A resolution calling for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to address the needs of civilians in Gaza.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration and that the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 224; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I thank the gentleman from Idaho, the chair of our Foreign Relations Committee.

I join him. I join him enthusiastically in condemning the actions of Hamas--the invasion on October 7 of Israel, the slaughter of 1,200 innocent people, the taking of hostages, and the infliction of suffering that Hamas has inflicted on Palestinians within Gaza. But the situation is much different today than it was a few months ago.

Four months ago, I stood here, and I asked for unanimous consent in support of the Senate resolution on the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. The resolution called for an end to the siege, an end to the war, and the return of the hostages.

Since then, more than 400 people have died of starvation, including more than 100 children, and that is ongoing and accelerating. Thousands more have died under bombs and bullets at aid sites themselves.

At the time, I held up this picture of Jinan Iskafi. She died in her parents' arms, the victim of a military blockade on infant formula.

Here joining Jinan are children suffering from famine conditions that exist right now, this month--Amer, Maryam, and Shamm.

There is an ongoing famine in Gaza, and the Netanyahu government has made a self-conscious decision to deny people the food and medicine they need to survive. Women waiting for C-sections are trapped in the middle of a bombing campaign. Children are forced to watch their mothers die slowly of cancer, with no access to medicine. The hospitals they need are being destroyed.

At the same time, the Netanyahu government has begun a new military operation to take complete control of Gaza City. In Gaza City, hundreds of civilians are living under nonstop bombardment. It is about destroying buildings that are left standing, and it is a bombing campaign that has as part of its objective to force them to leave.

The Netanyahu officials in his government acknowledge that they want people to move out. They acknowledge that their campaign is in significant part about displacing people who live in Gaza City and forcing them to move elsewhere. That is at a time when those folks are living in tents; the kids aren't going to school; where they have already moved six or seven times.

The decision a family has to make is horrific: Do they move to another place where there is no place to go and they have no guarantee of any kind of safety, or is it better for them and their family to stay where they are and risk that they will be in the path of the bombing campaign?

Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the senior Senator from New Hampshire. I really appreciate her very practical presentation about a common concern that we have--Republicans and Democrats--and that is that we do no harm when it comes to the profound insecurity people are feeling about having access to healthcare for themselves, for their partners, for their kids.

And we have got real differences in this Chamber. Little introductory remarks about the One Big Beautiful Bill--I do think it is a terrible bill. I do think that we have taken money from healthcare and other areas to fund a tax cut for very wealthy people. I think it is bad for the economy and creates a lot of insecurity.

We are also having a big battle about the funding of government, which is the responsibility that we all have. And I want to be candid. I take significant issue with the President when he says: Don't even bother dealing with Democrats.

This always is a budget issue that has to involve Democrats and has to involve Republicans. If we don't talk, we don't resolve differences and we are not even in a position to do our job and find common ground. So we are in a pickle. That creates some hard feelings as we try to work through this. And I don't want to dwell on that because we do have different points of view on that.

But we have a situation here, as the senior Senator from New Hampshire described, where if these healthcare premium supports expire, every American who has come to depend on access to healthcare through ObamaCare, which is now accepted as an important element in our healthcare system, every person on that is in incredible jeopardy.

And I know that every single Member of this Senate is very concerned about access to healthcare for the people they represent. There is no alternative for folks out there that is even being discussed if we don't continue the premium support for people who are getting their healthcare through the Affordable Care Act.

So I want to focus on this as the Senator did. I don't want to focus on the partisan differences; I want to focus on the concrete reality that a family is going to face if the Affordable Care credits expire.

No. 1, as Senator Shaheen said, this can't wait. The date is going to arrive; the tax credits expire; people depending on that healthcare won't have it. Twenty-four million Americans will face higher costs.

Again, I want to emphasize that is not 24 million Democratic families; that is not 24 million Republican families; it is 24 million families. It is in both our States. It is not political. It is about healthcare, which every single citizen, we want them to have it and have it be affordable.

Premiums are going to increase, on average, about 75 percent as the Senator said. One in four people who have a chronic condition are going to lose out on coverage; 3.3 million small businessowners will see their premiums increase.

I just want to stop on that point for a moment because the Senator, my colleague here, has done so much for small business, and that is because she knows, as I do and I know as you do, Mr. President, small businesses are so vital to the well-being of our community.

One of the things I have learned from my visits to small businesses is really pretty inspiring because I see those Vermont small businessowners; their employees are like family to them. The most important thing for them is to make sure their employees are doing well.

One of the things that is really important to our employers is that they can provide healthcare, but with the premiums going up like this, it is a wicked decision and discussion between the businessowner and the employees about a raise versus picking up the high cost of a premium increase. That is going to be aggravated if these tax credits expire; 1.6 million of those folks in small businesses would lose coverage.

Again, I want to make this concrete now. In Vermont, 27,000 people who rely on the tax credits will lose their health insurance. They just won't be able to afford it.

Let me give you a couple of examples of the real world here in Vermont. The annual premium increase for a 60-year-old couple in Vermont that earns $82,000 a year--and that is tough to get by if you have a family on that amount of money--but the premium increase is going to be $23,000. That is a fact. That is a 335-percent increase, but that is like $2,000 a month.

So what that says to that family is you are on your own, no healthcare.

In Nebraska, 112,000 folks rely on the Affordable Care monthly premium tax credits. The annual premium increase for a Nebraska family, a 60-year-old couple that is earning $82,000, $83,000 a year, $23,000-- pretty much the same as Vermont.

In California, there are 1.5 million folks relying on the ACA premium tax credit. That 60-year-old couple making $82,000, it is going to be an additional $17,000.

In Connecticut, 112,000 folks are going to lose access to healthcare with these increases. That 60-year-old couple with $82,000 in income, a $28,000 premium increase; 541 percent.

