A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to "National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Integrated Activity Plan Record of Decision".

Mr. President, I was just checking the Congressional Record. You see, we have a tradition here in the Senate. The tradition is that what we say on the floor is printed and available the next day right at our desk. It is kind of an amazing thing. It goes back to the Congressional Record being the record of the proceedings in this body, and the timely printing of it is part of the history.

I wanted to check and see, based on the statements made by my friend and colleague the Senator from Wyoming, whether the Congressional Record printed yesterday contained the efforts of Democratic Senator Ben Lujan of New Mexico to fund the SNAP program.

Here it is. The page number is S7808 for the beginning of the debate by Senator Lujan, who came to the floor and wanted to make sure that we wouldn't have any gaps in coverage when it came to the SNAP or food stamp plan across America. You see, the reason he did it was that 42 million people--1 out of 8 people in our population--need help putting food on the table.

The SNAP program doesn't sound extremely generous--$6 a day. Imagine if you had to feed yourself with that amount of money each day, the sacrifices you would make.

So Senator Lujan came to the floor. Why was he taking on this responsibility? It is because he is the chairman--or the ranking member now of the subcommittee that funds the SNAP program. He came to the floor to make sure that there would be no gaps in coverage and that people would still get their paychecks starting November 1. I call them paychecks, but they are basically SNAP checks that are a credit for purchases at the store.

Do you know what happened when he came to the floor? There was an objection. The objection came from the Republican leader of the Senate.

The Republican leader of the Senate yesterday, on the floor, page S7808 and 7809--you can find it in the Congressional Record--was asked if he would approve Senator Lujan's effort to protect all the SNAP recipients across the United States, and he said no. He objected. He wanted us to pass another bill. But he had a chance, with Senator Lujan's request, to make sure that there would be no suffering of anybody across America because of the SNAP program, and on page S7808, Senator Thune said no.

Now we have the argument that was made by the Senator from Wyoming that one of the reasons that it cannot be done is it is illegal. Now, that is a real hoot, to use a technical term, as far as I am concerned.

So the Senator from Wyoming said it would be illegal in a government shutdown to feed 16 million kids, 8 million seniors, and 4 million people on disability during the shutdown. Well, the last record shutdown under President Trump, in his first term, went for 35 days, and he kept the SNAP program going.

Was he doing it illegally, I ask the Senator from Wyoming?

I think not.

In fact, the Trump administration, on their own website, acknowledged that they were going to make this payment under the SNAP plan even with the government shut down. They put that on their website, and we have copies of it.

Guess what happened to that assertion on their website. It disappeared. Just a few days ago, it disappeared. So a program they used under Trump's first administration, a program that they said they could follow again under this second Trump administration and second Trump shutdown, disappeared magically from the website.

So, across America, some 42 million people, 12 percent of our population, will not be able to put food on the table because of a decision by the Trump administration not to feed Americans. Of all the priorities, wouldn't you think that keeping our population--the poorest among us, the neediest among us--with food on the table would be the highest priority? Don't you think they could come up with the money for it?

Well, it seems like the President can come up with money for Argentina, when he said Argentina is in a terrible economic situation and he was going to send $20 billion of American tax dollars to Argentina--that was a week or two ago--and then find $20 billion in the private sector to also go to Argentina. There was plenty of money for Argentina but not enough money to pay for the SNAP program.

How can that be? And yet it is the reality.

We have 2 million recipients of SNAP in my home State of Illinois, and we know we can take care of them. The Trump administration is making the choice. They have the resources. They have the authority. They just don't have the political will to take care of the problem.

I was on a radio call-in show in Bloomington, IL, this morning, and we talked about the SNAP program. A lot of people really depend on it. A third of the recipients are kids, another third are disabled, and a third are seniors. They are needy people.

Long before the government shutdown, Congress sent the U.S. Department of Agriculture funds for this purpose. The U.S. Department of Agriculture used these funds, as I mentioned, in Trump's first shutdown, his first decision to not fund the government. In fact, a month ago, as I mentioned, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's shutdown plan said this is exactly what they would do: They would pay the SNAP benefits. And then, when it became public that they made that claim, that vanished from the website--just a matter of a few days ago. Why?

During this shutdown, the Trump administration did have the money for Argentina. The President seems to be able to find money for things that are important to him. Obviously, SNAP and the benefits are not important to the President.

Well, I have news for the President. Because of his decision on the SNAP plan, millions of Americans are going to have to struggle to feed their families--Americans paying a price for this decision by the President.

I recently heard from one of them: Michelle, from Hodgkins, IL. She had a message that goes beyond her letter to me--her email to me--and really is a message for all Americans. Here is what she said:

You are forgetting about the seniors that are age 60 to 65. I already cut down my meals to two a day. I really don't want to try to live on one meal. I take medicine, and I need to eat. My size shows that I have not been eating. I know for a fact many eat cereal for dinner. It is filling and cheap.

That is the plight facing poor people if the SNAP program is, in fact, shut down by President Trump.

Here is another message, from Martin in Macomb:

I am on SNAP due to a disability--epilepsy as well as some

others. I rely on SNAP as well as [Social Security] and

[Disability payments] to survive.

Martin, of Macomb, IL, went on to say:

Most of the people in my building rely on SNAP to pay for

food. I am worried about how I will be able to afford food on

November 1.

And, sadly, there are millions of other individuals who will suffer in silence because they receive this assistance but basically are concerned about the stigma that might be attached to them if they say anything publicly.

Meanwhile, for the past 6 weeks, Republican Members of the House of Representatives have been gone. I am not sure what they are doing. I hope they are home at least tending to their constituents, but they should be in Washington. If we would have passed Ben Ray Lujan's--the Democratic Senator's--proposal yesterday to fund the SNAP program, we would have needed action by the House of Representatives, but it is not here. And it hasn't been here for 6 weeks--6 weeks.

We need them. We need the President, when he comes home from his trip overseas, to make this a high priority. The House has not held a vote since September 19. President Trump is tearing down part of the White House to build a new, lavish $300 million ballroom. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem found $200 million during the shutdown to buy two luxury Gulfstream jets for her and her top staff. The Trump administration sees those efforts as priorities, but it will not send our most vulnerable American citizens $6 a day to afford to eat.

I suppose nobody should be surprised that is where we are. Under the President's leadership this summer, the Republican-led Congress passed their so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which made the biggest SNAP cuts in history. So the program that they are now refusing to fund at all was reduced dramatically to make it more difficult to pay out those payments--food stamp-type payments--to SNAP recipients under the Big Beautiful Bill, which I will refer to again in a moment. They made the biggest cuts in the history of the SNAP and Food Stamp Program, cutting the program by 20 percent, and now they are lamenting on the floor that they

just can't pay anything at all; it is illegal for them to pay anything at all.

We know that is not true.

President Trump has decided we can't wait any longer. He wants to stop SNAP funding on Saturday and hurt 42 million Americans to teach the Democrats a lesson--another example of cruelty to people who are vulnerable by this administration.

I appreciate the leadership of Ben Ray Lujan, my Senate colleague from New Mexico. He really believes this in his heart of hearts. If the Congressional Record, which I referred to earlier in my statement, can be referenced, you can read the words of Senator Lujan, which were touching because he does care about not just in New Mexico but across America what this is going to do.

I hope my Republican colleagues will allow us the opportunity to vote on Senator Lujan's bill today before we leave. Let's make sure that there is no gap in the program, and let's put away this argument that was just heard on the floor that somehow it is illegal to feed people.

This week, the Secretary of Agriculture appeared on CBS News to defend her Agency's refusal to fund SNAP. Here is what she said:

Look at [the President's] record standing behind the ag

community, rural communities. No one has done more than

President Trump to date for those communities in [her]

lifetime.

Well, after abandoning vulnerable families receiving SNAP and helping South American farmers over U.S. farmers, President Trump and his U.S. Department of Agriculture has certainly had an unprecedented effect on American communities but not for the reasons she thinks.

