Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers, Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency relating to "Revised Definition of 'Waters of the United States'".

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

Last night, the Rules Committee met and reported out a rule for three bills.

First, let me just say, this is an awful rule; and I don't want to hear my Republican colleagues talk about fairness or openness ever again. We got lecture after lecture about how they wanted to be more open and more inclusive.

Well, guess what? So far, in this Congress, 22 of the 26 rules have been completely closed. I mean, there are more closed rules in this rule than Democratic amendments made in order.

Speaker McCarthy promised he would open things up, but he has locked things down more than ever.

My colleague from Kentucky (Mr. Massie) said that he joined the Rules Committee to be our conscience. So I would ask him, I mean, does he think this is okay?

Madam Speaker, 43 of 44 amendments submitted by Democrats were blocked by his majority; is that right? Is that the openness that we were promised by his Speaker?

The bottom line is the last time Republicans controlled the House they had more closed rules than any other time in the history of our country, and they are on track to beating their own record.

Our first bill today, considered under a closed rule, is S. 619, the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that we all want to know how COVID started. But I also want to point out, for the Record, that Donald Trump was President when COVID started, not Joe Biden.

Donald Trump said: ``China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well.'' Joe Biden didn't say that.

What Joe Biden actually did do is he ordered this investigation, and thanks to his investigation and the work of the intelligence community, we now have a report that gives us some answers.

The gentleman from Kentucky says, Democrats all believe this was a conspiracy theory. Yet, strangely enough, it was a Democratic President who told the intelligence community to look into the origins of COVID. So I am just a bit confused here as to his logic.

I will quickly mention two other bills. H.J. Res 27, also considered under a closed rule, seeks to roll back a majority of the protections on rivers, lakes, and streams that have been implemented since the creation of the Clean Water Act.

I find it particularly ironic that Republicans go to East Palestine, Ohio, saying, we stand with you, we are with you, while here in Congress, they are passing a bill that makes it easier for the company that dumped toxic waste into their rivers to get off scot-free.

Finally, we have H.R. 140, the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act, which does not protect free speech from government interference. In fact, it seeks to expand the First Amendment to include Vladimir Putin and the Chinese Communist Party, while telling America's own Federal law enforcement agencies that they are now forbidden from even notifying social media companies of attempts by Russia and the CCP to spread propaganda.

But there is one more thing I want to bring up today, Madam Speaker, and it is not in this rule, but it is just as important and consequential for our democracy.

On Monday of this week, FOX News aired an offensive, dishonest, shameful representation about what happened on January 6, 2021. For nearly an hour, Tucker Carlson said that January 6 was not, in fact, a violent attack on American democracy. In fact, he said it was not an attack at all.

He called it a peaceful sightseeing day; downplayed what happened; tried to sanitize and gloss over the first responders who were attacked and died; called the people attacking our Capitol Police officers meek; ran interference

for a racist mob that came into these Halls that day to overturn an election.

I am furious because I was here that day. I was literally in this room. I was one of the last ones off the House floor. I sat in the Speaker's chair that day. I saw how close we came to disaster, and I don't need Tucker Carlson or anyone else to tell me what happened that day.

I am not just furious for me; I am furious for the people he lied to. I am furious for the memory of the officers he insulted. I am furious for the police officers who were beaten and injured that day. I am furious for the staff who thought that they were going to die.

January 6 was an attack on our democracy, and now Tucker Carlson has chosen to side with the enemies of democracy.

But what is most alarming about all of this, what is most dangerous, is that he was aided and abetted by Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.

I have to say, this is a new low. Speaker McCarthy's treacherous decision to coordinate with Tucker Carlson to deliberately distort what happened that day is beyond the pale; and the worst part is the blatant lying.

On November 21, 2020, Carlson said in a private text that lies about voter fraud were shockingly reckless and called the very conspiracy theories he was promoting on the air as insane and absurd to his colleagues.

He called those propagating the big lie dangerous as hell. He knew that claims the election was stolen were dangerous lies.

But instead of owning up to the truth, he went on TV, and with zero respect for his viewers and for the people of this country, zero respect for the truth, zero respect for our democracy, he sold those dangerous lies to the American people. He should be ashamed.

Speaker McCarthy's disgraceful decision to help him spread these lies will forever be a stain on this institution.

So my question for the Speaker is: Was it worth it?

Was the backroom deal with the far right to help Tucker Carlson lie about what happened that day worth the damage done to our democracy?

Was it worth insulting the memory of the law enforcement officers who died defending this building and what it symbolizes?

The family of fallen Officer Brian Sicknick doesn't think so. I want to enter their full statement into the Record today, but our rules prevent me from doing that. So let me just read a part of it here:

``The Sicknick family is outraged at the ongoing attack on our family by the unscrupulous and outright sleazy so-called news network of FOX News who will do the bidding of Trump or any of his sycophant followers, no matter what damage is done to the families of the fallen, the officers who put their lives on the line, and all who suffered on January 6 due to the lies started by Trump and spread by sleaze- slinging outlets like FOX.''

They go on to say: ``Every time the pain of that day seems to have ebbed a bit, organizations like FOX rip our wounds wide open again and we are frankly sick of it.''

That is what Speaker McCarthy is doing here. It is sick. It is indefensible. Frankly, I find it disgusting.

So when the hell will House Republicans stand up here and say this is wrong?

At least some Senate Republicans, to their credit, have actually denounced Carlson's lies.

Senator John Kennedy said: ``I was here. It was not peaceful. It was an abomination.''

Senator Thom Tillis says: Tucker's depiction was B.S. He called it indefensible.

Senator Mitt Romney says: ``You can't hide the truth by selectively picking a few minutes out of tapes and saying this is what went on. It's so absurd. It's nonsense. It's a very dangerous thing to do. . . . `'

But all we get out of this side of the Capitol is deafening silence; and every moment House Republicans do not come out and condemn these evil lies, more damage is done to the fabric of our democracy because, mark my words, January 6 will happen again if we do not correct the record and tell the truth about what happened that day.

It was an attempt to overthrow the government of the United States, based on lies spread by the former President of the United States. So for the sake of this institution, for the sake of the country, it is time to tell the truth.

For my Republican colleagues, it is time for you to condemn these lies.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record a USA Today piece titled: ``Fact check: COVID-19 vaccines primarily designed to prevent serious illness, death.''

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record an AP News article titled: ``Ex-Twitter execs deny pressure to block Hunter Biden story.''

Madam Speaker, Twitter itself is saying the government isn't telling them to suppress anything. This is yet, unfortunately, just another Republican conspiracy theory.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record an article from The Hill titled: ``Trump officials roll back Obama oil train safety rule.''

Madam Speaker, on February 3, 2023, a train with 38 cars derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, and the full devastating aftermath of that tragedy is ongoing. The affected community needs answers and change to make sure that something like this does not happen again.

The Trump administration rolled back train safety rules. Now, Republicans want to make it easier for polluters to pollute. They put a chemical industry lobbyist in charge of the EPA office in charge of chemical safety. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. They rolled back regulations on train brakes, and they reduced rail inspections.

I just want to say one thing to my colleague from Kentucky. I have no problem with releasing all the tapes, but that is not what happened. The Speaker of the House selectively and carefully released them to one person, to one news agency, who then deliberately cherrypicked things to advance a distortion of what happened that day, an insult to the people who work here, an insult to the Capitol Police officers who were injured that day. That is not transparency. That is propaganda. That is deliberately distorting a horrific event in which this Capitol was attacked, our democracy was attacked. So, please, give me a break.

Madam Speaker, I urge that we defeat the previous question, and if we do, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of a resolution that affirms the House's unwavering commitment to protect and

strengthen Social Security and Medicare and states that it is the position of the House to reject any cuts in the program.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record along with any extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Madam Speaker, Social Security and Medicare are the bedrocks of our Nation's social safety net. Yet, as my Republican colleagues demand reckless cuts in exchange for paying our Nation's bills, these programs are under threat.

Despite recent rhetoric to the contrary, Republicans claim that they won't cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. Well, Madam Speaker, today, Democrats are yet again giving Republicans another chance to back up that claim with action by providing them a chance to reassure the American people not just with their words, but with their votes. Today, they can vote unequivocally that they will not cut these vital programs. Anything short of that is an empty promise.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Alaska (Mrs. Peltola), to discuss our proposal.

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

Madam Speaker, I don't want to be lectured about farms and our farmers. I represent a district with thousands of farms in it.

The bottom line is my farmers care about things like clean water. They care about the environment because they know that contaminated water can contaminate the food supply, among other things. My farmers are worried about climate change and the impact it is having on their ability to grow crops.

I don't want to be lectured about farms or what farmers want. I don't know of any farmer who wants to create a situation where polluters are basically not held accountable for the pollution they cause.

