A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service relating to "Record of Decision for the Barred Owl Management Strategy; Washington, Oregon, and California".

Mr. President, I ask permission to display on my colleague's desk my office supply of ground coffee.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about a vote that we will cast in a few hours with respect to President Trump's imposition of a 50-percent tariff on all goods coming from Brazil.

President Trump's tariff regime--global tariffs, Brazilian tariffs, Canadian tariffs, tariff deals announced then paused, tariff deals negotiated, exceptions granted and, in some cases, not granted--has created huge chaos in the national economy.

Three universities looked at the Virginia economy in the last month, and a summary of those three universities' reports was published in a Virginia publication last week titled ``Virginia's GDP Growth Drops 6.2% to 1.7%.''

And the analysis of this precipitous decline--a 75-percent decline, nearly--in the Virginia GDP in the first year of Donald Trump's Presidency cited a number of factors: mass layoffs of Federal employees and contractors, cancelation of highly valued economic development projects, clawback of research funding and other programmatic funding.

But, importantly, a key component affecting the Virginia economy and the national economy right now is the President's chaotic tariff regime.

Tariffs are attacks on American consumers; tariffs are attacks on American businesses; and they are attacks that are imposed by a single person: Donald J. Trump.

In Virginia, we are seeing it nationally. We are seeing the effects of the Trump economy, and it is well-summarized in the reports I referenced: fewer jobs, jobs declining; higher prices, whether it is food, building supplies, energy, healthcare higher prices; and slower growth.

I want to talk about one aspect of this economic malpractice, the imposition of tariffs, and, in particular, the imposition of tariffs on Brazil.

The President has imposed a tariff on Brazil of 50 percent on all the products that the United States imports from Brazil. I want to get to Brazil and the tariffs and the effect it is having on American consumers in a minute, but first, what is the power that the President cites enabling him to put such a sizable tariff on Brazilian products?

What he cites is a statute called IEEPA dealing with international economic emergencies. And that is a statute that was passed by Congress, signed into law decades ago, allowing the President, under some circumstances, to take actions following the declaration of an international emergency.

What is an international emergency?

The IEEPA statute 50 U.S.C. section 1701 says that the emergency that a President must declare is ``any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States''--the threat being to the ``national security foreign policy or economy of the United States, if the President declares a national emergency with respect to such threat.''

So the 50-percent tariff on all products from Brazil is justified by President Trump declaring that Brazil represents a national security threat.

The 50-percent tariff was imposed in two actions: The President imposed global tariffs on most nations in the world in April and imposed a 10-percent tariff on Brazil in that action, but then added an additional 40 percent in a ruling from the White House at the end of July, combining to be a 50-percent tariff.

Now, Mr. President, you have followed President Trump's logic on tariffs. The global tariffs that were imposed were imposed because he claims other nations are ripping America off in trade--other nations are ripping America off in trade.

They are selling us more of their stuff and not buying enough of our stuff, and the President says that is a rip-off.

I disagree with him on whether or not that is a rip-off, but you would have a hard time making a case that Brazil is ripping off the United States in trade. We have a trade surplus with Brazil. Many of the other nations that the President has imposed tariffs on, there is a trade deficit as measured by goods. The President usually doesn't look at the deficit in goods and services. If you look at both, the picture actually looks much better for the United States.

But Brazil, we have a trade surplus with Brazil of nearly $7 billion in goods and nearly $23 billion in services annually. Last year, the trade surplus we had with Brazil was $30 billion. They buy 30 billion more of our stuff than we buy of their stuff.

So that makes Brazil a very unusual--a very unusual--subject or target of a tariff regime designed to stop other nations from ripping us off.

So if that is not the emergency--if we are in trade surplus with Brazil, if that is not the emergency--why is the President declaring that there is an emergency with Brazil that warrants taxing American consumers by raising the price of any goods brought in from Brazil by 50 percent?

This has got to be the most unusual use of IEEPA in American history. It is the most extreme and illogical declaration of an emergency in American history, and that is saying a lot because President Trump declared an energy emergency on day one of his tenure, even though America was producing more energy than at any time in the history of the United States. Oil, gas, wind, solar, battery storage, we are the leaders in the world in energy production, but President Trump declared an energy emergency so he could get an E-ZPass lane around environmental regulations to oil, gas, and coal projects.

So I thought that emergency declaration was pretty extreme, but I have a more extreme one: President Trump is unhappy that Brazil is prosecuting a friend of his.

The former President of Brazil, on his way out the door, inspired a lot of people to try to protest and even overturn the peaceful transfer of power when he lost an election. So Brazil is prosecuting him under Brazilian laws. When the President heard that former President Bolsonaro was being prosecuted, he threatened 50-percent tariffs if you don't stop the Bolsonaro ``witch hunt'' trial.

How is that trial an emergency for the United States? How is that trial a threat to American national security or our economy?

The President is mad that a friend of his is being prosecuted. How is that an emergency?

We went on. As the trial got underway in the middle of July, FOX News: ``Trump calls for immediate end to `unjust' trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.''

``Unjust trial.''

I don't think President Trump is a lawyer, and I know he is not a Brazilian lawyer. I doubt he has an expertise in Brazilian law. By what right would he call that trial unjust? By what right would he claim that the trial of this President for trying to inspire the overturn of power--by what right would he claim that that is an emergency for the United States?

President Trump wasn't done. By making these demands and threatening tariffs, he had his administration take another step--highly unusual: ``US sanctions Brazilian judge for prosecuting Trump ally Bolsonaro'' until the end of July.

I am threatening tariffs; I am claiming that the prosecution is unjust. The United States even used sanctions power that Donald Trump has the unilateral ability to use to sanction the judge presiding over the case.

Go back to the definition that I read you earlier.

How is a prosecution of a potential Brazilian lawbreaker an ``unusual [or] extraordinary threat . . . to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States''?

I would assert, if we allow President Trump to declare this prosecution an emergency, we will have given any President a completely blank check to invent an emergency and do whatever they want and bypass Congress for doing so.

This is not an emergency, and that is why I have filed, with other Senators, a resolution to terminate President Trump's emergency.

But this isn't just about a misuse of Executive power. It has real- life consequences. Let me just bring up one that, I have to admit, I am really biased about, which is coffee.

