Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act

Mr. President, I ask to be recognized, and I am pleased to be here with you today.

I rise today in strong support of critical bipartisan legislation that will come to the Senate floor--not later

this year, later this week, or this month, but later today. It is called the Fire Grants and Safety Act.

Importantly, this legislation includes two--not one, but two-- critical pieces of bipartisan legislation that I have been working on with Senator Shelley Capito and a bipartisan coalition of our colleagues--literally, for years.

The first part is called the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act. That is a mouthful, but it is also known as the ADVANCE Act. And we coupled that with legislation involving support for our firefighters across the United States of America.

Last month, the House of Representatives passed these two bills, not as one but as a package, by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of--get this--393 to 13. Now, we don't pass a lot of bills by margins like that over in the House or the Senate, but today we have an opportunity in the Senate to do something very much the same.

Before this evening's vote, though, I want to take a few minutes to highlight the significance of both the Fire Grants and Safety Act as well as the so-called ADVANCE Act. In my role as cochair of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus, along with Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, I have shared here on the Senate floor, many times over the years, that every day--every day--our Nation's firefighters bravely run toward danger in order to save lives across America.

In my home State of Delaware, there are more than 6,000 firefighters--6,000--and a great majority of them are volunteers. The same is true in many States across America. Yet despite their extraordinary dedication to protecting our communities, their jobs are not getting any easier. In fact, they are getting harder, and the risks that they continue to face grow each year.

Annually, I am told that there are over 36 million emergency calls that fire services respond to--36 million. That is a 20-percent increase in the last 12 years. This is in no small part due to climate change and the resulting increases in extreme weather events across our country, which are translating directly into hotter, bigger, and more dangerous fires. Just this week, our country is experiencing recordbreaking temperatures from New England to California, where heat risks have been categorized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as ``extreme.''

It is clear that the kinds of emergencies that our firefighters must respond to are changing, and the demands on fire departments across this country are changing as well. For example, last year when a devastating tornado touched down in southern Delaware, in Sussex County, it was our firefighters who showed up to lead people to safety. We have seen similar acts of service across our Nation, especially on the west coast, where firefighters have long helped families escape the hazards of wildfires.

I believe we have a moral obligation, which I believe is a shared responsibility, to provide the resources that firefighters need to continue to protect the rest of us, our families, and our businesses. And today we have an opportunity to do just that.

The Fire Grants and Safety Act reauthorizes not one but two critical grant programs that fire departments across our Nation rely on to safeguard our communities. The first is called Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Grant Program, and it provides funding to local fire departments to hire much needed personnel to respond around the clock to emergency situations. The second is the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, which helps provide fire departments and emergency medical service organizations with the vital training and equipment, like firetrucks and protective gear that they need.

Fire departments across Delaware have contacted my office to share how these grant programs are a lifeline--a lifeline for their work that they do every day--and I am sure our colleagues have heard similar stories of the essential roles that these programs play in fire departments across America.

For example, fire departments in Colorado reported a lack of critical funding and supply, which could be aided by the Assistance for Firefighters Grant Program. Firefighters in Vermont, where our Presiding Officer is from, and firefighters in West Virginia, who cosponsored this legislation--where I was born--have reported being overwhelmed and understaffed in light of recent emergencies in their community.

It is clear as day that reauthorizing these grant programs is imperative. The Fire Grants and Safety Act will also enable the U.S. Fire Administration to continue to provide leadership, coordination, and training for first responders and emergency medical personnel.

As the lead Federal Agency for fire data collection, public fire education, fire research, and fire service training, the U.S. Fire Administration ensures that the fire service is prepared to respond to any and all hazards.

Firefighters put their lives on the line for us every single day. I am proud to work with Senator Gary Peters, as well as with my Congressional Fire Services Caucus cochairs, Senator Collins and Senator Murkowski, on this legislation to equip our firefighters with the tools and training they need to do their jobs and do them safely.

There is an African proverb that many of my colleagues have heard because I have said it enough, but the African proverb goes something like this: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

I think that is true: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

Today, on the Senate floor, with this legislation we are going far, and, as it turns out, we are going together, both Democrats and Republicans from all across the country and in concert with the administration, with the President, who supports this legislation.

And we are doing it by considering not one but two bipartisan priorities at the same time. That second priority before us today is legislation known as the ADVANCE Act. This is legislation that Senator Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia, my native State, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and I have worked on tirelessly for years in both a bipartisan and a bicameral manner.

The ADVANCE Act accelerates the deployment of our Nation's largest source of clean power, and that is nuclear energy. Nuclear energy powers millions of homes and businesses across this country every day with zero emissions. It is an indispensable tool in our ongoing efforts to address the climate crisis and strengthen our Nation's energy security.

My own personal interest in the potential for nuclear energy goes all the way back to my days as a Navy ROTC midshipman and later as a naval flight officer, tracking nuclear submarines throughout the oceans of the world. I witnessed how, initially, our submarines and, later, our aircraft carriers could travel millions of miles safely on nuclear power.

Largely because of the success of the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program, the United States had the technology and the workforce at the ready to build a commercial nuclear energy industry that could provide safe, reliable, and clean energy to American homes and businesses.

Today, nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of America's electricity--20 percent--but nearly half of America's clean energy.

Let me repeat that: Nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of America's electricity but nearly half of America's clean energy.

There is no question that this carbon-free source of energy can and will help us meet--it is helping us meet--our climate goals. That is why I have long believed that nuclear energy needs to be part of our work to address climate change, while also creating thousands of jobs-- tens of thousands of jobs, in fact--across this Nation of ours.

The ADVANCE Act empowers the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with the tools and with the workforce that it needs to keep our current reactors safe and to review new nuclear technologies efficiently. These resources will enable the Commission to provide the certainty needed to deploy more clean energy and to make sure that our commitment to safety remains paramount at this crucial moment in the history of our planet.

The ADVANCE Act also directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to support 21st century applications of nuclear energy. For example, the ADVANCE Act requires the Commission

to explore how to repurpose retired fossil fuel-fired powerplants, as well as existing infrastructure, to support new, clean nuclear energy production.

Additionally, this legislation fundamentally--and I think firmly-- maintains the core of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's mission, and that is to ensure the safety of America's nuclear power. Unless the Nuclear Regulatory Commission diligently ensures the safety of our nuclear fleet of reactors every day--every day--as well as new nuclear technologies, the United States will not be able to realize the potential of this carbon-free energy source.

And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must maintain this commitment to safety while considering all stakeholder views and concerns equally in order to maintain the public trust and confidence.

