A resolution commemorating the seventh anniversary of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and calling for accountability.

Mr. President, I think what Senator Murphy was objecting to was calling Donald Trump the most pro-law enforcement President in American history, and I think he laid out all the reasons why that simply isn't true.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1975

Mr. President, I am here because today marks the 50th anniversary of the Senate's passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, known as IDEA. It was just a few weeks after the Senate passed that bill that it was signed into law on November 29, 1975, by President Ford--a bipartisan achievement and a landmark achievement for the United States of America.

I am grateful that my colleagues Senator Kaine and Senator Hirono are also on the floor with me today to discuss this important achievement 50 years later.

When that passed the Senate and, of course, when it was signed into law, it guaranteed the right to a free, appropriate public education for children with disabilities. For the first time in America, the law required that schools meet that commitment to all our kids, including kids with disabilities. That is why schools have now developed individualized education programs for students who need them, to meet that requirement. Now children with disabilities share classrooms with kids without disabilities. And it created a process for families to challenge schools that don't uphold their child's right to a good education.

This was a watershed moment in our history and the history of education. IDEA helped end a very dark chapter in our not too distant past when our public schools excluded 80 percent of children with disabilities, and many States forced disabled people to live out their entire lives hidden away in institutions.

For decades, the Federal Government wrote off people with disabilities as ``uneducable,'' and they claimed they could not learn in schools, and they claimed that they could not fit into our society.

The government was wrong. It was dead wrong. It was wrong on the facts because people with disabilities can succeed in school and in the workforce with the right accommodations, and it was wrong morally because that discrimination violated one of the most fundamental American values--that all people are created equal, and all deserve equal dignity and opportunity. It was IDEA that helped right that wrong.

I would be remiss if I did not take the occasion of this anniversary to acknowledge all the people who make special education work every day in America. They are the students with disabilities and their families and their caregivers. They are the teachers, the special education teachers, the paraprofessionals, and the teachers' aides. Then there are the researchers, the advocates, and so many more--the people who created IDEA and the people who keep it alive today. I commend and salute all of them on this important anniversary.

But I can't say the same about this Congress or, in fact, any of the Congresses that convened between that passage 50 years ago and today because while today marks the 50th anniversary of the Senate's passage of IDEA, it is also true that today, 50 years later, we are seeing the continuation of Congress's failure to actually fund the IDEA at the level we promised, at the level the Federal Government committed to.

You see, when Congress established IDEA, when they passed it into law and gave schools new responsibilities to uphold the rights of students with disabilities, Congress also pledged to cover 40 percent of the cost per pupil so that schools had the resources needed to meet these new responsibilities. In other words, we established a Federal mandate for a very good purpose, but then we failed to fund that mandate at the level we promised.

As a result, every year since it was first passed into law 50 years ago, Congress has failed to provide the promised funds for IDEA. In fact, today, we find that IDEA is funded at 12 percent--a little under 12 percent, in fact--of the cost per pupil instead of the 40 percent, leaving schools and students short a whopping $38 billion every year. In my State of Maryland alone, we are getting $670 million less per year than was promised. All across the country, States--Virginia, Hawaii, other States--struggle to make up that gap for themselves.

When we don't live up to our obligations at the Federal level, it strains the entire education budgets at the State and local level, hurting disabled students and also all other students.

Now, 20 years ago, when I was in the House of Representatives, I had the privilege of passing a number of bills related to helping people with disabilities. That included the ABLE Act, which was a bipartisan piece of legislation to help provide families with kids with disabilities with access to tax-advantaged accounts so that they can help those kids and better prepare for their futures.

I have had the great opportunity both in the House and the Senate to pass many other pieces of important legislation, but one of my greatest disappointments has been the fact that the Congress has never fully funded IDEA, never did what we promised we would do.

Way back in 2003, I introduced a bill to end the funding gap, to fully fund IDEA, to require that the funding be phased in over a period of time until the Federal Government met its responsibilities. I have introduced that legislation every Congress for the last 22 years.

I have watched as Democrats and Republicans from the Senate and the House go back to their States and to their districts and tell people that they really support IDEA and that they really want to make sure kids with disabilities have that education, that quality education. They say to families that we are all in to support IDEA. But too many, when they come back here to Washington, DC, and have to make real decisions as to where funds are allocated in the Federal budget, when they have to choose between kids with disabilities and another tax break for the ultrawealthy, somehow many have a way of forgetting what they told folks back at home.

You know, I introduced this bill again this Congress, and I am glad we have 39 Democratic Senators as cosponsors, and we may get more. We have zero--no Republican Senators as cosponsors. I hope that will change. I really hope it will change.