I will.

I am so glad that you brought that up because what drives everyone crazy is the so-called cost shift. A lot of our community hospitals, they get underreimbursed, oftentimes on Medicare or Medicaid. And then the employer-sponsored premiums are the only place the providers can go to cover their legitimate costs.

So there is a huge spike in the cost. If you have all these folks without healthcare and they are showing up and getting free care, then somebody has got to pay, and that is going to be the employer-sponsored and private pay.

The Senator from New Hampshire was right in pointing out we have got this broken system that we are making worse with this effort. So thank you so much for that, the Senator from New Hampshire.

I wanted to go back to these numbers too. In Alaska, 23,000 folks, they can

lose their healthcare or they are going to have a premium increase. That family with $82,800 in income, it is $44,000. So that is a 554- percent increase.

In Wyoming, 40,000 folks rely on the ACA tax credits. That 60-year- old couple with an $82,000 income, their premium is going up $37,000. That is $3,000 a month.

In West Virginia, 49,000 folks losing. That 60-year-old couple, $82,000 income, $39,000 premium increase; $3,000 a month.

What we know is that can't happen. It cannot happen. You are literally, through passivity in this U.S. Senate, where we have the option to act or we have the option to hide, the second option is sending a direct premium increase to our families, up to $40,000 in a year for people who make $80,000. So this happens, this is on us. If this happens, it is on us.

I will yield to the Senator.

Well, if you are a billionaire, it works out. The fact is, it can't be explained. It hasn't happened yet. This is about to go into effect if we don't act as the Senate.

Yes.

It is the actual imposition of the premium increase. The only way we can spare this heartache--literally, taking away people's healthcare--is by extending the premium tax credits. So that is a decision this body has to make.

I did.

Let me get that number for you but go ahead.

Right.

That is right.

That is right; $37,000 a year, and there are 40,000 as you mentioned.

This is really about the Affordable Care tax credits that expire. This was not in the Big Beautiful Bill. The Big Beautiful Bill took a trillion dollars away from the Medicaid Program, but now we have pending before us the imminent cliff where the premium increases that were passed by this body on a bipartisan basis to help during COVID, those expire.

When that expires, those families in Wyoming are going--who are on the Affordable Care Act and who are 60 years old and they have $82,000 in income, they are going to see a premium increase of $37,193.

That is a loaded gun. It is the heart of the family and their ability to carry on. This just can't happen. It can't happen. We are the body that has the option of ignoring the hardship and the catastrophic consequences of this on the families we represent or sparing them and allowing them to continue having access to healthcare they depend on.

That is exactly right. That is exactly right. That is within the power. This is the wonderful thing of those of us that have this job. We have the power to do something that can help the people we represent. They need healthcare. Republican families need it. Democratic families need it. People who don't care anything about the political process, they need it. And in this country, they should be entitled to it.

We can act. It is not a partisan thing. It is not a victory for one side or the other. It is really a lifesaver for these families--the Wyoming families, the Vermont families, the Illinois families. So I urge this body to come together to do something that the people we represent--every single one of them--need and would benefit by.

Well, you know, you are exactly right because that family making $82,000 a year, they are struggling to pay the premium as it is. If they have to pay $3,000 more a month, most of those families are going to say they would like to but can't because they are uninsured.

I will give a story of my own. My first wife died of cancer, Senator. She had cancer for 9 years. We had terrific healthcare. She had a rare form of cancer.

One night, my car broke down, and the wrecker guy picked me up. We had a long ride. We got to talking. It turned out that his wife--and he had two kids, younger kids--had the same form of rare cancer and his wife died and we talked about that.

But there was a difference. We had insurance through the University of Vermont where my wife was a professor. He had no insurance. He was working late nights, long hours, raising these two kids by himself, and he was trying to pay off a $335,000 medical bill. That is not right.

But that example you just mentioned or this Wyoming family or Vermont family or Illinois family, they are faced with $3,000 a month. They don't have the money; they go without healthcare. Somebody gets sick. It is a serious illness. They get medical debt.

(Mr. JUSTICE assumed the Chair.)

They get anxiety--anxiety on top of the anxiety that always accompanies a serious illness in a family, where all of your attention, if it is your partner, if it is your child, is about your partner, your child.

On top of that, you have the incredible stress of bill collectors calling up: Where's the money? We don't have to allow this to happen. We don't, and we shouldn't.

And I just want to emphasize, it is not a Republican, Democratic deal; it is a mutual responsibility that this U.S. Senator has to the people of this country in your State and in my State.

So I urge us to get a solution. And I talked about West Virginia, the Presiding Officer's great State, where folks will face enormously high premium increases if these Affordable Care Act subsidies are expired. It will be brutal. I told the Presiding Officer about my visit to West Virginia, my respect for the coal miners, those hard-

working folks there. And I know how highly important it is to the Presiding Officer about healthcare access. So let's act as a body. Let's do it together and make certain that folks do have healthcare, just don't have the anxiety and uncertainty and the bills that are just going to cripple them. I want to thank the Senator from Illinois. I want to thank my colleagues in the Senate.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I want to thank my friend and colleague the senior Senator from the State of California for his passion in pursuing what is itself a laudable goal, which is helping newly sworn-in, newly naturalized U.S. citizens to register to vote. But I have no choice but to object to this unanimous consent request, this effort to pass it without further debate--without any debate today.

I want to point out that this is a bill that hasn't gone through any of the regular processes. It is therefore inappropriate for us to consider it at this point.

Look, the bill itself was just barely introduced. It hasn't had a hearing, hasn't had a markup before the Senate Judiciary Committee on which we both serve or otherwise, nor has there been any debate on this topic.

No doubt it is important to make sure that our newly naturalized citizens have the opportunity to register to vote, but that puts the cart before the horse in many regards. If we haven't done our homework, we could cause problems.

