A joint resolution removing the deadline for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Mr. President, I am glad today to stand with my colleague to support S.J. Res. 4, affirming the validity of the Equal Rights Amendment.

We have heard from Senator Cardin and Senator Murkowski why it is so important for Congress to pass this resolution and enshrine protections against sex-based discrimination in our Constitution.

The ERA would bolster efforts to ensure equality in the fields of workforce and pay, pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment and violence, reproductive autonomy, and protections for LGBTQ individuals.

Although we have indeed made strides in each of these areas, we know how fragile these gains can be without the durability of a constitutional amendment.

Take, for example, the current Supreme Court's approach to the Constitution. As the Dobbs decision makes clear, a majority of the current Court believes that the meaning of equality under the equal protection clause was frozen in 1868 when the 14th Amendment was ratified.

Well, in the hundred years after 1868, the Supreme Court has adopted and permitted all sorts of State laws that excluded women from jury service, that excluded women from admission to the bar as lawyers, that excluded women even from employment as bartenders, and allowed all of those laws under the 14th Amendment. This business now of the Supreme Court, looking back at history and tradition, is a backward look to bad history and regrettable tradition.

So with the Supreme Court, it is particularly important that we not rely on its interpretation of the 14th Amendment alone to guarantee equal rights. Congress needs to stand up and act, and we have the power to do so.

Congress has broad authority over the amendment process. If Congress has the power to impose a time limit, Congress has the power to extend or remove that time limit.

I join my colleagues to urge swift passage of this resolution. As one witness at the Senate Judiciary Committee on the ERA eloquently put it, gender equality is not a zero-sum game, and ``we are all uplifted when everyone's rights are protected.''

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am back now for the 288th time with my trusty, battered ``Time to Wake Up'' poster to call attention to the climate crisis.

Over the 10-plus years that I have been doing these speeches, I have shown how climate change affects our ecosystems, industries, economy, public health, kids, workers, our elderly. I have even conducted a science experiment right here on the Senate floor, to the dismay of the Senate staff.

One near constant in these speeches has been the oily, often covert hand of the fossil fuel industry lurking behind the opposition to climate action through its campaign of climate denial, delay, and obstruction.

From the late 1980s, when Congress first became aware of climate change, through the period after the 2010 Citizens United decision when special interests could anonymously pour unlimited money into elections, the fossil fuel industry has blocked every serious climate bill in Congress until the Inflation Reduction Act.

Key to this obstruction was the strategic insight that they only needed to capture one political party to strangle legislative action. So the fossil fuel industry captured the Republican Party and has prevented climate action for over three decades, except when we were able to use the extraordinary process of reconciliation. That was just last year.

Democrats had control of the House and Senate and passed the Inflation Reduction Act via budget reconciliation. Congress finally acted on climate.

There is lots more that Congress still needs to do on climate, but the IRA was a big, meaningful bill that powered up tax incentives for clean energy and put a price on oil and gas methane emissions.

In the 10-plus years I have been documenting the fossil fuel industry's hold over the Republican Party, I have provided lots of concrete examples, from election spending to phony front groups by the flotilla, to polluter lackeys installed at the Trump EPA. But nothing tops the debt limit proposal Speaker McCarthy released last week, the ``Default on America Act,'' which the House just passed.

MAGA House Republicans like to claim to care about debt and deficits--except, of course, in 2017, when they passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations that added trillions to the debt and except when the debt increased by more than $7 trillion under President Trump.

They are a fountain of fiscal hypocrisy. So no surprise that the McCarthy package has little to do with reducing debt and deficits and everything to do with providing goodies to big Republican donors, in particular the fossil fuel industry.

Before I get into all the oily, corrupt deals for big polluters, a few words about the rest of the proposal. McCarthy calling this monstrosity the Limit, Save, Grow Act would make George Orwell blush. In reality, McCarthy's plan would result in unlimited carbon pollution,

massive losses to the Federal Government and American

families and businesses, and very likely crashes in whole

sectors of the economy--some limit, save, and growth.

First, it would rescind the extra funding we provided to the IRS to go after wealthy tax cheats. This would add $120 billion to the deficit. For them, ``limit, save, and grow'' means limit IRS enforcement, save their big donors money paying their taxes, and grow their own campaign contributions.

Federal programs would face indiscriminate cuts of up to 33 percent across research, science, housing, addiction treatment, national parks, transportation, law enforcement, border security, drug enforcement, and criminal prosecutions. If you want to defund the police, Speaker McCarthy is your new poster boy.

The public hates all that stuff, so why pursue stuff that the public hates? Why threaten to set off the U.S. default handgrenade to get this done? Who wins? Creepy billionaires who hate the Federal Government and fund Kevin McCarthy--chief among them, the fossil fuel industry.

For his big fossil fuel industry donors, McCarthy delivers four huge giveaways. First, they take away the clean energy tax credits we passed in the IRA. Second, they let fossil fuel interests leak polluting methane emissions with no pollution fee. Third, they prop up dying fossil fuel infrastructure with so-called permitting reform targeted to help only fossil fuel. And fourth, they make it harder to protect against water and air pollution.

