A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to "Emissions Budget and Allowance Allocations for Indiana Under the Revised Cross-State Air Pollution Rule Update".

Mr. President, it is by way of real honor to bring the interns on their shadow day to track my participation in hearings and speeches and floor votes and conversation with other Senators because it is really hard for our interns to get a full vision of what we do as Senators if they are just in the office helping to answer the mail-- because a good share of what they do is writing responses to all the questions that Oregonians write about.

I will never forget the time I spent with Senator Hatfield when I was an intern and had a chance to essentially be his floor monitor 49 years ago. At that time, there was no television on the floor, and there was no fax machine. Of course, there was no internet. There was no cell phone. So each Senator had somebody monitoring the debate, and my assignment was monitoring the debate on the Tax Reform Act of 1976.

There were 125 votes on that. And I sat up in the balcony up here, in the staff section, with many other staff members. The bells would ring, and we would run down to where the reporters hang out outside the double doors now here. I and other staff members would hang out, waiting for our Senators to come out of the elevator, and brief them about the amendment that was being considered. Because there was no television on the floor, folks back in the office had no idea what was being debated and what folks back home thought about the issue.

So I do appreciate the opportunity to help our interns get a fuller vision of the work we do here in the Senate.

Government Funding

Mr. President, my reason for coming to the floor now is to weigh in on Senator Rand Paul's proposed budget.

Now, if we could turn the clock back to the beginning of July, Senate Republicans passed President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill.

Many of us consider it a big, ugly betrayal because its core message was that families lose and billionaires win. That was not President Trump's message during his campaign. During his campaign, he said he was going to be fighting for families. Then he gets sworn in just down this hallway in the Rotunda. Who does he have standing behind him? Champions for families? healthcare? for education? for housing? for investment in infrastructure? No. Billionaires.

That revealed what he was really up to, and that entire bill hurt families.

Why? To fund tax breaks for billionaires. Kicking 15 million Americans off their health insurance to fund tax breaks for billionaires. Slashing nutrition assistance for millions of children. Why? In order to give tax breaks to billionaires. Running up $30 trillion in additional national debt over the next 30 years. Why? To fund tax breaks for billionaires. It is pretty astounding that a single Member of this body would have voted for that bill running up $30 trillion in debt.

Every single person who gave speeches back home that said ``I am all about being fiscally responsible''--what could possibly be more irresponsible than cutting nutrition for children and cutting healthcare for 15 million Americans in order to make the richest Americans even richer? It is like the worst possible reason for a deficit or a debt.

Families lose; billionaires win.

Now Senator Paul has introduced a budget resolution that compounds that. He says that over the next 10 years, we should cut an additional $22 trillion out of the programs that serve Americans.

Now, if he had come to the floor and said ``We just passed a bill that runs up $30 trillion in debt to fund tax breaks for billionaires, and we are going to take away those tax breaks for billionaires in order to not run up $30 trillion,'' I would be right with him because that would be wise. But cutting fundamental programs for families and our national security?

Now, any responsible budget plan is going to tell you when its cuts are going to happen. So where does Senator Paul, my good friend from Kentucky--where does he say those spending cuts will happen? Where will that $22 trillion come from that he is eliminating over the next 10 years? Well, he doesn't answer the question. He says: I am going to create a new category in the budget called ``New Efficiencies, Consolidations, and Other Savings.'' Not one damn detail. How convenient that is.

I am just going to magically cut $22 trillion out of the spending over the next 10 years and not say a word about the damage it is going to do.

This is kind of a replay of what we saw in the reconciliation debate when our Republican colleagues used magic math and budget gimmicks and smoke and mirrors to slash programs for families and explode the debt.

Don't we owe it to our constituents, don't we owe it to Americans to be honest about what is being proposed? So I will tell you where those cuts are going to come from, something of that size. Well, they are going to come from Medicare. They are going to come from Medicaid. They are going to come from child nutrition. They are going to come from border security. They are going to come from law enforcement. They are going to come from national defense. They are going to come from veterans' care. They are going to come from environmental protection and investments in infrastructure.

Now, if you spread those cuts evenly over the discretionary budget lines over those 10 years, it cuts 38 percent of what we spend--38 percent. I am pretty sure some of my colleagues will say: Well, whatever you do, don't cut national defense and certainly don't cut support for our veterans.

