A bill to repeal the authorizations for use of military force against Iraq.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, providing for the common defense is one of the core responsibilities of the Federal Government. It is, in fact, a primary reason why the Federal Government exists. In fact, the Constitution states:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this

Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each

of them against Invasion.

So how do we do that? How do we protect our Nation and ensure that Americans can live in peace and safety? The answer can be summed up in one word: ``strength.''

As Ronald Reagan said, ``We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are tempted.'' Or to put it in the words of another President, our first, speaking 200 years earlier, ``To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.'' That is from President George Washington.

We secure peace by maintaining our strength. So what does that mean in practice? At its most basic level, of course, it means maintaining a strong military and national intelligence apparatus. It means ensuring that our military is well-funded, sufficiently manned, and fully equipped to meet current and future threats. Unfortunately, we are not doing the best job at that right now.

We have military services that are struggling to meet recruiting targets. There is a persistent pilot shortage, and in a number of cases, we have too few mission-capable aircraft. Under the President's budget, Navy ships would be retired faster than we can replace them in our limited shipyards. War-gaming analysis suggests we would run out of certain long-range and precision munitions in conflicts with a great power much sooner than any American should be comfortable with. On top of that, last month, the spectacle of a Chinese spy balloon flying over U.S. military bases made it clear that there has been an alarming gap in NORAD's--the North American Aerospace Defense Command--monitoring of U.S. airspace.

Our current situation isn't being helped by the fact that the President is deemphasizing investment in our military. The budget he just introduced for next year requests a massive hike in nondefense spending compared to a mere 3.2-percent increase for defense.

In fact, the supposed increase in defense spending isn't really an increase at all. The increase the President is proposing fails to keep pace with current levels of inflation, which means that his defense spending hike is really a defense spending cut--and not for the first time.

In November of 2018, the bipartisan National Defense Strategy Commission released a report warning that our readiness had eroded to the point where we might struggle to win a war against a major power like Russia or China. The Commission noted that we would be especially vulnerable if we were ever called on to fight a war on two fronts.

We have made some progress since then, but we are definitely not there yet. We have to make continued investment in our military and our readiness a priority. We need to be prepared to meet any threat because that will allow us to deter almost any threat.

Reducing investment in our military--as the President has proposed-- would leave us in a situation where we could have difficulty defending our Nation or our Nation's interests if attacked.

It is worth noting, too, that while the President deemphasizes funding for our military, hostile powers are not doing the same.

China recently announced that it is increasing its defense budget by 7.2 percent this year, after increasing it 7.1 percent last year.

We need to continue to reinvest in our military, address recruitment challenges, and ensure that our men and women in uniform--and our intelligence personnel--have what they need to meet and deter the threats of the 21st century.

The most basic requirement of national strength is a strong military. And that isn't the only requirement. Investment in our military and national security apparatus needs to be accompanied by commitments to border security, energy security, and more. Border security--and here, I am talking not just about physical security at our borders but also enforcement of our immigration laws--is an essential part of keeping our Nation secure.

Porous borders--or lax immigration enforcement that allows things like visa overstays--are an invitation to criminals, terrorists, and others who would seek to harm our country.

The fact that 16 individuals on the terror watch list were apprehended attempting to cross our southern border illegally in February alone should be all the reminder we need that people who do not wish us well are seeking to enter our country.

And we need to ensure that we are enforcing our immigration laws and maintaining our borders to stop them.

I also referenced energy security as a component of national strength and security.

What does energy security mean? It means developing our domestic energy resources--both conventional and renewable--to ensure a stable and reliable supply of energy that does not depend on imports from hostile countries.

The energy challenges and soaring costs countries like Germany have faced over the past year owing to their heavy reliance on Russian energy are a timely reminder of the importance of developing domestic energy supplies.

Depending on imports from hostile nations or unstable regions not only enriches those nations, it places us in a position of vulnerability.

So far, I have talked about what we should be doing domestically to build the kind of strength that will protect our Nation and deter aggressors. But security is not just a matter of working at home to strengthen our military and secure our borders. We also need to engage globally--to build relationships with allies, support free nations, and stand against hostile actions by hostile countries.

Now, standing against hostile actions or hostile nations doesn't mean fixing every country's problems or getting militarily involved in every conflict around the globe. We are not--and cannot be--police officer to the world.

But an isolationism that would recede from any world event unless it directly and immediately affects us is dangerous and contrary to our national security interests because sooner or

later, world events--particularly those that involve powerful and hostile nations--do affect us.

We ignore the importance of security challenges, like Ukraine, at our peril. Putin is already making it clear his ambitions don't end with Ukraine. He is also occupying territory in Georgia and, seemingly, working on asserting Russian influence in Moldova and the Balkans.

A Putin victorious in Ukraine would be on the doorstep of four former Soviet satellite states--now NATO members whom we are bound by treaty to protect--and he would likely be emboldened. War could spread, which would compound the existing humanitarian catastrophe cost, cost U.S. lives, and spell economic disaster not only for European countries but for the United States, which trades heavily with Europe.

For the sake of our own security, we cannot afford to sit by and ignore the Ukrainian conflict. Helping Ukraine fight its fight degrades Russia's capability and helps ensure that the United States and NATO troops won't have to fight a war with Russia. And it sends a clear message to Russia and other nations with imperial ambitions that aggression will not go unanswered away.

I would also note that along with isolationism, we need to be wary of the tendency to focus on one global threat to the exclusion of others. China, which is flexing its military and economic power and threatening the safety of Taiwan, should rightly be a major focus right now.

But it cannot be the only one. For those who, for example, contend that U.S. support for Ukraine is a distraction from the threat that China represents, I would argue that the outcome in Ukraine and upholding Ukraine's sovereignty has significant implications for China and Taiwan.

It appears Japanese Prime Minister Kishida would agree, as he traveled to Kyiv 1 week ago--a trip not undertaken lightly given that Japan is neighbors with Russia, China, and North Korea.

We know that Chinese leader Xi Jingping is watching the West's response to the war in Ukraine closely. And our support--and NATO's support--of Ukraine can send a powerful message to General Secretary Xi that he should think twice before making any move across the Taiwan Strait.

In addition to confronting the dangers posed by great powers, we also need to continue to maintain focus on threats in the Middle East and Africa, including ISIS and Iran and their proxies.

In the past week, there have been multiple strikes on American forces in Syria, with attacks tracing back to Iran-backed militia groups. And we need to continue to make it clear that hostile action against Americans--like last week's attacks--will not be tolerated.

Iran is fomenting unrest in the Middle East, moving closer to enriching weapons-grade uranium, and sending drones to Russia to support its war on Ukraine. Meanwhile, it is looking likely that Russia will supply Iran with modern fighter jets, making Iran an even more deadly presence in the Middle East.

We cannot afford to ignore Iran any more than we can ignore China, Russia, or any other serious threat to peace and stability. We need to remain engaged on the global stage--always pursuing peace but always ready to respond to those who would jeopardize it.

Above all, we can't be afraid to call evil by its name. Ronald Reagan never declared war on the Soviet Union. But he helped bring down the Evil Empire, in part, by not being afraid to speak with moral clarity.

There will always be threats to peace and security. And it must be our job to ensure that the United States always has the strength to meet them. There is no surer way of preserving the peace or protecting the heritage of freedom that we have been given.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell).

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

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss Phil Washington, President Biden's nominee to serve as the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, the top job at the FAA.

The FAA has been in the news far too often lately, from the software meltdown of a critical safety system in January that resulted in the first U.S. ground stop of aircraft since September 11 to recent, numerous near-misses of airliners on runways. These incidents are a stark reminder of why it is essential to have an FAA Administrator with decades of deep and real aviation experience, especially experience in aviation safety. After all, the FAA's primary mission is to keep the flying public safe.

This mission is so important that Congress has explicitly mandated, by statute, that the FAA Administrator must ``have experience in a field directly related to aviation.'' This is not a patronage job; this is an aviation safety job. And it is, frankly, irresponsible to entrust the role of protecting the lives of millions of Americans who fly in the hands of a person who needs on-the-job training. Unfortunately, that is exactly what we have with President Biden's FAA nominee, Phil Washington.

I am deeply disappointed that the Biden White House decided to treat a critical safety position as a political spoil system, to reward a political ally rather than to ensure an experienced safety professional to keep us all safe. And as a result of the Biden White House playing politics with this critically important position, the FAA has lacked a Senate-confirmed leader for a year now.

Phil Washington is objectively, indisputably unqualified to lead the FAA. For two decades, he worked at mass transit agencies, where he was in charge of buses and trains, not planes. That experience might qualify him to serve at the Federal Transit Administration or on the board of Amtrak. Those would be reasonable nominations given Mr. Washington's experience. But buses and trains have nothing to do with airplanes.

The indisputable fact is that Mr. Washington has zero aviation experience and, in particular, zero aviation safety experience. Mr. Washington has never flown an airplane. He has never been a military pilot. He has never been a commercial airline pilot. He has never worked at an airline. He has never worked at an airline manufacturer. He has never served as an air traffic controller. He has never worked for a company that repairs airplanes.

The only aviation experience that Mr. Washington has is limited, for the last 20 months, to working at the Denver airport as the CEO. However, in that job, his primary responsibility is the physical plant there. It is the airport's shopping. It is its dining. It is its parking. It is its buildings. He doesn't have responsibility for aviation and aviation safety. In particular, as Mr. Washington admitted at his confirmation hearing, the pilots don't work for him, the mechanics don't work for him, and the air traffic controllers don't work for him. His job is not in aviation safety.