This oily wish list is not about debt or deficits, and it is not about growing the economy as it risks serious economic downturns. It is about taking care of the industry whose dark money funds their party.

Look at the clean energy tax credits which McCarthy claims are wasteful spending. It now appears that those tax credits will incentivize more investment than expected. So what is McCarthy's argument? There will be too much investment? Seriously?

Already, in less than a year, the IRA's clean energy tax credits have encouraged over 100 projects that will create north of 100,000 jobs. With time, the IRA could easily create over a million jobs--high-paying manufacturing jobs, the kind we should want. Many projects are in districts in the South and Midwest represented by Republicans.

Indeed, many House Republicans have cheered the very IRA-catalyzed projects they are now trying to torpedo. Seriously. Back home, they celebrate the jobs for their constituents. Here in DC, they vote to eliminate the very tax credits that created them--all to serve fossil fuel polluters.

Here are some of my favorite House Republican quotes celebrating IRA- catalyzed investments in Republican home districts.

This is the largest investment in the State of Georgia's

history--

One said--

one that will diversify and expand our economy while

providing strong job opportunities for Georgians today and

for generations to come.

And then a ``no'' vote against the IRA.

I'm thrilled that Honda has once again committed to Ohio

and our workers with today's announcement of a $3.5 billion

investment in EV production and a new battery plant within

Ohio's 15th Congressional District. I look forward to working

Honda and LG Energy Solution to bring 2,200 new jobs to the

Buckeye State.

And then voted to wipe out the program.

I am thrilled to welcome ENTEK to Terre Haute and to the

Hoosier state. As the only American company to own and

produce ``wet-process'' lithium-ion battery separator

materials, ENTEK is going to help to pave the way for

electric vehicle production in Indiana and reduce American

manufacturers' reliance on imported products. Their operation

in Terre Haute will create hundreds of new jobs.

And then voted to strip out the tax credits behind them.

I am honored to stand with other state and federal leaders

during this groundbreaking event as the first solar energy

microgrid-powered industrial site project was unveiled in

Jackson County. I know this important project will . . .

stimulate economic growth that will create new jobs in West

Virginia.

And then voted against the tax credits.

Where are the common themes here? Well, clean energy investments grow the economy and create jobs. These investments will help America compete against imports from overseas.

Usually, Republicans can't stop talking about how we need to reduce our dependence on Chinese imports and build up our own manufacturing industry--until their fossil fuel overlords tell them otherwise. Then they vote against the credits that encourage domestic manufacturing of the clean energy technologies that will dominate the economy of tomorrow.

What a terrible bet. Republicans can't beat China with the energy and technologies of the last century. No amount of fossil fuel-funded obstruction here at home is going to stop the clean energy revolution happening in the rest of the world.

In Europe last year, more than 12 percent of cars sold were fully electric, up from less than 2 percent just back in 2019. Europe is investing massively in wind and solar and green hydrogen, particularly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine demonstrated just how dangerous dependence on fossil fuels can be.

In China last year, 22 percent of cars sold were fully electric, towards the goal of 40 percent of all cars sold fully electric in 2030. China is, by far, the largest installer of wind and solar power, with ambitions to dominate the clean energy technologies of tomorrow.

In most places, renewable energy is now the cheapest form of energy-- far cheaper than fossil fuel. So the rest of the world is going all-in on wind, solar, batteries, green hydrogen, and other clean technologies for their low-cost energy. And that savings doesn't even count the trillions of dollars of value from avoiding the costs and harms of fossil fuel pollution.

The future is clean tech. And there are fortunes to be made. Many of these clean energy technologies were developed right here by our scientists and engineers at our companies and national labs. But the fossil fuel industry wants America to lose our technological leadership and all the business opportunities that flow from it.

Remember limit, save, grow? If you want that for real: limit pollution, save clean energy jobs, and grow the economy. The fossil fuel industry behind this is the most subsidized industry on the planet. It lives off public money and political influence. It gets to pollute for free.

Just today in the Budget Committee, we heard testimony that fossil fuel combustion, by warming the planet and polluting the air, costs America over $800 billion per year in health costs. The International Monetary Fund puts the effective subsidy in the U.S. for fossil fuels at almost $700 billion per year.

If fossil fuel-funded Republicans want to talk about picking winners and losers, bring it on. Their fossil fuel donors enjoy the biggest subsidy in world history.

If fossil-fuel-funded Republicans want to talk about free markets, bring it on. Market economics 101 teaches that the cost of your pollution should be in the price of your product. But fossil-fuel- funded Republicans protect free polluting for fossil fuel.

It is not just costs that fossil fuels impose on the rest of us. It is risks--economic risks associated with climate change. Central bankers, economists, insurance CEOs, financial experts, and other witnesses--serious grownups whose judgments are fiduciary--have come to the Budget Committee to warn of systemic risks to the economy, including a collapse in coastal property values and a carbon bubble resulting from stranded fossil fuel assets.

