COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act

Madam President, first, I want to say I want to thank the Senator from Oregon for objecting to the previous motion, and I share his concerns.

I rise today to speak about some big choices our Nation has to make. Will we continue to limp along with an economy that works for only a few wealthy people or will we invest in making things in America and in our infrastructure and, most importantly, in our people?

Will we continue to allow other countries to outpace us on technology while remaining dependent on critical parts made on the other side of the globe or will we seize a future that is made in America?

And will we continue to ignore the climate crisis and leave it for the next generation to deal with and leave an even bigger catastrophe or will we take action right now--right now--to put our Nation on a path to a future of good-paying jobs fueled by clean energy?

I have often said that in Michigan we don't have an economy unless someone makes something and somebody grows something. That is what we do in Michigan. We make things and grow things. And I know that my friend, the Presiding Officer from Minnesota, feels the same--making things, growing things. That is how we have an economy. It has been the secret to our success in Michigan and in so many other places around the country. We need to make things, and we need to grow things.

Unfortunately, while we have been talking about making things for a long time, the rest of the world has actually been acting.

It is estimated that the Chinese Government has invested at least $100 billion to support its electric vehicle industry. That might be why they have hundreds of companies making electric vehicles.

You can't build a competitive auto industry without electric vehicles, and you can't build electric vehicles without a whole lot of batteries and a whole lot of other component parts. They could all be made here, but most of them aren't.

Right now, none of the major electric vehicle battery providers are American companies. They could be if we helped partner with them to make that happen.

And we have seen what happens when our automakers depend on semiconductors made overseas. Over the past few months, a shortage of computer chips no bigger than a Kellogg's cornflake have idled multiple plants and led to layoffs in Michigan and across the country.

In fact, the Alliance for Auto Innovation estimates that U.S. automakers will produce a million fewer cars this year because of this shortage of this little chip.

It is not enough to say we need to build things in America. We all know that. But we can't build things here without first investing in our capacity and having a national strategy to build things here in America. Thankfully, we have a President of the United States who understands that. He understands the moment we are in and is ready to meet the moment.

Now it is time for Congress to step up. Senate Democrats are excited and ready to take action, working with the President of the United States and hopefully working with our colleagues across the aisle, in this moment for America and America's future.

It is important to note that it won't be the first time that actions we have taken here have had lasting consequences. More than 100 years ago, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison partnered to build an affordable electric car. That was the first kind of car they wanted to make--an electric car. They even built several prototypes in Dearborn, MI. The challenge, Ford told the New York Times in 1914, was ``to build a storage battery of light weight which would operate for long distances without recharging.'' Sound familiar? That is a challenge most of our automakers are very familiar with.

Interestingly, around the same time, in 1916, Congress passed a change to the tax laws that in effect provided oil and gas companies interest-free loans. It was America's first fossil fuel subsidy.

Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that given the various issues and struggles and costs, Ford chose to focus on an internal combustion engine.

Just thinking about it, more than 100 years later, we are still lighting prehistoric plants and animals on fire to get to the grocery store and to get to work.

Now, it is true that my home State of Michigan benefited from these choices. We put the world on wheels. We are extremely proud of our place in history and extremely proud of the wonderful workers, the skill and ability of our workers. But I also understand that we would have been better off today if the issues of carbon pollution had been addressed at the very beginning.

The good news is that we have the opportunity now to fulfill Ford and Edison's electric vision. Just last week, I toured GM's new Factory ZERO, which soon will be building electric Hummers and electric Chevy Silverado trucks. These are big vehicles, and they are going to be all electric. It is very exciting. Stellantis has plans to build four new electric hybrid Jeeps in Detroit, and Henry Ford's company is investing more than $22 billion to introduce electric versions of its vehicles, including Mustangs, Ford F-150 trucks, and commercial vans--all very exciting.

These changes are what we need right now, but our car companies can't do it without a partnership with us, with the Federal Government. Just as companies around the world have not had to do it alone, we need to make sure we are partnering with them to actualize this vision for the future.

You know, the oil companies like to say--whenever we talk about various incentives for wind or solar or electric vehicles or batteries, they always like to say: We shouldn't be picking winners and losers in our country. But I would argue that in 1916, with the first fossil fuel subsidy, our country picked a winner, and they have been subsidized over and over again and winning the energy race ever since. In fact, that subsidy is to the tune of at least $20 billion every year. Even in the tax cuts in 2017, the Republican tax cuts for the wealthiest and most well-connected people in the country, there was even another new foreign oil tax break in there.

I would argue it is time to give equal opportunity to competing technology and level the playing field. At the same time, we can create good-paying jobs here at home, revitalize American manufacturing, and put America in the driver's seat of the clean energy future. That, we can do--that is so exciting to do--if we work with our President to get this done.

If we are going to build back better, it is time to start building. The first thing we can do is to pass the American Jobs Plan, which invests in American manufacturing, creates an American supply chain for products and technologies, and strengthens ``Buy American'' laws. This plan has been long overdue, I can tell you, and it is just the start of what we need to do.

My bipartisan American Jobs in Energy Manufacturing Act, which I introduced with Senator Manchin and Senator Daines, would provide incentives for manufacturers to build and retool existing plants to make advanced energy parts like semiconductors and batteries and retool for electric vehicle

facilities. It builds on the successful 48C advanced energy manufacturing tax credit, which I authored in 2009. That helped boost U.S. manufacturing and create good-paying jobs then, and we can do it now.

On the Finance Committee, we are also working on legislation that would provide an investment tax credit for building American battery, semiconductor, and solar cell plants and a corresponding tax credit for producing these key components.

I am so pleased that President Biden's American Jobs Plan includes electric charging stations as part of our infrastructure investment--it certainly is part of our infrastructure for the future, for today and tomorrow--and consumer incentives to purchase electric vehicles.

We also need to make sure that American taxpayer dollars are spent on American products. You know, that sounds simple, but that is actually not what is being done in every case right now, even though we have had laws on the books for decades and decades and decades.

My bipartisan Make It in America Act with Senator Braun makes it harder for Federal Agencies to use waivers to get around ``Buy American'' rules to purchase foreign-made products. Right now, there has not been enough accountability and structure to make sure that waivers are not being given so that purchases can be made of foreign cars. That needs to stop.

I also want to thank Senator Tammy Baldwin for her leadership on these ``Buy American'' issues as well.

The Federal Government is an enormous consumer, and we are set to make big infrastructure investments. ``Buy American'' rules means that American dollars flow into local economies when we purchase American- made PPE and American-made iron and steel and great American-made electric vehicles. These rules also create good jobs, and we will need highly trained workers to fill them. By investing in our workforce, which is an important part of this plan, we will help the 18 million Americans currently on unemployment find new opportunities--and others as well--new opportunities for good jobs and will ensure that our young people are on a path for good-paying jobs, including skilled trades, after high school.