No one disputes the fact--at least no one disputes the fact now that there are, in fact, noncitizens voting in Federal elections. No one disputes that there are already laws on the books making it a crime for noncitizens to vote in U.S. elections. U.S. Federal elections are for U.S. citizens and no one else, and it is a crime to do otherwise.

We have had some of these discussions over the last year, and in the months leading up to the 2024 general election, there were a lot of unsubstantiated claims made to the effect that noncitizens don't vote. We know now that that is not true. There have been a number of documented instances from this last general election alone in which that happened. This reflects the fact that we often do a poor job of making sure noncitizens don't vote.

On the current voter registration form, the Federal voter registration form, there is just a box, a little box that one checks for the applicant to indicate whether he or she is a U.S. citizen. Provided that he or she checks that box and later signs the form for a driver's license, that person can then obtain voter registration in the same State in which he or she has applied for a driver's license. All we have to go on is that person's word as to citizenship.

No one asks for documentary proof of citizenship--no.

One might ask: Why? Why has no one asked for this, especially if it is a known problem?

Well, this dates back to an interpretation of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, the NVRA, which is also sometimes referred to as the Motor Voter law. It was a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that interpreted provisions of the NVRA as prohibiting the State officials administering that form, receiving that form, from asking for any kind of proof of citizenship.

Now, that interpretation was, in my view, wrong. I agree with Justice Alito's dissent in that case saying that the statute contains no such requirement; there is nothing in there prohibiting States from doing that. Nonetheless, that ruling stands, remains on the books today, prohibiting State officials, when receiving those forms, from doing any verification, requesting any proof as to citizenship.

That is why I, last year, introduced a bill called the SAFE Act that would amend the National Voter Registration Act to make clear what I believe was already clear but that the Supreme Court got wrong, allowing State officials to request proof of citizenship at the time these documents are submitted and setting requirements for that to happen.

The SAFE Act identifies, establishes, and outlines acceptable documentation for proving citizenship, and it requires the States to set up alternative verification processes for citizens who don't have the normal, necessary, contemplated documentation, including for those instances--very, very common instances--in which a woman marries and thereafter changes her name to a married name not evident on any birth certificate she may have.

When you contemplate the many dozens of women who support the SAVE Act in this Chamber and in the other and who voted for it in the other Chamber, who were part of the process of drafting this bill--they and I and the others who were involved in its drafting, we all went out of our way to make sure that these documentation standards were not unduly onerous. In fact, if anything, they are less onerous than those requirements, those documentation standards that already exist in other areas of the law.

Take, for example, labor and employment. Anytime any American citizen starts a new job as an employee, he or she is required to fill out a form called the I-9. The I-9 form requires an American citizen to provide proof of citizenship. And if you are not an American citizen, then you have to provide proof of your work eligibility, providing proof of your visa and the documentation that goes along with that.

Now, just as it is true that married women who have changed their name to their married name, a married last name that is different than that found on their birth certificate--just as women every single day across this country are able to start a new job without that being an impediment, we have made sure that the SAVE Act would leave things the same way. If anything, we made it easier in the context of casting this sacred, important vote and registering to become eligible to cast such a vote.

The legislation, the SAVE Act, also compels States to purge noncitizens from voter rolls and establishes Federal penalties for intentionally registering noncitizens to vote in Federal elections.

Over the last 4 years, many, many millions upon millions of illegal aliens have entered our country's borders, and of those, a nonzero but ultimately unknown number of them were improperly registered to vote. No one disputes that this has happened. They don't now; they didn't last summer; they don't now because the proof is there, and it remains undisputed.

At a time when trust in voting is as important as it has ever been, if not more so, we must stop any avenue for foreign election interference, and we need to pass the SAVE Act.

Voting is both a sacred right and an important responsibility that accompanies American citizenship, and allowing people--people of other countries, people of other countries who are not citizens of our country--to violate the law and to access our elections and vote in our elections contrary to the law is a great blow to our security and to our self-governance.

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the SAVE Act a few weeks ago, and now it is our turn to pass the SAVE Act and that we must do.

In light of the foregoing and in light of the fact that, if we were to take a step like that contemplated and proposed by my friend and colleague--and he is both, the senior Senator from California--without putting in place these additional safeguards that we need in the SAVE Act, safeguards that are no more intrusive--and, in fact, if anything, are less intrusive--than those already in existence in everyday events like starting a new job, I must object, and I hereby do object.

Madam President, we need to remember a couple of things. First, when someone has gone through the process of immigrating to the United States, they have completed a journey--perhaps a lengthy odyssey--of moving to the United States, applying for and ultimately obtaining U.S. citizenship. They have provided a lot of documentation. They have done a lot of things to make that happen.

And it would be an insult to those who are U.S. citizens, whether natural-born or naturalized citizens, to make it easy for people to cheapen that, to undermine it, to dilute that by coming in and saying: You know, I am filling out my driver's license application, and all I have to do here is check a box--check a box, sign my name saying, yes, I am a U.S. citizen.

Well, you know, that is not an option in other areas where citizenship is required. It is absolutely not an option, for example, in applying for a passport, which is one of the documents that can be provided and often is provided when someone completes the process of filling out an I-9 and thereby establishing their work eligibility as a U.S. citizen. One of the forms that they can provide to help establish that is a U.S. passport.

But regardless of what combination of identification they use, they do have to establish their citizenship. Why? Well, because that is the law. There are very good reasons why we have those laws in place to make sure that, when someone starts a job, they are either a U.S. citizen or they have a visa with some type of work authorization in it.

So it makes zero sense, for something as significant and important to the very foundations of our constitutional Republic as the right to vote, that we could just so lightly cast aside the need to verify citizenship when we go out of our way in other contexts, like starting a new job, to make sure that they prove it.