Now, ``systemic risks'' sounds pretty mild. It is not. It is when catastrophe spreads from one troubled sector across the entire economy, much as the 2008 meltdown in the mortgage market spread across the country to become the financial crisis and Great Recession, which, by the way, resulted in an additional $5 trillion in government debt. Disaster avoidance is debt reduction.

The stakes are huge. The consulting firm Deloitte estimates that the global cost of doing nothing on climate is around $180 trillion in economic damage--$180 trillion. But they go on to say that if we act responsibly and limit warming to 1.7 degrees Celsius, we can save ourselves from that and actually grow the global economy by $40 trillion. So you want limit, save, and grow? In this case, if you do it right by limiting pollution and saving clean energy jobs and growing the economy, the swing is $220 trillion between a bad climate outcome and a responsible climate outcome.

But the corrupt fossil fuel industry says ``jump,'' and Kevin McCarthy and MAGA Republicans say ``how high?''

Here is a ``how high": They eliminate the fee on wasteful methane emissions that I worked to include in the IRA. The methane pollution fee will raise $6 billion against the deficit and save even more from avoided climate and air pollution damage. But the rotten House plan was never about cutting debt and deficits, always about delivering for the fossil fuel overlords. So out goes the methane program.

Methane traps 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide, at least in the short run, and it creates air pollution that sickens people across the country. This is a satellite image of a methane plume. You can actually detect methane plumes from space now, which is why charging a fee for polluting makes so much sense, because you can find the polluter quite easily. This one is being released from an oil well. Now, the operator of this oil well could capture this methane and sell it. It is natural gas. But, instead, oil companies like this just release it. Pure waste. Pure pollution.

Putting a price on methane emissions will dramatically reduce this pollution and raise budget balancing revenues. But McCarthy doesn't care; the industry funds his caucus. So out goes the budget-balancing, pollution-preventing methane fee.

Next in the fossil fuel-funded parade of horribles is a permitting reform stuffed with giveaways to--you guessed it--the fossil fuel industry. What the hell does permitting reform have to do with the debt limit, you might ask? Well, good question. Does building in more fossil fuel even make sense? The world is moving off fossil fuels. Peak oil will occur, and demand will begin to decline. Once demand begins to decline, the oil cartel will collapse in a rush for the exits, causing serious economic turbulence as fossil fuel assets are stranded, particularly in high production cost countries like the United States of America.

This is the global production cost curve for oil. As you can see, Persian Gulf oil is far cheaper to produce than U.S. oil. Here we are.

So when there is a rush for the exits, and instead of cheating the world with cartel pricing, they go to cost-plus pricing, and we are out of business in the U.S. fossil fuel industry, and American fossil fuel infrastructure becomes hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of useless, stranded assets. But fossil fuel says ``jump,'' and House Republicans say ``how high?''

Last in this fossil fuel wish list is a provision to make it next to impossible for EPA to promulgate regulations limiting air and water pollution. Again, deregulating polluters has nothing to do with the debt limit, but the fossil fuel industry wants it. So it is in.

In just the last few months, we have seen what Republican deregulation means for American families and businesses. We saw it in East Palestine, OH, when a train derailment resulted in a major spill of toxic chemicals. We saw it in Northern California when Silicon Valley Bank went belly-up. Both of these events could have been prevented with better regulations. Both harmed American families and businesses.

Protecting Americans from air and water pollution with good regulations always pays because the costs associated with air and water pollution are enormous. But fossil fuel does a lot of air and water pollution. So here is another fact giveaway to the fossil fuel industry.

If you ever needed proof that the Republican Party is the wholly owned subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry, McCarthy's debt limit package is that proof. Amazingly, almost 280 pages out of a 320-page bill are devoted to fossil fuel industry giveaways.

Here are 320 pages; 280 of these pages are blue. The remaining 40 are white. So this is a visual image of how much of the ``Default on America'' bill is devoted to making nice for the fossil fuel industry versus everything else.

It is like a bunch of delivery boys for the fossil fuel industry over there. This bill isn't about debt and deficits. It is not about limiting or saving or growing. It is about serving fossil fuel--the source of the money that keeps them in power. Period.

Oil and gas extraction represents only about 5 percent of our GDP. Farming, manufacturing, food and beverage, insurance, finance, restaurants, retail, housing, healthcare--all representing a larger share of GDP. Clean energy actually now accounts for more employment than the fossil fuel industry. But for subsidies, nothing compares to fossil fuel. So for political influence, to protect those massive subsidies, nothing compares to fossil fuel.

There is actually a bug--an insect--that infiltrates another bug and takes over the other bug's nervous system. And from inside the other bug, it drives

it around. It is kind of a creepy, natural development. It happens in the insect world. And it looks like it happened on the other side of the building, because what the fossil fuel industry has done is to take over the Republican Party and now just drive it around.