Like a lot of people in this Chamber, I drink too much coffee. Americans drink just about more coffee per capita than any country in the world, and coffee imports are the most significant agricultural import we bring into the United States.

I lived in a great coffee-producing country when I was a missionary, in Honduras. They produce a lot of coffee. The United States doesn't produce so much. I think the President knows that in the United States the only places where coffee is grown are Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Nowhere else in the United States are there conditions that allow for the growth of coffee.

Sometimes, we put tariffs on products coming in from other nations to grow and inspire a domestic industry. If we make Brazilian steel more expensive, maybe we will make more steel in the United States.

I am here to tell you there is no amount of tariff that would turn the United States into a nation that could produce a lot of coffee. And if every bit of coffee that could be produced in Puerto Rico and Hawaii were produced, it would meet precisely 1 percent of the coffee that Americans drink.

So we bring in coffee, and our single largest source of coffee is Brazil. And 35 percent of American coffee comes from Brazil. The next source is Colombia, at 27 percent, and then other nations. Vietnam produces a good bit of coffee, and other nations in Central America produce a good bit of coffee. But the real powerhouse--and I can be sure that in my office's supply of ground coffee that we use to make coffee every morning, there is a lot of Brazilian coffee in there. The real powerhouse is Brazil.

After the President announced that he was going to do these tariffs, the news started up right away. The prediction: U.S. coffee drinkers and businesses will pay the price for Trump's Brazil tariffs.

Sometimes, the President likes to say that other nations pay them. No, this is a sales tax directly on those that consume the product, and that was the prediction.

And the prediction turned out to be true. The tariffs went into effect at the end of July. By September 12, 6 weeks later, CNN Business reported:

Coffee prices haven't surged this much in decades.

``Haven't surged this much in decades''--and the surging is very, very noticeable.

By the end of July, coffee prices kept surging, and it is likely to get worse. By the end of July--remember, at the end of July, there was only the 10 percent imposed on Brazil in April. The extra 40 percent didn't kick in until the end of July. But coffee had already surged 14 percent at the end of July, from July a year before.

I don't have the chart to show you today. The statistics just came out about September. The price of coffee, a staple in virtually every American household, has increased by 40 percent between September 2024 and September 2025. And every American experiences it at the grocery store when they are buying coffee, and every American experiences it when they are in coffee shops purchasing coffee.

I held a roundtable with small businesses in Northern Virginia, two Fridays ago, at a tea shop out near Reston called Eldon Street Tea Shop. And I had tea shops--they are getting hit by tariffs because tea comes from nations like India, China, and Vietnam. And I had coffee shops, and I had chocolate shops. All of these are products that are being imported, and they are all being dramatically affected.

And these small businesses said: If you have a chance, Senator, please do something. Please do something to stop this tariff madness.

And so that is why I am on the floor today. I have used coffee as an example because I didn't want to bring a side of beef in and put it on the desk. We get a lot of beef from Brazil. Fifty percent tariffs have dramatically driven up the price of ground beef in supermarkets all over this country.

People are paying more for coffee. They are paying more for beef. They are paying more for fruits and vegetables that come from nations that have been socked by Trump tariffs.

People are paying more for building supplies. People are paying more for energy. People are paying more for healthcare.

That is why the economist who looked at the Virginia economy said the Trump economy is one of higher prices, fewer jobs, and slower growth.

It is my hope that my colleagues will stand up for their constituents and say: Enough is enough.

No President, Democrat or Republican, should be able to declare a national emergency, justifying the imposition of 50 percent tariffs, because a friend of theirs is being prosecuted for breaking the law in another country. If this body allows that, this body will be opening the door for untold mischief committed by future Presidents who will decide: I can declare anything an emergency, and the Senate will just lay down and let me walk over them and not speak out against it.

And it also is important for us to acknowledge that this isn't just about an abuse of Presidential power. It is about abuse of Presidential power that people are feeling every time they walk down a grocery store aisle to buy coffee for their families, to buy ground beef for their families.

I hope my colleagues will join me in an effort to reverse the declaration of a national emergency and save everyday people and businesses some money.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak about the Brazilian tariff resolution that is before the body, and I will speak briefly since I spoke about 4:30 about it.

The first point to mention is, this is a Presidential invocation of a very rare emergency power. The IEEPA statute says that it has to be an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security foreign policy or economy of the United States, and the President has to find the existence of such a threat.

What has the President said about the threat posed by Brazil? What is that threat posed to the economy, national security, or foreign policy of the United States?

The President has said it is Brazil's decision to prosecute its former President.

If you surveyed the American public and asked them about the Brazilian prosecution of former President Bolsonaro, 99 percent of the American public wouldn't even know about it.

How can this be a national emergency allowing the President to unilaterally impose a 50-percent tariff on goods from Brazil? We have a trade surplus with Brazil; $7 billion a year in goods; $23 billion in services. We have a trade surplus from Brazil.

This President has said that their prosecution of a disgraced former politician is a national emergency for the United States. How could that be?

If this is a national emergency for the United States, any President of any party could say that anything is a national emergency for the United States. So the first reason that I asked my colleagues to support this resolution is to not allow the President to end-run Congress and create a bogus emergency to unilaterally claim powers--in this case, trade powers--that are given to Congress in the Constitution.

And the second reason that I ask my colleagues to support this is that people are suffering--people are suffering. They are paying more for ground beef. A lot of ground beef comes from Brazil. They are paying more for coffee. Americans are the biggest coffee drinkers in the world. Coffee is the biggest imported product--agricultural--that we bring into this Nation.

Coffee prices have gone up by 40 percent in 1 year from the end of September of 2024 to the end of September of 2025 because of President Trump's tariffs. Thirty-five percent of our coffee comes from Brazil. Twenty-seven percent of our coffee comes from Colombia, being heavily tariffed right now. The third nation that grows coffee that comes to the United States is Vietnam, heavily affected by U.S. tariffs.

People are suffering. They are paying more for food, more for clothes, more for healthcare, more for energy, more for building supplies because of President Trump's tariff policy.

Trade is a power given to Congress in the Constitution that can be delegated to the President, but in statutes like IEEPA, we have retained the right when a President is going the wrong direction and our constituents need someone to stand up for them so they don't pay more than they should for their morning cup of coffee or the hamburger that they are having.

Congress has the power to roll that back and end these tariffs.

