Crystal Reservoir Conveyance Act

Mr. President, while hard-working Americans are struggling to afford basic necessities, there is one class of people who have never had it better: fraudsters. Scammers are stealing more than $1.4 billion from taxpayers every day.

Yesterday, I released a list of con artists who each fraudulently billed government programs for $1 billion or more. These billionaire bandits looted programs for the elderly, poor, disabled, and veterans to lavish themselves with million-dollar mansions, Rolex watches, expensive jewelry, and luxury cars.

One fraudster brags:

I had everything. I had houses, I had cars, I had watches.

He ripped off Medicare for over a decade before getting turned in and said:

It's just so easy. It's unbelievable.

Based upon the numbers, he isn't lying. If grift were a government Agency, the ``Department of Fraud'' would be the fifth largest. The $521 billion going to fraud every year exceeds the individual annual budgets of the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Transportation, Homeland Security, State, and Justice.

That is right, folks--fraudsters are being better taken care of than our veterans and farmers.

Fraud is not a victimless crime, either. In fact, it has far-reaching consequences. We have learned that taxpayer dollars stolen from the U.S. Small Business Administration financed the assassination--yes, you heard it right--the assassination of Haiti's President in 2021. A team of Colombian mercenaries and their pistols, rifles, and tactical gear were all paid for with the support of $840,000 fraudulently obtained from the Small Business Administration. The political instability resulting from the assassination forced hundreds of thousands of Haitians to flee their nation, taking refuge in the United States. The Biden administration provided many of these migrants with food stamps and medical care--also paid for by American taxpayers.

The inability to safeguard small business assistance resulted in taxpayers footing the bills for both the crime and its consequences.

Many of these scams also involve identity theft that upends the lives of the unsuspecting Americans who then must suffer the consequences.

For example, the Medicare number of a woman in California was stolen by scammers who used it to fraudulently bill for hospice care. When she sought physical therapy for an injury, Medicare denied her coverage because she was listed as dying in hospice.

Think about that. The same government Agency that wouldn't provide her with the healthcare she was promised approved and paid for bogus medical bills submitted by scammers using her information.

Medicare exists to ensure folks like her receive medically necessary care, not to make billionaires out of fraudsters. Yet the identities and personal information of more than 1 million Americans have been stolen by Medicare mobsters to file phony healthcare claims.

One illegal alien submitted at least $1.3 billion in fraudulent claims to Medicare and other health insurers, over just 6 months, using stolen identities. He laundered millions of the stolen tax dollars overseas to the Russian mob before some of his victims alerted Medicare that they were receiving notices for care and items they did not receive prescribed by doctors they had not visited.

Another con artist orchestrated a billion-dollar fraud machine that used foreign call centers to submit bogus bills. He treated programs meant to care for the elderly, veterans, and servicemembers like his own personal cash register.

From fake daycare centers to phony small businesses, the examples are absolutely endless, but the public's patience is not. According to the latest Gallup poll, 9 out of 10 Americans say government corruption is widespread. That is a record high number.

I challenge you to find any other issue where Democrats, Republicans, and Independents agree with each other more strongly.

We owe it to all Americans to stop the government grift. My Protecting American Taxpayers Act would do just that by stopping government Agencies from handing out quick cash with no questions asked, triggering automatic investigations when there are sudden and suspicious spikes in payment claims, banning convicted fraudsters from receiving taxpayer dollars, taking back the money that was already stolen, and sending those darn scammers to the slammer.

If enacted, this bill could save $240 billion. That is billion with a ``b,'' folks.

The choice is quite simple. Give the money to the fraudsters or return it to the taxpayers. What would really be criminal is if the Senate left town today without passing this meaningful legislation to eliminate fraud.

As if in legislative session, and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 452, S. 4952. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I am sorely disappointed today that we were not able to pass this commonsense legislation. And we have seen, time and time again, actual examples being put forth in this body to demonstrate the grift of these scammers.

And, unfortunately, we are not able to pass what is bipartisan legislation--a package of bills that has passed through many of the various committees here in the U.S. Senate--again, a bipartisan package that stops the grift and the scamming of the Federal Government.

We held a committee hearing, not too long ago, where I had in front of me, in the Small Business Committee, a woman that came from Minnesota. She started off her testimony by saying: I am a Democrat, but I can't stand by idly and watch as money is flowing out the door to the grifters.

She gave very powerful testimony. She worked for the State government, and she saw the rampant fraud that was happening in Minnesota. She raised it to her supervisor. She raised the issue to those in charge, and she was told to be quiet and not question what was going on. It eventually led to her firing. But the problem was--and she brought it forward.