So fossil fuel money makes the McCarthy package serve its Big Oil master. It is a deeply sad and dangerous state of affairs when one of America's two main political parties abandons all pretense of responsible governance just to service its prime political benefactor. That is what Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans are doing. That is this bill.

They threaten default, propose terrible cuts, deny climate warnings, and are willing to kneecap the American economy, all in service to the fossil fuel industry and its dark money.

It is time to fix our democracy so that it functions honestly and this nonsense stops. It is time to wake up.

Mr. President, 60 years ago last week, on Monday, August 28, hundreds of thousands of men and women descended on our Nation's capital for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

The march has become synonymous with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ``I

Have a Dream'' speech, which he delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and has become a central rallying theme for the civil rights movement.

Dr. King was prophetic in his remarks, beginning by saying that the day ``will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.''

To this day, it is the standard by which every other march and rally in Washington is judged. I thank all the Marylanders who attended the march and wanted to give a special thanks to those who joined the reenactment last week in Annapolis, which was kicked off by the Morgan State Marching Band. Had he lived to see the progress that has been made, and sometimes lost, six decades later, I am confident that Dr. King would have been uneasy and deeply frustrated that we are still fighting many of the same battles against bigotry and racism as well as economic repression and hate-fueled gun violence. Yet I am sure he would have leaned into the words he spoke on March 31, 1968, just days before his assassination, when he said:

We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is

long, but it bends towards justice.

Of course, Dr. King knew that we cannot leave it to fate to bend the arc of the moral universe on its own. We must work together for justice, equality, and democracy so that all people in this great Nation can be free. As Dr. King said:

All men, yes, black men, as well as white men, would be

guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the

pursuit of happiness.

Labor leader A. Philip Randolph's opening speech at the march was also explicit in the broad demands of the moment:

We want a free, democratic society dedicated to the

political, economic, and social advancement of men along

moral lines.

To that end, for many years in the U.S. Senate, I have been humbled to lead the fight for a number of key civil rights measures that would move the arc in the right direction of progress. These are basic measures that rebuke the structural racism that has been so deeply ingrained in our legal, social, and economic system for generations.

All of these legislative measures have healthy Democratic support; but, regrettably, with few exceptions, they are not yet bipartisan.

So let me go through some of these efforts. First, the End Racial and Religious Profiling Act would ban discriminatory profiling by Federal, State, and local law enforcement nationwide. Prohibited behavior would include targeting based on actual or perceived race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

This prohibition covers Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies carrying out criminal, immigration, or custom laws. Nothing in this bill would keep law enforcement officers from pursuing suspects based on legitimate descriptions--including their race and ethnicity, et cetera--but the days of targeting groups of people solely on how they look would end. My legislation was included in the broader George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, and I was pleased to see the U.S. Department of Justice recently strengthened their guidance against discriminatory profiling.

Next in my efforts, I would like to mention the Democracy Restoration Act, which would finally end the permanent denial of voting rights nationwide for individuals with criminal convictions who have been released from incarceration.

The bill aims to eliminate the complicated patchwork of State laws, many harkening back to the Jim Crow era. The current system worsens racial disparities in access to the ballot box and contributes to confusion and misinformation regarding voting rights.

In early August, a Federal appeals court issued a decision stating that the Mississippi's lifetime ban on voting for individuals convicted on some felonies ``violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.''

As described by the Brennan Center For Justice:

The remarkable 2-1 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for

the Fifth Circuit will re-enfranchise tens of thousands of

people.

My legislation was included in the broader For the People and Freedom to Vote Act legislation.

On voting rights, I joined a bipartisan working group to help pass the Electoral Count Reform Act to address some of the tactics used to attempt to overthrow the 2020 elections, which led to the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

But Congress still needs to take up and pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Reauthorization Act to begin to repair the damage done by the Supreme Court in curtailing the rights to vote and the use of voter suppression tactics, particularly against minority communities.

And when it comes to the lower Federal courts such as the district and circuit courts, I have continued to work with the Biden administration to recommend highly qualified and diverse Federal judges for lifetime appointments who believe in equal justice under the law that protects all Americans.

In regards to equal rights for women, we still have unfinished business. In May of this year, a bipartisan majority of the U.S. Senate voted to remove the arbitrary deadline for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and making it the 28th Amendment to our Constitution.

I was proud to lead the effort on this historic vote, along with my partner in this effort, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. For more than a decade, I have been working with a full grassroots army of women and men who understand that constitutional equality will not be a reality until the Equal Rights Amendment is recognized and ratified.

I first introduced a similar resolution in 2012. At that time, I had only 17 cosponsors, and we were still three States short of ratification.

Today, we have a bipartisan majority of Senators affirming that 38 States have ratified the ERA thanks to Virginia's ratification as the 38th State in 2020. This vote was decades in the making. I served in the Maryland House of Delegates in 1973 when the Maryland General Assembly voted to ratify the ERA. For my wife, my daughter, and my granddaughters, I have been working to complete the ratification of the ERA to protect their rights and the rights of all people across this Nation.

