Temporary Extension of Fentanyl-Related Substances Scheduling Act

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I would like to speak about DOGE.

The verdict is in: It has been a colossal failure. It has done immense damage to many of our institutions and inflicted immense pain on innocent people. Also, it is not going to be successful in its stated goal of reducing spending and wasteful spending.

But before I go on, let me just say what all of us know. Every single person in this U.S. Senate is all in when it comes to attacking waste, fraud, and abuse. Every single one of us knows that we should kick the tires on every program we have in the Federal Government and look to see how we can make it be more efficient. And there may even be some programs where we say: You know what, its purpose has been served; it is time to move on.

So those of us who are being critical of DOGE are just looking at what DOGE is doing but not at all quarrelling with the notion that every one of us, Republican and Democrat and Independent, has a responsibility to be the best stewards of taxpayer money that we can be.

But here is my problem with DOGE: They are not looking in the right places. There is so much rip-off that is going on. Let's just talk about a couple of examples in our healthcare system. United Healthcare is rigging the system on Medicare Advantage Programs. Our seniors--we want them to have the healthcare they need. But they have set up these billing systems where they have paid nurses and forced doctors essentially to overanalyze and overprescribe and overstate what medical conditions were. This was not to help the senior on a Medicare Advantage Program; this was to pad their bottom line and make billions of dollars.

Of course, I am referring to the series of articles that was in the Wall Street Journal that documented the rip-offs and what I think were corrupt practices by United Healthcare.

Where is DOGE? All that money is just wasted. It has gone into the pockets of executives at United Healthcare. It has gone into shareholder payouts and dividends, but it hasn't gone into improving healthcare for seniors.

Another one: the pharmacy benefit managers. They are ripping us off so badly. We had a bipartisan bill with enormous Republican support and Democratic support to curb the rip-offs in the PBM industry. That was in our final budget deal last year. It got derailed. Why? Elon Musk. He was against it, and he gave the word that this has got to go down. The thing blew up, and we don't have the PBM reform that both sides of the aisle knew was necessary--something that was going to save hundreds of billions of dollars for American taxpayers and allow us to reinvest in healthcare and make things better.

So my first question with DOGE is, Why don't you look where the money is, where the rip-offs are, instead of just sending out emails overnight telling people they are fired whose performance has been absolutely exemplary?

So that is the core question I have about DOGE. Why are you leaving these practices that we know are really corrupt and a rip-off untouched, unexamined, and allowing them to continue when it is hammering taxpayers and citizens?

We have work to do on saving money, and we have places where it is absolutely essential that we act. DOGE is blind to all of those, all of those situations, and that is disgraceful, especially when you have Elon Musk as the person who sabotaged our effort for PBM reform.

The second thing is, there is a basic question if you are going to go about examining a program. You can ask hard questions. You can look under the hood. How is it working? How is it not working? Where do we have too many personnel? Where can we actually improve the practices and the performance by some reforms?

DOGE is not doing that. It literally is not doing that. It has not even taken a day, an hour, to come up with a plan on how to examine the various programs they are engaging with. What they are doing is firing people. People are waking up in the morning, and they are getting an email that says: Due to your poor performance, you are gone.

Now, this is a situation that obviously is incredibly cruel. You are working at the Department of Agriculture, you are working at the NIH, you are working on a USAID program, and life is going on, and suddenly you get this email out of the blue that clearly is a mass email but has a very specific impact on you, your life, your livelihood, and your hopes and dreams. That is just a savage, savage way to treat people who have been working in our various governmental Agencies, and it has enormous impact on our communities.

By the way, DOGE is picking on veterans. Literally thousands of veterans have been fired. The VA has announced the dismissal of more than 1,000 employees. That includes researchers working on cancer treatments, opioid addictions, prosthetics, and burn pit exposure.

So the issue here was not ``How do we help them do that job better? Where are there ways we can economize?'' The procedure is ``You are gone; that is it.''

President Trump and Elon Musk fired around 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration. These are folks who safeguard nuclear weapons. Now, it was so embarrassing that even Musk had to acknowledge it was a mistake, and those people are now back on their job.

But what it does I think very clearly is show how there is nothing about a plan to execute a thoughtful way to save taxpayer money. It is just shoot first and aim later. And 4,000 employees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

By the way, this is incredibly important: These are all things that affect red States and blue States. This has no political orientation on one side or the other because the impacts of these are going to be felt by the farmers in Indiana just as they are going to be felt by the farmers in Vermont.

Another example that is really pretty cruel, and I just don't understand this: We have farmers across the country that I have spoken to--farmers in Vermont--who entered into contracts with the Federal Government under the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. What the deal was is the farmer agreed, say, to install solar panels or create a buffer zone between cattle grazing in a streambed or change the tillage practices to try to improve the soil.

I get it that President Trump and Mr. Musk are against the Inflation Reduction Act, and they have a right to do everything they possibly can to try to reverse that policy. So this is not about their right to use Executive authority. But here is what I don't understand: How do you stiff farmers who went out and borrowed money because they had a contract, they agreed to do certain things around their farm, and then they get an email saying: Just kidding. We, the Federal Government, are not going to honor our contract.

I am thinking of one farm in my own town of Norwich, VT, where folks did borrow the money and they did the work, and it was in anticipation of the Federal Government keeping its part of the bargain and coming through with the cash that it had agreed to, and they are told: No, we are not doing it anymore.

I know that the Presiding Officer is like me when it comes to keeping your word. You give your word; you keep your word. The folks you represent, the folks I represent, that is what they do, that is what they expect. But we have DOGE saying: Well, that doesn't apply to us because we want to ``save money.'' That is just flat out disgraceful and unacceptable.