I am laser-focused on supporting our community colleges and uplifting and expanding registered apprenticeship programs because these institutions and programs help build our middle class and ensure working people have the skills they need to thrive, not just survive. These are great-paying jobs, professional jobs, licensed, highly skilled jobs, and we need to be encouraging more and more young people to be able to choose these jobs.

Henry Ford once said this, one of my favorite quotes:

What's right about America is that, although we have a mess

of problems, we have great capacity--intellect and

resources--to do something about them.

There is no doubt that we face big challenges, but Henry Ford was right: We do have great capacity, intellect, and resources to do something about them. Now is the time to do that, to act. People in Michigan have been waiting long enough, waiting way too long, and people across the country have waited far too long for us to act on what we know we can do to make things in America, to remake things in America, to build back better. We can make this an American moment, or we can sit back and wait for the future to happen to us.

This is the moment to invest in our workers who build our country's infrastructure, including those things we need today that they didn't need 100 years ago, like high-speed internet and electric charging stations, and the things that we will need to make us successful and global leaders moving forward.

We need to rebuild our supply chains in America so we are not being held up because of a really important part that is made only in one country halfway around the world. That is absurd. We can do that. We can do that. We can do that by deciding we are going to invest in America. And we need to use the power of American ingenuity to ensure a livable and prosperous future for everyone.

This is the moment to act. I am excited about that. I know that we have this moment right now to be able to jump-start the future, to be able to build our economy back better, to make things in America, and I hope we will seize this moment

I yield the floor.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Steel).

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, how much time is remaining on each side?

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, nobody in this Chamber believes that there isn't work to do in the area of ensuring that crimes are not committed against any American but, in particular, due to their race, their color, their national origin, or anything about who they are.

Many on this side of the aisle, including the gentlewoman who spoke before from California, raised concern about the sort of nature of this legislation and a lot of the concerns that have been raised about its continued focus on hate crimes in many ways at the expense of our focusing on crime, crime itself.

In the findings in this piece of legislation, of course, we reference the terrible tragedy that unfolded in Atlanta,

Georgia, and much of that was a rush to be included in the form of hate crimes when the facts being borne out in the investigation among prosecutors and the investigators in Georgia are indicating that that was not at all or didn't seem to be the motivation. And I use careful words like ``seem to be'' because, as a former Federal prosecutor, I like to wait until you do the investigation before you jump to the conclusion of what the motive was or what actually went into the crime at hand.

As in the words of Chief Justice Roberts when he said that it is a ``sordid business, this divvying us up by race,'' I think we do our Nation a disservice when we spend every waking moment on this floor divvying us up by race. Increasingly, that is what we are doing.

This legislation is well-intended, but this legislation, in the eyes of many in this body, is flawed, in terms of having in it things like the Health Equity Task Force or designate an officer or employee at DOJ whose responsibility shall be to facilitate the expedited review of hate crimes. We have provisions in the legislation to encourage the collection of data, encourage local law enforcement to collect data on hate crimes, but to seek to do so specifically to focus on hate crimes.

It is the contention of many of my colleagues that this is, in fact, a continued focus of division in our country, rather than focusing on the fact of the crime itself, the murder itself.

We all, of course, thought that the crime in Georgia was awful. But, again, the crime doesn't seem to have been motivated by race, yet it is being brought into the context of a hate crime.

Perhaps we should spend some time investigating sex trafficking and human trafficking in the form of massage parlors and people who are basically indentured servants or slaves in the form of the sex trade; the cartels that are along our southern border that are forcing young girls into the sex trade; the people who were bound in a car in Boerne, Texas, in suburban San Antonio, being forced into the sex trade en route to a stash house in Houston, Texas, because they were being run by the Cartel del Noreste of Los Zetas out of Nuevo Laredo--literally, just occurring in the district that I represent in Boerne, Texas.

Perhaps we can focus on this kind of criminal activity and what that actually means for young women and young individuals in our country.

We talk about is it a hate crime when we have seen data of a young Black male in San Francisco hitting an elderly Asian man on the streets of San Francisco. We have seen that footage. It's probably a hate crime, but it is a crime. If that guy was a White guy or a Black guy, it is a crime. It is a crime going after this elderly man, an American citizen.

And I think when we think about justice, the reason the blindfold exists on Lady Justice is we are supposed to have blind justice. We all acknowledged that we have not had blind justice at many points in the history of our country, but that blind justice is what we seek when we seek equal justice under law.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, as the gentleman said, as a 34-year-old, the end product may look okay. This 48-year-old may not be able to make a similar statement.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Virginia reminds me--and we have not discussed this--that I first met the gentleman from Virginia when I was in college at the University of Virginia and he was the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, and I was an instructor for a golf camp that summer in Charlottesville for his daughter, I believe Stephanie. Pulling out of my memory banks. And that is where I first met him. Again, 20--whatever I was--23 or 22 years old, right out of college.

But he reminds me that one of my college teammates at the University of Virginia was a gentleman by the name of Lewis Chitengwa. Lewis is not somebody you all would know, but you do know the name Tiger Woods. And Tiger

was asked after his infamous 1997 year when he won the Masters-- obviously breaking down the color barrier at Augusta Masters. He was asked if he had ever been disappointed in sports. And he said he was disappointed once when he lost the Orange Bowl, the biggest amateur tournament down in Miami, where you would expect that to be. And he lost it to my friend, Lewis Chitengwa.

Lewis is the first Black to win the South African Open. It was a monumental event, I believe in the early 1990s, when he won that tournament before he came to the University of Virginia, where he ultimately graduated. Unfortunately, he passed away 20 years ago this summer from meningitis.

He had played golf in the Canadian tour in Vancouver and shot, I think, 68-69 Thursday or Friday, and passed away Saturday morning. Talk about a pandemic. He passed away from viral meningitis.

I raise Lewis just because Lewis, when he went home, he passed away that summer, they had to wait about a month to bury him because of the AIDS epidemic in Zimbabwe, where he was from.

Lewis was the recipient of unspeakable hate when we were in college around the Charlottesville community in the 1990s. And we would often discuss that and talk about that and about those changing times. But it was fascinating for me to watch a man like Lewis, who came from Zimbabwe and experienced a lot of what was apartheid in South Africa and being the first Black to win the South African Open, to him talking about the greatness of this country and justice in this country and what this country has meant as a beacon for people around the world and justice. And we talked about it at length.

I understand the intent behind this bill, and I just want to say that I share that intent; and I know in speaking for Mr. Jordan, who had to relinquish the time to me, that we share that intent. We just have serious reservations about defining hate crimes and going down the road of collecting data and the way we are doing it and how that divvies us up by race.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I do think it is important what the majority leader just said. I mean, first of all, we will never be a perfect union. All we can do is strive, of course, to achieve the ideals set out in our founding and throughout our history.