So for those two reasons--the fact that this is not an emergency that would have ever been within the contemplation of those who drafted this statute and the second, to save Americans some money, to save them a few bucks when they buy their cup of coffee every day--I ask for support for this resolution.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to display three charts during my remarks.

Mr. President, with me today is Mr. James Shea, one of my colleagues from my Senate office.

Mr. President, I want to talk today about the owls. There are 19 species--or kinds of owls--in the United States. Did you know that? There are 19, and I want to talk about two of them: the spotted owl and the barred owl. That is ``barred,'' B-A-R-R-E-D. Both of them are God's creatures.

I also want to talk today--and the Presiding Officer will understand what I mean in a moment--about the Federal Government's proclivity-- repeated proclivity--to do the dumbest thing possible that won't work.

Now, the Federal Government, which can't even deliver the mail when it has the address right there on the front, and, more specifically, the Department of the Interior have promulgated a rule. This rule says that unless Congress stops them, they are going to hire hunters--right here--to kill 453,000 barred owls. There are only 4 million in the United States, but the Department of the Interior wants to kill 453,000 mama barred owls, daddy barred owls, and baby barred owls because the Department of the Interior thinks--says--that the barred owl is a better hunter than the spotted owl.

The Department of the Interior is not saying the barred owl is eating the spotted owl. The Department of the Interior isn't saying that the barred owl is hurting the spotted owl. The Department of the Interior says it wants to kill over 10 percent of the barred owl population because the barred owl is a better hunter than the spotted owl, and they want to tip the scales of nature in favor of the spotted owl even though the spotted owl is not on the endangered species list.

My resolution, which will be voted on tomorrow, will stop this nonsense.

First, I want to talk a little bit more about the barred owl. In doing so, I will talk a little bit about its cousin, the spotted owl. As I said, they are both God's creatures.

This is a barred owl. It is beautiful. If you have ever seen a barred owl, it has very, very soulful eyes. Their feathers are incredibly soft. It is called barred, B-A-R-R-E-D, because of the bars that run across here, as opposed to a spotted owl.

The barred owl--10 percent of which our brainiacs at the Department of the Interior want to kill--has been around for 11,000 years. Sometimes the barred owl is called a hoot owl. That may be the term you know it by best. The barred owl is about 2 feet long. It has incredible eyes. Man, it can see. It is like superman or superwoman. It has incredible eyes and incredible hearing.

The barred owl, like the spotted owl, is nocturnal. They come out at night. They hide during the day, and they come out at night.

The barred owl is a great hunter--a great hunter. The barred owl eats mice. The barred owl eats squirrels. The

barred owl eats snakes. The barred owl eats lizards. The barred owl eats spiders. The barred owl even eats bats.

The barred owl lives--as does the spotted owl, for that matter--in old-growth forests. In fact, I have a pair of barred owls that lives in the forest behind my house. They are great. They always come in pairs, about which I will talk in a second. In fact, you can attract barred owls--many people do--by building what is called a nest box, and you can have barred owls come and live if you live near a forest. If you are not handy like me and you want to know how to build a nest box, just go to YouTube.

Barred owls marry for life, and they mate for life. When a male barred owl is courting a female barred owl--I have seen videos; it is really cool--the male barred owl courts a female by bowing. The male barred owl bows, and it opens its wings up a little bit--it doesn't want to be intimidating to the female, so not full out, but it opens its wings up a little bit--and the barred owl wobbles its head back and forth, back and forth, side to side. If the female is impressed, the female says ``I do,'' and they stay married the rest of their lives together. That is why you see them in pairs.

They have babies once a year, generally two to five babies.

These are two of the babies that the Department of the Interior wants to kill. They are going to pay the same price, by the way, to the hunter to kill the babies as they are to kill the mama. They don't care. They just want to kill them all.

When the babies are little, little bitty, when they are born, they are not covered in feathers. Little babies are covered in soft, white down. They don't start getting feathers until about 2 weeks.

The mama barred owl stays with the babies for the first few weeks. Sometimes the babies, like Senators, fall out of the nest as they start exploring around, and the mama or the daddy barred owl--unless the daddy is out hunting for food--has to get them back into the nest.

The babies learn to fly after about 10 weeks.

Now, what does this have to do with the spotted owl, which is also one of God's creatures?

The barred owl is native. It is originally from the Eastern United States and southeastern Canada. It has existed there for 11,000 years. But over the past 100 years--100 years is just the blink of an eye in time--over the past 100 years, the Northeast has gotten more and more crowded, and the old-growth forests that the barred owl lives in have been cut down, and subdivisions have been built. So the barred owl, as happens all the time in nature, has started moving west, and it is moving west, and it is moving west. Now the barred owl is entering Washington State, Oregon, Northern California, and British Columbia in Canada.

Well, that is where the spotted owl lives. The spotted owl also lives in old-growth forests but not exactly in the old-growth forests in the West as the same place as the barred owl. The spotted owl prefers an old-growth forest at a higher elevation.

The barred owl is a better hunter. It is slightly bigger than the spotted owl. The barred owl is a better hunter than the spotted owl.

Let me say it again because there has been a lot of confusion about this. The barred owl doesn't hunt the spotted owl. In fact, many times, a barred owl and a spotted owl will get married. I know they are cousins, but that doesn't matter as they are distant cousins. Sometimes they get married, and they interbreed. So this isn't a question of one animal killing another. The Department of the Interior is mad at the barred owl because the barred owl is a better hunter. The barred owl is just a better hunter. That is just the way it is.

You know, it is just like the Senate's Presiding Officer. The Presiding Officer is better looking than me. I accept that. That is the way God made us.

God just made the barred owl a better hunter, and the Department of the Interior is all up in arms. They say this is threatening the spotted owl. Now, the spotted owl isn't on the endangered species list, but they say: This isn't fair. The barred owl is a better hunter than the spotted owl, and that is causing the spotted owl's population to decrease.

So the Department of the Interior, in its infinite wisdom, has come up with DEI for owls. They have come up with quotas for owls.

The barred owl, because nature, God--whatever you believe in--made them better hunters, now has to give up its rights--has to give up its life because the spotted owl is not as good of a hunter.

As I mentioned, the spotted owl and the barred owl don't always live in the same place. Out West, the spotted owl prefers higher elevations than the barred owl. But they do--it is undeniable--they compete for food, and they both live in old-growth forests.