Think about what happened in East Palestine, Ohio. Is it the position of the Republicans that the railroad should not be required to pay for the damage that they have done, that the community should assume those costs, or the Federal Government? I don't know who should pay for it. The farmers should pay for that? Come on.

We can hear a lot about, ``This does X, Y, and Z,'' when we know it is an exaggeration.

Putting that aside, I will say for the record that I represent a lot of farmers. I talk to my farmers all the time. I do farm tours every single year. What they talk to me about is making sure that we have a clean environment, that they have access to clean water, and that we actually start paying attention to climate change, which is destroying their ability to be profitable and to be able to thrive.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I don't think there is any controversy over the bill to make as much of the classified report unclassified that is possible. There is no controversy over that.

I want to make sure that people understand who is responsible for actually doing the investigation. It was Joe Biden, not the previous President.

I want people to remember what the previous President said. On January 24, 2020, Donald Trump said: ``China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi.'' Really?

On February 7, 2020, Trump said: ``I just spoke to President Xi last night, and, you know, we are working on the problem, the virus. It is a very tough situation, but I think he is going to handle it. I think he has handled it really well. We are helping wherever we can.''

On February 7, he said: ``Just had a long and very good conversation by phone with President Xi of China. He is strong, sharp, and powerfully focused on leading the counterattack on the coronavirus. He feels they are doing very well, even building hospitals in a matter of only days. . . . Great discipline is taking place in China, as President Xi strongly leads what will be a very successful operation. We are working closely with China to help.''

Then he also said: ``Late last night, I had a very good talk with President Xi, and we talked about--mostly about the coronavirus. They are working really hard, and I think they are doing a very professional job. They are in touch with the world organization--CDC also. We are working together, but World Health is working with them. CDC is working with them. I had a great conversation last night with President Xi. It is a tough situation. I think they are doing a very good job.''

Then he said on February 10: ``I think China is very, you know, professionally run, in the sense that they have everything under control,'' Trump said. ``I really believe they are going to have it under control fairly soon. You know, in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather, and that is a beautiful date to look forward to. But China, I can tell you, is working very hard.''

On February 13: ``I think they have handled it professionally, and I think they are extremely capable. And I think President Xi is extremely capable, and I hope that it is going to be resolved.''

On February 23, President Trump said: ``I think President Xi is working very, very hard. I spoke to him. He is working very hard. I think he is doing a very good job. It is a big problem, but President Xi loves his country. He is working very hard to solve the problem, and he will solve the problem. Okay?''

Then, on February 29, he said: ``China seems to be making tremendous progress. Their numbers are way down. . . . I think our relationship with China is very good. We just did a big trade deal. We are starting on another trade deal with China, a very big one, and we have been working very closely. They have been talking to our people. We have been talking to their people, having to do with the virus.''

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article from Politico titled: ``15 times Trump praised China as coronavirus was spreading across the globe.''

Madam Speaker, I remind my Republican colleagues that the leader of their own party repeatedly applauded China during the peak of the pandemic.

The bottom line is that we should all be grateful that we have a President now that has actually launched an investigation to get to the bottom of this.

Today, hopefully, we will, in a bipartisan way, vote to make as much of that investigation declassified as possible.

Let's not forget the history here. Let's not forget who was praising China's reaction to the coronavirus because I think it is important that we keep that in mind, especially listening to some of the rhetoric coming from the other side.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, this is the second time the gentleman has said that all the tapes of what happened on January 6 were released. Maybe he can tell us where the general public can find them. How do they get access to them?

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman said that all the tapes had been released. The only person who got the tapes was a political hack at FOX News who used them to distort the reality and the truth and to insult the service of the people who work up here, including our Capitol Police officers.

I am for releasing as much as can be released so long as it doesn't violate any security protocols. Let's listen to what the U.S. Capitol Police chief said in response to Tucker Carlson's coverage of January 6. He said: ``Last night, an opinion program aired commentary that was filled with offensive and misleading conclusions about the January 6 attack. The opinion program never reached out to the department to provide accurate context.

``One false allegation is that our officers helped the rioters and acted as

`tour guides.' This is outrageous and false. The department stands by the officers in the video that was shown last night. I don't have to remind you how outnumbered our officers were on January 6. Those officers did their best to use deescalation tactics to try to talk rioters into getting each other to leave the building.

``The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video. The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments.

``Finally, the most disturbing accusation from last night was that our late friend and colleague Brian Sicknick's death had nothing to do with his heroic actions on January 6. The department maintains, as anyone with common sense would, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day.

``As some people select from 41,000 hours of video clips that seemingly support the narrative they want to push, those of you who were here on January 6, those of you who were in the fight, those of you who ensured that no Member of Congress was hurt, those of you who contributed to the effort to allow this country's legislative process to continue know firsthand what actually happened.''

I would just simply say, Madam Speaker, if we want to make sure that we do not see another January 6 ever again occur in our country's future, then we all ought to speak with one voice, condemn what happened that day, and characterize it for what it was: an attack on our democracy.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, when the gentleman says that what Tucker Carlson aired somehow destroyed the narrative, I mean, give me a break, he is essentially basically saying what happened on January 6 conforms with what Tucker Carlson said. It is offensive to everybody who was here that day. It is offensive to the staff, and it is offensive to the Capitol Police officers. It is offensive to everybody.

Madam Speaker, let me just say to the gentleman that what I said before was that I favored releasing tapes so long as they did not--it is my personal opinion--so long as they do not at all compromise any security. That is what I said.

But it is so sad to be on this House floor after what happened on that day and to hear Members of Congress basically try to cover up the horrendous atrocity that occurred that day, the attack on our democracy. It is shameful.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Madam Speaker, what is just as revealing as what we are debating this week is what we are not talking about.

We are now 3 months into the Republican majority. They haven't passed a single bill into law yet, and, in fact, rather than debating things that people care about, we are spending week after week passing bills that are designed to get Facebook likes and retweets instead of making an actual difference with the people back home.

Three out of four Americans say that the Republicans in Congress do not have the right agenda.

Madam Speaker, if you want proof that they are right, then look no further than what so much of today's debate was focused on.

Democrats passed bills to bring jobs back from China and take on Putin's war of aggression. Republicans are passing bills to make it easier for Russia and China to spread their propaganda here in the United States.

Democrats passed laws holding polluters accountable, took action to get rid of lead pipes and clean up our rivers and lakes. Republicans are passing bills to protect the polluters that dump toxic chemicals into our water.

The American people expect more. They expect us to pass bills that actually matter to our families. Democrats have been putting people over politics to do it. We get stuff done while Republicans are chasing down the approval of the hyper online far right that spends all their time on Twitter trying to own the libs.

So that is why I am asking my colleagues to join me in defeating the previous question so we can get this House on record as saying that we are going to protect Social Security and Medicare.

Finally, Madam Speaker, again, the idea that the leadership on the Republican side was complicit with FOX News and with Tucker Carlson to spread lies and distortions about what happened on January 6 and to insult the service of the brave men and women who protect this building and all of us who are in it is unconscionable.

It would be so refreshing for Republicans to join us in condemning the distortions that were on FOX News. It is stunning to me that we can't get any of them to condemn. Some of them--their Senate counterparts--did, and I praise them for it. But the silence here is deafening, and it is offensive. It is offensive.

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

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

On that, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 199 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to amend the pending resolution with an amendment that I have placed at the desk.

Madam Speaker, last night, the Rules Committee met and reported House Resolution 199, providing for consideration of three measures: H.R. 140, H.J. Res. 27, and S. 619.

The rule provides for H.R. 140 to be considered under a structured rule with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability or their designees.

The rule further provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 27 under a closed rule with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Additionally, the rule provides for consideration of S. 619, under closed rule, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Select Committee on Intelligence.

Finally, the rule postpones the vote on a potential veto message from the President on H.J. Res. 30 until the legislative day of March 23.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation, H.R. 140, which went through regular order, which was marked up in the Oversight and Reform Committee, where Democrats had copious opportunities to offer amendments and to change the bill, as did Republicans.

H.R. 140 is called the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act, and would prohibit Federal employees from using their official authority to censor a private entity, including outside of normal duty hours or away from an employee's normal duty post.

Under President Biden, administration officials and Federal bureaucrats have abused their positions, authority, and influence to encourage censorship and erode Americans' First Amendment rights.

Recently released reports have uncovered efforts by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Homeland Security, and other government agencies to pressure social media companies and internet providers to censor and remove speech posted on social media platforms.

Advocates for this censorship flag certain posts and users as spreading misinformation on various topics, including COVID-19, racial justice, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Executives at Facebook and Twitter have admitted that prior to the 2020 Presidential election, after a warning from the FBI, they censored the sharing of news regarding Hunter Biden's laptop leak, which has since been proven true. It was not a Russian disinformation campaign.

Even former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, during a July 2021 press briefing, called on Facebook to ban specific accounts from its platform.