The bottom line as well is bad news for people who may not be receiving SNAP but are struggling to make payments for hospitalization insurance. The cost of living continues to go up under the Trump administration. And the issue which we are trying to drive home to our friends on the other side of the aisle is it should be a bipartisan concern, what is happening to health insurance premiums across America.

Take a look. If you are on an Affordable Care Act plan, you are going to see a dramatic increase. In Illinois and the city of Chicago, people who are under that plan, thousands of them, are going to see their health insurance premiums double--double. At a time when they are struggling to make grocery payments and electric utility payments, they are going to double. Why? Because the Big Beautiful Bill, the budget bill of President Trump, passed by all Republican votes--no Democratic votes--unfortunately, has eliminated the tax credits that were available to people in middle-income categories.

Who are these people, these faceless people? We will put a face on them. One out of every four farmers--one out of every four farm families in our country use the Affordable Care Act. Half of the people who own small businesses use it. They are the ones who are facing these heightened premiums.

What we are doing is begging the Republicans to correct the mistake they made in the Big Beautiful Bill; come forward with sensitivity not just to those receiving SNAP and food stamps but to the families who are struggling to make health insurance premium payments. These families need help. The cost of living goes up for them every single day, and this is going to be a hardship many of them can't endure.

Millions--literally, millions--of Americans will lose their health insurance because of the Big Beautiful Bill. We have a chance to correct it, and we should do it as soon as possible. It is time to sit down at the table as soon as the President gets over his jetlag and comes home--to sit down at the table immediately.

The Republican leaders have got to come back to Washington, from the House, and the Republican leaders in the Senate as well as Democratic leaders--on both sides. They are the only ones who can solve this.

I have been in Congress for a number of years. I think I have seen every major shutdown, and I have seen how they all end. There will be some triggering device that does it. I hope that, whatever it takes, we get it done and done quickly.

I yield the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I oppose S.J. Res. 80, which would overturn the BLM's 2022 Integrated Activity Plan Record of Decision for the National Petroleum Reserve- Alaska, more commonly referred to as ``NPR-A.''

Now the name National Petroleum Reserve is more than a little misleading. This is not some industrial sacrifice zone. It is not some untapped oil field just waiting to be developed. On the contrary, the NPR-A is the largest contiguous unit of public lands in the United States. It spans 23 million acres, and this area of the western Arctic is home to a diverse ecosystem, where iconic species like wolves, polar bears, and caribou roam. Beluga and bowhead whales shelter in its coastal waters. Millions of migratory birds rely on this intact landscape and the critical waters and wetlands that are the NPR-A.

The legislation before us today would withdraw a smart and well- thought-out plan to balance conservation and development in the NPR-A. The 2022 NPR-A plan was developed over more than a decade of engagement with a variety of stakeholders: scientists, experts, indigenous communities, NGOs, and industry.

It aimed to limit the disruption and ecological harm from existing oil and gas development while also designating special areas to protect habitat for the many species that call this amazing place home.

I respect that there are a variety of views on how to manage our Nation's public lands, but it won't be possible for future administrations to incorporate feedback and comments on proposed actions in the NPR-A if Congress approves the resolution before us today.

The CRA, as we have said several times in the course of this debate, is a blunt instrument. It would prevent BLM from ever issuing a substantially similar replacement, and so this path would strip local land managers of the ability to respond to on-the-ground changes and needs for the future of the NPR-A.

My friends across the aisle don't need to do this. There are already processes in place for administrations to propose new management decisions if they don't like this plan. The Trump administration is doing just that already: pursuing updates to the land management plans that we have been debating here using the standard, inclusive mechanisms that allow for public input.

Interior Secretary Burgum withdrew conservation protections for the NPR-A in July. Just last week, the Interior Department finalized a new rule that overturned the previous plan.

The Congressional Review Act is simply the wrong tool to address any changes to management of these lands, and it is not even necessary.

Why do my Republican colleagues need to take up our valuable floor time here debating a rule that their friends in the administration have already rescinded? They just returned from a 53-day, taxpayer-funded vacation, canceled 5 weeks of votes, and still have a long to-do list before the end of the year. That list, I hope, includes figuring out how to avoid another government shutdown in January.

You may wonder if my colleagues are spending time on polluter giveaways to maybe distract from something; maybe something like the fact that President Trump has been mentioned more than 1,000 times in the Epstein emails.

President Trump and House Republicans continue to push their drill, baby, drill agenda even though it makes no sense for people, for the planet, or for our pocketbooks.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this distraction, this S.J. Res. 80, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, again, the plan that this resolution targets for disapproval is not in place. It has been rescinded by the Trump administration. If ever there is a case for a misapplication of the CRA, it would be this right here.

I think, Mr. Speaker, it is an important time for us to step back and consider why using a CRA for any, frankly, public land management plan, but certainly for one that has already been rescinded, is just a recipe for uncertainty and conflict and litigation.

Nearly a third of our Nation's land mass, 640 million acres, is managed by the Federal Government. The Forest Service manages 193 million acres. BLM manages 244 million in addition to 713 million acres of Federal minerals.

For nearly 50 years, BLM and the Forest Service have managed these lands under management plans required by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the National Forest Management Act. These plans, known as resource management plans, or RMPs, establish safeguards for watersheds and recreation areas. They facilitate energy development and grazing and logging and other commercial activities and provide a mechanism for harmonizing the needs of local communities with our national goals and perspectives.

Now, just a few months ago, we debated some other CRA resolutions targeting management plans, and we explained at that time how unprecedented that was. We still don't know the extent of chaos that is going to result from these actions that have already been taken, but we do know this: Under the CRA rules and ``rules'' is a technical term of art here, normally cannot go into effect unless they are submitted for congressional review.

Here is the problem, BLM and the Forest Service have never considered RMPs to be rules that they would submit to Congress. They have just never done that, and that has long been the case under both Democratic and Republican Presidents with precedence being set by those Presidents.

Now that Congress has decided apparently to disapprove of individual RMPs, what does that mean for every other plan that is in place that wasn't submitted to Congress? What does that mean for the small businesses, the local communities, and other public land stakeholders who depend on a stable and predictable land use planning process? If the validity of these land use plans is challenged, then leases, permits, and other authorizations that depend on those plans could be called into question.

This is already creating uncertainty and delays, making it nearly impossible for new projects to proceed on time.

Here are a couple of examples for consideration. What would happen to the White River oil and gas resource management plan in Colorado, which authorizes 15,000 oil and gas wells? What about the Rosemont Copper plan amendment for Forest Service lands in Arizona, approving a 5,000- acre open pit mine in the Coronado National Forest? What about the TransWest Express and Gateway South RMP amendments for three transmission lines through Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah?

Does Interior now need to go back and submit all of those RMP amendments to Congress for approval under this new Republican interpretation of the CRA? Is Congress prepared to take on day-to-day management of public lands and minerals, thousands of miles from Washington, D.C.?

I don't think so, but I am not the only one who has concerns about this treadmill of litigation and conflict and uncertainty that is being created here.

Let me read a quote from Kathleen Sgamma, President Trump's first nominee for director of BLM. She said: ``There are some additional legal risks that can arise from the CRA. It's uncharted ground, and if not used wisely, there could be some legal risks introduced and some bad legal precedent.''

Just a few months ago, the House passed several other CRA resolutions, overturning land management plans. As we said at the time, that was unprecedented. These resolutions before us continue to chart unprecedented ground, and I don't think anyone, including my colleagues across the aisle, have thought a heck of a lot about where it leads.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I will point out that we have heard a number of times now that more drilling is necessary in the name of energy independence. I want to remind my colleagues that the United States is already the number one producer of oil in the world and the number one producer and exporter of gas in the world, but you would sure never know it when you look at the energy bills that are facing families all over this country.

It is abundantly clear that the drill, baby, drill agenda is not working for everyday Americans. As long as we are dependent on the fossil fuel roller coaster, American consumers will be at the whim of the global oil and gas market, but if we want energy independence and if we want lower utility bills, we need to get back on track with the transition to clean energy.

