A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services relating to "Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Omnibus COVID-19 Health Care Staff Vaccination".

Mr. President, I come to the floor to ask a unanimous consent request, and I am going to state the reasons for that before I ask for the request. And I appreciate my friend from New Jersey coming over to help me at this particular time.

So, today, the issue is fentanyl. Today's vote on this bill, as amended, should be a yes for every Member of the Senate. This measure extends the lifesaving authority placing fentanyl drugs in schedule I. In fact, a 15-month extension of this authority similar to the bill that I offer right now passed the Senate, and it passed the Senate unanimously in 2020.

In case that you have not read the headlines for the past few years, fentanyl and its analogs are killing tens of thousands of Americans each year, and it happens that fentanyl and analogs are now the No. 1 cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45, the most productive years of a person's life.

The Drug Enforcement Administration placed fentanyl and analogs on schedule I in the year 2018. Congress has already extended this authority like I am seeking today five times in 4 years. Now, we are on the verge of extending it for a sixth time before it expires on March 11.

During the Biden administration, these reauthorizations have gotten shorter and yet shorter. The periods of extension have been as short as just a few weeks. This has created constant doubt about whether fentanyl scheduling will even continue.

I have received calls from families of people who have overdosed on fentanyl. I have received calls from law enforcement seeking our help for them to enforce the law. For the last 10 months, these families and these law enforcement people have been in terror that this authority will disappear, that thousands then would die from the fentanyl overdoses.

We have extended fentanyl scheduling five times in 4 years, but four have been in the last 10 months alone. While extensions preserve a lifesaving authority, this kind of legislation by extension is neither sustainable nor reflective of the great gravity of keeping fentanyl drugs in schedule I. A permanently scheduled solution is the best answer; but, unfortunately, a permanent scheduling action isn't feasible right now.

Now, why would that be the case? Because some members of Congress don't support keeping fentanyl analogs in schedule I--or maybe at all. Some reject our criminal drug laws altogether. That seems unbelievable, but that is what I sense from some of my colleagues. Fortunately, this is a fringe opinion and not very representative of the majority of Congress. Republicans and Democrats alike have voiced support for permanently scheduling fentanyl analogs, including even President Biden. But until Congress agrees on a bipartisan and a permanent solution, we must maintain the authority by extension.

For years, I have been leading the fight to extend this authority in hopes of finding a permanent solution. I have urged Leader Schumer to support measures that extend fentanyl scheduling as long as possible. I have asked President Biden to engage with bipartisan congressional leaders on a permanent solution. And I have requested that Chairman Durbin hold a hearing on this issue in the Judiciary Committee. All these requests have obviously gone unanswered and ignored, or I wouldn't be here today asking for unanimous consent.

Scheduling fentanyl analogs matters. And why does it matter? It can save lives. Congress has the power. Congress has the responsibility to act. So we ought to do that in just a few minutes. But we can't make meaningful bipartisan change unless we have enough time to do it.

So let's pass a long-term extension and finally then lead the way to a permanent solution.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent request that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 45, S. 1216; further, that the Grassley amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I would like to have just a short rebuttal.

I thank my friend for his kind remarks about me as I know that he and I have worked together on a lot of pieces of legislation.

I want to express my disappointment that my bill to extend fentanyl scheduling by 14 months cannot proceed at this point, but I won't back down from trying to extend this authority in a meaningful and long-term way.

There is more than one way to advance this bill. Today's vote is just one of those ways. Like history shows us, this authority can be included in funding legislation or move as a bipartisan, unanimous bill. I will continue my efforts for its inclusion in the upcoming omnibus appropriations bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Unless the Senator from New Jersey has something to say, I would like to proceed on another issue.

Mr. President, there are 192 nations on the face of this globe. Not one of those 192 nations, including Ukraine, is a threat to Russia. Regardless, the Russian military is continuing to wage a full-scale war on the nation and the people of Ukraine.

I am not sure of the reasons because I don't know Putin. The highest I have been in the leadership of Russia was, once or twice in my life, when having a meeting with Mr. Lavrov, the Foreign Minister. I think, when it comes to Putin, he has got to satisfy his ego or he is sick or maybe both.

The Ukrainian military and civilians are fighting for their homes. Obviously, they want to be an independent nation. They have our moral support and even some of our weapons, and they probably need a lot more help from the United States, short of putting troops in that country. I wish we had gotten them more defensive weapons before this invasion, but I still think there is more that we can do.

I am an original cosponsor of the NYET bill. ``Nyet'' is the word for ``no'' in Russian. This legislation that goes by this acronym, the NYET Act, literally says no to Russian aggression, with tough, targeted support for Ukrainian resistance efforts, even if that turns into a guerilla war, and there are a number of other bills to crush the Putin regime.

Russia, as we know, is a major oil and gas producer, so Putin's actions are hurting not just Ukrainian and Russian citizens but Americans as well. Just think of the $1 or more increase in the price of gasoline we are paying today compared to 1 year ago. This situation comes at the same time Americans across the country are already paying more for gas than at any time since 2014. That number comes from AAA data.

Last night, I was encouraged to hear President Biden pledge to ``use every tool at our disposal'' to limit gas price hikes after he imposed sanctions on Russia. It is time for Congress and the White House to rethink policies that threaten our energy independence and, at the same time, our national security.

That is why already this week I have helped to introduce the American Energy Independence Act with Senator Hawley, which would reverse the President's shutdown of the energy sector and return it to full production so that we will have energy independence like we had until 12 months ago.

Last night, the President talked about buying American products. Yet it seems like oil and natural gas--very major components of our economy--were excluded from his rhetoric. When it comes to oil, the United States imports nearly 700,000 barrels of oil a day from Russia. That is why I introduced legislation yesterday with Senator Marshall that would ban purchases of Russian oil.

I am also backing a new bill by Senator Rubio to make American oil companies sever ties with Russian state-owned oil and gas companies as many of these companies already have done.

I support harsh sanctions that hit Putin where it really hurts him. In turn, you will affect the entirety of the Russian people, who are innocent of this dictator's running of their country, all the harm he is causing them right now. But we ought to free the world from a Russian energy blackmail and keep gas affordable here at home with American-produced energy.

Some of my colleagues are looking to lower prices at the gas pump by pushing for a gas tax freeze. That would be a very short-term, unsustainable move that would blow a hole in the highway trust fund.

Instead, I hope colleagues on both sides of the aisle can work with the President to reverse decisions that have increased the price of domestic fuel production.

You remember, on the first day in office, President Biden decided to shut down the Keystone Pipeline. President Biden should restart and expedite that pipeline.

Also, in January 2021, President Biden issued an Executive order pausing new oil and gas leases on public lands and Federal waters.

In July 2021, the Interior Department halted all oil drilling on leased land within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Now, take all these actions. They signal to capital investors that the heavy hand of the Federal Government will work against fossil fuel investments at every turn. You know, you read about bank regulators all the time, discouraging banks from making loans to energy fossil fuels. This hostile regulatory environment has crippled investment in fossil fuels, which, in turn,

is the reason we have the high price of gasoline.

Instead of more redtape, the President and Congress should work to cut regulations and Federal permitting that slow down, and has slowed down, domestic energy production.