Ultimately, this bill addresses the most pressing needs of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and will lay the foundation for the safe and successful deployment of the next generation of advanced reactors. As a result, we will strengthen America's leadership on nuclear energy and provide climate leadership on the world stage.

Let me be clear, the ADVANCE Act will strengthen our energy and our national security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as creating thousands of new jobs while growing our economy.

I am not sure what our colleagues would call that in their States, but in Delaware, something like that, we call that a win-win-win situation. We need more of those.

In closing, the legislation we vote on today will provide fundamental support for our Nation's firefighters, while bringing our Nation one step closer to a clean energy future.

Once again, I want to share my heartfelt gratitude to our colleagues and our staff members who have worked with us--Democrat and Republican, House and Senate--in some cases, not just for days or weeks or months but, literally, for years in order to bring these provisions across the finish line.

So many of our colleagues have had a hand in this effort, but, in particular, I want to thank Senator Gary Peters, who chairs the Committee on Homeland Security; Senator Susan Collins and Senator Lisa Murkowski, who have been great leaders in the Fire Services Caucus over the years; Senator Shelly Capito, who, literally, is the lead author on the ADVANCE Act; and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who has been very much involved in drafting that legislation as well. We could not have done this and be where we are today without each of you.

Before I close, there is something else I want to mention. This is not something that I get to do every day, but I want to also thank the Speaker of the House, Congressman Johnson, for ensuring this bill's passage through his Chamber with resounding bipartisan support. I think it was about 393 to 13. That is an amazing, amazing outcome in legislation of this magnitude.

I want to thank our own majority leader, Senator Schumer, for working with us and his staff to bring this legislation up for a vote today. Some people might be watching this across the country and think: What is this all about, and why would we take legislation dealing with firefighters and the tools and the resources of firefighters and why would we couple that with legislation involving nuclear energy? What is the connection?

And the connection is this: Last year was the hottest year on record on this planet--the hottest year ever. This week may be the hottest week we will have had in this country and maybe on this planet--the hottest week. And what is causing that?

Well, we know what is causing it. It is too much carbon dioxide in the air, and we need to reduce it. And one of the great sources of carbon dioxide in the air is the cars, trucks, and vans that we drive. That is only about 35 percent of our carbon emissions that come from our mobile sources. Maybe another 30 percent comes from the powerplants that provide electricity for us. Maybe another 25 percent comes from our manufacturing plants.

That is where it is coming from, and we are doing a whole lot of things--House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, working together in many cases--working with the current President and the current administration in order to try to turn it around--to turn around the fact that our planet is on fire and getting hotter.

We have passed all kinds of legislation that is being enacted now: methane emission reduction program; legislation involving the release of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs; legislation that is part of the bipartisan infrastructure law, including, literally, across the country, the places where people can charge and recharge their batteries--corridors and corridors across the country to recharge electric vehicles.

That is part of what we are doing--clean hydrogen--clean hydrogen which can be used, literally, to fly airplanes and to move cars, trucks, and vans, and to provide us the electricity that we need.

We are doing a lot on wind, windmills--especially windmills--not just on land but windmills on either side of our country. And a lot is going on with respect to solar, and we can be proud of all that.

Having said that--I am probably mixing metaphors here--but we are paddling against the tide. This is a tough battle, and while we have launched a lot of smart programs and smart initiatives and doing it in a bipartisan way--and we have done it with, in many cases, not just environmental groups but business groups as well--we still have a big fight ahead of us, and we need to implement fully the Methane Emissions Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Inflation Reduction Act, clean hydrogen and hydrogen hubs, and all the stuff that people hear about. And we need to not just talk about it. We need to implement it. That is what I am going to be spending the next 6 months that I serve here or am privileged to serve here in the U.S. Senate to do--to make sure that the promise of all of the legislation, all of the groundwork that we have laid will actually bear fruit.

These young pages that are sitting here, along with the Presiding Officer, have come here from all over the country. They are 16, 17, 18 years old. We want to make sure that they are going to have a planet to grow up on. We want to make sure that they have a planet to grow old on. It is up to us to make sure that that happens.

It is a shared responsibility, like most things. It is not just a Democratic responsibility. It is not just a Republican responsibility. It is not just on the President or the legislative branch. It is not just businesses. It is really all of us. We all have a dog in this fight.

A lot of us have children and grandchildren, and, hopefully, they will benefit throughout their lives from the work that we are doing here, including--including--the work that we are doing here today.

I am very proud of my colleagues for getting us to this point in time and especially anxious to have this vote later today, and I hope the kind of margin that we--it will stand up in the House. I think it was 390 to 13. I hope we can do at least as well and maybe even a little bit better.

I am grateful to the President for his strong support of what we are bringing up today. He has already telegraphed that he is prepared, when he receives this legislation, to sign it into law.

Joe Biden used to say, when he was a mere mortal, when he was a Senator from Delaware, we used to talk about volunteer fire companies. We have a bunch of them. Most of the firefighters in Delaware are members of volunteer fire companies. I think that is probably true across the country. But then-Senator Joe Biden used to say that the volunteer fire community in Delaware was really so potent, they are kind of like a third party--sort of like a third party--and they punch above their weight in many ways. They punch above their weight in many ways to make our State safer. I think that is the case across America.

We want to make sure that they have the tools, the resources that they need to do their jobs even better and to make sure they are able to do it safely, at the end of the day, so they can go home to their families and have a full and long life.

With that, I think that pretty much is what I wanted to say. I want to thank you, Mr. Presiding Officer, as someone who has been very supportive

of this initiative, and we look forward, under your leadership today, to have a strong vote, and I will look forward to coming back in an hour or so and being a part of that vote.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Yes, I can. Let me be clear on this point--and I thank the Senator for pointing it out--the ADVANCE Act does not in any way alter the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's longstanding statutory responsibility to protect public health, safety, and the environment. I do not believe that the language in section 501 in any way asks the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do anything that it does not already do, within the limits of its existing authority and consistent with congressional intent in the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. I believe that it is essential for the Commission to continue to adhere to congressional direction to prioritize safety in order to maintain the trust and confidence of

the public and the industry. In fact, the provisions in the ADVANCE Act, originally part of S. 1111 reported by the Committee on Environment and Public Works, provide the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with the tools and resources it needs to ensure that it can execute that safety mission efficiently and effectively into the future.

Yes. The update to the mission statement does not compel the NRC to update its approach to determining how to set safety standards beyond what is required by current law.