Congress should recognize that the biggest spreader of misinformation over the last several years, whether it has been about elections or about COVID, has been the Federal Government.

The censorship must stop. Congress must restore constitutional protections enshrined in the First Amendment.

H.R. 140, and the amendments that are pending votes here as well, are critical to ensure that government officials can never again promote censorship and pressure private entities to suppress Americans' First Amendment rights.

Additionally, the rule before us provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 27, a resolution ``providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of Title 5, United States Code, of the rules submitted by the Department of the Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Defense, and the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``Revised definition of `Waters of the United States.' ''

It is Groundhog Day again in America. Every time the administration changes, this rule changes.

The Biden administration's new rule would radically redefine the term ``Waters of the United States'' to expand the Federal Government's authority in regulating bodies of water.

Specifically, Biden's EPA would expand the term to include impoundments of jurisdictional waters, tributaries, adjacent wetlands, and additional waters.

To be clear, what the Biden administration is pushing through here will heap serious burdens on farmers, small businesses, homebuilders, and rural communities across our country.

In 1972, Congress didn't tell the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers: Do whatever you think is necessary to protect water. That is not what the bill said. Yet, that is what they have taken as their directive.

The Clean Water Act was never intended to be applied as broadly as the

Biden administration is proposing. Every Member of Congress should be concerned about the EPA's attempt to expand its authority over individuals' private property and regulate farms and communities, even those which lie far away from any lakes, rivers, or streams and very far away from Washington, D.C.

Congress has the constitutional authority and responsibility to provide oversight and to review regulations issued by the executive branch. If the executive branch promulgates rules that could overstep their authority, as President Biden is doing here, it is vital that we exercise our oversight authority in Congress.

Finally, the rule before us provides for consideration of S. 619, the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, which would finally declassify any information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of COVID-19.

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, anyone who spoke out questioning whether COVID-19 might have come from the Wuhan lab in China was denounced as a conspiracy theorist, and their words were labeled as ``dangerous misinformation.'' People were censored online, their accounts were suspended, and their reputations were damaged for questioning the origins of COVID-19.

What is the difference between COVID-19 conspiracy theory and the truth? About 2 years. We have seen them called natural immunity conspiracy theories. We have seen people who said masks don't work called conspiracy theorists. Now, we are finding out that all of those conspiracy theories, so-called, were accurate.

Fast-forward to today. Even the government admits it. The Department of Energy and the FBI have both publicly reported their conclusions that COVID-19 likely emerged as a result of a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research institute in Wuhan, China, controlled by the People's Republic of China and, ultimately, the Chinese Communist Party.

Was it funded in part by our government? Yes, it was.

This legislation is long overdue and is necessary to expose the truth about the origins of COVID-19. Americans deserve to see the information. President Biden could have released this information at any point. It could have been released a year ago. It could be released today without this resolution. But this resolution is important because the President has not released this information. The last Congress, led by Speaker Pelosi, could have voted to do what we are doing here today. But no, they wanted it to remain hidden from the American public. I fear the Federal Government has been involved in a coverup about the origins of COVID-19 because they are afraid of being exposed as culpable in the creation of the disease at the center of the pandemic.

To my colleague's point about the videos that were released on Monday, I think the other side of the aisle is out of touch and out of step with the American public on this.

A recent poll by Rasmussen showed that 81 percent of likely voters believe that all of the tapes should be released. The Democrats had 2 years to release these tapes. But 81 percent of voters believe that.

Is that just Republicans? No.

Madam Speaker, 86 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Democrats--they are out of step with their own party--believe that these videotapes should be released because Americans deserve to know the truth and the defendants in these trials deserve to have the evidence they need to present their defense.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Langworthy).

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

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article in the New York Post titled: ``10 myths told by COVID experts-- and now debunked,'' by Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Madam Speaker, in this article that I have just referenced, misinformation No. 7 was that ``COVID originating from the Wuhan lab is a conspiracy theory.'' It is not. I think we are going to find that out when this resolution passes, and I expect a lot of Democrat support for the resolution. It passed by unanimous consent in the Senate.

``Google admitted to suppressing searches of `lab leak' during the pandemic. Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, claimed, and still does, he didn't believe the virus came from a lab.

``Ultimately, overwhelming circumstantial evidence points to a lab leak origin, the same origin suggested to Dr. Anthony Fauci by two very prominent virologists in a January 2020 meeting he assembled at the beginning of the pandemic. According to documents obtained by Bret Baier of FOX News, they told Fauci and Collins that the virus may have been manipulated and originated in the lab, but then suddenly changed their tune in public comments days after meeting with the NIH officials. The virologists were later awarded nearly $9 million from Fauci's agency.''

Maybe this is why we are not getting the truth yet. We will get the truth if this rule passes and the subsequent S. 619 passes here in the House. I think it is very important.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, although it is not the subject of today's resolution or any of the bills covered by this resolution, the Democrats just can't avoid talking about the release of the January 6 videos. They keep going back to it during this debate.

Madam Speaker, I would remind them that 78 percent of Democrats out in America support the release of all of these videos.

The fact that they are apoplectic about the few minutes of video that Tucker Carlson released on Monday shows that Tucker Carlson is over the target. For 2 years, they have been selectively releasing information and videos to set a narrative. In just a few minutes, the entire narrative was challenged--might I say it collapsed under the scrutiny, under the review of just a few minutes of undoctored video that came from this body.

I applaud Tucker Carlson for releasing that. The American people are right. If the Democrats are so upset that only a few of these videos were released, I would remind them that they were able to release these at any point in the past.

Moving on to something that is the subject of this resolution, I want to talk about the repeal of Joe Biden's 2023 WOTUS ruling, the waters of the U.S. ruling. Like I said before, it is ``Groundhog Day'' again.

Under President Bush, we had one set of rules that farmers, homebuilders, and landowners came to understand. They were a little hard to comply with because every division of the Army Corps of Engineers might interpret them differently, or different States would interpret them differently, or different bureaucrats at the EPA would interpret them differently.

Then, Obama came along with a rule to expand the definition of waters of the U.S., and then Trump came into office and the rules changed again. Now, Biden is here trying, once again, to change the rules on what are the waters of the U.S.

The farmers and homebuilders I talk to don't say they don't want any regulations. Nobody in this body has said no regulation is what we want.

The question is, give us clear, precise, understandable regulations we can follow that do not change. Frankly, those should be written by Congress. They shouldn't be made up by every administration that comes into power. Yet, that is what we are doing, or that is what has happened.

Today, we are talking about repealing those onerous changes and unclear changes. For instance, Susan Bodine testified in front of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this year on this topic, and she talked about the significant nexus test that they apply in WOTUS 2023, waters of the U.S. To support expanded jurisdiction under this rule, the agencies now claim that isolated water can affect the biological integrity of navigable water.

What does that mean? If you have a puddle of water that a bird lands in and drinks from and takes some seeds or some larvae, and when it drinks and flies to a river and deposits it in its bird droppings, or maybe as it flies over the river and it doesn't even visit the river, if there is any kind of biological connection--and as we have found, everything is biologically connected on this planet. If there is any biological connection that they can establish between a puddle of water on your property and a navigable water, then they say, this is now covered under waters of the U.S. This is ridiculous.

The only certainty that our farmers and our landowners are going to get from Biden's 2023 WOTUS rule is the certainty that if a raindrop has fallen on your property, a government agent will show up someday and tell you what you can and can't do with that property under this rule.

That is why it is important for us to repeal that, and that is why this resolution is so important.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Madam Speaker, I said that the other side could have released them.

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

Madam Speaker, I surely didn't expect this to turn into a debate on the January 6 videotapes or to hear the Democrats propose that it sounds like they are in favor of all of the tapes being released instead of just some of them.

I think if the gentleman would review the transcript, and I could be wrong, but I think he will find out that I said Tucker Carlson only released a few minutes of that, and those few minutes were able to destroy the narrative that had been constructed over 2 years.

But if the gentleman cares to answer a question, then maybe we have come to some bipartisan agreement that all of the tapes should be released.

Madam Speaker, I would ask if the gentleman when he speaks next if he would speak to that topic and if he would be in favor of releasing all of the tapes instead of releasing them partially.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, it is somewhat serendipitous, but in the context of this debate on a rule about other bills, it seems we have come to some agreement, it appears to me, with the American people, 81 percent of whom believe that all of the tapes should be released. It seems as if we have come to some agreement that we all would be better off if we get to the bottom of the truth and all of the truth comes out and all of the tapes come out so that no one side can distort what actually happened that day, and then let the American people decide.

So in the interest of transparency and in the interest of getting back to the subject matter at hand, which are three bills covered by this rule, I want to talk about S. 619, which is so important. It is transparency, and it is the transparency that the American people deserve. It passed by unanimous consent in the Senate. Even though it seems like there is some opposition on the other side, I suspect we are going to get a lot of votes from Democrats on S. 619.

