A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Council on Environmental Quality relating to "National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations Revisions".

Mr. President, I wanted to come down here tonight to talk a little bit about the bill that we have in front of us this weekend, the Inflation Reduction Act. I have been in the Senate for 13 years, and I think this is one of the most important pieces of legislation that we have ever considered.

Let me just say, also, that the Presiding Officer and I have been here for a long time, and there have been weeks and weeks and weeks, months, years that have gone by here where it felt like we haven't gotten anything done.

What an amazing moment to be here when we have a bipartisan infrastructure bill that we passed with the biggest investment in our infrastructure since Eisenhower was President. We passed the first bipartisan bill to overcome the NRA just a few weeks ago. Last week, we were able to pass the CHIPS Act to bring back semiconductors to the U.S.A. and the PACT Act, the veterans bill last night.

Today, we are here to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act. It is quite an amazing moment in our democracy and, I think, in the country's history. It is not the subject of my speech tonight, but I want to say, with the Presiding Officer on the floor, that there might be a reason to think that we are at a moment in our country's history when we are actually ready, finally, to turn the page on the trickle-down economics that have created such an unfair economy for so many families and so many young people in this country and create, once again, in the United States, an economy that, when it grows, it grows for everybody, not just the people at the very top.

This bill fits into that. The bill on infrastructure fits into that. The bill on the semiconductors fits into that, as well.

If you look at the agenda Washington has pursued for the last 40 years or so, it is pretty simple: Let the big corporations do whatever they want and call it ``freedom''; cut investments in working families and our future; and instead of grappling with the income inequality we have, instead of grappling with the economic mobility that we have, cut taxes for the wealthiest people in the country, cut taxes for the largest corporations in the country, hoping that those tax cuts will somehow magically trickle down to everyone else and pay for themselves. That has never happened.

Here is what happened instead: 40 years of an economy that has worked really well for the wealthiest people and corporations but hasn't worked very well for anybody else; an economy with income inequality higher than at any time since the 1920s, where the top 0.1 percent of Americans, a mere 160,000 families, hold basically the same amount of wealth as the bottom 90 percent of Americans, nearly 145 million families--160,000 families, the top 0.1 percent, hold as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, 9 out of 10 Americans, nearly 145 million families--where kids--I am sad to say this in front of the kids here tonight--have a 50-50 shot of earning more than their parents, where that number used to be 90 percent; that charges families more for their healthcare than any other industrialized country in the world; that forces seniors in this country--and only in this country--to cut their pills in half or skip prescriptions or decide whether they are going to be able to eat or take their medicine; that is shackled to a global fossil fuel market dictated by tyrants like Vladimir Putin, despite our abundant resources at home and despite the urgent threat from climate change.

That is the legacy of the past 40 years of trickle-down economics. As I have said many, many times on this floor, we can't survive another 40 years like the last 40 years and expect to hold onto this democracy. I don't think we can survive another 10 years like this and expect to hold on to this democracy with this failed agenda.

Working families can't sustain it. Our democracy can't withstand it because, when people feel like they have lost the sense of opportunity for themselves and their families no matter how hard they work, that is when, you know, throughout human history,

somebody shows up. Some self-interested politician shows up and says: I alone can fix it. You don't need a democracy. You don't need the rule of law. You should expect your public sector and your private sector to be hopelessly corrupt, and you are a sucker if you don't believe that because people are going to take advantage of you.

We need a new agenda for America. I am pleased to say that we are closer, I think, tonight--this weekend--than we have been in a long time to pursuing one.

It started with the American Rescue Plan. It continued, as I said earlier, with the bipartisan infrastructure law we passed this year to rebuild our country and the bipartisan innovation bill that we passed last week to help us compete with China and bring thousands of good- paying jobs back home.

And, now, I hope we are close to passing the next part, the Inflation Reduction Act. This bill will lower costs for millions of families--at the pharmacy, at the pump, and on their monthly energy bills and insurance premiums. It will do more to achieve energy independence and fight climate change than anything that we have ever done as a nation.

And unlike the Trump tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which added $1.9 trillion to the debt, notwithstanding the arguments that we have heard going back to Ronald Reagan--the false arguments that we have heard going back to Ronald Reagan--that these tax cuts will pay for themselves. Once again, of course, they didn't pay for themselves. And unlike that, a $1.9 trillion hole blasted into our deficit when unemployment was only at 3.5 percent. Every cent of that money was borrowed just for the privilege of giving tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Fifty-two percent of that bill went to the top 5 percent of Americans. We borrowed every single cent to do that.

That would be no different than when the Presiding Officer was the mayor of Richmond, VA, and if he said to the people of Richmond: I have a really good idea for how we could spend a lot of money, but we are going to have to borrow money to do it.

And they said: Well, that sounds like a lot of money that you are borrowing. Tell us what you are spending it on. Are you using it for our roads and bridges?

No.

Are you using it for the parks?

No.

Are you using it for education, for mental health, which we desperately need in this country? Are you using it to transfer the local economy to greener energy?

No.

What are you using it for, Mr. Mayor, they would say.

And the answer is: I am going to borrow this massive amount of money, and I am going to give it to the two wealthiest neighborhoods in Richmond and hope that it is just going to trickle down to everybody else.

I am not making it up. That is the theory. That is the policy. And that was the theory and the policy when Ronald Reagan was President. That was the theory and policy when Donald Trump was President.

And unlike those bills, every single cent in this bill is paid for. More than that, it cuts the deficit by over $300 billion. If you listen to my Republican colleagues, at least some of them and the way they complain about this bill, you would think it was some sort of Bolshevik takeover of the U.S.A. It is ridiculous.

I think, sometimes, they just don't even want the public to know what is in this bill because what is in this bill is so popular with the American people.

Let's start with healthcare. For the first time ever, this bill requires Medicare to negotiate drug prices on behalf of the American people.

The Presiding Officer and I wrote a bill called Medicare-X. We introduced it, I think, in 2017, to create a public option so that everybody in America could have the benefit of choosing between their private insurance and public insurance. That is not in this bill. But in that bill, we said that Medicare ought to negotiate drug prices for seniors. This would allow Medicare to use its market power to drive down the costs of prescription drugs. That is going to save families thousands of dollars, and it is going to save our country billions of dollars.

The only reason we have not passed that is because special interests have succeeded at tying Medicare's hands so that pharmaceutical companies could keep charging Americans prices that no other developed nation in the world would tolerate--Americans like Julia from Denver. Her dad has a heart condition. He pays $6,000 a month for medication. That is $72,000 a year for something he needs to take for the rest of his life. That is outrageous, but I hear stories like that every day all over Colorado.

The Inflation Reduction Act also would cap out-of-pocket costs for seniors to $2,000 a year so they aren't spending down their retirement to buy medication. I know seniors in Colorado who literally spend their entire retirement trying to figure out how to get the medication they need, the medication they have been prescribed by a doctor. The choices they have to make look unlike any other choices any senior has to make in any other country in the world.

I was with some people in Pueblo recently where one of the people said: I have three inhalers, but I can't afford the three inhalers. So I can only take one of them at a time, and I have been getting sicker and sicker as a result of that.

Another person in the room had worked her entire life at the local newspaper, and she was telling me that she was having to cut her medications in order to make it through economically.

On top of that, this bill has a 3-year extension for tax credits to help millions of Americans pay for their health insurance, including over 150,000 Coloradans who are going to be able to afford their health insurance in ways they couldn't.

The second part of this bill closes tax loopholes for about 200 of the biggest corporations in America--those with over $1 billion in profit. This comes directly from a bill that I wrote with Senator Warren and with Senator King. Today, these corporations use armies of lawyers and accountants that no middle-class family has, no working family has, no small business has to pay almost nothing in classes.

Last year, Chevron paid an effective rate of 1.8 percent. Bank of America paid 3.5 percent--3.5 percent. That is after the Trump tax cuts cut the corporate rate and took it down to, I think, it was 20 percent--which, by the way, there was no consensus to do. The consensus was at 25 percent. Here you have companies paying 1.8 percent, and 3.5 percent in the case of Bank of America. Amazon paid 6.1 percent. They might want to fire their CFO because they are paying a little more than the 1.8 and the 3.5. AT&T paid negative 4.1 percent. That means they got money back from the Treasury in tax credits.

In Colorado, a typical firefighter, teacher, or police officer has an effective tax rate of somewhere around 16 to 22 percent. So, on the one hand, you have working Americans paying 20 percent of their income in an economy that has barely lifted their incomes in 40 years, while billion-dollar corporations are paying virtually nothing.