Yes. The notification is meant to provide an additional mechanism for Congress to use in the oversight of the Commission's activities relating to nuclear exports. However, nothing in the ADVANCE Act changes the NRC's current responsibilities under the Atomic Energy Act to determine whether the granting of an export license is inimical to the national security interests of the United States. This means that if the NRC determines that issuance of an export license to any country is inimical to the national security interests of the United States, then the NRC is required by law to deny such a license, regardless of the technology involved.

Yes. To assist Congress in understanding the extent and nature of exports to countries that have not ratified International Atomic Energy Agency safety and security protocols, the Commission must notify Congress if the NRC determines that an export license for a covered item to a covered country is not inimical to the common defense and security of the United States. This bill does not intend to establish a new standard that differs from the current inimicality requirements under the Atomic Energy Act.

The ADVANCE Act has no effect on the current authorities of the Commission, the Secretaries of Energy, State, or any other Federal Agency involved in the export of nuclear technology. The notification in section 103 exists in addition to existing authorities and does not absolve Federal Agencies charged with executing and overseeing nonproliferation polices from ensuring that the deployment of all nuclear technologies intended for peaceful civilian power uses do not contribute to proliferation, as required by law. In addition to relying on its own resources, the NRC currently, and as a matter of routine practice, consults with intelligence and other national security agencies in order to inform its inimicality determinations. I fully expect that practice will continue, and nothing in this bill would change it.

No. The bill simply allows the Secretaries of Energy and State to explore pathways to grant generally authorized status to countries other than having 123 agreements in place. The bill does not relieve those Secretaries of their statutory responsibilities to preserve standards for nuclear safety and nonproliferation in the export of nuclear technologies to any countries, including those designated as Generally Authorized Destinations.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss S. 870. I am a passionately strong supporter of the effort to reauthorize the U.S. Fire Administration, the Assistance to Firefighters Grants Program, and the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Grant Program. It is essential.

I voted in favor of all of that legislation to reauthorize these key programs on April 20 of last year, and I remain strongly and staunchly in support of these efforts to support our first responders. Those who run into danger must know that we in Congress have their back. They keep our community safe, and we must keep their resources safe in return.

Unfortunately, the vote today is not just for the lifesaving programs that I am staunchly on record as supporting. On the coattails of this noncontroversial bill to protect our heroes, our colleagues in the House tacked on a dangerous additional 90-page package of provisions that merge the Senate's ADVANCE Act and the House's Atomic Energy Advancement Act.

Well, because of this airdropped provision into the fire bill, I will be opposing final passage of this bill.

So let me go now to what is the ADVANCE Act and why they would try to attach it to something that is absolutely essential. Why would they not just bring it out, try to have a big debate on it? Well, I will tell you why.

The original version of the ADVANCE Act, which I voted against in the committee, was weakened further and watered down further in negotiations with the House. The new language attempts to water down the duties of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; it puts communities on the back burner; and it dilutes existing protocols that keep our Nation safe from the threat of nuclear war. That is what we are talking about today, nuclear war.

It puts promotion over protection and corporate profits over community cleanup. Notably, the provisions from the Senate bill that would have provided a much needed $225 million for communities affected by nuclear closures and $100 million to clean up contaminated Tribal communities are not in the legislation anymore as it came back from the House of Representatives. But the provisions to prop up the nuclear industry, they remain.

I entered office just a year after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was established in 1975. Why did we create a Nuclear Regulatory Commission? Very simple. Because there was an identification of a need for an independent oversight of nuclear domestic powerplants in the United States and nuclear activity, generally. And there was a decision, looking at the Atomic Energy Commission which existed, to say, That Agency is responsible for regulating nuclear power, but it is also responsible for promoting nuclear power here and around the world. And that was a fundamental conflict of interest. You promote something by minimizing the problems or ignoring the problems, and that was becoming a big problem--that they weren't dealing with the very real issues of safety that had been raised about nuclear power in our country.

This was before Three Mile Island. It was before Chernobyl. But it was anticipating the safety issues that were going to be growing and growing and growing.

So the NRC's current mission, before this bill passes, reflects this critical responsibility to the American public: regulation and licensing free from the influence of industry and that puts health and safety above all else.

So we have a separate Agency. It is called the Department of Commerce. They can go and promote anything they want. They can try to sell whatever they want, domestically or internationally. But the Agency in charge of safety is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They have got to make sure that anything that the Department of Commerce is pushing doesn't wind up being a danger.

So we create this dynamic tension inside of the government. Ultimately, that goal of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that puts health and safety above all else is what protects us against nuclear accidents here or overseas, wherever we are selling nuclear powerplants.

The ADVANCE ACT, as attached to the Fire Grants and Safety Act-- completely unrelated subject; one deals with the resources we are giving to firefighters, the resources we are giving to local fire departments in order to fight fires as they pop up in our local communities. That is something we all support. But what they did was they added to that bill language that would require--underline that-- require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to rewrite its mission, to state that its regulation and oversight should--and this is a quote-- ``not unnecessarily limit'' civilian nuclear activity regardless of whether it is beneficial or detrimental to public safety and national security.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission shouldn't be the ``Nuclear Retail Commission.'' The Commission's duty is to regulate, not to facilitate. Their job is to ask all of the safety questions; to make sure the design is OK; to make sure that the waste is being stored properly; to make sure that an accident can't happen; to make sure that climate change, as the tides rise, doesn't swamp a nuclear powerplant near a river, near the ocean. That is their job; it is to protect all of the people who live in communities.

We have got other Agencies that are funded, able, and willing to fulfill the role of promoting nuclear power. But this legislation does nothing to assure communities at the frontline of nuclear infrastructure that nuclear expansion won't come at their expense in local communities. It compels the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to identify how it can improve efficiency in its oversight and inspection programs without asking it how it can also improve safety or public engagement so that the public can go in and ask questions about this nuclear powerplant in their neighborhood, force the CEO of the company to answer questions about concerns that people who live near a nuclear powerplant might have. It provides no redress for families living near abandoned uranium mines and unsafe nuclear waste sites.

At the very least, a rapid expansion of nuclear activity should be accompanied by rapid expansion of the resources and regulators that help protect community health and safety. If we do it, we should do it all together, one big package.

This new language also fails to ensure continued American leadership on nuclear nonproliferation overseas. It fails to do anything to strengthen our current regime, and export licenses for nuclear materials and technology could be issued to countries that do not meet our own standards for nuclear safety and cooperation. The only requirement--that is what this law now says--it will only require a notification to Congress after that nuclear license is issued in another country and exempting even this after-the-fact notification for exports of up to 20 percent enriched uranium.