So, sure. My friend and colleague points out, when people fill out that driver's license application, they do have to check that box, and they do have to sign their name, but why make it so that someone could lie, especially when read against the backdrop of the Supreme Court ruling 12 years ago, concluding--wrongly, in my view but concluding nonetheless, and that decision is on the books--that not only do they not have to prove citizenship, but no State official, when receiving the driver license application form, may even inquire, even if they have reasons to doubt that the person has committed something or otherwise--they can't ask, even if there has been a wave in that State or in that area or across the country of noncitizens registering to vote and that State wants to make a decision--you know, we really ought to provide some degree of documentation--they are not allowed to do any of that.

So this is filling that gap, and it is important to do that.

To that end, Madam President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 22, the SAVE Act, which is at the desk. I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, with great respect to my friend and colleague the distinguished senior Senator from California, he has suggested that the SAVE Act, which merely requires some type of proof of citizenship when someone registers to vote in U.S. elections--that the SAVE Act itself is a solution in search of a problem.

My friend also suggests that no documentary proof of citizenship is or should be made necessary, even considering the Supreme Court's ruling that States are not even allowed to request such documentation where they may deem it necessary. He suggests that this is the case because, as he puts it, the occurrence of noncitizens voting in U.S. elections is not only rare, but it is exceedingly, exceedingly, exceedingly rare, as he puts it.

I don't know exactly what that means, but I do know that, taken to its logical conclusion, that same logical leap could and would lead us to all kinds of outcomes that we would never dream of. There are all sorts of things that may be rare by some standard or another. Sure, it is true that most of the people voting in U.S. elections are not noncitizens. In fact, I would say that they would be a small, small, small minority of those casting votes because most people here in the United States, most people voting in U.S. elections, are, in fact, U.S. citizens.

But taken to its logical conclusion, that would suggest that there is no need for TSA, which, actually, I would be fine with for all sorts of reasons. But taken to its logical conclusion, it would suggest there is no need for you to identify yourself when you go through TSA because instances of terrorism are exceedingly rare or instances of people boarding an airplane in somebody else's name are exceedingly rare. Sure, that happens.

Taken to its logical conclusion, it would also suggest that because instances of people starting a job, beginning employment in the United States as an American citizen or as a noncitizen pretending to be an American citizen, are exceedingly, exceedingly, exceedingly rare, as he puts it, therefore we should require no documentary evidence of either U.S. citizenship on one hand or work eligibility with a visa on the other hand.

I could go on and on. But it is not an answer to the need for the SAVE Act, to the demand that 80-plus percent of the American people agree with, which is noncitizens shouldn't vote in U.S. elections. It is not an answer to that demand, to that widely held bipartisan supermajority view, not an answer to that to suggest that because noncitizen voting is rare, we need not require any proof of citizenship ever.

Why? Well, there are so many reasons why, but here is the simplest one. When we make that easy, more people would do it. Some elections are decided by large margins; others are decided by, to use his words, exceedingly, exceedingly, exceedingly small margins.

We would be doing ourselves and the American people and the American Republic and the U.S. Constitution a grave, grave disservice if we didn't take that risk very seriously.

Foreign election interference and meddling in our system is a real threat. We need to take it seriously. It is tragic and unfortunate.

In fact, it is shameful that we haven't passed the SAVE Act. This is not the end of this issue. I will be back. We will get this passed. But between now and whenever we do get it passed, the American people are taking on a risk because of this body's unwillingness to act.

And it is not this body. Let's face it. It is Members of this body on one side of the aisle, and not on the other, who are willing to incur this risk.

That, tragically, is a sacrifice they are willing to make. We, tragically, are a sacrifice they are willing to make. Let's not let them continue to make it. Let's pass the SAVE Act.

(Mr. MORENO assumed the Chair.)

Mr. President, with me today is one of my colleagues from my Senate office, Ms. Erin Jarnagin.

I hate having to put this picture up. Let me tell you why I am putting it up. Washington, I think we can all agree, is a unique place. Some might call it unusual. Some might even argue and make an argument persuasively that normal in Washington, DC, is just a setting on the clothes dryer.

We have a deep-seated propensity in Washington, in the Federal Government, to look reality in the eye and to deny it. Sometimes that is dangerous. That is what is happening in Ukraine. We are looking reality in the eye, and we are denying it, and it is dangerous. And it is not fair to Ukraine. It is not fair to America, and it is not fair to anybody on God's green Earth that cares about freedom.

This is a picture of people in Ukraine burying their dead. And it is not pretty, but it is real. Now, for 8 months, President Trump has tried to talk to President Putin in Russia--8 months. And for 8 months, President Putin has made all kinds of promises--a lot of pretty words, a lot of play-acting--and he has done none of what he said he would do.

He has played--``he'' meaning President Putin. He has played America like a banjo--like a banjo. President Putin says he wants peace, but he doesn't, and we know that now. That is what I mean when I say we have got to just look reality in the eye and accept that.

President Putin is not going to want peace until the costs of war are greater than peace. It is just that simple. For someone who has blood under his fingernails, for someone who has Stalin's taste for death-- and I am, of course, referring to Putin--it is simply a cost-benefit analysis.

Does the benefit of continuing the war outweigh the cost? That is just a fact.

We are going to have to do something if we all want peace--and we all say we do, including the people of Ukraine. They don't want peace at any price--neither do I--but we all want peace. I know President Trump wants peace.

But in order to get peace and to get Putin to negotiate seriously, we are going to have to increase the costs and make the cost on him of prosecuting the war greater than the benefits of him being able to continue to do it.

Now, how do we do that? One option is sanctions. Putin has completely transformed Russia. Russia had--before the war, had some tendencies toward--I don't want to overstate this, but I want to be fair--toward a democracy. At least, they got to vote, and not every vote was rigged. But that has all been changed.