We were, as you know, energy independent 12 months ago. Now, we are energy dependent. We have the President begging OPEC and Russia to ship us more oil.

Policies that encourage investments in fossil fuel production will increase domestic production, and the result would be lower gas prices, just like we can look back at the last 12 months, and all the action that has been taken has driven up the price of gasoline.

But instead of focusing on domestic energy independence last fall, as I have already referred to, President Biden instead asked OPEC to pump more oil. The OPEC cartel, of course, did not honor that request.

In 2000, when he was a Senator, now-President Biden acknowledged that anticompetitive behavior from OPEC harms American consumers and called on President Clinton to consider legal action against OPEC. OPEC is an organization which blatantly colludes to raise the price of oil.

I have introduced the bipartisan bill entitled No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels--it goes by the acronym NOPEC--which would allow the Department of Justice to hold OPEC accountable for its anticompetitive behaviors that artificially inflate global oil prices. I ask again for President Biden to publicly support the passage of NOPEC and work with Congress to pass this legislation into law.

Besides focusing on fossil fuels, we know that ethanol makes up 10 percent of the gas sold in the United States. When oil prices are high, it gives higher blends of ethanol a clear competitive advantage.

Historically, gas prices gradually rise in the spring and peak late summer when people are driving more frequently. But last fall, the Supreme Court rejected EPA's regulation allowing year-round E15 sales. Congress must move quickly to ensure that E15 can be sold this summer. E15 is a cleaner, higher-octane type of gasoline that contains more homegrown ethanol and less petroleum.

Both biodiesel and ethanol are proven domestic supplies of fuel that enhance our energy independence and, at the same time, lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Domestic biofuel producers are ready to step up and to give consumers lower gas prices that increase our national security and provide jobs in the heartland--good-paying jobs.

Most Americans do not care where the oil was produced when they fill up their gas tanks. They just want to fill up their gas tanks without taking out a loan to do it. But when conflict occurs in oil-producing regions around the world, Americans quickly realize the importance of your gas being a mix of West Texas crude and Iowa ethanol.

In just over a year, we can see how the United States is losing energy independence. Instead of focusing on domestic fuel production, the President and his administration have caved to the most radical environmentalists in shaping our energy policy. It is time to reverse course.

I am taking the President at his word when he said in the State of the Union Address last night that he wants to use every tool at his disposal to limit gas price hikes. So I have just given several ways that we can use every tool that the President is talking about. And, of course, it is time to get to work.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, obviously, the images coming out of Ukraine and the heroism that we are seeing is inspiring people all across America, all across the world, and it is spurring governments to action, appropriate action.

Just the other day, there was a world leader in charge of one of the world's most important countries who was spurred to action. Despite his country and his government having a leftwing leaning, he made announcements--historic, remarkable announcements--that not only stunned his country but stunned his world about the importance of a strong defense, military defense, about the importance of being realistic about energy policies. No, I am not talking about President Biden, unfortunately. I am going to get to that. He missed a huge opportunity to do just that. I am talking about the world leader German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who in the last 2 days has said Germany, because of the current crisis, is going to almost double its defense budget to achieve its 2 percent GDP portion of national defense within the next year or two--a huge, stunning announcement by the Chancellor.

A country that is addicted to Russian natural gas is now saying we are not going to have any and we are going to stop the Nord Stream 2 gas line--a huge, stunning announcement. That is global leadership.

And, unfortunately, President Biden missed the opportunity last night at the State of the Union to do exactly the same on exactly the same issues.

Let me talk about this a little bit more. I think we are starting to fully understand the implications as a nation and as a world of what is happening in Ukraine. We have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression, led by Russia's and China's dictators who are increasingly isolated and dangerous, who are driven by historical grievances, who are paranoid about their democratic neighbors and are willing to use military force and other aggressive actions to crush the citizens in countries like Ukraine and Hong Kong and Taiwan.

These dangerous dictators--Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping--are increasingly working together to put forward and implement their vision for the world: spheres of influence that revolve around them.

If you saw and read, they joint communicated just a few weeks ago before the Beijing Olympics, Xi Jinping and Putin. It is a wake-up call to the world. It is a scary, darn document. That is what is happening.

Again, we need to wake up; this administration needs to wake up to this new era of authoritarian aggression because it is going to be with us, unfortunately, in my view, for years, if not decades.

The President had the opportunity to do what the Chancellor of Germany did in the last few days, and he didn't. My view of this situation is that we need to face it as a country with strategic resolve and confidence and recognize that our country has extraordinary advantages, particularly relative to China and Russia.

If we are wise enough to utilize and strengthen these advantages, what are they? They are our global network of allies, our lethal military, our world-class supplies of energy and other natural resources, our dynamic economy, and, most important, our democratic values and commitment to liberty.

We must always remember that Putin and Xi Jinping's biggest weaknesses and biggest vulnerabilities are that they fear their own people. They fear their own people. We need to remember that and exploit this vulnerability in the months and years ahead.

But what happened last night? Again, it was a missed opportunity because the President could have--should have--followed the lead of the Chancellor of Germany, and he didn't.

He put forward a few good ideas that, I think, drew bipartisan support in the Chamber, certainly, talking about the brave people of Ukraine. That was something that all Americans are seeing and supportive of. Also, the President's commitment to defend every inch of NATO territory, I think, is an important redline that he drew last night that, again, all of us support, but it was important for him to articulate it. Other topics--opioids, mental health, helping our veterans--count me in on those.

But what he didn't do was step up in front of the American people and, like the Chancellor of Germany, say: It is a new world, and we need to recognize it, and the Biden administration is going to make a course correction on some critical issues.

What were those critical issues? Well, they are the exact issues that the Chancellor of Germany announced to his people.

Yesterday, 23 Senators--we sent a letter to the President respectfully imploring him to address the same issues that the Chancellor of Germany just did in this new era of authoritarian aggression. We need a much stronger, robust military budget that can ensure the lethality and readiness of our

forces. If you don't believe that, you are not watching what is going on in Ukraine.

What we don't need is another Biden budget like he put forward last year that increases, by double digits, the budgets of literally every Federal Agency in the Government of the United States, with the exception of two: Homeland Security and the Department of Defense.

The Biden budget last year cut those, and I guarantee you the dictators in Beijing and the dictator in Moscow noticed. You can't do that. He didn't even mention it last night--didn't even mention it last night. And I guarantee you the dictators in Moscow and Beijing noticed and so did our European allies, which is, again, why what the Chancellor of Germany did was so extraordinary. He announced a budget doubling the budget of the German military--stunning.

But the other area that we suggested strongly to the President of the United States to address to the American people in this new era of authoritarian aggression is energy.

In our letter to the President yesterday, we respectfully called out the President and said: With respect, Mr. President, you recently told the American people in a press conference that your administration was using ``every tool at our disposal to protect American families and businesses'' from rising energy crisis, but that is not true. It is not true, and the whole world knows it. Heck, the administration knows it.

So we suggested 12 actions that the President of the United States could take and announce at the State of the Union that would help us with regard to energy: bring down costs, put American energy workers back to work, and not let Putin blackmail European allies of ours with energy and continue to use it as a weapon.

We asked for a course correction on the Biden administration's energy policies, which, from day 1, have focused on restricting, delaying, and, indeed, killing the production of American oil and gas.

