A bill to extend the National Flood Insurance Program through December 31, 2026.

Mr. President, a lot has changed in Washington, DC, in the last 6 weeks. That is an understatement, perhaps. But one of the things that President Trump has done is shifted the Overton window when it comes to the People's Republic of China.

Years ago, when the Clinton administration invited China to join the World Trade Organization, the idea behind that was that somehow communist China would change with being part of the rules-based international order. Well, of course, we know China doesn't follow the rules and has taken advantage of the United States for decades. But under President Trump, that will no longer be the case. For example, last month, the White House announced its America-first investment policy, which will be critical for holding China to account.

One of the avenues that China has exploited to gain the upper economic hand is through both inbound and outbound flows of capital. By investing in U.S. companies, the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party can obtain access to intellectual property and know-how. And, of course, they have no shame. Again, they don't play by our rules. They are not afraid to cheat or steal our technology if it is possible.

On the other side of the coin, U.S. investments from the United States are flowing into China and have for a long time. A 2021 estimate was that the market value of U.S. investments in China was valued at more than $1 trillion.

Now, the reason why that is important is that China has used that investment to build their economy and their military. It has allowed them to advance technologies that one day might be used against the United States.

So I am very glad that President Trump, by his Executive order, has brought this issue from the back burner to the front.

It is no secret to any of my colleagues that I have been working on this issue for a while now. I was proud to partner with President Trump during his first administration to update CFIUS, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. This interagency committee reviews foreign investments and real estate transactions to determine whether they pose any security risks for the United States.

Through the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act, or what was known as FIRRMA, we strengthened and modernized CFIUS to rise to the occasion of new threats coming from the People's Republic of China. The President's America-first investment policy builds on this by directing CFIUS to restrict PRC investments in U.S. tech, agriculture, energy, raw materials, and more.

But as Chinese companies get richer and richer from American investment, it is clear that restricting inbound investment is not enough. We need to prevent the People's Republic of China from using capital investments by the United States to gain access to and copy our technological advances--most importantly, in certain critical sectors.

As of 2023, U.S. investors were investing close to $2 billion in Chinese critical technology sectors, including semiconductors, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence. A report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission noted: ``The United States is the most important foreign source of investment to semiconductors, quantum computing, and AI in China.''

Let me say that again. ``The United States is the most important foreign source of investment to semiconductors, quantum computing, and AI in China.''

So it is these investments, which are largely opaque to us, as policymakers, that are helping China basically compete with us. We know, of course, it is not just about economic competition. We know that China has a strategy of military-civil fusion, which means that these investments are not simply benefiting China's economy and consumer tech sector; they are directly helping build China's military strength.

It is not too dramatic to say that as I stand here, U.S. dollars are funding the development of technologies that could one day be used against Americans, potentially even to kill Americans or American troops.

Inbound and outbound investments are simply two sides of the same coin. We can't be giving away all of our intellectual property and our incredible innovation for Chinese companies to copy at will, and we can't be giving them the capital to recreate our ideas or reverse- engineer and then use them against us.

How can we expect to outcompete our most significant competitor on the world stage if we are sending billions of dollars directly into their arsenal?

President Trump has been a great partner with Congress on ending this exploitative relationship with China. Again, this is not dealing with another country on the basis of good faith and a knowledge that everybody is operating from the same set of rules and norms. China does not, and we have recognized that more recently, but it is important to reemphasize because some people, I think, still naively assume China operates by the same rules the United States does.

So I am glad the President is as excited as I am to finish the job we started with CFIUS reform.

Today, I am proud to announce that I am introducing legislation to finally tackle this issue called the Foreign Investment Guardrails to Help Thwart China Act. The acronym is FIGHT China. Two years ago, I sponsored an amendment to the NDAA requiring transparency for these outbound investments. It passed the Senate overwhelmingly with a final bipartisan vote of 91 to 6. We don't see many votes here in the Senate these days where there is such strong bipartisan support, so I am grateful for that.

Regrettably, even in the face of such overwhelming consensus, this amendment did not make its way into the final version of the bill for reasons I won't dwell on now. But, as my colleagues can attest, I am not one to give up easily, and this issue is simply too important to American national security to take no for an answer, so I have continued to work with great partners in the House, in the Senate, and in the Trump administration to continue to make progress on this and bring us to where we are today.

The legislation we are introducing today has been the culmination of years of work, and I believe it is stronger as a result of the input and the collaboration that have occurred.

The FIGHT China Act will establish a program at the Department of Treasury to prohibit U.S. investments in certain sensitive technologies in the PRC.