The ERA simply states that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex. That is it. That is the very straightforward text of what the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution says. Ratification would affirm women's equality by enshrining the principles of women's equality and explicitly prohibiting against sex discrimination in our Nation's founding document.

Most Americans think the ERA already is part of our Constitution, and nearly three-quarters support it. A majority of States covering a supermajority of Americans have equal rights or gender equality provisions in their State constitutions--as does Maryland--but millions are still left behind.

At the Federal level, the only current explicit guaranteed right in the United States Constitution based on sex is the 19th Amendment, which is the right to vote. That amendment was proposed by Congress in 1919, shortly after the end of World War I, and ratified by the States in 1920. Clearly, existing legal protections against sex discrimination fall well short of addressing the systemic sex-based inequality in our society.

Congress ratified the ERA in 1972 and sent it to the States for ratification. But back in 1972, an arbitrary deadline of 7 years was included in the enabling legislation for the ERA. The deadline was not--is not--in the amendment itself.

Congress extended the deadline to a full 10 years when it was clear that 38 States would not complete their ratification in time. What we are now trying to do is follow that precedent and change that deadline again. Actually, we want to remove that deadline.

With Virginia's ratification in 2020, the States completed their work, and it is now up to Congress to remove any doubt about the ERA being part of our Constitution. This has been a struggle, but we must make it to the finish line. Our resolution S.J. Res. 4 would clarify once and for all that the ERA has met all the requirements of article V of our Constitution.

As the 28th Amendment, the ERA would serve as a new tool for Congress, Federal Agencies, and in the courts to advance equality in the fields of workforce and pay, pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment and violence, reproductive autonomy, and protection of the LGBTQ+ individuals. It is also a signal to the courts that they should apply a more rigorous level of review to laws and government policies that discriminate on the basis of sex.

That is what the ERA is all about: equality, the most fundamental of American values. I am disappointed by the outcome of the vote this May, but this is not the end. Just before the Senate vote on the measure, I led my colleagues in a vigorous floor debate in support of the ERA and our resolution to affirm the ratification.

Not one opponent showed up to debate the merits of the resolution or equal rights. No one. It tells me that we are on the right side of history, and they know it.

So make no mistake about it, this march towards equality on account of sex continues. We will not rest until the ERA is in the Constitution of the United States. The States have done their job. We will get the necessary votes to make that a reality.

My life of public service was inspired by my faith but also by the civil rights movement and elected leaders of the 1960s. I was first elected to Congress in 1986 and sworn into office in 1987, along with Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, who would become a lifelong friend and mentor.

Years earlier, John was one of the original Freedom Riders and served as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was one of the major organizers of the 1963 March on Washington.

For John, the movement for freedom, justice and equality-- economically, socially, and all aspects of life--was not merely a movement; it was his life's work.

As times changed and as the struggle for equality took on new forms, his commitment never faltered. He marched on Washington through Selma and in the Halls of the U.S. Capitol with the same faith, courage, and conviction.

This past weekend, tens of thousands gathered on the National Mall to continue to march for freedom and justice, hearkening back to those who stood on the same ground six decades earlier. Dr. King's daughter-in- law, Arndrea Waters King, described to the crowd:

We are here to liberate the souls of the Nation, the soul

of democracy from the forces who would have us all go

backwards and perish rather than go forward as sisters and

brothers.

As President Joe Biden said recently, recalling Dr. King's reference to a ``promissory note'' to every American, it is ``a promise derived from the very idea of America, that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our entire lives. While we've never fully lived up to that promise, we've never--thank God--fully walked away from it . . . for our administration and with your help, it means pushing back against voter suppression, election subversion, and hate-fueled violence.''

So, Mr. President, my message to our colleagues is let us work together to do the work necessary to make sure that the moral arc of the universe moves toward justice. We must carry out that mission.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, my State, the great State of Texas, shares 1,200 miles of common border with America's southern neighbor. Along the border, you will see big cities, small towns, rural farms, and ranches. You will find successful businesses that depend on free- flowing, legitimate trade and travel with our southern neighbor. You will meet countless people who are proud of the strong ties our country has with Mexico and many who have relatives on both sides of the border. These influences can be seen throughout our State, from the names of cities, like San Antonio, to the food we eat, to the music we enjoy and the diversity of people in our communities.

A strong U.S.-Mexico relationship has been a boon to Texas, but it is also vital to the rest of the country. Mexico is our second largest trading partner for both imports and exports. It is a major market for American energy, machinery, chemicals, and agricultural products. We import everything from transportation equipment to avocados. It is not uncommon for certain products, such as automobiles, to cross the border multiple times throughout the production process before eventually making their way to consumers in the United States.

A strong relationship with Mexico is important to our economy, but Mexico isn't just a trading partner. It is not just about the economics between our countries. Mexico is also a necessary and vital security partner because our countries share, in total, a 2,000-mile border and work together to protect the safety and security of our communities on both sides of the border. It is critical that we work in a complementary fashion.