Aviation is a field involving highly technical issues. To understand these issues, to lead the FAA, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration needs to have extensive knowledge, experience, and expertise in aviation. This shouldn't be a controversial statement, and, historically, the head of the FAA has had decades of real, serious experience in aviation safety.

The FAA Administrator is supposed to be a nonpartisan position for an aviation expert. I don't want a Democrat FAA Administrator or a Republican FAA Administrator. I want someone who has some idea how to keep the damn planes in the sky. That is why the term of office is 5 years for this position--because it is not a position that is suitable to partisan patronage, but rather you need nonpartisan experts.

FAA Administrators typically stay on the job even when the White House changes hands. This is a job for someone with specialized knowledge needed to ensure the safety of the flying public.

I will readily admit, I am wildly unqualified to be FAA Administrator. No one in their right mind would put me in charge of this Agency because I don't have any idea how to fly a plane. I certainly don't know what needs to be done to ensure that they are flying safely. The sad thing is, Mr. Washington doesn't know any more than I do when it comes to this critical, specialized role.

Mr. Washington's nomination hearing confirmed what is abundantly clear in his resume: that he lacks any aviation experience. At his hearing, he was unable to answer basic aviation questions, including safety questions about aircraft certification, about pilot licensing, about airports.

I asked Mr. Washington about what caused the two tragic accidents with the 737 MAX. He was forced to answer to say he didn't know. Sadly, I believe him. But that is an enormous problem, given that 346 souls were lost in those two horrific crashes. An FAA Administrator who doesn't know what happened is not qualified to do the job.

One of the newest members of the committee, Senator Ted Budd, is a pilot. I would commend the Presiding Officer, I would commend anyone, go watch Senator Budd's questioning of Phil Washington. Senator Budd asked him basic questions a pilot should know, basic questions such as how close airplanes are allowed to get on runways. I will be honest. I have no idea. I am not a pilot; I am not an air traffic controller; and I am not running the FAA. But it is pretty stunning that the person nominated to run the FAA has no idea either. That person should know how to do his job.

And I will point out it wasn't just Republicans who raised these questions. At the confirmation hearing, multiple Democrats raised serious questions about Mr. Washington's lack of qualifications to lead the FAA.

As a result, State and local aviation groups from all across the country, including pilot groups from Arizona, from Montana, from New Mexico, from Minnesota, from New Hampshire--all are opposed to this nomination. One of them, the Montana Pilots Association, has said that Mr. Washington is ``singularly unqualified to serve as FAA administrator.''

And, unfortunately, the problems with Mr. Washington's nomination don't end with his lack of aviation experience. There are also serious concerns regarding outstanding allegations that Mr. Washington engaged in misconduct during his time as the head of the Los Angeles Metro. He has been named in multiple search warrants in an ongoing criminal public corruption investigation, and he has been the subject of multiple whistleblower complaints.

One search warrant was executed just last September, not very long ago. It contained allegations that Mr. Washington pushed forward lucrative no-bid contracts to a politically connected nonprofit to run a sexual harassment hotline that was hardly ever used and that he did so in order to stay in the good graces of a powerful politician on L.A. Metro's board.

The allegations are the kind of local corruption, sadly, we see far too often across this country in both parties. But a whistleblower who exposed the details of this alleged pay-to-play contracting scheme claims to have been retaliated against by Mr. Washington. After Mr. Washington left the L.A. Metro, the agency settled these claims with the whistleblower for $625,000. I practiced law for a long time. You did as well. A $625,000 check is not a nuisance check. It is not a go- away check. It is indicative that there is real there, there. Whistleblowers don't get settlements for more than a half million dollars if their claim is baseless.

During my 11 years in the Senate, I have seen lots of nominees. I cannot recall seeing even a single other nominee who was currently entangled in an ongoing public corruption criminal investigation while his nomination was pending.

The week before his confirmation hearing, my staff contacted the California attorney general's office about the status of this investigation. Despite Mr. Washington's insistence that he has done nothing wrong, the attorney general's office stated, No. 1, that there is an ongoing criminal investigation into this public corruption scheme; No. 2, that Mr. Washington has a ``material involvement in the case''; and, No. 3, that the investigation is months from being completed.

It is important to note that the law enforcement officers involved in this investigation--from the L.A. County sheriff to the California attorney general--are all Democrats. There is no issue of partisan targeting. There is no Republican who has it out for Phil Washington. This is a Democrat sheriff and a Democrat attorney general in California who are investigating Mr. Washington right now for public corruption.

Even more amazingly, when my staff spoke with the California attorney general's office, the AG's office told us that at the time they spoke, they were not aware of anybody from the White House, from the FBI, or from the Senate who had even contacted them to ask about Mr. Washington's ongoing involvement in the investigation.

That is truly stunning. That is, frankly, just not caring. It is inexplicable to me that a President, that a White House, would choose to nominate someone who is materially involved in a current ongoing public corruption investigation. Just imagine how damaging it would be to the FAA if Mr. Washington were confirmed and then months later he were to find himself indicted for public corruption. That would do real damage to an Agency that needs serious trust and leadership.

The FAA's mission to keep the flying public safe is far too important to have anyone other than a highly experienced aviation expert at the helm.

Fortunately, the FAA right now is being run by Acting Administrator Billy Nolen, who unlike Mr. Washington has decades of aviation experience. Mr. Nolen has worked as a pilot; he is a seasoned aviation safety executive; and he has been in senior leadership roles at the

Mr. President, the events this week in Nashville, TN, are still fresh in our minds. The thought that a shooter went on the campus of a Christian school, a school for children--little children--this person who went on that campus blasted her way into the building and then took the lives of three 9-year-old children and three adults, who were the principal and staff at the school.

It is heartbreaking to think that we are reliving the scene over and over again, where our children who are sent by their loving parents off to school, lunches in hand, never came home--never came home.

We don't know all the details yet of the shooter or the weaponry which she owned at the time or used in the event, but we do know that there were weapons that we are very familiar with. One, of course, is the AR-15, the military-style assault weapon that has, sadly, become so popular in America.

This morning's Washington Post had an editorial which touched me personally and I wanted to share this morning on the floor. I will quote from it. The editorial board wrote:

These attacks are always heart-wrenching. But they're not

surprising anymore--neither the massacres themselves nor the

weapons used to carry them out. Ten of the 17 deadliest mass

killings in the United States since 2012 involved AR-15s. The

names of the towns and cities where these tragedies took

place have become familiar: Newtown, San Bernardino, Las

Vegas, Parkland, Uvalde and beyond.

The Washington Post spells out the specific cities each year where these mass shootings took place with AR-15s and the number of people who were killed. I am going to read the names of these communities into the Record, as they should be:

Las Vegas, NV, 2017. An AR-15 weapon was used. Sixty people were killed.

Orlando--Pulse--FL, 2016. An MCX rifle. Forty-nine people killed.

Newtown, CT, Sandy Hook Elementary School, 2012. The shooter had an AR-15. The shooter killed 27 people, including those beautiful little children.

Sutherland Springs, TX, 2017. Another AR-15. Twenty-five people killed, including a pregnant woman.

Uvalde, TX, 2022. Another AR-15 military assault rifle. Twenty-one people killed.

Parkland, FL, 2018. Another AR-15, killing 17 people.

San Bernardino, CA, 2015. An AR-15 there killed 14 people.

Aurora, CO, 2012. Another AR-15 killed 12.

Pittsburgh, 2018. An AR-15 killed 11.

Boulder, CO, 2021. An AR-15 killed 10.

Buffalo, NY, 2022. An AR-15 killed 10.

They cut the list off at 10 deaths in a mass shooting involving these military-style assault weapons, so they didn't include Highland Park, IL, but I want to make a record of that.

Fourth of July 2022. An AR-15-style weapon. Seven killed and dozens wounded, including an 8-year-old boy who will be paralyzed for life.

These are the realities of the AR-15 as it is being used. It was designed to do just this: kill massive numbers of people, of human beings.

One in twenty U.S. adults owns at least one AR-15. Think of that. One out of every twenty Americans owns at least one AR-15. That is roughly 16 million people storing roughly 20 million guns designed to mow down enemies on the battlefield with brutal efficiency. That is the reality the Washington Post reports.

The rise in production of the AR-15 is stunning. AR-15s accounted for 1.2 percent of all manufactured guns in 1990--1.2 percent--and 23.4 percent of the guns produced in America in 2020. Thirty years later, almost one out of every four guns produced in the United States is an AR-15 military-style assault rifle.

The AR-15 is materially different than traditional handguns. The rifle fires very small bullets at very fast speeds. The projectiles don't move straight and smooth through human targets like those of a traditional handgun--our image of a bullet hole in a movie. Their velocity turns them unstable upon penetration so that they tumble through flesh and vital organs.

Mr. President, I thought long and hard about reading the next two or three sentences of the Washington Post editorial on the floor of the Senate. I am not going to read them because they spell out in a few words but in graphic detail what happens to the body of a child when it is struck by one of these military-style assault weapons. I can't bring myself to think that one of those parents might be listening to this Senate proceeding and have to relive the horror of the moment. But suffice it to say, what happens is devastating and horrible to any human body but certainly to the body of a small child.

