to push.

Earlier this year, Democrats forced through legislation--without any Republican support--that provided $300 more per week in Federal unemployment benefits. This additional benefit, when coupled with the extended unemployment benefits offered by States, already means that the average recipient is making $15 to $20 per hour to stay home.

Democrats have made it more profitable for many Americans to stay unemployed. That is because these policies are not intended to help our economic recovery. They are intended to reform our American system and create more dependency on the government.

This leap toward socialism comes at a time when our Nation is on its way to reaching herd immunity and businesses are emerging from government-imposed lockdowns. Now President Biden has delivered them a government-funded labor shortage.

I recently heard from a wonderful small business in my hometown of Great Bend, KS, that are short-staffed by some 70 employees--that is 70 employees they are short-staffed. They are unable to match the strong incentive to stay home provided by the Federal unemployment benefits in order to rehire their workforce. The company's mission is to provide educational and work opportunities for people with developmental disabilities, giving nearly 200 individuals in the area the independence, inclusion, and training that they need to achieve success. This labor shortage directly affects their ability to meet the needs of the people they serve.

I have heard stories from manufacturers across Kansas struggling to recall their workers, despite offering generous benefits and high-wage jobs or restaurants remaining closed because they don't have enough employees for their basic operations.

Homes aren't being built because of a lack of labor, and hotels are turning away business because they don't have employees. One company even shared a story of offering a high-skilled and high-wage position only to be turned down because the prospective employee claimed they were comfortable on unemployment, and the hours clashed with the local bowling league.

We have seen the broader supply chain begin to feel the impacts, as a lack of truckdrivers means that building materials, computer chips, and common household goods like toothpaste and toilet paper can't reach their destination, or food processing plants are short-staffed and turning out less product than usual, driving up the cost for consumers.

Coupled with the trillions of Federal dollars that have gone out the door so far, we are beginning to see inflation. In fact, the Department of Labor's recently released consumer price index for April showed the largest spike in inflation since 2008.

There are a record 8 million jobs--that is 8 million opportunities waiting to be filled across this country. In my home State of Kansas, we have 57,000 job openings, and the March labor report shows over 58,000 Kansans received unemployment insurance.

While there are certainly people who need access to increased unemployment benefits during the heart of this pandemic, unemployment insurance was never meant to be a permanent salary replacement.

Rather, the benefit is meant to provide temporary assistance while folks get back on their feet. The government should not be in the business of creating lucrative government dependency that makes it more beneficial to stay unemployed rather than return to work. That is called socialism.

Nearly half of the States have halted the additional benefits, and I have called for the Democratic Governor from my home State to do the same. Unfortunately, no State in the Union with a Democratic executive has stepped up and dropped the benefits, despite many of these States having the highest unemployment rates in the country. Instead, Democrats in Congress are moving to make the enhanced benefits permanent.

For all these reasons, last week, 15 of my colleagues joined me in introducing the Get Americans Back to Work Act, which decreases Federal unemployment benefits to $150 per week at the end of May and then fully repeals them altogether at the end of June. Not only will this help get people back to work but the savings generated can be used to pay for roads and bridges.

Let me close by saying ``work'' is not a four-letter, dirty word. A job brings dignity and purpose to all who have one. Over the past year, we have made great strides to develop safe and effective vaccines. Because more Americans are getting their shots, we have seen COVID cases decline to nearly a quarter of where they were in January. Now is the time for folks to get back to work, to get our kids back in school, and get our economy back to prepandemic levels.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, as the disasters pile up left and right from these early months of the Biden Presidency, one might be called the Tail of Three Pipelines--three separate pipelines, three separate challenges, united by one consistent theme. In each case, the foolishness and weakness of the Biden administration has led to the disaster.

First, President Biden began his administration by killing the Keystone XL Pipeline on day one. This decision was a gift to the radical environmentalist nonprofit industry in Washington, DC, and destroyed thousands of good, high-paying, blue-collar, American jobs, including many jobs in my home State of Arkansas.

Second, last week Russian-affiliated hackers attacked the Colonial Pipeline--an artery that supplies nearly half the fuel for the east coast--causing widespread gas shortages across the Southeast.

Instead of making the hackers feel the full wrath of the U.S. Government, the Biden administration called the attack a private sector concern. Colonial then paid the hackers over $4 million in ransom, presumably with Biden administration foreknowledge and acquiescence, if not explicit support. This payment, of course, will only encourage further such attacks on American companies.

Third and finally, yesterday the Biden administration announced it will waive major, legally mandated sanctions against the Russian Nord Stream 2 Pipeline into Germany. This refusal to implement sanctions approved by Congress directly benefits by design the Russian company building Nord Stream 2 and its CEO, who--you won't believe it--is a former Communist, East German Stasi officer and longtime crony of Vladimir Putin.

President Biden's decision to cave on Nord Stream 2 is just the latest show of weakness towards Russia by this administration, which is strange, coming from a party that spent the last 4 years all chesty and boastful, pretending they were Jack Ryan in a Tom Clancy novel.

Nord Stream 2 will serve as a noose around the neck of Europe's energy supply. It will allow Russia to squeeze the sovereign nations of Eastern and Central Europe into submission.

You may think I am exaggerating, but Russia has used energy as a weapon of foreign policy many times in the past. In 2009, for instance, Russia shut off the flow of natural gas to Europe during a dispute with Ukraine, causing energy shortages in the dead of winter. Russia has reduced or shut off gas to Austria, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, and Slovakia whenever those countries have refused its demands or otherwise displeased the Kremlin.

Nord Stream 2 will deepen Europe's addiction to Russian gas and make it ever more dependent on the dealer. All of Europe could suffer, but Ukraine would be hurt the most of all. If the Nord Stream 2 pipeline comes online, Russia could bypass Ukraine entirely. This would not only cost Ukraine's economy billions of dollars in transit fees, it would also give Russia the ability to isolate and starve this proud nation. It is hard to imagine a worse time for this to happen, with Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border, while Russia's dictator salivates over conquering or further partitioning this country.

It is no wonder that the vast majority of Europe sees the dire danger posed by this pipeline. The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly against it on three separate occasions, including just last month. The United Kingdom, France, and Eastern Europe firmly oppose its construction as well. It is only a small but influential group of German elites who support this misguided plan.

It is ironic that these men and women of power and privilege would doubtlessly claim to support the so-called liberal international order, as is the fashion in such circles, but their actions are directly empowering a dictator who poses the greatest threat to their dreams; a man who rose to power and has maintained it through extortion, murder, and brutality.

Putin's most recent political rival, Alexei Navalny, was poisoned with a nerve agent and today is rotting in a Russian penal colony. Navalny's only crime was exposing the corruption and depravity of the Russian state. Yet President Biden wants to enrich and reward this very regime.

Ultimately, the pipeline is emblematic of the Biden administration's ``America last'' foreign policy, but there is still time to stop it. I am urging the President to reverse course immediately. There is little room for error left at this late, perilous stage. Nord Stream 2 is 95 percent completed. Like an outstretched arm, Russia's pipeline extends ominously within reach of Germany's shore. We have to move quickly and in concert with our allies to make sure it extends no further.

This Russian pipeline is bad for America and bad for Europe. If the President wishes to take the reins of international leadership, this is his opportunity. Kill Nord Stream 2 now, and let it rust beneath the waves of the Baltic.

I yield the floor.