And you are right. Whenever you hear the words ``uranium'' or ``plutonium,'' your ears should perk up.

Because in many countries they see a nuclear powerplant as a generator of electricity that has this side effect of uranium and plutonium, but in the eyes of some countries--and we saw that in Iran, in Iraq, in North Korea--as they got nuclear powerplants, they saw it as a place where they can get uranium and plutonium that has this wonderful byproduct of electricity that it also generates.

So we should be concerned because we have already been forewarned by our experiences over the last 20 or 30 years. We can see what happens if there isn't a proper recognition of how all of this material can, in fact, be diverted.

We shouldn't get a heads-up about the fact that Saudi Arabia now has American nuclear material. That shouldn't happen after the fact; that should happen before the fact. We

should know that this is going to happen.

The bill also pushes the Secretary of Energy to identify generally authorized countries for exports beyond those with existing 123 agreements.

So what are 123 agreements in the Atomic Energy Act? Well, 123 agreements lay the foundation for the responsible exchange of nuclear materials and technology with countries that share common guardrails for nuclear safety--that is the diversion of uranium or plutonium and other nuclear materials in a way that ultimately could wind up in a bomb-making program somewhere in the world. We should not be looking for ways to work around or weaken our export standards even further.

Throughout my career, I have seen nuclear safety and nonproliferation undermined in the interest of the short-term geopolitical concerns of a particular administration or industry at the expense of the longer term nuclear nonproliferation goals, which we say are our highest foreign policy objectives.

They get compromised in the short term because one administration or another just wants to use nuclear powerplants as a way of ingratiating the United States into the good favor of a particular country--it could be Saudi Arabia soon; it could be another country right after that--but without all the safeguards that should be there in order to protect against diversion of these materials.

So the United States is supposed to be the leader in the global arena, and as a nation with nuclear capabilities, we have a duty to set the strongest possible standards for domestic and international nuclear activities as an example to the rest of the world. We also have to clean up our existing messes--particularly in Tribal and environmental justice communities--before investing in anything that might make those messes worse.

As a result, despite my strong and continued support for the fire safety grants and my respect for my colleagues working on this issue, I must vote no.

In 1982, I wrote a book about nuclear proliferation and about domestic nuclear powerplants. The book was entitled ``Nuclear Peril: The Politics of Proliferation,'' and it is what happens when there is a shortchanging of the safety, the security measures which should be put in place. It also dealt with the issues domestically of a reduction in the generalized supervision of nuclear powerplants in terms of having the highest possible safety standards.

There are many in this institution who want to see a vast expansion of nuclear power using plutonium and uranium in the United States. They also support a vast expansion of nuclear powerplants around the world using uranium and plutonium. I appreciate the fact that they want to do that, and many want to see that happen in the name of climate change because it reduces greenhouse gases, but it has its own problems. It brings its own problems.

We still don't have a solution to where we are going to bury all the nuclear waste in the United States. The Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada still hasn't been completed, and in my opinion, it will never be complete. We are now up to 35 years working on it.

Similarly, overseas, if we get into a race with other countries-- Russia, China--in the export of nuclear power, we should not lower the standards; we should ensure that we are in as the responsible provider of nuclear power around the world so that we reduce dramatically the threat of proliferation.

So my book in 1982 is directly relevant to this subject right here, because whether it be North Korea that converted a civilian nuclear powerplant over to a bomb-making factory, whether it be in Iraq with Saddam Hussein, whether it be in Iran--you name it--the story is the same.

So we have to be very responsible and ensure we have the highest standards, and that is my goal in coming out here. I am going to vote no because I think if we are going to be encouraging a brandnew era of nuclear power here domestically and internationally, we should have that discussion. It shouldn't be attached to the fire safety bill to make sure that firefighters can put out the fire in the house that is next door to us. We all agree on that. On this issue, however--the issue of nuclear nonproliferation and the domestic safety of powerplants in our country--that is a different subject.

But, honestly, my great friend Chairman Carper, who is just such an incredible leader on clean energy, the chairman of the committee that produced the most important climate bill in 2022 in a generation, he is my friend, and I thank him for engaging in a colloquy with me to clarify in detail the legislative intent of some of these provisions. I look forward to continuing to work on efforts to protect communities, clean up toxic waste, and create a consent-based pathway to nuclear waste storage in our country.

The decision to put all of the nuclear waste in our country in Yucca Mountain was a political decision. I was in the room when it was made. The National Academy of Sciences said that the Yucca Mountain facility was at the bottom of the places in our country. It is near a river. It is near an earthquake fault. No wonder we haven't finished it. The safety questions were never answered at the beginning. And that is all I ask. If we are going to move into a new era of nuclear power here and around the world, let's ask the questions upfront. Let's make sure we put the safeguards in place. Let's make sure we avoid having to look back and say: How in the world did we ever allow something like that to ever occur again?

I thank you for the opportunity to be out here.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with the senior Senator from Delaware, the chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, concerning two aspects of the ADVANCE Act before us today: nuclear regulation and nonproliferation.

First is the provision regarding the mission statement of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, referenced in section 501. The current mission statement of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission--the independent regulatory Agency responsible for the safe use of nuclear energy and nuclear materials--is based upon Congress' action in the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. That landmark legislation recognized and addressed the need to separate nuclear regulatory and safety functions. In doing so, Congress strongly declared that this separation was in the public interest. Since then, the Commission has adopted Principles of Good Regulation and organizational values that underscore its responsibility towards evidence-based, independent regulation and licensing activities.

Today, I rise to discuss the implications of the language in the ADVANCE Act regarding the mission statement of the NRC. This language, which did not move through the Senate and was not debated in the Committee on Environment and Public Works, would require the NRC to ``update the mission statement of the Commission to include that licensing and regulation of the civilian use of radioactive materials and nuclear energy be conducted in a manner that is efficient and does not unnecessarily limit the civilian use of radioactive materials and deployment of nuclear energy, or the benefits of civilian use of radioactive materials and nuclear energy technology to society.''

As the chair of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Nuclear Safety, I see NRC's safety mission as the primary responsibility of the Agency--not the protection of its relationship to the nuclear industry.

Chairman Carper, can you confirm that it is not the intent, nor the direction, of the new section 501 to in any way change the Agency's safety focus?

I thank you, Chairman Carper, for your unequivocal statement that, under this bill, the NRC will still be required to implement a safety-first mission.

I would also like to note my concern over language directing that regulatory activities ``not unnecessarily limit'' civilian nuclear activity. We do not need to enable any new lines of argument for industry to protest necessary safety updates required by the NRC that may require additional investments for licensees to implement and thus ``unnecessarily limit'' their activity.