FEMA. FEMA is absolutely essential to help folks respond to a catastrophic event. We need reform in FEMA, and I

want to work with colleagues in order to do that. But when that disaster comes--you know, a fire in Hawaii or California, floods in Vermont or North Carolina, hurricanes down south, or drought--the response from FEMA is essential because the local community doesn't have the infrastructure in place to provide that immediate emergency assistance that folks need for saving lives and keeping themselves together during that immediate storm event.

We are hearing that DOGE and the President want to just abolish FEMA. We have to be there for one another when it is our community that is affected by a catastrophic event where our citizens, the folks we represent, to whom we have a real duty--it is no fault of their own-- they are on the receiving end of Mother Nature. It has always been the tradition in the Senate that we help one another on that. That is not a partisan deal. DOGE is hammering us on that.

The people who get hurt--it is the everyday people whom we represent that are working hard, who are struggling each month to pay their bills. They are anxious about the safety of their kids, they are anxious about inflation, they are anxious about meeting the challenges of daily life, and they want to make a contribution to strengthening their community as well as their family, and they are getting hammered.

I mentioned, too, that among them are the 6,000 veterans who have been fired by DOGE across the Federal workforce. I mean, that just astonishes me. How do we say to a veteran who showed up to serve us and protect our country and to whom we claim we have great respect and allegiance--how do we send them an email that says ``You are fired,'' with no explanation, no sitdown, no face-to-face, just contempt for the value of what they contribute and how hard they are working? I do not understand that. I just don't.

Even in a tough business environment where some of our employers have to make tough decisions because they just know their business can't handle the workforce they have and they may have to make, against their desires, some reductions in force, our employers will sit down with folks face to face: Here is what we can do. Let's work out a plan. We know you need healthcare.

DOGE just dispenses with that when it has no plan. So the cruelty-- the cruelty of this is so abhorrent to me.

We as a society, really, despite whatever our differences are, have to have some mutual respect, and is it so essential to people that they have meaningful work. If we are going to make adjustments, we have to have a plan to include them, where DOGE says: We don't have to do that.

This isn't just about Elon Musk being a multibillionaire. No matter what happens, it is not really going to affect him. It is about Elon Musk treating people with what I think is the utmost cruelty. You are gone--you are gone--such disrespect for people who work hard at the VA, work hard in the NIH, work hard in the Department of Agriculture, work hard in the Department of the Treasury. So that element of this, we should all be shocked at.

You know, I can give a few examples of people in Vermont, but I know I am like every single Member of the U.S. Senate: We can give examples of people in the States we represent.

Our Small Business Administration Office has been a real help to Vermonters--very effective. One employee there got a performance review that--this is shortly after the performance review:

In a very short period of time, you established yourself as

an invaluable asset.

That was the performance review. The next day, February 7, she was fired because the email said:

Your performance has not been adequate to justify further

employment at the Agency.

So arbitrary, so unfair, so Elon Musk-like. We have a scientist at the Department of Agriculture, Caitlin Morgan. She studies sustainable agriculture and food systems at the ag services Food Systems Research Center. She was fired despite glowing performance reviews.

So what we have with DOGE is an assertion that they are seeking to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. Who is to argue? There is not a person here that wants to vote in favor of waste, fraud, and abuse, but the reality is they do have a plan. It is not to look at each Agency and then make adjustments so that the Agency, at the end of the operation, will be fit for purpose and better able to do its job.

They have a very simple plan: Kill the headcount, reduce the headcount, fire people. That is it. That is the plan.

So we are going to be left with a decimated FEMA, a decimated Department of Agriculture, a decimated National Institutes of Health, and then who is going to put it back together? This brings me back to the cruelty of a guy like Musk. He doesn't have to worry about that. That is not his concern. Tesla is doing fine. SpaceX is doing fine. You know, things are great for him.

But they won't be great--not just for the people whose jobs have been savagely terminated, it will be bad for the cancer research that scientists are doing. It will be bad for our Vermont farmers who now find themselves deeply in debt because the Federal Government stiffed them. It will be bad for our FEMA response to the next community in our country that gets hit hard by a natural disaster.

So we have got to wake up here and be honest about what is going on with DOGE. We do agree--we do agree, I believe, Republicans and Democrats--that we have got to kick the tires on programs in government, and it is everything from food programs to commodity programs to the Defense Department. And we may have some fierce debates about what the priorities are and what we think is important and what we don't think is important, but that has got to be an on-the-level debate.

What Musk has done is just said: Hey, leave it to me. Let me send out a bunch of emails. Let me fire a lot of people in a lot of Agencies. Let's move fast and break things, and it will come back together.

It doesn't work that way. You know, you destroy the foundation of your house just like you destroy the foundation of a government program like FEMA or the National Institutes of Health, it just doesn't come back overnight because the organizations that we are trying to build, institutions that are essential to the well-being of our own country, those often take generations to create. It takes the commitment, the service, the dedication, and hard work of Americans of all kinds in all States.

This guy Musk is just destroying it all and cavalier about it and contemptuous to the rest of America about what he is doing. We can pay the price.

It is wrong what they are doing and how they are doing it. My view is that we do, in fact, have an opportunity here because both sides are quite willing to come to the table and ask these questions: How can we do it better?

But you know, if we came to the table and we asked how can we do it better, we would be looking at the long-term function: How do we have FEMA work better; how do we have our NIH work better; how do we assess grants better; how do we help our Small Business Administration be more effective in helping our young entrepreneurs? We would be asking those questions.

The other thing we would be doing--and I believe this because I have such respect for all of my colleagues here--we care about how it affects the people. We might have to make some tough decisions because this program could be cut; this one might have to be expanded. But we wouldn't just send off an email telling people to get lost. We wouldn't just be sending off an email to a farmer who just went to the bank and got a loan based on the credit of the United States of America promising to contribute a grant.