She said: Every dollar that was being scammed that I identified, it was important to me that it get to the families that need it. Why? Because at one time, I had been part of one of those families.

She grew up in a family that was poverty-stricken and filled with abuse. Their family relied on those dollars for their support and yet, as a grown adult, she saw scammers taking advantage of those programs that are meant for the elderly, for the veterans, for those that are struggling to break free from poverty. And what happened to her? She was fired.

So this is commonsense legislation, checks and balances put on those programs. For everyone enrolling in those programs, we should check to make sure that they do qualify and meet Federal law and regulations.

So, again, I am very disappointed that the Democrats have rejected this, again, a bipartisan package of bills meant to save our taxpayer dollars for people that are truly vulnerable. I am sorely disappointed.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to seek unanimous consent to pass Senator Coons' and my bipartisan legislation, the NO FAKES Act.

The NO FAKES Act provides landmark Federal protection for the voice and visual likeness of creators and all Americans. It would protect them from the proliferation of harmful, AI-generated deepfakes that are created without their consent. From artists and songwriters to students and everyday citizens, our Nation deserves meaningful protections against these harmful deepfakes. Our bill would establish clear guardrails that protect our creators in Tennessee and across the entire country.

In addition to establishing a Federal intellectual property right in every American's voice and visual likeness, we also provide for a clear notice-and-takedown framework, as well as safe harbor provisions for companies that comply. These provisions ensure that when a platform receives proper notice of a deepfake, that platform must promptly remove or disable access to the harmful content. If they promptly remove the content, they won't face liability under the bill.

Importantly, we have included explicit First Amendment protections in this bill. For example, we have excluded commentary, criticism, scholarship, satire, and parody content from being removed, as well as news and sports broadcast material.

This legislation would protect artists while safeguarding creative uses for AI, which is why it has received endorsements from a wide range of stakeholders, including record labels, streaming platforms, AI companies, musical artists, and organizations involved in protecting our children and protecting dignity.

At this point, I yield to my colleague for his comments.

I thank my colleague for his consistent work on this.

He is so right. This has been something that we have worked on for years, and it is the result of so much bipartisan work and negotiation in explicitly putting in protections for free speech.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII and as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 446, S. 4591. Further, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, it has been disappointing that the Senator's staff chose not to accept the very language that he was wanting to see. We accepted that into the bill.

May I read to you:

[It]is . . . consistent with the public interest in bona

fide commentary (including political commentary).

So, if he thinks that he wants a candidate to be able to use certain images in political commentary in a nonharmful way, that is in there:

(. . . political commentary), criticism, scholarship, satire,

or parody; or . . . is used in a manner that is protected by

the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

That is language that is there.

So, if he is wanting to do that, that language has been offered. He can solve this right now by putting his John Henry right there on that language.

I would also remind my colleagues that there are laws against impersonation. If it is the physical world, you are not allowed to impersonate somebody to defraud them; with the intent to defraud or defame; with the intent to deceive people; with the intent to create a false identity. It is a felony. It is a felony. The problem is that it is not applied to the virtual space. There is a difference there. But you try to protect people in the virtual space and, all of a sudden, people want to say ``free speech.''

So I would ask my colleagues: Are you opposed to any of the State laws that make it a felony offense to impersonate a person? Go to the bank. Drain their account. Show up at a place of employment, impersonating them.

Try to grab their retirement account. Oh, there are laws for that. But, no, you can scam somebody all day long online and get by with it. You can actually show people, as my colleague from Delaware said, in different situations, doing different things, and they have no right-- no right--to protect their name, their image, their voice in the virtual space.

I will contend that I disagree with my colleague from Texas. We have tried to work with his staff. We have tried to work with him.

The NO FAKES Act does not chill First Amendment protected speech. We have worked with First Amendment legal experts in drafting the bill, and we are confident that it is First Amendment compliant. We have even doubled down on this language.

Now there are States, including Tennessee, that already provide statutory protection against the misappropriation of a person's name, voice, or likeness, and those statutes have been upheld.

In addition, the stated goal of our bill is for courts--the courts-- to make decisions regarding First Amendment jurisprudence, not platforms. The platforms, thus, are not the arbiters for making First Amendment decisions. This is really helpful in preventing censorship of conservative speech online.

This bill contains the necessary, broad exceptions for entire categories of speech--including news, public affairs, sports broadcasts, documentaries, biopics, commentary, including political commentary, criticism, scholarship, satire, and parody. This protects more than the First Amendment and much more than the only Supreme Court case on this subject, Zacchini v. Scripps.