It is cheaper. It is safer. It is generated entirely here at home instead of being at the mercy of global price shocks like oil and gas just inherently are. Instead, this legislation would make us more reliant on fossil fuels and more entangled with the price effects of this fossil fuel roller coaster. Plus, oil from America's Arctic will not come online for many, many years.

The Willow project, for example, won't start until 2029. Meanwhile, the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world. Even at the Willow project, developer ConocoPhillips will use artificial chillers to freeze melting permafrost before drilling for oil. That is the kind of complexity and additional cost that is inherent in drilling in these remote pristine parts of the Arctic.

The project itself will release nearly 300 million metric tons of carbon pollution into the atmosphere over its lifetime, the equivalent of at least 66 coal-fired power plants.

Again, Mr. Speaker, if we want true energy independence and security, we need to combat the climate crisis and transition to clean, renewable energy.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I strongly oppose this resolution.

The three Congressional Review Act resolutions that we have been considering here today are going to strip local land managers of the ability to respond to future challenges, changes,

and needs in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the NPR-A, and the Powder River Basin. If these reckless resolutions pass, these places will be locked into outdated plans that fail to account for changes in community needs, industry needs, and, yes, climate-driven impacts.

These CRA resolutions are completely unnecessary because the Trump administration has already acted on their own to replace these plans.

Even oil and gas industry experts across the political spectrum agree that the use of the CRA on land use plans creates regulatory and legal ambiguity. In fact, Kathleen Sgamma, as I just told you, President Trump's former nominee to lead the BLM, recently said--and it is a quote worth repeating--``There could be some legal risks introduced and some bad legal precedent'' when using CRAs in this manner. Yet, apparently, my friends across the aisle are just going to do it anyway.

Sgamma led the Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas industry trade association. She has testified for the House Committee on Natural Resources majority many times.

This misuse of the CRA will create regulatory chaos for everyone, including the industry, so I ask my colleagues across the aisle: Why pursue it?

House Republicans are continuing to lock the American people into higher energy costs by pushing their fossil fuel playbook and sabotaging clean, renewable energy.

Our constituents deserve better. They deserve a future with clean and affordable energy, where utility bills aren't skyrocketing and where we know our lands and waters won't suffer as a result.

That is why I oppose this resolution and urge all of my colleagues to join me in voting ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, Americans are working more and more for less and less.

Almost every day, I speak with young people who can't afford to start a family, can't buy a house, and can't get ahead. I hear it from seniors who are struggling to survive on fixed incomes. I see it with my own eyes. Moms and dads are putting items back on the shelves in the grocery store because they can't afford them. Parents can't go back to work because they can't afford childcare. People's health insurance premiums are doubling and tripling because this majority has failed to act.

During election season, we heard from Trump and Republicans who swore up and down they would bring down prices. They promised the American people they would reverse inflation and focus like a laser on affordability. They have broken that promise. They have betrayed the American people.

If you want more evidence of that, look at the bills on the floor today: more garbage, more culture war crap, more bills written by this Republican majority of, by, and for the billionaire class.

Republicans moved Heaven and Earth to give tax breaks to the rich and powerful. That got done in a nanosecond.

If you are a regular person staring down next year's healthcare premium hikes and deciding whether to pay a thousand bucks more or put food on the table, the answer you get back from the Republicans is: Let them eat cake.

We are barreling toward another shutdown at the end of January. We could have spent the last 2 months working on passing the nine appropriations bills Republicans still need to pass to stop another shutdown. Instead, they went on a taxpayer-funded paid vacation for 8 weeks.

Let me just say, because we are debating a rule to consider these eight bills, this rule sucks. There are eight closed rules, no amendments, no changes allowed on the floor, take it or leave it. If you are keeping count at home, that is 80 completely closed rules this Congress, the most ever in a year.

Mr. Speaker, I want to correct the gentlewoman because last night in the Rules Committee she said that five of these bills didn't receive any amendments. That is because she didn't ask for any. When you don't send an amendment deadline, everyone knows you are doing a closed rule.

My Republican colleagues have been complicit in these 80 closed rules. Nearly 9 out of 10 times, the majority party has not been allowed to bring amendments to the floor. They are getting blocked by their own leadership time and time again. How does that feel?

Again, this is a terrible rule, and I urge a ``no'' vote. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, those are a lot of words to justify the most closed Congress in history, the most authoritarian Congress in history. It would make Putin blush.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of H.R. 6074, which would extend the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits for 3 years, through 2028.

We are in the midst of a healthcare crisis. More than 20 million Americans who get their healthcare on the ACA exchanges are going to see their premiums skyrocket next year. That includes 250,000 people in my home State of Massachusetts, who are paying lower premiums and copays due to these tax credits, which Democrats created in 2021 and which are set to expire at the end of the year.

Let me read you some of the stories from folks in my district: I just received my letter, and my monthly costs have gone from $1,287 to $3,026 for next year. As a working family with a daughter who has an autoimmune disease, we are struggling, and I am working 50-plus hours a week just to pay the insurance.

Here is another one: With the Health Connector, I was paying $264 per month, acceptable seeing that I am healthy but not young. Without the advanced premium tax credit, my monthly premium will be just over $800 per month. I can't and I won't pay that. I will go without.

This is happening across the country, and for the sake of millions of Americans and their healthcare, I urge my Republican colleagues to support this bill and vote ``no'' on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record along with any extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, shortly on the floor, Republicans are about to finally bring up the Massie-Khanna bill to release the Epstein files. We had to drag this leadership here kicking and screaming.

I appreciate their sudden and stunning change of heart on this issue, but I state for the record that the Republican leadership has tried to block this day for months and months and months.

I also want to state for the record that Donald Trump could release these files on his own, today, right now, right this very second. He doesn't need to wait for Congress to pass the bill. He could release the files himself, but he won't. That is why we are here, because he refuses to act.

Meanwhile, the Republican majority has blocked transparency at every turn. They stonewalled in committee. The gentlewoman from North Carolina and every Republican on the Rules Committee voted nine times to block my amendment to release the Epstein files, nine times.

Republicans were so afraid of my amendment that Speaker Johnson shut down the Rules Committee and sent us home early in July, and then he refused to swear in a new Member of Congress for weeks because she promised to be the 218th signature to force this bill forward. Only four Republicans signed the discharge petition. Every single Democrat signed on.

In a few moments, I am going to yield time to Representative Massie, who has been the Republican leader of this effort alongside Representative Khanna on the Democratic side. Here is why I am doing that: This bill should be getting a full hour of debate on the floor, but Speaker Johnson, I guess at Donald Trump's direction, is throwing every procedural gimmick at the wall to see what sticks, and he is trying to limit debate on the floor because for some reason he is very, very afraid of talking about this. That is why I am donating a significant chunk of my time to Members who have been silenced by the Speaker for the terrible crime of demanding truth and transparency.

If I had to guess, most Republicans will probably vote in favor of releasing the files, but they are not voting ``yes'' because their conscience changed. They are voting ``yes'' because Donald Trump tells most of them how to vote, and he realized he has lost on this one.

He says that people who support this bill ``betrayed the entire Republican Party.'' Really, really? How is accountability for a pedophile, something Donald Trump campaigned on, how is that now a betrayal? This was his issue, his idea. He ran on releasing the files.

By the way, to those who say that Biden should have released these files, let me just address that right now. You are right, he should have, but he didn't make it his number one issue, and he is not the President right now. Donald Trump is. He could have released the files at any point over the last 11 months, but he has not.

Republicans have had months to sign the discharge petition. They had months to bring this bill to the floor, but this leadership has chosen obstruction. They don't want to pass this bill. They don't even want to talk about it on the House floor, and so that is why debate matters.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman doesn't oppose this? Boy, she has a funny way of showing it. I gave the gentlewoman nine opportunities in the Committee on Rules to bring this measure to the floor. I gave her nine opportunities. Every time I brought up an amendment, she voted it down. There were nine opportunities. To say that somehow this is always what they wanted, I don't know, but that doesn't pass the smell test.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman says that we should just trust her and Republican leadership. After what I saw unfold over these last several months, I can't. There was obstruction and the use of every maneuver possible to avoid this moment we have here today.