We would be considering that. DOGE isn't. In my view, we should all be outraged at the cruelty with which DOGE is operating. It is cruel to the institutions that are important for each of our States, and it is cruel to the people who have been doing this work in good faith for so long.

We have got to speak up and acknowledge that DOGE is destructive. We can embrace the effort to address waste, fraud, and abuse. We can embrace the opportunity to streamline and save money, make things work better, but we can never abandon our commitment to the people of this country who work so hard. We can

never abandon, in a cavalier way, the veterans to whom we have an immense debt of obligation.

Mr. President, DOGE is pretty dumb and pretty cruel and pretty destructive the way that it has operated under Elon Musk.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, over the years, Federal funding for medical and scientific research has helped split the atom, defeat polio, create the internet, map the human genome, and so much more. No nation has ever made such a significant investment in science and medicine--none. And no nation's researchers have done more to approve the quality of life, not only here but around the world.

But we are in a pivotal moment in history. All the progress we have made--all the progress we hope to make--is in danger because of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. That is right. These two men promised to bring down the price of eggs and gasoline and make housing more affordable. Well, none of that has happened. Instead, they are carrying out an unprecedented and devastating campaign to cut research on cancer, ALS, Alzheimer's, dementia, and infectious diseases.

Instead of making life better for Americans, they want to slash research funding for the National Institutes of Health. If you have never heard of this Agency, I hope you will Google it or take a look and research to figure out who they are and what they do. It is the premier medical research agency in the world.

If you or someone you love receives a dreaded diagnosis, you turn to the doctor and ask: Is there a cure? A surgery? A medicine? I know I have been there and asked those very questions.

There is a difference between the doctor saying, ``I'm sorry, there is nothing we can do'' and ``I have got some good news; there has been some research at NIH we should look into.''

You know all the miracle drugs you see on TV? You can't get away from them, can you? And 99 percent of those drugs approved in the last 10 years were the product, in some way, of NIH research. NIH funding is why people are beating cancer, why babies are being spared from preventable diseases, why HIV is no longer a death sentence, why progress is being made on dementia and other neurological diseases.

Since the start of this administration, we have seen the White House unleash a lawless chaotic attack on everything from funding for farmers to biomedical research. Planes are crashing, and they are cutting aviation safety. Avian flu is on the rise and threatening to make that leap to humans, and we are cutting public health experts. Elon Musk dances across the stage with a chain saw; people laugh and cheer. First, let me tell you this: There is nothing to cheer about when it comes to medical research.

It was this bizarre memo from Office of Management and Budget that illegally froze Federal grant funding. They even prohibited the recipients of Federal grants and medical research from physically meeting in the same place. Oh, you are going to hear arguments: We have got to cut back on the waste and fraud and abuse. I am all for that. But having researchers unable to even sit down and talk about the next breakthrough, how can that possibly be good for our country?

These cuts that were announced by this administration were quickly halted by a Federal judge in a Federal court. There was comment on the floor earlier today that too many people are going to courts. Thank God they went to courts to keep this policy from being implemented by this administration.

But it seems, even though the court made a ruling, this administration is still holding up funding in violation of the court's order. As a result, NIH is delayed awarding approximately $1 billion in grant funding, delaying research at institutions nationwide. Does the delay hurt? Not unless you are the one sitting in that waiting room at a doctor praying to God there is a breakthrough to save your child.

Listen to what is at stake for one of my constituents, Dr. Timothy Koh, professor of kinesiology and nutrition at the University of Illinois in Chicago. For 15 years, Dr. Koh has been researching why people with diabetes develop wounds that do not heal, as well as researching treatments to address these wounds.

While having steady Federal funding for his research through the years, Dr. Koh was recently informed in the last few weeks that his NIH grant application is on hold because of the Trump-Musk Federal funding freeze. His current grant is scheduled to end on Friday of this week. And if his grant is not renewed, he will have to lay off his lab staff and will see major setbacks in the research he has been involved in. Dr. Koh said:

It's going to potentially put an end to my research career

and we won't be able to develop these new therapies for

diabetic [patients].

Is diabetes research important? If it is someone in your family, it is very important.

Make no mistake, under the Constitution, Congress is supposed to have the power of the purse--that is what it reads. But over the decades, bipartisan Members of Congress have worked in concert on a bipartisan basis to do something about NIH funding. It was a little over 10 years ago--Francis Collins, I consider to be an American hero and a saint. He headed up the NIH. And I went out to see him, and I said: I can't double your appropriation. I would do it if I could. What can I do to help you?

He said: Give the NIH Agency 5 percent real growth every year, and I will tell you this: Two things will happen. We will line up the scoreboard with breakthroughs and cures for diseases in America; and, secondly, my researchers will take heart because one of the things that destroys their interest in pursuing a career is the uncertainty of Federal funding.

Well, we went from $30 billion to $48 billion in 10 years because we had a bipartisan team to do it. Patty Murray joined me on the Democratic side. She has always been a champion of medical research; and on the Republican side, Senator Blunt of Missouri was the leader. He was the best. When he chaired a subcommittee on Appropriations that funded this Agency, he was committed to the 5 percent. And then Lamar Alexander of Tennessee--both of those gentlemen have retired. The four of us put together an effort to raise the NIH funding from $30 billion 10 years ago to $48 billion--a dramatic, dramatic increase.

We did it because we all agreed this is not a partisan issue. It should never be. We knew that NIH funding leads to new cures and treatments for patients in need. It supports well-paying jobs nationwide. And it cements our global leadership.

Illinois universities and hospitals receive approximately $1.2 billion in NIH funding a year, which supports 14,000 jobs in our State and 3.5 billion in economic activity. But I will tell you, Mr. President, virtually every State in the Nation can tell that story in one form or another.