I had a conversation the other day with a ``Teacher of the Year'' from Colorado. She is from Glenwood Springs. She said that she wasn't complaining, that she was just making an observation. She said 70 percent to 80 percent of her colleagues in the middle school in which she teaches and at the high school in Glenwood Springs have to work two and three jobs just so they can afford to live in Glenwood Springs.

Do we think it is all right for her to have to pay 22 percent of her income in taxes and the biggest corporations in America that are making more than $1 billion in income don't have to at least pay 15 percent, much less the 20 percent gift that Donald Trump gave them when the number that everybody had basically agreed to was 25 percent? It is no wonder that Americans think this Tax Code is rigged against them.

We start to fix that problem with this bill. It is not everything that I would have wanted. I think we have a lot more to do to make this Tax Code fairer, not the least of which is to make permanent the expanded child tax credit that I worked on with Sherrod Brown, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris; and the earned income tax credit that I worked on with

Sherrod Brown to give working people the biggest tax cut they had in generations. That is one of the things that is not in this bill that I feel really terrible about.

This bill also is limiting something called the carried interest loophole. Most Americans have no idea what that is because 99.9999999 percent of Americans are not hedge fund managers; they don't benefit from this loophole to lower their tax rate and pay less than their assistants or than their secretary.

That hasn't stopped my Republican colleagues from telling the American public that this bill would tax working people--that is what they are saying. And I guess that is true if by ``working people'' they mean hedge fund managers. Over half of them base their business in the Cayman Islands or billion dollar corporations. We are increasing their taxes--that is true--but there is nothing in this bill that is raising taxes on American families--nothing. Nothing.

It is amazing to me that people that I meet that simultaneously support the Trump tax cuts for the wealthiest people on the theory of trickle-down economics and are opposed to this bill on the theory that somehow the taxes that we are raising on, literally, the wealthiest humans in our country and the wealthiest corporations are somehow going to trickle down to people in the workplace. It is never going to happen. It never has.

The last part of this bill contains energy. And, first, I think it is important for us to have some context. It has been nearly 50 years since the 1973 oil crisis spurred America to seek ``energy independence.''

It has been more than 30 years since NASA scientist James Hansen urged Congress to fight climate change, I think at a hearing held by my predecessor Tim Wirth. And until now we haven't had a plan, we have had no plan to accomplish either.

We haven't just stalled--in some cases, we have actually gone backward. At home, right now, our use of coal has increased during the Biden administration. Abroad, Germany has been forced to reactivate coal plants after Putin's attack on Ukraine, while other EU nations plan on rationing natural gas or turning on their coal plants.

Instead of leading the world with a coherent approach on these issues, Washington has been deadlocked in the same old, tired politics around climate and energy. And as usual, the American people have paid the price.

They have paid it at the pump with incomes that have barely budged in this economy. In Colorado, we have paid for it in homes incinerated by record wildfires, mountain passes washed out by mudslides, fields withering in extreme drought that nobody has seen for 800 years, the Colorado River in crisis, and a galloping fear that the American West will somehow be unrecognizable to our grandchildren.

When this deal fell apart 10 days ago or so, whenever it was, my heart was broken as a result of it, because I thought about what Colorado has been going through. And I thought about--I had to call and explain to my 22-year-old and 21-year-old and 17-year-old daughters that once again we had failed.

And their sense of disbelief, of incredulity--which, by the way, I think is shared with every single member of their generation in this country, whether they are Democrats or whether they are Republicans or independents or if they don't even know what political party they are in. How can you not deal with this? How can you place this burden on us?

And if we pass this bill, we are going to be able to look the next generation straight in the eye and say: We are actually living up to our responsibility to you, at least with respect to climate. And that fills me with joy. And that is the reason to support this bill and feel good about it.

We can't afford another 10 years of dysfunction on these issues. This transition should have started 25 years ago--25 years ago.

And in my opinion, we urgently need a plan, an energy policy that secures the energy our economy needs and relentlessly lowers climate pollution.

In other words, we need a plan for clean energy independence. And we can start by being honest about where we are; I think that is really important.

Today, 60 percent of our power generation comes from fossil fuel; only 20 percent comes from renewables. Over 90 percent--90 percent of our transportation relies on fossil fuels, and less than 3 percent uses electricity. Across the economy, 80 percent of primary energy consumption still comes from fossil fuel. Renewables are just 12 percent.

We have made some progress, but to hit our emissions targets, renewables have to scale from 12 percent today to at least 60 percent by 2050.

That is why, even under the most ambitious projections, some fossil fuels will likely remain in our energy mix for decades, even through 2050. Don't take my word for it; that is not me saying it. These projections are from the National Academy of Sciences, the International Energy Agency, and Princeton. And that is the reality that they confront us with.

So when I hear politicians and others whip up Twitter with promises to reject every permit for new infrastructure, they ignore this reality. And I worry that we cede the scientific high ground to critics of climate action, who then paint climate advocates as disconnected or deluded or even dangerous to the economy. And the only thing that wins is our fossil fuels. The only thing that wins is coal.

And I worry sometimes that these claims also repel the very Americans we need to support our energy transition. If our position in the short term is to oppose every new piece of infrastructure, we are essentially forcing America to choose between scarcity and higher prices, to choose between either less energy or higher prices.

I was in Belgium and, with our colleague Chris Coons, met with the deputy prime minister there who said--we were on our way to Scotland for the climate conference, and he said: We have to meet these climate targets. We have to meet these climate targets in 2050.

And then he said: But I don't know how we are going to meet them and not lose the middle class.

And I said: What do you mean by that? And he said: I don't know how we are going to meet them and not have yellow vests break out all over Europe.

And we are seeing that now. We are seeing where Putin has cut off Russian oil and Russian gas because of his invasion of Ukraine--the challenges that it creates in democratic societies when it comes to energy. There is no country in the world better positioned on this question, better positioned to lead this transition to clean energy than the United States of America.

There is not a country in Europe; there is not a country in the Middle East. China is not better positioned than we are on this. We are the best positioned country in the world to lead this transition.

In fact, I think we are the only country in the world that can lead this transition--which, by the way, is why it was such a tragedy when it looked 10 days ago like this bill wasn't going anywhere, because then the rest of the world looks at us and says: Why should we do anything if the country that is most capable of being able to do this can't do it?

And what I want to assure you is that these outcomes of scarcity or higher prices, neither of those outcomes are going to support the broad and durable support that we need to be able to not just pass climate policy but keep it the law of the land and make sure that it lasts until the next generation of Americans can pick it up from us and say: Thank you for putting us in a decent position; we are going to finish the job.

And then if we can't pass this bill and we can't make progress on climate change, then what we have, instead, is our current policy, which is the status quo, which drives up prices, is bad for our national security, and is terrible at reducing emissions. That is where we are today. That is why coal is up, as I said, during the Biden administration.

For a successful transition, we have got to smooth the path with domestic energy production now to stabilize prices and bridge our way to a clean energy economy tomorrow. And to do that, we need every tool on the table.

This means deploying renewables like wind and solar, which my State has led in. We need to do it at record rates. We need to invest in next-generation technology from carbon capture to hydrogen to advanced nuclear.

That means we need to recognize the role that natural gas has played in our transition. Over the last 15 years, replacing coal with natural gas has accounted for 60 percent of our national carbon reductions, and that is really good. But we need to do a lot better because the time is ticking. And now we have the opportunity, because of this bill, to secure America's position as the global standard for production-- modeled on our example in Colorado, where we passed the first law to capture fugitive methane when Senator Hickenlooper was our Governor--by driving down methane pollution and strengthening cleanup and monitoring across the supply chain.

The last thing we should accept is the leaking pipes that the status quo allows when we have tools available to do better.

And we can't accept the painful price shocks that the American people have to bear because of our lack of a coherent energy policy.

Fortunately, this bill lays the foundation for a responsible energy policy for the country, and it has the largest investment to fight climate change in the Nation's history. And it is full of proposals I have worked on for years, proposals to rapidly deploy clean energy and to provide industry the long-term certainty it needs, to boost American manufacturing for wind and solar and batteries to power electric vehicles and our energy grid, to invest $14 billion to help rural communities transition from fossil fuels, along with over $25 billion for environmentally friendly farming, conservation, and forest health.

We also have an opportunity in this bill to address the drought that is ravaging the American West and to do it in a way that measurably improves the situation of the Colorado River Basin, reflects the interest of the people of my State and other States in the Upper Basin, and actually deals, finally, with the long-term causes of the crisis that we face.