As I said at the outset, it was President Ford, a Republican President, who signed into law the IDEA 50 years ago this year. He signed that law. That law requires that the Federal Government provide that 40 percent, and we are at 12 percent today.

So I hope, on this 50th anniversary of the time the Senate passed it, our Republican colleagues will join us on this legislation because the consequences of failing to fund IDEA are visible all over the country. Expenses are only rising as more students struggle with disabilities.

The good news is that we are developing new techniques for screening our children and helping them succeed in school. Some of those techniques require more resources, not less. Yet we are continuing to fail to meet our responsibilities.

Today, because we don't fully fund the IDEA here at the Federal level, schools make IEPs for their students, but many cannot follow through on their own plans, those individual education plans. Deaf students are going to class without sign language interpreters. Students with intellectual and developmental disabilities are going without the one-on-one aides--the aides who help them learn and make sure they don't get physically hurt.

Underresourced special education staff burn out huge numbers, leaving tens of thousands of vacant positions. In classrooms all over America-- in each of our States--there is a child who is sitting at the back of the room, struggling to follow a lesson, falling further and further behind.

While that child is trying, the Congress is not doing its job. It would cost $38 billion for Congress to keep its promises to fund special education this year--$38 billion. That could be made up by the entire funding gap, three times over, that was included in the so- called Big Beautiful Bill--more tax cuts for very wealthy people. If you were to add up all of those tax cuts, it would be $132 billion only for the part of the population that was in the top 1 percent. So folks in the top 1 percent income category got $132 billion in tax cuts. That is three times what would be needed to simply fulfill our obligations under the IDEA this year.

The Trump administration chose tax cuts for the top 1 percent over the IDEA just like it chose to give away trillions of dollars to the very wealthy and pay for it, in part, by defunding programs that working families depend on, including healthcare, Medicaid, SNAP, and public education funding, while failing to fully fund the IDEA.

It actually gets worse because, since March, the Trump administration has fired half of the people at the Department of Education. Then, during the recent shutdown, the Trump administration attempted to fire the remaining staff--all of the remaining staff--at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. Those are the people who implement the parts of the IDEA that we do fund. These are great American patriots, these Federal employees. Some of them are Marylanders, some of them are from Virginia, and some of them are from other parts of the country. They have experience in helping these kids, and they have knowledge that is very difficult to replace.

Fortunately, a Federal judge paused the firings of these individuals during the shutdown. The judge wrote that those attempted firings were nothing more than ``political retribution,'' and that judgment was reflected in the recent continuing resolution, at least through the end of January. Nevertheless, the Trump administration keeps looking for new ways to take resources away from our schools.

In fact, just yesterday--just yesterday--it announced the near total dismantling of what is left of the Education Department's advancing education programs. Secretary McMahon has said that her mission at the Department of Education is to shut down the Department of Education, to put out of business the Federal Department of Education. She claims that her objective is efficiency. She claims that kids won't be hurt. She, obviously, hasn't talked to the parents of kids all over the country, including the parents of kids with disabilities.

You know, she specifically said at a Senate Appropriations Committee, on June 3, that ``we are not cutting any of the IDEA funding.'' That claim covers up what is really happening here because, in September, the Department of Education and the administration cut 34 grants for special education, saying that they conflicted with the Trump administration's priorities. Their targets included teacher training, parent resource centers, and assistive technology for children with both hearing and vision loss. Somehow, helping those kids did not meet with the Trump administration's priorities.

Let me just say that what we are witnessing in realtime is an effort to gut the special education programs that exist today at the Department of Education. At the same time, we see a refusal to fully fund the IDEA program at levels promised by the Federal Government when it was first launched 50 years ago.

You know, there has always been a credibility gap since that first commitment was made 50 years ago. I have been standing on the floor-- first in the House and now in the Senate--and making remarks about the IDEA and the importance of closing this funding and credibility gap for over 20 years. We still haven't moved ahead.

Again, as I said, every Member of Congress, when they go back home from here, says they really want to support the IDEA. Now, it is time that people actually mean what they say and follow through because we are now at the 50th anniversary of the IDEA.

Some of the children I was hoping to help back in 2003, when I first introduced the full funding legislation, now have children of their own. Some of the children we promised to help in 1975--``we'' being the Congress back then--are now grandparents. We should not allow another generation to grow up under the shadow of our broken promises.

We passed the IDEA 50 years ago in the same spirit in which we signed the Declaration of Independence almost 250 years ago. In both cases, we made great and noble promises. We promised that all men and women were created equal and that the government would uphold that equality. But when it comes to funding education for kids with disabilities, that promise remains broken.