Chairman Carper, can you confirm that this language should not be interpreted to suggest that the NRC should adopt a new, cost-benefit approach to decisions affecting public safety?

Thank you, Chairman Carper. I will continue to hold the Commission accountable to its primary safety responsibilities as outlined in the Energy Reorganization Act.

Finally, before I yield the floor, I must raise my concerns in this bill concerning nonproliferation. Chairman Carper, section 103 under division B of the Fire Grants and Safety Act requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to notify the appropriate committees of Congress if an export license is issued for a covered country, defined as a country that has not ratified an Additional Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency or has not acceded to the amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material.

Chairman Carper, am I correct in my understanding that these notifications occur after an export license is already issued?

Chairman Carper, is the intent of requiring congressional notification to facilitate a better understanding of the extent and nature of export licensing activity?

Chairman Carper, how will a congressional notification requirement work to address proliferation concerns, if there is no explicit direction for the Commission to deny a license for nations that do not have the strongest possible nonproliferation standards?

I commend Chairman Carper for his efforts to maintain adequate guardrails against proliferation during negotiations with our House colleagues. But we must not export nuclear material and technology to countries that do not meet the same safety standards to which we hold ourselves, and we cannot afford to compromise decades of nonproliferation efforts to advance short-term geopolitical interests.

In addition to my concerns over the export license provision, I would like to raise my concerns over section 105 under division B of the Fire Grants and Safety Act. This section directs the Secretaries of Energy and State to assess factors beyond 123 agreements to determine a country's Generally Authorized Destination status under part 810 of title 10, Code of Federal Regulations, which facilitates the export and transfer of certain nuclear material and technology as ``general activities.'' 123 agreements refer to section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, which sets out specific requirements for the United States to engage in significant civilian nuclear cooperation with another country. 123 agreements are critical to the nonproliferation apparatus. These agreements require congressional approval, include a list of nine safety criteria, and set out clear procedures governing cooperation under the agreement.

This provision provides no definition or guidance on what ``other factors'' qualify as adequate criteria for Generally Authorized Destination status.

Chairman Carper, is it the intent of this provision to allow the Secretaries of Energy and State to grant Generally Authorized Destination status to countries that do not meet our own standards for nuclear safety and proliferation?

I thank the Senator from Delaware for his comments on these issues and his leadership.

Mr. President, my guess is, if I went to every person in this room--every page, every person sitting in the Gallery, every Senator--and I pointed to this image and said, ``What do you see there?'' my guess is every person in this room would go, ``Well, that is a baby.''

That is my guess. I mean, I haven't asked every person here, but my guess is every person would look at it, and they would go: Well, that is a sonogram of a baby.

That is what I would say: It looks like a child to me.

So the issue here in America and the next question is: Should it live or die?

The first answer is pretty obvious: That is a baby.

The second question is: Should it live or die?

That one, in America, is not quite so obvious anymore.

You know, what is interesting is that I have two daughters. They are amazing, remarkable, beautiful women. They are adults now, but I distinctly remember that pregnancy test and seeing those little lines on that test, and my wife and I looking at each other with excitement.

I distinctly remember talking to friends and her parents and other folks, saying that we are pregnant. And as we shared our story, I don't remember a single person saying to me: Well, you are pregnant. What are you going to do with it? Are they going to live or die?

No one asked us that. No one asked us: Is it really a baby or is that just a fetus? No one said: You just have tissue.

They asked us questions like: Have you thought of a name? Have you figured out how to install the car seat yet?

Those are the questions they asked us because, every person we talked to and every person with whom we shared the news that we were pregnant, all acknowledged that reality that that is a baby.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled on what is now called the Dobbs decision. It took away the Roe v. Wade decision that mandated that abortion had to be everywhere in the country and took it back to where it was for the first 180 years or so of our country, when the law was that the rules about abortion are handled in each State. That is all it did.

It didn't end abortion in America. We still have abortion in America, in very high numbers. But the decision of how that is done was not done by a Supreme Court. It was done by legislators, as it always had been. And that is what the Court said. So this is now going back to the people and the people's representatives on all levels.

So the debate is, again, scattered all across the country now, and the debate is very simply over: Is that a child? And if it is a child, what should happen to it?

I have to tell you, that baby is not mine, but she is really cute. I look at a baby like that--my daughters both slept in that same position, which we, as parents, call the touchdown position, where they both have their hands up above their heads. I am amazed at this picture of the sonogram to see that infant in the womb in that exact same position asleep.

I think the only difference between this child in the womb sleeping with her hands over her head and this child is time. That is it. That baby is as much of a baby as that baby is a baby. There is no difference there, other than time.

So we debate, and we talk about this very complicated question: When is a child valuable, and when is a child medical waste? When is a child valuable, and when is a child disposable?

We, as Americans, are grappling with that issue. The issue about when that child is a child really comes down to preference and convenience and to determine if the child is convenient. If they are convenient, then they are a child. If they are not convenient, then they are disposable.

If two ladies are walking down the same street--both of them, let's say, 18 weeks pregnant--and of those two ladies on opposite sides of the street, one of them steps into her workplace and into a baby shower, the folks at work are going to talk about how to install a car seat. They are going to talk about: Where are you going to set up the crib? They are going to talk about baby names, and they are going to talk about all the expenses and things. And the person on the other side of the street, also 18 weeks pregnant, is headed to get a surgical abortion.

And so I ask the question: Of those two children, what is the difference between those two children? They are both at 18 weeks of development. One of them is being celebrated and prepared for, and one of them will be disposed of. What is the difference between the two?

We, as Americans, are trying to figure out the answer to that exact question. And the conversation is happening all across the country.

I get it. It is a fair conversation: When is a child a child? Or when are they not a child?

Well, under this administration--this administration, by far, has been the most pro-abortion administration ever in the history of the country. That is not just an opinion. That is just the actions of the administration. That has just been their response to the Dobbs decision.

This administration was so disturbed that we might have fewer abortions in America that the Biden administration has aggressively worked to increase the number of abortions in America to offset the possibility that there could be fewer abortions, because they didn't want to see fewer abortions in America. They wanted to see as many or more.

So the Biden administration opened up, for the first time, VA hospitals to provide abortions--even late-term abortions, even up to the very final months of a viable child. For those VA hospitals, it would be the first time that they would be able to provide abortions.