So then what are we talking about? We are talking about a 48-percent cut in everything else.

OK. So voting for this Rand Paul budget, you are voting for essentially a 50-percent cut in Medicare, a 50-percent cut in Medicaid, a 50-percent cut in cancer research, a 50-percent cut on top of the cuts already made in child nutrition, and a 50-percent cut on investments in infrastructure. That is what you are voting for, and that is really beyond damaging to our Nation.

You want to cut Medicare in half? Well, then, put that in the line, explain what it is, and then vote for it. That would show some courage. If you really want Medicare cut in half, tell the American people that. Have the courage of your convictions. Don't hide it behind this funny line called ``New Efficiencies'' or something of that nature.

Well, there are obviously all these things you can find in the budget that need to be cut, and there have been some examples given. I am sure you can find some scientific research that most Americans would look at, even with full information, and they would say: Oh, yeah, we don't need to research that.

But, you know, sometimes the insights in science come from the most unexpected places. For example, there has been some commentary about silly-sounding Federal grants like studying Gila monster venom. Why would you study that? Well, then you find out that what was learned there helped create the drug Ozempic. Well, that is pretty big medical insight that has huge applications in terms of a variety of diseases but also in terms of addiction and in terms of weight loss.

You might say: Why would you study bird songs? Well, it turns out that the study of bird songs led to advances in hearing aid technology, allows people to distinguish sounds they want to hear from background noise so they can have a conversation in a crowded room.

I am just saying that I am sure there are individual items that could be found that sound absurd, but you know what--those are little tiny pennies. It is not cutting Medicare by 50 percent; it is not cutting Medicaid by 50 percent.

If you want to cut $22 trillion, cut it out of the tax breaks for billionaires. That is the real crime done by the families lose; billionaires win, big, ugly betrayal of a bill. Maybe that is the budget we should be voting on.

Madam President, I am here, I guess, to offer a eulogy for the supposed Republican principle that government should not be used to pick winners and losers. It turns out that principle is soluble in money.

Months before the 2024 election, President Trump offered big oil and coal cronies a super deal: They give him $1 billion to take the White House, of which he got at least several hundred million, and he would pay them back bigly; he would use government to make them winners and clean energy losers. So he has bent over backwards to make Big Oil, big polluters happy.

His efforts to prop up his coal industry donors have been particularly flagrant. Coal as an energy source is a dirty and dying industry. Coal is expensive to mine, coal-fired powerplants are expensive to operate, and coal-powered electricity is expensive to buy. So besides being toxic to mine and burn, coal is a bad financial play-- at least in the real, open market that Republicans claim to want to honor.

So to pick his winners and punish his losers, Trump issued a series of Executive orders directing State and Federal actors to revive the zombie coal industry.

At the beginning of this year, several Indiana utilities had announced plans to retire polluting coal plants and shift to cleaner energy sources. Following Trump's Executive orders and who knows what other private conversations, several of these utilities canceled plans to retire the polluting coal units.

This is a pretty big deal well outside of Indiana because coal plants like these emit hundreds of thousands of tons of pollution each year, including the pollution which forms smog. Exposure to smog is serious. It causes lung disease, it causes cardiovascular problems, and it even causes reproductive issues. It has been documented to cause premature deaths. And it blows into other States. Prevailing winds take the pollution and blow it into other States. In fact, I have argued that there are smokestacks designed specifically to get the pollution out of the home State and land it on the downwind States, like Rhode Island.

Under the cross-State air pollution rule, EPA sets emissions ``budgets'' to protect people in the downwind States from dangerous, smog-forming pollution that comes out of another State and blows across the border from the upwind, coal-fired powerplants. Well, after these Indiana coal plants got their inducement to extend, EPA had to loosen its previously-set emissions budget for Indiana that protected the downwind States in order to allow more smog to spread, because that is what reopening these plants does--it allows more smog to spread.

EPA promulgated this deregulatory rulemaking without a notice and comment process, giving no opportunity to anyone downwind--vulnerable to smog pollution from Indiana--to communicate into the EPA process their concerns.

Well, back in 1996, Congress enacted the Congressional Review Act to give Congress the opportunity to vote on regulations like this. During the Biden administration, the Senate actually conducted 35 rollcall votes in relation to Republican-sponsored Congressional Review Act resolutions of disapproval.