I say for the record: It doesn't matter whether there are Republicans, Democrats, or Independents implicated in these files. We believe in accountability for everybody who abuses young women. We believe in justice. That is kind of what is uniting many of us on this side of the aisle here today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Khanna for his leadership. I thank Representative Massie, Representative Greene, and Representative Mace for their courage and for their willingness to stand up for what is right. We don't agree on very much, but we do agree there ought to be accountability when young women are abused. That is what this is about.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie) to control the time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, first, let me say how much I admire the courage of my Republican colleagues who are beside me here today.

Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, this is not about us, and it is not about politics. This is about the survivors, young girls who were exploited by powerful men. These were men who used money and power to take advantage of girls, some as young as 11 years old.

The President of the United States calls it all a hoax. Can you imagine that? What an evil and disgusting thing to say. These young girls, now women, the survivors, what happened to them was horrific. They were sexually abused, many of them for years, and the President of the United States calls it all a hoax.

What kind of messed up, sick-in-the-head, immoral person says something like that? This bill is about making sure that powerful men are held accountable. It is about demanding truth and transparency for the American people.

Republican leaders in this House lost control of the story. They lost the ability to hide behind procedure, and they lost the luxury of pretending that they were ever on the right side. The American people see it. Survivors see it, and history will see it.

Listening to the Speaker of the House's press conference today, it sounds like he basically wants to kill this whole thing. He is trying to obstruct and derail the process.

Why the hell is he fighting so hard to do the opposite of what the survivors want? What an awful, awful thing to do.

Let us release the files. Let's give survivors the transparency they have long been denied. Let us take back power from the rich, billionaire elites who think that they can do whatever they want with no justice or accountability. Let's remember exactly who had to be dragged here under duress and who stood up from day one to demand the truth.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues to overturn the Biden administration's sweeping restrictions of what we call in Alaska the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska--so to pass the CRA, the S.J. Res. 80, that we are going to vote on here in a couple of minutes.

When I say the Biden administration's restrictions, in this case, that is not strong enough. What the Biden administration did when they came into office is they took the NPRA--that is right there, the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska--and they said we are going to essentially shut this down.

So what is the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska? Well, it started out--in 1923, President Warren Harding said: This is so important, this area of Alaska, we are going to call it the Naval Petroleum Reserve of Alaska for the U.S. Navy for oil.

Then Congress later came and in law said: No, we are going to designate this the ``National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska.'' It is the size of Indiana, and we are going to make sure it is developed for oil.

Development--that is what this body did.

Joe Biden comes in and says: Nope. We are going to take an Executive order, and we are going to shut it down.

And that is what they did.

So the most important element of this is not just Biden flaunting the law, which he did in Alaska many times, as I am going to get to--he canceled the voices of the most important people in Alaska who lived there.

So let me go to the next slide here. A lot of people have seen this. This is what I call the Last Frontier Lock-Up. OK. This is a map of Alaska. Here is NPR-A up here. Again, we are a big State. That is about the size of Indiana.

Biden issued 70 Executive orders and Executive actions singularly focused on my State during his 4 years--7-0. One of them is the lockup of NPR-A, on this huge list.

By the way, I went to the President, President Biden, when this list was at 48, and I handed it to him and said: Mr. President, what are you doing? Do you even know what you are doing?

John Podesta was in there--all the bad, you know, far-left, radical enviros.

You are crushing our State, you are crushing American energy, you are killing workers, and you are not listening to the Native people of my State who don't like this. And by the way, Mr. President, we have the highest standards in the world on resource development in Alaska.

But they didn't listen. So 7-0 Executive orders singularly focused on one State. It was an outrage. But it showed their priorities, which was not to unleash American energy but to listen to the radical far left, who always wants to shut down Alaska. They don't care about the Native people; don't care about jobs; certainly don't care about union jobs.

So the good news is that when President Trump came into office, he said: Enough of that. We are going to unleash Alaska.

So day one--this is a day-one Executive order from the President of the United States. He said: We are going to unleash Alaska's extraordinary resource potential.

That is a day-one Executive order from President Trump, and so that is what we are doing. We are going to do it through the executive branch--what the President is doing--and here in the legislative branch. So, not surprisingly, this morning, there was a Statement of Administration Policy from the Trump administration saying they ``strongly supports passage of S.J. Res. 80`` of my CRA.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the October 29, 2025, Statement of Administration Policy be printed in the Record.

So why would we want to do this? Again, we have the highest environmental standards in the world, but when you unleash Alaska energy, when you unleash Montana energy, when you unleash American energy, it helps with jobs, it helps with our environment because we have the highest standards in the world, and it really helps with national security.

I remember a meeting I was in many years ago with Senator McCain, John McCain, and a very prominent Russian dissident, Vladimir Kara- Murza. Putin has tried to poison and kill this guy twice. He is still alive. He lives in America now. He is a great hero.

At the end of the meeting, I looked at Vladimir Kara-Murza: What more can we do to undermine the Putin regime?

Do you know what he said? He said: Simple, Senator. The No. 1 thing America can do to undermine Vladimir Putin is produce more American energy.

By the way, all of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who love shutting down energy production, you are only helping our adversaries--Venezuela, China, Russia.

So this is about national security and environmental stewardship.

Really important--I want to talk about another group that matters a lot with regard to this CRA, and this is the Native people who live on the North Slope of Alaska.

This is a slide that I put out a lot. This is where we are looking at. This is the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska in my State.

This is what we call our trilateral in Alaska: the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope--that is the Tribe; the North Slope Borough, which is our government entity, which is huge--the North Slope Borough I think is almost the size of Montana; and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, which is our regional Native corporation.

They tried. Eight times they flew to Washington, DC. This is all Native people. They flew to Washington, DC, during the Biden administration. Eight times they flew down here--4,000 miles away from their home--to try to meet with the Secretary of the Interior, Secretary Haaland, and the White House of the Biden administration, saying: Don't do this NPR-A lockup. This is our land. Don't do it.

Do you know what? The Biden administration never even met with them. The Secretary of the Interior never met with them. They flew here eight different times to say: Don't do it. This is every Tribal leader, Native leader, on the North Slope, and their voices were ignored. Think about that. Eight times.

Now, the total insult when Biden finally did this giant regulation locking up the entire National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska--do you know what he did? He and Secretary Haaland put out a statement saying: We did this because the Native people of Alaska wanted it.

I went on national TV. I don't normally throw bombs, but I went on national TV, and I said: That is a bald-faced lie from Joe Biden.

He was canceling Native voices, and then he was using them. He literally said: We did this because the Native people of Alaska wanted it.

Outrageous--actually, one of the most outrageous things I saw the Biden administration do, and they did a heck of a lot of outrageous stuff.

So I want to submit for the Record a letter from ICAS, the North Slope Borough, and ASRC--the trilateral, as we call it--all the Native leadership on the North Slope strongly supporting my CRA.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the October 3, 2025, Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope letter be printed in the Record.

I would also like to submit for the Record a letter from The Alliance, which is all of our companies--not just energy companies but all related companies, the biggest group of businesses, workers in Alaska, who also strongly support my CRA.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that The Alliance letter of October 18, 2025, be printed in the Record.

Let me just end with this: I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle can vote for this CRA.

I talk about jobs, I talk about national security, and I talk about working families, all of which are very important. At the end of the day, this is so important because this actually, in my State, is a matter of life and death.