They are withholding funds for pregnancy resource centers. Now, these are the centers that they really hate the most. These are pregnancy resource centers around the country that offer crazy things like diapers and formula and support for pregnant moms--that if pregnant moms walk in and say, ``Hey, I am really struggling with my pregnancy, and I am afraid,'' they say, ``We will walk with you. We will counsel you. We will give you free materials. We will help provide diapers and baby clothes and a car seat, and we will walk along with you so you don't have to be afraid and alone.''

The Biden administration really hates those folks. So they are withholding funds from any grants going to those folks where they have received grants in the past.

HHS is now paying to move people who illegally cross our southern border

to places--even teenagers--where they can get abortions, and we have Federal dollars going to be able to move people to make sure that those people who illegally cross our border who want access to abortion be able to get it. It has been frustrating to be able to watch.

Even in my State, my State has chosen to say: We think every child is valuable. We look at these two girls, and we see them just a couple of weeks apart. But we see them both as young girls. They kind of state the obvious.

But in my State, because we don't allow abortion and promote abortion, Health and Human Services has now stripped away grant dollars from my State for one reason. Health and Human Services came to my State and said: If you don't put a 1-800 number on all of your healthcare materials stemming from the State, telling women where they can get an abortion, we will take away your Federal funding. If you don't show and give a 1-800 number where you can get an abortion, we will take away your grant funding.

They didn't take away just any grant funding, because, by the way, my State said: We are not going to do that. So the grant funding they took away from my State was for impoverished women to get cancer screenings and for AIDS patients to get testing. They took that funding away, saying: We will not allow any Federal dollars coming into your State for AIDS testing and for cancer screening for impoverished women, if you don't promote abortion in your State.

They were serious. So they did it because this administration is obsessed with increasing the number of abortions in the country and finding ways to be able to expand this and telling people not to look at this picture.

It has been a frustrating journey, the last couple of years, because we seem to be ignoring the obvious. We are so tied up here on the politics of this, even when Senator Thune brings a bill that says, if a child is born alive after a botched abortion--they are a fully delivered, full-term baby on the table breathing--what should we do?

That is a pretty commonsense bill. Yet my Democratic colleagues have knocked it down today and said: No, that child should not have the opportunity for life.

When Senator Hyde-Smith brings a bill that just says, ``Why don't we give education to more doctors and more moms about infertility''--it doesn't limit IVF at all, at all--they are like, ``No, no, not going to do that.''

When Senator Britt from Alabama brings a bill that says: Why don't we recognize, during pregnancy, that that is really expensive, and if States have the requirement to do child support for a child--well, I will just say it: for a deadbeat dad who is not paying child support. If they walk away at that point, that child support should also cover the time of pregnancy, not just after delivery. That is pretty common sense because, for any mom, they know pregnancy is really expensive. It is a very expensive time. So child support should begin when that child is there.

A commonsense bill that, I dare say, most Americans would say, ``Well, that makes sense,'' has been knocked down today.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4524

Mr. President, I bring one more that I think is pretty common sense. It is already the law in the United States that every person has the right to conscience. Healthcare providers that go into the profession to protect life, to save life, to heal--many of them also say: I don't want to be a part of taking human life. I went into this profession to protect life.

So they express to their clinics, their hospitals--wherever they serve--that they don't want to be a part of the taking of human life. They understand that it is happening in their hospital; they just don't want to be a part of that. They express their conscience issues.

By the way, that is protected in Federal law right now, that every one of those healthcare providers has the right to be able to express their conscience and not be required to take human life. The problem is, it requires the Federal Government to actually step in and enforce that law.

So let me show you what that looks like. A nurse in Vermont, a few years ago, went into her hospital as she normally did, and as she went into her hospital, went into work as she normally does--she is a nurse that is passionate about the life of every person, including children in the womb, and she had expressed that to the hospital. She got caught as she was going in, saying: Hey, we need you in the ER right now.

She said: No problem.

So she steps into the ER to help with a procedure, gloves up, gets ready. She is going to go assist. As she walks in, the doctor that is in the room looks at her and says: Don't hate me.

She suddenly says: What is going on?

She realizes she is being called in to be able to assist with an abortion. She has already made it clear she doesn't want to be a part of taking human life.

The hospital says: No. We will fire you if you don't help. We need your help. We are short of staff today, so you are going to do this.

A direct violation of Federal law--clearly, no question. They expressed it in the operating room. They knew they were violating her conscience.

So the Federal Government goes through the process of starting to be able to enforce the law on that hospital--until the last Presidential election occurs. When the last Presidential election occurred, the new leadership of HHS stepped in and said: We are not going to enforce that. In other words, we are dropping that case.

It would be the equivalent of a police officer walking down the street, looking at a burglary that is happening, knowing that a crime is occurring right there, and just saying, ``I am going to choose not to enforce the law today,'' and just walking on by. That is what is happening right now.

So the Conscience Protection Act that I bring does a simple thing. It says that if an employer violates Federal law and the Federal Government chooses not to enforce this, the individual that has had their conscience violated--that individual has the right to be able to bring a case on their own.

This is not controversial. This would not eliminate a single abortion in America. We will not have one fewer abortion in America based on this policy. But what it will do is it will say to an American: You are free to be able to live your conscience without fear of being fired for living your conscience. That is the only thing it does. I think that is pretty straightforward and pretty common sense.

Of all things that we should be able to agree to in this body, let's protect each other's right to believe and to live our faith.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 4524 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, we will continue to be able to speak out. We do believe that is a child. We believe in the dignity of every human being.

My wife, when we were pregnant--every single cell in her body--every cell--from her toenails and her toes and her nose and her elbows--every single cell in her body has the exact same

DNA. It has that signature of her. But when we were pregnant, suddenly there was a group of cells that had different DNA. They didn't match hers, and they didn't match mine. They were cells with DNA that had never existed on Earth before until that moment. They were uniquely different. I think we should acknowledge that fact in the days ahead, that there is something special about those different cells.

We will continue to speak up for the conscience rights of all individuals to be able to state the obvious and to be able to live their faith. I think in the days ahead we will have a time as Americans when we will look back on this season and think, why would we turn away from what was so obvious to all of us?

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I come to the floor today to be able to talk about an issue that, apparently, there is a large belief among some that doesn't exist. So I wanted to be able to pull the veil back and to say this is actually an issue. And I can't believe I even have to have this conversation. And, in many ways, it is an incredibly difficult conversation to be able to have.

During the Presidential debate that happened just a few weeks ago now, there was a debate, ostensibly, between Vice President Harris and former President Donald Trump. It ended up being a debate between Vice President Harris, David Muir, Linsey Davis, all against Donald Trump.