The United States has supported Mexico's efforts to counter cartel violence and root out corruption in its judicial system. Mexico, in turn, has worked with the United States to ensure orderly migration and stop illicit drugs from coming into our country. Obviously, what we are doing is not nearly enough on either side of the border.

Over the years, our security cooperation has promoted safety and security in both countries. As the American people are seeing every day, the Mexican Government is, unfortunately, failing to meet its side of the responsibilities. We can see that because people coming through Mexico, coming to the United States, have come in unprecedented numbers, which is a devastating humanitarian and public safety crisis. Then there are things like fentanyl and other dangerous drugs that are being manufactured in clandestine labs in Mexico and smuggled across our border every day.

Of course, these same criminal organizations are terrorizing law- abiding citizens in Mexico through their violence and their territorial disputes. Earlier this month, an out-of-control cartel violence incident harmed American citizens who were visiting Mexico. Four Americans were caught in a deadly shootout and kidnapped, and two of those individuals were killed.

In the face of these growing problems, the Mexican Government has not shown, in my view, enough willingness to work together to address these problems. Make no mistake, this is not something we can do or they can do alone; we have to do it together.

The Government of Mexico hasn't expressed adequate concern, in my opinion, over the cartel violence, the drug trafficking, or the migration crisis. Unfortunately, in public, Mexican President Lopez Obrador underplayed the security problems in his own country. I believe he knows differently based on the conversations we had when the TV cameras were not present. He has falsely claimed that Mexico is safer than the United States. We know that is not true. He said that Mexico was not responsible for the fentanyl coming into our country. We know that is also not true. It is a well-known fact that the vast majority of illicit fentanyl comes to the United States from Mexico, manufactured by precursor chemicals coming from China.

Well, here is the disparity between what you see in public to the TV cameras and what actually happens on the ground. Just weeks before claiming Mexico doesn't have a fentanyl problem, the Mexican Government raided what its army described as the ``highest-capacity synthetic drug production lab on record.'' That is what the Mexican Army, SEDENA, said. It seized nearly 630,000 fentanyl pills, along with hundreds of pounds of powdered fentanyl and methamphetamines.

At that time, President Lopez Obrador said the lab seized by elements of the Mexican Army--that that lab had a value of roughly $80 million, but just a few weeks later, the same government said it had no record of fentanyl production in Mexico.

It doesn't take a detective or an investigative journalist to see that the

Mexican Government is not taking these problems seriously enough, and it is to the detriment of their own citizens. Throughout Mexico, law- abiding citizens are being terrorized by these cartels. Migrants, we know, are being extorted and abused by the very people who are smuggling them up through Mexico into the United States. We know that communities across this country are experiencing waves of drug overdose or what some call fentanyl poisoning from the drugs that are smuggled from Mexico into the United States.

Frankly, the Lopez Obrador administration is not doing nearly enough to work together with us on this problem that we share in common, sadly to say. Given the severity of these challenges, there is a clear need for action. But we have to proceed carefully because while Mexico ultimately has many problems, it is our southern neighbor, and our economies are interconnected through the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, the successor to NAFTA. We know that its success, Mexico's success, will ultimately benefit the United States in terms of a better economy, more prosperity, more trade, more jobs. Our countries are inextricably linked together in terms of security and prosperity, and we need to find a productive path forward.

Countering cartel violence will require more cooperation with the Mexican Government. Stopping the fentanyl epidemic will require Mexico's cooperation. Addressing the border crisis will require Mexico's cooperation.

Although it may make us feel good at times, we can't just simply lash out in anger or say, we are going to do this, knowing that maybe it might get you a hit on TV, but it doesn't actually solve any problems. We need to make strategic decisions together with Mexico that will lead to real change.

As the Presiding Officer knows, we had a bipartisan congressional delegation to Mexico this weekend to learn more about the ongoing security challenges so we can figure out with our Mexican counterparts what kinds of changes need to be made and what exactly those changes would look like.

We had 12 Members of Congress--House and Senate--join the trip. From the Senate, we had Senator Moran, Senator Lee, Senator Capito, Senator Coons, Senator Murphy, Senator Sinema, Senator Welch, and myself. From the House, we had a bipartisan delegation: Congressman Cuellar, Congressman Tony Gonzales, Congresswoman Escobar, and Congresswoman Salazar.

Suffice it to say, between the 12 of us--Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate--we have varying political views and many differences of opinion on a host of topics, but on this weekend trip to Mexico, we all agree the ongoing crisis in Mexico is unsustainable and something needs to change. We wanted to visit Mexico so we could learn for ourselves what the facts are, not as they are spun by either elected officials or by the media. Before you solve a problem, you have got to understand the full scale of what you are up against, and that was the goal of this trip.

We got briefings from American intelligence officials, leaders from the Drug Enforcement Administration, and others about their work in Mexico. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico is the largest Embassy in the world and employs 3,400 people and 9 consulates in the main Embassy in Mexico City.

We spent some time with our outstanding Ambassador, Ken Salazar, a former colleague of ours in the Senate who went on to be Secretary of the Interior and now serves as our Representative in Mexico.