Mr. President, think of Sutherland Springs, where the shooter, armed with the AR-556 Ruger, fired off 450 military-grade bullets within minutes, killing 25 people, including a pregnant woman.

Think of Dayton, where the gunman needed only 32 seconds to hit more than two dozen people with 41 bullets. That is because he was equipped with a 100-round drum magazine. Even a 30-round magazine, which is now the industry standard today, would have forced him to reload at least once. A 15-round magazine would have forced him to reload twice. The Washington Post's analysis of the time that would have taken reveals that lives could have been saved, potentially six of the nine who were killed, because of the high-capacity magazine that was attached to the gun.

There should be a ban on these high-capacity magazines. It is hard to imagine that you can listen to these numbers and the devastation of these weapons and imagine someone rationalizing that when our Founding Fathers sat down so long ago to write the Second Amendment, they envisioned what we are facing today in Nashville, TN, and in Highland Park, IL, and in 131 different instances of mass shootings so far this year. And less than 90 days have passed in this calendar year--over 131 mass shootings. And as I go through the list here of those involving AR-15s, the numbers of casualties and deaths are astounding.

This should be shameful to this great Nation, to think that the United States of America accepts this as part of our constitutional right, our constitutional responsibility, to own a mass killing weapon like the AR-15; that virtually one out of four of all guns manufactured in this country today are AR-15 weapons. Are we out of our minds to let this happen, to let children in Nashville, children in Connecticut, children be victimized or anyone be victimized by these at a Fourth of July parade or wherever it happens to be?

I listened to my colleagues yesterday. One of them brought this up in the Senate Judiciary Committee, challenging Secretary Mayorkas of the Department of Homeland Security as to whether he supported an assault weapon ban. He said he did. I do too.

The Senator then said to him: Well, define an assault weapon for me.

Well, it is an interesting challenge. We did define it when we banned assault weapons for a period of time and saw the number of mass shootings decline dramatically in our country. But, of course, the producers of these weapons changed them just enough to be outside the definition. So there is no question that we are dealing with a moving definition, and we have to be open to the reality of it. But is this beyond us as a nation, to define a weapon in a way that we can legitimately regulate it?

Who should own an AR-15? I obviously would say the military. That is what they were designed for. Police, in extraordinary situations, might need them--I can see that--some specialized law enforcement agencies. But why in the world does an individual American need an AR-15, particularly with a high-capacity magazine? It isn't for hunting; that is for certain. It is hardly for self-defense. It can't be much for sport. What is the rationale behind this?

Then you look at the Supreme Court and the recent Bruen decision. You wonder, What are they thinking? What is going through the mind of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as he is arguing that somehow the AR-15 military assault weapon that is killing so many Americans and groups was envisioned by the Founding Fathers when they wrote the Second Amendment? They were dealing with powdered wigs and flintlock rifles. They certainly had no idea what a high-capacity magazine can do to a large group of people, as we have seen so many times over and over.

Well, what are we going to do about it? is the obvious question. Senator, nice speech. What is next? Well, I will tell you what is next. The American people are next. If they are fed up with the situation, as I am--and I know many are--they have to make it a condition when they come to vote for Members of Congress.

Currently, the House of Representatives is under the control of the Republican Party. The likelihood that they will consider any gun safety legislation is minimal. We now have a scant majority in the Senate but not enough to break a filibuster over an issue. So we have limited opportunities.

What it takes is a decision by the American people to put an end to this madness. The people they elect to the House and Senate--there have to be simple questions asked for people to understand where they are going to stand when issues of gun safety come before them.

I will just tell you, Mr. President, that as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am sorry we don't have the votes now to act. We need to do it--not just for the great people of this Nation but also for their children and grandchildren.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, on the AUMF, negotiations to reach a deal on AUMF passage continue here in the Senate. We had a number of votes yesterday evening on Republican amendments, and I expect we are going to see a few more later today.

Senate passage of the AUMF is now a matter of when, not if, and today we are going to continue working to make sure it happens as soon as we can. Americans want to see an end to endless Middle East wars. Passing this AUMF is a necessary step to putting these bitter conflicts squarely behind us.

I thank my colleagues for their work. I look forward to this bill's passage very soon. We are allowing amendments, but we shouldn't just be dilatory. We should move forward.

Extremism

At the start of this Congress, I urged Republicans in both the Senate and the House to rid themselves of MAGA extremism and work with Democrats for the good of the country and even for the good of their own party. We believe MAGA Republicanism hurts their party, because so many Americans on both sides of the aisle reject it.

Well, over 3 months later, Republicans have failed in so many ways to abandon MAGA extremism. If anything, they have doubled down and embraced it even more tightly--again, to the detriment of their country and to the detriment of their party.

If you just want to know how extreme the GOP has become in the majority, look no further than what is happening on the House floor today and tomorrow. As early as this afternoon, House Republicans will try resurrecting their doomed attempt to protect retirement investors from considering governance ESG factors when making investment decisions.

Republicans talk a lot about their love of free markets and letting the private sector do its work, but their obsession--obsession--with eliminating ESG would do the opposite. By turning ``ESG'' into a dirty new little acronym, Republicans are trying to force their own views down the throats of every company and every investor.

President Biden has already vetoed this nakedly partisan measure, and it is clear the votes do not exist to override this veto in the House. It won't even come close.

So it is bad enough that House Republicans are wasting time on show votes, but it is even more astonishing that this show vote, of all things, is designed to restrict the private sector on purely ideological grounds. It is a sad sign of how radicalized and divisive the GOP has become over the past few years.

But that is not all. Today's potential vote on the ESG override is the appetizer. Tomorrow's main course is even more horrifying.

As we speak, House Republicans are considering a sweeping piece of legislation that would nationalize school policy, endanger billions in nutrition funding, and accelerate the trend of book bans across the Nation. The House Republicans' school control bill is Orwellian to the core, and it will not see the light of day here in the Senate. If passed, schools across the Nation would be forced to adhere to a panoply of Federal regulations that take power away from parents and school districts.

Again, let me repeat that. It would take power away from parents and school districts, away from educators, and put it in the hands of elected politicians. Again, the GOP that treasured small government and local control is long since gone, replaced once again by hard-right MAGA ideologues.

The bill could be devastating to our communities. According to one report from CBO, schools that fail to comply with these MAGA mandates would be excluded from Child Nutrition Programs, impacting over 9 million kids who rely on schools for their meals.

That is it. Punish the poor kids. Make sure they don't have a meal if the school board doesn't comply with these extreme provisions.

The GOP would also expose school districts to even greater risks of book banning, censorship, and intimidation. Last year alone, there were over 2,500 book bans across the country on titles that oftentimes aren't remotely offensive but would still draw the ire of the hard right.

One school librarian in Pennsylvania--listen to this; it is crushing--was reportedly forced to remove a poster quoting Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel for violating district policy--Elie Wiesel, violating district policy.

What was the quote in question?

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human

beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take

sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

That was removed.

What is going on here with the extreme right? They are just losing it. There is something deeply malicious going on within the hard right when even the quotes of Holocaust survivors are seen as too ``woke'' or ``offensive.''

Again, rather than abandon the MAGA hard right, the Republican Party as a whole seems to be doubling down.

Legislation like the GOP's radical school control bill would only make matters worse, and I will assure the American people and school children that if this bill is passed, it will meet a dead end when it comes to the Senate.

Budget

Mr. President, finally, on the budget, in the aftermath of major bank collapses, House Republicans have spent this week not calling for calm but sowing chaos. Chaos seems to be their calling card.

Earlier this week, House GOP Members, including the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said now is ``the best time'' to double down on debt ceiling brinkmanship and hostage-taking.

They suggest, absurdly, that Democrats and Democratic policies are somehow to blame for what went wrong with Silicon Valley Bank, and they are trying to link the bank's collapse with the debt ceiling debate.

This is a stupendously bad idea. This is an idea that has no logic. It has no linear thinking in it at all. It is just throwing things together, throwing spaghetti on the wall. Threatening the full faith and credit of the United States is never appropriate, but, at a time when markets require stability, it is supremely reckless.

Republicans should remember that poor management and deregulation under President Trump made these bank collapses possible. It wasn't Democratic policies.

And I would remind my Republican colleagues of this very important and telling fact: Inflation and interest rates are impacting institutions everywhere, but the vast majority of banks that have been properly managed are not in crisis.

So the Republican convoluted argument falls very, very flat. If this environment is so bad for the banks, why aren't all banks affected? No, it is the few that are mismanaged. It is the few that were not regulated properly by the regulators.

So to link the collapses with the debt ceiling--to suggest that these incidents should justify even more brinkmanship and hostage-taking--is stunningly reckless.

Instead of trying to promote financial catastrophe, Republican leaders should stop hiding from the American people, stop coming up with diversions and subterfuges, and finally show us your plan.

Today is March 23. It has been long enough.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Durbin), the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Durbin), the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

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

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call for the cloture motion filed today, March 23, be waived.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that if cloture is invoked on S. 316 on Monday March 27, it be in order to consider the following amendments: Sullivan, No. 33; R. Scott, No. 13; Ricketts, No. 30; Cruz, No. 9; Hawley, No. 40; and Johnson, No. 11; that, if offered, the Senate vote in relation to the amendments at a time to be determined by the majority leader following consultation with the Republican leader on Tuesday, March 28, and that 60 affirmative votes be required for the adoption of these amendments, without intervening action or debate.