Let me tell you something--and the Department of the Interior doesn't like to admit this. The spotted owl population was declining even before the barred owl decided to move. Do you know why? It had nothing to do with food. It had nothing to do with the barred owl. It had to do with the same thing happening on the west coast that has happened on the east coast. Many of the old-growth forests have been cut down to make way for more people. You might have noticed we have had a few forest fires, and they have been causing the population of the spotted owl to be reduced but not to the point of endangerment. The Interior Department just says they are threatened. That is the problem for the spotted owl. It is not the barred owl.

This regulation that I am trying to overturn was promulgated under President Biden's Department of the Interior, OK? Yet the Department of the Interior--I want to make this clear--under President Trump has embraced this rule. They think that this is the greatest rule--this is the greatest idea--they have ever heard of. It tastes like pumpkin pie to them.

In fact, I got a call from Secretary Burgum, whom I love and respect. He was as mad as a mama wasp. ``Pull down that regulation.'' He accused me of slandering the Trump administration.

I am not slandering the Trump administration. This was a President Biden regulation.

Now, I was polite with the Secretary, but I told him that he was confused and that he needed to call somebody. He had the wrong person on the line. The Secretary needed to call somebody who cared what he thought, because I think he is wrong. I think he is wrong. I think he and the other members of the administration and the Department of the Interior have decided to play God, and they are wrong for at least five reasons.

No. 1, their plan--their brainiac plan--which looks like it was designed by a heroin addict with a socket wrench, won't work. It won't work.

Now, let me tell you what they are going to do. They want to hire hunters--they want to hire Elmer here--to go out at night with a flashlight and shoot the barred owls. Now, this is at night, OK? The barred owl lives about 40 feet up off the ground and in a tree. Do you know what else lives about 40 feet up off the ground and in a tree? The spotted owl. Do you think that these cowboys, who are going disco because they have a Federal contract, are going to be able to always tell the difference between a barred owl and a spotted owl? They are going to shoot them both and let God sort them out because they are being paid.

Look, I am a duck hunter. I am not a big hunter, but I like to duck hunt and dove hunt. I eat what I kill. But, a lot of times, when I am duck hunting, there are different points for different species of duck. I can't tell which duck is which. I have passed up shots before because I thought it might be a mallard, when I can't kill any more mallard. Do you think these cowboys that they are going to hire from the private sector are going out there with their little flashlights--old Elmer here, with his little red hat--in the middle of the night with a flashlight are going to tell the difference or care about the difference between a barred owl and a spotted owl? No. They are going to shoot them both.

No. 2, the other reason it won't work is that spotted owls are not stupid. Once you start shooting at them, they are going to move up into Canada. The Canadians aren't dumb enough to do something like this. They are going to move up into Canada. They are going to wait until the shooting stops, and then they are going to come back

down. So what have we accomplished? Have we done anything for the spotted owl? No.

No. 3, I have been through this reg stem to stern. I can't find out whether this regulation prohibits Elmer Fudd from going out there and using lead shots. When we hunt ducks, you can't use lead shots. You use steel shots. Do you know why? Because a lot of times other birds and other animals will eat the lead shot and they die from it.

So these cowboys are going to go out, if they are not prohibited from using lead shots. Yes, they are going to kill some barred owls and spotted owls. They are going to end up killing eagles and hawks and other wildlife using their lead shots.

The second reason this won't work--let me say it again--the barred owls aren't the problem. The problem is that we are losing old-growth forests in the West, which is the habitat of the spotted owl. And where it is naturally occurring is where more people have moved--to Washington and North Carolina and Oregon--and we have wildfires that have burned our forests.

Don't go pick on the barred owl. You can kill every barred owl there is, and it is not going to help the spotted owl if you don't maintain the appropriate habitat.

No. 4, this is going to be incredibly expensive. This comes under the theme of ``let's do the dumbest thing possible that won't work.''

Our Department of the Interior has already issued one contract. I don't know how they got the authority to do it. But back in 2004, they issued a contract to a private vendor--Elmer here--to go kill 1,500 barred owls. I guess they wanted to test it out. Do you know what they paid? It was $3,000 a bird--$3,000 for a mama barred owl, $3,000 for a daddy barred owl, and $3,000 for a baby barred owl. Give me a break. And now they are going to go out and kill 453,000, over a billion dollars--over a billion dollars. It is not their money, but it is taxpayer money--on a plan that won't even work.

Here is what one person from the Department of the Interior said, in a rare moment of candor. He might have gotten fired. But he is a Wildlife and Fisheries agent. He told the press:

I think all we can really do is try our best to provide a

habitat for spotted owls, and in the long run, we're just

going to have to let the two species work it out.

The final reason this is a bad reg--and then I am going to wrap this up. I know that the bureaucrats at the Department of the Interior--I realize this--they are smarter, and they are more virtuous than you and I. I get that. But who appointed them God? Who appointed them God?

Barred owls are expanding their habitat because the forests in the East have been cut down. That is called adaptive range expansion. And do you know what? Whether you believe in God or nature or whatever, that happens every single day in our ecosystem. It is a naturally occurring ecological phenomenon. It is a core behavioral characteristic of mammals.

All the barred owls are doing--they are not hurting anybody. They are just doing what nature teaches them to do.

We are going to change nature? We are going to control our environment to this extent? We are going to pass DEI for owls? We are going to pass quotas for owls? Spotted owls, good; barred owls bad. But the barred owls won't lose their constitutional rights. They will kill them. They are going to kill 453 of them, dead as Jimmy Hoffa. Give me a break.

This is foolish. This is reckless. This is expensive. It is unsupported by evidence. It is unnecessary, and it won't work. I cannot think--I cannot think--of a better example of the arrogance, the hubris of the Federal administrative state. If we let them go through with this, this will rank right up there with those $10,000 Department of Defense toilet seats, except part of God's creation will already be dead.

Ecosystems are like markets. They regulate themselves. Trying to change nature is like trying to have a Federal Government direct a free enterprise system. It won't work. It never has, and it never will.

I don't mean any disrespect to anybody. I don't. I am not--well, I guess I am calling somebody Elmer Fudd. I don't know who they are going to hire, but I know they hired a bunch of Elmers and gave them $3,000 a bird, and it didn't work. But this, to me, is just bone-deep, down-to- marrow stupid. I have rocks in my driveway that are smarter than this. I do.