Each year, the State of Wyoming receives approximately $12 million in NIH funding. Now, Wyoming is a small State, but they clearly have good research facilities that merit NIH grants. This money supports 265 jobs in Wyoming and $49 million dollars in economic activity. The top NIH funded institution in Wyoming is the University of Wyoming.

With this NIH funding, researchers at the University of Wyoming have recently conducted the following projects. See if any of these sound close to home or close to your family:

No. 1, why Alzheimer's disease and dementia can worsen at specific hours of the day.

No. 2, a project in Wyoming, links between menopause and cardiovascular disease in women.

And developing a new noninvasive tool to help treat people suffering from epilepsy, schizophrenia, anxiety, and autism.

They all sound like worthy projects to me.

Unfortunately, President Trump and Elon Musk aren't finished there. They tried indiscriminately to slash how NIH pays for indirect costs. Without funding, universities wouldn't be able to afford the technology that allows them to conduct research. Cuts to indirect costs are, simply, cuts to research, period.

The other day, we had a debate on the floor on this NIH. One of the Republican Senators talked about the outrageous outlying indirect cost in this country. Let's look at them. Let's review them.

But to stop all meetings of all medical researchers while we do this, to stop the funding for all the grantees, to stop all of the medical research because there might be 1 or 2 or 10

schools that ask for too much or hospitals--thankfully, the Illinois Attorney General, along with 21 other States' leading attorneys general, sued and secured a temporary reprieve for universities and researchers.

Trump and Musk illegally froze Federal medical research funding. They tried to illegally cut funding for medical research, and now they are firing the medical researchers themselves.

Reports indicate that 1,200 NIH employees have been fired so far, from experienced vaccine researchers to the next generation of scientists to the Acting Director of the NIH's Alzheimer's and dementia program.

Further, Trump and Musk have reportedly ended a popular trainee program that brought 1,600 young scientists just out of college to the NIH world-renowned campus in Maryland to get them started working in labs and eventually running labs. They are our future when it comes to medical research, and the Trump and Musk chain saw of chaos of budget cuts has made them victims.

How does this make us a greater nation? How does this make us a healthier nation? A better nation? It doesn't.

NIH research leads to new cures and treatments that extend, improve, and save lives, which is why I am introducing this resolution today to simply say to Senators of both sides of the aisle: Let's pledge our support to make NIH an exception. Let us not let wanton cuts stop something very valuable.

The resolution is straightforward. It says: The work of NIH should not be subject to interruption, delay, or funding disruption in violation of the law--in violation of the law. And it reaffirms that the workforce at NIH is essential to sustaining medical progress.

Can we really debate that point? Do we think the best medical research Agency in the world is being staffed by people who aren't the best? This is not controversial. It shouldn't be. Americans get sick on a bipartisan basis; shouldn't we support medical research on a bipartisan basis?

For as long as I can stand and for as long as I can speak, I will fight to protect NIH and medical research. I hope my Republican colleagues wake up and join me before it is too late.

So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 93, submitted earlier today; further, that the resolution be agreed to, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, if standing in this Senate and asking Republicans and Democrats to come together to preserve and build medical research is a waste of time, what in the world are we doing here?

If you were asked to take the Federal budget and put your priorities in there, maybe No. 1 would be national defense. Well, I might make that No. 1 as well; but I can tell you, No. 2 is medical research.

Because what happens when you reach a point where you cut off medical research? These researchers leave the laboratories and say: Honey, I don't know if I will have a job here next year. Let's start looking someplace else.

That is not an unusual thing to occur. So the next generation of researchers are being discouraged by the uncertainty of funding, and this notion that we have to get spending under control--how much does it cost to find a cure? What does it cost to have no cure? Let's get down to the bottom line here. We are talking about how long people stay in the hospital or whether they are alive at the end of the experience or not.

Some of these medical treatments they have to turn to are extremely expensive, unless you can find a cure at the front end of it. And you don't find it by saying, Well, maybe next year we will spend some money on medical research. That isn't the way it works. You want to have a good doctor you can trust from year to year, not a new one every year with a question mark.

The same thing is true with researchers. If you have the best researchers, why in the world would you discourage them from their continued work?

I listened to this comment about $48 billion. It is a lot of money, for sure. That is taxpayers' money, and I take it very seriously. But how much do you think it would cost if we didn't find these cures, didn't find these drugs? What would it cost in human terms and the experience of families who would give up hope because there is no place to turn? That is the reality.

We all have friends--and I had one today--I won't get into the details--who has just learned that he has pancreatic cancer. We don't have a cure yet. If we could find one, do you know how that would change the lives of so many people and their families? Is that worth putting our research into, our tax dollars into, or is it, as the Senator who objected to my resolution said, just wasting time here on the floor?

Well, I am going to come back and waste time over and over again. I am not giving up on this. I am not giving up on families who are waiting for cures and research. I am not giving up on the researchers who dedicate their lives to finding them.

Of course, if we have some overspending, whether it is at Harvard or Illinois or even the University of Wyoming, let's clean it up. But is it possible to clean that up without jeopardizing the basic mission of the National Institutes of Health? I certainly hope so. To think that we would have to close down the whole Agency because a handful of schools are overcharging the Federal Government--and there is no

proof that they are--I think that is part of the reality.

This is an issue that is important to every single American whether they know it or not. We can get spending under control and do it thoughtfully but not at the expense of the best researchers in the world and the expense of cures which would give families hope once and for all.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we are dealing with a crisis that all hundred Members of this body understand has taken the lives of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, and that is the scourge of fentanyl.