So, Mr. President, before I finish the rest of the business, I just want to explain to everyone what happened.

A few moments ago, we entered into an agreement that puts the Senate on a path to repeal the Iraq AUMFs by early next week. By filing cloture today, we set up a vote for this coming Monday. If cloture is invoked, we will hold votes on additional amendments before final passage.

This has been a good process here on the floor. I was asked by several of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to have a reasonable amendment process and then we could move the bill forward. I think we did, on a vote that got 70 Republican votes--or 70 total votes, or close to 70, on cloture last week. We have 11 amendments, and I think just about every Republican amendment that was asked for as of today was accommodated.

So this is a good thing, and I hope it can be a model for the future. We in the majority will allow amendments. Sometimes those votes are tough to take, but at the same time, the minority will not just be dilatory and allow us to move forward. That is what happened this week on AUMF, and I hope it portends good things to come as we work together to make this country an even better country.

Now back to other business.

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

Madam President, so I don't know where we are headed in terms of votes tonight, but let me tell you where we are headed in terms of the bill before the Senate.

I understand Saddam is gone and the authorization to use military force directed at him in 2002--it makes sense to me, quite frankly, believe it or not, to revisit that, but what we need to make sure we do is not leave our troops exposed that are in the fight today. This is 2023.

So Senator Schumer keeps talking about Bush lied, people died. Here is what I would say to my Democratic colleagues and my Republican colleagues: In the last 2 years, we have, I think, a little over 2,000 American forces in Iraq, there to make sure ISIS doesn't come back, keep the place stable. After Obama pulled out of Iraq, the JV team became the varsity. ISIS basically took over most of Syria, destroyed Mosul, wiped out the Yazidi Community, raped, murdered, and pillaged, and we finally regained control of Iraq. We put troops back in--they should never have been taken out--and we need those troops to stay in Iraq, make sure ISIS doesn't come back.

When they had a foothold in Raqqa, Syria, as well as Iraq, ISIS directed attacks at the United States and our allies in Europe, and all hell broke loose.

So what I would want the body to understand--in 2023, Americans are serving in Iraq, and we owe it to them to

make sure that we can use whatever military force necessary to protect them against Shiite militias operating in Iraq at the direction of Iran.

Fifty-six attacks against American forces in the last 2 years under President Biden. They are trying to drive us out of Iraq. The Shiite militias are operating all over the country. I appreciate the partnership we have with the Government of Iraq, but we don't have a status of forces agreement.

So I have an amendment that is very simple. It would replace the 2002 AUMF with the following: An authorization to use military force to protect Americans stationed in Iraq against attacks by Shiite militias in Iraq. That is an ongoing problem. Let's not expose our troops to being attacked. Let's don't continue the narrative that we are pulling out of the Middle East, because you do so at your own peril.

After the debacle in Afghanistan, everybody is wondering about America's resolve. So to all the people who talk about repealing the 2002 AUMF because Saddam is gone, I actually understand that to a point, but what I hope you will understand is that the way you have written this, the people in Iraq today, the Americans serving, we don't have their backs, and we owe it to them to have their backs.

We need to let the Iranian militias know, and others: If you attack Americans in Iraq, we are coming after you.

And to those who say the AUMF needs to be repealed because it confers too much power on a President, we need to take that authority back as Congress, well, then, here is what I would say to you: Do we owe it to those serving in Iraq to provide authority from Congress that we will have your back if you are attacked by Shiite militias that are operating in Iraq?

This is about Iraq. It is not about Iran.

And I can't believe this body would not support an authorization to use military force to protect Americans stationed in Iraq who have been attacked over 56 times in the last 2 years by Shiite militias operating in Iraq.

If we do that, shame on us.

And to those who say: Well, the President has article II authority, he can do this on his own--you can't have it both ways. Is the goal to pull back power from the President, or is the goal to say the President has whatever power he needs in Iraq?

What I want to do is be crystal clear. If the 2002 AUMF is repealed, we have a hole in our defense. We do not have congressional response or statement about what to do to protect over 2,000 Americans serving in Iraq who have been attacked 56 times.

I have got a solution to that problem. If you repeal the 2002 AUMF, let's replace it with one tailored to the situation involving American forces being attacked by Shiite militias in Iraq, to be unequivocal to the Shiite militias and others: You attack Americans at your own peril.

If we do not do that, you have tremendously exposed our troops. In your effort to wind down one war, you have created a threat to those who are fighting the war we are in now.

And if you think al-Qaida has been defeated, you think they are not a threat to us and our partners in the Middle East, in Europe, you are really not following the news.

General Kurilla, the CENTCOM commander, said last week that ISIS-K, the ISIS organization in Afghanistan, has regenerated to the point, within the next 6 months, they would have the ability to attack the United States without warning.

And there are some amendments here to basically do away with the 2001 AUMF that dealt with the attack on our Nation.

So whatever political point you are trying to make about repealing the 2002 AUMF, here is what I want you to understand: The way you are doing it is putting American lives at risk in Iraq.

If you can't muster the courage--the Congress can't--to say to Shiite militias: You attack our troops at your own peril, we have let those serving down. And I am very, very intent, using my voice in the Senate, to say that those who are in Iraq that have been attacked continuously by Shiite militias, I recognize the threat you face, and I am willing to do something about it.

Not to pass this amendment exposes those in theater, in Iraq, to continual attack. It will embolden the Shiite militia because they think we pulled the plug on the place. It will continue a narrative that America is in retreat in the war on terrorism. It will make every problem in Afghanistan worse. And we have a chance to do something about it. Please take that opportunity.

If we pass this amendment, we can at least say the following: To those in Iraq, we did not abandon you; we did not forget about you. We said clearly as a Congress that we have your back, and we made an unequivocal statement to the Shiite militias that are roaming around in Iraq: You attack our people, we are coming after you.

And if we don't do that, we are sending a terrible message to our enemies and we are letting those who are serving in Iraq down.

Iraq is moving toward democracy slowly but surely, inefficient, ugly at times. But 20 years later, there have been elections in Iraq; we have a government working with us that is surrounded in a very dangerous neighborhood.

So to those who are wanting to repeal this AUMF, you have ignored a major threat. You are creating a problem to troops in the field. I am here to point it out to you, and I would love to work in a bipartisan fashion to make sure that those who are left in Iraq, that are serving there to make sure ISIS doesn't come back and to protect our interests in Iraq, that they will have the voice of Congress behind them. There will be an authorization to use military force to protect them against Shiite militias, and it is very specific, in Iraq, who have had a pattern of attacking our troops. And if we don't do this, we are sending the worst possible signal to our enemies. We are letting our troops down. And if there are further attacks, I told you so, because I know it is coming.

Let's live in the real world. Al-Qaida is not defeated. ISIS is not defeated. They have been dealt a punishing blow in certain places, but if we take our eye off the ball, they are coming back here; and the easiest targets of all are those Americans in Syria and Iraq who are on the frontlines--a virtual wall between us and radical Islam that would kill us all if they could. I think we owe it to those that we send to Iraq--and the administration is right to keep them there. You are right to keep that residual force in Iraq as an insurance policy against the rise of ISIS, but you are wrong not having your voice lent to the cause that an authorization to use military force against Shiite militias-- that needs to be the law of the land. We owe it to those in Iraq. It is not a hypothetical problem--56 attacks in the last 2 years. And if we pull the plug on the AUMF in Iraq without dealing with the Shiite militia threat, we will send a horrible signal at the worst possible time.

So I urge a ``yes'' vote for this amendment to replace the 2002 AUMF with a specific authorization to use military force against Shiite militias that are attacking Americans continuously in the last 2 years, to protect those that are on the frontlines of this fight. I urge a ``yes'' vote.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I would like to call up my amendment No. 14, and I ask that it be reported by number.

Colleagues, this is, to me, very important; I hope to you.

There have been 56 attacks against soldiers stationed in Iraq--about 2,000--by Shiite militias in Iraq. I can understand repealing the AUMF because Saddam is dead, but those in Iraq--American soldiers--are being attacked routinely by Shiite militias in Iraq.

I am asking the Congress to tell the Shiite militias: You come after our troops, we are coming after you.

Article II power exists nebulously. The strongest we can be as a nation is when the Congress and the President speak with a single voice. Speak with this voice to those who will kill Americans in Iraq: Shiite militias, we are coming after you.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. President, I wanted to be able to come back to the floor to talk about the SOIL Act. The SOIL Act is a bill that I introduced last year that deals with Chinese ownership of land in the United States.

Since I have introduced this bill, several of my colleagues here in this room have also introduced other bills that are similar to it. Good. That means people are paying attention to this and the conversation is starting. I am all for as many ideas as we can get out here on how to be able to solve this because the most basic principle that we have right now is, if we miss an obvious trend that is happening here, it is to our economic peril.

This chart has just a very simple number on it. In 2020, Chinese entities owned almost 200,000 acres of land in the United States. One year later, they are at almost 400,000 acres in the United States--in 1 year. This is from 2020 to 2021. This trend is happening all over the country, and we are certainly seeing it in my State of Oklahoma.

When I travel around my State, I hear people talk about the border; I hear people talk about the economy; and I often will hear people say: Hey, there is a lot of foreign ownership going into land right now in Oklahoma, and it is dramatically affecting the price of real estate, the price of agricultural land but also what is happening on that land.