All of this has had the predictable result, the catastrophic result of driving up energy prices at the pump and in home heating for American citizens--enormous increases, hurting working families, increasing pink slips for American energy workers like those in my State, the great State of Alaska, and again in the current crisis, significantly empowering our adversaries, especially Vladimir Putin, who has used energy as a weapon against our allies for decades.

So I am not going to go into each one of the topics or the actions that we suggested the President of the United States take, with the exception of one because it is so apparent that we need to do it and so apparent that the President should have announced it last night that I want to just briefly mention it again here.

We called on--and today in a press conference many of us called on-- many Republicans and some Democratic Senators now have called on the Biden administration to undertake sanctions and an embargo against Vladimir Putin's strongest weapon, his export of natural gas and oil.

Now, many people are saying: Well, you can't do that as it relates to our European allies. What we are saying is, we understand there are challenges there. We are not talking about Europe. We are talking about the United States of America.

I want you to understand these numbers. Right now, we are buying an average of almost 700,000 barrels a day of Russian oil. By the way, that number has increased 35 percent--actually over 35 percent during President Biden's first term. At the same time, the Biden administration is going to States like mine and saying, We are going to try to shut down Alaskan oil production.

Does anyone in America, does anyone in the U.S. Senate, does anyone in the Biden administration think that that makes sense--increase imports of Russian oil to the United States while shutting down the production of American energy?

They are doing it. We all know they are doing it. Heck, they know they are doing it. It makes no sense.

In the last year, imports from the United States paid for that went back--oil imports of Russian oil, paid for in the United States going back to Russia--put $17 billion into Putin's war chest--$17 billion.

So a number of us--like I said, Republican and now Democratic Senators--have been saying: This is nuts. We are trying to sanction Putin. We are trying to isolate Russia from the global economy, and there is this giant loophole, and it is coming right to the United States. We are paying for hundreds of thousands of barrels a day of Russian oil going back to Putin, and they are still trying to shut down American energy production. Come on.

Of course, some of this is driven by the far left that the Biden administration listens way too much to. Come on, Mr. President, my colleagues here, this is insane, and everybody knows it. Everybody knows it.

What are we doing right now? We are subsidizing this war. We are subsidizing--by the importation of 7,000 barrels a day of Russian oil in the United States, we are subsidizing Putin's war on Ukrainians.

By the way, our friends in Canada, they just announced that they are not going to import any more Russian oil. Prime Minister Trudeau, well done, sir.

By the way, had the Keystone Pipeline not been killed by the President of the United States a little over 12 months ago, we would have up to 700,000 barrels of oil from Canada. I would much rather be getting oil from Canada than Russia right now.

If you think that this is an issue that is not impacting Ukraine, here is what the Foreign Minister of Ukraine recently said about this topic:

We insist on a full embargo for Russian oil and gas around

the world. Buying Russian oil and gas right now means paying

for the murder of Ukrainian men, women and children.

That is the Foreign Minister of Ukraine. What he is asking for is something we can easily do--block any more Russian oil, Russian natural gas coming into the United States of America. People say: Well, where would we get it, then? I will tell you where we would get it. We would get it from the United States of America.

The only thing that the President mentioned last night on this topic in a glancing manner--to be honest, it was a lame glancing manner. It was almost a pathetic attempt to just barely recognize that this giant issue had to be touched upon. He said we are going to briefly release oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We are not going to produce more, which we could. We are just going to release a little more oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Here is my answer to that: Mr. President, there is a much better Strategic Petroleum Reserve than the one you referenced last night. It is called the great State of Alaska. That is America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And you need to let us, as your fellow Americans, help our fellow citizens and the rest of the world by producing. So it was a missed opportunity last night.

We have world leaders who, right now, the Prime Minister of Canada on the imports of Russian oil, the Chancellor of Germany on significantly recognizing the new era in which we are all in, saying: I have got to be serious about national defense and our military, and I have got to be serious about energy.

We had respectfully asked the President of the United States last night in the State of the Union to do just the same--just the same. The American people were watching, and he had an opportunity to talk about the consequences, long term, of this new era of authoritarian aggression and say: ``And I am going to make some course corrections as the President of this administration because it is going to be what is good for the American people and our allies,'' and he didn't do it. He didn't do it, and it was a big missed opportunity for our country and for the world.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the war in Ukraine. One week ago, Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine by land, by sea, and by air. Now we know that thousands of people are dead.

Vladimir Putin prepared for this invasion, and he prepared over the course of at least 3 months. Month after month after month, he moved troops, he moved weapons, and he moved them to the border with Ukraine. Now, many of these troops are attacking the capital city of Kyiv. The Ukrainian people are fighting bravely. Their example is an inspiration to the world. They are outnumbered, they are outgunned, and yet they continue to fight for their freedom.

Make no mistake, Vladimir Putin has caused this war. He alone is responsible. He is responsible for the death and the destruction that the world is witnessing now. Yet, it is undeniable that the Biden administration's so-called deterrence and diplomacy have failed.

Joe Biden ran for President on competence and on his foreign policy expertise. As a candidate for President, Joe Biden said Putin's days of tyranny would be over if he became President--Putin's days of tyranny would be over if Joe Biden were elected President. The opposite has occurred under this administration.

Vladimir Putin has become emboldened like never before. Putin is cunning, he is opportunistic, and he is aggressive. When he sees an opportunity, he takes it. He can smell weakness, and he views Joe Biden as weak and ineffective. Clearly that has become even more so after Joe Biden's disgraceful and deadly surrender from Afghanistan. Enemies of ours around the world have become emboldened.

After Afghanistan fell, Vladimir Putin increased his weapons testing.

Just a few months later, Vladimir Putin put 100,000 troops on the border of Ukraine. How did the President of the United States, Joe Biden, respond? He lobbied this body, the Senate, against imposing sanctions on Vladimir Putin.

In January, this Senate voted on sanctions for Putin's Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. I came to the floor; I argued that the Senate needed to act quickly. Almost every Democrat in this body had previously supported sanctions. Under pressure from the White House, the Democrats reversed course. They buckled to the demands of the President of the United States, who had a different view than this body in a broad, bipartisan consensus had had previously of sanctioning the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline between Russia and Germany. Senate Democrats blocked the sanctions.

Look, energy is the reason that Vladimir Putin is flush with cash. He has hit the jackpot. His energy revenues are up, and more than $1 out of every $3 that Vladimir Putin has in Russia's treasury is energy- related. High energy prices today that Americans are paying at the pump and people around world are paying are the reason why Putin can indefinitely--how he can afford this invasion.

So who is Putin's No. 1 rival for energy production? Well, it is the United States. But under Joe Biden, American crude oil production is down--down more than a million barrels each and every day from what it was prior to the pandemic.

It is not a lack of American energy resources, and it is not a lack of American energy workers. They want to work. The energy is in the ground. This is a direct result of the far-left driven anti-American energy policies of the Joe Biden administration.

On Joe Biden's first day in office, he killed the Keystone XL Pipeline, and he bragged about it. So how much energy would be coming across from the Keystone XL Pipeline? Well over 800,000 barrels a day. But that number today is zero.