I think it is important to go on the record for elected Representatives to say whether or not they believe their constituents are entitled to the truth which our government possesses or at least information that they possess that would help somebody come to a conclusion of what the origins of this virus were and did they come from Wuhan.

The President could do this at any time. He could have done it at any time in the past 2 years. He hasn't done it. It is time to put him on the spot and say: You either veto this or you release that information that you have withheld from the American public for 2 years, which is too long. I suspect we could overcome his veto.

Next, Madam Speaker, I want to talk about the Waters of the U.S. rule.

Why is this timely?

Because on March 20 this goes into effect. That is why it is so urgent to repeal the 2023 Waters of the U.S. rule.

These are laws.

Were they written by lawmakers?

No. Our Founding Fathers created three branches of government. We have the executive branch which enforces laws, we have the judicial branch which resolves disputes, and we have the legislative branch which is supposed to make the laws. Yet, here we sit abdicating that authority and that responsibility. You can delegate authority, but you can't delegate responsibility, Madam Speaker.

We have a responsibility to the American people to make sure that these laws are concise, that they don't change on the whim of an executive who gets in the White House, that they are not onerous, that they have their intended effect, and that they are applied uniformly across the country.

Yet we have abdicated that responsibility. But we will take that responsibility back by the passage of this rule and the subsequent legislation to repeal the WOTUS, Waters of the United States 2023, by Joe Biden. We, the American people, deserve that.

Finally, I will close by talking about H.R. 140. This is a bill that went through regular order. What a wonderful thing. We have talked about it so much. It is a bill that covers one topic only. We have talked about that so much. Here we are, and we even have a chance--even though it was amended in the committee--to amend it here on the floor to perfect it even more for Members and by Members who aren't members of that committee.

Are these amendments that are not germane?

Are these the kind of amendments that the American people hate where Members offer an amendment and then they stick something into a bill that is completely unrelated to it?

No. Every one of these amendments is germane to this bill. We have made sure of that in the Rules Committee. The gentleman serves on the Rules Committee, and he had plenty of time to voice his concerns there.

So we have a lot of amendments that are great. I think they will improve the bill. But what is most important is that people have a chance to have their point made and to get a vote on this.

Finally, I will talk about what H.R. 140 would fix. It would fix this loophole that they think they have constructed that allows the Federal Government to violate the Constitution.

Obviously, Federal agents can't take away our First Amendment rights, and, obviously, the Constitution wasn't meant to bind social media companies. It was meant to bind the administration.

What we have is a loophole where the administration leans on a social media company that they are paying money to. Millions of dollars have gone to these social media companies from the CDC and from the FBI.

So when they say:

Would you pretty please ban this user?

Or:

Would you pretty please take down these posts? There is a

whole series of these posts.

The government doesn't get in line. They have a back door that they can trot to every day and submit lists of people whom they think should be banned because they don't like what they have said.

This is dangerous to our Republic. If the other side wants to call it a democracy, then it is dangerous to the democracy. But this is a republic.

Our government has built an elaborate but constitutionally unsound framework for violating these natural rights.

As we have seen with the Twitter files, they boldly work in close cooperation with private-sector actors who aren't subject to constitutional restrictions imposed on government by our Founders.

But they also claim foreign influence and national security so they can target U.S. citizens with agencies in the government under the military chain of command whose missions are ostensibly directed at foreign actors who have no constitutional rights.

Elected lawmakers be damned, legions of government lawyers create shaky legal scaffolding and ad hoc doctrine to indemnify the actors within our government who eagerly exploit these loopholes.

In this way, government actors can claim everything they do is legal. They have a bunch of lawyers to back them:

Oh, we didn't do anything illegal, it is all legal. Here,

look at our doctrine. The lawyers have gone through it, it is

all legal.

Here is the problem, Madam Speaker: much of what they do is unconstitutional.

So whose job is it to resolve that difference?

It is actually not the Supreme Court's job. We are entrusted with oversight. We all here swore an oath to the Constitution, and if we know that authorizations that we have made or that funding that we have appropriated has been twisted in a way to get around the Constitution or to drive through a loophole that some lawyers in the administrative branch have created, then it is our obligation--we owe it to the American people, we swore an oath to the Constitution--to fix that--not to make them go to court to get some remedy--but to fix it, to stop it in its tracks.

H.R. 140 with its pending amendments is a good down payment on that promise to the American people.

Madam Speaker, I support this rule, I urge my colleagues to vote for it.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution, as amended.

Madam President, with me today is Mr. Seth Brazier, who is one of my colleagues in my Senate office.

Madam President, I want to talk about my city today, the city of New Orleans. The city of New Orleans is iconic, and the whole world knows it.

My first job in State government was with a reform Governor, back in the late 1980s, named Governor Buddy Roemer.

Japan was doing extraordinarily well at that time economically, making many foreign investments, and Governor Roemer traveled to Japan to try to convince Japan to invest in Louisiana. And when the Governor got back, he told me: Kennedy, my first meeting was very enlightening.

He said: In my first meeting, I met with about 50 Japanese business people.

He said: I asked them how many of you have been to Louisiana?

The Governor said three of them raised their hand.

He said: Then I asked them another question. I asked these 50 Japanese business people: How many of you have been in New Orleans?

He said: Twenty-five of them raised their hand.

The city of New Orleans is iconic. Every State, every country would love to have a New Orleans. Our city was founded over 300 years ago. We are one of the oldest in America. It was founded in 1718. Our city is envied for--let's see--our food, our music, our architecture, our diversity, our dialects, our merriment, and our festivals--for our celebration of life. In New Orleans, we dance with or without music.

But New Orleans is under attack. People there are being murdered. They are being shot. They are being raped. They are being stabbed. Their stuff is being stolen, and our quality of life is being degraded because of crime--because of crime, a cancer on our city.

I want to give you a sense of the breadth of our problem. In 2022, we had 280 murders in New Orleans. The victims ranged from six months of age to 91 years old. Ten percent of these victims were under the age of 18. Seventy percent were people of color.

Listen to this. One out of every eight Black males who live in New Orleans between the age of 15 to 24 will be shot--one out of eight. Statistically, it

is more dangerous to be young and Black in New Orleans than it was to be a marine in the battle of Fallujah during the height of the insurgency in Iraq. Those are the numbers.

Last year, my city had the highest murder rate in the country, twice the murder rate of Atlanta--twice. We had the most murders since 1996. Our murder rate was up 141 percent since 2019, and it is not just murder. Shootings in 2022 were up 88 percent from 2019, carjackings up 156 percent, armed robberies up 20 percent, and it is not much better in 2023.

Now, behind these sterile statistics are real live human beings, flesh and bones, blood and tissue.

In one of the most appalling cases that we have had, about a year ago, in an area in New Orleans that we call Mid-City, four teenagers--a 17-year-old boy, a 16-year-old girl, and two 15-year-old girls--four teenagers, carjacked a 73-year-old grandmother.

The teenagers pulled the grandmother out of the car and drove away, but the grandmother's arm got tangled in the driver's seatbelt. The teenagers kept going. They dragged her for a block until her arm was severed. This lady bled to death at the scene.

Crime in New Orleans is affecting all of us in our city--residents, visitors--every part of our city, but no one is hit harder than our low-income communities. That is true both in terms of public safety, and it is also true economically.

Most poor people are not criminals. They are not. But criminals often prey on our lower income fellow citizens, particularly in their own communities. Existing businesses then leave and they take jobs with them and unemployment goes up and we have more poverty.

And those businesses that remain in our lower income communities-- they are often mom-and-pop shops with a small margin of profit--they have to pay more for insurance; they have to pay more for security; they have to pay more for credit, so they have to raise their prices, and that makes people even poorer.

That is what crime does.

We have tried--we in New Orleans, we have tried everything. We have around 900 police officers--we need 2,000--because many of our police officers retire every day.

We have tried paying higher salaries. We have tried paying better benefits. We have tried curfews. We have tried task forces. We have tried social programs. We have tried afterschool programs. We have tried crime cameras. We have tried facial recognition. We have tried conflict management. We have tried mentoring. We have tried youth clubs. We have tried job training. We have tried enhanced educational opportunities. We have tried prosecuting juveniles as adults. We have tried hotspot policing. We have tried 12-hour shifts. We have tried hiring administrative personnel to take the paper workload off our cops to get them back on the street. You name it, and we have tried it.

We have tried everything but one thing--stop and frisk. Stop and frisk. Under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a police officer may stop a suspect on the street without probable cause, and that police officer can stop that person on the street without probable cause so long as that police officer has what is called reasonable suspicion to believe that the person stopped has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime.

And after that person is stopped, if the police officer has reasonable suspicion to believe the person stopped might be carrying a weapon, the police officer can pat down that person on the outside of his or her clothing. That is called stop and frisk. It is a very effective law enforcement practice. It is used by police officers every day in virtually every city all across America, and it has been used since 1968.