But I do take issue; as the distinguished majority leader knows, I stood on this floor recognizing my concerns about January 6. But to suggest that the Senator from Missouri, Senator Hawley, is somehow giving a thumbs-up to insurrection, as opposed to engaging in speech and debate about his beliefs and his beliefs under the Constitution; I think that is wrong.

And I think we are continuing to go down this road of back and forth on these issues, as opposed to having a deep discussion about what occurred and what didn't occur. But, importantly, on this issue, you know, taking the Senator's word that he has some concerns, as I do.

I mean, I have sat here and expressed my solidarity and hope and desire, again, as a former Federal prosecutor, figuring out how to root out hate and stop crime. I happen to believe that we should do that through the lens of being color blind, and attacking our criminal justice system the way we should to try to root it out, but not to embed in our code the continued

divvying us up by race. That is just how I view it.

That is how I view it with a number of friends of mine of all walks of life, of all political persuasions, of all racial persuasions; and I think that we should be mindful of that.

And the majority leader, I think, gave it up a little bit in saying that, you know, this vote will be seen either as A or B, right? It will be seen as you are either for hate or you are against hate. That is, I think, one of the fundamental problems we have in this body, is that we can't engage in a reasonable debate about what we are seeing here and concerns we might have. And being equally opposed to hate, or equally opposed, or wanting to go root out crime, but have a differing view about how we get there; that doesn't mean it is A or B, you are for hate or you are against hate.

But that is what we do; we drop a $2 trillion, 2,000-page bill on the floor, and you say, well, you are either with us or against us. Vote for this bill, it is named fill-in-the-blank. Right? Come up with a great name, you can't oppose that.

Suddenly then, that is what is put out in the headlines, you know, Chip Roy votes for hate, right, instead of having an actual, robust debate here on the floor about how we want to carry the country forward. I think that is what we ought to have.

I actually enjoy this part of our job. I enjoy having numbers of Members on the floor engaging back and forth about these issues that are important, rather than just seeking the headline and running out to the triangle and giving a press conference, divvying us up further in our ideologies, or in the name of a certain or particular bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining?

Mr. President, last night, the country lost a giant of Democratic politics, a kind and revered public servant, a Vice President who reimagined the position and expanded Americans' views of who could hold America's highest offices. Walter Mondale, known to friends and foes alike as ``Fritz,'' died at the age of 93.

As President Carter's right-hand man, Fritz revolutionized the role of the Vice Presidency. There is an old yarn about two brothers: One went off to sea, and the other became Vice President. Neither was heard from again. That is not true of Walter Mondale.

Walter Mondale was an uncooperative subject for those Vice Presidential comedians. Not only was he often the last person in the room with the President when the tough decisions were made, but he became an unofficial ambassador for the administration. His relationship with Prime Minister Begin of Israel helped paved the way for a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt at Camp David in 1978.

In his ultimately unsuccessful run for the Presidency, Walter Mondale's pick of my fellow New Yorker, the late Geraldine Ferraro, as Vice President was an early crack in the glass ceiling that our current Vice President, Kamala Harris, would eventually shatter.

Vice President Mondale will be remembered as a lion of progressive politics; an ardent defender of civil rights, aid to schoolchildren, childcare, healthcare, and consumer protections. Mondale once said:

My whole life I worked on the idea that government can be

an instrument for social progress. We need that progress.

Fairness requires it.

Indeed, as Mondale said, we need government to make social progress.

As we say goodbye to one of our country's most decent public servants, let us follow in his example.

Marijuana

Mr. President, now on a much different subject, today is what you might call a very unofficial American holiday, 4/20. It is as appropriate a time as any to take a hard look at our laws that have overcriminalized the use of marijuana and put it on a par with heroin, LSD, and other narcotics that bear little or no resemblance in their effects

either on individuals or on society, more broadly.

The war on drugs has too often been a war on people, particularly people of color. For decades, young men and women--disproportionately, young men and women of color--have been arrested and jailed for even carrying a small amount of marijuana, a charge that often came with exorbitant penalties and a serious criminal record from which they might never recover, being rejected from job after job because this minor, minor deviation from the law was listed as a serious criminal record.

It makes no sense. It is time for change. I believe the time has come to end the Federal prohibition on marijuana in this country, and I am working with Senators Booker and Wyden on legislation to do just that. My thinking on this issue has evolved.

A number of States--including, very recently, my home State of New York--have legalized the recreational use of marijuana for adults, and those experiments, by and large, have been a success. The doom-and- gloom predictions, when States like Colorado or Oregon went forward and decriminalized and legalized marijuana, never occurred.

In State after State, through ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments, the American people are sending a clear message that they want this policy changed. Senators Booker, Wyden, and I are going to continue to work on our legislation, and in the near future, we hope to have a draft of a comprehensive reform effort, not only to end the Federal prohibition on marijuana but to ensure restorative justice, protect public health, and implement responsible taxes and regulations. This was the approach taken by legislators in New York. I believe it is the right approach, and it serves as a model for how we should deal with the issue in Congress.

Hopefully, the next time this unofficial holiday, 4/20, rolls around, our country will have made progress in addressing the massive overcriminalization of marijuana in a meaningful and comprehensive way

Voting Rights

Mr. President, now on voting rights, today in the Judiciary Committee, Senators will hear testimony from a number of public officials and experts about the surge in voter suppression laws since the 2020 election, including former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.

These voter suppression laws--more than 250 proposed laws in more than 40 States--constitute a grave and immediate threat to the very core of our democracy. In ways both large and small, they seek to restrict the franchise, often targeting minority communities, younger voters, and dense urban districts.

Our Republican colleagues have tried in vain to defend these laws as meaningful and appropriate protections against voter fraud. In many cases, those attempts have been just laughable.

Just to take one example from earlier this week, the Republican-led Montana State Legislature passed a law that ends election-day voter registration and would no longer allow student IDs to be used as a sole ballot form of identification. Just think about that for a moment. What problems are the Republicans in Montana trying to solve there? Has there been a rash of 40-year-olds showing up with student IDs to commit voter fraud? No, there certainly hasn't been. We all know what is going on here. Younger voters have been shown to be more Democratic. So Montana Republicans have made it harder for them to vote. It is despicable--just despicable--and these laws are moving through State legislatures all across the country, including the most recent one in Georgia, which, among other crucial reforms, makes it a crime--a crime--to provide food and water to voters waiting in line at the poles, even though in minority areas the lines are often much longer because there are fewer polling places.

I know my Democratic colleagues on the Judiciary Committee are going to shine a spotlight on all of these efforts, and I applaud Chairman Durbin for holding this very important hearing today. Voting rights are a topic that deserves continued national attention. It is a top priority for this Democratic Senate majority.

Puerto Rico

Finally, Mr. President, you couldn't find a better study in contrasts than the Trump administration and the Biden administration. On so many issues, the executive branch is finally returning to competence, undoing the damage wrought by 4 years of Trump's Presidency.