One of the things we have been doing as a result of that is temporarily scheduling fentanyl analogs, these horrific substances that are manufactured in order to pour onto our streets. Such a small amount of this drug--it literally could be the size of one pill--as they say, one pill can kill. It is very important to me that we see the temporary scheduling of this continue until the Senate finds a more wholesome response to this crisis. We must rise to meet this crisis in a wholesome way, in way that meets the gravity of the crisis and does not just continue to do the things we have done over and over again.

So as we are working in a bipartisan way in the Senate Judiciary Committee with the understanding that the temporary scheduling may expire in the coming weeks--in order to remove that pressure and allow us to work in a bipartisan fashion, I have come to the floor today to ask for unanimous consent that we continue that temporary scheduling while we work in a bipartisan fashion to make sure that we give the most fulsome response possible to this crisis.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 724, the Temporary Extension of Fentanyl-Related Substances Scheduling Act, which is at the desk; I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

In reserving the right to object, this is why I am down here today--really, literally, at this point--and I want to jump here.

I thank the Presiding Officer for recognizing me. I truly appreciate that, but this gets me excited because this is the point that I want to illustrate.

My colleague is far smarter than I on medical issues. I could not have passed organic chem at Stanford. I am sure he passed it with flying colors. Of my colleague, who is truly one of my more favorite colleagues in this place because of how rational and pragmatic he is on approaching real crises like this, I am begging and hoping he will listen to me, and I am begging this body to listen to me.

We have had a fentanyl crisis in this country of monumental proportions. It is one of the greatest killers in America. Fentanyl and fentanyl analogues have literally been responsible for lowering the life expectancy for Americans. It is one of the greatest crises we have seen to human life in America in my lifetime. There is so much data- driven evidence and evidence-based answers to this, of how we can approach this crisis, but yet the only bill that we seek to do is a bill that does what we have already done on a temporary basis. I support classwide scheduling for fentanyl analogues, but here we have this bill, the HALT bill, that my colleague pointed out did pass in a bipartisan way and now is in the Judiciary Committee.

The reason I am down here is not to drag my dear friend down here because he is a busy man, and I wanted to go over to him before this conversation started to apologize, but I needed to make this point on the floor in this kind of standoff.

He is asking us to pass the HALT bill, which would give classwide scheduling to fentanyl analogues, which we have already done. For years, it has been temporarily scheduled, and what

has happened to opioid deaths in America when we have used this that law enforcement has called for, ``Schedule. Schedule. Give us these tools''? Well, we have had these tools, and deaths in the Presiding Officer's State, deaths in my colleagues' States, and deaths in my State have continued to go up.

Now, here is the beauty of the conversation we are having and why we should be passing the temporary one to let us go back to work, and I know this because I know his heart and I know your heart. There are evidence-based, bipartisan amendments to that HALT Act that are widely supported. My colleague's partner Senator from his State, in committee, said: I don't understand why we are not putting the test strips on this. Why? Because kids who are using fentanyl right now don't know that they are using this fentanyl analogue. Kids in your State and my State think they are taking Adderall, not realizing that this has those toxic things that can kill.

Here we were in committee, with a bipartisan test strip bill, and my colleague's partner Senator said: This makes sense to me. And the one excuse they were using for not doing a bipartisan bill to give us more of a response than doing what we are already doing and wiping our hands and saying, ``We did great things,'' was saying, ``We didn't have time'' because of this artificial deadline.

So I am down here to say: Wait a minute. Let's do the temporary extension and take time to do bipartisan bills.

But don't take my word for it. Take the word of the Republican witnesses who came to our hearing. We just had a painful hearing of law enforcement leaders and other Republican witnesses who told us the scourges of fentanyl that we all know. Those people all said that this can't be all Congress does; that the HALT bill cannot be our only response because the whole bill permanently schedules what we have already scheduled temporarily.

I believe in the 99 Members here who know that our response to this crisis cannot be what we have already been doing for the last 5 years when there are bipartisan bills that we could be putting on this bill to show America that we are not going to just puff ourselves up and make permanent something that was already done in a temporary way.

Let me read some of this pleading from Republican witnesses.

Republican witness Jaime Puerta, a courageous parent who lost his child to an overdose, testified:

It is imperative that we educate our children on the

dangers of any kind of drug use due to the lethality that can

come with any kind of experimentation or self-medication . .

. we must have specific fentanyl education introduced to . .

. our schools as soon as possible; otherwise, more children

will . . . die.

That doesn't even cost money.

We could be doing things through the Department of Education in supporting education campaigns. Bipartisan support for that idea--is it on the HALT bill? No. Let me go on.

Republican witness Sheriff Donald Barnes highlighted the successes of a multifaceted strategy to address both supply and demand for illicit drugs. These are the bullet points he said that we should do, imploring Congress: Don't just do what you have already done. Do something more. Give law enforcement officers naloxone to reduce overdoses; education for fifth and sixth graders; ensure the continuity of care and successful reintegration of people who are returning to the community from the scourge of these drugs.

Witness after witness--from law enforcement to scientists to doctors--have offered up bipartisan supportive ideas so that our response to one of the biggest scourges of our country isn't just to do what we have been doing for the last half decade or more.

I have got bipartisan bills on the committee, and my colleagues from Texas have bipartisan bills on the committee, and the only excuse that people gave for us not to have more consideration was: Oh, well, the deadline is coming up in a few weeks for temporary passage. But I realize we have passed temporary scheduling by unanimous consent before. It is not hard to do.

I beg of my colleagues--I beg of my colleague who is here and others: We have a moving bill that has to go back to the House because we have already added a managers' package to it. I promise you, if we add truly bipartisan things that give a more fulsome approach--a more comprehensive approach--to stop our children from dying, it will pass in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives because it was a bipartisan year. I am in agony over the deaths in New Jersey. I have met with parents who have looked at me and said: What are you going to do?

Let me read to you the words from one of these parents.