What do I mean? Now, I have trotted out this chart a lot. I am going to explain it here. But this is why I get so riled up about these issues and why, when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and Democratic administrations always come up to Alaska, saying ``Hey, we are just going to shut you down; we are going to crush your jobs,'' why I get so animated about it. It is jobs. It is national security. When you are producing energy from America, from Alaska, you are strengthening the country, strengthening good jobs--good union jobs, by the way--but the other thing you are doing is you are helping people live longer.

What do I mean? I break this chart out a lot because it is really important to me. This is from the American Medical Association from 1980 to 2014 on Americans' life expectancy--who was living longer and who, unfortunately, was living less longer.

If you look here, this is America. The light blue, the darker blue, purple--those are the States that are living the longest. The yellow, orange, and red--that is actually people losing life expectancy. That is not good at all.

The place that had the longest life expectancy increase from 1980 to 2014 was my State. Thirteen years. Look at this. Thirteen years on the North Slope, Northwest Arctic Borough, Aleutian Islands chain. How did that happen? It happened because responsible resource development happened.

The Native people of my State were living 13 years longer--more than any other place in the country. I have asked my colleagues a lot when we debate this: Give me a policy indicator of success more important than the people you are representing living longer. There isn't one. I have never heard of one.

The people I am representing are living longer because we are responsibly developing resources. And they get jobs, they get gymnasiums, they get hospitals, and they get flush toilets and running water, which a lot of the communities in my State, Native communities, don't have.

So this is a matter of life and death, my colleagues, and I do want to really try to encourage my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Join us. This is the right call. There is a lot of talk about. Hey, we want to help minority communities. We want to help people of color. Here is your chance. You are going to help them live longer.

So I am hoping that every Member of this body can come down and vote for my CRA because it is the right thing to do. It is going to help with jobs, it is going to help with national security, and it is what the Native people in my State who actually live there want.

Again, they came down here eight different times and told President Biden and Secretary Haaland: Don't do this. Don't do this.

Not only did they ignore their voice, they wouldn't even meet with them.

So now we have a chance to right that wrong and pass my CRA. Again, I really hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will do this because it is the right thing to do, and the indigenous people of my State who live here want this because it is going to help them live longer. I don't think there is anything more important than that.

Motion to Proceed

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 221, S.J. Res. 80.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, it is hard to believe, even in a place like the Nation's Capital that seems so detached from the rest of the country--but it is hard to believe we have now reached the 30th day of this completely pointless, profoundly dumb government shutdown at the hands of Senate Democrats. Senate Democrats have now voted 13 times to keep the government shut down, blocking the continuing resolution that has been passed by the House of Representatives weeks ago. That is the key to unlock the door to this government shutdown.

We are nearing a full month of that shutdown, a shutdown in search of a rationale. My suggestion is, to our friends across the aisle, that they need to look in the mirror and listen to their own people. The American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, the largest union that represents Federal Government employees, called on Congress to ``Reopen the government immediately under a clean continuing resolution that allows continued debate on larger issues.''

That is exactly what we have asked for, time after time after time, but to no avail.

Families across America, including the 31 million-plus Texans that I have the privilege of representing, are continuing to deal with this uncertainty.

Now, it is true that many people are not directly affected by the government shutdown, but a lot of people are, including the very people who are here in this Chamber--our staff, government employees. But it is much bigger than that. It is not only the Federal employees' union; it is the military; it is our Border Patrol; it is TSA, the air traffic controllers. All of these people are working, because their jobs are deemed essential, without any pay.

One in six Americans live paycheck to paycheck. I haven't heard a single Senator on that side of the Chamber who said they are withholding their pay during the government shutdown, which leads me to conclude that they continue to get paid while they deny the same benefit to their own staff and the U.S. military and all the other Federal employees that I have mentioned. If that isn't hypocrisy, I don't know what is.

And now, at the first of the month, November 1, 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP, WIC, other nutrition assistance programs--food stamps--will stop receiving the benefits they rely on as a safety net to put food on the table. This includes 3.5 million of my constituents in Texas, 1.7 million of whom are children.

These are among the most vulnerable people in our country. Our Senate Democrat colleagues are literally taking food out of the mouths of hungry children because of their stubbornness. It is shameful.

I have been hearing from food banks in Texas who are writing in with their concerns, saying they will require a 50-percent increase in food supplies next month in order to keep up with the increased demand for people who aren't getting paid and people who are being denied this basic assistance.

Well, what is the rationale? I mentioned a moment ago that our Senate Democratic colleagues seem to be in search of a rationale for this profoundly idiotic and dumb shutdown. Well, the Senate Democratic leader, the fearless leader of our Senate Democrats, said to a news outlet:

Every day gets better for us.

Of course, that leads to the question, Who is ``us''? Not the 31 million Texans I represent; not the 800,000 Federal Government workers who are part of the union; not the children who depend on nutrition assistance to be able to eat.

Well, not to be outdone, House Democratic whip Katherine Clark recently said:

Of course there will be families that are going to suffer--

As if that is no big deal.

She said:

But it is one of the few leverage times we have.

So all of these Americans, our fellow citizens, who are being harmed by this shutdown are leverage, political leverage.

I was disappointed to even hear one of the Members on the other side who I look to as sort of a rare person of common sense among the crazed Democratic Party these days who said that

this shutdown would prove to be ``unpleasant'' but then reiterated that it would somehow give Democrats ``leverage.''

And now Democrats are trying to turn the tables and say it is Trump's fault. This is surreal.

The American people are the ones paying the price for the intransigence, the stubbornness, and the idiocy--that is what Chuck Schumer once called government shutdowns. He called it idiocy. The American people are paying for the idiocy of the Democrats who continue to vote against reopening the government. I have to wonder, what do they say to a mother who can't feed her own child because of their intransigence and their stubbornness? ``Sorry for the inconvenience; you are part of our leverage.''

We get paid--they get paid--not me, not people on this side of the aisle who have had their paychecks withheld in solidarity with the government employees who aren't getting paid. They get paid, and you can't feed your kids?

What do they say to the Federal worker, including members of our staff, people working here in the Senate, who wonder: Can I pay the utility bill? How about my rent or my mortgage payment? Can I buy gasoline for my car to take my child to school?

I guess their response is, well, you should expect some unpleasantness during this shutdown because you are part of our political leverage.

The best way in this disaster--this nightmare, really--for many Americans who are directly affected is for just five of our colleagues on the other side--just five--to vote with Republicans to reopen the government, to pass this continuing resolution that will take us at least to November 21. But we have burned so much of the time already because of the shutdown--it is the 30th of October. This continuing resolution would open the government until 3 weeks from now, and then what happens? Are we going to go through this movie again and again and again?

And then how about those Americans who depend on safe and timely air travel for their jobs, or maybe they just want to take some time off if they have some vacation plans. We can no longer depend on the timeliness, and I fear for the safety of our air traffic control system because so many air traffic controllers are overstressed and so many airports are understaffed that they are literally having to shut down some of the air traffic, and flights are being delayed. And I have no doubt--or at least I worry that public safety is being endangered.

Earlier this week, Austin Airport, where I live, issued a ground delay due to air traffic control staffing problems. The same day, over at Dallas-Fort Worth, one of the largest airports in the country, they experienced 413 flight delays and multiple flight cancellations due to staffing shortages.

Air traffic controllers--the people who keep these airplanes flying safely--will miss their first full paycheck this week. TSA screeners-- the people who are supposed to make sure that air travel is safe--are similarly working without pay.

One air traffic controller recently said:

The job is stressful enough as it is. [And] now you're

adding this factor of, ``Hey, when am I going to get my next

paycheck?''

They will miss their first one this week, but they don't know if they are going to get the next one because they don't know how long this profoundly stupid idea of a government shutdown is going to last.

One Transportation Security Administration worker said that ``morale is crumbling.''

You know, it is not just imposing a hardship on these innocent Americans. What does this say about America and our ability to work together to solve the Nation's problems? It is embarrassing. It should be embarrassing. In the world's greatest deliberative body--that is what the U.S. Senate is sometimes called--what a joke. What a joke Democrats have made of the world's greatest deliberative body when they have shut down the U.S. Senate and made it impossible for us to pass a simple, stopgap spending bill that would take us to November 21.