There were multiple moments where the ABC moderators decided they were going to debate or correct Donald Trump when he spoke, and it became this very odd interchange that all America watched and thought: Well, that doesn't seem like a debate in that sense.

One of those moments was a really odd moment. There was a question about abortion to President Trump. That is a fair conversation for the moderators to bring up a question and to be able to talk about it. He has openly talked a lot about abortion. And, obviously, the vote that happened in the Supreme Court with the Dobbs decision has highlighted a lot of that conversation nationally since his Presidency.

President Trump, during that debate, talked about children who are aborted away the eighth or ninth month and then some even after. He mentioned that, to which the ABC News moderator, Linsey Davis, responded: ``There is no State in the country where it's legal to kill a baby after it's born'' and then immediately turned to Vice President Harris, where, literally, she jumped in to be able to debate the President and to try to ``correct'' him.

The problem is, there was no one to be able to moderate her in that debate and to make the simple statement, there are not only States in America where that can happen, there are States in America where that does happen.

In this simple map of the United States, this lists out the States where there are strong protections for a child after birth. Now, this is not an abortion; this is a botched abortion that has occurred. This is a woman who went in with the intent of having an abortion, late term. The child was fully delivered, and in medical practice in many of these States that are listed here, the child is fully delivered during the abortion. And if the child cries, breathes, the practice is to back away and to allow the child to slowly die on the table because the intent was an abortion. So everyone just steps back in the facility and watches the child die on the table, however long that takes.

Now, before people say that doesn't occur, eight States have a requirement--eight States have a requirement--that, in an abortion, if it is botched and the child is actually fully delivered, and they are still alive, they have to report it. And in eight States--only those States that actually do that--there were 277 cases of that.

Let me give you an example. This was several years ago. She is now a beautiful young woman, a young woman named Melissa Ohden. She actually didn't know until she was an adult that she was actually the product of a botched abortion. Her mom, who was a teenager, had been compelled to have an abortion by some family members around her. She didn't want to do it, but she did. It was a late-term abortion.

She went in to have the abortion, had the abortion, and after the abortion was over, one of the nurses looking through the ``medical waste'' that was there on the table, saw the young girl crying. She scooped up the infant, took the infant on her own to an emergency room. The emergency room personnel said: There is no way she will have a full, meaningful life. But they took care of her because she was in the emergency room.

I know Melissa Ohden. She is a remarkable lady--no disabilities, no other challenges other than the knowledge that she was supposed to ``have been aborted.'' But there she is alive.

There are a lot of women who are scattered around the country who are all finding each other online telling the story that they are a product of a botched abortion; that they were born alive, and they were given medical care when ``they weren't supposed to be there at all.'' They are now, through one rare benefit of social media, finding each other and connecting in conversation. Not only is this happening, it is happening all over the country.

I am fully aware that the ABC News moderator thinks this doesn't happen anywhere, but not only is it happening, it has happened before; it is happening probably today.

The question that this body has not resolved is, What are we going to do about it?

This is not about reducing abortion. Quite frankly, the bill that I am bringing and I want to bring for unanimous consent today won't reduce abortions at all in America.

I would tell you, it would be my preference to be able to stand for the value of every single child in America and to say there is not a child in America that is disposable; that children in America are all valuable--not some disposable, some valuable--all valuable.

This is not a question of are we going to legalize or not legalize abortion. This is about a fully delivered child crying on a table, if they will get medical care or if we will back up and watch them die. That is the question before us--and what we are going to do about that.

There has been a lot of conversation about this of late, in the last several years. Let me give you an example of several of these States. New York State recently passed a law that not only allows abortion all the way until the ninth month, but they protect--if a child is fully delivered and is breathing on the table, and it was a botched abortion, that they would be protected, quote-unquote, to be able to die there.

When this bill was passed, just a couple of years ago, in New York, the New York Legislature cheered--cheered--at protecting the rights of a child to lie on the table and die after a delivery. They lit up the Freedom Tower in New York City to celebrate the passage of that bill. That is in New York.

In Minnesota, 9 years ago, in a wide bipartisan vote, they determined that they should actually track how many of these botched abortions happen; that they should actually keep track of how many occur like this, that a child is actually born alive. It is rare, but they wanted just to be able to keep track of it with basic records.

So in a bipartisan vote in the Minnesota Legislature, signed by the Governor, they passed a law, 9 years ago, to track how often this occurs. In the State of Minnesota, they determined, over the next several years, that there were 24 children that were born alive during a botched abortion. Now, again, that is not many, but I bet it matters to those 24. But for those 24 children that Minnesota discovered, this is not really a myth. This is really occurring. They tracked it.

The Governor of Minnesota, the current Vice Presidential candidate on the Democratic side, worked to get a repeal of that law, and the simple repeal was: We don't want reporting anymore.

Literally, it was: We are finding out this is happening; so in Minnesota, we have declared we don't want to know that this is happening anymore.

That is unbelievable. That is old-school, put your hands over your ears and scream ``la, la, la, la'' kind of stuff. That is not what we should do as a nation. We should actually know about it and then determine, through debate in this body, what we are going to do about it.

Madam President, I am getting close to a conclusion here. May I ask unanimous consent to be permitted to speak just 3 more minutes, until we can wrap this up, and then prior to the scheduled rollcall vote, for Senator Britt to have 1 minute just to be able to conclude.

Madam President, so here is the issue. We have brought this bill to the floor several times before. In fact, we have had some bipartisan support for this bill several times before. The bill is very, very simple. The bill says: When the doctor performs an abortion but the child is born alive, instead of actually born dead, that care would be provided to that child the same as any other child that is born.

Now, we are fully aware that many abortion clinics do not have a full hospital that is also attached to them. But we are also very aware that if there is a problem with the mom in an abortion clinic, they take her to a hospital. This is a simple statement to say: If a child is born alive, which we know 100 percent this has happened--even in States like Minnesota, that this is happening--what is America going to do with a fully delivered, crying baby on the table? Will they get healthcare or will they not get healthcare? That is all this bill does.

It doesn't reduce abortions, unfortunately. It doesn't do that. It doesn't change abortion processes across the country. It doesn't do that. It just says: When the abortion is unsuccessful and the child is actually delivered instead, we are going to get medical care to that child. That is what I bring in this, and it is absolutely, to me, the simplest of all possible statements to make.