Putin has turned Russia into a total authoritarian state. He controls the media. If you disagree with him, you go to jail. That is why you don't see much dissent. That is why you see virtually no dissent.

If you are his enemy and he thinks you have become too problematic, he just kills you--just poisons you. Russia today is as autocratic as China, and their security--their surveillance of their people--is just about as pervasive.

So Russia has changed. Putin has converted Russia into a war economy. That means that most of the GDP--not all of it but most of it, because people have to still live--but most of the GDP in Russia, much of it, is devoted to war, manufacturing weapons, paying money to people to go fight.

It is very expensive, and Putin affords it by selling oil. In fact, 40 percent of Putin's cash flow--the only way he has been able to prosecute this war is by selling oil. And one way to get him to the table is to cut off his cash flow. The only way to cut off his cash flow is to cut off his oil sales.

One way of doing that would be sanctions. Just say to people throughout the world, if you buy Russian oil, then you are no longer going to be able to do business with the United States of America and you are no longer going to be able to use the U.S. dollar. That is what President Trump has talked about doing.

But as you know, President Trump has also said--and I certainly see his point of view--if I am going to do it on behalf of America, by God, Europe's got to do it because they are the ones most at risk. And he said: I am not going to do sanctions and pass the bill that over 80 of us have joined here in the Senate--the President said, I am not going to do sanctions until all the Europeans do sanctions and stop buying Russian oil.

I understand where he is coming from, as I said.

The problem with it is you have some European countries--one is Hungary, another is Slovakia--they tend to be more aligned with Russia than anybody else in the European Union, and they buy oil, and it is going--from Russia, and it is going to take a while to convince them to stop it. It is going to take months.

Meantime, Putin is launching 800--not 80--800 drones and 800 missiles a night at the Ukrainian people, and he is not just aiming that weaponry at the Ukrainian soldiers. He is destroying the civilian population, the infrastructure. He is killing people.

In fact, it is escalating. The President met with Putin in Alaska, as we all know, and made a bunch of promises and completely reneged. And all we have gotten from that meeting is 800 missiles and drones a night.

So if sanctions are not going to work for now, it is going to take several months for us to work that out, what can we do? Well here is what I think we ought to do--and I am introducing legislation to do this. Joining with me will be Senator Graham. It will be bipartisan legislation--Senator Graham, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Whitehouse. There will be others who will join in the legislation. And we are going to move this legislation. We are going to move it.

We are going to seize Russian assets if our legislation passes, and we are going to give those assets to Ukraine to prosecute the war. Here is what I am talking about. Just about every country in the world has assets in other countries. They don't just keep all their money in their own country.

Oftentimes, those assets are liquid assets, and many times they are called foreign exchange reserves. You have probably heard that term, ``foreign reserves.'' They are used in trade to convert from one currency to another.

When the war--when Putin attacked Ukraine, Russia had $300-plus billion--some say it is as high as $320 billion--of assets in Europe and the United States; most of them are in Europe. About 90 percent of those assets are in Belgium, in Brussels. Some are in France; the rest are in the United States.

We are talking cash here. They originally were in debt securities, but we are talking cash now. There is over $300 billion of cash that the United States and our European allies froze that belongs to Russia.

It has been sitting there, and it has been invested basically in money markets, and we have been sending the interest to Ukraine to help them fight the war. But we have left the principal, the $300 billion a month. We haven't seized it; we just froze it.

The time has come to seize it. And I understand the arguments against it. Some in Europe will argue: Well, it will break international law. I get it. Russia has already broken international law. Russia has already seized European companies. Russia seized over $400 million cash from JPMorganChase accounts they had in Russia. So Russia isn't bothered by international law. It is a violation of international law for them to have invaded Ukraine and to be massacring these people.

But I get it. We want to follow the rules even if Russia doesn't. But the time has come to look reality in the eye and no longer deny it, to admit it.

If our legislation passes, here is what we will do. We will seize that $300 billion--no longer freeze it; we will seize it. We will give it in tranches, in smaller amounts as they need it, to Ukraine. Not all $300 billion--we are still working on language but not all $300 billion at once. We will give it to Ukraine in tranches.

Ukraine can use that money to buy their own drones and to buy their own missiles. Ukraine can use that money

not to kill Russian civilians, but Ukraine can use that money to buy missiles to take out every single refinery in Russia, cut off their cash flow, take out every single oil refinery in Russia. Ukraine can use that money to buy missiles to take out every single weapons production plant in Russia--every single one--and make President Putin understand that there is going to be a cost for him prosecuting this war.

We need to do that while we are working out what I think will be equally as effective--maybe more effective--this issue of sanctions, but we need to do it now because we can't wait months and months and months until we get the sanctions issue worked out.

So if our legislation passes--we will have to get the permission of our friends in Europe, but we have talked with many of them, and I think they will agree--we will give Ukraine an influx of $300 billion-- no taxpayer money from an American will be spent on this. This will all be Russian money. We are going to level the playing field. We are going to see what Mr. Putin is made of.

Now, I want to be clear--and I hope the White House is listening to this. I want to emphasize it: We are not spending any American money. This is Mr. Putin's money.

I know some people are worried about upsetting him, but he is not like the rest of us. He is not. He purely looks at this from cost and effect. Human life doesn't matter to him. We are going to make it very, very costly--if we do this--for him to prosecute that war.

I want to end on this note: Look, the American people I know are tired of overseas wars. I am tired of them. I know how people feel. I don't want the United States of America to be the world's policeman. I don't. But do you know what? I don't want Putin to be the world's policeman either. I don't want President Xi in China to be the world's policeman either. I don't want the Ayatollah in Iran to be the world's policeman.