Well, I applaud the men and women who are continuing to go to work to keep the planes in the air and trains running on time even though they are not being paid, but it is entirely unfair, unjustified for Democrats to impose this burden on these individuals. They didn't do anything wrong.

This is only weeks before the holidays and holiday travel begin in earnest. If Senate Democrats don't let up soon, you might have to ditch your Thanksgiving visit with your friends and family. And then who knows how long this will go on--maybe Christmas. They will be responsible for families having to cut back on their celebrations during our holiday season--not just because of delayed air travel or canceled flights but because they can't afford it. If they are not getting paid, how are they going to buy the food items that we typically enjoy during holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas?

What will Senate Democrats tell parents who haven't been paid for an extended period of time when they have to tell their children ``Well, Santa isn't coming this year because your mom and dad haven't gotten paid; we don't have the money''?

Well, all this goes to show the utter callousness, the insensitivity, and the wrongheaded motivation behind this government shutdown, all so our friends on the other side can gain leverage. They don't have any leverage. It is on them.

The American people deserve better than for their elected officials to treat their livelihoods as political playthings, and that is what is happening.

So it is high time for our Democratic colleagues to come to their senses and vote to reopen the government. Is this going to go on forever? What is their endgame? They don't know. They can't say because they don't know. They know they have gotten themselves stuck in a supremely stupid idea, and they can't find their way out of it.

I can make a suggestion. Three of them have already voted for the House-passed continuing resolution to end this nonsense. We need five more. Are those five Democratic Senators going to continue to listen to the Democratic leader, the Senator from New York, who led them into this box canyon in the first place? He is worried about being thrown under the bus by a political opponent in the next Democratic primary election.

This is about retaining power, using innocent Americans as leverage, with no plan on how to exit this supremely dumb government shutdown.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, this weekend, Americans face a healthcare crisis unprecedented in modern times. Open enrollment begins in just 2 days, and Republicans have spent the entire shutdown with their heads in the sand--a shutdown they caused because they would not negotiate with Democrats.

Republicans are pretending that the ACA premium crisis does not exist. They should go ask families who are getting their insurance premium increases today, tomorrow, Saturday.

Republicans have brought Americans to the brink of financial disaster. They have ignored a growing catastrophe. We have demanded they act, and they have refused.

The shutdown is on them. The healthcare crisis is on them. And the American people will see so this weekend as the bills start coming in.

To show the breadth, depth, and severity of the ACA crisis, if the ACA enhanced premium tax credits expire, over 20 million Americans will see their premiums more than double on average. That is a 114-percent increase according to KFF. That is a fact.

Four million people on ACA plans will lose healthcare coverage entirely if these tax credits don't get extended. That is also a fact.

If these enhanced tax credits expire, the people hurt, by far, the most--the people hurt the most--will be working families, people who live paycheck to paycheck, small businesses owners, farmers, ranchers, and older Americans. They are all going to be sitting at their kitchen tables this Friday night or Sunday evening and saying: How the heck are we going to pay these bills? We can't afford $4,000 a year more for health insurance.

Do my kids get no healthcare? Do we have to lose the doctors who have been treating us for a long time? Do we have to travel 50 or 100 miles to go to a clinic or a hospital?

Are my parents going to be kicked out of their nursing home, and I will have no place to put them?

This is a fact. People are hurt badly--probably more than by any other healthcare crisis we have had.

Americans who work more than one job, and Americans who live in red States will all be hurt. That is a fact.

And here is another one: This crisis didn't come out of the blue. It is not that people are just learning about it. It is not that Senators are just learning about it this week.

Democrats have demanded that Republican leaders negotiate with us about this crisis since the summer. Republicans said no. They put together a partisan bill that did nothing to improve the healthcare crisis, that had no input from Democrats, and said: Take it or leave it.

Republicans had more than three chances this year to vote on extending these ACA premium tax credits--as far back as February. What did Republicans say? No, no, and no.

Today, Republicans still insist they will not move a muscle to fix ACA premiums until it is too late. They have spent the entire shutdown avoiding talking about healthcare. When that didn't work, they resorted to lying--just making up total lies--about who gets the healthcare and who doesn't.

As they trigger a healthcare crisis, they are also now triggering a hunger crisis. Trump is doing that by halting SNAP benefits and ordering his own Department of Agriculture to rip its own contingency plan.

The money is there--over $6 billion in emergency funds that could keep SNAP going--and Trump has said: Don't spend a dime. We want to use hungry people as hostages in this crisis.

Trump is a vindictive politician and a heartless man.

Meanwhile, here in the Senate, this is still Leader Thune's position on the ACA: Let's deal with this house fire later.

But the house is on fire. Republicans are living in a fantasy, pretending as if the issue will fix itself.

Starting November 1, so many Americans are going to have to make choices. Do they give up their healthcare? Do they have to take a plan that has many higher deductibles and copays, with different doctors and different hospitals, and watch their families suffer when they are sick?

That is what it reality looks like for people back home. Yet our Republican colleagues do nothing.

In Louisiana, the average 60-year-old couple, making $85,000 a year, in a middle-tier plan, will see their premiums increase by $25,700. That is right. How does that family come up with $25,000?

People in their fifties are looking for their retirement. What are they going to do?

In South Dakota, that same couple on the same plan would see an average increase of $26,000. In Florida, it is an annual increase of $27,000.

Republicans have brought the American people to the brink. Republicans have refused to do anything. They have sat on their hands and have stuck their heads in the sand. Now families--millions of families--from one end of America to the other--mostly, actually, in red States--face the specter of financial disaster because, when healthcare costs go up, more people lose coverage, more people get sick, and more people die. Republicans just don't seem to care.

China

Now, Mr. President, on the China deal, in the middle of the second longest government shutdown in American history, Donald Trump left the country and traveled all the way to Asia to meet President Xi. And what did he do? He bowed down to President Xi. China has called Donald Trump's bluff, and Donald Trump has folded, leaving American families and farmers and small businesses to deal with the wreckage from his blunders, from his erratic on-again, off-again tariff policies.

Americans beware: Trump will spend the next few days trying to spin the so-called agreement as a win for America, but that is total bull. Don't believe Trump. He has folded to China. Donald Trump caved to China in Busan. The so-called deal has left us no better off than we were before Donald Trump's trade war began. If anything, things are worse. Prices have gone up. China has agreed to nothing of substance that will improve trade between our nations.

On soybeans, this has been a total capitulation. Donald Trump's trade war has decimated soybean farmers in the United States, and, this year, he is saying: Isn't it great? They will buy half the soybeans--China will--that they bought last year.

So many farmers are suffering, and then so many other farmers are seeing that their Chinese customers to whom they sold soybeans are now making deals in Argentina and Brazil. And those are not 1-year deals. Those are going to be 3-, 4-, 5-year deals. So the customers that Americans had are not coming back.

China is still buying fewer soybeans this year from the United States than before China's trade war. How is that a win for soybean farmers?

Trump's delusion is unbelievable. He starts a trade war; creates a giant mess for businesses, consumers, and soybean farmers; and then he celebrates for trying to clean up the very mess he created in the first place.

Don't believe Trump. Trump has folded on China. Don't believe his BS. He has created the mess. Now he is trying to clean up the mess, and he says: Don't I deserve 17 pats on the back?

Americans have heard this old song and dance from China and Trump before. I have long pushed Presidents of both parties to take tougher action on China for its rapacious trade policies that have harmed American workers, American businesses. None--absolutely none--of the fundamental abuses by China are addressed in this agreement. Trump didn't even bother talking about China's abuses against American manufacturing.

He secured no clear actions from China to address their funneling of chemicals that fuels America's fentanyl crisis. In other words, he says we are doing something on fentanyl. There is nothing specific--a lot of lip service. And the fentanyl that China makes--those precursor chemicals that go to Mexico and then are made into fentanyl and are flooding across our borders? There is nothing specific, nothing real-- more bunk.