Now, my State may be a little bit different than some others or it may be that the same thing is happening in your State.

About half a decade ago, my State did medical marijuana legalization. It was a decision of the voters of my State to be able to say they want to get access to medical marijuana for those who need it. The problem is that Chinese entities and Chinese criminal organizations and Mexican cartels immediately flooded the market in our State, and we have seen a rapid rise in marijuana in our State, much of it done in the illegal market. It is not just happening for the ``medical'' side in our State; it is being distributed all over the country from my State.

Just a few months ago, I was looking on different worldwide news sources and was shocked to see in the BBC News headlines for that day a story about my State on the global news headlines about a group of Chinese nationals who were shot execution-style in a grow operation in Oklahoma. The individual who executed them was on the run and then was arrested in Florida a couple of days later. He was also a Chinese national.

Chinese criminal organizations have moved into my State in mass numbers. The year after marijuana was legalized in my State for ``medical'' purposes, we had more land sales to foreign entities in Oklahoma than any other State in America as Chinese criminal organizations and Mexican cartels immediately moved in to be able to set up shop in distribution nationwide.

Many people said they didn't think it was legal for foreign entities to be able to own land in the United States. Well, there is a gap, actually, in our law. It is an issue that I want us to be able to deal with on how we are going to challenge this issue.

Let me give you just another perspective beyond just the Chinese side of things--another perspective on this. Ten years ago, 321,000 acres in Oklahoma were owned by a foreign entity--10 years ago. Today, it is 1.67 million acres in my State are owned by a foreign entity--from 321,000 to 1.67 million acres. There is a rapid transition that is happening. Foreign entities are rapidly buying up land. I will tell you, if you are a farmer and rancher, they would say, you know, there are some things God is just not making more of, and one of them is land. You can't just give that up.

This is a problem. It is a problem nationally. It is not just a problem in the marijuana industry; it is a problem nationally. It is a problem dealing, quite frankly, with our national security. We currently have a 1-mile buffer around all of our military installations that you can't own land if you are a foreign entity within 1 mile around our military installations. We now believe that is not nearly enough.

Quite frankly, foreign nationals from many countries like China are buying up the land around our critical infrastructure, around our telecom infrastructure, around military bases,

around government offices. They are not buying it because they are looking for another place to invest. They are buying it to set up shop for their own operations and their own spying and their own control of our economy. We should pay attention to this.

As we deal with different entities, like data or healthcare entities, they have to go through a process. It is called the CFIUS process. It is that process, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States--the abbreviation you will hear for Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States is CFIUS. That process includes entities like the Treasury, Commerce, Defense, the intelligence community--they all have to be involved if a foreign entity wants to be able to buy, let's say, a telecom company or they want to buy a lot of big data around a hospital, whatever it may be. It has to go through that process on that.

Agricultural land is not in that though. There is no review for that. So there is no prioritization for foreign investment of our land, even where it is, so this has become an ``out of sight, out of mind'' issue.

The bill that I have called the SOIL Act does a mandatory review of CFIUS of that process--the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States--for agricultural land and the entity. That is in two categories: if they are a national security threat--that country is a national security threat--or they are what is called a nonmarket economy.

Let me explain what those two things are. The national security threat is pretty straightforward. That is China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. If China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea want to buy land around the edge of one of our military bases, right outside that 1-mile buffer, if they want to buy lots of land around our infrastructure or telecom, it is not for our good. We should have a review of that.

The second thing is a nonmarket economy. This is an economy that is run by the government, not by private business.

Again, China would fall squarely into this as a communist nation. You cannot run an investment business--especially a foreign entity outside of China--without it running through the Communist Party in China, so they are a nonmarket economy.

One of the most basic parts about this is, if you are going to buy any kind of land in the United States and you are from one of those countries that is a nonmarket economy or that is a national security threat, we should have a mandatory review of that so they could actually do that kind of purchase. But we just want to know why, where, how much, what is the purpose of this, and we can ask those practical questions of it.

The SOIL Act that I have also tries to close some of the loopholes that are in our Federal law. Let me talk through a couple of those. Currently, we have a foreign entity--let's say a Chinese entity--that is doing an ag purpose there, they would still be available for agricultural subsidies in the United States. Well, that needs to be closed.

We shouldn't do agricultural subsidies for any entity that is a foreign entity coming into the United States doing investment, so it closes that loophole. It closes all of the disclosure loopholes dealing with agricultural landholdings.

Right now if you have a landholding that is around 10 acres, then you don't have to disclose it. Well, a lot of these operations are less than 10 acres, and there is a lot that you can do on 10 acres if that 10 acres also happens to be right on our critical infrastructure, right on our telecom, or maybe it is also doing a criminal operation.

Also this deals with issues of long-term leases. Entities would come in and say, well, we are not really buying the land, we are just doing a 99-year lease. Well, that is the equivalent of actually owning the land, and so it gets around that loophole.

It also beefs up our enforcement for those who violate our foreign investment laws. It also requires annual reporting, for China and Russia in particular.

Listen, I am not trying to stop foreign investments into the country. If BMW wants to be able to come do manufacturing here in the United States for their cars or Nissan or any number of manufacturing products that are here from all over the world, they are welcome to be here. They are welcome to do foreign investment.

But when Iran is buying up a big chunk of land, we should ask the question why they are doing that. And, currently, we don't even have a process to do that. When China is snapping up land by the hundreds of thousands of acres, we should ask the question: Why is China buying hundreds of thousands of acres of American land all of a sudden? What is the goal?

We should ask that question; and, currently, we don't have a process to do that. So let's fix that. The SOIL Act gets on top of that issue and says we see the trend. Let's not just watch this go sideways; let's actually engage. And let's protect our national security, and let's protect our national interest.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, we are just learning of the horrific, truly heartbreaking shooting at a school in Nashville earlier today-- six people, three children.

I still have the pictures of the kids at Sandy Hook--the little children there who were shot dead--in mind.

Well, six people, including three children, were shot and killed in their own school. Six people, three children, won't be coming home today to their families, to their friends, to their lives.

We are holding in our hearts the families of the loved ones, of those affected by this horrible tragedy, and thank the first responders who were on the scene.

Israel

Madam President, now on Israel, I welcome the news that the judicial legislation proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have been suspended. The bond between the United States and Israel is rooted in our shared democratic values and fealty to the rule of law. When I was in Israel 4 weeks ago, I shared that message directly with the Prime Minister.

I echo the call of President Herzog to find a compromise. It is a good step that the legislation is put on hold, and I strongly urge Israeli leaders, I urge Prime Minister Netanyahu: Come to a compromise before pushing forward again.

Isaac ``Bougie'' Herzog has the trust of all parties and is the right person to come up with the compromise. I urge both sides to work with him. At a time when Israel faces real dangers, particularly from Iran, the last thing Israel needs is divisiveness at home. Let us hope they can come to a compromise.

Authorizations for Use of Military Force

Madam President, on AUMF, this afternoon, the Senate will vote on cloture on AUMF repeal, bringing us one step closer to finally repealing the 1991 and 2002 Iraq AUMFs. Once cloture is invoked this afternoon, we will hold a few more votes on additional Republican amendments. Senators should then expect to vote on final passage of the Iraq AUMF repeal as soon as tomorrow.

Repealing the Iraq AUMFs has been a good and reasonable process here on the floor. We had a strong bipartisan vote on cloture last week. We are allowing Republican amendments. Most importantly, we aren't being dilatory because this is something a majority of Senators want to get done.

I hope this can be a method, a pattern of what we do in the future. We are willing to allow amendments, but we must move forward and cannot be dilatory and cannot have amendments so extraneous that they just bog down the whole process. What happened on this AUMF bill is a good model for us for the future to get things done with bipartisan cooperation.

On this bill, I want to thank Senators Kaine and Young, the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and all the cosponsors of this legislation for their work on this measure.

Military Nominations

Madam President, now on the hold on senior military nominations, defense readiness is impossible without military commanders in place to execute our national defense strategy. Senators have regularly worked together to confirm routine military nominees quickly, ensuring no lapses in the work of our military. But right now, 160 military promotions--160--these are not political. These are men and women who have worked their way up through the ranks and deserve a promotion to general, to colonel, et cetera. But 160, including five three-star generals, are on hold because the senior Senator from Alabama is holding them up because he can't get his way on blocking 160,000 women within the military from receiving healthcare.

Blocking military choices is unprecedented--unprecedented, hasn't happened before--and it could weaken our national security. And the number of those who are blocked is going to grow even larger as new nominees are reported out of the committee, which they do regularly.

Among the general and flag officers on hold by the Senator from Alabama include commanders for U.S. naval forces in the Pacific, the Middle East, and the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee--something really important at a time when war rages in Ukraine. The commanders of the 5th and 7th Fleets are the commanders of U.S. naval forces confronting the likes of Iran and China. They are being held up singlehandedly by the Senator from Alabama.

It shouldn't have to be said, but the Senator from Alabama's hold on hundreds of routine military promotions is reckless. It damages the readiness of our military and puts American security in jeopardy.

Now, look, all of us feel very strongly, passionately, at times about certain political issues, certainly as strongly as the Senator of Alabama feels about this one, but if every single one of us objected to the promotion of military personnel whenever we feel passionately or strongly about an issue, our military would simply grind to a halt.