Let me tell you what is going on here. The Presiding Officer knows this. We see it in classified information and nonclassified-- unclassified information. And you can surmise it if you follow the news. Xi in China, Putin in Russia, and the Ayatollah in Iran are working together. Putin couldn't prosecute this war without China.

China sends infrastructure materials and technology every single day to Russia that can be used for civilian uses but also for military uses. China buys Russian oil to give them the money to run their weapons plants in Russia.

Putin and Xi and the Ayatollah are working together. The quarterback, in my opinion, is Xi; it is not Putin. And here is their goal: Their goal is to have Putin dominate Central and Eastern Europe, to have the Ayatollah dominate the Middle East, and Iran control the Middle East. Thank God for Israel. Israel has caused them to put that part of their plan on the back burner.

Their other objective is to have China dominate the Indo-Pacific, do whatever they want, and be free to roam, as they are doing as we talk today, in Sub-Saharan Africa and South America. And I am going to tell you, that is not a world that is safe for freedom. That is not a world that is safe for democracy.

This fight in Ukraine is not just about Ukraine. It is not. It is about the Indo-Pacific. It is about Finland. It is about Poland. It is about Sub-Saharan African countries. It is about South America and our hemisphere.

So I hope the Senate will pass our bill. We are going to move it. If you object to it, stand up in front of God and country and say so. But we have got to do something.

I can promise you, with $300 billion of new capital--none of which will be American taxpayer money--Ukraine can buy some missiles and get Mr. Putin's attention, and he will be inviting us to a summit, and he will be paying for lunch.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today, the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration held a hearing entitled ``Another Biden Blunder: Missing Unaccompanied Alien Children and Criminal Sponsors.'' I attended this hearing. It certainly begs the question, Why, now that they are in control, are Senate Republicans continuing to focus on the Biden administration instead of examining the policies of this administration?

When I was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, we held not one but two full committee hearings on the Biden administration's handling of unaccompanied children. It is a legitimate issue. We must do everything in our power to protect these kids, and that requires oversight of policies that are in place now, not stories of history.

Just look at yesterday's oversight hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel. Director Patel deflected my questions relating to his gutting of the unit in the FBI that was investigating something known as the 764 group--an organization the FBI itself described as a ``nihilistic violent extremist'' group that seeks to blackmail children to perform vile acts on camera.

News reports released yesterday noted that nearly every agent on Baltimore's domestic terrorism squad was reassigned this year to work full time on immigration enforcement, forcing them to walk away from investigations of the 764 group.

This change at the FBI is dramatic in counterterrorism, in counterinsurgency--all of these areas where the FBI has expertise--and developed professionals are being told they have a new assignment: Go out and find undocumented people in the United States. There are 11 million of them. In fact, roughly 20 percent of all FBI agents reportedly have been diverted from their critical national security and public safety roles, including protecting children from extremists and traffickers, to work on President Trump's mass deportation effort.

Even worse, the data show that this administration is not focusing its immigration enforcement on the ``worst of the worst,'' as the President says. Instead, they are picking up innocent, law-abiding people.

Just consider the recent raid of the Hyundai Metaplant in Georgia. Hundreds of agents from across the country raided this factory. The agents--many of whom work on priority counterterrorism and drug enforcement cases--did not have experience in low-priority immigration enforcement operations. They ended up arresting hundreds of South Korean nationals who were in the country to install equipment at the plant so that eventually American workers could go to work at that factory.

Now the South Korean Government is investigating human rights abuses during that raid, and construction on the facility is paused at least for another year, maybe two. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau was reportedly forced to express ``deep regret'' over the incident in a meeting with his South Korean counterpart.

I have read some of the news accounts. The South Koreans are livid. Here is our government, begging them to put businesses and factories in the United States, and we raid this and take away 300 South Koreans who were there for the transition on that factory. Some of them were in shackles and handcuffs.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I would like to ask, through the Chair, a basic question of my friend from Vermont.

You have been involved in politics a few years. So have I. I am trying to understand if I were a Republican Senator who voted for this kind of premium increase for people in my State, more than a handful--a lot of people in my State--how I would explain it. Do you know?

Excuse me, Senator.

When you say it is just about to happen, is it the announcement of the premium or the actual imposition of the premium increase?

Through the Chair, you used an example of Wyoming.

You said 60,000 people in Wyoming.

Well, I was trying to figure out if someone is making $82,000 a year, I think that was your reference point.

And they qualified for the Affordable Care Act health insurance, they currently can receive a subsidy to help with the payments based on their income.

And you are saying the change in the big beautiful Trump budget by our Republican colleagues is going to result in an increase in monthly premiums in Wyoming of a person making $82,000 a year of $3,000 a month?

This is not a casual increase; this is for real.

Let me ask you this question: Since we have the continuing resolution being considered, which would go into effect September 30, if we agree on one, if you took care of this tax credit issue, you could spare that family in Wyoming from a $3,000-a-month addition to their hospitalization premium; is that correct?

Let me ask the Senator from Vermont his own personal experience. Mine was that last year, I decided to replace my knee--my football knee from high school--and my hip, same year.

I started receiving these projected bills and how much I might, personally, owe if I didn't have any health insurance. We are talking about thousands and thousands of dollars. Now, these were basically elective surgeries but much more than the average person has available on hand to pay a bill.

Imagine if instead of an elective surgery, I had, God forbid, broken my leg, ended up in the emergency room, and needed help with surgery when it was all over. The net result of it is a bill which most families would struggle to pay if they had no health insurance protection.

This seems like the reality of the situation. It is your money or your life is the Republican proposal. We are either going to have you pay $3,000 or more a month in premiums or you are going to have to gut it out and hope you don't get sick or don't have an accident that could cost thousands and thousands of dollars.