Maybe, most egregiously--and this one I know many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are furious about--he is the first President in decades to walk back export controls that are vital for our national security, essentially handing China vital chips necessary for technologies like AI.

Where are our China hawks from the Republican side? I hope they are going to speak up and decry this abdication. America is handing out-- Trump is handing out--American-made technology like it is Halloween candy but straight into the hands of our biggest rival.

In the past, China has been desperate to get this technology, but now they don't have to worry--Trump is just giving it away. With these chips that China now doesn't have and can't make themselves, China will dominate AI in a few years, and it will have severe consequences for America and for the world.

When it comes to chips, Donald Trump, it is not ``America First''; for you, it is ``China First'' so you can

have some picture that celebrates a so-called agreement that actually hurts us.

America will regret the move of sending these chips to China for generations. We will come in second on AI if this continues to happen. They will set the rules of the road, and America's greatness will diminish--all because Trump wanted to claim a false victory and brag that he got a deal with Xi.

The list of Trump's capitulations to China goes on and on and on. For months, Americans have been taking it on the chin, paying higher prices for everything from appliances to Halloween candy and Halloween costumes because of Trump's disastrous trade policy. Now, looking at this agreement, it only begs the question: What was it all for?

Trump had no strategy, no planning, no strategic decision making, and his bumbling has only emboldened President Xi, who must be laughing all the way back to Beijing. You flatter Trump with a few words, and he gives away things that America desperately needs.

When it matters most, when Trump comes face to face with autocrats and dictators, the American people know Donald Trump is all talk and no strength.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate execute the order of October 7 in relationship to S.J. Res. 77.

Mr. President, I want to speak on two topics, one after the other, healthcare and then tariffs.

Healthcare

Mr. President, open enrollment will begin across the country on Saturday. Many have already received notice of new sky-high premiums, including, by the way, notices that went out to my fellow Vermonters. Many across the country will log on to the Marketplace on Saturday. It is a scary day for them because they will be checking to see what it will cost them next year to purchase the same healthcare that they have this year. Twenty-four million Americans are going to be doing that this Saturday.

Folks across the country are going to get some bad news; that without the tax credits that are in place now and are set to expire by the end of the year, their healthcare premiums are going to double, triple, and, in some cases, quadruple and even worse.

What Vermonters are finding--our website went up on October 15--is truly a shocking increase in premiums, and it is not affordable. By the way, these are folks, some of whom voted for Trump, some of whom didn't, but all of whom deeply care about their families and their small businesses and their farmers. I will give you an example.

A family of four making $130,000 a year--a very good income in Vermont--would have paid $1,200 a month in 2025. Next year, they are going to have to pay $3,035. That is a $22,000 increase. A family of four making about $64,000 a year is going to pay 920 percent more for healthcare premiums. Obviously, that is going to mean they have to decide whether they are going to go without or somehow, some way, try to find a way to pay that, which they really won't be able to do.

Let me give some starters to make it very concrete about Vermonters. A woman named Sarah is going to see her premium go from $217 a month to $1,200 a month. This is a person who is 63, self-employed, and might have to go without healthcare for the first time in her life.

Cara, also self-employed, has had the same income for 20 years, really scraping by. She pays about $100 a month for healthcare through the Marketplace. Her premium goes up to $1,200.

Erica is paying $1,166 for her family. The deductible for her family of three is $15,000. This is barely insurance. Erica and her family make this premium work somehow, but I am sure it is not easy. Without the tax credits, her monthly premium goes to $2,650.

Maria and her husband run a small food business in Vermont. He spends half the year fishing in Alaska. They pay just under $240 a month, but they are looking at $1,740 per month unless the Senate acts. That is for bronze plan, which you know is the lowest level plan. They will be paying about $21,000 per year with a deductible of $7,700 per person.

The examples I gave of Vermonters are going to be true in Indiana; they are going to be true in Louisiana; they are going to be true all across the country. We have been having this debate about a shutdown, but what we haven't been having is a negotiation about how to protect families from a rate shot that they can't afford that means they are really going to lose healthcare.

I do urge us and I urge the President to act aggressively to resolve this. It will help folks. Whether they are in a red State or a blue State, whether they identify as a Republican or Democrat or Independent, it just doesn't matter. We have a healthcare system that is too, too expensive--beyond reach--and it is crippling to our small businesses, our farmers, and our families.

Tariffs

Mr. President, I want to address another topic, and that is the topic of tariffs. They are doing incredible harm to our economy in Vermont. In my view, they are doing long-term damage to our economy here in the United States.

I want to commend my colleagues Senator Paul, Senator Kaine, and others, Senator Shaheen, Ranking Member Wyden, and Leader Schumer for sponsoring the bipartisan legislation we voted on yesterday suspending the emergency authority on which the President was acting to impose a tariff on Brazil, a country, by the way, with whom we have a trade surplus.

We are 9 months into this trade war with tariffs at the forefront. It is a war with Canada. It sort of started with them. That is a big deal for Vermont. We are a border State. But it is a big deal for all of our States because Vermont is 1 of 34 States whose major trading partner is Canada.

For Vermont, Canada has been our largest export market and the largest source of imports. Trade with Canada accounted for 35 percent of our State exports and 67 percent of Vermont's imports and 56 percent of its total trade.

We have small businesses now that are really struggling to keep their lights on. We have farmers across the country but also farmers in Vermont who are incredibly worried about whether they are going to be able to make it into the next harvest. We had a drought. We had early floods. And now we have these tariffs that are increasing the input costs. I know, Mr. President, as a Senator from Indiana, you are very sensitive to the challenges that our agriculture economy and our farmers face.

Things were bumping along, and then President Trump just recently announced an additional 10-percent tariff on Canada, which already had a 35-percent effective rate. We don't even know what that applies to. Is that 10 percent on top of 35 percent or on specific products? Of course, all of that was done because the President was irritated about an ad that was run, apparently, by the Province of Ontario that was quoting a speech that President Reagan made some years ago about how destructive tariffs are. Maybe that does irritate the President. But the constant changing of what a tariff is from day to day creates havoc for our businesses that are trying to plan and control their expenses and deal with all the other uncertainties that they face.

These tariffs are hurting our farmers. Just think about this. Fertilizers--those costs are up 16 percent and in some cases, 39 percent. The effective rate on tractors and other farming machinery is 16 percent and 13 percent, respectively.

We have also had, as a result of the tariffs that are seen by our trading partner in Canada that was the participant in the U.S.-Mexico- Canada Trade Agreement--negotiated, by the way, by President Trump, an agreement he bragged about as being really effective and the best trade agreement--that is getting ripped up in many ways. And then when you add to it the insults that were hurled at Canada--the ``51st State,'' the ``Governor of Canada''--it has had a catastrophic impact on the tourism Vermont has depended on from our Canadian neighbors with whom we have enormous respect.

That is not just true for Vermont. New Hampshire, Maine, Montana are seeing an incredible drop in tourism that is related to this tariff battle and the rhetoric associated with it.

Also, in Vermont, just as in Indiana, our small businesses are really a big deal. I have been hearing from them. I am hearing from bed and breakfasts, hotels, brewers, distillers--any industry. I will give a few stories, a few quotes.

Simon Perkins at Orvis in Manchester:

The reality is that, in a rapidly changing tariff

environment, one that's forced on companies too quickly, it's

really hard for a business to respond quick enough to make it

work.

Orvis, which was founded in 1856, announced the closure of 31 stores and five outlet locations by 2026. Orvis had to lay off 50 employees, citing tariffs.

Another business, Peter Case of Burrows Sports in Brattleboro:

We love what we do and it's under attack! For 90 years,

Burrows Sports has proudly served Brattleboro, growing with

our community through good times and hard ones. Today's

economic pressures, rising costs, and shrinking margins are

testing small local businesses like never before.

Jim Hall from Vermont Country Store:

This is the lull before the storm. . . . Do they realize

this is a tax on Christmas?