Here is my advice to my friends at the Department of the Interior-- and full disclosure: This thing is supported by President Biden's people, and it is supported by President Trump's people. Secretary Burgum loves this thing. He loves this idea like the Devil loves sin. He has a right to his opinion, but here is my advice: Life is hard-- life is hard--but it is a lot harder when you are stupid. Don't do it. Pass my resolution, and let's stop this.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me just point out, if I might, that we are 29 days into a Democrat shutdown. And the Senator from New Mexico is absolutely right--SNAP recipients shouldn't go without food. People should be getting paid in this country. We have tried to do that 13 times, and you voted no 13 times.

This isn't a political game. These are real people's lives that we are talking about. And you all just figured out 29 days in that, oh, there might be some consequences. There are people running out of money. Yeah, we are 29 days in, and they have done their best to make sure that a lot of these programs are funded, but at some point, the government runs out of money.

Thirteen times people over here voted to fund SNAP. Thirteen times they voted to fund WIC. My aching back. Finally realized this thing has consequences.

Well, you know what, what Democrats are doing here--they are making plans to keep the shutdown going, and they realize all of a sudden, 29 days in, that this is a real consequence, real-life pain for American families--something that results from their shutdown.

So are they making plans to end the shutdown and reopen the government? Nope. They are going to propose a bill to fund food stamps during their shutdown. This request is a transparent admission that Democrats want to keep the shutdown--for what? Another month? Longer? This bill is a cynical attempt to buy political cover for Democrats to allow them to carry on their government shutdown for the long term.

Now, I will point out that we did 13 short-term, clean CRs when they had the majority, and President Biden was in the White House--13. They have now voted 13 times against a clean CR.

I have no idea where you are coming from.

The Democrat leader said that President Trump could end this with a stroke of his pen, and he is right. We pass that bill, and with a stroke of his pen, he will sign it into law, and the government opens up, and SNAP beneficiaries, SNAP recipients get food assistance. But do you know what else? TSA workers get paid, air traffic controllers get paid, Border Patrol agents get paid, and troops get paid. These people here get paid who are working without pay. Do you want to extend that and keep that going? Give me a break.

So the people who aren't going to get the benefit of what they are trying to do today are all the other programs that are affected: Head Start; grants to law enforcement to fight fentanyl and hire more cops to protect communities;

rural development programs that are important in my State and the Senator from New Mexico's State, I assume; as well to support housing, utilities, and infrastructure projects in rural communities; small business loans; certain direct loan and emergency programs that farmers rely on; National Guard training critical to our Nation's military readiness; veterans' transition assistance as they come out of service; veterans cemetery services. Right now, there are no headstones, memorial certificates, or cemetery maintenance.

Programs that are at risk: rental and housing assistance; delays in processing FHA-insured loans; delays in aircraft inspections and maintenance for air traffic control equipment.

People that are currently not getting paid: I mentioned some of them but air traffic controllers; TSA officers; Capitol Police; the people who protect us in this building; NOAA employees who are tracking hurricanes and other potential weather disruptions and disasters; food inspectors; other food and drug safety officials; mine safety inspectors.

People who don't have pay certainty right now: troops; Coast Guard; ICE; Border Patrol; Federal law enforcement; Federal wildland firefighters.

Extenders that have lapsed: telehealth and at-home care; community health centers; teaching health centers; special diabetes programs; payments for ambulances, hospital at-home services.

Other lapsed authorizations: CISA to prevent against cyber attacks; National Flood Insurance Program to prevent closure on homes in flood zones.

That is what you are leaving on the table. The bill at the desk takes care of all of it--funds SNAP, funds WIC. And, yes, with the stroke of the President's pen, he can sign it into law, and everybody starts getting paid again.

This has got to stop. Hostage taking. Now you want some political cover. How long is this going to go on? How much longer do you want to see it go on, just out of curiosity? So you think this buys some time. You want the shutdown to go on for another month, and then we are going to have other people come down here: Well, let's carve this out or carve this out. Why don't we just open the government?

I have never seen anything like this. I have been here a good amount of time. I have seen continuing resolutions and appropriations problems and funding fights and government shutdowns. I have been through a few, but I have never seen anything like this. This just isn't done.

You want to have a discussion about healthcare? Absolutely. Let's do it. Open the government. Let's do it. The President will sit down with Democrats next week if you want to talk about healthcare.

That is not what this is about.

So we are not going to pick winners and losers. It is time to fund everybody who is experiencing the pain from this shutdown. If the Democrats really want to fund SNAP and WIC, I have a bill for them sitting right there at the desk--a clean, nonpartisan CR to fund SNAP, WIC, and the entire government, and all the many programs and people that the Democrat SNAP bill completely ignores.

Democrats have spent a month--a month now--playing with people's livelihoods because the far-left wing of their party won't let them accept a clean, nonpartisan CR. If they want to prevent damage from their shutdown, they can end the shutdown. The bill is right here at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask that the Senator from New Mexico modify his request so that the Senate can proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 168, H.R. 5371; 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 regret the fact that the Senator from New Mexico and his Democrat colleagues are unwilling to modify his request to include keeping the government open.

And I would say--a rhetorical question to my colleague from New Mexico: If the government reopens, do SNAP beneficiaries get paid? Yeah. Right? So do WIC beneficiaries, veterans, low-income elderly people, people who need this assistance.

It is not like you are doing anything here that isn't accomplished by reopening the government and paying everybody else, and you guys know that.

There are a lot of people, today, who aren't getting paid. Last Friday, Federal employees didn't get paid for the first time. I should say air traffic controllers didn't get paid for the first time. And it only worsens over time.

And so I would be more than willing--and have said this multiple times, as you all know--to sit down, get a group together, and talk about healthcare.

We think that ObamaCare and, particularly, the enhanced subsidies, are in desperate need of reform. There is no income cap. There is no asset test. People are making 500, 600 grand a year and getting subsidies from the Federal Government for their healthcare.

There are zero-dollar premiums. There are millions of Americans who don't even know they have coverage because the way that program is structured, the payments go directly to the insurance companies. Insurance companies are out there auto-enrolling people and making bank. A lot of people don't even know they have insurance coverage.