The Senator from Alabama's actions risk permanently politicizing the confirmation of military personnel for the first time ever, and that would cause immense damage to the military's ability to lead and protect us. I can't think of a worse time for a MAGA Republican to pull a stunt like this, as threats against American security and against democracy are growing all around the world.

I urge Members of his own party to prevail on the Senator from Alabama to stand down in this unprecedented and dangerous move and allow these critical, nonpolitical, nonpartisan military nominees to go through.

Medicaid and the Budget

Madam President, on Medicaid and the budget, today, the Governor of North Carolina is signing legislation to expand Medicaid eligibility following the passage of a bipartisan compromise through the North Carolina General Assembly last week. Once signed, as many as 600,000 North Carolinians will soon enjoy healthcare coverage previously denied to them.

House Republicans should follow the example of their State-level counterparts and work with Democrats to expand services like Medicaid, not cut them. They should join Democrats to strengthen healthcare for all Americans, not threaten extreme cuts like the House GOP has been doing for months.

In the American Rescue Plan, Democrats passed a major new incentive to get holdout States to expand Medicaid to cover their low-income citizens. We should build on this work.

Now, House Republicans have bent over backwards claiming Social Security and Medicare are off the table, but what are their plans for Medicaid? Republicans have been disturbingly evasive about whether or not they want to cut Medicaid, and so Americans, unfortunately, remain in the dark.

If a moderate State like North Carolina is expanding Medicaid with bipartisan support, what the heck are MAGA Republicans doing threatening to cut it? It shows how difficult it will be for House Republicans to put together a plan that gets 218 votes.

So we repeat: Leader McCarthy, today is March 27. It is nearly 3 months. Where is your plan? Is Medicaid on the GOP chopping block? Are the MAGA Republicans pulling the Republican Party here in the House further to the right even as North Carolina, a moderate State, in a bipartisan way passes legislation to expand Medicaid? Will tens of millions of Americans find out that their benefits will be curtailed or eliminated?

Let me say again, instead of obsession about ideological spending cuts that harm millions of people, Republicans should work with Democrats to strengthen vital healthcare services. We should do that while also agreeing to lift the debt ceiling together, without brinksmanship or blackmail or hostage-taking.

Student Debt

Madam President, on student debt, this morning, House Republicans introduced legislation to overturn President Biden's historic student loan debt relief program, denying millions of Americans the critical student debt relief they need.

It is hard to believe that, at a time when millions of Americans are struggling with student debt, Republicans are showing how callous and uncaring they are by trying to block debt relief that will literally transform the lives of so many for the better.

Republicans have tried to paint President Biden's plan as a tuition bailout and a giveaway to high earners. A giveaway to high earners? Republicans ignore the facts.

Under President Biden's plan, 90 percent--nearly 90 percent of relief dollars would go to out-of-school borrowers making less than $75,000 a year. This is a party that cuts taxes on the very wealthy but then says that this is a bailout and a giveaway to high earners, when 90 percent of the people who get it--nearly 90 percent--make less than $75,000 a year? Who are they kidding? What hypocrisy.

Under President Biden's plan, no one in the top 5 percent of incomes will receive a penny in debt relief, even though Republicans were happy to give them huge tax breaks a few years back and still want to do that.

Rather than help the privileged few, President Biden's plan would benefit Americans who need it most: students of color, poor Americans, children of immigrants, working and middle-class families. These are the people who would suffer from the Republicans' terrible proposal.

Mr. President, I just came from an Appropriations subcommittee hearing, and our witness today was Secretary Janet Yellen. I always love when Secretary Yellen testifies because I learn so much from her.

Today, among other subjects, we talked about the President's proposed budget, and I want to tell you some of the things I learned today from Secretary Yellen about the President's proposed budget.

The President's proposed budget is $6.9 trillion. That is up from $6.4 trillion. So it is a proposed half-a-trillion-dollar increase.

I learned that, since 2019 until today, and not including the President's new spending--I learned that since 2019 until today, the population in the United States has grown 1.8 percent.

Do you know how much our budget has increased? Fifty-five percent, and that doesn't even count the additional half-a-trillion dollars' worth of spending that the President has just proposed.

I also learned that the President is proposing $4.7 trillion--not billion, $4.7 trillion--in new taxes. It takes my breath way--$4.7 trillion. We are going to run out of digits.

And I also learned something else. You know, the President--and I say this gently and with respect--the President has been running all over hell and half of Georgia saying: My proposed budget decreases the deficit by $3 trillion.

You probably heard him say that. I heard him say it the day before yesterday: My proposed budget will cut debt by $3 trillion.

You know what I learned today about the President's proposed budget? Under his proposed budget, gross debt--that is all of America's debt, not just debt held by the public, but gross debt--all of our debt will rise under President Biden's budget from $32.7 trillion at the close of this year to $51 trillion by 2033. Only in Washington, DC--only in la- la land--can you go around and say: My budget reduces the deficit and debt by $3 trillion, when it really increases it by $18 trillion--$18 trillion.

I have also learned a lot this week about Silicon Valley Bank. I think I spoke--I don't know--a week, maybe 10 days ago--gosh, we learned a lot in a week. One of the things that we have learned is that the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and President Biden's bailout of Silicon Valley Bank was the result of bad management by the bank officials but also by bad supervision.

I talked a week or two ago about the risk that the management of SVB took. This is what I learned this week. I want to talk about the mistakes that were made by the Federal Government in supervising this bank.

Fact No. 1, it is a fact that in January of 2019, the Federal Reserve, which is one of the banking regulators in charge of supervising the bank, issued a warning to the bank--this is 4 years ago--over its risk management systems. Four years ago, the Fed told Silicon Valley Bank that its system to control risk was not up to snuff.

Fact No. 2, last fall, short sellers and private bank analysts said the same thing. What? Five months ago, 6 months ago?

Fact No. 3, some of my colleagues have said: You know, we didn't have sufficient regulation.

I don't know how you regulate greed. I don't know how you regulate stupidity. I am referring now to the management of the Silicon Valley Bank.

But it wasn't a failure of regulation that caused Silicon Valley Bank to go under. It was the failure to enforce the rules that we already have.

Here is the article from the Wall Street Journal. The Federal Reserve, one of the banking regulators in charge of Silicon Valley Bank, knew in January of 2019 that the bank was criticized for its risk control practices. And they were supposed to correct those risk control practices. Why didn't the Federal Reserve follow up?

Now, I also learned that some of my colleagues are saying: Well, you know, this is all the fault of Congress. It is the fault of Congress because Silicon Valley Bank was not subject to a stress test.

We, as you know--Democrats and Republicans--supported an amendment to Dodd-Frank back in 2018 that some say prevented the bank from being stress tested. That is not true. The bill that we passed in 2018 said, categorically and unequivocally--look at title 12, chapter II, subchapter A, part 252, subpart A, section 252.3. It said in our legislation that the Federal Reserve and the other banking regulators had the authority at any time to stress test Silicon Valley Bank. And they chose not to do it.

Now, the other point being made by some of my colleagues is that, well, they weren't big enough to stress test. They had to be $100 billion or more. That is not true. They were an over-hundred-billion- dollar bank at the end of 2021. So they did qualify to be stress tested in 2022.

One of the other things we learned is that in 2022 the Federal Reserve stress tested 34 banks. Silicon Valley Bank was not one of them, as I said. They could have been. Under the rules, they qualified. They were supposed to be. They were over $100 billion. And even if they had not been over $100 billion, the Federal Reserve could have said: We are going to stress test them anyway under our legislation because, back in January of 2019, we were worried about their risk control. But, for whatever reason--we are going to find out--the Federal Reserve chose not to stress test them.

The Federal Reserve issued a report on its stress tests from 2022. Here it is. If the Federal Reserve had stress tested Silicon Valley Bank, Silicon Valley Bank would have passed. It would have passed. Do you know why? Because the Federal Reserve in its stress testing in 2022 didn't stress test interest rate risk. They just stress tested credit risk. I just find that extraordinary.

In 2022, we were experiencing raging inflation. The Fed was raising interest rates. The Fed understands that, when you hold a long government bond or a

long treasury, its value decreases as interest rates go up. You would think that the first thing the Federal Reserve would stress test for was interest rate risk and duration risk. But it didn't. It didn't, and I am at a loss to understand.

The Federal Reserve has announced--I think the Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Barr, has announced that he is going to be in charge of finding out what went wrong. And Mr. Barr is a fine person, and nothing I say today should be construed to suggest that he is not. But Mr. Barr has a conflict of interest. His own Agency contributed to the downfall of Silicon Valley Bank. It wasn't a question of something that Congress did or didn't do. Under the regulations we passed, we put the Federal Reserve in charge of checking these banks for duration or interest rate risk, and the Federal Reserve chose not to do so. Silicon Valley Bank is not the only one out there.

And here is the problem with Silicon Valley Bank. It took in a whole bunch of deposits from a bunch of venture capitalists and paid them-- let's call it an x amount of interest--and then Silicon Valley Bank took that money and invested the money in long-term government bonds and treasuries, as the Federal Reserve encouraged them to. Go read all the Federal Reserve rules. They tell you: The safest assets if you are a bank are long-term securities issued by the Federal Government, treasuries and mortgage-backed securities.