Susan Ousterman, who is a courageous mother who lost her son to an overdose--I beg of my colleagues listen to this--said:

I urge you to stop crafting policies based on stigma, false

narratives, and political loyalty, and most of all, stop

using our dead children to justify these failed approaches.

Harsher penalties for drugs, like those for the HALT Fentanyl

Act, do not deter drug use. They only push people into

riskier behaviors, increase the likelihood that someone will

die rather than call for help, and make our communities less

safe. How many more Americans must die before we finally

admit that the War on Drugs was a failure?

I am a former mayor. I oversaw a police department that had to answer the calls with children dying on floors. They had these law enforcement tools. They would tell me more needs to be done. The HALT Fentanyl Act will get passed. Fentanyl analogues will never again be unscheduled in our country. That is not the challenge right now to save lives. The challenge to save lives in America right now is, What are we going to do more than is being done right now? Fentanyl analogues are scheduled right now, and if the only thing we can do--the only bill that is moving through here--is to just do what we have been doing, shame on us.

I am asking this body to give time. Extend the temporary scheduling so that we can work in a bipartisan fashion, like Senator Kennedy, who said: I want more time to look at this. This seems rational; this seems logical; it seems like something we should do. Then, when bipartisan Senators step up like that and say, ``I want to work with the man or the woman across the aisle,'' we will have the time to do it.

So, God, I am sorry that my friend who is truly a great American leader and one of the smarter people in here--I am sorry that he objected to my bill, but I will stand up in our committee meeting on Thursday and make this same plea; that we don't just pass the HALT Fentanyl Act but that we actually put things in it that aren't partisan ideas. They are the ones that law enforcement is calling for. They are the ones that scientists are calling for. They are the ones that doctors are calling for--bipartisan bills.

Dear God, the parents of dead children are calling for us to step up and do more than the same old thing we have been doing around the War on Drugs since I was a kid myself.

With that, I object.

Mr. President, I just want to clarify because my colleague pounded on the desk, and that was hard for me to watch. I am not here because we haven't been trying to get a bipartisan consensus on this and calling and doing all the work. I have watched this now for three Congresses. Number 2, I am here not because I am trying to stop the HALT Act. I am here because I heard two Republicans in our committee say the only reason we can't consider bipartisan approaches, even if they are good ideas, is because of the urgency of this moment.

All I am saying is--this is, obviously, a fait accompli--I just don't want my colleague to walk away thinking this is some kind of stunt. This is my attempt to take away an argument for us to do the work on Thursday. Clearly, it has been objected to. I am going to go back and try my hardest on Thursday to do something more.

The one prediction--I don't want to call it a ``prediction.'' But my colleague says we have a lot more time. I have watched now for at least three Congresses that I have worked on trying to get a larger approach to meet the fentanyl crisis; and in three Congresses, this body has failed to rise to the challenge.

I am dying to be here when my colleague tells me: I told you so--and I give him permission to do that--that this body would do something beyond just scheduling. Because, as I have read, law enforcement, scientists, doctors, and parents are not just asking for the HALT Fentanyl Act; they are asking for us to do more to save lives.

Now, I have only been here 12 years, but I know the window is open to get things done when something is a must-pass bill to move. This is an opportunity to put some things on to show the larger public that we are not going to do what we always do.

I am really worried when this window closes, there will be a lot of people thumping their chests and saying: We have dealt with the fentanyl crisis, and all these other ideas won't have vehicles to go through.

I will not stop working until this body does more than just scheduling what has already been scheduled. People on both sides of the aisle are demanding us to do more. And we don't need to go left; we don't need to go right. We need to do the commonsense, evidence-based approaches that are being supported and called for. In fact, some of the commonsense amendments are already bipartisan supported by Senators. So I am grateful.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise to describe an amazing journey that I took this weekend that was a powerful journey connected to my Virginia National Guard and also to issues that are very, very prominent right now in the world.

We finished voting on the Senate floor a little bit before 5 a.m. on Friday, on the reconciliation bill, and, a few hours later, I went to Dulles Airport and flew to Finland, landed in Helsinki at about 1:30 on Saturday, went back to the airport at 1:30 on Monday--spent 48 hours on the ground with one of our newest NATO allies to work together with them on a number of issues.

The reason for the visit over the weekend was to see my Virginia National Guard. The Virginia Guard, as in most States, are active participants in the State Partnership Program that was established back in the 1990s, where a State's Guard unit connects with the military of an allied country and engages in joint training exercises. Once Finland decided to join NATO, Virginia--which already has a partner in the State Partnership Program--reached out and said to Finland: We would like to work together with you as well.

My Governor, Governor Youngkin, helped preside over the signing of this partnership program in 2024, and the Virginia Guard--about 50 members of the Guard--were engaged in the first training exercises in Finland.

As Governor of Virginia, I used to be the commander in chief of the Virginia Guard. I have been very close to them, and I wanted to go see my Virginians training in snowy birch forests in southern Finland this weekend, and I was able to do that.

My Guard unit is training with the Karelia Brigade, which is one of the three brigades of the Finnish Army. It has got a long history of very heroic service. And on Sunday, it was a delight to drive 2\1/2\ hours outside of Helsinki and visit with my 50 Virginians and to hear the Finnish Army brag about them: Your Guard are well-trained. They are great marksman, even shooting Finnish rifles, which are

different than the rifles they use every day and doing it in temperatures that are far colder than Virginians normally have to experience on training exercises.

In addition to my time with the Virginia Guard. I spent time in Finland with our own Embassy team; with representatives from EUCOM, the European Command of the U.S. Army; with the President of Finland, President Stubb, who is a pretty amazing guy, who attended Furman University on a golf scholarship and manages to drop the word ``y'all'' into a lot of sentences in a pretty thick Finnish accent. I spent time with the Foreign Minister and the Permanent Defense Secretary, and also visited the Helsinki Shipyard, which is about to start working in tandem with the United States and Canada to build icebreakers, which is something we desperately need.