How much energy are we bringing in from Russia each and every day into the United States, imported from Russia, sending money to Vladimir Putin? Well, 670,000 barrels a day. If he hadn't killed Keystone, we would be bringing more energy in that way, and we are now buying and sending money to Vladimir Putin. And the President bragged about it, thumped his chest: I killed Keystone.

He also blocked new oil and gas leases on public lands, stopped American exploration for energy in the Arctic. Joe Biden approves of Vladimir Putin producing energy; it seems he is only opposed to American energy production.

Just days before he surrendered in Afghanistan, Joe Biden sent his National Security Advisor to beg Russia to produce more oil to sell to us. It is hard to believe. People watching said that can't be true, and I would say: Go to the White House website. Go right now; see if it is still there. It was there two nights ago--the National Security Advisor saying: We are asking OPEC+--and the ``plus'' is Russia; it is Putin-- to produce more energy to sell to us.

Why should we depend upon people who are our enemies, whose intentions are not kind or caring for us, and who is now--Vladimir Putin is attacking his neighbor in a bloodthirsty way--rather than allow us to produce American energy that we have today in the ground in this Nation?

So it is no wonder that Putin can now afford another assault. Oil hit over $100 a barrel last week--the highest in 7 years, and it is even higher than that today.

Today, American families in every State are paying $1 a gallon or more for each additional gallon of gas that they put in the tank than they were the day Joe Biden became President of the United States, and that is soon going to be even a higher number, a higher amount that people are going to be paying as a result of this President's policies. The situation is getting worse.

President Biden's response to the buildup to the war in Ukraine has been mismanagement and weakness. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Joe Biden issued sanctions on Russia that are far too little too late. The Biden deterrence was after the fact. That didn't seem more like punishment than deterrence. It reminds me when President Obama said he was going to be leading from behind. Deterrence after the fact is the same thing as no deterrence at all. Try to deter someone from doing something.

Even after the invasion has occurred and even after we see the tanks lined up heading into Kyiv, Joe Biden is not yet ready to sanction Russian energy and clearly not ready to produce American energy to make up for what we buy from them.

His Deputy National Security Advisor went to the podium and said our sanctions are not designed to cause any disruption to the current flow of energy from Russia to the world. This administration has caused plenty of disruption in the flow of energy from America, from our homeland. We are not going to disrupt energy from Russia, oh, no. It was actually Germany that stood up and finally stopped Putin from getting the pipeline. Joe Biden won't touch the one industry that is propping up Vladimir Putin. Yet he seemed to be happy--Joe Biden seems to be happy with his continued war on American energy. He has effectively put harsher sanctions on American energy workers than he does on Russian energy thugs.

The war in Ukraine is going to lead to higher energy prices in this country; there is no doubt about it. But we have seen no change in Joe Biden's energy policies in spite of the abundant energy resources we have in this country. The White House Press Secretary was asked recently if Joe Biden was considering allowing more energy production here at home in the United States. We have the resources; we have the workers; the jobs are necessary; and, effectively, she just said no. We heard nothing about it in the State of the Union last night--not a thing.

Over the weekend, actually, the President's Press Secretary went on television and doubled down. She said she refused to rule out importing oil from Iran. Oil and gas leases on Federal lands are still in limbo.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC--and there will be a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee tomorrow--recently decided, in a 100-percent partisan 3-to-2 vote, to make it even harder to build natural gas pipelines in America. Harder.

The day after Russia invaded Ukraine, this administration, the Biden administration, said uranium was no longer a critical mineral for the United States--no longer a critical mineral. American businesses get half of the uranium we use from Russia and its partners. It is a critical mineral but not according to the Biden administration. Now we are going to become even more dependent on Russia, and Putin will get even wealthier.

It seems like Joe Biden and his advisers want to turn our energy sector into what we have seen over the last number of years in Germany--dependent on other countries, begging enemies to help us keep the lights on.

And just before the Russian invasion, John Kerry, the President's Climate Envoy, said in an interview with BBC--this is the former Secretary of State of the United States--said he was concerned that the war in Ukraine would distract people from his climate agenda. You can't believe it. This is very disturbing to people all around my home State, and I would think all around America. This is a delusional obsession, distracted from the reality of the world and of our Nation.

Innocent people are being slaughtered. Vladimir Putin is conducting nuclear drills. People around the world are terrified. People are looking to the United States for leadership, and we have a high official of this administration concerned it is going to distract from this White House's and this administration's climate agenda.

The American people know what we need to do. We need to continue to support and send lethal weapons to our friends in Ukraine, and clearly we need to produce more American energy. We have it. We have it in the ground. This administration will not let us get it out. More American energy will help us at home. It will help bring down prices at home. More American energy will help us defund Putin's military aggression. It is our energy dollars that are paying for Putin's killing machine.

More American energy will help our allies from being held hostage by

Vladimir Putin. This is why I have introduced legislation called the ESCAPE Act, Energy Security Cooperation with Allied Partners in Europe. It expedites the sale of natural gas from America to our NATO allies so they don't have to buy it from Vladimir Putin. I brought it to the floor yesterday, and Democrats objected to a unanimous consent to pass it.

I sent a letter to the President today with every Republican on the Senate Energy Committee as well as Senator Lummis--sent a letter to the White House today detailing 10 specific actions that the President of the United States can take right now to produce more American energy and undermine Vladimir Putin and help other NATO allies and help the people of Ukraine. We as a nation are much better off selling American energy to our friends than for us as a nation to have to buy energy from our enemies. More American energy means more American strength and more American security.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the world is in chaos everywhere you turn. In the last week, Vladimir Putin has launched an unprovoked, naked war of aggression against the people of Ukraine. The reason he did this is because of his imperial ambitions to reincorporate Ukraine into the greater Russian Empire in his mind but also because he perceived weakness and opportunity in the West and, regrettably, from President Biden.

We saw last night the President congratulated himself on the diplomatic coalition he has put together to confront Vladimir Putin. That is akin to Neville Chamberlain celebrating the coalition he assembled against Germany after Germany invaded Poland. The whole point was to deter Vladimir Putin. That failed. Why did that fail? Because for the last year, the President has projected weakness and signaled to Vladimir Putin that he didn't have the nerve to counteract his ambitions. His first action in office was to give Vladimir Putin his No. 1 foreign priority--a no-strings-attached extension of a one-sided nuclear arms control treaty. Shortly after that, he gave Vladimir Putin his second foreign priority. He waived sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. We didn't really take stern measures for the Colonial Pipeline hack from Russian-affiliated hackers. We rewarded Vladimir Putin with a high-stakes summit last summer.

But it is not just foreign policy; it is also domestic policy here at home. As day follows night, Vladimir Putin gets emboldened and more aggressive when the price of oil is higher. For the last year, the Biden administration has done everything they can to stifle the production of American oil and gas that would not only keep the price of gasoline lower for our citizens, keep the price of heating their homes lower, it would also constrain Vladimir Putin by reducing the revenues he has for his war machine.

But the Biden administration's war on oil and gas has, in fact, emboldened him, so much so that we are to this day still importing hundreds of thousands of barrels of Russian oil and petroleum products every day.

Since Vladimir Putin launched his naked war of aggression last week, we have filled his coffers with millions and millions of American dollars to fund his aggression against the Ukrainian people. We still haven't taken the steps necessary to stop this--sanctions on Russian oil and gas to cut off those revenues, to bankrupt Vladimir Putin's war machine, but also to continue the pressure that those sanctions impose,

to begin to once again pump more oil and gas here at home.