Silicon Valley Bank did that. But as the Federal Reserve is also supposed to know, as is the management of the bank, these long-term bonds--government or otherwise--as interest rates rise, fall in value. I mean, that is like banking 101. That is like Econ 101.

And that is what happened to Silicon Valley Bank. They took all the deposits, paid x amount of interest, and bought treasuries and long- term government bonds, making more interest. They were taking the profit, but they didn't account for interest rate risk. And, sure enough, when the Federal Reserve, which is supposed to be supervising the bank, raised interest rates, the value of those bonds and the value of those treasuries went down.

And so, when all these depositors in Silicon Valley decided to take their money out, they panicked, and they all started talking to each other on social media, and they started taking their money out. Because of the decrease in the value of those long treasuries and mortgage- backed securities, Silicon Valley Bank didn't have the money to pay them.

Let me end like I began. President Biden's bailout was necessitated by two things: the greed and/or the stupidity of the management of this bank to buy long-term bonds--government-backed or otherwise--and not hedge against interest rate risks. And, No. 2, the bank's failure was the result of inadequate supervision by the Federal Reserve and the other banking regulators and the Biden administration. Congress had nothing to do with it. Our amendments to Dodd-Frank, which were approved by both Republicans and Democrats, had nothing to do with it.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, later today, we are going to vote on an amendment offered by my colleague Senator Lee, and this is a really important amendment. And this is a really important debate for us to have: the question of how long authorizations of military force should last.

We are able to have this amendment vote because of the great work that Senator Kaine and Senator Menendez have done to bring to an end authorizations of military force that have been on the books for decades, authorizations of military force that most Americans didn't even know existed. So, first, I am grateful to my colleagues and to Senator Young as well for having brought us to this moment where we can make the collective decision, Republicans and Democrats, to take off of the books these expired authorizations of military force that are dangerous so long as they allow a President of the United States to pervert the original meaning of the authorization of force--to go to war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq--for other means and mechanisms.

I think this is really important, both spiritually to show that Congress is still in the game of setting foreign policy alongside the executive branch but, practically, because we have seen these authorizations occasionally be sort of picked up, unearthed from the grave, and used to justify military action that can't find a justification in article II power or in other AUMFs. So I couldn't be more supportive of the underlying measure.

But Senator Lee is asking us to look prospectively and to take a step to not repeat the mistakes of the past. His amendment would suggest that every future authorization of military force--and we pass very few of them on this floor--would be limited to 2 years.

Full disclosure: I have introduced that legislation with Senator Lee as part of a broader piece of legislation that he and I have introduced to reform the War Powers Act, to reform our arms sales processes, and to reform a President's emergency powers to try to right-size the balance of authority between an outsized executive branch and, I think, an underwhelming legislative authority.

I think Senator Lee's amendment is a good idea. The only reason I wouldn't support it is if it jeopardizes the underlying bill; but if it doesn't, then I am going to support Senator Lee's amendment, in part, because I have introduced legislation to do the same thing alongside him, but because I think it is time that we started putting this Congress in the position to flex that muscle that is given to us in article I, which is to be codeterminants of American foreign policy alongside the executive branch.

Notwithstanding the good work of Senator Menendez and Senator Kaine, we have, over the course of the last several decades, completely outsourced that responsibility to set the national security policy to an executive branch and a national security apparatus inside the executive branch that has become bigger than the Founding Fathers' wildest dreams.

There is a wonderful book by Walter Isaacson called ``The Wise Men.'' It is about the individuals who set up the post-World War II order, but it is also an interesting examination of how things used to be when Congress was doing its job: regularly passing legislation, setting the parameters of American foreign policy.

One of the most extraordinary stories that is told in ``The Wise Men'' is the story of Robert Lovett, who at the time, I believe, was the Deputy Secretary or an Under Secretary at the Department of Defense. He eventually went on to become Secretary of Defense. And on a regular basis--I believe it was multiple times a week--Robert Lovett, on his way home from work, would stop and have a drink or dinner with Arthur Vandenberg, the then-Senate chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Every single week, multiple times, the administration would send one of their most important policymakers to sit down with the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee to work together on setting American national security policy in the wake of World War II.

Senator Menendez is a very powerful chairman, but I don't think he gets that kind of deference from the administration because the administration knows that they can make national security policy largely without or around the U.S. Congress because we have made a collective decision to outsource that responsibility.

Now, that has become convenient in a world in which our enemies are a lot harder to define. They are shadowy. They are diffuse. They change names.

It is an era where victory is just as hard to define. We don't have peace treaties any longer with our enemies--our nonstate-actor enemies, at the very least. So we have been content to just let the administration decide whom we fight, when we fight them.

We have let the Department of Defense get so big that we can barely track what they do. We don't even demand much information from them.

I learned last week that the Department of Defense sees very little responsibility to engage Members of Congress when it comes to briefing us on contract award decisions, despite the statute mandating that Congress receive information when requested.

There is just an imbalance of power, and it is created by our decision to only have debates on national security policy every long, random, infrequent ``once in a while.''

Senator Lee's amendment says this. If you are going to pass an authorization of military force, every Congress, you have to come back and debate that authorization of military force.

When you are talking about our most sacred responsibility--putting the men and women who protect us in harm's way--I think we owe it to them, I think we owe it to our voters, to make sure that those authorizations of military force are not being expanded or perverted beyond their initial scope.

The 2001 AUMF is still on the books. It is important because it is our sole authorization of military force against extremist groups.

Let me tell you, I cover the Middle East on the Foreign Relations Committee. There are still groups there that are thinking about plotting attacks against the United States. We need to chase them. We need to keep them on the run. But the 2001 AUMF has a scope and a size today that would be shocking to most Americans. The 2001 AUMF, which everybody at the time knew was about fighting al-Qaida and those that harbored al-Qaida, which at the time was a fight in Afghanistan, has been used to justify airstrikes, operation, and support for counterterrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Djibouti, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Cuba, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kenya, Kosovo, Jordan, Lebanon, Niger, Nigeria, Philippines, and Turkey.

I don't think anybody who voted for the 2001 AUMF believed, at the time, that it was an authorization for military force and counterterrorism operations in that many countries. And if we were required to come back and have the debate on the 2001 AUMF, or other AUMFs, we would be able to check with our public, to check with the people we represent, and see if they still believe that it is necessary to send American forces that far and wide.

Maybe some of the most disastrous military engagements of our history, like the war in Iraq, would have come to an earlier close had this Congress been required to debate those measures on a regular basis, instead of just allowing those AUMFs to persist.

And so I come to the floor to, frankly, thank Senator Lee for bringing this piece of our bigger bill before the Senate. I am going to certainly consider voting for it. I want to make sure it doesn't compromise the underlying legislation. These amendments are moving fast.

But my last hope for our body is this: that this isn't the last time that we have a debate on this floor about the scope of American military operations abroad. We should repeal and rewrite the 2001 AUMF. It is way too broad and cuts Congress out of some the most important decisions about where our troops fight.

That is a complicated endeavor, but I know Senator Menendez is committed to it. I know there are many Republican colleagues committed to it.

But I think history has shown that without a forcing mechanism, it is unlikely that Congress is going to make those very difficult decisions, which is why a sunset on AUMFs is a worthy idea of consideration.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, this morning, the U.S. Trade Representative is testifying before the Senate Finance Committee on President Biden's 2023 trade policy agenda, and I look forward to asking her about the details of the Biden administration's plans--or lack thereof--to boost trade opportunities for American workers, farmers and ranchers, and businesses.

Trade has been a very low priority on the President's list throughout the first 2 years of his administration. To name just one example, it took the President a year and a half to nominate a confirmable chief agricultural negotiator at the U.S. Trade Representative's office even though agriculture is a U.S. industry that depends upon trade.

If the President has deemphasized trade, he has really deemphasized trade--that is, removing trade and tariff barriers and increasing market access for American producers. The administration is currently negotiating exactly zero comprehensive free trade agreements; and its so-called trade initiative frameworks are, largely, flowery rhetoric with little to nothing in the way of tangible and durable benefits for American workers.

Tariff reduction and increased market access--the hallmarks of free trade agreements--are notably missing in action from the Biden administration's trade initiatives. In fact, President Biden's Trade Representative has openly said that the Indo-Pacific economic framework--perhaps the President's signature trade initiative--was designed not--not--to include tariff reduction.

So why is this a problem?

Well, first of all, it is a problem because trade is essential to our economy. More than 41 million U.S. jobs depend on trade, and that includes a lot of jobs at small businesses. In fact, 98 percent of U.S. exporters are small businesses--a stat that includes many farmers and ranchers in South Dakota and around the country--and ignoring or deemphasizing trade puts those jobs in jeopardy.

But it is not just that our economy already depends on trade, it is that trade, specifically free trade--trade characterized by low or no tariffs and fewer market barriers--is a powerful engine of prosperity and economic growth. To name just one example, U.S. farm and food product exports grew from $46.1 billion in 1994 to more than $177 billion in 2021, largely due to greater market access opportunities for American exporters.

Free trade helps create economic prosperity. It opens new jobs and opportunities for American workers. It helps grow U.S. businesses and, by extension, our economy. President Biden has tended to deemphasize the benefits of trade for our economy and for American workers and has suggested that trade and a robust U.S. manufacturing footprint are somehow in competition. But increased trade actually helps domestic manufacturing. Sixty percent of U.S. imports are intermediary goods or

materials for use in American manufacturing. Removing unnecessary barriers to trade in those goods would generally lower the prices for those materials, which would help and not hurt manufacturing.