One important example came last night. Beginning in 2017, the Trump administration maliciously held back billions of dollars in congressionally approved disaster aid to Puerto Rico, which was devastated by Hurricane Maria, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Americans. This was vicious on the part of Donald Trump--nasty, so typical of the pettiness and inhumanity of his administration.

Well, the Biden administration has finally ended this appalling delay and will release the much needed disaster relief funds that Puerto Rico has waited for, for almost 5 years. The release of these funds means the people of Puerto Rico can finally and fully rebuild their homes, their schools, their businesses.

Puerto Rico, unfortunately, has too often been an afterthought to work here in Washington. Funds that would normally go to any State after a natural disaster like Hurricane Maria got delayed for years over the course of an entire administration.

Puerto Ricans are American citizens and should be treated exactly as such when disaster strikes. That is why, in the American Rescue Plan, Democrats passed the largest, most comprehensive relief package for the people of Puerto Rico in a long, long time. I am proud to have worked with my House colleagues, particularly Representative Nydia Velazquez, to get that done.

Prior to the American Rescue Plan, the Federal Government had never supported Puerto Rico's tax credit for low-income workers. We did that for the first time ever.

Shockingly, prior to the American Rescue Plan, only families with three or more children in Puerto Rico could claim the child tax credit. That seems, to me, to be racist in its application. We fixed that and made sure that every family in Puerto Rico can claim the credit, just like every other American family.

So as long as Democrats have a majority here in the Senate, I am going to make sure that Puerto Rico is treated fairly and gets its fair share of support. When it comes to this disaster aid, I am so glad the Biden administration is rectifying the issue. I hope we never repeat such a shameful delay.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

The ACTING PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Order of Procedure

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the order of yesterday, the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. and that at 2:15 p.m., the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Gensler nomination and the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination; that following the cloture vote, the Senate resume legislative session and the Senate recess until 4 p.m. to allow for the all-Senators briefing; further, that if cloture is invoked on the Gensler nomination, all postcloture time be considered expired at 5 p.m.; that immediately following the disposition of the Gensler nomination, the Senate resume consideration of the Monaco nomination and vote on confirmation as provided under the previous order; that if either nomination is confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; finally, that following the confirmation vote on the Monaco nomination, the Senate resume legislative session.

The ACTING PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Therefore, Senators should expect one rollcall vote at 2:15 p.m. and two rollcall votes at 5 p.m.

Madam President, today, I want to talk about two very important topics to America and to the folks back home in Alabama: President Biden's so-called infrastructure proposal and his proposed budget for the Department of Defense.

Now, I know infrastructure and defense aren't exactly the peanut butter and jelly of issues, but let me tell you how they go together. With these two proposals, the American people can plainly see just how out of place President Biden's priorities are.

I have traveled every corner of Alabama, from Mobile to Muscle Shoals, to our State's rural communities and urban centers. All the time, I hear that we need improvements to our transportation and infrastructure, and I have seen it with my own eyes. There are over 100,000 miles of public roads and 16,000 bridges in Alabama. More than 1,000 of those bridges have been condemned. Driving on poor roads costs Alabama drivers a total of $4.2 billion annually due to vehicle operating costs, traffic congestion, and car crashes.

Yet it is not just Alabama. It is everywhere in our country. I have spent decades traveling around the country as a football coach, and I am here to tell you we need help. We need help with our infrastructure. Investment in infrastructure is important and very, very necessary. Sound infrastructure allows people to get work, keeps our goods flowing, and keeps America competitive. That is why every penny of every dollar of any infrastructure proposal should be spent on actual infrastructure.

Sadly, President Biden's proposal fails that test by a long shot. Out of this massive $2.25 trillion proposal, only 6 percent is for roads and bridges. In fact, the proposal puts more money toward electric cars than roads, bridges, ports, and waterways combined. We have to stop treating government spending like it is monopoly money. When the American people hear about what is included in this bill, I think they will agree.

The Biden administration is using the umbrella term of ``infrastructure'' for a host of things folks back home don't associate with the word. Here are a couple of spending items that qualify as ``infrastructure,'' according to President Biden: $400 billion for nursing care and $213 billion for government housing. I can see and understand where those fit in but not in an infrastructure bill. What gets me is the $10 billion per year for a Civilian Climate Corps. This $10 billion includes free housing, free clothing, free food, and an allowance for members while they promote ``climate justice''--$10 billion a year. Now, is that infrastructure?

We can debate the individual merits of these items, but, please, let's not pretend these are for infrastructure, because we need true infrastructure. To call this an infrastructure proposal is really an insult to the English language. The definition of ``infrastructure'' is not the ``kitchen sink'' approach. Let's call this proposal what it is--a farce. This proposal is simply the Green New Deal in disguise. They need to disguise it because actual infrastructure improvement is popular, and the Green New Deal is not.

In order to pay for all of this spending, President Biden has proposed raising the corporate tax by 7 percent--the largest Federal tax increase since 1993. This would undo President Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which spurred the greatest economy we have had in decades. I can tell you right now the worst possible time to raise taxes is in the middle of a crisis. So many employers have already been hit hard and are just trying to get back on their feet. Remember who really ends up paying for tax increases, especially corporate tax rates. It is the consumer, like you and me. It is not the corporations.

As Americans for Tax Reform has pointed out, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act directly led to lower utility bills for hard-working folks across the country. Raising taxes would directly raise electric bills on millions of Americans, essentially taxing them, too. Tax increases threaten family-owned small businesses and family farms, forcing future generations to sell the legacies their parents and their grandparents worked so hard to build.

Here is the real kicker. As the Democrats are out there peddling this proposal as ``infrastructure'' and ``jobs,'' President Biden's tax increase will eliminate 1 million jobs in the first 2 years alone, according to the National Association of Manufacturers--all of that harm just to pay for the Democrats' wish list consisting of the Green New Deal. That absolutely makes no sense. We need to be focused on creating jobs and getting folks back to work, not destroying jobs for progressive pipe dreams down the road.

This comes on the heels of a massive stimulus that just passed--the one the Democrats called COVID relief, but, really, less than 10 percent of the bill went to COVID and health-related measures.

With all the trillions of new spending proposed by the Biden administration so far, you would think that there wasn't any spending proposal that they didn't like.

Yet when it comes to our national defense, President Biden has shown he cares very little about increasing investment to keep our country safe. President Biden recently released his ``skinny budget,'' which includes a cut of $7 billion for the Department of Defense after accounting for inflation.

President Biden's proposal and proposed defense budget is disappointing, dangerous, and a disservice to the men and women in uniform. What is more bewildering is that it asks for our troops to do more on a shoestring budget. It adds more duties, like combating climate change and other social priorities of the Democrats to our already thinly stretched forces, and that is very, very dangerous.

Regardless of whether these individual duties may be warranted--and, for the record, I don't think they are--we shouldn't expect our military to do more with less. At a time when our enemies grow bolder and the threats to America are increasing, ``do more with less'' is the last thing we should tell them to do.