So it was a great trip--too short but really powerful--and I returned last night having interacted with my Virginians and knowing a lot more.

There was a sobering element to it, too, and that is really why I wanted to come and speak. To be in Finland, a nation that had to fight two wars against Russia in the late 1930s, early 1940s, to maintain its independence, and to be there with those leaders on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine was sobering and thought provoking.

Finland knows Russia and Russian leadership better than just about anybody because of these hundreds of miles of border between the two nations. And that memory of fighting two wars against Russia to maintain Finnish independence is still a very present-day and palpable memory for the Finns, even though those wars happened in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

And you can be sure that our friends, our allies, those we are training together with, had some pretty strong thoughts about Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the commemoration of the third anniversary. I was very disappointed and I think many were yesterday that the U.N. considered competing resolutions on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

One was a Ukrainian resolution that talked about Russia as the invader, Russia as the instigator of the war. That resolution passed the General Assembly, but in a shocking move, the United States voted against it because of the language placing the blame for the war on Russia.

There had been previous resolutions after the invasion and on the second anniversary and the first anniversary saying that this war was started by Russia. The United States led those resolutions. But now the United States, through our President, through our Secretary of Defense, through the U.N.--we don't have a permanent U.N. Ambassador now-- through the U.N. representative at the U.N. was unwilling to sign on to and vote for a resolution that talked about Russia as being responsible for the war.

So we opposed the Ukrainian resolution. Who voted with us to oppose this resolution? Russia opposed, North Korea opposed, Nicaragua opposed, and another 15 nations opposed. About 60 nations abstained, including China. China wouldn't vote no. China abstained, and 90-plus nations voted yes. The resolution passed, but it passed with the United States unwilling to sign on to the proposition that Russia started this war and should not have done so.

There was also a U.S. resolution that was tendered to the U.N. General Assembly. That U.S. resolution did not mention anyone being responsible for the war but called for a cease-fire and peace, obviously. The U.S. resolution was subject to an amendment that was offered by the UK and other nations inserting the language that Russia was responsible for the war and should not have done so. That amendment passed, and because it passed, the United States ended up not even being willing to vote yes on its own resolution and instead abstained.

These Finnish colleagues who are friends and allies were pretty candid about their disappointment in the United States for not being willing to state a truth--that this war was instigated by Russia--and they deeply want to be partners with the United States on defense; hence their accession to NATO; hence their agreement to the State Partnership Program with Virginia. But they are puzzled with an American leadership--from the President, to the Secretary of Defense, to the U.N.--that is unwilling to state that Russia started this war.

I came home last night. It was a long flight made too long because of a cancelation. I got back a little bit later than I originally planned. But I had a lot of time to think. What I thought about was basically this: We need to learn some lessons.

We need to remember the lessons of 1938. Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of England, went to Munich, thinking he could find an end to war and deliver what he called ``peace'' in our time. He negotiated with the German Government and came back to England and said: There is now peace in our time--which anyone in politics would love to be able to say. But we all know that Munich Agreement was a disaster. It was negotiated between England and Germany, but many of the other nations that were later invaded by Germany weren't there, and it wasn't a peace agreement, and they suffered.

But did England at least protect itself from suffering by signing a deal and proclaiming peace in our time? No. England was attacked as well after the Germans had attacked Belgium and France and Poland and other nations.

So an illusory ``peace in our time'' deal was just that--it was illusory. You can't appease a bully. They will bully you and others unless you stand up to them.

We could remember 1975. In 1975, the Helsinki Accords, right in the community where I was visiting, were signed--the Soviet Union was a signatory, along with the United States and Canada and European nations--to guarantee certain principles, including the guarantee of the inviolability of national sovereignty and that no nation should be able to invade the sovereignty of others. We need to remember that. We celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Accords this summer. We need to remember those principles and who has violated them and who has not.

Let's remember 1995. In 1995, as an aftermath of the Helsinki Accords, we helped form the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co- Operation in Europe. It is the one organization that includes all European nations, including Russia. NATO doesn't include them all; the OSCE does. The OSCE was committed to the principles of the Helsinki Accords protecting national sovereignty, and we need to remember who has violated those principles and who hasn't.

We should remember 2020, 5 years ago this week in 2020--the Doha accord. President Trump negotiated a ``peace'' accord with the Taliban--a peace accord with the Taliban. Afghanistan was not allowed to be at the table. The Government of Afghanistan that had been our partner, in whom we had invested hundreds of billions of dollars, was not allowed to be at the table. So, yes, there was a ``peace'' deal. There was peace in our time, but the peace proved to be illusory and catastrophic months later when the United States removed troops pursuant to the Doha accord.

The absence of inclusion of the Afghan Government led to a demoralization and a collapse. The inspector general that analyzed the end of our military participation in Afghanistan had plenty of blame to assign--blame to the Biden administration but also blame to a President, President Trump, who negotiated a deal without including the party that was most affected.

I thought of the Doha accord when I saw the news of negotiations in Riyadh between the United States and Russia to end the war in Ukraine and noticed Ukraine was not at the table. A peace deal about a nation's sovereignty where you are not allowing that nation to be at the table is doomed to failure.

We need to remember those lessons in connection with any discussion about the future of Ukraine.

Mr. President, you don't even need to completely remember history; just remember what your mom or dad told you. I know I had this call, and I think most people will remember this. You are getting bullied at school, and you go home and complain to your parents. What do your parents tell you about bullies? If you give in to them, they will keep bullying you and others. If

you stand up to them, they are more likely--not guaranteed but more likely to stop bullying.