If we really wanted to add the pressure to Vladimir Putin that oil and gas sanctions would put on him, we would unleash a flood of American oil and gas into the market and deprive Vladimir Putin of those revenues. But, instead, on the very day--literally the very day-- last week when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, President Biden halted all new oil and gas leases on Federal lands. Think about that. A ruthless dictator invades an innocent nation of 45 million souls, using oil and gas as a weapon against the West, which could come to the aid of that nation, and President Biden's action on that day was to halt all new oil and gas leases on Federal lands.

To the extent the President even talked about energy in his speech last night, he simply made pipedream promises about green energy that maybe will come true in a decade or two but will do nothing at the moment to deter Vladimir Putin and, in fact, will continue to embolden him by highlighting a lack of seriousness to confront and undermine his aggression.

In fact, the President only mentioned oil once last night in that entire speech when he bragged about releasing 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which wouldn't fuel our country for even 2 days.

What we need is not half measures; we need a sustained, reliable, and affordable flow of American energy. That is why I am here to ask for unanimous consent for my bill ordering the Biden administration to start issuing new oil and gas leases for Federal lands.

It won't solve all of our problems, but it is an important and immediate step that we can take to start producing the American oil and gas that will undercut Vladimir Putin's war machine.

President Biden's foolish energy policy couldn't have come at a worse time for Ukraine, but we can begin to end it right now by putting our American oil and gas workers back to work. I urge my colleagues to stand with Ukraine and to support the bill. It is really a choice between American energy or Russian energy. We can decide.

Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3731, which is at the desk; further, 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.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I reserve the right to object because, here we are again, 2 weeks later and nothing has changed.

The Democrats and the Department of Justice once again want their well-connected and wealthy political nominees confirmed, while the Department of Justice hangs out to dry four career law enforcement officers and threatens them with fiscal ruin and bankruptcy.

The Senator from Illinois said I am having none of it. You are absolutely right; I am having none of it.

These officers, I remind you, faced down leftwing street militias for months in Portland. They were attacked with blinding lasers, ball bearings, Molotov cocktails. There were efforts to lock them into the courthouse and set it afire and burn them alive.

Now, the Senator from Illinois keeps saying that my objections are completely unrelated--those were his words--or had nothing to do with these nominees. We have heard this now for weeks. I don't know why he keeps repeating it. I will give my answer once again. I am not making objection to some random, unconnected agency. I am not upset that the Corps of Engineers didn't approve a water project in Arkansas.

I am not making some doomed-to-fail demand like Merrick Garland should resign in disgrace--though he should. I am making a very specific point about this Department.

If Merrick Garland and the Democrats want their political nominees to be confirmed on a fast-track basis, then they need to protect their career law enforcement officers from financial ruin and bankruptcy.

I have talked to these officers; the anxiety and the stress that this has created for them is real. They have received no explanation whatsoever beyond ``not in the interest of the United States.'' That is not an explanation; that is a conclusion.

Three of them haven't heard anything at all. It has been months-- actually, more than a year. The Senator from Illinois said the Department of Justice often represents law enforcement officers sued for actions in the line of duty. It is not ``often represents.'' It is ``almost always represents.''

I have spoken with multiple former Department of Justice leaders. They say they cannot remember a time when they declined to represent a law enforcement officer sued for actions in the line of duty.

The Senator from Illinois, once again, waves around the idea of a privacy waiver like it is a big ``gotcha'' or something. I don't have a privacy waiver, but I know what these officers would say. They would say, We have no idea what the Department would tell us.

So if the Senator from Illinois would like me to be a good bureaucrat and run off and get a privacy waiver, I guess I could do that. And then once they gave it to me, I would ask them, Why did you get denied coverage? And they would say, I don't know. They won't tell us anything.

The point of the matter here is that career law enforcement officers are being hung out to dry and facing financial ruin. And they cannot get an answer, and we cannot get an answer.

Now, is it possible they engaged in misconduct? Sure. It happens. However, I would note, as I did last time, that all four officers are on unrestricted active duty--unrestricted active duty. Three are in the special operations group. One is in the warrant group. Both assignments likely to result in situations where the threat of violence, and even lethal violence, is high.

If these officers somehow acted inappropriately in Portland to the point we can't represent them when they are sued by leftwing activists, surely, they shouldn't be serving high-risk warrants. Surely, they shouldn't be out on the street in the special operations group. So I can only infer that is not the case.

The Department of Justice won't tell us anything more. They won't tell these officers anything more. None of these facts has changed-- nothing in 2 weeks.

The only thing we know that we didn't know 2 weeks ago, actually, is that three of these marshals received an award for their service in Portland.

This is the award that was given out to marshals who risked their lives in defense of the Federal courthouse in Portland. I blurred out the names to protect the safety of those marshals, but, I assure you, their names are on there. They received an award for their service. They are being sued for that very service, and the Department of Justice won't represent them. They deserve answers.

The Senator from Illinois said that last night the President spoke about funding the police after the Democrats spoke for years about defunding the police. Well, I have a suggestion, How about funding these officers' legal defenses? How about that for funding the police?

Stand by the law enforcement officers who did their job and can't now get an explanation for why Merrick Garland is not standing by them.

And until that happens, I guess we can keep coming down here every week or 2 weeks because they deserve to be represented or we deserve a credible, fact-based explanation.

Now, I am just one Senator. I can't block these people forever. We can have a vote on them. We were in session yesterday for 10 hours; we didn't

have a single vote. On Monday night, we voted on late-term partial- birth abortion. If these are so important, we can have a vote on them. Or the Department of Justice could just do what it should, which is right and moral: It should represent law enforcement officers who are being sued for actions in the line of duty, or it should give an explanation for why they are not.

So I do object, and I will continue to object until that happens.

Mr. President, as I rise today, kleptocracy is on the march in Europe, showing how unchecked corruption leads to evil.

Vladimir Putin's corrupt regime fabricated a pretext to invade and subjugate the sovereign and peaceful nation of Ukraine. Putin's attack helps divert the Russian people from his festering corruption and misrule, as jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny put it.

America and our allies are meting out stiff sanctions; and my colleagues and I here in Congress are working on additional measures to deliver punishing financial blows to Putin and his corrupt oligarchs. But we must consider how we arrived at this moment.

Putin has, for decades, deployed corruption and kleptocracy to strengthen his grip on Russia's government and to project power and influence throughout the region. In the process, he decimated Russia's free press, attacked--physically and economically--all political opposition, and grew his own personal fortune to what is thought to be the largest in the world. I say ``thought to be'' because Putin's wealth is hidden behind shell corporations and nestled in tax havens, far from the view of the people he robs and oppresses. And along the way, he cultivated--through favors, force, or fortunes--a group of oligarchs who serve him.

It is important to understand that Putin isn't special. We have plenty of kleptocrats around the globe. Putin just happens to be in charge of a big and oil-rich country with a military at his command, a gangster with an army running a gas station, as Senator McCain used to say.

America is engaged in a growing clash of civilizations against this brand of corrupt leadership. Democracy and the free market are on one side; kleptocracy and corruption are on the other. And we will prevail in this clash by pursuing one powerful value of rule of law society: transparency.