These threats to our Nation are real, and they are getting worse. Russia is likely preparing to invade Ukraine and finish what Putin started in Crimea. North Korea continues to test ballistic missiles. Iran is emboldened to continue its nuclear weapons program.

And then there is China. In recent weeks, China has bullied Taiwan. They think now is the time to test the United States of America. China is

building up their military to directly challenge the United States for global supremacy.

Over the last 10 years, China's defense spending increased by $200 billion, while the United States of America decreased its defense budget $400 billion.

We cannot let China continue to gain ground. In order to keep our country safe and protect democratic allies from Chinese aggression, we must stay well ahead of both weapons and technological advances.

President Biden's defense budget is not just dangerous for America. It is bad for us all. Across our State, Alabama has more than 200,000 jobs supporting national defense. The economic impact of the defense sector represents more than 8 percent of our State's GDP.

By underinvesting in defense, the critical work done by the service men and women at Alabama military installations--including Redstone Arsenal, Fort Rucker, Maxwell-Gunter, and others--could be seriously hindered. It will set back our entire State's economy.

I was just at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, where I heard firsthand from Army Material Command how badly we need to invest in modernizing our weapons systems across the world.

The best way to avoid a conflict is to have a bigger and better gun than the other guy. Most of President Biden's appointees at the Department of Defense support the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which is a comprehensive plan to compete, deter, and defeat our adversaries.

This defense budget threatens our military modernization efforts and America's ability to provide combat-ready forces. We cannot allow anything close to President Biden's defense budget to become law. Our military needs to focus on winning wars, not planting trees.

The people of Alabama and the men and women in uniform should know that I will stand up to President Biden and the globalists in his administration who want a weak military.

President Biden has gone on and on about unity and his reputation for reaching across the aisle, but ever since he came into office, his actions have been focused on appeasing the far-left, progressive voices in his party. We saw it firsthand with the stimulus bill. Shortly after that, we get this loaded-up, inappropriately named ``infrastructure'' proposal.

It is not just about the spending, which is a lot, but it is about what is in these proposals--progressive wish-list items that are paid for by the American taxpayer, not the government, the American taxpayer--and are passed on party lines, not bipartisan. And that is where President Biden's priorities clearly lie. He is signaling that he is more willing to invest in progressive policy items than the safety of our Nation and the world.

My colleagues and I are interested in working with President Biden on a bipartisan bill that addresses actual infrastructure, and we are ready to work on a defense budget that actually invests in our military and prepares us against the growing threats. We just need a President willing to unite rather than divide our great country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise because it is a historic day. It is a historic day because the House is scheduled to pass H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act. My original intent was to speak about that, but before I do, I want to honor my colleagues who have worked very hard on the hate crimes legislation that we will tackle later today.

I want to thank Senators Hirono and Duckworth and Senator Collins for working with them. I want to thank Senators Blumenthal and Moran and all the Senators who have worked to get us at the threshold where we will do something bipartisan that will send comfort to people around the country who are worried about being targeted because of who they are.

In honor of my colleagues who have worked hard, I just want to tell you a story about Heather Heyer, the Virginian for whom the NO HATE Act is partially named, who was killed when she was 32 in 2017 by a White supremacist in Charlottesville.

I didn't know Heather--I know her mother Susan pretty well--but I went to Heather's funeral. Let me tell you this amazing story about Heather Heyer.

Heather was a waitress, and she saw an ad in the newspaper to apply to be a paralegal at a local law firm specializing in bankruptcy. A Charlottesville attorney, an African-American man, had a bankruptcy firm. He needed a paralegal, put an ad in the paper, and got a lot of applications. He got this application from Heather Heyer. The other applicants had paralegal degrees. Heather Heyer was a waitress who didn't have a paralegal degree, but something about the letter made him think, well, I at least have to talk to this person.

He interviewed those with the paralegal degrees, and then he interviewed Heather Heyer and was very struck with her personality but said: Look, I am interviewing for people to be a paralegal. You don't have background in this area. You are a waitress. Why do you think you can do this job?

Heather said: Because I am a waitress, I listen to people all day long, and I want to tell you about some of my customers--the elderly widower who comes in every Tuesday for lunch, and I know his order, and I know how to converse with him to lighten his mood.

She went on to describe some of the people in the restaurant she had served for years. Then she looked at this attorney and said: You are a bankruptcy lawyer. The people who come to you are hurting. They need to be listened to. They are worried about losing everything. I think you couldn't do better than to hire somebody who has made a specialist out of listening to other people.

He said: Well, you may not have a degree, but you have answered that in a wonderful way, and I am going to hire you.

He hired Heather. Heather ended up, as he described at her funeral service, kind of becoming like the office den mother, manager, et cetera, who was so good dealing with clients who were so very worried when they came to see him.

One night after she had been working with him for a while, they worked late and they left the office. As they left the office, Heather's relatively new boyfriend was waiting outside. Heather introduced him to her boss.

The next day, the attorney noticed that Heather wasn't her normal, talkative self, that she wasn't in a very good mood.

At the end of the day, he said to her: Heather, is something wrong?

She said: Yes. I broke up with my boyfriend last night.

He said: Well, I just met him last night outside the office. He seemed like a wonderful guy.

She said: Well, I thought he was a wonderful guy, but when he saw that I was working for a Black man, he started to criticize me for that, and I had no choice but to break up with him.

She is Heather Heyer. She is the woman whom we are honoring in passing the NO HATE amendment as part of the hate crimes bill today, and I appreciate my colleagues for including her in the NO HATE amendment that will be part of this bill.

Washington, D.C. Admission Act

Mr. President, our colleagues in the House today are acting on H.R. 51, and there is an equivalent bill, S. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act. As somebody who represents a State just a few miles from DC, I didn't want to let this historic day pass without saying a word about it.

The bill would, as everyone knows, make Washington, DC, the Nation's 51st State. I am proud to serve as an original cosponsor of the Senate version, led by my colleague Senator Carper. The bill was introduced earlier this year after many previous efforts with a record number of cosponsors, and I am proud to say that statehood for DC is enjoying the largest support in years.

The right to vote is the cornerstone of our American democratic society. Through free and fair elections, ordinary citizens choose the leaders and direction of our country; yet some 712,000 residents of the Nation's Capital do not enjoy the right fully.

For too long, Virginia's neighbors in DC have been denied their civil rights and have been subject to taxation without full representation in Congress, which is a founding principle of our Nation.

Virginians love history. So, on May 29, 1765, Patrick Henry gave his famous

speech before the Virginia House of Burgesses, encouraging the passage of the five resolutions, commonly referred to as the Virginia Resolves, to address the Stamp Act. The act that was passed the following day included four of his resolves.

Everybody remembers that the Stamp Act of 1765 levied an unfair tax on American Colonies on paper goods, newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, and legal documents. The Crown was worried about the content of those documents, so it levied the tax.