The United States should have been willing yesterday in the U.N. to stand up to a bully. The United States should have been willing to say that this was an illegal war unjustly initiated by Russia. If you are unwilling to state a truth, you begin in a very weak position.

So my thought in coming home from visiting my own troops, who are sacrificing and risking to train for an action that they know they may one day be called on to support--else they wouldn't be conducting training in a snowy birch forest in southern Finland in February of 2025--they are there because they are willing to sacrifice. It takes sacrifice to protect democracy.

Our Nation is coming up on the 250th anniversary of our democracy-- and not only our democracy but our leadership role in democracies around the globe. The world needs us to continue to stand strong. Our friends like Finland are hoping and praying that we continue to stand strong. It is my belief that in the heart of the American people is a desire to continue to stand strong.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, it has been a little over a month since President Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States. One of his key promises on the campaign trail--and, really, throughout his service in the White House--has been to confront the threat of the Chinese Communist Party and to hold China accountable for failing to play by the rules. The American people voted resoundingly for that agenda this past November, delivering both the electoral vote and the popular vote to President Trump, as well as Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate. Now, the task at hand is to actually begin to implement those promises to hold China to account.

Xi Jinping has made clear his plans to ``reincorporate'' Taiwan in 2027, just 2 years away. We don't know exactly what that entails, but the threat is ominous.

Time is running short to make any potential conflict with China undesirable from their standpoint--in other words, to reestablish deterrence. But the good news is, we have a number of tools available to us and a track record of success on confronting the threat of the CCP during the Trump administration.

Back in 2018, I was proud to work with President Trump on modernizing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, otherwise known as CFIUS. This interagency committee reviews foreign direct investment into the United States for potential national security concerns.

The bill we ultimately passed and that was signed into law by President Trump was called FIRRMA, the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act. In that law, we updated CFIUS to expand its scope and process to ensure that we are more comprehensively reviewing any investments that might allow influence by foreign entities for nefarious purposes in the United States.

This bipartisan legislation was signed into law by President Trump as part of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. FIRRMA was a critical step toward derisking from China.

While this was a big win for Republicans and for President Trump, the truth is we still have more work to do. The top of our to-do list now is to address outbound investment flowing into China by American investors.

At this very moment, American investors--some of these are businesses; some of these are individuals. The investments they are making are fueling China's military buildup and modernization by funneling capital into potentially dual-use technology and military capabilities that could eventually be used against the United States and our allies.

According to the U.S.-China Economic Security and Review Commission's 2024 Report to Congress, U.S. investments in China's semiconductors, quantum computing, and AI alone totaled about $2 billion in 2023.

In 2020, more than 90 percent of these investments were concentrated in the semiconductor industry. And from 2015 to 2021, U.S. investors made up 37 percent of China's global funding for artificial intelligence.

Congress is acutely aware of the threat posed by China's rapid capture of the autonomous vehicle market, advanced cellular technologies, and semiconductor manufacturing. We have acted on these issues before, and it is time to do so again.

I was proud to lead the CHIPS for America Act to help the United States reestablish manufacturing for advanced semiconductors here in America, where the percentage of advanced semiconductors that fuel everything from our cell phones to the avionics in an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter--only 12 percent of those were made here in the United States. The rest of them were made in Asia, principally in Taiwan and South Korea. But we are in the process of turning that around.

But there is another side to this coin. How can we expect to outcompete or even catch up to Chinese companies if, unbeknownst to us, American dollars are continuing to fuel their rise, economically and militarily?

We are simply not being serious about confronting our greatest strategic adversary if we continue to be blind to the investment of billions of dollars in the very technologies that could be potentially used to kill American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

Now, we have an opportunity on a bipartisan basis to finish the job we began with CFIUS reform just a few short years ago. We can do this by passing legislation to address outbound investment into China. To start with, we need greater transparency. We need some sort of accountability so we know exactly what the facts are.

It is no secret to any of my colleagues that I have been working on this issue for some time now. During the previous Congress, my amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act with provisions to increase transparency around outbound investment passed by a vote of 91 to 6, demonstrating the high level of consensus in this Chamber on this issue. But, unfortunately, this amendment was dropped from the National Defense Authorization Act when it went to conference, and it didn't make it into the final version that was sent to the President's desk and ultimately signed into law.

Then, last year, we made progress along a bipartisan path and in a bicameral manner, with Speaker Johnson and Congressman Michael McCaul, who was then the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, working on the House's legislative provisions around outbound investment. But, unfortunately, that didn't make it across the finish line before the end of the year.

But there are reasons for optimism that this year will be the time we get these provisions over the finish line. We have worked hard to work with the House's version and to work with the Senate version that passed overwhelmingly, previously, to make sure we marry those up and we establish a bill that enjoys bipartisan, bicameral support.

I have been working with everyone, from the Speaker of the House to the chairman of the Select Committee on the CCP, John Moolenaar, to Congressman McCaul, as well as Tim Scott, chairman of the Banking Committee here in the Senate. We have all made input into a piece of legislation that will finally accomplish what we have been working on for these last few years.

We know time is of the essence, and we are working hand in glove with the Trump administration to ensure this legislation actually accomplishes the goals that we set out for it.

I can't emphasize what a great opportunity this is and what a great win it will be for all parties involved. Addressing U.S. outbound investment in China will be a great opportunity for all of my colleagues here in the House and the Senate to deliver a big win for our country and for our national security.

It will be a home run for all Americans, who can feel safe that American companies and investors are not helping China not only rebuild its economy but also its military as well. And, of course, China continues to be our greatest strategic adversary on the planet.

The only party that stands to lose from this legislation will be the Chinese Communist Party, and it is high time that they be held accountable.

I yield the floor.