In 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case--a very famous case-- called Terry v. Ohio. Terry v. Ohio. The very liberal Chief Justice--I don't use the word ``liberal'' in a pejorative sense. I am just describing him as many scholarly works have. The very liberal Chief Justice Earl Warren actually wrote the opinion in Terry v. Ohio, and he was joined in that opinion by Justices Hugo Black, John Harlan, William Brennan, Potter Stewart, Byron White, Abe Fortas, and Thurgood Marshall. They all said together: Here is our opinion, Terry v. Ohio.

And what did that opinion say? That opinion said that under appropriate circumstances, stop and frisk is permissible. It is perfectly constitutional under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Now, I want you to note that a police officer cannot stop and frisk somebody on a whim, on a hunch. A cop does not have unfettered discretion.

In order for a police officer to stop a person on the street, that police officer--let me say it again--must have reasonable suspicion-- reasonable suspicion--to believe that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime.

And once again, once the person is stopped, the cop can frisk that person on the outside of his clothing--called a pat-down--only if the cop has reasonable suspicion to believe that the person stopped is carrying a weapon.

Why does this cop have this authority? To protect the cop during the questioning.

Reasonable suspicion is not a hunch. It is not a whim. It is an objective standard. It is not probable cause. You have to have probable cause to make an arrest, to conduct a search, for example, of someone's home. Probable cause is a higher standard, but reasonable suspicion is an objective standard. Reasonable suspicion exists, according to the case law, as you know, Madam President--reasonable suspicion exists when an objectively reasonable police officer, given the facts and circumstances of that particular situation and considering the cop's training and experience, would suspect that a person, as I have said, has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. And if probable cause is then established, of course, the person can be arrested.

Every cop in America who goes through training academy--and every cop in America does. Every cop in America knows about stop and frisk. Every cop in America is trained in the law enforcement practice of stop and frisk.

Let me give you an example: Let's suppose a police officer is driving by and he sees an individual late at night walking along the street with a coat hanger or a slim jim--do you all know what a slim jim is? It is sometimes called a lockout tool. It is a way to get into a car if you have lost your keys.

If a police officer sees someone late at night walking down the street with a coat hanger or a slim jim looking in cars, the police officer can stop that person. Can he arrest that person? No, he does not have probable cause. No crime has been committed, but he has reasonable suspicion to stop and talk to that person.

And once he stops to talk to that person, if he sees a big bulge here in his top pocket, he may have reasonable suspicion to believe that person has a weapon, and it would be dangerous for him, the police officer, to keep talking to that person. So the police officer--he can't make him take his jacket off or anything. He can just pat him down to see if there is a weapon.

Now, I repeat: Cops all over America stop and frisk suspects every single day, and they have for 50 years.

And you know who endorses it? The U.S. Supreme Court.

Now, like all police practices, it can be abused. Stop and frisk can be abused. And when it is, it can be and it should be challenged in court, and the abusing officer should be held accountable. But most officers don't abuse it.

As many people know, Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg--two New York mayors back-to-back--used stop and frisk extensively during the crimewave of the 1990s and the early part of this century to fight crime and gun violence in New York City. We have all read about that. Crime fell dramatically. Now, some have said that is due, in part, to stop and frisk. Some have said that stop and frisk had nothing to do with it. Some have said that in some cases, the New York Police Department abused stop and frisk, and those who maintain that position said that too often police officers were stopping and frisking people on the basis not of reasonable suspicion but on the basis of race or national origin. And that is wrong.

A case was filed called Floyd v. City of New York. Floyd v. City of New York. It was a class action. It was filed

against New York Mayor Bloomberg and others, alleging that the NYPD was not stopping people on the basis of reasonable suspicion but on the basis of race and national origin.

The Federal district court in that case ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The NYPD then set about the business of reforming its stop and frisk policy, but Mayor Bloomberg left office, Mayor Bill de Blasio became mayor, and for all practical purposes, he completely stopped the practice of the stop and frisk.

So stop and frisk can be abused, and it is important to establish practices and procedures to guard against that abuse.

But let me put this another way. This is how I look at it. Some cops may and have violated the legal requirements for a proper Terry v. Ohio stop and frisk. And when that happens, that may make that person a racist or at least guilty of committing a racist act. But that does not mean that the practice of stop and frisk is inherently racist. Because some knuckleheads abuse it does not mean that the practice is inherently racist.

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court, with only one dissent, has said that, properly applied, it does not violate the Constitution of the United States and can be an effective law enforcement tool.

So when there is abuse, the abuse is on the cop. It is on the officer. And most officers don't abuse stop and frisk.

And if it is proven he did something wrong, he should be held accountable. The time has come. The time has come for my city of New Orleans to try stop and frisk. It is time.

Now, some of our public officials in New Orleans are going to probably disagree with me, and some are going to say: Well, we are using stop and frisk already.

They are. Every now and then. Sometimes. But if you go talk to the average cop on the street in the city of New Orleans--I have; I have talked to many of them--they are going to tell you: The people with the flags in their offices--the politicians and the big shots and the political hierarchy--they are discouraging us from using stop and frisk. They don't want us to use stop and frisk.

I think it is time. We tried everything else, Lord knows. It is time to allow the men and women of the New Orleans Police Department to use stop and frisk without fear of losing their jobs.

I do not believe that the New Orleans Police Department is racist. Let me say it again: I do not believe that the New Orleans Police Department is racist, systemically or otherwise. I do not believe that the average New Orleans Police Department police officer is racist. My God, the NOPD is 58 percent Black and people of color and 35 percent White.

Now, we have a Federal consent decree in New Orleans for our police department. It is between the U.S. Department of Justice and the city of New Orleans. It oversees the New Orleans Police Department or, as we call it, NOPD. It was signed and entered into by Mayor Mitch Landrieu in 2010.

The consent decree does not prohibit stop and frisk. In fact, the consent decree provides for stop and frisk. I want to quote from the consent decree:

NOPD officers may only conduct investigatory stops or

detentions where the officer has reasonable suspicion that a

person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in the

commission of a crime.

Does that sound familiar?

That is right out of Terry v. Ohio, where the U.S. Supreme Court almost unanimously said stop and frisk, when used appropriately, is a very effective law enforcement tool.

Now, the consent decree goes on--wildly, in my opinion. It mandates a stop-and-search data collection and review procedure. So the consent decree says, if you are going to use stop and frisk, you have got to collect all the data.

I think that is a great idea.

The consent decree also requires the police officer, when he or she uses stop and frisk, to document the stop and frisk and detail the reasonable suspicion in writing--in writing. In New York, they call this report a UF-250 form. I don't know what it is called in New Orleans. They have been using stop and frisk so infrequently, I am not sure they have one. But it requires the cop who does the stop and frisk to sit down and say: Here is the suspect. I had reasonable suspicion, and here, with specificity, is why. And let me say, collecting the data and requiring the reporting after the fact is standard operating procedure. This is nothing new. It is standard operating procedure in every police department in America. It is also common sense.

There is a gentleman in New Orleans by the name of Mr. Ronald Serpas. Mr. Serpas is a former superintendent. We call our chief of police at NOPD a superintendent. He is a former NOPD superintendent. Mr. Serpas is also a former chief of the Washington State Patrol, and he is now a professor of, I think, criminology at Loyola University in New Orleans.

I don't speak for the superintendent, and I don't want--intend to. But he has written a number of articles in support of stop and frisk in New Orleans.

He has said that the NOPD today has been reduced to only responding and reacting after a crime has been committed, when the damage has been done. The former superintendent says: What we need in New Orleans is more proactive policing to prevent crime, like stop and frisk.

Now, the former superintendent has analyzed the publicly available data on the NOPD consent decree. We collect data on our consent decree. It is publicly available. In fact, the city council has put up a dashboard for the consent decree, and one of the provisions in the dashboard has a stop-and-search feature. You can go on the stop-and- search feature on the internet and see how many stops and frisks the police department has done in the past 180 days. So you have a date, and it looks back 180 days.

This is what the former superintendent found after he analyzed the stop-and-search feature on the website. And I will give you an example; I don't know if I was clear about the 180 days.

For example, January 2, 2015, on that day, if you went back 180 days, the NOPD had conducted 32,913 stops in the prior 180 days.

Let me say that again: January 2, 2015--8 years ago--in 180 days prior, the NOPD had conducted 33,000 stops.

As of January 18, 2023, 8 years later--really 7, because it is January--NOPD had conducted 5,095--let's call it 5,000 stops over the past 180 days. So 5,000, down from 33,000; and that 5,000 is spread over 6 months. Do you see a trend here?

Now, during COVID, as you would expect, stops and frisks in New Orleans were down. People were inside. Following COVID, the stops increased--according to the superintendent who analyzed the data-- increased to 14,303 in the 180 days before August 17, 2021.