When you add it all up, this bill would put us on track to reduce carbon pollution 40 percent by the end of the decade. That is light years ahead of where we would be without it.

But even if you don't care about climate change, you should still like this bill because it lowers costs for families. How does it do that?

By increasing the supply of American energy with a responsible approach while reducing demand for oil and gas by putting more renewables and electric vehicles on the market.

According to a recent study, this bill would reduce the average family's electricity bill by hundreds of dollars a year. From my perspective, as I said, this transition should have started 25 years ago, and we can't wait any longer. Now is the moment to act.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine should finally rid America and our allies of the delusion that we can continue to rely on foreign dictators for our energy needs. It should remind us how foolish we have been to surrender the lifeblood of our economy to the whims of tyrants.

So nearly 50 years after the 1973 oil crisis, let's make this the year that we finally pass a coherent plan for America's energy independence. Let's finally organize our thinking and advance a plan that liberates us from foreign energy and tackles the threat of climate change head-on.

And while we are at it, let's reforge the engine of American manufacturing to produce the clean energy we need and to create thousands of good-paying jobs along the way.

Let's support our European allies by exporting cleaner American energy so they don't have to rely on coal or Russian gas to heat their homes through the winter.

There is no country in the world better prepared than the United States to lead this effort. And this bill will do more than anything we have ever done to strengthen our hand in this regard.

In another era, a proposal like this would have received 70 votes on the Senate floor. Every provision in here is a victory for common sense and a victory for the American people over special interests and the status quo.

Frankly, I don't know how many people can go home and say they voted against a balanced approach to achieve energy independence, fight climate change, and lower costs for families at this moment in our history.

I don't know how you would go home and say they voted to preserve tax loopholes for hedge fund managers and billion-dollar corporations that no American family can even imagine as they are paying the rates of taxation that they are paying or how they voted to let pharmaceutical companies continue to gouge the American people instead of letting Medicare negotiate on their behalf; how they voted against reducing our deficit by $300 billion.

But that is the choice we have in front of us. To me, it is a choice that is obvious. We have got to pass this bill. We need to seize the moment to lower costs for the American people, to make our Tax Code a little fairer, to secure our energy independence, and spark a new era of clean energy manufacturing and innovation to support our allies and lead the world in a fight against climate change and, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, leave something a little bit better for the next generation of Americans.

I thank my colleague from New Jersey for his patience.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in objection to this bill because it is an outrageous attack on life-affirming pregnancy resource centers. As a pro-life obstetrician, I have had the pleasure and honor of delivering over 5,000 babies, and I can attest to the lifesaving, critical, and comprehensive care and resources these centers provide moms in need.

These pro-life charities not only help women in poverty choose life instead of abortion, but they also help women after babies are born. They also provide clothing and diapers and housing assistance and nutrition and sometimes just putting an arm around their shoulders and helping them get to their next appointment.

This legislation seeks to shut them down all around the country on the grounds that they purportedly spread disinformation about abortion.

Under this bill, charities could be fined $100,000 or 50 percent of the revenues earned by the ultimate parent entity of the charity for violating the act's prohibition on disinformation related to abortion.

Now, I ask you, who would determine what counts as prohibited disinformation? There is no doubt it would be bureaucrats with a pro- abortion agenda. Is this not an infringement on our First Amendment rights?

This bill would turn the FTC into a national abortion disinformation board with an agenda of suppressing speech and spreading pro-abortion propaganda.

Nationally, pro-life pregnancy resource centers outnumber abortion facilities three to one, and that is a good thing--that is a great thing--and in some States by as many as 11 to 1. Knowing that many women choose abortion because they feel pressured that they have no other option, the pro-life movement has placed tremendous resources into these centers, which exist to offer alternatives to abortion, usually at no cost.

But right now in America, pregnancy resource centers are the ones in need of protection as zealous, pro-abortion terrorists have spent the past 2 months firebombing and vandalizing pro-life pregnancy centers all across the Nation.

These criminals, these terrorists do so not in the name of abortion access

but in retribution for daring to defy the ruling abortion regime and for daring to stand on the side of good in this spiritual battle.

There have been more than 60 pregnancy resource centers and offices that pro-life groups have attacked and vandalized since the draft Supreme Court opinion was leaked in May.

Pro-abortion domestic terrorists have claimed responsibility for these crimes.

Congress should be taking up the legislation instead to affirm, grow, and protect pregnancy resource centers and praise citizens for their great work, for volunteering to help and serve their community.

And Attorney General Merrick Garland should abide by his oath of office and prosecute the law. Therefore, I object.

To answer my colleague, the fraud and deception is occurring in the abortion clinics. I could tell you story after story of patients crying in my office who went to Planned Parenthood for a pregnancy test and were scheduled for an abortion, coming to my office wondering, Do I have to do this abortion? That is where the fraud and deception is occurring, that these women aren't being told about the potential complications of these abortion procedures.

They are not being told that these abortion pills are going to cause pain and cramping and bleeding, that they could end up in the emergency room as well. They are not told about the complications from the abortion procedures. That is where the fraud and deception is present.

You talk about this as reproductive services. You are afraid to say the word ``abortion'' in these clinics. That is the fraud and deception. This isn't reproductive services. These are abortions. This is taking the life of the unborn.

Mr. President, we could never support any part of this legislation. I think the deception and fraud is occurring on the part of abortion clinics. This is a threat to our First Amendment rights, and like I said in my opening remarks, this is just simply unacceptable.

And that is why we continue to object.

Mr. President, I think this is not the place to try to rewrite legislation. Of course, I am against all fraud. I think all fraud is bad. I am all for the truth. I am all for protecting patients' personal information, but I am also here proud to say what these great clinics do. I am not sure what you are even accusing them is even true. I have not witnessed that. The pregnancy clinics that I have seen do great work for these folks. They truly do sit down and talk with them. They give them a hand up. They do so many great things.

So I don't know where this fraud and deception is coming about, except that they are talking to women and saying: Do you realize your baby has a heartbeat? Do you realize your baby can feel pain at 14 weeks? Do you realize that your baby recognizes the voice of your husband right now?

So I think those are great things to share with patients; that how wonderful life is; that we are all wonderfully, beautifully made in the womb; that life begins at conception. I think that is all the truth that should be shared with them.

So, no, I don't think there is anything you could do with this legislation to change it that I could support, and I continue to object.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, before the COVID-19 pandemic, few people other than scientists and national security experts were familiar with gain-of-function research. Now, as we continue to search for the origin of this pandemic and begin to learn more about the dangerous research that has been largely kept from the public eye, it is becoming a household phrase.

Before we get started on the current state of play, I would like to give a brief history of this research and how the Federal Government has poorly, perhaps even negligently, approached its oversight and funding.

In late 2011, over a decade ago, the NSABB, which is the NIH's advisory board, stopped two scientists from publishing an avian influenza gain-of-function study. Why? Because they were afraid that this study would educate bioterrorists. That is right. In 2011, a decade ago, scientists had figured out how to make H5N1--a highly pathogenic avian influenza--more contagious, which would have been catastrophic for American agriculture.

Dr. Fauci personally called both scientists and convinced them to volunteer to pause their experiments. In early 2012, Dr. Fauci encouraged all influenza scientists to voluntarily pause influenza gain-of-function research and told them:

It is essential we respect the concern of the public

domestically or globally, and not ask them to take the word

of the influenza scientist.

Dr. Fauci was obviously concerned about the public's perception out there. Dr. Fauci also, almost prophetically, stated that he worried about ``unregulated'' laboratories, perhaps outside of the United States, doing work ``sloppily'' and leading to an inadvertent pandemic. ``Accidental release is what the world is really worried about.''

In 2014, after several biosecurity accidents in U.S. research labs, the Obama White House implemented the gain-of-function moratorium on influenza, as well as MERS and SARS research, because of the potential risk of lab accidents and inherent gain-of-function danger. These two moratoriums clearly demonstrate that the U.S. Government and the NIH, our primary public health Agency, understood the risk associated with this research and understood the threats it posed.

Despite this pause, though, certain viral gain-of-function research projects continued at the University of North Carolina, research that was later shared with a Chinese virologist named Dr. Shi, the Bat Lady. She was famous for her copious amounts of research conducted on coronaviruses that live in bats.