I thank the Senator from Vermont as well as the Senator from New Hampshire for organizing this block. I am going just say that people have contacted me from Illinois and are scared to death about what is going to happen on October 1. This big beautiful budget bill of President Donald Trump, unfortunately, is not going to extend the tax credits available to reduce premium costs. Families are asking me: How in the world, Senator, are we supposed to pay these increased costs of thousands of dollars each month?

I don't have an answer for them, but the Senate has the answer. The Senate can change that. We can restore this tax credit. There are a lot of priorities for a lot of people, but I will tell you, if you have ever lived without health insurance, you understand it is a basic priority.

You never know tomorrow what you are going to end up paying in a medical bill, and if you aren't prepared for it, it can wipe out your savings in no time flat.

I just want to thank my colleagues from Vermont and New Hampshire for organizing this floor block.

Access to healthcare is one of the most important issues facing Americans today, and it is an issue near and dear to my heart--because I know what it is like to live without health insurance.

I will never forget being the father of a new baby, who had a serious medical condition but I didn't have any health insurance. I never felt more helpless than I did in that moment. It is a terrible feeling and something I do not wish on anybody.

Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress are preparing to subject millions of Americans to the stress-filled, sleepless nights, that come from knowing your family does not have health insurance. If Congress fails to renew the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium tax credits before the end of this year, the cost of health insurance will spike for almost every American who relies on an ACA Marketplace plan. Increased premiums will create financial hardship for middle-income families across the Nation and cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance.

There has been a lot of confusion surrounding these tax credits, and I want to make clear who is at risk of being affected by these cuts. More than 90 percent of families with a Marketplace plan receive the ACA's premium tax credits to lower their monthly premiums. That is 22 million Americans who rely on these tax credits to afford healthcare.

Without these subsidies, 22 million people will see the cost of their insurance premiums rise rapidly. For most families, the cost will skyrocket 75 percent. That means that a family of four making only $32,150 a year will see a nearly $400 annual increase in their healthcare costs. A family earning $64,300 will see their premiums rise to $905 a year from $180--more than a 400-percent increase.

The imminent expiration of these tax credits, combined with the devastating Medicaid cuts passed earlier this year by Republicans, will devastate families of limited means and hospitals. The increase in premiums will be too much to bear for many families. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that if the ACA credits expire, 4 million people will become uninsured. And that is in addition to the more than 10 million set to lose their healthcare as a result of the so-called ``One Big Beautiful Bill's'' Medicaid cuts.

Last night, on the Senate Floor, I shared two messages my office received from Illinois constituents who are terrified about the upcoming tax credit expiration. The first message was from Kristen, from Rochester. She is a freelance writer, who has recently been diagnosed with a long-term degenerative disease. She said, ``I depend on the ACA Marketplace for insurance. Without it, one of my multiple medications could cost $7,500. Without these subsidies, I would be unable to cover the cost of my care.''

The second message was from Zach. He is a small business owner and father of four from Highland. Zach wrote, ``The Affordable Care Act has been a lifesaver for my family. It would ruin us if we lost the benefits from the Affordable Care Act. It would ruin us economically and physically if we lost these big, beautiful benefits from the ACA.''

These are real stories, from real people, who will be affected by the callous inaction of my Republican colleagues. But Kristen and Zach are not the only ones who are living in fear because of the upcoming expiration of these tax credits.

Melanie, from Elmhurst, wrote to my office and said, ``Without the tax credit my monthly payment is unaffordable, plain and simple.''

Vivien, from Evanston, emphasized that ``We cannot go back to the years when millions of Americans could not afford to get insurance.''

I could not have said it better. The end of the year is approaching, and my colleagues from the other side of the aisle seem uninterested in extending these lifesaving healthcare subsidies for Americans in red, blue, and purple States. I am calling on my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, to come together on a bipartisan basis to extend these subsidies and offer families some financial relief.

Senate and House Democrats will soon introduce a bill that would keep the government open and permanently extend these tax credits. We can do both. And we should do both. I ask my Republican colleagues to join us in these efforts. In doing so, I am reminded of something my former boss, the late Senator Paul Douglas, said after the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. He said, ``We will indulge in no comments about those who came at the 11th hour to the support of the measure . . . All can share in the thrill of victory. We merely ask that we all work together to make this measure a success.''

I hope my colleagues will heed his words and protect the tax credits that so many Americans rely on to afford their healthcare.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, what is the status of the floor?

I would ask unanimous consent to offer remarks as if in morning business.

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

Mr. President, when I draw a hunting tag, especially for elk, one of the first things that I do is to look at a map of the unit where I drew. I do that for a couple of reasons. I look to see where the public land is, and I also look to see where the roads are because the vast majority of time, that is where the elk aren't.

Elk need habitat security. If there is food and water and a place to securely bed on national forest land in New Mexico, and that spot is a couple of miles or more from an open road, the odds that elk live there are really, really high. So it is almost like the roadless rule was written for elk country because, in fact, it was.

And if you like to catch wild trout that have never seen the inside of a hatchery, you are probably familiar with some of the roadless refuges where these fish still thrive. In fact, 70 percent of the roadless areas in the Nation provide crucial habitat for native trout. So it is almost like the roadless rule was written by fishermen-- because it was.

In fact, it was written by many hunters and fisherman, actually. One of them is, today, the President and CEO of Trout Unlimited, who served as the senior policy and communication advisor to the chief of the Forest Service when this rule was crafted back in 2001.

When my friends draw a coveted Coues deer tag in the Bootheel of New Mexico in what is a famous unit, Unit 27, where are they hunting? Chances are, they are hiking deep into inventoried roadless areas to glass for these deer that Jack O'Connor made famous when he referred to them in his writings as ``the gray ghost.''

So when the Trump administration advocates for eliminating the roadless rule, they are talking about endangering some of the last great wild game habitat on our national forests. These are the back- country places where we sit around a campfire under a sea of stars and pass our traditions down to the next generation of sports men and women.