Now, some people may say: Well, if you stop all U.S.-based investment in China, that is a big problem. But we are not talking about that. I could care less how many Starbucks or Burger Kings are built in China. It only addresses certain of the most sensitive technologies. These include advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and hypersonics. Of course, all of these have a military application.

So this is not just an economic question; this is a national security issue. We know that all of these critical industries directly support the Chinese military, and this is the military that has been instructed by President Xi to be ready to invade Taiwan or to absorb Taiwan one way or another, either by force or by coercion, by 2027. It is simply foolish to continue to send money to fuel these technologies that could be used perhaps in the next few years against the United States and our allies.

This legislation would create a notification regime to create more transparency around investments that are not prohibited. You know, as long as we are blind to how much money is

being invested in China and in what technology and in what sectors it is being invested in, we as policymakers can't do our job and the administration can't do its job, which is primarily to keep our country safe and the American people safe.

This legislation will authorize the President to impose sanctions against any PRC entity that engages in PRC military or intelligence sectors.

I want to express my gratitude to our colleagues, people like Senators Cortez Masto, Warren, Banks, Slotkin, Ricketts, Bennet, Hagerty, Kim, McCormick, Schumer, Sullivan, Fetterman, and others for their partnership on this legislation.

I especially want to recognize the chairman of the Banking Committee, which has principal jurisdiction over this subject matter, Senator Tim Scott, and thank him for working with me and cosponsoring this legislation.

Last but not least, President Trump has been a great partner to see this project to the finish line. Everything we are doing here is working hand in glove with the administration to ensure that the People's Republic of China is not allowed to meddle with the United States under the guise of simply doing business.

But time is running short. We know that China, as I said, has an interest in reincorporating Taiwan as early as 2027, not 2 years from now. Now is not the time to continue to allow them access to copy all of our work, in particularly the most sensitive areas. Nor is it the time to allow them to continue to benefit from U.S. investment dollars now that they are no longer a developing country, but they are one of the most advanced economies in the world and certainly a rising military power.

We know that China, Iran, and Russia have conducted joint naval drills in the Middle East, called the Maritime Security Belt 2025. These exercises took place in the Gulf of Oman near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which nearly a fifth of all crude oil traded in the world passes. This is an ominous sign. We know they are strengthening their cooperation together in a way to undermine and challenge the West, including the United States. The last thing the United States should do is to join this cooperation by investing in the Chinese military, and that includes not just the Government of the United States but all Americans and American businesses and investors.

So the President has been right to highlight this growing threat, and I look forward to continuing to work with President Trump and Secretary Bessent to ensure that U.S. dollars no longer are able to help build the Chinese military and line the pockets of the country that is working to undermine the international rules-based order and the United States first and foremost.

Mr. President, over the last 2 months, the United States has confronted a bitter--a very bitter truth: The Federal Government has been taken over by a nihilist. Donald Trump, in 2 months, has taken a blowtorch to our country and wielded chaos like a weapon.

Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have caved to his every whim. The Grand Old Party has devolved into a crowd of Trump sycophants and MAGA radicals who want to burn everything to the ground. Look no further than what DOGE is doing. Now Republicans' nihilism has brought us to the brink of disaster.

Unless Congress acts, the Federal Government will shut down tomorrow at midnight. I have said many times that there are no winners in a government shutdown, but there are certainly victims--the most vulnerable Americans who rely on Federal programs to feed their families, to access medical care, and to stay financially afloat.

Communities that depend on government services to function will suffer and suffer greatly.

This week, Democrats offered a sensible way out: Fund the government for another month to give appropriators more time to do their jobs. Republicans rejected this proposal outright. Why did they reject it? Because Donald Trump doesn't want the appropriators to do their job; he wants full control over government spending. He isn't the first President to want this, but he is the first President to cower his party into submission.

So that Republican rejection leads us to a decision. That Republican rejection leads us to a decision. And it is not really a decision; it is a Hobson's choice: Either proceed with the bill before us or risk Donald Trump throwing America into the chaos of a shutdown. This, in my view, is no choice at all.

While the CR bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse. For sure, the Republican bill is a terrible option. It is not a clean CR. It is deeply partisan. It doesn't address far too many of this country's needs. But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.

Before I explain why, let me be clear about one thing. No one on my side of the aisle wants a government shutdown. Members who support this CR do not want a government shutdown. Members who oppose this CR do not want a government shutdown.

Members who oppose this CR want the Republicans to take their responsibilities more seriously and to negotiate spending bills that will address the many needs of the American people. I respect them for that. Unfortunately, though, this Republican Party is the party of Trump.