So this program is desperately in need of reform. The waste, fraud, and abuse in this program has kind of gotten to an epic level, because if you look at what has happened since 2013, when the exchanges went online, insurance premiums in the individual marketplace on the exchanges have gone up 221 percent. I mean, you tell me anyplace else in the economy that goes up 221 percent in that amount of time. It is going up double-digits every year.

In the employer market, it would be 6 to 7 percent.

So it is a program that is fundamentally in need of change and reform. It is unsustainable, and it is unaffordable. And to give you an example of that, doing the very thing you are talking about, which is included in your bill, which was offered as an alternative to the Republican proposal--the clean Republican proposal that simply opens the government--the proposal included in your bill is a $400 billion item, a cost to the taxpayers.

And so we are willing to sit down and see--and I have said, on behalf of the President, as well, that he is willing to sit down--and talk about how we can reform and make healthcare in this country more affordable and less inflationary, because this program is inflationary. It is going up every year.

Now, you all are going to blame the doing away with the Biden bonus payments in that legislation for the increase. But the fact of the matter is, that will be a very small part of that because of the way the program is structured in the first place. There is no incentive to constrain or control costs.

So let's have that conversation. I have said that. We can sit down and do it.

But as many of you have said--and there are quotes out there from all of you--from all of you: In previous shutdowns, or when there are fights over a continuing resolution, you can't negotiate when you have a gun to your head.

The Democrat leader said that.

And so let's just get beyond this silliness and fund the government and make sure that SNAP recipients and WIC recipients and recipients of other government programs, which I mentioned--it is a long list, which isn't covered by your bill, by the way--that those people and those programs also get taken care of. We have a chance to do that.

And we actually have a chance, I think, to have a normal appropriations process, where we move bills across the floor, open them up to the amendment process--something that hasn't been done here in a while. We can do that.

I want to start now, but it starts when we open up the government. So let's just do what normal people would do.

And the Senator from New Mexico is right. I represent a lot of hard- working Americans--farmers, ranchers, small business people, schoolteachers, educators. My dad and mom were educators. And I just think that there are a lot of people out there who look at this and say: This doesn't make any sense to me. If they want to talk about healthcare, then let's do that. But why take the Federal Government hostage and every Federal employee--including everybody in this room that is not getting paid--that isn't covered by the bill that you are putting forward. The bill that does cover everybody is the one right there, which we have now voted on 13 times.

Just a few of you decide to vote differently. Let's get on appropriations bills and start funding the government the old-fashioned way.

I am for that. I think everybody over here is up for that. I know the chair of our Appropriations Committee, Susan Collins, and most of the appropriators have worked together in a constructive way, in a bipartisan way, to get bills to the floor that we can consider. But, so far, everything we have tried to do here, at least in the last few weeks, has been blocked, including getting on the Defense appropriations bill and going to conference on three bills we have already passed.

So as much as I appreciate what the Senator from New Mexico is trying to do here, and he is not--I don't question his intentions. I think he is sincere. But I also think that this is missing the larger point here, and that is, this government is closed. And what you are trying to do and accomplish here is make it harder, not easier, to get the government opened up again and to make sure everybody else gets paid.

So, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, in a few minutes, we are going to vote on

my resolution, pursuant to the Congressional Review Act, to overturn a rule promulgated by the Federal Government, specifically, the Department of the Interior. I can't think of a rule that better demonstrates the arrogance, the hubris of the Federal administrative State. It has to do with God's creatures. I talked about this yesterday.

This is a barred owl, spelled B-A-R-R-E-D. This is a spotted owl. They are both magnificent animals. If you ever studied them, they both have very soulful eyes. They have incredibly--you probably never had an opportunity to pet one, but they have incredibly soft feathers. They are not enemies; they are cousins.

There are 19 species of owls in the United States. These two have been around about 11,000 years. They are not enemies. They both hunt mice and lizards and snakes and insects and mosquitoes. The barred owl is slightly bigger than the spotted owl. The barred owl is a better hunter. That is just the way God made them.

Now, the Department of the Interior--this started under President Biden, but I don't want to mislead anyone. Secretary Burgum, our current Secretary of the Interior, very much opposes my CRA and supports this regulation I am trying to overturn.

What would the regulation do? Here is what it would do. The Federal Government, as I said yesterday--it was true then and is true now-- which can't even deliver the mail when the stuff has an address right on the front of it and, in particular, the Department of the Interior, under President Biden and now under President Trump--as an aside, it is very hard to piss off both the Biden administration and the Trump administration, but I have managed to do that. That is OK. I think I am right. The Department of the Interior is proposing to kill 453,000 barred owls. Kill them--mamas, daddies, babies. Why? To protect, they say, the spotted owl.

You go: Whoa, why does a spotted owl need protecting from the barred owl? They are cousins. They share the same habitat. Sometimes they have sex. It is not unknown that a barred owl will marry a spotted owl. A barred owl marries another barred owl for life, in fact, and sometimes a barred owl will marry a spotted owl.

The barred owl doesn't eat the spotted owl. The barred owl doesn't kill the spotted owl. But the barred owl is a better hunter. And the Department of the Interior says because of that, they have to kill 453,000 barred owls to help the spotted owls. That is what the Federal Government has come down to.

We now have DEI for owls. According to the Department of the Interior: Bad owl; good owl. But we are not talking about an admission to college. If you are on the wrong end of this DEI proposal, you don't just not get--the owl doesn't not get admitted to college; the owl gets killed.

I have been around a little while. I have seen a few vampire movies. This isn't the first one of these, but this is one of the worst examples I have ever seen of the arrogance and the hubris of the Federal Government.

This is bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow stupid. Let me tell you why. First of all, it is not going to work. The Federal Government is going to send out a bunch of hunters. Here is one of their hunters. That is what they will probably look like. They are going to send out a bunch of hunters at night with flashlights and shotguns. Because the owls are nocturnal, they live at night; they come out at night. They hide during the day.

Both barred owls and spotted owls live about 40 feet up in the trees. So they are going to send these cowboys out there with their little lights and they are going to point up and they are supposed to shoot the barred owl and not shoot the spotted owl.

Dream weaver. Dream weaver.

So to kill the barred owls, it is inevitable they are going to kill some spotted owls.