So, Madam President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 204 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, if you were working for the sandwich shop Jimmy John's--I don't know if the Presiding Officer has ever had a Jimmy John's sandwich. It is a pretty good sandwich. If you were working for Jimmy John's sandwich shop in the middle of the last decade, around 2014, 2015, 2016, you might have been required to sign a contract with Jimmy John's to make sandwiches. Buried in that contract, as a fast food worker at Jimmy John's in 2014, 2015, 2016, was something called a noncompete clause.

A lot of Americans have heard of noncompete clauses. They think of them as applying to executives, individuals who make a lot of money, who possess really intricate, detailed information about a product. But Jimmy John's made everybody who came to work in many of their sandwich shops sign a noncompete agreement. The noncompete agreement for Jimmy John's sandwich makers said that if you ever left Jimmy John's, you would not be able to work at any business within 2 to 3 miles of any Jimmy John's for any company that made over 10 percent of its revenue from selling ``submarine, hero-type, deli-style, pita, and/or wrapped or rolled sandwiches'' for 2 years. Low-income, minimum-wage workers at Jimmy John's, if they tried to leave that job, were prohibited from going to work for Subway or going to work for D'Angelo's or maybe even, according to this definition, McDonald's or Burger King.

Of course, that sounds patently ridiculous. Why would you need to protect the intellectual secrets of sandwich making at Jimmy John's by applying noncompete agreements for these low-income workers? But this wasn't and isn't an anomaly. In fact, one out of six hospitality restaurant workers, by some studies, has a noncompete agreement. Today, noncompete agreements apply to one in five American workers. That is 30 million workers.

Amazon warehouse workers were required for a long time to sign noncompete agreements. I read a story the other day of a company called Camp Bow Wow that pays people to pet-sit. They required their pet sitters to sign noncompete agreements.

The reason that noncompete agreements are being used at industrial- level scale today is not to protect the trade secrets of sandwich making or pet sitting; it is to keep wages down. It is to prevent low- income workers from being able to go out and get a better job and thus pressure their existing employer to increase wages. This practice has become pervasive throughout our economy, and it is just a fundamental restraint on free trade.

Now, many of these noncompete agreements end up being nonenforceable. A lot of State laws don't allow you to have a noncompete agreement for a low-wage worker. But in practice, it doesn't really matter because when that individual tries to leave and they get told they can't because of a noncompete agreement, they don't know that it is nonenforceable in State law or if they do know, they don't have the resources to contest the cause in a court of law. So what do they do? They just end up staying.

The FTC filed a complaint in January of this year against two Michigan-based companies that required their security guards to sign noncompete agreements prohibiting them from working for a competing business within a 100-mile radius. Despite the fact that these security guards were making very low wages, the company's noncompete included a restriction that required the employee to pay a $100,000 penalty for any alleged violation of the clause. The intention here is simply to bind the employee to the company, to give them no ability to bargain for a higher wage because they might be able to get a better wage somewhere else. There is no proprietary information that those security guards possess.

What is equally interesting is that there is increasingly great data to show that there is actually no reason to have noncompete agreements even for higher income workers. The imposition of noncompete agreements on low-wage workers is primarily about just trying to restrain wages, but the imposition of noncompete agreements on higher income workers is about impeding innovation. It is about a company that doesn't want competitors, so they bind their executives to noncompete agreements such that their executives can't go work for a competing company or can't go out and start a company that may compete.

What is so maddening is that there are plenty of protections in our existing law that protect companies from intellectual property theft or patent theft. If what you worry about is your trade secrets being appropriated by a competitor, well, the law already protects you from that. You don't have to deny your employees or your executives the ability to go work for another company.

California rightly has the reputation as probably the world's center of innovation, right? More startups, more world-changing companies have come out of California than any other State and probably than any other part of the world. California was the first or one of the first in this country to ban noncompete agreements. California decided it didn't need noncompete agreements to protect intellectual property in a State that probably has a greater interest in protecting intellectual property than any other State. In fact, California's economic engine is dependent on their prohibition of noncompete agreements because by prohibiting noncompete agreements, California has a culture in which startups are encouraged, in which executives can leave one company and start another.

Eric Yuan was an executive at Cisco Webex. If he wasn't working in California, he might have had a noncompete agreement applied to him, but he didn't, and so he could leave and start a company that was arguably competing with Cisco Webex--a company called Zoom.

To many economists on the right and the left, this is becoming a no- brainer. Noncompete agreements are bad for wage growth. Noncompete agreements are bad for innovation. Noncompete agreements are bad for low-income workers. Noncompete agreements are bad for high-income workers.

So today I am on the floor to talk about what the data tells us about noncompete agreements as a means to encourage my colleagues to take a look at a piece of legislation that we are introducing today, the Workforce Mobility Act, a pretty simple piece of legislation that would ban the use of noncompete agreements for both high-income and low- income workers.

It is a bipartisan piece of legislation. Senator Todd Young, Senator Kevin Cramer, Senator Tim Kaine, and I are introducing this bill today. I don't know that there is another policy that the four of us can find common ground on, but we find common ground on this issue because maybe if you are a progressive, you come to this issue through the rights of workers and boosting their wages. If you are a conservative, you come to this issue through the restraint on free trade that exists through the perpetuation of noncompete agreements. But all across America, this is a pretty bipartisan issue, and here in the Senate, it is bipartisan as well.

I am glad that the FTC, just a week or so ago, announced that they were going to undertake a rule to ban noncompete agreements. I congratulate the Biden administration and the FTC for taking a leadership role. It may be that that rule, once it is adopted and in place, will do the work of this legislation, but we know that rules are only as good as the commitment of one particular administration.

So my hope and my recommendation is that no matter what the FTC does when it comes to restrictions on noncompete agreements, that we pass the Workforce Mobility Act so that we provide a guarantee in the law that noncompete agreements are not going to stand in the way of wages rising or small businesses starting.

There is a lot of public support out there as 92 percent of voters think that it is way too hard today to start or grow a new business and as 80 percent of voters--again, across party lines--support policies that allow people who want to start a new business more freedom by reducing the restrictions that come when you try to venture out on your own. Increasingly, one of the primary restrictions that exists for people who want to start a new business, who want to become entrepreneurs, are these noncompete agreements.

So I am coming to the floor today to recommend this bipartisan piece of legislation to my colleagues, to point to the States that have already adopted these restrictions, and to show how not only does the sky not fall when you get rid of noncompete agreements but that startups flourish and that wages increase.

Finally, I come to recommend to my colleagues that, in an environment where it is going to be a little harder to find agreement between Republicans and Democrats, this is a place where we can find that common ground. In one piece of policy, we can stick up for low-income workers and the free market. This is something that we can do together to help raise wages and to help power our economy.