If someone believes their content that was removed from this bill was protected speech, they can submit a counternotice triggering judicial review within 14 days if the victim wants the material to stay down; otherwise, the content can go right back up. This ensures that any protected speech that is removed based on a notice stays down for a very short time while preventing platforms from engaging in censorship.

As my colleague said, we have worked with groups for years to get this right. We have gotten it right. The protections that my colleague from Texas wanted to see included in the bill are there.

This is legislation that should pass and make its way to the President's desk to make certain that every American knows their name, their image, their likeness, their voice cannot be used in the virtual space for deception, for fraud, for personal harm.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I rise to speak up about Donald Trump's reckless trade war against Canada and the impact it is having on my State of Nevada.

Because of Trump's childish fight with our neighbors, tourism is down, prices are up, and Canada is suddenly rethinking its relationship with our country. Let me tell you why this matters to my State.

Canada is the No. 1 source of international visitors to Las Vegas. In 2024, nearly 1.5 million Canadians visited Nevada. It helped boost our tourism economy and the small businesses that depend on it. And Canada is also one of Nevada's top trading partners.

In fact, Nevada exports approximately $1.6 billion worth of goods to Canada. So think about this: $1.6 billion of revenue coming to businesses in my State of Nevada to further contribute to our economy. And this is exactly why a good, healthy relationship between Canada and the United States is important for Nevada and Nevada's economy, Nevada's families.

Donald Trump is doing everything in his power to harm our relationship with Canada. He is hurting Nevada families. He is hurting Nevada businesses along the way.

And one of the first actions that Trump took since returning to the White House was beginning a reckless and erratic trade war that has resulted in higher prices for American businesses, American families, for all of us, every single one of us.

And to date, he has imposed tariffs on many items we buy from Canada with higher rates on products like building materials, brand-name prescription drugs, alcohol, and paper products.

I have heard from restaurant owners paying more for paper towels and home builders paying more for materials. These costs not only make it impossible for our business owners to plan ahead, but then they get passed on to families.

Most recently, Trump utilized a never--never-before-used trade authority. I want to emphasize this: never-before-used trade authority to target Canada, applying 50-percent tariffs on a wide array of Canadian goods.

In retaliation, Canada recently imposed their own tariffs on goods they import from the United States, including from my State of Nevada.

Remember the $1.6 billion in Nevada goods that we export to Canada? Well, that number is going to be reduced because of these retaliatory tariffs.

Just yesterday, Trump's ban on the import of many Canadian goods has gone into effect, restricting Americans' freedom--restricting our freedom--to buy what we want to buy and making all of our prices go up.

The back-and-forth tariffs, they are a disaster, but they only tell one side of the story of Trump's hostilities toward Canada. Trump's childish attacks on Canada included threats to annex it as the United States' 51 State; its references to the Canadian Prime Minister as ``Governor''; Trump has tried to rename Lake Ontario to ``Lake America.'' Trump even canceled trade negotiations because a Canadian television ad hurt his feelings.

After a year and a half of this nonsense, where has Trump gotten us? Well, I can tell you where, because last year, Canadian tourism to Las Vegas declined by 17 percent--you got that right, 17 percent. This contributed to an overall decline in tourism that made 2025 the worst nonpandemic drop in visitation for Las Vegas since we began tracking data.

When we see a decline like this, it isn't just a data point for us. Hospitality employs nearly a third of all workers in Nevada. So this means fewer guests in our hotel rooms, which leads to fewer shifts for housekeepers. It means fewer visits to our restaurants and less tip money for our servers and bartenders. It trickles down to less money for all of the hospitality workers and when they go home to the neighborhoods they live in, less money they can spend there.

It is not only Nevada that is feeling this. According to the Canadian Government's own data, total spending by Canadians in the United States declined by over $3 billion. Canadians themselves are pointing to Trump's hostility as a reason for this decline. They are still traveling and spending money--Canadians are; they are just not coming to the United States. And this situation was 100 percent avoidable. None of this had to happen.

So no one can argue with the facts. Tourism is down because of Trump's trade war with Canada. Less money is being invested in our economy, and our small businesses are struggling to navigate expensive and constantly--constantly--changing conditions.

That is why I am here today to pass a simple resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that Trump's trade war against Canada must end. It must end to get our economy and the relationship with our northern neighbor back on track. I hope my colleagues look at the facts and agree.

So as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 898 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I want to start by commending my colleagues and friends, Senator Blackburn and Senator Coons. They both are sincere and passionate about this bill, and they both worked hard. They worked a long time to protect artists and to protect creators, and I support that endeavor wholeheartedly. I want to see this bill pass.