These tariffs are a tax. They are paid for by our businesses. They disrupt our businesses. They are passed on to consumers, and there is nothing but a downside, especially when you add the fact that these tariffs are a tax. They are imposed and implemented in a totally arbitrary way, wherein a person who is running a business has to contend with all the uncertainties of a

volatile marketplace and has to deal with the constant uncertainties that are the result of an ever-changing tariff policy.

I urge all of us in the Senate to reassert our own authority under article I, which gives to the Congress the power to tax, the power to impose tariffs or not, and to not have us continue to relinquish the authority and responsibility to the Executive that we have as the U.S. Senate.

This is our responsibility, and part of the reason is that we are close to people who are affected by these policies. It is a shirking of our responsibility for the U.S. Senate to essentially cede that authority to a President, particularly when we are seeing in every single State the harmful impacts on folks in our States--on the businesses in our States, on the farmers and ranchers in our States-- who are working hard to try to pull things together and keep their businesses going, our economy going, and contributing to the well-being of our country.

I call on the President to reconsider what these tariffs are doing.

I call on our U.S. Senate to reassert its authority and be the decider of what the tariff policy shall be in this country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Kaine for his leadership on this issue, highlighting it, meeting on it, bringing it to the attention of the American public. The same thing is true for Senator Wyden and Senator Klobuchar.

Thank you so much for your leadership.

And I rise to join them in highlighting the devastating impact President Trump's economic policies are having on small businesses across our country. Small business owners are struggling in President Trump's economy.

Let me just say this: 97 percent of all the companies in America that engage in trade are small businesses, and those small businesses represent one-third of all trade that our country engages in.

They are not big companies. They can't buy a year or 2 years' inventory in advance. They live week to week. They live month to month. And that is pretty much where they have been since April. They have been trying to survive. They have been trying just to make it through this hectic, unpredictable, roller coaster of tariffs, which the President has been imposing.

And these small businesses, they are unbelievably struggling in this economy right now. Thanks to President Trump, just this year, electricity costs are up 11 percent. Food prices are up. The cost of coffee is up 19 percent this year. Bananas are up 7 percent. Beef is up 13 percent. The cost of healthcare for millions of small business owners will increase by an average of 114 percent.

This is going to be a massive hit on small businesses and small business workers if the Affordable Care Act tax premiums expire. It is going to be 10 million small businesses and small business employees in our country that are going to see a spike that is going to be dramatic for their healthcare.

And 42,000 jobs we have lost in manufacturing this year--42,000 down, not up--not as promised. And that is supposed to be at the center of his tariff policy? We are losing manufacturing jobs at an accelerated rate after Joe Biden increased manufacturing jobs.

And I would like to, again, really point out what a great job you have been doing, Senator Kaine, on this in putting a great big spotlight on all of this, because this is absolutely central to the economic well-being of our country.

So back in May, I introduced and tried to pass my Small Business Liberation Act, a bill that would have protected small businesses from Trump's tariff chaos, just saying: Get those 97 percent of all the businesses engaged in trade--the small businesses--get them out of this war. They can't survive that war. Big businesses, maybe, but not little businesses. They just can't do it. But the Senate Republicans blocked that proposal.

Then I did it again. Republicans blocked my proposal just to spare the small businesses, and, unfortunately, Republicans have not shown the courage yet on Trump's tariffs, just capitulation, as they do on so many other issues.

By opposing my bill and preventing those sensible resolutions from moving forward in the House, Republicans are allowing Trump to tax any good from any country for any reason--no rules. And the only reason is Trump doesn't have the legal authority to do that. He doesn't have the legal authority to do what he is doing right now.

Trump claims to have authority under a 1977 law signed by Jimmy Carter, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. This law was so uncontroversial in 1977 that it was passed on a voice vote.

Now, can you imagine? Jimmy Carter is President. There is a bill that is going to allow Jimmy Carter to become a dictator, to impose tariffs on any country in the world, to jack up the price anywhere they want on any product, at any time; anything that ticks him off, including some little commercial about Ronald Reagan, and all of a sudden, boom, we are smashing you, Canada.

Does anyone here really think the Republicans and the Congress, in 1977, at the height of Jimmy Carterism, were giving him unlimited authority to be able to impose tariffs?

You know that did not happen. He doesn't have the legal authority to do this, and I can tell you because I was there on the floor of Congress when it happened in 1977. I know there was no debate on this.

And so that is what we are talking about right now. The Congress did not give Jimmy Carter King-like powers--I can guarantee you that--on a voice vote. But Trump, he thinks he can exercise these emergency powers and tax any import for any reason. Our latest emergency? It is a television ad, a Canadian-produced and featured audio of former President Ronald Reagan denouncing the tariffs. And, in retaliation, President Trump decided everyday Americans and small businesses should pay 10 percent more on imports from Canada.

It is very clear, Trump is just making all of this up. He is making it up as he goes along.

And, for Massachusetts, it is very important. Every fifth grader-- when I was in the fifth grade and all fifth graders in Massachusetts-- in the geography book there is one chapter entitled: ``Our Friends the Canadians.'' And why is that? Because they are our leading trading partner. It is only like a 3- or 4-hour ride to get up to Canada. It is who we are. We trade with them every single day. We do $10 billion of trade with Canada. That is whom we do business with.

And this 10 percent additional tariff, you know who it cascades down onto? The small businesses of Massachusetts. Ordinary citizens, they are going to be further crushed. That is whom we partner with.

And he knows he doesn't have this trade authority. Small businesses have had enough of Trump's illegal actions and have successfully challenged the tariff authority twice already. He lost in the district court. He lost in the circuit court. And next week, this case is going to be heard in the Supreme Court. So small businesses have already won twice, and now they are going for the final round in the Supreme Court, hoping that they won't engage in creative legislative history reinterpretation of that Republican unanimous vote in 1977 that allowed Jimmy Carter to become a King on tariffs.

So the President says it is ``enemies of the country'' who are suing him. If that is how you view Main Street in America--Kiwanians, Rotarians, small business, chambers of commerce all across the country--they are the ones bringing the suit and have already won twice and are now heading for the showdown on the Supreme Court.

For small businesses, this isn't about politics; it is about survival. And right now, Trump's tariffs are taxes for them. So far, it is $30 billion coming from small businesses that Trump then transfers into tax breaks for the wealthiest people in our country or for the Argentine Government, but it is not staying on Main Street. They are not getting the rewards for the work which they have done.

A small business in Massachusetts that designs and manufactures and sells outdoor recreation equipment told me that they have paid an extra $500,000 this year because of Trump's tariff taxes. Earlier this week, they received a $40,000 bill from imports from Taiwan. It is just a small business.

And, meanwhile, big businesses have CEOs meeting directly with the President and receiving generous exemptions.

It is Robin Hood in reverse. Trump is taking from hard-working, regular people, and he is transferring the wealth to the millionaires and billionaires in our country. It is absolutely economic craziness that the President is engaging in. He is punishing Main Street. He is turning Main Street into ``Pain Street'' in every single State in our country.

And that extra increase in the tariffs from Canada puts a special burden on Massachusetts and our small businesses, our workers.

So it is very clear this tax is not being paid by other countries. American small businesses pay the tax. Main Street is paying this tax. And President Trump is taxing food and clothing and toys and even tea. And as a small business owner reminded me, the last time there was a tax on tea, there was a revolution in our country that began in Boston.

Small businesses have no lobbyists, no Mar-a-Lago, no golden gifts for President Trump, no margin for error. There will be no invitations to the new ballroom, but I am not going to back down. I am going to continue to stand up for small businesses across the country, across Massachusetts, from red States to blue States, who are bearing the burden of these tariffs, and I hope that our Republican colleagues will join us today by voting to pass this resolution.

And, again, I thank you, Senator Kaine, for your leadership, and the same to you, Senator Wyden and to Senator Klobuchar. This is a very important moment in the economic history of our country.

I yield the floor.