So think back to August of 2021, over the prior 6 months, the NOPD did 14,303 stops. But after that day, there was an uninterrupted decline in the number of stops, down to 5,095 today.

So the stops are up here. They came down. They went down further because of COVID. They went up to 14,000 in August of 2021, and then they kept going down. That doesn't exactly, but it closely tracks crime rate in New Orleans, because stop and frisk is used to proactively prevent crime.

Look, I want you to understand. The problem in New Orleans--I love my city. I love my State. I love my city too. The problem in New Orleans is--I don't want you to think that we have thousands of previously law- abiding New Orleanians turning to crime. That is not what is going on. We don't have a bunch of law-abiding people who have now turned to crime in my city. That is not what is happening.

The problem we have is with career criminals. And they are running rampant, and our cops are spread thin. And we have some public officials--not all of them but there are some--that think cops are a bigger problem than criminals. And they think that criminals really shouldn't be prosecuted--they are not bad; they are just sick. This is America. You can believe what you want, but that is what is going on in my city. It is not a majority, but it is more than a handful.

We tried everything. We need to allow police officers to stop and frisk. We need to allow our police officers to stop and frisk. It should be carefully monitored. It should be done legally. But it should be done. We have tried everything else, everything under the sun, to stop the extreme recidivists.

Nothing has worked. And maybe this perfectly legal, very effective police practice, stop and frisk, which is used every day across America, will help.

I yield the floor to my colleague from New Hampshire.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.J. Res. 27, which is at the desk; and that at 2:30 p.m. today, it be considered read a third time and the Senate vote on the passage of the joint resolution without intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I have the honor of being the chair of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee here in the U.S. Senate, and there has been a lot of activity during the Biden administration that deals with our economy.

The Biden administration has a proud record of legislative accomplishments, from the American Rescue Plan to the bipartisan infrastructure bill, to the Safer Communities Act, to the Inflation Reduction Act, to the CHIPS and Science bill, to the PACT bill, and the list goes on and on. But I want to talk a little bit about the accomplishments under the Biden administration for small businesses, and I am very proud of what we have been able to do to help small businesses in our country.

We have 33.2 million small business owners in America. They are the drivers of our economy. We say they are the backbone of our economy; I think they are also the backbone of our communities. They create jobs, and they do most of the innovation that we see. It makes America more competitive and creates more job opportunities and economic opportunities.

Over 99 percent of our businesses in the United States are small businesses, and nearly 50 percent of all U.S. employees work for small companies. So it is critically important that we pay attention to our small businesses, and, of course, it was challenging during the COVID- 19 pandemic.

I will just give you one example of why it is so important, giving one example in Maryland. I am sure you could give an example in every one of our States. This past Friday, I was at Sabatino's restaurant in Little Italy, Baltimore. We see many times that the economic growth of ethnic communities has been spurred by innovation by small companies. Sabatino's is one of those restaurants, which is iconic to Baltimore today. It was started in 1955 by two individuals, two immigrants who started Sabatino's restaurant. It is now an iconic restaurant in Baltimore where we like to go for good political discussion. It is in a pretty famous neighborhood. It is where Nancy Pelosi grew up. It has incredible food. It is for good company and good food, and it is an anchor in that community for its economic growth.

There are a lot of small business owners who are in that neighborhood who are continuing to provide job opportunities and economic growth and a future for Little Italy in Baltimore.

We could give many, many examples of that type of activity by a small company, a small business, that has really saved a neighborhood and preserved it for its future.

The Biden administration has a proud record in support of small businesses. Let me just give you some of the numbers. Twenty twenty-one was a record year for the growth of small businesses in this country. We had the largest number of new business growth, small business growth, in the history of America, and it was led by women-owned small businesses. Women of color led among the women business entrepreneurs.

This is attributable to the fact that the Biden administration has been concentrating on helping our small businesses but has paid particular attention to those small businesses located in traditionally underserved communities. That has led to programs that have helped. I will give you one example: women's business centers. The President announced just this week increasing the number of women's business centers in our community.

When President Biden took the oath of office, we had one women's business center in Maryland, and it was doing really great service, helping women get through the maze of bureaucracies and obstacles that were in their way to start a small business or grow a small business. It was located in Rockville, MD, and provided great help. Today, we have four women's business centers in Maryland, one located in Salisbury, which is a rural part of our State, to help women business entrepreneurs in rural Maryland. We have one at Morgan State University, a historic Black college in Maryland, and it is an HBCU that has provided tremendous opportunities for minority business owners. We just recently opened another women's business center at Bowie State University, an HBCU in the Washington area, in Prince George's County.

These are concrete steps the Biden administration has taken to not only grow our small business opportunities in America but to make sure we pay attention to those who have been left behind in the past.

Let me just give you another example of how we have delivered through the Biden administration to help our small business community.

We delivered for the people, for individuals like Carl Williams of Los Angeles, who founded Royal Men Solutions. After he was released from prison, Carl heard about the Minority Business Development Agency's Entrepreneurship Education for Formerly Incarcerated Persons Center in Los Angeles. His dream of becoming a third-generation carpenter and making his father proud took flight through this program.

Carl explains, and I quote:

The information the MBDA Center afforded me was invaluable,

teaching me the elevator pitch, understanding my competition,

standing out as a custom furniture builder, and knowing my

value. All of their advice was an intricate part of my growth

and development in the business world.

Well, one of the great accomplishments of the Biden administration was to help our returning citizens, those impacted under the criminal justice system, to give them an opportunity,

and they are taking advantage of that thanks to the Biden administration.

Also in the Biden administration was the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure package. Through the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, we were able to pass legislation that establishes in statute the Minority Business Development Agency that Carl depended upon--the MBDA.

We authorized $110 million per year for the Agency through fiscal year 2025 and elevated the office by creating an Under Secretary position to lead the Agency. The funds will expand the geographic reach of the MBDA by authorizing the creation of regional MBDA offices and rural business centers and creating the Parren J. Mitchell Entrepreneurship Education Grants Program to support minority entrepreneurs at HBCUs and MSIs.

I particularly like the program being named after the former Congressman Parren J. Mitchell, a Congressman from Baltimore, who was chair in the House of Representatives of the Small Business Committee and was responsible for our first efforts to set aside to help small businesses and minority small businesses.

We delivered for founders like Miles Barr, Richard Lunt, and Vladimir Bulovic, who at MIT imagined a world where they could seamlessly help limit our carbon footprint through transparent solar technologies. The company has already started producing small-size windows that reduce energy and may help reduce our total national energy consumption by up to 12 percent. Thanks to funding from the Small Business Innovation Research or SBIR Program, as we all know it, they were able to spin out of MIT and embark on this private endeavor.

In the 117th Congress, with President Biden's leadership, we were able to extend the life of and improve the SBIR and STTR Programs. Through the SBIR and STTR Extension Act of 2022, the Small Business Innovation Research and the Small Business Technology Transfer Programs were reauthorized, including their related pilot programs, through September 30, 2025. The legislation also includes language that ensures the largest SBIR and STTR award winners are adequately transitioning and commercializing their technologies.

These actions we take have real consequences. These are companies that need to have that ability to participate in government research. That is what the SBIR Program and the STTR Program do. The Federal Agencies that have the largest amounts of research must engage smaller companies.

Now, guess which Agency is the strongest proponent of the SBIR Program that we reauthorized under President Biden's leadership? It is the Department of Defense because they know these small, innovative tech companies are going to give them the technology they need to keep America safe, and they are.

I look at my own State of Maryland, where we are blessed to have so many high-tech companies that are working in defense, working in healthcare, working in communications, and working in the environment and energy. Thanks to our actions, these companies can now grow and do their work and help our country solve our problems through the passage of the SBIR and STTR Extension Act of 2022.

The Biden administration delivered for veterans, women entrepreneurs, rural communities, and the mom-and-pop shops that keep our communities vibrant.

Because of COVID-19, we knew this was not a time to sit back and watch the small businesses we loved close their doors. Instead, we rolled up our sleeves and took care of Main Street. While we saw too many small businesses close, we saw many of them come back stronger than ever before, and entrepreneurs did the same. In a remarkable comeback under the Biden administration, we have seen 10.5 million new business applications, making 2021 and 2022 record years.

Through the Inflation Reduction Act, we helped small businesses reduce their energy costs while improving their environmental sustainability.

Through the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, small businesses across the country will receive the help they need to modernize the way they do business in order to grow and succeed.

Look, I want American entrepreneurs and small business owners to know that they should dream big. Our Nation is on path to make those big dreams a reality. I am very proud of the progress we have been able to make during these past 2 years. I am looking forward to working on behalf of small businesses in this Congress with my partner Senator Ernst on the Small Business Committee.