And while we are talking about lowering prices, I should note that expanding U.S. free trade would promote lower prices for a lot of the goods that Americans buy and would help ease some of the supply chain problems we have been experiencing. That could help alleviate the historic inflation crisis that the President and Democrats have helped to create and improve the economic outlook for Americans. But while economic benefits are a leading reason to prioritize increased trade, they are far from the only reason.

Free trade agreements don't just provide an opportunity for economic growth; they also provide an opportunity to develop important strategic relationships and foster ties with our allies. Free trade agreements don't just cement economic ties between countries; they cement friendships. They also provide an opportunity to advance U.S. priorities abroad--security priorities, economic priorities, diplomatic priorities, and more.

As I said, the President has deemphasized trade during the first 2 years of his administration; but while the U.S. has been inactive in the trade space, the rest of the world has not. For example, China recently joined the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership--a trade agreement that eventually will eliminate more than 90 percent of tariffs on commerce in 15 member countries. China is also negotiating or implementing a number of new trade agreements to add to those of which it is currently a part.

And China is far from the only country pushing ahead with free trade agreements while the United States is sitting on the sidelines. We may be a world superpower, but we have just 14 free trade agreements currently in effect with 20 countries, meaning that many of our goods and services face significant tariff barriers in most places around the globe. Now, by comparison, the European Union has 46 trade agreements with 78 countries, meaning that European goods often have a leg up on the global stage.

Under the Biden administration, the United States is getting left behind when it comes to global trade, and if we don't meaningfully reenter the trade arena, we are going to slip further and further behind. I believe that an excellent way to reenter the trade arena would be to conclude a free trade agreement with one of our closest friends and allies, the United Kingdom--something that is long overdue.

Earlier this month, I introduced a bipartisan bill with Senator Chris Coons. It is called the Undertaking Negotiations on Investment and Trade for Economic Dynamism Act, or the UNITED Act--the acronym. The legislation is designed to advance a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom. Our legislation would authorize the administration to negotiate and conclude a trade agreement with the United Kingdom to open export opportunities for businesses of all sizes, increase the resilience of critical supply chains, and advance economic prosperity for people in both of our countries.

At a time of financial and geopolitical turbulence, cementing our relationships with our allies should be a top priority; and an agreement with the United Kingdom--our Nation's fifth largest export market and our largest services trading partner in the entire world-- would further strengthen the ties that bind our two nations while resulting in economic gains for both British and American citizens.

Important groundwork toward a comprehensive free trade agreement has already been laid, including the bilateral negotiations initiated by President Trump's and President Biden's attempts to strengthen economic cooperation through the U.S./UK Dialogue on the Future of Atlantic Trade; and with the recently announced Windsor Framework, which provides a pathway on post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland, the timing is right to kick-start negotiations.

An agreement with the United Kingdom would further strengthen the ties that bind our two nations while resulting in economic gains for both American and British citizens.

While the administration may have put trade at the bottom of its priority list over the past 2 years, the President's Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, seems to have at least kept the door open to working on increased market access--that is, tariff reduction-- and real trade agreements. For the sake of our country, I hope the administration will follow through.

The Biden administration may have gotten off to a very slow start on the trade front, but it is not too late to turn things around. I strongly urge the President to turn his focus to a more ambitious trade agenda, one that will provide durable economic and security benefits to American workers and businesses and advance American leadership in the world.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer) and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell).

Mr. President, I call up Senate amendment No. 4 on behalf of Senator Rubio and ask that it be reported by number.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. McConnell), and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran).

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

Madam President, this week, the Senate is expected to vote on legislation that would repeal the authorization for use of military force in Iraq.

The bill before the Senate would repeal two separate authorizations-- one from 1991, which authorized U.S. intervention in Iraq, better known as the Gulf war, to stop the dictator, Saddam Hussein, from invading and terrorizing Kuwait. The second one passed in 2002 in response to Saddam's persistent violations of the peace agreement that came out of the Gulf war, including intelligence that he was pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

In the decades since these authorizations passed, America's relationship with Iraq has changed dramatically. Iraq has gone from a hostile and unpredictable authoritarian government to become a strategic partner with the United States. In recent years, our countries have worked together to end the occupation of ISIS in Iraq.

In December of 2017, Iraq declared victory, though we have seen a resurgence of some of those terrorists recently. Two years ago, President Biden welcomed the Iraqi Prime Minister to the White House, a friendship that would have been unimaginable 20 or 30 years ago.

Put simply, Iraq is a key partner in the Middle East. Our governments and militaries cooperate to promote security and prosperity for the Iraqi people. More broadly, we work together to counter Iran's malign influence and continue to root out terrorism in the Middle East.

While there is still an American military presence in Iraq, it looks dramatically different today than it did 10, 20, or 30 years ago. Today, our soldiers serve solely in an advise and assist role. They are there at the invitation of the Iraqi Government to support Iraqi troops and military leaders as they defend their own security interests.

In short, American forces are no longer there to counter threats from Iraq. We are now there to counter threats to Iraq. That includes threats from Iran, the No. 1 state sponsor of international terrorism, with its hired henchmen, terrorist groups, or other adversaries that could disrupt peace and stability in Iraq.

Those who support repealing the Iraqi military authorizations point to this evolution in our relationship as evidence that the AUMFs are no longer needed. It has been 20 years since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and they say the

authorizations are outdated. Our relationship is shifting, they argue, so it is time for those AUMFs to go.

Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Despite the fact that Iraq is now our partner, that doesn't mean it is time to abandon our security interests in the region. America still has very real adversaries in the Middle East who would do us and our allies harm if they got the chance. Today, Iran-backed militias operate in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and other countries throughout the Middle East. They are proxies of the Iranian military, with the goal of spreading Iranian political influence far and wide.

This isn't just some warmonger conspiracy theory. There is clear and absolute linkage between the Iranian regime and the militias operating throughout the Middle East. They are, in effect, hired guns, which are fighting to take territory that has been no-man's land since the drawdown of U.S. forces in the Middle East. And in many cases, they continue to target U.S. troops.

Just last Thursday, an Iranian drone targeted a U.S. facility in Syria, killing an American contractor and wounding five American servicemembers. The U.S. responded the following day by conducting an airstrike against an Iran-backed militia in Syria. And then, within hours, Iran's proxies launched another attack on a U.S. military base in Syria.

Despite the fact that we know a great deal about these groups and their capabilities and the threat they pose to the Middle East, we are relatively limited in our efforts to counter their aggression.

Counterterrorism missions rely on the 2001 authorization for the use of military force, which was passed in the wake of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Since many Iran-backed militia have not been designated as terrorist organizations, the 2001 AUMF doesn't apply to them. That means we can only use the 2002 AUMF to counter Iran-backed militia and other groups that pose threats to the stability of Iraq and to U.S. national security interests.

If we were to repeal the 2002 AUMF, we limit the President's ability to target these groups. We, in effect, have withdrawn congressional consent. That applies to President Biden today, and it would apply to future commanders in chief as well. In effect, this would tie their hands when it comes to countering threats posed by Iran and its proxies.

To state the obvious, we can't dispose of any tools that could be used to protect the United States or our partners.

Three Presidents have cited the 2002 AUMF as an authorization for the use of military force. In 2003, President Bush used his authority to justify the invasion of Iraq. In other words, this was with congressional consent. In 2014, President Barack Obama cited the 2002 AUMF to justify strikes against Islamic state terrorists in Iraq and Syria. Then, in 2020, former President Trump relied on this authority to justify the strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad.

Given the growing threats from Iran, it would be absurd to toss this authorization out the window today. If Congress repeals the Iraqi war authorizations, it prompts a lot of questions about what comes next. Without the 2002 AUMF, the President would lose the ability to contain Iran and its aggression. Iran's influence in the region would swell and Iranian-backed militia would terrorize Syria and Iraq with impunity. Iran would be free to focus on its maniacal desire to destroy Israel. And without having to contend with the United States, it would be free to spend even more money financing terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Russian influence in Syria would grow, giving Putin a launch pad to further project power into the Middle East. Our friends and allies, no longer safe with America at their side, could succumb to coercive partnerships with China, giving Xi Jinping another region in which to compete with the United States for global primacy.

In short, passing this legislation would create a power vacuum in the Middle East that could be filled by Iran, Russia, and China. We would be ceding the region back to competition after working for years to promote stability.

Of course, there are costs to maintaining our position in the Middle East, but the cost-benefit analysis clearly shows that we have to leave every authority in place to defend American and allied interests in the Middle East.

Over the last few decades, as I said a moment ago, America's relationship with Iraq has changed for the better. It is a valuable partner. We work together to support security for Iraq and the region as a whole. The U.S. military works with Iraqi forces to counter threats from Iran and to reduce its influence in the region. These authorizations for the use of military force are key to our continued success.

It also means that we will continue to work with the executive branch, rather than have the executive branch rely strictly on the President's constitutional powers. They give the President of the United States the flexibility needed to counter these threats and the threats that they pose from Iran. We would be doing Iran a huge favor by repealing these AUMFs.

Suffice it to say, I oppose the effort to repeal these Iraqi war authorizations, and I encourage my colleagues in the Senate to join me in that opposition.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.