Now the Trump administration is engaged in an effort, at breakneck speed, to pick winners and punish losers, and if doing so requires them to tear down protections of Americans' health, of our safety, of the environment, that is all fine with them.

Congressional Review Act resolutions like this one can help hold the administration to account. I strongly urge a vote upholding our response against this polluting regulation.

I move to proceed to Calendar No. 142, S.J. Res. 60.

If the Senator wishes to speak, I am willing to withdraw my motion to proceed, which actually is not debatable and would cut him off. But I would like to know how much time the Senator would like, and then I would like unanimous consent that we then proceed to the conclusion of Calendar No. 142--and Senator Capito as well.

The distinguished chairman of Environment and Public Works would like some time as well?

Madam President, I move again to proceed to Calendar No. 142, S.J. Res. 60.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Five minutes.

Madam President, I would like to thank the gentleman from Indiana for really framing the debate for his home State of Indiana.

I rise today in opposition as well to S.J. Res. 60, a CRA that is introduced by my colleague from Rhode Island Senator Whitehouse to overturn this technical correction to the State of Indiana's emissions. The interim technical correction is necessary due to the Supreme Court's stay of the good neighbor rule.

I urge my colleagues to vote no and return the Senate floor to our business of confirming President Trump's nominees in the face of historic obstruction.

Allow me to explain just a little bit--and both of them have explained this. In 2021, the EPA issued a Federal implementation plan covering Indiana. In doing so, they relied on the announced retirement of four electric-generating units projected to happen in 2023. In 2022, those powerplants announced they would no longer close, which EPA counted for in their good neighbor rule, so the Supreme Court subsequently stayed that rule, meaning that Indiana was forced into their now-outdated 2021 emissions budget.

The Trump administration's EPA finalized this interim rule that this CRA would repeal to adjust Indiana's emissions budget to reflect what it would have looked like in 2021 had those plants not announced retirement.

I will say that every single day, every one of our offices is deluged with people coming in, saying: We need more power in this country. If we are going to win the race in AI, if we are going to win the next race in innovation, we have to have more power.

So this is an example, I think, of the Trump EPA working to make changes that ensure legal durability and reflect practical energy and environmental needs for specific States that the Biden administration had neglected.

It is surprising to me that anybody would want to spend time on this minor interim rule specific to one State that will not have a material impact on air quality or attainment of the 2008 ozone standard, which is the purpose of the rule. However, as we have seen time and time again, they are relentless in their efforts to weaponize our environmental statutes to shut down powerplants and manufacturing that provide good-paying jobs in States like Indiana and in the rest of the Rust Belt. This straightforward action only received five comments-- five. I have got them right here. Yes, a majority of the comments that the EPA received were in support of this rule, and the two others were anonymous comments.

Where was the outrage against this rule and then when the EPA was accepting comments?

Just to frame how many comments you got, when I did my Congressional Review Act of the Obama clean powerplant, I got 4.3 million comments; with the Biden clean powerplant 2.0, 1.3 million comments; with the Biden WOTUS rule, 115,000; with the California waiver, 53,000.

This is all the people in this country who care about what we are doing right now. It is just attempting to waste floor time in the U.S. Senate, trying to reverse a technical correction in an underhanded effort to close powerplants that provide affordable electricity and jobs for American workers and help us progress in this race for superiority in the race to AI. We need more energy, not less; and the CRA is a deliberate attempt to shut down powerplants in Indiana that are not popular. They are coal-fired power plants--love it--when grid reliability experts are warning of a shortage of baseline power.

I am fully against this CRA, and I hope that my colleagues will join me in that.

Madam President--

I thank the good Senator.

Madam President, I request 5 minutes to state my case.

Madam President, I would say that I love all of our States, and I am very proud that the State of Indiana plays such a critical role in ensuring economic resiliency and the manufacturing potential of this great Nation--something so important to all of our citizens irrespective of where you live.

I represent the most manufacturing-intensive State in the country. Energy demand is up, manufacturers are invested in expanding, small businesses are plugging in, and our Nation's energy needs are rising. Indiana is foremost a manufacturing State. About 45 percent of our instate electricity generation comes from coal. That is the reality. That means dependable, around-the-clock capacity isn't optional; it is how the Hoosier economy runs.