As bad as passing the CR is, as I said, allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.

First, a shutdown would give Donald Trump and Elon Musk carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now. Under a shutdown, the Trump administration would have full authority to deem whole Agencies, programs, and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff with no promise they would ever be rehired. The decision on what is essential would be solely left to the executive branch, with nobody left at the Agencies to check them.

In short, a shutdown would give Donald Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE, and Vought the keys to the city, State, and country.

A shutdown would give Donald Trump the keys to the city, the State, and the country.

And don't take my word for it. Musk has said aloud he wants a shutdown, and public reporting has shown he is already making plans to use the shutdown to expedite his destruction of key government programs and services. Musk told reporters:

If the job is not essential or they are not doing it well,

they obviously shouldn't be on the public payroll.

Many Federal employees and government experts are rightly worried that a temporary shutdown could lead to permanent cuts.

Second, if we enter a shutdown, congressional Republicans would weaponize their majorities to cherry-pick which parts of the government to reopen. In a protracted shutdown, House and Senate Republicans would pursue a strategy of bringing bills to the floor to reopen only their favorite departments and Agencies, while leaving other vital services that they don't like to languish.

Third, a shutdown is not a political game. Shutdown means real pain for American families.

For example, veterans services: I believe a shutdown could cause regional VA offices to reduce staff, delay benefit processing, and curtail mental health services, abandoning veterans who earned and depended on those resources.

Social Security and seniors: I believe a shutdown could green-light Trump to slash administrative staff at Social Security offices, delaying new applications and benefit adjustments and forcing seniors to wait even longer for the benefits they earned.

Justice and courts: Extremely troubling, I believe. A shutdown could stall Federal court cases, one of the best redoubts against Trump's lawlessness and could require furloughing critical staff at the courts, denying victims and defendants alike their day in court, dragging out appeals, and clogging the justice system for months or even years.

This administration has shown an unfathomable willingness to sacrifice American families and their well-being to advance their own political agenda. A shutdown positions them to do this on overdrive.

Finally, there is one more reason I oppose a shutdown. President Trump and Republican leaders would like nothing more than to pull us into the mud of a protracted government shutdown. For Donald Trump, a shutdown would be a gift. It would be the best distraction he could ask for from his awful agenda.

Right now, Donald Trump owns the chaos in the government; he owns the chaos in the stock market; he owns the damage happening to our economy from one end of the country to the other. The stock market is crashing; consumer confidence is plummeting. Donald Trump is hoping for a shutdown because it will distract from his true agenda of delivering massive cuts to the rich paid for on the backs of American families.

He wants to gut Social Security, hollow out Medicaid, slap taxes on consumer goods through his reckless trade wars. In a shutdown, we would be busy fighting with Republicans over which Agencies to reopen, which to keep closed--instead of debating the damage Donald Trump's agenda is causing the American people.

Mr. President, I believe it is my job to make the best choice for the country, to minimize the harms to the American people. Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down. There is nobody in the world--nobody--who wants to shut the government down more than Donald Trump and more than Elon Musk. We should not give it to them.

And make no mistake: Democrats will continue to fight what Donald Trump is doing. Everything that Trump, Musk, and Republicans have done so far has a clear goal: again, cutting taxes for billionaires, eviscerate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

This is the fight that matters most and the fight we must focus on-- all the chaos we have seen, all the lawlessness, all the grift and corrupt behavior. It is all about rigging the system in favor of the ultrawealthy at the expense of working Americans. This is the fight the American people need to see. This is the fight that Democrats will win. A shutdown will be a costly distraction from this all-important fight.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, 74,000 people died of fentanyl and fentanyl analogs in 2023. Everyone in this Chamber and everyone watching from home knows of someone who has died of a fentanyl overdose. If you watched the Super Bowl, 74,000 is more people than were in the New Orleans Superdome.

Now, they didn't just occur in a border State or in my State or in the Presiding Officer's State; they occurred across the country. Every State is a border State when it comes to fentanyl flooding our country. Everyone has felt the effect of the 50,000 pounds of fentanyl that has poured across the open southern border or through the mail over the last couple of years. Fifty thousand pounds is enough to produce over 2 billion lethal doses--enough to kill everyone in the country six times over.

I was just told by a friend about the DEA Museum just outside of Washington, DC. It has a new exhibit, the ``Faces of Fentanyl.'' You see walls covered with thousands of photographs of Americans--many of them young--who have died from an overdose. When you see the pictures on these walls, you can't see them, but you know the presence of parents, brothers, sisters, friends, cousins, aunts, and uncles who were devastated when that person on the wall died, when they heard the news that their loved one had bought a pill online or from somebody they happened to know. Perhaps they thought it was something else or perhaps they didn't know the potency. Nonetheless, when they took it, they died.