Ambassador Salazar was delighted we could come visit because he knows firsthand the challenges that Mexico faces and the challenges that the U.S.-Mexico relationship create and the importance of finding solutions to those differences and those challenges.

I want to thank President Lopez Obrador, even though I have said some critical comments here about how he has misrepresented the security situation in Mexico and the United States. I want to thank him publicly for meeting with us for a total of 4 hours. We not only met with Lopez Obrador; we met with the entire Cabinet. That would be as if a delegation, let's say, from Mexico of 12 senators and House of Deputies members came up and sat down with President Joe Biden and his Cabinet for 4 hours. It was an unprecedented exchange of information and points of view, and I think it demonstrated the Mexican Government's desire to have a closer working relationship with the U.S. Congress and the United States of America.

At the top of the list of the things we have talked about were the ongoing security challenges, which have had a deadly impact on both countries. Members of our delegation didn't pull any punches. We did it respectfully, but we forcefully presented our frustration with the ongoing cartel violence, the drug trafficking, and unchecked migration. That is what friends do, Mr. President; we have frank exchanges even when we disagree. We are friends with Mexico, and we have to work this out together, and we have to start with a common understanding of what the facts and the challenges are.

We told President Lopez Obrador that his administration must do more to address these challenges, and we emphasized that the failure to do so will have a negative impact on our historically strong and important partnership.

There are many ways to improve the security cooperation between our countries, and our delegation stressed our willingness to work with President Lopez Obrador's administration and the Government of Mexico to support their efforts to defeat the cartels.

Overall, our conversations with the Mexican President were extremely candid and tough, but they were respectful--respectful of not only the high office that President Lopez Obrador holds but also of the fact that we were dealing with the head of a sovereign country.

We have seen the positive impact in my State of a strong relationship with Mexico, but it also redounds to the benefit of the Nation. And as I said earlier, the better Mexico does by defeating the cartels, by interdicting the drugs and the precursors that come from other parts of the world, the better the quality of life, the safety and security will be for the people who live in Mexico--the Mexican people--and it will also be to our benefit here in the United States.

Ultimately, what I believe both countries want are a safe and prosperous country, and we can do this together. Our close ties are extremely beneficial to both countries, and I hope President Lopez Obrador took our good faith and candid comments about the failures to deal with security and migration to heart. We certainly expressed our views, as I said, in a candid, a civil, and respectful way, but I think we delivered the message clearly, and I hope he will take that to heart.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, this month, during this year's first open hearing for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, national security and military leaders gave a worldwide threat assessment of our country and of our way of life.

They described threats to our homeland, to our key allies, to our trading routes, to data privacy, and to our infrastructure, including crucial space assets.

There was a common theme in the concerns that we heard from our military and national security leaders; but, also, from what I have heard, these things are confirmed by Kansans and Americans.

The People's Republic of China is our greatest foreign threat to democracy, to our peace, and to our prosperity. At no time--this is not just a throwaway line. At no time in my life have I been more concerned about the enormity of the challenges our country faces.

The Chinese Communist Party, led by President Xi Jinping--the most powerful leader of the CCP since Chairman Mao--is on a determined, calculated mission to overtake the United States in fields that will shape the 21st century.

Beijing is intent that rather than the United States of America influencing world events in a way that favors and bends toward our principles of a free and open world, they want China's authoritarian model and they want the world bent their way.

China and its supporters would have the world move away from the principles that have advanced global prosperity and toward the basic belief that underwrites an autocratic authority, where the weaker are destined to be ruled by the stronger.

We have seen this with China's political, economic, and direct provision of nonlethal support to Russia, as Russia wages an unprovoked war on Ukraine.

China operates the world's most advanced techno-surveillance state that consolidates its power by monitoring, controlling, and subjecting their people. And China is engaged in an ambitious, expansive plan to export this model and the means of accomplishing it beyond their borders.

The threat is to us and to those like us and to the rest of the world. They want media, Big Tech, sports teams, and businesses to toe the CCP line, to be ignorant of--or at least silent on--the gross violations of basic human decency against the Uighurs, against Hong Kong, and elsewhere across their country in response to COVID.

The CCP pursues a world, including America, under the thumb of their power.

In a speech in April of 2020, Xi noted his intentions to increase global supply chain dependencies on China, with an aim of controlling key supply chains and being able to then use those supply chain dependencies to threaten and to, ultimately, cut off foreign countries during a crisis.

As of the latest worldwide threat assessment, China produces 40 percent of the world's key vaccines and medical ingredients; and by 2025, it is estimated that it is on track to control 65 percent of the important lithium-ion battery market--used in phones and cars and almost every other device and appliance--and fabrication of one in five semiconductors in the world.

China does not want the 21st century to be another American-led century. They want the century to be one that witnesses the replacement of American leadership with the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.

Two-thirds of global trade flows by ocean through the regions around the South Pacific--what the Department of Defense calls the Indo- Pacific. The goods that Americans export and the imports that we depend upon require a safe and reliable trade zone.