Outside of the North Carolina studies, Dr. Fauci failed to heed his own call on U.S. scientists to pause their gain-of-function studies and offshored the paused research to China not just once and not just recently but practically continuously for over a decade. It is disturbing that one of our top public health Agencies directed this risky research to be offshored while encouraging the pause on that exact same research here in the United States.

In 2012, Dr. Fauci gave a new grant to Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance, a company that America will soon know the name of all across America. He gave a new grant to Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance for avian influenza research in China, which was truly gain-of-function research.

In 2014, Dr. Fauci gave another new grant, another gain-of-function grant, to Dr. Daszak and EcoHealth for SARS research in China. Through these grants, Peter Daszak partnered with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

In late 2017, the NIH announced a lift on the gain-of-function pause, apparently without consultation with the Senate-confirmed State Department or with national security leadership. Significantly, there was no Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in place, with only an Acting HHS Secretary at the helm. The NIH essentially lifted the moratorium on their own by slipping it in between administrations and self-policing.

Today, we can't see the research records from Dr. Fauci's offshored projects because the Chinese Communist Party has the possession--or at least supposedly has the possession--of EcoHealth's records, and the NIH resists in sharing theirs.

By all accounts, Dr. Fauci and EcoHealth's research in China led to the COVID-19 pandemic and Dr. Fauci's worst fears that a lab accident in a foreign lab would become a reality.

At a very important hearing yesterday at the Capitol, hosted by Senator Paul, before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight, Dr. Richard Ebright, a renowned microbiologist, declared that it was indeed possible that this research did lead to the outbreak of COVID-19.

Dr. Steven Quay and Dr. Kevin Esvelt, other expert witnesses on the panel, agreed that viral gain-of-function offers no civilian use or benefit. Let me say that again. Both of these doctors agreed that viral gain-of-function offers no civilian use or benefit but that it is so risky that it can cause a pandemic that will have a worse impact than a nuclear attack. It is indeed a weapon of mass destruction.

Despite warnings and past lab accidents, our public health Agencies, like the NIH, continue to fund this weapon-of-mass-destruction research, often in China nonetheless. In fact, at one point, the NIH paid for more viral gain-of-function experiments than the Department of Defense, according to hearing testimony given by Dr. Fauci on this topic in 2012.

Shockingly, Congress has minimal insight into the amount of research that the NIH performs. There is no transparency in the risk evaluation process, and there is no proper oversight.

Recently--and this is news--our office learned that the USAID is currently paying $125 million to the Washington State University Paul Allen School for Global Health to collect potential pandemic pathogens in high-risk areas for outbreak. Once collected, these samples are being used in dangerous gain-of-function experiments through their DEEP VZN grant. This project initially partnered with five countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, but it could expand to others.

The university researchers are collecting, storing, and experimenting on these pathogens in foreign laboratories in each country. Even worse, these hazardous research techniques are being taught to foreign researchers while experimenting with potentially deadly pathogens in laboratories where the United States has no regulatory control or authority. No process exists to screen U.S. researchers or foreign researchers by intelligence analysts for their potential as threat actors. The United States has no ability to control who the technology or the deadly pathogens are shared with in these foreign labs and cannot enforce proper storage techniques.

The USAID is putting everyone at risk right now. Our U.S. public health Agencies, like the NIH and the CDC, cannot be entrusted to oversee risky research with the current guardrails that are self- selecting and self-policing. Certainly, our U.S. Agency for International Development cannot be entrusted. Yet Federal Agencies continue to dispense funds for gain-of-function research.

Dr. Fauci recently came before Congress and publicly declared that he had no intention to stop using U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund Chinese Communist Party research projects.

Folks, this is a national security issue. Since January of 2020, I have been trying to sound the alarm on this virus--on this issue, on this weapon of mass destruction--but it is largely falling on deaf ears in Congress and with the current administration. Yesterday's HSGAC hearing was the first time Congress had examined this subject since the outbreak of COVID-19. Unfortunately, none of my colleagues from across the aisle bothered to show up for this hearing, clearly declaring that this was not a priority for them. Additionally, mainstream media has attempted to bury concerns about gain-of-function research and the possibility of a lab leak.

This is unacceptable. We must pause this research until national security experts can help create appropriate risk metrics, guardrails, and processes for this research.

It is important to note that it is estimated that this research only comprises less than 0.1 percent of all biomedical research and less than 1 percent of virology research. Dr. Richard Ebright testified that because gain-of-function research of concern can cause pandemics, this small part of the biomedical research enterprise is highly consequential and requires effective oversight. Certainly, that current oversight is not effective.

This is a bipartisan national security issue. And anyone who studies this issue in depth will conclude that viral gain of function is a weapon of mass destruction.

Anyone who examines this will conclude that COVID is like a nuclear hand grenade, with its pin pulled out. It has already killed a million people and can kill millions more. Every witness will conclude, like we did yesterday, that the potential is much worse than any type of benefit from this research.

This COVID virus is likely a product of U.S.-funded gain-of-function research. The research has produced no benefit in 10 years and with seemingly no benefit on the horizon.

This is why I brought my legislation to the floor today to place a moratorium on all Federal research projects, grants to universities and other organizations conducting gain-of-function research and risky research on potential pandemic pathogens. This is an urgent matter that must be acted on today.

As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 3012, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague for her kind comments. Certainly, the chairwoman has my commitment to continue to work with her on the PREVENT Pandemics Act as well.

But if my colleagues do not agree with placing a full moratorium on gain-of-function research, I ask for unanimous consent to adopt the SAFE Risky Research Act, which stops Federal funds from being used to conduct risky research with countries that threaten our democracy and public health.

We recently learned that USAID has been paying for this dangerous research in China. We know that this research is being conducted in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, but we don't yet know all the other countries where they fund this risky research.

What we do know is that, despite their relationship with the State Department, this funding is being dispensed by USAID without State Department security consultations, oblivious to the proliferation potential.

Federal Agencies that oversee national intelligence maintain lists of countries that may pose a risk or threat to national security. The Department of State, for example, maintains a list that includes Burma, the People's Republic of China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and others.

This legislation is common sense. We shouldn't be collaborating on dangerous research with our adversaries.

I think it is obvious that all members of our committee agree with us. They support this bill and this legislation.

On March 15, the HELP Committee held a markup where this amendment-- the same text that is in this bill--was unanimously adopted in the bipartisan PREVENT Pandemics Act. I appreciate Chairwoman Murray working so hard collaborating with us.

During the markup, she supported this, specifically stating that it threads the needle in terms of protecting biomedical research enterprise while taking steps to address some of the concerns she has heard from other committee members.

Given the inherent risk, NIH's unwillingness to fully cooperate with congressional oversight, and Senate Democrats' objection to taking the needed step of placing a complete moratorium on gain-of-function research, we must at least pass this narrow approach today.

As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4778, which is at the desk; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I was just listening to the majority leader outline some of the disastrous policies that Republicans have proposed to make, including putting Medicare on the chopping block by making it discretionary.

I want to talk a little bit about the good things that Democrats have done, some on a bipartisan basis and some which it looks like we are going to have to do alone for the American people. In just the last few weeks, this U.S. Senate has made historic progress tackling a number of very real and very urgent challenges that our country faces.

We passed the first major gun reform bill in 30 years. We passed historic legislation to boost American manufacturing of essential semiconductor chips--important to our economy and our national security. We passed the PACT Act so that veterans exposed to toxins will get the care they deserve. Just yesterday, we voted to admit Finland and Sweden as new members of NATO, therefore expanding and strengthening the Atlantic alliance in the face of Putin's brutal war against Ukraine.

These are major accomplishments, but now is not the time to rest on our laurels, now is not the time to coast, because we have to do everything we can to fight back against rising prices, against inflation, which has been driven in recent months by what I call the three p's: Putin's war and its impact on energy and food prices; the pandemic and the supply chain disruptions it has caused; and price gouging by big oil companies that are reaping record profits. Those have been big drivers of inflation.

I have listened to my Republican Senate colleagues here on the floor week after week trying to exploit inflation as a campaign issue, as if it were all caused by the policies of President Biden. The American people know much better. They also know that while Republicans are talking up inflation and talking down the economy, we in the Democratic majority had a plan to do something about rising costs, and it is called the Inflation Reduction Act.

In coming days, we are going to be voting on that, and I hope--I hope--our Republican colleagues will have a change of heart, at least some of them, because here is the bottom line: The Inflation Reduction Act will drive down prices over time, it will reduce the deficit, and it will do that without raising taxes on anyone making under $400,000 a year, not by one dime. It does all that while addressing four major issues facing our country: the need to lower healthcare costs, the need to address the climate crisis, the need to fix parts of our broken tax system--this is a start on that--and reducing the deficit.