Kleptocrats and criminals seek the protection of our rule of law and our secure financial system to stow their illicit money, but they need anonymity. They need to hide it. That is why so much anonymously owned luxury real estate sits empty in America, in some places actually driving up local housing costs for normal people. And that is why shell corporations in American States multiply.

The Pandora Papers last year revealed webs of American shell corporations and trusts hiding dirty assets. It revealed professionals--lawyers, accounts, and real estate agents--aiding and abetting the hiding of those dirty assets. Shining the light of transparency on kleptocrats' money is a potent countermeasure to their power.

Late in 2020, Congress passed the most important anti-money laundering

reform law in two decades: the Corporate Transparency Act. It was very bipartisan. Senators Grassley, Graham, Wyden, Rubio, Brown, Crapo, Warner, Cotton, and I all spent years getting that bill done. Our aim was to arm law enforcement with knowledge of the ``beneficial owner''-- the real person--who is behind American shell corporations.

Now, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, FinCEN, is implementing our beneficial ownership provisions. And the new rule promises to be a strong countermeasure.

It requires anyone who exerts substantial control directly or indirectly over a legal entity to identify themselves as the beneficial owner. That is what we wanted. It is clear enough so that companies know what they have to do, while minimizing the risk that bad actors can evade disclosure.

And its timelines for reporting and updating beneficial ownership information are fair, providing law enforcement and national security officials timely information without imposing unreasonable turnarounds for legitimate companies.

The beneficial ownership rule also avoided a trap. Some had urged FinCEN to add exceptions to the reporting requirements on top of the ones Congress included in the bill. Well, we worked hard to come up with the right list of excepted entities. It is encouraging to see FinCEN stand firm and avoid watering down the rule with new unjustified exceptions.

FinCEN is also working on a review of Bank Secrecy Act regulations with an eye toward a new ``anti-money laundering and counterterror financing'' framework. This review offers a chance to take on some big challenges.

We need to make sure American professionals aren't aiding and abetting kleptocrats. Investing in hedge funds, luxury real estate, high-priced art, expensive cars, mega yachts all requires help from professionals, and those professionals aren't bound to ``anti-money laundering and counterterror financing'' safeguards like our banks are.

Private investment funds are worth about $11 trillion. You can hide a lot of mischief in $11 trillion. An FBI intelligence bulletin leaked in 2020 warned that ``threat actors'' used those funds to launder their money into rule-of-law financial systems. That is a vulnerability we need to close.

This aiding and abetting problem, giving aid and comfort to our enemies, extends to professional services from lawyers, accountants, company and trust formation agents, even PR firms. But on this front, FinCEN's hands are tied. Congress will need to step in to clean that up.

Kleptocrats and criminals constantly change the methods they use to hide their money. Trade-based money laundering, for instance, allows bad actors to trade everything from vegetables to washing machines as a way to move their money around internationally. We need better coordination among key agencies involved in overseeing trade and better information on suspicious financial and trade activity that is shared more efficiently among various Federal authorities.

Real estate is a massive target for money launderers. In August of last year, the watchdog group Global Financial Integrity released a report showing over $2.3 billion laundered through American real estate over the previous half decade. As Global Financial Integrity would tell you, this is just what they could identify. The real number is probably far higher.

The good news there is we have a countermeasure that works well. In 2016, FinCEN started the ``geographic targeting order'' program, which requires title insurers to report to FinCEN beneficial ownership information of shell companies that stash money in high-priced real estate. That program started in New York and Miami, then expanded to a dozen jurisdictions nationwide. The Congressional Research Service has reviewed it and said these targeting orders work.

Now, FinCEN is proposing a rule to make these orders permanent and expand coverage across the United States. It looks like FinCEN will deliver that improvement. And if it does, that is a big win, particularly if that rule lines up with our beneficial ownership rule and if it extends to cover commercial, as well as residential real estate.

In Congress, we should pass legislation to help FinCEN address professional aiders and abettors. There is bipartisan legislation in the House, the ENABLERS Act, which I hope to introduce here in the Senate. I have also introduced bipartisan legislation to make it a crime for foreign officials to demand bribes from Americans. At the moment, it is only a crime to pay bribes. And we should pay close attention to others in the dark economy, like drug traffickers and terrorists.

I am working on legislation to target money laundering related to the illicit narcotics trade. Indeed, we had a hearing on it today.

Finally, we need to work together with the international community. When U.S. defenses are strengthened, kleptocrats will direct their dirty money to some other willing sanctuary. So it matters that the Biden administration has announced a transatlantic, interagency task force to help crack down on ill-gotten assets stowed in the West by Russian oligarchs and their families, their mistresses, their stooges, whomever. This is exactly the right approach. We must work with friends abroad to close off hidey-holes for oligarchs, bolster the rule of law, expand judicial transparency, and increase access to justice in struggling jurisdictions.

I met recently with a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament who said a phrase--that we were talking about actually during the Munich Security Conference codel--which was: It is not enough to freeze the oligarch's assets; we need to seize the oligarch's assets.

We can do so even theatrically, and to take a camera through the preposterous and grotesque wealth and show the people of Russia what was stolen from them would be as significant a public relations victory as when Ukrainians went through their oligarch's mansion and showed everything from gold toilet seats to private petting zoos.

Kleptocrats, like Putin and his oligarchs, can be defeated. A little sunlight will vanquish them. Free societies and the rule of law can win the long battle we face against kleptocracy and corruption.

This is a national security matter, not just a question of doing good. This is a national security matter, and these are the tools--the ones I have described, the tools of transparency--that will secure our victory.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Ukrainian people have captured the hearts of freedom-loving men and women around the world since Putin launched his unprovoked invasion of their homeland last week.

Even as we speak, they are still under attack, not just in the capital of Kyiv but in cities all across Ukraine. The images coming out of Ukraine are truly heartbreaking: newborn babies in need of intensive care, kindergarten buildings and apartment complexes being shelled indiscriminately, and tearful goodbyes between loved ones.

Putin's invasion has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis this century. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, nearly 900,000 Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries so far, but many of the other images we have seen show inspiring courage. Citizens of EU countries have welcomed their Ukrainian neighbors with open arms. Regular, everyday men and women--teachers and software engineers and moms and dads--have taken up arms to defend their country and their loved ones. President Zelenskyy has chosen to remain in Ukraine when he could have fled, refusing to desert his people in their darkest hour.

The English writer G.K. Chesterton once said:

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in

front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.

I can't think of a better way to describe this conflict.

The Russians are fighting to fulfill Putin's imperial ambitions. The Ukrainians are fighting to protect their families, their democracy, and everything that they hold dear. That may be their greatest advantage as they, God willing, continue to hold out in the coming days.

Responsibility for this horrific invasion lies squarely with Putin. Leading up to this crisis, President Biden and our allies offered Russia every opportunity to choose deescalation and peace. Instead, Putin chose to use diplomacy as a smokescreen, buying time while he prepared for war.

In a deliberate message of contempt for the international community, Putin ordered the attack to begin

while the U.N. Security Council was meeting to discuss Russia's buildup on the Ukrainian border. Here is a glimpse into how little power organizations like the U.N. have in moments of crisis like this: During this meeting on what to do about Russia's coming invasion, the Russian Ambassador was presiding.