No. 2, I have been all through the regulation. I see no indication where using lead shot is prohibited. We changed the rules about using lead versus steel shot because we realize how dangerous lead is. So they are going to kill--if they use a lead shot, which is a lot cheaper than steel shot--yes, they will kill some barred owls, and they will also kill some spotted owls. They will also kill some eagles. They are also going to kill a bunch of hawks, and they are going to kill a bunch of other wildlife because they eat the lead and the lead kills them.

It is not going to work.

The third reason it is not going to work and what the Department of the Interior won't tell you is that the barred owl, which is native to the Eastern United States, started moving west into the jurisdiction of the spotted owl about 100 years ago. It has been steadily moving west because the old-growth forests, where the barred owl lived in the Eastern United States, in northeastern Canada, was cut to make room for people. So the barred owl started moving west, and now the barred owl is in Washington and Oregon and Northern California and British Columbia.

Once again, they don't eat each other. They don't kill each other. But the spotted owl that the Department of the Interior says it has to save was losing population well before the barred owl moved in. Do you know why that is? Because what is happening in the West is the same thing that was happening in the East. Because we gained population and people moved to the suburbs, we reduced old-growth forests, which reduces the habitat for both owls. I am not saying that we shouldn't harvest trees appropriately. I am not saying that. We have also had wildfires. That is what is damaging the spotted owl. It is not the barred owl.

The final point is that this isn't going to work in that, unlike some of the employees in the Department of the Interior, the barred owl isn't stupid. Once you start shooting the barred owl, the barred owl is just going to move on up to Canada. Then, as soon as the coast is clear, the barred owl is going to come back, OK? So you are not going to do anything to help the spotted owl.

The second reason that this regulation is bone-deep, down-to-the- marrow stupid is that it is going to be expensive. In, I think, 2024, the Department of the Interior issued a contract to kill, I think it was, 1,500 barred owls. I don't know how they could do it. I don't know how they had the authority, but they did it. That is the way the bureaucracy works. They hired hunters. They paid them $3,000 a bird-- $3,000 a bird. So, if they went out at night with their little flashlights, looking 40 feet up in the trees, and they killed a daddy barred owl, they got $3,000. If they killed a mama barred owl, they got $3,000. And if they killed a baby barred owl, they got another $3,000.

Do you know how they really hit the jackpot? It was when they would catch a mama barred owl in her nest, protecting her baby chicks. With one shotgun shell, you hit all three baby chicks. That is $9,000. That is what we are going to use taxpayer money for.

Now, the Department of the Interior wants to send out these folks to kill 453,000 barred owls at $3,000 a pop. That is $1.3 billion--not million but billion dollars--to try to protect the spotted owl, not because the spotted owl is hurting anybody, not because the barred owl is hurting anybody. The barred owl is just a better hunter, and the Department of the Interior will tell you that. The barred owl is better. They both eat the same thing. They are better at catching prey, and they think that is putting pressure on the spotted owl.

The spotted owl isn't on the endangered species list. If the spotted owl is in such bad shape, why hasn't the Department of the Interior moved to put the spotted owl on the endangered species list?

Do you know why? Because they can't, because they are not in danger.

The Department of the Interior likes to use the word ``threatened''-- ``threatened,'' ``threatened.'' Well, hell, the zebras are threatened by lions, but the Interior Department--at least not yet--isn't suggesting we go kill all the lions because they eat zebras.

I don't want to mislead anyone. This regulation was promulgated under President Biden, but Secretary Burgum, with whom I have spoken--I have great respect for him--is adamant that this is a good rule and a good regulation. In fact, he told me, as I mentioned yesterday, that by opposing his idea, I was slandering the Trump administration. I am slandering the Trump administration. No, sir, I am trying to help the Trump administration. I am trying to save the Department of the Interior and the Secretary from himself.

In a rare moment of candor, let me tell you what one employee from the Department of the Interior said to a reporter. He probably got fired for it, but this is what he said, and he was--and is--a Fish and Wildlife employee and expert.

He said:

I think all we can really do is try our best to provide a

habitat for spotted owls, and in the long run, we are just

going to have to let the two species work it out.

The final point I will make, and what aggravates me the most about this, is I know the employees at the Department of the Interior are smart and virtuous. I know they are smarter and more virtuous than me. But who appointed them God? Who appointed them Pope?

Animals migrate all the time. It happens all the time, not just mammals but all animals. They move location.

So we are going to be in the business of telling animals: Well, you can live here, but you can't live there.

We are also going to be in the business of choosing which owls can live and which owls can die.

I am going to end like I ended yesterday. This is my advice to my friends at the Department of the Interior, and I don't mean any disrespect in saying it: Life is hard. Life is very, very hard, but it is a lot harder when you are stupid. This regulation is stupid, and we will live to regret it, just like China, back when Mao, during the Great Leap Forward, issued a decree--in his arrogance and in his hubris--to kill all the sparrows in China. And they did, just like we are going to kill all the owls. Two million of the Chinese people died. That is what happens when you mess with God and Mother Nature. As a result, they had to import sparrows. We will end up, someday, if they do this, having to import barred owls. We will regret it.

I don't know, Mr. President, what I am supposed to say next to start the vote, but I am ready.

Here it is.

Motion to Proceed

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 190, S.J. Res. 69.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the rollcall vote begin immediately.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise today to ask my colleagues to pass my Keep SNAP and WIC Funded Act of 2025, which has the backing of the entire Democratic caucus--the Democratic Members of this Senate.

Now, we all know access to food is a human right. It is that simple. And we are all fortunate enough to live in the United States of America, a nation that is rich; it is abundant. A nation that is rich in agricultural tradition can be abundant in harvest.

Now, in a nation blessed with such abundance, allowing our fellow Americans to go hungry is, sadly, right now, a policy decision--I would argue a political decision, not a financial necessity.

Now, the Trump administration has yet again made the decision--made the choice--to allow our fellow Americans to go hungry. Now, let's be clear: The only way to ensure the SNAP benefits are issued by November 1 is for the Trump administration to release the billions of dollars it has sitting in an account in USDA that Congress appropriated, Democrats and Republicans working together to appropriate, to use for this purpose.

As a matter of fact, never in the history of the United States has SNAP been allowed to lapse like this. As a matter a fact, during President Trump's first term, Secretary Purdue, President Trump, they tapped the same fund to allow SNAP benefits to continue to roll.