Yes, the expectation was that four Indiana coal-fired power units would be offline by 2024, but the facts on the ground have changed, and our responsibility here today is to keep power dependable and affordable with the megawatts we have--the megawatts we already have.

So what the EPA is doing now is a commonsense correction. That is all we are talking about--updating Indiana's summer emissions limit to match the plants that are actually in operation while keeping the underlying clean air guardrails in place. Keep those in place. Plants still have to meet current environmental standards. They still have to run controls. No one is getting a free pass here. This is merely a housekeeping correction that lines up the State limit with active generation so unrealistic, retroactive costs aren't forced on powerplants and ultimately the ratepayer.

This is common sense, pushing aside the bureaucracy and using the flexibility that we have in the law. It keeps the numbers honest, it keeps the planning stable for the hottest months of the year, and it avoids regulatory whiplash. Imagine if we are changing the rules nonstop in DC. It would create great uncertainty. So this accommodates the realities on the ground.

If this fix were overturned, Indiana would revert to older limits designed for a fleet that no longer exists, so, in practice, that means less operating room during heat waves and higher costs right when our citizens need power the most--all of our citizens.

Hoosiers are already feeling it. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Indiana's average home electricity prices are up roughly 11.5 percent year over year, and the Trump administration aims to do something about it.

Rather than working to keep generation steady and reliability predictable, my colleagues--at least some of them--on the other side of the aisle are advancing a repeal effort that would punish Indiana at the worst possible time.

Hoosiers should not pay more because government insists on regulating yesterday's grid instead of today's realities. Instead, we should focus on adding new capacity--new capacity--before prematurely retiring existing assets and cut redtape so that generation, pipelines, and transmission get built faster. That is what we should do. Let's not write off active megawatts and then act surprised when bills rise and lights flicker.

So if your priority is reliability and protecting American families from price spikes, the choice is clear: Keep what works today so we can build what we need for tomorrow.

I urge my colleagues to vote no on this disapproval resolution.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as America confronts a period of darkness, still I rise, full of bright hope. Why bright hope? ``Bright Hope'' was the name of the church that my grandmother attended for 70 years in Philadelphia. But, for me, it is more than just a name. It is a call to action. It is a feeling. It is what drove me to run for the U.S. Senate and what keeps me going in my darkest of times.

So once again, I rise with bright hope and tremendous humility to deliver my maiden speech as Delaware's 58th U.S. Senator. My presence here would not have been possible without my God, my family, and the people of the great State of Delaware who have put their trust in me.

The word ``trust'' is important here because this is not a time when Americans are eager to trust their elected officials. Partisan tensions are so high right now that we can barely talk to each other, let alone work together.

So the question is this:

Are we to be one people, bound together by common spirit,

sharing in a common endeavor? Or will we become a divided

nation?

As much as I would like to take credit, those are not my words. They are the words of the late great Barbara Jordan, the Congresswoman from Texas, the conscience of her Congress, who, in the midst of our Nation's bicentennial in 1976, spoke about the ``collective spirit of our nation,'' about the deeply troubling reality that people did not trust their government. And she offered a path forward, saying:

For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future.

We must address and master the future together. It can be

done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of

national community.

We are now 50 years removed from the bicentennial, and our present is rhyming with our past--wars built on false pretense, painful economic downturns, incomplete recoveries that leave many behind, and Presidents who abuse their power. The problems persist.

So how do we, before our tricentennial in 2076, build what Barbara Jordan called our common spirit? How do we restore the belief that a more perfect union is even possible? How do we rekindle bright hope for America? These are big questions, but they are not confined to the Halls of Congress. Go into any coffee shop, a sports game, or a family home, and Americans are saying the same thing and asking the same questions. I saw it firsthand in the grocery store about 10 years ago when a dad with three kids in front of me in line put back a bunch of grapes because they were too expensive. It shook me to the core.

You see, the year before that, my husband Charles, the love of my life, played a game of basketball before his business meetings, ruptured his Achilles tendon, and blood clots went to his heart and lungs. At the age of 52, the love of my life died, and I was consumed with grief. But seeing that dad woke me up from my own pain. I would be