The pain of this for so many people is why I urge my colleagues to join me in passing the HALT Fentanyl Act--to help law enforcement stop the criminals who are poisoning our fellow Americans.

What does the HALT Fentanyl Act do? It makes permanent the schedule I classification of fentanyl and fentanyl analogs. What is a fentanyl analog? I am a doctor, so I am going to speak a little bit like a doctor. An analog is fentanyl, which is illegal except they change it just enough so that, when they change it, technically, it would not be illegal. Yes, it looks like fentanyl; it addicts like fentanyl; it can kill like fentanyl. Yet, because of a minor modification, it is not actually fentanyl, but it still has the same terrible, addictive, deadly effect of the actual thing. It still has the ability to take our loved ones from us.

So how do we stop that? We say that whether it was fentanyl or a fentanyl analog, it is banned and that if you are illegally in possession of this or if you are selling it to other people, then law enforcement has the right to arrest you.

This bill makes the schedule I classification--schedule I, meaning it is illegal to have--permanent.

Aside from closing the loophole that criminals use to skirt around the law, we also strengthen the penalty for those who possess the fentanyl analog and, again, make it easier for law enforcement to prosecute.

This isn't controversial; this is bipartisan. The need is there. We have been doing this on a temporary basis, but now we are going to make it permanent. Law enforcement will keep the most vital tool they have to hold fentanyl dealers accountable and to go after criminals.

The bill also makes it easier to research fentanyl analogs to determine if they actually have a medical use. It is possible that one of these analogs is better than the real thing, and fentanyl does have, when prescribed by a physician appropriately, a valid medical use, so maybe one of these analogs is useful. We allow for research into that. At the same time, we give law enforcement the ability to prosecute if it is used for things such as to create an addiction.

President Trump said he would sign this if we passed it. We are working--I am working--to get this bill to his desk.

I would like to thank my colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chairman, for moving this bill through his committee so quickly and thank the majority leader for bringing this bill up for a vote. I also want to thank my colleague from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, for his work on this issue. I also thank Martin Heinrich from New Mexico, who has really cared about this issue, and Senator Heinrich has pushed this on a bipartisan basis.

The longer we wait, the more it emboldens drug cartels, people in China who either send supplies to Mexico or mail the fentanyl itself through the mail, and other criminals who look to exploit our communities.

We can take a concrete step in fighting the opioid crisis with the HALT Fentanyl Act. Republicans are united. This is a bipartisan bill. The country is united. Let's bring that 74,000 fentanyl death toll down to zero.

I will never yield in this fight, but for now, I do yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I rise to celebrate the birthday of someone very special: my grandmother Lyra Baker Boyd, who I call MaMa.

Today, she turns 100 years old. She is such an incredible woman. I think about the memories of her in my lifetime. I think about the impact she has had on me and my cousins, on people all around her who have the honor of knowing her.

Some of my earliest memories are that of her kindness and gentleness, her teaching me how to treat others. I remember sitting at her kitchen table as my grandfather was going over different Bible verses before church on Sunday morning. She would make oatmeal. We would get blueberries out of her garden. She would make scrambled eggs, pouring milk in them to make them go a little bit further; making sure we used our best manners at the table and then sending us off to conquer the day.

There is no doubt she had a passion for leaving everyone and everyplace that she encountered better as a result of her. Those values that she has, those values of service, they stirred in her so early in her life.

MaMa graduated high school at the height of the Second World War. She dreamed of serving our country overseas. As we know, women weren't allowed to enlist in combat roles at that time, so she embarked on a different pathway to serve. She became a nurse. It was 1943 when she enrolled at what was then the Hillman Hospital Training School for Nurses. It later became

Jefferson-Hillman, and it is now right at the center of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Campus.

MaMa was ready to ship out to Europe to tend to our wounded soldiers, but V-Day actually came right before she graduated. Still wanting to serve her fellow Americans in some way, she moved to Enterprise, AL--I am proud to call that my hometown--and she began her 40-year nursing career.

In the early fifties, during the Korean war, her husband--my PaPa, as I call him--was among the brave soldiers defending our ally from communist invasion. MaMa and her sisters moved to Seattle during the time. She moved to live with her sister there, and she worked as a registered nurse.