In his first resolve, Henry declared that Virginians should be entitled to ``all of the liberties, privileges, franchises, and immunities'' that other British subjects enjoyed. He wanted for Virginians the same rights enjoyed by people living in Britain, thousands of miles away.

I can't help but notice the parallel. We stand in the District of Columbia, the seat of our Nation's Federal Government. Not thousands of miles away but just across the Potomac River or just over the border in Maryland, hundreds of thousands of American citizens don't enjoy the same ``liberties, privileges, franchises, and immunities'' as those in Virginia, Maryland, or other States.

In his third resolve, Patrick Henry stated:

The taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons

chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know

what taxes the people can bear, or the easiest method of

raising them, and must themselves be affected by every tax

laid on the people, is the only security against a burdensome

taxation, and the distinguishing characteristic of British

freedom, without which the ancient constitution cannot exist.

To date, DC pays more in Federal taxes per capita than any State. Its residents pay more in Federal taxes per capita than any State and more total Federal taxes than 22 States. Yet, for more than 200 years, the people of Washington, DC, have been denied what Patrick Henry urged on the Virginia House of Burgesses as a reason for American independence. DC not only pays more per capital Federal taxes than any State, it is also subject to a higher degree of congressional regulation of its internal affairs than any other State. So it is both taxed and overregulated without representation.

DC meets the two criteria that have always been the test of admission of a new State into the Union: sufficient population and a demonstrated desire by the population for statehood.

Congress used to establish minimal required populations for statehood. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, for example, incorporated territories into the United States in the upper Midwest and allowed that they could become States once their populations exceeded 60,000. While there is no such statutory minimum today, all would acknowledge that DC, because it has a larger population than both Wyoming and Vermont and is close to the populations of the two Dakotas, is sufficiently sizable to be a State.

DC has also demonstrated its desire to be a State over and over again by popular referendum. Most recently, in 2016, a statehood referendum was supported by 86 percent of DC residents.

So DC meets the traditional test for statehood. Its people are both taxed and regulated by a Congress that does not include representatives who can advocate on their behalf.

Finally, I support adding a 51st star to the American flag because it will show that we are still a thriving nation. We haven't added a State in nearly 70 years. This is the longest period in American history without adding a State. Adding DC as a State will show the world that America is still a confident and growing nation with our best days ahead of us, not a fixed, inward, and static nation with our best days behind us.

With that, I stand here today to call on my colleagues in the Senate to give full and fair consideration to H.R. 51, which will pass today, and S. 51 and provide the more than 700,000 residents of our Nation's Capital the full and equal citizenship that Patrick Henry demanded in 1775 and that the rest of the country enjoys today.

I yield the floor

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

Madam President, today is Earth Day, our planet's largest annual civic event. More than 1 billion people in 192 nations are expected to participate in activities to draw attention to the urgency of the climate crisis and environmental degradation. From the South Side of Chicago to South America and South Asia, ordinary citizens-- schoolchildren, scientists, environmental activists, business and government leaders, and others--are calling for help for our ailing planet.

This year, the most important Earth Day gathering is just 16 blocks from where we meet. At the White House today, President Biden is hosting a 2-day virtual summit of leaders from 40 Nations--leaders from the highest emitting countries, China, India, Russia, as well as leaders from countries that suffer the worst consequences, such as Bangladesh and Kenya. The leaders are coming together, after a year of staggering pandemic hardship and climate-related crises, to renew their commitment to save our planet from irreversible climate catastrophe.

With this Earth Day Leaders Summit, President Biden is sending the world a clear message: The United States is back and is ready to be a leader again in combating climate change. The White House Leaders Summit is meant to encourage countries to make strong commitments under the Paris Agreement to prevent the global average temperature from rising more than 1.5 degree Celsius above preindustrial levels. This sounds technical and dry and wonky, but here is what it means. At 1\1/ 2\ degrees Celsius of warming, much of the world will likely see sea level rise that swallows coastlines, leaves millions of homes underwater, and produces recordbreaking droughts, floods, and other climate catastrophes. Hundreds of millions of people will be pushed into poverty because of this, and climate-related famine and conflicts would trigger a global refugee crisis worse than anything we have ever seen. That is the future if we do nothing. That is something we must avoid, and the United States needs to show leadership.

President Biden does that today with this meeting. One of his first official acts as President, on his first full day in office, was starting the process of recommitting the United States to join every nation in the world in the Paris Agreement. If you will remember, the previous President decided that America would step away from that.

At the White House Leaders Summit, the President will announce a new goal: to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by the year 2030. The Biden administration's leadership stands in sharp contrast to what we have seen over the last 4 years. We saw a President withdraw from the Paris Agreement, ridicule science at every opportunity, deny the existence of a growing climate threat, and even censor the remarks of government scientists that might suggest otherwise.

Fortunately, the disengagement by the previous administration didn't prevent the American people, scientists, real business leaders and entrepreneurs, and cities and States from ignoring President Trump and moving ahead.

There is no substitute, though, for leadership at the top. The American Jobs Plan, which President Biden plans to pass, and I hope there is support, is a plan to secure America's global economic leadership, strengthen America's working families, and build the infrastructure of the future we can count on. The American Jobs Plan, of course, will rebuild America's crumbling rail lines, roads, bridges, ports, and water systems; strengthen America's power grid; and invest in 5G broadband internet for every community in America. The previous President promised it but didn't deliver. This President wants to deliver, with our help.

I have heard those on the floor who then criticize that part of the American Jobs Plan, which goes further. President Biden also wants to invest in green energy, wind, solar, and other renewable energy projects. To hear that described by some of his Republican critics, it is just pure socialism. Socialism? It is a realistic response to the 21st challenge of climate change. The American Jobs Plan includes billions of dollars to retrain any workers who are dislocated if they work in the fossil fuel industry and to find better, well-paying jobs with a future in clean energy and other fields. Just this week, the president of the United Mine Workers of America--a sixth generation

West Virginia coal miner--announced that his union was going to support President Biden's American Jobs Plan in exchange for training his coal miners in how they can be effective and also have good jobs in a cleaner energy future. That union understands clean energy. Most Americans do. I hope Senators on both sides of the aisle will.

American business gets it. I have introduced two bills that would bring efficiency and innovation of the marketplace and the financial clout of the Federal Government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create a more sustainable economy that works for the people and the planet. My bills are called the America's Clean Future Fund Act and the Climate Change Resiliency Fund for America Act.

We talked about investing in American infrastructure so we can tackle climate change and create renewable energy jobs and the industries of the future. But I want to make it clear that our highest priority is to create those jobs right here in America. I hope my colleagues will work with us and won't filibuster the President's efforts to move our economy forward in a dramatic way.

We can't afford denial, defeatism. We can't afford people who say it is too late to do anything about climate disaster. We owe it to our children, grandchildren, and future generations to do everything in our power to save this planet from what is obviously coming our way.