I just want the small business owners of America to know that we are on their side, and we are going to continue to provide the help so they can help America grow. They are the backbone of our economy and the backbone of our communities, and we stand with them.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I want to thank Senator Lujan for his leadership on behalf of small businesses.

Senator Lujan is absolutely right. There are a lot of areas that are not necessarily within the jurisdiction of the Small Business Committee that directly affect small businesses, and one of those is access to broadband. Senator Lujan understands that for small businesses to succeed, they have to have access to affordable, high-speed internet.

And Senator Lujan has also been critically important in so many of the other areas--challenges that we have confronted, particularly during COVID. So I just want to thank him for his leadership on behalf of small businesses and the people of New Mexico.

We are joined on the floor by Senator Rosen, and I just want everyone to know of her valuable contributions to the Small Business Committee. She has been one of the leaders during these 2 years with the record I just went over of accomplishments under the Biden administration. But she is a real leader in recognizing that, if we are going to succeed with women entrepreneurs, we need to deal with childcare, and, today, small business tools are not fully available to small business operators of childcare. Senator Rosen is our leader in trying to make sure that we correct that and do something about it.

I also appreciate her knowledge and understanding and leadership on the regulatory challenges that small businesses confront and taking on that challenge to see whether we can't provide some relief.

So I just really wanted to acknowledge her extraordinary work on behalf of small businesses in this country.

Madam President, again, I want to thank Senator Rosen for her leadership, and we certainly are looking forward to taking up the legislation that she has introduced.

H.J. Res. 27

Madam President, I know we are on debate on the waters of the United States.

The rule provides for exceptions for ranchers and farmers. I would hope that we reject the resolution.

I would like to start my statement of support for a strong definition of ``waters of the United States'' with a reflection on the history of the Clean Water Act.

Congress overhauled the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, originally enacted in 1948, with amendments in 1972 that gave the act its current dimensions. The 1972 legislation spelled out ambitious programs for water quality improvement that industries and municipalities are still implementing today.

The 92nd Congress held a series of votes on the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, which would later come to be known as the Clean Water Act. The Senate passed the bill, which came out of a conference committee with the House after 39 meetings, by a vote of 74 to 0. The House passed the bill by a 366-to-11 vote.

Nineteen-seventy two was a Presidential election year. Despite a first term notable for its landmark environmental achievements, President Nixon vetoed the bill in an attempt to set himself apart from his opponent, George McGovern.

Bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate overrode President Nixon's veto, and the bill became law on October 18, 1972. The Senate vote was overwhelming. Meanwhile, State and local leaders, as well as advocates of all stripes, were central in the push for this legislation to be enshrined in law.

Contrast this show of congressional unity with our situation today, where we are relying on President Biden for his veto if the Senate passes this joint resolution of disapproval of the rule the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency--EPA-- jointly submitted relating to ``Revised Definition of `waters of the United States.' ''

The rule under attack finally delivers a clear, workable definition. On December 30, 2022, the Agencies announced the final ``Revised Definition of `waters of the United States' '' rule. On January 18, 2023, the rule was published in the Federal Register.

The Agencies' final rule establishes a clear and reasonable definition of ``waters of the United States'' and reduces the uncertainty from constantly changing regulatory definitions that has harmed communities and our Nation's waters.

This commonsense, science-based approach recognizes that pollution upstream can have downstream impacts, so we must protect the system to safeguard downstream communities and our environment. The rule also maintains longstanding Clean Water Act permitting exemptions for routine farming and ranching activities.

The rule ought to be durable in part because it was informed by extensive public comment to establish a definition that supports public health, environmental protection, agricultural activity, and economic growth. In developing the proposed rule, EPA and the army reviewed and considered the extensive feedback and recommendations the Agencies received from States, Tribal governments, local governments, and stakeholders through consultations, meetings, and webinars.

In 2017, Chairman Carper and I led 19 Senators in a letter to then- EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt opposing the Trump administration EPA's plan to repeal the 2015 Clean Water Rule, which would have weakened safeguards for the Nation's waterways.

Last year, on February 28, 2022, 13 Senators joined me in a letter to the EPA applauding the rule to revise the definition of ``waters of the United Sates.'' Our letter explained how the rule takes significant and positive steps toward restoring strong clean water protections that are critical to meeting the Biden administration's commitment to environmental justice.

Clean water is essential for improving public health outcomes through the provision of safe, affordable drinking water for all Americans, no matter their location.

In the interim, I led a bicameral letter with my Chesapeake Bay watershed colleagues to Michael Regan, who is currently the EPA Administrator, and to Lieutenant General Scott Spellman, the Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

We urged them to rescind the harmful Navigable Waters Protection Rule the Trump administration implemented, and replace it with a rule that restores strong Clean Water Act protections to the Chesapeake Bay and other waterways and wetlands across the country.

The Bay receives half of its water from a network of 110,000 streams and 1.7 million acres of wetlands, most of which are non-navigable tributaries and non-tidal wetlands that drain to those tributaries. Scientific research attests to the critical importance of small headwater streams in removing pollution from higher-order streams and rivers, and in preserving aquatic and riparian life throughout the entire system.

Small streams and wetlands do not just provide habitat for wildlife and trout and other fisheries that enhance outdoor recreation opportunities; they also clean water for farmers that drive our economy through the production of food.

Water pollution has never respected political boundaries. Using the Congressional Review Act to attack this thoughtfully crafted rule would be a mistake for healthy watersheds and clean water supplies across the country.

I urge all my colleagues to reject this damaging resolution.

Madam President, 4 months ago, the U.S. Senate, and then the U.S. House, came together to ban the app TikTok on all Federal Government devices--on tablets, on phones, on computers--on Federal contractors and their devices as well.

We acted, just a few months ago, with a sense of urgency because we decided that TikTok was a national security threat. A privacy threat? Yes. A data threat? Yes. But above all, a national security threat. And we were right to act just those few months ago.

And now we must take the next step: to ban TikTok nationwide, to protect the security of every single American whose personal lives, whose personal data, whose personal security is in danger from the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. And it is time to act now because we have seen, just in the last week, the TikTok CEO come before the U.S. Congress and confirm that the reasons we acted 4 months ago were right and valid and that the need at this hour is urgent.

In this last week, we learned--I should say we confirmed from the testimony of the TikTok CEO that TikTok has the ability to track Americans' data, to track Americans' location, to track Americans' personal lives--whether they want it to or not.

What am I talking about? Well, TikTok tracks your keystrokes. Now, think about this for a second. It is not just the videos you may upload if you have the app on your phone. It is not just the videos that you watch. It is the keystrokes that you enter--and not just while you are on the app. Oh, no. It tracks your keystrokes all the time--while you are texting, what you are emailing. It tracks your contact list. It reads your phone list.

We believe, based on independent third-party analysis, that it can get into email. And it does this whether or not the user consents. In fact, there is no way to turn it off. Americans are subject to this ongoing data collection--at all hours of the day and night--even if they have got TikTok turned off on their phone.

What else have we learned? Well, that TikTok is monitoring the location of Americans. It is not just your keystrokes. It is your location data. Where are you right now? What is it that you are doing? Where are you moving to? Are you in a car? Are you in a building? On what floor are you on? TikTok can use the settings of your phone to track exactly where Americans are.

And we know that they have been doing this--TikTok has been gathering this data--not just on American citizens but also on American journalists. We know that they are able to see what journalists are saying, to see where journalists are going.

New whistleblower revelations have shown that TikTok has spied on particular American journalists and tried to track them, tried to learn what they are writing, tried to control, in essence, or at least get an understanding of what their message might be.

Think about this. An app on your phone that tracks your keystrokes, that reads your personal information, that tracks journalists around, that tracks your location--you can't do anything about it. And we haven't even gotten to the worst part.

The worst part is all of this information is accessible to engineers based in China, accessible to the Chinese Communist Party.

When he was asked about this last week, the CEO of TikTok didn't deny this espionage. No, what he said instead is, well, ``I don't think spying is the right way to describe it.''

Maybe he preferred the word ``surveillance.'' Maybe he preferred the word ``monitoring.'' Maybe he preferred the word ``tracking.'' But I actually think ``spying'' just about captures it.

The problem with TikTok is not the videos on the app. The problem with TikTok is, it is a backdoor for the Chinese Communist Party into the personal lives and information into the most intimate details of every American's life.

And we know the link between TikTok and the Chinese Communist Party is real, and we know that it is strong. TikTok is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese parent company ByteDance. We know that ByteDance has Chinese Communist Party members in its senior leadership. In fact, ByteDance's editor in chief is a Communist Party secretary. We know the Communist Party has done trainings for TikTok and ByteDance personnel. We have video of it being done in Beijing, in China.

Whistleblowers have come forward to my office, and to others, and given us evidence that China-based engineers are able to access Americans' personal data at any time that they want. Again, the CEO did not deny that last week. No.