During her time in the Pacific Northwest, she never lost her southern roots. Her colleagues even called her ``Magnolia.'' They said it was clear that she held Alabama dear. Ultimately, she and PaPa made their way back down to the Yellowhammer State, as MaMa worked as a labor and delivery nurse until she retired.

Both she and PaPa's life are emblematic of their generation. Rooted in unselfishness, unselfish service to our great country, they personified what JFK said:

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can

do for your country.

MaMa helped teach that to my entire family. She wanted us to know that life wasn't always about us. She makes sure, in every conversation, that we understand that there is a greater purpose and a higher calling to which we must answer and a service to which we must all work. We all have a responsibility to put our God, our family, our friends, and our country above our own personal interest. And there is nobody who embodies that better than my grandmother.

That service to our communities and our Nation can take many shapes and forms. For both of my grandfathers, it was military service. For others in my family, it has been protecting their fellow Americans as law enforcement officers and firefighters. For me, it is the honor to stand and serve in this body. And for MaMa, it was helping bring life into this world, helping new moms, and nursing people back from sickness.

Above all, what MaMa has taught me is that you must use your post, whatever it is in life, to make a difference in the lives around you. We are all called to serve. We are all called to be in the arena. Everyone's service is different, but no one's is less important. It is about striving to do better, to be better, and to leave this world better than we found it.

So, thank you, MaMa, for being a guiding light throughout the course of my life. On behalf of my aunts and uncles, cousins, and MaMa's family and friends, we say, ``Happy 100th birthday.'' We love you dearly, MaMa.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this is a theme I have been speaking of which affects States across the Nation, which is the National Flood Insurance Program and the threat that it might lapse and the inability of families to be able to afford.

Why are flood insurance premiums so high, you might ask? Flood insurance premiums have skyrocketed across the country due to FEMA's new risk assessment system, Risk Rating 2.0. At the heart of the problem of Risk Rating 2.0 is that with much higher premiums, people will quickly be unable to afford coverage and just drop their policies.

It is well-known in the insurance actuarial world that when you increase a policy by a certain percent, there is going to be another percent of people who just drop their coverage. That means that the pool of policyholders shrinks, and the program enters into what is called an actuarial death spiral, which is to say the risk, instead of being spread out over many, is concentrated in increasingly fewer people, driving up their premiums even that much more; therefore, more people drop.

If we do nothing, the National Flood Insurance Program will collapse. This is important. The National Flood Insurance Program covers 4.7 million American homes across the country. Now, clearly, I am concerned about Louisiana, as that is my State, but it is not just Louisiana or even just a coastal issue. Look at a map of those affected. The States in dark yellow have been hit the hardest by flooding. They have all had at least $1 billion in claims from the National Flood Insurance Program. Missouri--inland--has had over $1 billion in claims from the National Flood Insurance Program, as has my home State of Louisiana. But just go around, and you can see California and Hawaii--all with this issue. Now, 44 States have had at least $50 million worth of claims, and those would be in the kind of mustard color.

So here you see again inland States--not coastal but inland--having problems with flooding. When we say a ``problem with flooding,'' we mean there is a family that has lost their possessions. They have lost their home, and now, they don't know where to go. That is what we mean by a ``problem with flooding.''

My message to my colleagues representing States that rely on the National Flood Insurance Program is, let's find a way forward. One day, the National Flood Insurance Program will lapse if we fail to act.

Now, we are going to, with this CR, do a temporary--temporary-- extension. I would ask that we actually have a reauthorization and a reform of the National Flood Insurance Program before it is too late.

By the way, a short-term extension is better than nothing. I thank Speaker Johnson in the House for including a short-term extension. If that is the only option, let's take that option. However, I am working on a longer reauthorization so that the National Flood Insurance Program is not thrown into a legal purgatory every year or even sometimes multiple times a year.

Today, I have introduced a bill to fully reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program for this year and for next year. There are 4.7 million homeowners across the country who deserve that little bit of certainty, and it does not seem like it is asking too much.

Imagine if your homeowners or life insurance was subject to lapsing every year if Congress couldn't get their act together. Well, for families living in communities with the NFIP as the only option for flood insurance, this would be unsettling.

In the past 10 years, Congress has passed 32 short-term National Flood Insurance Program extensions. The vote we are taking tomorrow will be the 33rd short-term extension--American families holding their breath 33 times. Families need stability. Businesses need stability. This is the absence of stability. This is a yin and a yang. Congress needs to reauthorize this for an extended period of time.

Let's make flood insurance affordable again. I will keep working to do that. I am pleased that the Flood Insurance Program will survive the weekend, but we need to make it survive long term.