First, on healthcare, all of us in this Chamber have known that the costs of prescription drugs in the United States are way too high, out of control. Our constituents--Americans--pay twice as much on prescription drugs as people in other advanced economies around the world. And it is not just squeezing people's pocketbooks--that, of course, hurts--it is also jeopardizing their health.

If you look at the 2022 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, they found that nearly one in three adults reported that they had not taken their medications as prescribed due to cost. They were too expensive. They couldn't afford them. That financial pressure is hard on everybody. It is especially so on many of our seniors. Nearly 9 in 10 older adults take prescription medication, but millions of Americans 65 and older say they struggle to afford their medicine.

Here is what adds insult to injury: American taxpayers spend over $40 billion every year to support cutting-edge medical research happening at the National Institutes of Health in my State of Maryland. That is a great investment for our country. It helps discover and it helps develop and produce many of the life-changing medications that are available to American families today and to people around the world. But it is just not right for American taxpayers to invest $40 billion a year in developing drugs that are then sold by American pharmaceutical companies here in the United States for two, three, four times as much as they are sold overseas.

People throughout the world benefit from the great research done at places like NIH, and they pay lower costs on the medicines developed from that research than Americans who helped fund the research in the first place. That is just not right. That is why the Inflation Reduction Act finally empowers the Medicare Program to negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical industry. Private insurance companies negotiate volume discounts every day, all the time, to try to get a better deal for their members. Why should we tie the hands of the Medicare Program?

I say ``finally'' because the Presiding Officer and I and many others in this Chamber have worked for not just 1 or 2 years but for decades to try to achieve this, and every time, the pharmaceutical industry has succeeded in blocking it because if you take away the power of Medicare to negotiate drug prices, it means they get to write the bill themselves. So this is important.

It is also accompanied by a cap on Medicare Part D out-of-pocket spending to $2,000 a year.

Last but not least, this legislation extends the important work we achieved through the American Rescue Plan to lower the healthcare costs for people who get their insurance through the affordable care exchanges. In my State, Marylanders are saving an average of $80 every month on their healthcare premiums because of that provision from the American Rescue Plan, which this bill will extend for 3 more years.

We are joined in this effort by a vast coalition of Americans who have been pushing for years to address prescription drug prices, including AARP and its 38 million members who support this bill.

Meanwhile, we have seen some billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies pouring their profits into negative ads to try to defeat this bill. In fact, just last night, I saw two or three of them within the space of about an hour as I was flipping channels at home. But I think the country is pretty clear on what is at stake here. On the one hand, you have tens and tens of millions of Americans who will benefit from lowering the costs of prescription drugs. Yet you have Big Pharma trying to maintain this privileged position where we don't have to negotiate with them in order to boost their profits.

So let's be clear on what we are going to do. We are going to allow Medicare to negotiate prices, and that will lower the costs for seniors. We are capping out-of-pocket spending for seniors. We are making it more affordable to get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Yet, right now, as of today, we have every one of our Republicans voting no.

When I go around Maryland, this is not a party or a partisan issue. All of my constituents want us to take this action. The same is true of climate change. Most Americans, regardless of party, recognize the very real harm caused by climate change. They just have to look around them or turn on the news. But apparently, when you enter the Senate Republican Cloakroom, you go into a science-free and fact-free zone. Many of our colleagues still doubt the fact of human-caused climate change. But that is out of touch with the American people, who see the harm every day and also see the promise of developing a clean energy industry.

That is why our legislation makes this big investment in more rapidly deploying clean energy technology, and in doing so, we are projected to cut U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2030. We should move even faster, but at least this gets us in the game to hitting the targets that we have to. We will do that while supercharging the development, manufacturing, and deployment of wind, solar, and battery power.

I want to talk about a couple of provisions in this bill--there are many--a couple that I have worked on over the years.

First, this bill includes what is called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, $27 billion, some of which could support a national climate bank, which is an initiative I have been working on since my time in the House of Representatives and now in the Senate with my colleague Ed Markey and in the House today with Congresswoman Debbie Dingell.

A national climate bank would be a magnet for private investment in new sustainable technology, channeling more capital into the clean energy space and lowering the risk to investors. For every $1 of public financing through a national climate bank, we project it will draw in $7 to $10 of private investment, to turbocharge investments and jobs in clean energy. In addition, it targets a large share of investments to low-income and disadvantaged communities that often lack access to financing for clean energy and energy efficiency projects.

This bill also includes another provision I have worked on for a long time, the bill I introduced called HOPE for HOMES. I have worked on it with a bipartisan group of colleagues in both the House and Senate. In the House, that includes Congressman Peter Welch and Congressman Dave McKinley and, here in the Senate, Senator Coons and Senator Shaheen.

The HOPE for HOMES legislation that has been incorporated into this bill will provide Americans with sizable rebates and with tax credits to retrofit their homes with clean energy and energy efficiency technology. So it will not only help us meet our climate goals and our pollution reduction goals, it is also going to save consumers up to $750 every year on their heating and cooling bills. So we are going to give people a rebate to make their homes more energy efficient, and they will save money as a result.

It also invests in clean energy jobs training so that we have the people power to help folks in every neighborhood around the country access the help and the workers they need. It is estimated to help generate 80,000 jobs over the next couple years in this important area.

The Inflation Reduction Act also includes major investments to develop a clean energy manufacturing base to reduce our reliance on foreign imports of clean energy products, including $30 billion in tax credits designed to accelerate the manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and critical minerals right here in the United States.

China has made it one of its goals--and they have been very open about it--to dominate the clean energy technology space for years to come. We need to make sure that we manufacture critical technologies and products right here in the United States.

I want to give you a great example from my State of Maryland, which is at the vanguard of a budding offshore wind industry. Right now, we have two companies in Maryland--Orsted and U.S. Wind--that are building new wind turbine fabrication centers in our State to support their offshore wind farms coming to the mid-Atlantic--two major projects off Maryland's Atlantic coast.

The Deputy Secretary of Commerce was just in Baltimore yesterday talking about apprenticeship programs that will help support 10,000 jobs, 10,000 Maryland jobs, as part of this offshore wind manufacturing. That is just in the State of Maryland, and we can do that across the country in terms of offshore wind in coastal States and, of course, interior wind for others.

These are really important provisions that I have talked about-- fighting the climate crisis, lowering the cost of prescription drugs-- so let's talk about how they are paid for.

Unlike the Republican tax bill in 2017, which provided huge tax giveaways to big corporations and very wealthy individuals, this legislation actually will both pay for itself through the cuts made and recycled and through fixing parts of our broken tax system. We have a lot of work to do to fix our tax system, but this is a downpayment in terms of the policy changes in this bill.

First, we are going to beef up IRS enforcement to go after wealthy tax cheats, and this is an important issue. I chair the subcommittee that oversees the IRS, and we have been pushing for years to make sure that the IRS has the resources and the expertise to track down taxes that are already due and owing from very wealthy people who come up with elaborate tax dodges.

Right now, we estimate there is anywhere from $500 billion to $1 trillion in taxes each year that are owed but not paid. Think about that--up to $1 trillion every year in taxes that are owed but not paid, and the people who are suckered are all the people who pay when you have these very wealthy tax cheats skirting their responsibilities. So this bill will address that issue.

Second, we make sure that big corporations invest in the success of everyday Americans. In 2020, 55 huge American corporations paid zero-- zero--in taxes, despite a combined $40.5 billion in profits--$40.5 billion in profits from these 55 companies; zero taxes paid.

Small businesses across the country are paying their taxes while some of these big corporations are not. That is not fair. It needs to change.

That is why the Inflation Reduction Act includes the 15 percent minimum tax on profits of corporations that have over $1 billion in annual profits.

And I want to thank the Presiding Officer for his leadership on this issue.

Third, our legislation would tighten the rules on what is known as carried interest, which allows hedge fund managers to pay a lower rate on their income than the rate their employees pay on theirs--the classic example of how a big hedge fund CEO can pay a lower tax rate than their receptionist. This is a fact under our current Tax Code, and I hope we will keep this provision in this bill because this loophole, the carried interest loophole, is Exhibit A of some of the biggest unfairnesses in our Tax Code.

So taken together, the measures to lower the cost of prescription drugs, lower the cost of energy to American households and consumers, reduce the deficit--these measures will reduce inflationary pressures that are bearing down on working families. You don't have to take my word for it. In just the last few days, economists from all over the country have spoken out in favor of this approach and supporting this legislation.