Finalized in 2001, the roadless rule protects nearly 45 million acres of national forest land that belongs to each and every American. From the hazy blue peaks of the Appalachian Mountains to the imposing spires of the Rockies, from the saltwater estuaries of the Croatan National Forest in North Carolina to the towering Ponderosa Pines of the Santa Fe National Forest in my home State, across the country, many people's favorite hunting spots, their favorite hiking trails and biking routes, ATV trails, and fishing streams are in these protected roadless areas.

When the Nation debated the merits of the roadless rule 24 years ago, the Forest Service held 600 public meetings around the country. These were attended by tens of thousands of Americans. I should know, I attended one of them. The Forest Service received more than 1.6 million comments, and over 95 percent of those were in favor of these roadless protections. You could ask a group of Americans about apple pie, and you wouldn't get a number that high. At the time, this was the largest response to a public comment request ever--ever--that any Agency had ever seen.

Fast-forward 2\1/2\ decades to today, and the Trump administration is threatening to throw the roadless rule into the dustbin of history, except this time, the process looks very different.

The administration opened the public comment period on August 19 and will close it Friday. Now, I know how slow and deliberate government can sometimes be, but there should be no shortcut to public engagement and to the democratic process. Yet a shortcut--or maybe more accurately a short circuit--is exactly what this administration has chosen.

With an underresourced and understaffed Forest Service, I know for a fact that the resource professionals and the scientists at the Forest Service do not support eliminating the roadless rule. This is being imposed upon them by people in the White House who, frankly, have never harvested a bull elk or released a native trout or otherwise experienced the wonder of God's creation in the very lands that represent the anvil on which our Nation's character was forged.

The truth is that the roadless rule protects us from wildfires; it ensures clean drinking water for communities; and it sustains wildlife habitat for wildlife and for sportsmen.

Wildfire prevention is at the heart of why the roadless rule is so important. Eighty-eight percent of wildfires are started by human activity, and 95 percent of human-caused fires begin within a half mile of a road. You can imagine why. It is not complicated. Cars backfire. Cigarette butts get thrown out a window. Trailer chains can spark on a rock. Sometimes campfires get mismanaged. These things happen where we can get with a car or a truck, so roads vastly increase the probability of wildfires rather than reducing them.

The roadless rule specifically allows for the removal of fuels that promote unnaturally intense wildfire. This helps to create a healthier forest and reduce wildfire risk.

The bottom line is that when we build new roads in protected areas, we risk more fires, not fewer.

In States like Idaho and Utah, more than 35 percent of roadless lands have had work done to help reduce fire in those roadless areas. In Montana, almost 30 percent of roadless areas have had similar treatments.

The idea that the roadless rule somehow prevents us from taking steps to lessen wildfire risk and from affecting human communities is patently wrong and inaccurate. The reality is that the Federal Government should be spending its scarce resources to focus on protecting communities closer to roads because that is where the people, homes, and towns are.

Can I talk for just a minute about the economics of building roads in roadless areas? The Forest Service maintains a more than $8.6 billion-- with a ``b''--backlog on maintenance of its existing infrastructure and roads. Why would we countenance building new roads in back-country areas with low timber values and extremely high costs when we can't even take care of the existing roads that we already have?

Beyond wildfire prevention, the roadless rule protects the water sources that sustain our communities. Many people don't know that large cities like Atlanta and Denver and Los Angeles rely on water supplies from our national forests. In fact, some 180 million people--over 68,000 communities, large and small--rely on forested lands to capture and filter drinking water. That means that the Forest Service lands are the largest source of municipal water supply in the Nation, serving over 60 million people across 33 different States.

Roadless areas actually protect the headwaters of many municipal watersheds, and that includes places like the water supply for the city of Santa Fe, in my home State. When they rescind the roadless rule, it threatens access to clean water for millions of Americans.

Now, finally, the roadless rule preserves the fish and wildlife habitat and sustains the hunting, fishing, and recreation economy. Every year, I and millions of other hunters rely on public lands to feed our souls and to feed our families. The Sportsmen's Alliance estimates that in 2022, recreational hunters alone generated $133 billion in economic output, created 1.3 million jobs, and supported more than $80 billion in wages alone. And this is part of a larger pattern. The Bureau of Economic Analysis calculated that the economic output of outdoor recreation in 2023 was over $1 trillion.

If the administration builds roads in these places, we not only lose these experiences, but our economies lose their customers. It is not just me saying this; constituents across my State are saying it to me too. Michael writes from Albuquerque. He says:

[T]his seems to be rushed without full considerations of

the ramifications. I do not want the health and solitude of

our forests compromised by opening the door to unwanted

development.

Diane from Taos writes:

Please vote to stop the plan to rescind the Roadless Rule.

I lead herb identification walks in the Taos area . . . so

many people come to this state to enjoy the beauty of

untrammeled forest. We need to . . . stop Trump and his abuse

of our public lands.

Hannah writes from Santa Fe:

Our forests need our help now more than ever. It's hard to

feel so hopeless to help them these days, and I hope you will

defend our forests.

So I stand here today, supported by my own experiences and supported by

the voices of constituents, to defend these forests. But I am not only defending our forests. In fighting for the roadless rule, we are fighting for protections for our roadless areas and against putting special interests first. We are fighting for stronger local economies for all and against industrial development for a wealthy few.

Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, and he once said:

The vast possibilities of our great future will become

realities only when we make ourselves responsible for that

future.

We are responsible for that future, and the actions that we take today will reverberate for generations to come. I am fighting for the roadless rule, and I urge you to join me.

To my colleagues in the Forest Service, I ask that you extend the public comment period for the public so that we can hear their voices.

To the American people and my constituents in New Mexico, I urge you to engage in the public commenting process and make sure that your voices are heard.