Safe, effective vaccines have brought us so far in fighting this pandemic. We have developed in a short period of time under this President not only the vaccines but also their delivery and administration to the people of our country at a rate no one ever expected. The research that led to this was good scientific research. Two of the leading vaccines were developed using something called messenger RNA--mRNA--and it worked. The basic science that led to the discovery of mRNA was largely funded by American taxpayers--government programs--and applied by the private industry with great success. And now, because of our investment in science and belief in science, people's lives are being saved in the United States and around the world. Imagine solutions we can find if we harness the power of public partnerships together with science and citizen engagement to address climate change.

The first Earth Day was 51 years ago. It was proposed by a Senator from Wisconsin named Gaylord Nelson. It brought 20 million Americans together at the time, put preservation of our planet on the national agenda, and ushered in a decade of remarkable environmental progress. That decade saw the creation of some of our most important protections of clean air, land, and water.

Ten years later, Gaylord Nelson looked back on that first Earth Day and the decade that followed. His words bear repeating today, And this is what he said: ``So long as the human species inhabits the Earth, proper management of its resources will be the most fundamental issue we face. Our very survival will depend upon whether or not we are able to preserve, protect, and defend our environment. We are not free to decide about whether or not our environment matters. It does matter. Apart from politics, it is fundamental to survival. We disregard the needs of our ecosystem at our mortal peril.'' That was the lesson of Earth Day, and it should never be forgotten.

I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar) and the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Smith) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, if you believe the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act is a good piece of legislation--and, obviously, over 90 Senators voted to move to proceed to this bill--then you can't vote for the Lee amendment because the first thing he does before he puts out his own idea of what we should consider instead is to strike key sections of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act that require the Attorney General to issue guidance to establish online reporting of hate crime incidents, collect data on hate crime incidents, and expand public education in campaigns. The Lee amendment strikes that. He doesn't want us to do that.

He wants us to assign the Attorney General the responsibility, in the next 180 days, to survey every COVID-19 restriction in every State in the Union.

I urge a vote against the Lee amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 1425

Madam Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring to the majority the schedule for the week to come.

I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Aguilar), my friend and colleague, the vice chair of the Democratic Caucus.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the majority for those remarks on the schedule.

I also want to take a minute to thank the leader, and others over there, for helping pass H.R. 2877, the Behavioral Intervention Guidelines Act. It is a really good bill that will go a long way in supporting school safety. I know there were many questions about it, and everybody worked to get it to a good spot. I would like to, again, extend my appreciation for all of the help from my Democratic colleagues.

Turning to the operations of the House, as the gentleman knows, the CDC has now lifted all mask and social distancing requirements. President Biden has lifted the mask requirements for the White House staff. But, amazingly, here in the House of Representatives, we still must wear the mask, stagger the vote times, have these long vote times. We should be going back to a 5-minute and a 2-minute schedule so we can do the work of the House.

When can we expect these restrictions to be lifted?

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California.

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time.

We, as Americans, should all celebrate Operation Warp Speed and the work done by the administration to be able to do that and to follow through. We greatly appreciate the Biden administration's following up on the really great work of Operation Warp Speed and the Trump administration.

I yield to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time.

That is in direct contradiction to CDC guidelines.

And on top of that, will the gentleman explain how in the world you are going to get that information that every member of this body has been vaccinated without violating HIPAA laws?

Please. I would love an answer.

Reclaiming my time.

Of course, we would like all Americans to be vaccinated. But, again, you will never be able to understand or know how many Members are actually vaccinated unless you require them to give you that information. If you require them to give you that information, then the majority will be in violation of the HIPAA privacy laws.

How in the world can you violate the HIPAA privacy laws on this? What does that mean for future pandemics and future diseases?

There are laws in place that say that Members do not have to disclose their health information. And if the gentleman could please explain how you force a Member of this body to disclose their personal health information without violating HIPAA laws, I would love to hear that answer.

Reclaiming my time.

So the President, the leader of the Democratic socialist movement right now here in America, has said that it is good enough for the White House, yet you are going to defer to the House physician over the President of the United States.

No.

My point is that there is so much inconsistency here. You will never, ever get to the point, Madam Speaker, that you will ever be able to get every Member to show some sort of vaccination card without violating the HIPAA privacy protections.

Again, I am listening to the rhetoric. It is a simple question: How do you compel Members of this body to disclose their private health information without violating HIPAA laws?

Not strategy. Not theoretical. How are you going to do that?

What provision in the law, in the HIPAA protections of an American's private information regarding their healthcare record, are you going to waive to compel Members of the House to show that they have been vaccinated?

I yield to my colleague from California.

Reclaiming my time.

I will wrap this topic up with a couple of observations.

Our colleagues across on the other side of the building are certainly following different guidelines than we are here. I think it is important to note that what the majority is doing here is that they are undermining the vaccination program. They are committing public health malpractice by saying, if you get the vaccine, it doesn't work.

What is the incentive to do this?

I am going to move on to the next topic. I believe we have beat this dead horse enough and there is no answer.

Could the gentleman answer one question: Is President Biden wrong? Or is Dr. Monahan wrong?

I yield to the gentleman from California.

I will say this before we move on to the next topic. It does appear that many of us are governed by different rules along the way.

So let's move on to one final thing.

As you know, this has been police reform week. I was happy to see that President Biden set the deadline for May 25 to sign a police reform bill. I was also extremely happy to see that Democrat leadership has dropped its request to eliminate qualified immunity. I thought that was a very strong statement and very positive.

As the majority whip said on May 9: I know what the perfect bill will be. We have proposed that. And I want to see good legislation. I know that sometimes you have to compromise. And if we don't get qualified immunity now, we can come back and try to get it later. But I don't want to see us throw out a good bill because we can't get a perfect bill, good legislative action.

Now, in order to get this bill done by the May 25--that is a fairly short timeline. I know that Representative Pete Stauber has a bill ready to go--a really good bill--that addresses the things in a very bipartisan way that I think we would like to see.

Based on the schedule that you laid out, do you anticipate that the majority would take up Mr. Stauber's bill so that we can meet President Biden's deadline of May 25?

Reclaiming my time.

I implore the majority to put Mr. Stauber and Mr. Scott's bill onto the floor as soon as possible so that we can reach a bipartisan vote and consensus on this.

I just want to make one other observation here, knowing that it is police week. We have got men and women around this country--you and I, again, both as mayors, had the honor of being involved in that, seeing the sacrifice that they make, whether it is local police officers or deputies out patrolling our country roads in many parts of my district; the men and women of the Customs and Border Patrol Agency who are down there putting their lives on the line every single day to stop the grossness of human trafficking and the horrors of narcotic trafficking; or looking around this very building that we are in right now, looking at the men and women who have been here, that will continue to be here to serve us and protect us.