One hundred twenty-six leading economists recently wrote to the congressional leadership:

This proposal addresses some of the country's biggest

challenges at a significant scale. And because it is deficit-

reducing, it does so while putting downward pressure on

inflation.

And that is key. Unlike that Republican tax giveaway in 2017 that added $2 trillion to our national debt, we are actually reducing our deficit, and by reducing the deficit, you also put downward pressure on inflation.

In recent months, I have heard the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, often citing former Secretary of Treasury Larry Summers about Larry Summers' views on the economy and inflation.

Well, here is what Larry Summers had to say recently about the bill we will be voting on:

The prescription drug provisions, energy incentives, and

the increased Medicare benefits will all contribute over time

to much needed inflation reduction.

And just yesterday, former Secretary Summers was joined by former Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson, who, of course, served under former President George W. Bush, who with other Secretaries wrote:

. . . we support the Inflation Reduction Act which is

financed by prudent tax policy that will collect more from

top-earners and large corporations.

And, again, by using those revenues to reduce the deficit, we put downward pressure on inflation.

I just, as we close here, want to contrast that to the approach that Republicans took in 2017 with their tax giveaway.

As I said, that ballooned the deficit by $2 trillion. It also handed the top 1 percent income earners an average tax cut of $69,000 each in 2018 alone. So just in 1 year, about a $70,000 tax cut to the top 1 percent. And the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 43 percent of the growth in economic output from the 2017 tax law flowed to foreign investors in that space. So foreign investors have holdings in U.S. corporations. That tax cut to American corporations--yes, it flowed to some very wealthy Americans, but a lot of it flowed offshore to foreign investors.

So what we have seen from our colleagues across the aisle is big tax cuts to corporations and the very wealthy, not just here at home but benefiting others around the world, in contrast to this, which does ask big corporations to pay their fair share--minimum of 15 percent--and reduces the deficit as we invest in job creation and reduce prices here at home.

So this is a win for families; it is a win for seniors; it is a win for our planet, our economy. It is a win for the country.

So I hope as this debate goes forward, that we will focus on the facts, listen to what it does, because this is a comprehensive piece of legislation that does help us tackle some of the key priorities in front of our country, and we are hearing that from our constituents every day.

So I am proud to support this legislation. Let's get it done.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to complete my remarks before the 1:45 p.m. vote.

Mr. President, I want to compliment my friend from Delaware. He and I do work together on a number of issues. We are going to part ways on this really important issue for me today. I do want to just make a comment to his comments.

I would say--I wouldn't say--I know there is no group that has suffered more at the hands of the Biden administration's Executive orders and far-left environmental groups than Alaska Natives. I know that for a fact.

I would invite my colleague to come up to Alaska with me, and I will take him to these communities. They can't do anything--no jobs, no nothing--because every far-left group in America wants to shut down their opportunities. It happens all the time.

So I would love to take him and others up to Alaska to let them see that when people talk about Alaska Native groups and try to speak for them. Unfortunately, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do that. No

way. You are not going to get away with that on this one.

Mr. President, we have a resolution that we are going to be voting on here in about 10 minutes. This is my Congressional Review Act resolution, and I have spoken on the Senate floor a number of times about this.

The CRA today, what we call a CRA, is quite simple. It would rescind the new Biden administration's NEPA rule--that is the National Environmental Policy Act rule--promulgated in April, which will clearly have the impact of slowing down the construction of literally every infrastructure project in America: the construction of roads, bridges, wind, solar, hydro--heck--even chip fabrication facilities, critical mineral projects. Pretty much everything is going to be slowed down by this.

It is pretty straightforward. Our resolution just says: We want to rescind the resolution, the regulation, from April.

But the vote on this is much more significant than just one Senate resolution. It is a test for all Senators on two key issues.

First, are you really serious about permitting reform so that America can build the infrastructure that everybody knows our country desperately needs?

Second, who do you stand with--the working men and women of our great Nation who build things or the far-left elite special interest groups who want to shut this country down?

Let's take these two issues in order.

First, permitting reform. My colleagues know this is a passion of mine. Actually, it is a passion of a number of Senators. It sounds wonky; it sounds boring; it sounds technical--``permitting reform.'' But in reality, it is so important for our Nation--for every community in America, for the dignity of work, for good jobs in this country.

Here is why: We used to build big things in America--engineering marvels on time, on budget--the source of pride for literally all Americans and the envy of the world. We did that all the time. Think about it: the Empire State Building--410 days to build; the Pentagon, the biggest building in the world--16 months; a little closer to home for me is the 1,700-mile Alaska-Canadian Highway through some of the world's most rugged terrain--11 months; the Trans-Alaska Pipeline system that feeds a hungry nation with energy from Alaska to the lower 48--800 miles with 70,000 sections of 48-inch pipe joined and welded together, 3 mountain ranges, 800 river beds from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific--3 years. Incredible.

Why did we do this? Why can we do this? Why can we still do this in America? Because we have the best workers--the most productive workforce--in the world.

Unfortunately, those days of building great things in America in an efficient, timely fashion are gone. We all know it. Every mayor knows it; every city council member knows it; every Governor knows it; and, yes, every U.S. Senator knows it.

We see it every day. We don't see the great building of things, but we see the other things: 8 to 9 years to permit a bridge--yes, in America, to permit a bridge; 9 to 19 years to permit and build a highway. The Gross water reservoir in Colorado, for clean water, took 20 years to permit. The Kensington mine, which is a gold mine in Alaska that is now employing hundreds of people with an average wage of $110,000--really good jobs--took 20 years to permit with litigation.

This is killing our country, our economy, and good jobs. We all know it, and we all know the reason for it. Every single Senator knows the reason: a broken Federal permitting system that has turned into a labyrinth of redtape; a system that invites and incentivizes delay and litigation by groups whose goal is to shut down the building of our country. Everybody knows it. It is a fact.

Now, how can I be so sure? Because everybody in this body likes to talk about the need for permitting reform so we can get back to building this country and putting Americans who do these hard jobs to work.

Last year, I worked hard with a number of my colleagues on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which I voted on. In the EPW Committee--and my colleague from Delaware is still here--we got some important permitting reforms in it. That was good. They were not enough, in my view, but it was a good start.

Today, as we consider Senator Schumer's reconciliation bill, which I will oppose, we are all now being assured that Senator Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, and even the President are fully committed to additional robust permitting legislation in the fall, sometime in the future, once their massive tax-and-spending reconciliation bill passes. So everybody is talking about permitting. We all know we need it.

But here is what happened. In the meantime, between the ``important but not as ambitious as I would have liked'' permitting reforms in the infrastructure bill last fall and all of the talk of permitting today, something happened. What happened?

The Biden administration promulgated a new NEPA rule, supported by far-left environmental groups, that will clearly have the effect of slowing down the permitting of infrastructure, inviting endless litigation and putting people out of work. No one who has seriously looked at this broad, nebulous, and destructive Biden rule disputes this. I have read it. It is a delay bomb for infrastructure.

So here is the first test. It was noted in a very good, recent Wall Street Journal editorial this week. It is this: If my colleagues--all of my colleagues but especially my Democratic colleagues--really support permitting reform so we can get back to building America, let's get rid of this destructive, overbroad, vague, litigation-inviting rule. Vote yes on my resolution. Right now, 50 Republican Senators are cosponsors of this resolution.

To my Democratic colleagues, join us. Do the right thing for America. We all know that this is the right thing for America.

Here is the second test. I asked you to join us in doing the right thing for America. Join us in doing the right thing for the working Americans and building trades that heroically built this country and continue to do so today.

Now, I love this photo. It is iconic. It says so much, and I have had it on the floor a number of times. But these are the kind of men and women who built this great Nation--hard-working Americans who are doing incredible stuff. That is a lunch break, by the way, in the building of the Empire State Building.

This shouldn't be hard to support the men and women who build this country, and this shouldn't be hard for my Democratic colleagues who often claim to support the working men and women of America. In the past, I certainly will acknowledge that that has been true, but today-- and I have learned this lesson the hard way back home in Alaska. Today, whenever national Democrats have to choose between the interests of the far-left elite environmental groups and these men and women who produce things and build things in America, they sell out the working class every time--every time. I see this every day in my State.

I mentioned this in a Congress committee hearing a few months ago. One of my Democratic colleagues, who is a friend--and almost everybody on the other side of the aisle is a good friend of mine--got upset with me.