Innocent Ukrainians as young as 6 years old are being killed because one man fancies himself the next Joseph Stalin. Because of one man's desire to restore the borders of the Soviet Union, the fundamental principles of security in Europe are in peril.

In response to this invasion, President Biden has announced new sanctions against Russia. These measures will affect 2 of Russia's largest banks--Sberbank and VTB--as well as 45 of their subsidiaries. The administration is also imposing sanctions against several other Russian financial institutions and a number of state-owned enterprises.

The United States, with our allies and partners, not just in Europe but also in Asia, have agreed to pursue even more aggressive sanctions against Russia. That includes beginning to remove certain Russian banks from the global SWIFT financial messaging network. It includes freezing the currency reserves of Russia's central bank. All of this will make Putin and his inner circle feel the pain. It will hurt Russia's ability to wage war now and in the future. Many companies are joining this effort on their own, and they are withdrawing from the Russian market.

Putin's unprecedented aggression demands an unprecedented response. Beyond economic sanctions, this invasion has only made the NATO alliance stronger and more resolved to stand firm against unlawful aggression. This includes Germany, which has traditionally taken a more positive view of Russia than many of our other European allies.

Germany's Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has rightly committed to increasing Germany's military investment after decades of putting defense spending on the back burner. Scholz also said Germany would seriously pursue options to reduce their reliance on Russia for natural gas. If he follows through on increasing Germany's military spending, that will bring German defense investment above the 2 percent target NATO has set for its members by 2024--a target that most NATO countries still aren't meeting.

While historically neutral Sweden and Finland are considering joining NATO, they aren't members yet, but they are still sending much needed military aid to Ukraine. Even Switzerland has broken its tradition of neutrality in order to freeze billions in Russian assets being held in Swiss banks, and our other allies and partners around the world, like Japan and Australia, are helping fund the Ukrainian resistance as well.

After this near universal condemnation from the world's democracies, Putin hasn't backed down. No. He has turned to nuclear blackmail. He put Russia's nuclear forces into special combat readiness on Sunday, explicitly using Russia's nuclear deterrent to discourage Western nations from supporting Ukraine.

This kind of escalation is unthinkable to Americans but not to Putin. This is why the men and women of the U.S. Strategic Command, which is based at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, work day and night to deter threats like these. There is a reason that their motto is ``Peace is Our Profession.'' Separately, at least five Offutt-based jets from the Air Force's 55th Wing are flying reconnaissance missions in Europe. Together, these planes have flown 10 of the 86 missions the United States and our NATO allies carried out in the days leading up to the Russian attack. I was told of these missions during a visit to Offutt last Friday.

In addition to what we have done so far, I believe the Ukraine crisis demands that we fundamentally reevaluate our approach to dealing with Putin. We can no longer pretend that he might, one day, play by the same rules as the rest of us.

Since he came to power, Presidents of both parties have sought to improve relations with him. Too often, they have overlooked decades of bad behavior to try to achieve that goal, hoping that American restraint might lead Moscow to take that same approach.

If it wasn't clear even before this attack, the events of the past week have proven that idea to be a fantasy.

Putin thought Russia would get a quick win when he invaded Ukraine. He never expected this kind of resistance from the outmatched and the outnumbered Ukrainians. But he didn't account for their bravery. He didn't account for the fact that while Russia is fighting to gobble up more land in Eastern Europe, the Ukrainians are fighting to protect their children, spouses, parents, and their very way of life.

After the events of the past week, Putin's naked aggression, his imperial ambitions, and his contempt for the international order are undeniable.

Global norms and treaty obligations mean nothing--they mean nothing to him. Russia had explicitly sworn to uphold Ukraine's territorial integrity in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, one more agreement added to the long list of those Russia has violated under Putin.

After his completely unprovoked invasion, this would-be 21st-century czar has lost whatever credibility he had left. The United States and our allies must keep this in mind as we think about where we go from here.

We have to accept that as long as Putin is in power, a cooperative relationship with Russia will not be possible. We have to do what we can to push back against Putin's warmongering and continue to support the brave people of Ukraine.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, imagine this. You are a CEO of a company, and one day your CFO comes into your office with bad news. The company's costs are rapidly growing, and you aren't bringing in enough money to keep pace with the rising costs. The solution here is simple: come up with a plan to reduce costs and continue serving your customers and honoring your agreements while ensuring that the company can stay afloat.

If you don't adapt and evolve, you fail and go out of business. Most Americans understand that. Unfortunately, Congress is not like most Americans. We are in charge of running Medicare, and for decades, the cost of Medicare has risen dramatically, but Congress has no plan to address future costs.

And now we have Medicare's Board of Trustees reporting that the hospital insurance trust fund, the fund which supports Medicare Part A, will be insolvent in 2026. You can see here is where we are. In just 4 short years--in just 4 short years--we are going to run out of money to keep paying for services for Americans most in need.

We are talking about things like emergency surgery, in-home healthcare, and hospice care. By 2030, 4 years after insolvency, the trust fund will be $335 billion in debt. Medicare Part A cannot pay when it lacks funds.

What makes matters worse, the Medicare trustees have been warning about this for years. They have told us that Medicare Part A hasn't met even the most basic short-term goals for fiscal health since 2003.

Let's go back to the imaginary company I mentioned earlier. If you were an employee of that company and your salary depended on the company's success, how would you feel if, for 18 years, the company's leadership knew that the company would go under unless they fixed the problem, but it never happened?

Instead of fixing the problem, no one did anything. They just kept using up the company's savings. That is basically what has happened and continues to happen with Medicare.

Here is what is shocking. Absolutely nothing has been done. Washington has completely ignored the warnings about the rising costs and declining revenues for Medicare, and there is no plan to repair the system. Career politicians in the Washington establishment have acted recklessly and immorally.

They are plunging Medicare into billions of dollars of debt, debt that our grandchildren will have to pay off for the benefit of those in the present. To make matters worse, Washington politicians think they can continue to treat Medicare like a piggy bank and draw as much money as they want from it to pay for another unsustainable and unfunded program.

We saw them use Medicare savings to help fund road construction in an infrastructure bill. Make no mistake, I want to have better ports and better highways, but robbing Peter to pay Paul with money Peter doesn't have? That is wrong.

Kicking the can down the road and letting our debt balloon is a disservice to the 60 million--60 million--Americans, including the 4.5 million Floridians, who rely on Medicare.

Now, Senator Schumer is trying to pass a bill that will stick Congress's greedy hand into the Medicare trust fund--this time to pay for the U.S. Postal Service.

In 2020, Part B spending was $418 billion. By 2030, the cost will double to $871 billion.

Look at this. I mean, this is unbelievable.

The Part B and Part D trust fund is funded through a combination of premiums paid by beneficiaries and direct transfer from the U.S. Treasury of collected tax revenue. That means the future costs of Medicare Parts B and D are going to be paid for by higher premiums for retirees and higher taxes for all Americans.