What I found very interesting about this week is that the silence from the majority is deafening. Not bringing a resolution to honor our men and women in law enforcement says an awful lot about how you feel.

And I will say this: I think the majority should come back in--and I think we would all agree to do this next week--to put a resolution on the floor to honor the men and women of law enforcement, because I can't imagine which group is not worthy of that.

I yield to the gentleman.

But, again, I want to go back to it, with the morale of the officers here in the Capitol as low as it is right now, the tremendous stresses that they are under, the staffing problems that they have, wondering whether or not this entire body at times has their back.

No, not yet. I think it is important that this body bring a resolution to the floor supporting the men and women in law enforcement around the Nation, but particularly right here in this Capitol. I will be the first one, along with the rest of my colleagues, to support that resolution.

And, so again, it is very simple. A lot of words. And I do appreciate the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Demings), for leading the Special Order. She certainly knows, as a former law enforcement officer and leader of a department, how tough that is. But, again, the silence here is deafening.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam President, over the past few weeks, my Republican colleagues and I have spent quite a bit of time making sure the American people know just how little of President Biden's 2-plus trillion dollar infrastructure plan will fund actual infrastructure plans to fix roads and bridges that are so in need of repair.

These are things that the Tennesseans have repeatedly told me they want to see in a bill: Fix the roads. Fix the bridges.

What do they want to be taken out of that bill? They want to get rid of some of these provisions that have nothing to do with infrastructure--nothing.

So imagine their disappointment--people who are ready for a highway bill, who are ready for a transportation bill, who are ready for an infrastructure bill--imagine their disappointment when they discovered that all the funding that they had hoped was going to go to potholes and expanding lanes on the interstate and fixing flooded back roads would instead be spent on electric cars, union advocates, and climate change ambassadors.

I know pothole repair isn't flashy, but it is what Tennesseans need. An electric car does not do you one bit of good when you are going to have to have a four-by-four to go pull it out of the mud every single time it rains.

We are pretty practical people, and my wish would be that my colleagues across the aisle would join us in reviewing the needs of the American people--the needs of the American people--and in being practical.

The lack of practicality has been a recurring problem in the months since President Biden took office. It seems that the Democrats here in Washington, DC, can't resist the urge to throw money at social-media friendly causes that not even the most talented communicators have been able to tie to the pressing needs of the American people. They did it with COVID relief, and now they are doing it with this infrastructure boondoggle.

The wish list just doesn't match the PR campaign, and that is a shame because this country has its own wish list of urgently needed items that we really can no longer afford to ignore.

Just a few weeks ago, I took my own trip down to the southern border to get a sense of the situation on the ground, and it is a dire situation. We are facing an environmental crisis, a national security crisis, and a humanitarian crisis that is massive in scope. If we want to talk about infrastructure projects that matter, let's talk about all the infrastructure that President Biden abandoned back in January when he halted construction on the wall.

To paraphrase a famous saying, a 450-mile-long stretch of border wall serves the purpose right up until you hit mile 451, and here you can see that is the situation that ranchers and law enforcement officials in southern Arizona are dealing with. The construction just stopped.

President Biden's proclamation ordered contractors to stop work and abandon their progress--immediate, stop. So they walked away because they had to.

What did they leave? They left behind an unfinished wall, piles of supplies, and roads and other infrastructure built to support construction crews. Everything is sitting there--sitting there at the border. The equipment, the border wall--it is all there wasting away-- tax dollars right there.

All of that is now vulnerable to exploitation by the cartels and the traffickers because it is sitting there on the border. This is an absolute shame--an absolute shame. And what we know is that the cartels and the traffickers--whether they are drug traffickers or sex traffickers, or whether they are moving gangs--they are taking full advantage of this situation.

I got the chance to see where the coyotes and the drug smugglers are coming across, now that there is no activity on the border to deter them from using access points built into the wall for their own purposes.

In Cochise County alone, officials have seen a 200-percent increase in migrants this year--200 percent.

The holes in the wall have turned into walking paths for the Sinaloa cartel's drug runners. Law enforcement officials have set up an extensive network of cameras, but there are only so many leads that they can chase when the Border Patrol agents, who should be supporting these efforts, are busy implementing useless--useless and detrimental-- catch-and-release programs.

And see, you see where there is a gap in the wall. Why do you have these gaps? Because the doors that were to go into these gaps are sitting, not in place. Why do you have these gaps? You have them because the wall components are there in the dirt.

But what did President Biden say? As of today, no more. No more. Stop immediately. Halt. Do not build this wall.

And what is it that our Border Patrol tell us that they need? They need a wall, they need more technology, and they need more agents and officers on the ground. This has been their request for years--for years.

On private property along the border, you can see where migrants have ditched their old clothes in exchange for actual uniforms that identify them to a cartel because they are given them by the cartel. It is their cartel-issued clothing, much like a work uniform.

There are piles of discarded backpacks, water bottles, and medicine at regular intervals. There is no telling

if the people who abandoned these items made it out alive, because we know many do not make it out alive.

Many of them are left to die in the desert by their handlers, the coyotes, and the cartels. It is vital to note that you do not cross that border unless you are working with the cartel, which means you have paid the cartel a fee to come across that border or you have agreed to go into modern-day slavery and work out your fee. Whether it is with a labor gang, an MS-13 gang, sex trafficking gang, you have to work that fee out once you come across.

Now the ranchers who own these long stretches of property have seen evidence of this evil disregard for human life. They will tell you their lands are no longer safe, they do not feel free, and they are constantly on their guard for the safety of themselves and their property.

I understand that immigration enforcement is controversial--so much so that during his campaign, President Biden promised to avoid the issue entirely by halting construction of the border wall forever. But we are living in the real world now, and in the real world, the globe's most powerful and free Republic is being taken advantage of by the West's most terrifying drug lords and human rights abusers, and the Biden administration is letting it happen. Congressional Democrats are letting it happen. Even though they don't want to admit it, it is happening. Look at the reports. Look at the footage. Talk to Customs and Border Patrol, and talk to the sheriffs in these counties.

So I say to my Democratic colleagues: Do something. Do something. Work with us to find common ground and get this situation under control before it is too late. And realize that every town is a border town and every State is a border State until that border is secure.

If you care about human rights, if you care about infrastructure, please care about this issue--care about this issue--the environmental crisis, the humanitarian crisis, and the national security crisis.

You can spend the next 4 years sitting on your hands and blaming President Trump or Leader McConnell or me or any of my Republican colleagues and blame us and say: Well, there is death. There is destruction. There are drugs. And all of that is happening along this border. But that is the thing about winning elections--they do have consequences. And the consequence that is facing our Democratic colleagues right now is leading and leading on this issue. You own this crisis. You own this crisis. It is from President Biden's failed immigration and border strategy. If you fail to act, you will forever own the tragedy--the absolute tragedy that is unfolding along our southern border.

I yield the floor.