Now, President Trump says that the use of SNAP contingency funds is illegal. Well, here is the document that was taken down from the USDA website that was up just days ago. He decided to take this down and now even the Speaker of the House is lying to the American people saying that it is not allowed.

President Trump found $40 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars to send to his political allies in Argentina just last week. But when it comes to feeding our own--our own people here in the United States of America-- he refuses to act.

Back home in New Mexico, one in five people rely on SNAP. They aren't strangers. They are neighbors, coworkers, friends, children, people I go to church with. They are the folks we say hello to at the grocery store or at a Little League game.

President Trump's refusal to release SNAP funding doesn't just impact New Mexico. States like Louisiana, where Speaker Johnson is from, are facing the same crisis. Louisiana is third on the list of constituents that will be negatively impacted.

Now, I have been fortunate enough to visit several food banks across New Mexico and meet with community members who are working around the clock to make sure neighbors have something to eat.

To every one of our community members who have stepped up, I want to say thank you--not just across New Mexico but across America. I am proud to represent a community that takes care of each other when times are tough.

It shouldn't have to be this way.

Since the creation of SNAP, there has never been a lapse--there has never been a lapse in SNAP funding during a government shutdown. The Trump administration has the authority and the funds to keep SNAP running during this shutdown. Don't take my word for it. Look at the USDA's own guidance that they removed from their website that justifies this.

Any failure to do so right now falls squarely on the Trump administration and Republicans. We could vote on this today, on this bill or one that Senator Hawley has authored as well that has many Republican colleagues that are cosponsors, to prevent a hunger crisis.

This pain does not need to happen. President Trump is choosing to inflict pain on American families by holding meals hostage. That is why I am leading this legislation to ensure that no child, parent, or veteran misses a meal because of the Republican shutdown.

It also says that if States or Tribal governments are in a position right now to fund SNAP programs, that they do get reimbursed, unlike what President Trump has been threatening them--that they will not. We cannot stand by and let our neighbors go hungry.

So I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and I appreciate everyone that has reached out to my office to have a conversation about this piece of legislation. I hope we can work together and find a path forward.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come together to pass this bill now and fund SNAP and fund WIC before this hunger crisis hits our communities.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of S. 3071, introduced earlier today; that the bill be considered read three times and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I respect the majority leader, the Republican leader. I see some of his staff in the room as well, people that I have worked with. They know when I work with them and when others don't. But I understand the words that were being used today to spin an argument as to why there should be justification for 40 million people to go hungry.

You know, I get in trouble sometimes because I use language from the little farm that I still call home, but I have learned the rules of decorum on the Senate floor, so I won't use them today. But some of the lessons my father taught me early in my life, even after I was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, when he would leave a shovel by the front door when I would go home on the weekends, and he would leave my rubber boots there to make sure I put them on because we were going to go clean the barn.

We raised cattle. We raised sheep. We raised all kinds of animals. After those animals eat, they make something. Some of us use it to fertilize our land; some people call it manure. I won't refer to it as the language that I usually call it when I am not on the Senate floor.

I also thought it was important to tell people the truth and be honest with the American people. What the good leader left out when he was talking about the number of votes that Republicans voted on under a Democratic President, under a Democratic majority in the Senate and in the House, was that there was not a shutdown. We negotiated.

People came to me--as a matter of fact, a lot of my Democratic constituents told me: Democrats gave way too much to those Republicans when you were in the majority.

Well, when you have to negotiate, when you hold power, when you are in the majority, you meet people. You pull them in. You don't tell folks: You know where my office is.

You all have heard me talk about the late Governor Bruce King, cattle farmer out of New Mexico. He used to tell us: When people can't figure out what is going on, you lock them up in a barn, and you don't let them out until they figure out how to get along.

Well, we don't have a barn. Maybe they have an office around here to send some people. There is a White House. It is easy to get in--there is a big hole in it. Invite some people over there to sit down.

President Trump said not long ago that if there is a shutdown, it is up to the President to bring people together to prevent it, and if there is a shutdown, it does not bode well for the President of the United States of America. He is absolutely right.

It is not just a Democratic bill to fund SNAP that is on the floor today; there is a pending bill that has been introduced into the U.S. Senate that has 11 Republicans that are cosigners, including the Republican who authored it, a colleague out of Missouri. He doesn't want his folks to go hungry, and he said: Enough of this nonsense. Let's have a bill on the floor.

Give him a UC. If you don't want to give the Democratic bill a unanimous consent, give the Republican-authored bill a unanimous consent. I am a cosponsor of that one, too, because I am willing to work with folks. You all know that. You all know that.

Look, days before Americans start receiving notices that healthcare premiums are about to skyrocket, as the Trump administration moves to cut off SNAP benefits, this dysfunction is what the American people have come to expect from Republican majorities in the Congress and the White House.

I appreciate my colleague saying the blame is on our side of the aisle, but we are in the majority--oh, not yet. Maybe soon. We are in the minority.

With power comes responsibility. Republicans are in the majority in the Senate--fact. Republicans are in the majority in the House of Representatives--fact. Donald Trump, the President of the United States, is a Republican--fact. It cannot be refuted. They are in charge. The American people know that.

So just as a reminder, SNAP has never not been funded when there have been shutdowns in the past, including in President Donald Trump's first term. And even under President Trump's second term, he tapped a billion of the $6 billion to pay for staff to administer SNAP. They did it.

Now they want to take down policy from a website that says that they can justify doing this, showing the law. That is the nonsense. That is the garbage the American people are tired of--the political this, the political jostling, all of that.

We have got people that are going to go hungry. This has never happened before, you all. There is a better way to do that.

So, Mr. President, in response to the request from the majority leader--the Republican leader--on behalf of constituents from South Dakota, constituents from New Mexico that don't--do not, so that I am clear; sometimes people confuse my New Mexico accent--that do not want to see their health premiums double and triple and bankrupt them--and some people that can't afford to get insurance won't be as lucky as me, where I survived a stroke 3 years ago.

By the way, this is what a stroke survivor looks like, if you get access to a doctor. You don't have to worry about going bankrupt if you can't pay the bills. This is what you can look like. You can get better. And in America, we should strive for that.

So, again, on behalf of constituents from South Dakota that don't--do not--want to see health premiums double and triple, on behalf of my New Mexico constituents that do not want to see health premiums double or triple, I will not modify my request.