Today, someone who retires at the Postal Service can keep their health plan into retirement, with the option of adding Medicare, but the Postal Service needs to pay the full cost of the health plan if the retiree doesn't choose Medicare. Now, this is costly to the post office, so the proposed solution in Senator Schumer's postal reform bill is to force all future retirees into Medicare as a means of saving money for the post office. This actually just shifts costs away from the Postal Service onto the Medicare Program--from one government program to another--and it is a cost borne by hard-working taxpayers and nonpostal retirees. This is a gift to the post office balance sheet, but it is a cost to everybody else. In other words, the solution is as bad as the problem.

On top of that, the CBO doesn't even have an accurate estimate of how much this bill will actually cost. I sent a letter to the CBO asking what the future cost of the bill would be to Medicare. While they could tell me there would be $5 billion in new deficits, they couldn't provide data past 2031, when Medicare will be most affected by this proposal. Yet Congress wants to pass this bill and pretend like it is solving a problem when it only makes matters worse. If you look at the limited CBO score we have and think about what it says, it shows that it increases costs to Medicare and reduces costs to the Postal Service.

Advocates are quick to say that it saves the government money, but that is wrong. The post office keeps all the savings and just moves the costs to Medicare. It doesn't actually save the taxpayer any money.

We have got to stop doing business like this. How can anybody in this body explain to their constituents that this is the right way to pass bills? How can anyone really say with a straight face that kicking the can down the road is the right thing to do?

Do you know why the American people don't trust us? It is stuff like this. When Congress passes a bill like this, with zero committee process, zero amendments so far considered in the Senate, and the bill ends up being terrible, well, it is not hard to see why the American people don't have a ton of faith in Congress to solve problems.

In 2020, Medicare spending was almost $1 trillion. That is $1 trillion in mandatory spending without any review by Congress.

I want real reform. I want to make sure retirees have the healthcare they have paid into and that the Postal Service is actually sustainable. That is why I have introduced an amendment to require the Postal Service to pay for any new costs to Medicare that this bill will bring. This will ensure that Medicare isn't used like a piggy bank. This will ensure that the taxpayer and future nonpostal retirees aren't forced to bear the burden of this Postal Service bailout. It would ensure that the Postal Service pays their fair share.

I am thankful to have the support of groups like 60 Plus that represent the interests of America's seniors.

Unlike many career politicians who are running Washington off a fiscal cliff with over $30 trillion worth of debt, I have actually been a CEO. I have run companies and have had to help solve financial problems. I have listened to CFOs and have worked with budgets to turn things around. I didn't come to Washington to fit in and maintain the status quo. I came to make real change that benefits American families, and this bill, as written right now, doesn't do anything to help anyone.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and join me in demanding that Senator Schumer slow down and put this bill through the proper process. American taxpayers and voters who sent us here deserve better than this.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I have to preface my remarks with my deep respect for the senior Senator from Iowa. I respect him not just because he slays it on Twitter, but I respect him because of his heart, because we have a great working relationship, and because we have worked together to deal with the drug crisis in America. We have worked together to make the judicial system more just.

What you hear from the senior Senator is passion that comes from the crisis, as he said. I have traveled his State considerably, and the opioid crisis is a crisis from New Jersey to Iowa--all over our country. He read the statistics, but you could hear from his heart that these are families he knows; that these are people who have seen the tremendous loss of young people through opioid overdoses.

We cannot in this country tolerate one more overdose. I agree with the Senator's sense of urgency in that we cannot tolerate one more death and that we have to address this public health crisis. But with this goal in mind, I cannot support the bill as it is offered today because extending the temporary scheduling of fentanyl analogs alone is a failed experiment.

We have seen this temporary scheduling. We are in it right now. Classwide scheduling has not curbed the overdoses. In fact, overdoses have increased during the period that fentanyl analogs have been scheduled by nearly 40 percent from June 2019 to May 2020.

Here is what makes it even worse.

As a result of just blanket classwide scheduling--this broad sweep approach--the FDA recently testified that there is a potential lifesaving antidote to these fentanyl analogs. It is basically a stronger version of naloxone. That stronger version has been placed, because of this blanket scheduling, as a schedule I. The FDA knows that this could actually endanger more people.

Why in the midst of a public health crisis are we criminalizing the next naloxone instead of rushing it to the hands of researchers for study and evaluation?

When you put something in schedule I, it is a declaration that doesn't even have any health benefits. This is bad science and, therefore, bad policy.

This bill, as it is now, would not prevent the steady increase of fentanyl-related overdoses that we are seeing nationwide. It wouldn't achieve that because we have had temporary scheduling, and it is still going up. It will not prevent the loss of one loved one that we see happening right now or the pain that motivates my friend and senior Senator from Iowa.

This is a public health crisis, and our strategies should be informed by the science as a public health response. It requires a response that is dictated by science- and evidence-based interventions. Temporary scheduling, again, is not simply that. Classwide scheduling impedes scientists' and impedes researchers' abilities to develop evidence- based public health solutions that are needed to overcome the fentanyl crisis and deal with these fentanyl analogs.

Look, right now, temporary scheduling has given this false impression that Congress is doing something to deal with fentanyl analogs while the death count goes up. What it has done, really, is allowed the government to neglect the deeper calling for us to really deal with the challenges as they are. There are a lot of evidence-based intervention strategies--things we know that work--that we are not investing in. There are things that could help these crises in our communities.

Fundamentally, research by the FDA has confirmed that what is being proposed--classwide scheduling--has improperly scheduled substances with therapeutic promise and low abuse potential. We need to submit all fentanyl-related substances to the same scientific evaluation that we have done for other controlled substances. We need to test for their dangerousness. We must identify those that might be lifesaving overdoses.

All we have done for nearly 4 years now is schedule these substances without thinking about the scientific and medical evidence. Kicking the can down the road by temporarily scheduling these substances, yet again now, without making any effort to follow the scientific process, is irresponsible. We are preemptively criminalizing substances that may not be harmful and may actually be antidotes, that might be the answer in helping to curb these horrific overdoses and these horrible deaths. The temporary scheduling of fentanyl analogs without testing for pharmacological effects means that people will be convicted and incarcerated for substances that may have no pharmacological effect.

I want to again make clear that I am committed to ending this pandemic. I carry a picture in my wallet of someone who died from an overdose--it was given to me as I crisscrossed this country--so as to never forget the everyday emergency.

As the President mentioned in his speech to this body yesterday, confronting the opioid epidemic is something that Republicans and Democrats, united, can get behind. It should be bipartisan, but at the same time, our response should not be guided by the same old drug war ideologies that didn't stop the overuse of drugs. It should be guided by the scientific evidence. It should be guided by compassion. It should be guided by what works.

Classwide scheduling ignores the scientific and medical guidance. It sets in place a dangerous precedent, and it repeats mistakes we have made too many times in the past.

I have seen the drug war go awry. I have seen this body act in ways that have compounded problems and not helped people. I have seen the people with addictions--that are diseases--with nothing but jail and prison. We can get out of this crisis if we follow the science and if we follow what works, but it means Democrats and Republicans coming together.

I have tremendous respect for my colleague. I know we can find a way to move forward together. I know, if we continue to work together, we are going to find a way forward. I know, because of my experience with the senior Senator and his grace, that if we dedicate ourselves to working together, we can get good things done for this country. We have done it before. In this case, I think we can do it again.

So, with the deepest respect to my colleague, I respectfully object.

The Senator may proceed. I have nothing else to say.