He said: Hey, that is not true. You shouldn't have said that.

Well, here is what I say: All right. Prove it.

Today's vote is a chance to prove me wrong or to prove me right. Here is why, and this is really important.

Let's look at the lineup of the groups that support my resolution today and those that oppose it. These are just some of the 50 groups in America that are supporting my resolution that we are going to vote on here in a couple of minutes, and I am very proud of this incredible, broad, and diverse groups of Americans who are saying to vote yes on the Sullivan resolution. They all have one thing in common: They produce things and they build things for this great Nation.

Take a look at this chart. It is kind of hard to decipher who is on it. Let me give you a couple.

The American Farm Bureau: So this is all of our farmers and cattlemen--all of our cattlemen, farmers and ranchers, and ag retailers.

The National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association: These are the guys who build infrastructure.

It is the same with the Associated General Contractors of America, the same with the U.S. Chamber, the same with the National Association of Manufacturers, the same with the American Mining Rights Association.

Of course, the entire energy sector is supporting this, groups from Alaska, the resource development sector, groups from West Virginia, and groups from Ohio. This is a huge, broad-based group of supporters.

I will tell you this. I am most proud of the strong, robust support for my resolution from organizations that represent the men and women who build stuff and keep our country's economy humming.

Take a look at some of them: The North America's Building Trades Union--that is all the unions that build things. The Laborers' International, LIUNA--that is the largest construction trade union in the country. The Operating Engineers--these guys do everything. Another trade union: the Alaska Teamsters, the Alaska AFL-CIO.

These are the great men and women who built this country and built the middle class of America. I have the utmost respect for them, and, indeed, my family is part of this labor union heritage. My great- grandfather was one of the cofounders of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. That is a source of pride in my family.

But here is the question: Why are they all strongly supporting my resolution to rescind the Biden NEPA regulations? It is a simple answer: because they know that these are job-killing regs. They know that these are the types of regs in America that delay or indefinitely stop the building of infrastructure in our country, and their members are the ones who suffer the most. And the dignity of the work--the dignity of work that we all say we care about--also suffers.

Don't take my word for it. Here is what some of the leaders of these organizations have said--and they are great Americans. Let me begin with Terry O'Sullivan, the head of the Laborers' International. This was his letter to the Biden White House when they were contemplating this rule in April. Just take a look. He said:

The rollback of updates to NEPA reinstates burdensome

requirements that will cause excessive permit delays and

allow project adversaries--

Far-left environmental groups--

to use frivolous lawsuits--

Which they always do--

to disrupt or upend long overdue construction. Once again,

communities in need of vital infrastructure and the hard-

working men and women who build America will be waiting as

project details are subjected to onerous reviews.

That was Terry O'Sullivan saying: Don't issue the rule.

They ignored him. They ignored him because they chose the interests of the far-left environmentalists.

Here is James Callahan writing in support of today's resolution. He is the head of the Operating Engineers. You want to talk about great unions--LIUNA, Operating Engineers--these are men and women who build things. This is an incredible statement, and he nails it. This guy really knows what he is talking about.

Since its modest beginnings, NEPA has evolved into a

massive edifice, capable of destroying project after project,

job after job, in virtually every sector of the economy.

Dilatory strategies employed by the project opponents--

Far-left environmental groups--

frequently exploit provisions in NEPA, weighing down

projects, frustrating communities, and raising costs to the

point that many applicants, whether public or private, simply

walk away.

And when they walk away, it kills jobs. That is from James Callahan's letter, 1 of the 50 groups that is supporting this resolution.

The men and women who build our Nation support my resolution, like so many groups.

So who is opposed? Well, it is pretty simple. It is pretty obvious. It is the usual groups of far-left, coastal-elite environmental groups that I see every day in Alaska trying to crush jobs and stop infrastructure and put people out of work.

I will just give you few. You know, they are the usual suspects: Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice, CODEPINK--I am not sure why they jumped in on this--Friends of the Earth.

By the way, if you are watching this speech, go take a look at some of those websites and see what they stand for. So that is who is opposed.

One more point that I think is important to raise. To be honest, there is something else going on here. Not only is there always opposition by those groups to building anything in America--including my resolution--regardless of how many pink slips result from the actions of these groups to shut down things, there is sometimes a subtle and not so subtle condescension looking down on the Americans who build things. Workers can feel it. Workers can sense it.

No one epitomizes this condescending elitist attitude toward American workers more than this guy. You might remember that last year, around this time, he was asked if the Biden administration's Green New Deal policies would put American coal and natural gas workers out of work and end their livelihoods. John Kerry responded:

What President Biden wants to do is make sure that those

folks--

Men and women who build stuff, coal miners, natural gas workers--

have better choices--

Better choices--

That they can be the people who go to work to make solar

panels.

Sure, ``better choices,'' from a guy who flies in a jet, owned a 76- foot yacht, several mansions, and has the carbon footprint of a small nation. Yet he tells American energy workers to go make solar panels, when the Biden administration's regulations are killing their jobs.

I will end with this, back to the workers: When you are voting today, keep the heritage of these men and women in mind. The Biden NEPA rule that we are trying to rescind today will kill jobs. I am sure it has already killed jobs. That is why we need to rescind it.

This should be an easy vote for all of my Senate colleagues today. If you really care about permitting reform, so we can get back to building things in America, you should vote yes. If you really put the interests of working men and women like these incredible Americans over those of elite far-left environmental groups, you should vote yes. And if you truly support the men and women who build this country, feed this country, and grow this country, you should vote yes.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays on this resolution.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague Senator Warren for beginning this debate, and we will move to a consent shortly. I want to thank her for working together with me on this most important issue.

At this moment, there are millions of women who face an uncertain future after the repeal of Roe v. Wade, millions of women who no longer have the right to make their own decisions about their own bodies. It is a heart-wrenching choice, no doubt one of the hardest decisions anyone will ever have to make.

But in the midst of this, in this post-Roe landscape we find ourselves in, there are organizations, as has been discussed here, known as crisis pregnancy centers that are preying on the fears of women, exacerbating the problems caused by the Dobbs decision.

Make no mistake, crisis pregnancy centers are anti-abortion organizations that cloak themselves in benign language about ``providing answers'' and ``offering advice.''

They have an agenda; namely, to steer women away from abortion through a combination of guilt, concealment, harassment, and downright lies.

Crisis pregnancy centers in my State of New Jersey pretend that they are there to educate, support, and empower women facing unplanned pregnancies. And yet at the bottom of their websites, in very small print, you will find a disclaimer that lays it all bare.

Crisis pregnancy centers do not offer or refer for

pregnancy terminations or birth control. Information should

not be relied on as a substitute for professional and/or

medical advice.

That is a disclaimer. You can hardly read it, but it is there. This is pulled straight from the web page of one center in my State. I will repeat that ending again.

Information should not be relied on as a substitute for

professional and/or medical advice.

Ironically, this is the only objective and accurate piece of information you will find on the site and others like it.

As Senator Warren mentioned, crisis pregnancy centers are not required to have a physician or a registered nurse on staff. Very few of them do.

They are not required to provide contraceptive care or even stick to medically sound claims. And because they claim to only provide so- called education services, they can promote blatant lies about how abortion increases risk for breast cancer.

Women in America do not deserve to be lied to. They shouldn't be preyed upon during moments of vulnerability or any other time. When assessing healthcare, they shouldn't have to shift to what is real and what is not.

And they certainly shouldn't have to parse through the carefully constructed language of crisis pregnancy centers that promote an anti- choice agenda.

Our bill, the Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation Act, would empower the Federal Trade Commission to issue rules prohibiting false advertisement of abortion services. It would allow the FTC to penalize those who are found in violation. And it would provide greater oversight over crisis pregnancy centers that profit from the pain of unplanned pregnancies--sometimes while double-dipping on the taxpayer's dime.

Senator Warren and I are leading this bill to end the practice of deceiving women and girls through false advertisement. We are leading this bill to promote truth in advertisement, to end misinformation and disinformation, and to protect women from harassment. Yes--harassment.

As Senator Warren said, crisis pregnancy centers have no duty to uphold HIPAA privacy protections--the most significant information that you can give about your health and the status of your health and your condition. You do that thinking that you are in a medical center. And now you have given all this information that has enormous consequences to it if it is misused to these deceptive entities.

And after divulging personal information to them, they can freely sell it to scammers who would want to take advantage of them.

So I ask my colleagues, let's end the assault on bodily autonomy and the right to access reproductive care.