The links to the Chinese Communist Party are real, and they are inscribed in Chinese law. This isn't just a matter of what TikTok may want to do. No. TikTok is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese parent company and is subject to Chinese law, which both the 2014 espionage law in that country and their 2017 national security law, which required--required--the company to turn over data that the Chinese Communist Party, that Beijing, may request. Under those laws, they must make Americans' data available--must make it available--to Chinese communist officials.

This is in addition to the CCP members who are actually senior officials in these companies, who work in these companies, who have access to Americans' data as I stand here and speak to you today.

The intent of China in all of this is quite clear. They want to build a profile on every single American. We know that many of the recent data hacks of credit agencies, of other digital repositories of Americans' personal information have been carried out by communist China. They are hungry for information about the American people. They are gathering it on everybody that they can, as much as they can--just like they do to their own citizens. And they are using the app TikTok to do it.

Of course, that is not the only way that the Chinese Communist Party has tried to gather information on Americans. This is certainly not the only time that they have done it. Think about the Confucius Institutes all across the country that the CCP funded on America's college campuses. Think about the researchers they funded and tried to place into key programs, key institutes and universities all across the country. Heaven's sake, think about the Chinese spy balloon that just went over this country, right over my home State of Missouri, just a few weeks ago, photographing everything that they could.

Now, this is a pattern. The difference is, in those cases, we addressed it. We shut down the Confucius Institutes. Those who have lied about their money that they have gotten from China, the funding that they have gotten, have in some cases been prosecuted for attempted espionage on America's college campuses, and the spy balloon was belatedly shot down--but shot down, at least.

Now, we have taken action in these other instances to protect Americans to stop the efforts of the CCP to spy on America, to collect Americans' data, to put Americans at risk. And now we must do the same thing with TikTok.

This is why President Trump and the previous administration tried to ban it. Let's not forget this isn't the beginning of this debate. This is the end of it. We have been at this for years now.

Years ago, the last administration tried to ban TikTok for all of these same national security reasons that led us as a Congress to ban it on Federal devices.

This has been a long time coming. There is no rush to judgment here. This is what administration after administration has concluded; that it is time to take action.

Here is the real truth that if it were the Confucius Institutes, the Chinese spy balloon, if it were some American company that was coordinating with a foreign ally, we would shut it down immediately. And we have done it in these other cases. But with TikTok, now TikTok says: Oh, no, no, no, no. You can't do that to us. You can't hold us accountable. We have a special carve-out. No, we have the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects us.

Well, I must have missed the class in law school where we covered the First Amendment right to spy. The last time I checked my Constitution, there was no such protection. And I can be darn sure that there is no special First Amendment carve-out for communists.

Now, the First Amendment may protect dance videos, sure; upload those all you want. But the First Amendment does not protect the right to spy on American citizens. It does not protect espionage. It does not protect what the Chinese Communist Party is trying to do in harvesting the data of millions of Americans.

Now, TikTok has no special First Amendment carve-out. They don't get special privileges that no other entity or an American company would get. They are subject to the same rules. And when you try to spy on American citizens, when you try to use Americans' own phones as portals for collection, that ought to be stopped. You ought to be banned.

And the fact that they are a China-based company shouldn't help them or hurt them. The fact is, their ties to Beijing, their ties to the CCP, their ongoing efforts at espionage, and their ongoing lies, by the way, to this body--this is a company that has come before this body and lied time and time again. They said that they weren't controlled by ByteDance. Now we know they are. They said that China's China-based engineers couldn't access American user data. Now we know they can.

They said that the CCP had no influence. And yet last week, the CEO of TikTok couldn't even confirm that the CCP hadn't helped write his talking points. Now, this is an entity--this is a corporate interest-- that is influenced, if not, controlled, by the Chinese Communist Party.

The national security risks are severe and growing worse. And I haven't even talked about--I haven't even talked about--the materials on suicide promotion that you will find on TikTok. I haven't talked about the risks to mental health that it may pose.

And there is a reason that TikTok isn't even available in China. Did you know that? In China, TikTok isn't available. Why is that? Well, it is because Beijing isn't stupid. They know it is ``digital'' fentanyl.

TikTok wasn't designed to make our lives better. TikTok is designed to addict and then to be used as a gateway into our personal lives. It is designed to addict and then to be used as a portal to spy on American citizens.

Now, I tell you what, here is one thing that has changed since just December, a few months ago, when we banned TikTok on Federal Government devices. TikTok has gone into full damage control mode. And as Big Tech companies do all the time, they hired a fleet of lobbyists and have spent untold amounts of cash. I am told that even today TikTok lobbyists have been seen here in the building. I have no doubt that they are scurrying around right now. Maybe they are in the Gallery.

I just say this: We have the opportunity today to send a message to this corporate interest that the U.S. Senate is not for sale; that we cannot be bought; that we cannot be purchased; that we cannot be influenced by their lobbying campaign, by their corporate money; that we will instead side with the American people. We will tell the truth about what this app is. We will do our jobs and protect Americans.

Now, some say that we ought to have a broader bill that would not actually ban TikTok but would give new authority to the executive branch and leave it open. I don't agree with that. My view is, we should act decisively to ban TikTok directly. We shouldn't give new, open-ended authority to Federal bureaucrats; we should target this threat specifically. That is what this bill does that we have before us today. It goes right at the problem. It bans TikTok in this country. It protects the American people, and it sends the message to communist China that you cannot buy us.

I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 85 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Would the Senator from Kentucky entertain a question?

Madam President, I have never before heard on this floor a defense of the right to spy. I didn't realize that the First Amendment contained a right to espionage.

The Senator from Kentucky mentions the Bill of Rights. I must have missed the right of the Chinese Government to spy on Americans in our Bill of Rights, because that is what we are talking about here.

The Senator from Kentucky can watch as many dance videos as he wants. I have no objection to that. He can watch them on this floor for all I care. Fine. What I object to is the Communist Chinese Party using this app on Americans' phones to spy on Americans without their consent.

The Senator says that Americans can simply not use this app, just turn it off. That is not the case. If you turn it off, it continues to collect information. You don't need to consent. TikTok doesn't ask you do you want to share your information; it takes it. It doesn't ask you for permission to track your location; it takes it. It doesn't ask you for permission to share it with the Chinese Communist Party; it just does it. That is the problem.

Scour the Constitution. Scour the First Amendment. I promise you, you won't find any right to espionage. You won't find any right to spy. And this novel right that the Senator thinks he has discovered for Americans to be spied upon--I never heard of such a thing in the history of this country. I am astounded to learn that Americans have the right to be spied upon.

So not only does China apparently get the right to spy in the First Amendment, Americans have the inalienable right to be spied upon and have all of their data taken from them. That, apparently, is democracy.

That is not democracy. That is the abuse of our laws, the abuse of our economy, the abuse of our people by a foreign government for its purposes.

So I say again, watch dance videos to your heart's content; but spy on Americans, that is where we have to draw the line.

As to money, the Senator said--and I think he is exactly right--that TikTok wants to make money. No doubt about it. And, my, the money they are making; and, my, the money that they are showering on this building. And it is having an effect.

But in the end, the American people don't want to be treated as commodities to be bought and sold, because--make no mistake--it is the American people who are being bought and sold here by TikTok.

They are being sold to the Chinese Communist Party for influence and money. They are being sold for the wishes and the whims of Beijing, and they are being lied to every step of the way.

I will yield to the Senator from Florida.

Madam President, let me just finish with this, that the Senator from Kentucky decried the collection of personal data by American social media companies--and he is right to do that, by the way. I am concerned about that, too, no doubt. But he pointed out that many American social media companies collect all of this information, that they do it without users' consent, sometimes they sell it to third parties for profit, and you can't necessarily opt out of it. All fair enough, but he is protecting exactly what he decries.

The difference is with TikTok, that information is going to a hostile foreign government. It is not a market. It is total control.

So I would just say this to Americans out there who are using TikTok: Just know this--we need to tell you the truth about this app. Just know this: If you have it on your phone, it is tracking your key strokes; it is tracking your movements; it is tracking your location; and it is sending that information--whether you want it sent or not--to Beijing, to the Communist Chinese Party, where it can be accessed by anybody there who wants it, under China's national security laws.

That is a threat to your personal security, and that is why we should act to ban it.

Let me just finally ask the Senator from Kentucky--he and I talked about this before--would the Senator consider allowing us to set a rollcall vote, an up-or-down rollcall vote? Not unanimous consent passed but, as I said, a rollcall vote at a time certain. Would the Senator consent to that?

Madam President, I would just say in conclusion that the security risk from TikTok led us to ban it 4 months ago for the Federal Government. The facts cannot be denied, which is why the TikTok CEO had nothing to say a week ago. He could not deny any of these facts. The truth will carry the day, and we will continue to fight.

I yield the floor.