For decades, the U.S. military, at great expense, have kept the oceans and airways safe and open. By those means, Americans have kept the global commons safe for the benefit of our own peace and prosperity and for the benefit of the world.

When America is militarily strong and our sovereignty secure, we can shape and influence the terms of international commerce, international behavior. The way we do business is the standard, and that reflects our principles and leaves our fingerprints on the world.

Maintaining a strong U.S. economy requires trade agreements with partners who adhere to agreed-upon rules ranging from market access to the protection of intellectual property.

Our failure to participate in such agreements or update them to meet the realities of the 21st century opens the door to greater Chinese influence. This is a call for this administration and this Congress to react and respond differently than we have done to date on trade and trade agreements.

It is to our benefit and that of our trading partners to tie more of the world to the United States and its economy and reap the benefits of a vibrant international commerce. A stable Europe in which we coordinate closely with our partners on military and economic challenges is necessary to thwart China's rising influence.

America remains a coalescing force in Europe. Yes, I want Europeans to do more in Europe, but America remains a coalescing force, and our contributions have been essential to supporting Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression. With our continued assistance and an increasing European leadership and resources, Ukraine will be able to continue to push back Russian forces and preserve its sovereignty. A defeat of Ukraine by Russia further emboldens China.

Separately, our commitment to NATO remains and must remain resolute, and any threat to NATO territory must be met and will be met decisively.

Our intelligence community assesses that it will take years for Russia to rebuild its conventional military capabilities. NATO allies must use this window, this opportunity to strengthen their defenses and assume more responsibility for their security as we necessarily increase support for allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific. It is important for us to be able to pay attention to the Pacific, and we expect and hope our European allies to be able to take a closer look and watch the issues facing Europe today and in the future.

Despite its failures in Ukraine, we cannot ignore that Russia remains a threat. Russia possesses a massive nuclear arsenal, and Moscow has significant cyber, anti-satellite, and underwater capabilities.

Strikingly, China views Russia as an essential partner in the struggle against democratic values. As I speak now, President Xi is in Moscow meeting with President Putin, strengthening the relationship in pursuit of offering an alternative to American leadership, and by ``American,'' I mean something more than just the country of the United States of America; American values and Americans' care and concern for people around the globe.

The threats to American freedom, to world freedom and world security and prosperity, are not all challenges we face from foreign militaries. We also require vigilance on our border. All States really are border States, and when we fail to enforce this Nation's geographic sovereignty, we harm our Nation. There is no nation, in fact, without borders. Perhaps there is no greater tragic effect of our current failed border policies than the fentanyl and other drugs, sent from China to Mexico, coming across our borders.

We also must produce and we must manufacture goods here in the United States. The United States cannot be reliant upon our adversaries. We cannot hope for something to be delivered in the future in times of crisis. We have to be reliant on ourselves for our critical supplies of medicine, of food, of technology, and energy. We have to learn from our earlier errors discovered during the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes prioritizing American manufacturing and educating a technically skilled workforce. That is why we must fully and faithfully implement the CHIPS and Science Act that was signed into law last year.

A democratically and economically stronger America will be a more respected America. It is not enough to enlist and maintain the support of wealthy democracies in our vision of a free and open world. Our diplomats must be able to compete to convince countries that have grown skeptical of American leadership that we have not lost our way.

As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a Kansan, wrote, ``We must better communicate the good that we do.'' This includes our generosity to countries after natural disasters and our support in fighting global hunger. Each of us here and Americans across the country know that our Nation faces many challenges, but if we can have the eyes to see the thread that runs through those challenges, we will recognize that we have a determined adversary who is waging a new cold war.

Our domestic disagreements run deep, but the myriad of challenges we face from abroad should help us see the need to work together in this Senate, in this Congress, with this administration, and across the country, to work together to urgently address the threats we face. We need to be the democracy that remains the shining light on the hill. We need to be the role model Nation. Our divisions among ourselves and allegations that divide us only harm our ability to lead in this world, to meet the challenges we face from our adversaries.

We have a great inheritance. This country remains the best place on Earth to live. We live in a nation founded on principles, and those principles are of human equality, of the rights of men and women. We understand that basic rights come from God, not from government, but that government is here and is instituted for the purpose to secure and preserve those rights.

We ought to debate, argue, and discuss everything that our country faces together, but the ultimate outcome has to be one of common purpose, of preserving the freedoms that were created by our Founding Fathers in a Constitution that is sacred and making certain that those who have forgone their lives on behalf of us in previous battles, that their honor is preserved and their lives they lost were not lost in vain.

When America is strong and secure, we ensure that Americans are free and prosperous and that the entire world has a greater chance to join us, to remain with us in the pursuit of those freedoms and that prosperity.

I have a personally renewed determination to work with all of my colleagues to steward the privilege and responsibility that have been bestowed upon me by Kansans and all of us by our fellow citizens so that this century remains an American century, with liberty and human well-being better secured for all around the globe.

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, 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