Let's end the barrage of attacks on their healthcare. Let's end deception in any delivery of any service. Let's end the fraud in any delivery of any ``service.'' Let's end the barrage of attacks on their healthcare.

Join us in passing our bill so that in the hardest moment of their lives, women all across our country can rest assured in knowing that what they are getting is the truth, not some biased agenda pretending to be medical advice, not some one-sided talking point that steers them toward one outcome, the truth--the truth.

Pregnant women in America deserve the truth, and that is what this bill does. To oppose our unanimous consent request is to promote deception, is to promote fraud. I don't think anybody really wants to do that.

As in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Commerce Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 4469 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill 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.

While my colleague is still here, I would like to propound a question to him through the Chair.

Does the First Amendment allow you to promote fraud? Does the First Amendment allow you to promote deception? Is it great work to lie to someone about what you are providing them? Is it great work to allow someone to get your vital health information believing that you are a health provider and then being able to use that private information?

Mr. President, if I may continue to ask my colleague through the Chair, is it right, no matter who gets the information by fraud, to give your most private health--surely, as a doctor, the Senator would say that no one should give up their health information to an entity that does not preserve it under HIPAA laws.

So could the Senator not join us if we limit it to fraud that ultimately has that fraud create the insecurity of HIPAA information?

I would like to answer the Senator's question, and that makes eminent sense that we would protect HIPAA information, regardless of who is in a position to maybe have access to collecting it. And therefore, in the first instance, you shouldn't collect it, if you are not a medical entity, but if you do, you should be ultimately bound by the same guarantees that anyone else would be guaranteed. You know, it would baffle me that particularly a medical professional, a doctor, would suggest that HIPAA information is something that we shouldn't protect.

I think that at a minimum, we should all be able to agree to that.

Mr. President, I was happy to listen to my colleague from Colorado's erudite exposition of what the opportunity is before us and what it means for the American people, and so I very much appreciate it.

Tribute to Keith Roachford

Mr. President, I come to the floor today for a very important reason. I rise not to introduce a bill nor to ask my colleagues for unanimous consent. No.

I am here for one simple reason, and I want to make sure that the C- SPAN cameras are capturing this moment for posterity.

I come to the floor today to honor Keith Roachford, a member of my staff who has faithfully served the State of New Jersey, the U.S. Senate, and the United States of America for more than 35 years.

As you can see from Keith's face, it is clear that he had no idea this was happening. We told him he was coming for another reason, and I don't think we would have gotten him otherwise.

But, nonetheless, I rise today because, after 35 years and 18 Congresses, Keith is retiring from the Senate, and as result, I wanted to come to the floor to send him off with a tribute befitting his legendary career.

A native son of Willingboro, NJ, Keith has served not one, not two but four U.S. Senators for the Garden State. He is the very definition of institutional knowledge, and countless fellow staff members can attest to his experience, which has saved the day on more than one occasion.

Keith has sometimes said that he has been here so long he came with the furniture. It is a classic Keith line, a glimpse not only into his sense of humor but also his view of how staff work behind the scenes gets things done.

Now, that may be the case, but today, Keith, I rise to shine a spotlight on your illustrious career.

To start, I would like to share some of the stories that his colleagues have sent me:

Keith has not only been a mentor to me, he's also been a

friend to anyone lucky enough to come into contact with him.

When I think of Keith, the words that come to mind are

helpful, generous, thoughtful--a patient and understanding

team player.

Another one said:

He is so kind to everyone, from interns to the Chief of

Staff, and is always--always--willing to share his knowledge

with others.

So it brings me immense joy to speak these words into the Congressional Record so that, like Keith's legacy, they may stand the test of time.

But beyond his accolades, beyond his track record and sterling reputation, Keith, at heart, is a humble man. I know it isn't easy for him to be sitting here, listening to me shower praise on him, but to that I say: Well, you are still on the payroll so you will have to bear with it.

But above all, Keith is a family man, a devoted husband to his wife Sandy and an incredible father to his beloved children, Rick, Daniel, and Lauren.

He is a man that every day for the last 36 years has braved the brutal beltway traffic to come into work in the Hart Senate Office Building. And he is a man that every weekend has made a similar trip with his family to attend

services at St. George's Episcopal Church here in DC.

Keith credits his faith for guiding him throughout his life, and he would be the first to tell you that it has been a moral compass for him, season after political season. But as the Book of James asks, ``What good is someone who says they have faith but does not have works?''

Fret not. In addition to his duties as senior warden of the Vestry at St. George's, Keith takes the time to give back to his community. He is a member of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. He serves as the secretary of the convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, and he is a Boy Scout leader.

At every opportunity, he goes out of his way to give back. It is a trait he learned growing up. As the son and grandson of public servants, Keith was taught from an early age that service to others is the highest calling.

His grandfather was a transit operator for the city of New York, while his father, a veteran of the U.S. Army and the New Jersey Army National Guard, worked for the sanitation department for 37 years. It is no surprise, then, that Keith has followed in their footsteps. He is a throwback to a previous era, one where individuals spent years, if not decades, working for the same organization.

I know Keith never intended to spend 36 years working in the Senate. He used to joke with colleagues that he came to Washington fresh out of the college just to try it out. But in the process, he has gone from working as a constituent liaison, to mail director, to deputy chief of staff, and so much more.

Today, Keith is an indispensable resource for our legislative staff. He is our go-to person for appropriations, defense, veterans' issues, homeland security, and the budget.

He has had a hand in passing countless initiatives for our office, from supporting community development financial institutions to shoring up supply chains and expanding senior housing, to inserting provisions in the PACT Act--that is how we got him here, telling him that is what we were going to talk about--that addresses the needs of veterans suffering from Gulf war illness.

Keith has had a hand in far too many legislative wins to count, but suffice to say, the legend of Keith Roachford has led to what we call ``the Roachford Rule,'' which is simple: With every appropriations letter I sign on to, with every bill I cosponsor, for something to pass the Roachford Rule, it needs to have a tangible benefit for New Jersey families.

Much like the man it is named after, the Roachford Rule is about connecting what we do here in DC to the people whose lives it affects back home.

Long after Keith has left the Senate, his rule will live on, a testament to his relentless pursuit of good government, a trademark for a public servant devoted to the common good, a namesake that all of us in this Chamber would do well to emulate.

I will end with this: Last March, I came to this floor to rebuke the words that a colleague used in reference to the January 6 attack. I won't use the time to rehash what I said; instead, I will use this time to once again lift up the bravery and the courage of the man who compelled me to act.

Late one night, Keith sent me an email that outlined the pain and the outrage he felt after reading our colleague's comments. In personal terms, he relayed how his entire life he has had to endure--in overt and covert ways--the harmful legacy of racism and the stain of White supremacy.

Knowing Keith, it could not have been easy to type that message to his boss, a sitting U.S. Senator.

But as I said in that speech, there comes a time when you either ruffle some feathers and speak the truth or you fail to do justice to the values you hold dear.

The U.S. Senate is a better institution, and I am certainly a better Senator, for having Keith Roachford work in these Halls. He is man of principle, a man of God, a man who has put every ounce of his being into the work that New Jerseyans have sent us here to do.

He is the first person to tell you that he is not perfect, the first to say that he has certainly seen it all over 36 long years of service, but, by God, I cannot help but feel so thankful, so grateful that we have been blessed with his presence. He is a calm and steady hand that has helped guide our office since 2006.

He is the quiet one, the one who keeps his powder dry and plays the long game; the one who never loses sight of the ultimate goal, which is to improve the lives of hard-working American families.

John Madison, one of the Framers of our Constitution, once said:

If men were angels, no government would be needed.

I have never met an angel, but I have worked alongside Keith Roachford for 16 of those 36 years. He has served with me longer than any other of the U.S. Senators he has worked with. And it is why I can truthfully say without pause or equivocation that Keith Roachford is truly doing God's work here on Earth.

When Keith first mentioned to me that he was thinking of leaving, he said the most incredible thing. He said:

You know, Senator, it's just that with the pandemic and

with work from home, I've just gotten to spend more time with

Sandy and the kids.

We don't want to wait any longer to get started.

We make breakfast and we take walks. . . .

I just don't want to wait any longer to do that.

That is Keith in a nutshell. That is who he is. So I want to congratulate Keith on an incredible 36 years of Senate service. We are going to miss you, certainly so. But to you, to Sandy, and to your three children, we wish you all the best on a well-deserved retirement.

Thank you, Keith.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.