Indeed, in the Senate Judiciary Committee, I voted for this bill and expressed, at the time, that I wanted to see the bill pass. But I also said in the Senate Judiciary Committee that I was concerned that there were not sufficient free speech protections in the draft of the bill, as written, and that free speech parody and political parody needed to be more fully protected. There is a difference between stealing a country music star's voice and using it for commercial purposes and engaging in political parody.

For example, Spencer Pratt, when he ran for mayor of Los Angeles, had fantastic ads--made using AI--that parodied his political opponents. They were funny; they were effective. I don't think anyone watching thought Karen Bass was actually a Batman villain from the ``Lego'' movies, but people laughed, and they shared them, and they were effective communication.

Likewise, President Trump has used AI for political communication. I don't think anyone really believes that there was a flock of Canadian geese marching with machineguns. But, again, it was a powerful communication tool.

So, at the markup, I expressed that I and my team were happy to work with both Senator Blackburn and Senator Coons to enhance the free speech protections so you are protecting legitimate free speech while going after the theft of someone's right of publicity.

One of my concerns about how this bill is drafted right now is that it would apply to satirical websites like the Babylon Bee or The Onion, and it leaves the decision as to whether someone's use of a likeness falls within the exception--it creates an exception for what it calls bona fide parody, but it leaves it to Big Tech to make the decision as to whether it falls in that exception or not.

And the use of a deepfake law to silence and punish political speech is not idle speculation. In fact, California lawmakers have already suggested that Pratt's viral campaign ads could violate State deepfake rules. That, I think, is a real problem.

So I will reiterate, and I will say also that I have no hesitation against strong legislation that stops deepfakes. Indeed, I am the author, along with Senator Klobuchar, of the only legislation Congress has passed regulating AI and prohibiting deepfakes, the TAKE IT DOWN law. I think that illustrates the sort of approach we should have in targeting a specific problem--in that instance, publishing explicit, nonconsensual, intimate images, either real or deepfakes. That is now a Federal felony, and there is now an obligation on tech platforms to remove that content.

So I will repeat to my friends the commitment I made at markup: I am happy to work with you. I want this bill to pass, and I will suggest: Let's take the next few weeks to have our staff work together to strengthen the free speech protections. Then we can come back here and pass this into law while fully protecting free speech.

At least as of now, though, I object.

Mr. President, I would like to start by thanking my colleague from the State of Tennessee.

This has been a tremendous experience in working together to find a way to protect creators and, frankly, all Americans.

We live in an age of AI anxiety, AI optimism, and AI experimentation in a way never previously thought possible. In the next 5 minutes, I could generate a brief film in which a colleague, say, from the State of Texas is the hero of a major football game or a colleague from the State of Tennessee is performing what is otherwise known as one of Elvis Presley's landmark pieces of music.

We each do have a right in what makes us ``us'' in our voices, in our images, and in the property rights that attach to our likenesses.

This bipartisan compromise is the result of years of negotiation with the creative community, with platforms, with studios, and with a lot of different interest groups, including First Amendment and civil rights advocates.

This bill, the NO FAKES Act, creates a new intellectual property right to allow not just celebrities and famous Americans but all Americans to control their digital revenue. As my colleague just said, it creates a takedown system to allow you to promptly enforce those rights if you believe that a platform has wrongfully put it up and a prompt counter-notice process to allow you to have it taken down if the rights holder or the platform decides that it violates some fundamental right like the First Amendment. There are key and explicit protections for free speech, for parody, for satire, for documentaries, for newscasts, and for bio-pics.

The work that went into this, over years, was substantive and serious. I want to thank my chief counsel, James Barton, and I want to thank my colleague and her staff for their tireless work to first secure the support of the movie and music industries--the actors, singers, songwriters, performers--to secure the commitment and engagement of online platforms, like YouTube and TikTok; to get AI companies, like OpenAI and IBM, on board; and to get organized labor and child safety groups on board.

Ultimately, our bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a voice vote, and it has 14 bipartisan cosponsors. It is my hope that we will be able to pass this today in recognition of the hard work of my colleague from Tennessee and our cosponsors, Senator Tillis and Senator Klobuchar.

With that, I yield the floor to my colleague from Tennessee.

Mr. President, if I might just briefly conclude my comments on the same matter. I look forward to working closely with my colleague from Texas and my colleague from Tennessee to find compromise that allows us to move this bill forward. It is one of the most ready- for-enactment, defined, complete bills in the AI space that creates a new intellectual property right for all Americans. We should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Of course I respect First Amendment concerns, and, of course, I want to make sure that the notice and takedown process is set in terms of its incentives such that it leans towards protecting political satire and other forms of free speech, and I very much look

forward to working in the coming weeks to try and resolve this such that Senator Blackburn and I can see this bill enacted.

I yield the floor.