Judy Heumann, who is the mother of the disability rights movement, once wrote:

Change never happens at the pace we think it should

[happen]. It happens over years of people joining together,

strategizing, sharing, and pulling all the levers they

possibly can. Gradually, excruciatingly slowly, things start

to happen, and then, suddenly, seemingly out of the blue,

something will tip.

Something tipped 50 years ago, when the Senate, on this day, passed the IDEA bill. It has been a long, excruciating length of time since then. I hope that now, 50 years later, we will see another tipping point wherein Members of the House and Senate finally live up to the obligations that were made 50 years ago to really fully fund special education at the levels which we promised. We celebrated the passage of the IDEA 50 years ago. Let us commit ourselves to finally fulfilling that promise now.

With that, I am happy to yield the floor to the great Senator from Hawaii, who has been so focused on education generally and special education in particular, Senator Hirono.

Mr. President, I rise together with my colleagues from Maryland and Hawaii to celebrate 50 years of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. I will not speak long because I have a separate matter that I will take up after this.

My colleagues did a good job, I think, of shining a spotlight on the challenges that exist with the IDEA at 50--the chronic underfunding of this program, the Federal Government not meeting the commitment that it made in 1975 to fund 40 percent of these extra costs for kids with disabilities, the firing of staff recently.

These are serious issues, but I want to spend my time more focused on the celebration of what these 50 years of the IDEA have done.

When it was originally passed 50 years ago this month, the bill was called the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, the EHA. It was renamed the ``IDEA'' in a reauthorization in 1990.

Guess what the vote was in Congress around the passage of this law that was signed by President Ford. In the Senate, the vote to pass this landmark civil rights and education law was 87 to 7, and in the House, the vote was 404 to 7. For a big, landmark civil rights and education law to pass with that kind of a margin is really near miraculous.

The reason that it passed so overwhelmingly was because society realized that we had been treating kids with disabilities in a very, very tragic and unforgiveable way.

Get this: In 1975, more than a million school-age children in this country were essentially locked out of public education because of the fact that they had a disability--either not being educated at all or being educated in institutions often far away from their homes and families, far away from their friends and neighbors, in a way that was not providing them adequate educational support.

So think about that million that has now grown to 7 million--nearly 1 in 7 students in our public school system receives special education services--what the trajectory of their lives was like before the IDEA passed and after the IDEA passed.

Students with a designated disability under the IDEA receive an individualized education plan so that their particular disability can be focused in a meaningful way to enable them to be all they can be. Isn't that what we want for all children? Let all children be all they can be.

It is not often noted, but it should be noted that many students who receive individualized education plans--the IEPs--only require special education services for a couple of years because even a couple of years of speech therapy or other kinds of special services is enough to get that student completely successful without additional services.

I know this from my own family, my own three kids who went through public schools, that sometimes the IEP and the services provided only need to be provided for a short period of time. Students who receive these services early in their educational careers often don't need them for more than a couple of preschool years or early grades, and then they are perfectly successful.

The IDEA works. It works. It works to enable these students who had been consigned to the shadows of life for generations to be able to achieve all that they can.

You know, one of the measures of success of the IDEA at 50 is this: As a mayor, public education was the biggest part of my city budget. As a Governor, it was the biggest part of my State budget. And, man, did I hear a lot of complaints from people about the IDEA. My educator said that Congress isn't funding it well enough. My educator said that the paperwork to do an IEP and then to assess its compliance is way too complicated. But I never had a single person, an educator or anyone else, say we should undo the IDEA.

For all of the challenges about underfunding, for all of the challenges about paperwork, there is uniform recognition in this country that the passage of the IDEA, the 50 years of a commitment by society that every child should be all they can be, is a good thing. Can we make it better? Of course, we can. But that bedrock promise that was made in 1975 is a good thing, and it has worked to enrich the lives now of tens of millions of people, to make them productive adults, just like any of us aspire to be. What a great thing to be able to celebrate.

That is why I join my colleagues today to celebrate what the 50 years have meant to the tens of millions of students who benefited from the IDEA and the commitment that we must do better.

I am very, very troubled by the underfunding and applaud my colleagues for focusing on that, but I am also very troubled by the actions of this administration to shed the staff who are needed to work with States and work with local governments to make sure that services are being appropriately provided.

I remember being on the HELP Committee during President Trump's first term and examining his nominee for Secretary of Education in the first term, Secretary DeVos. She was talking about letting the IDEA just be run by States, with no Federal role.

I remember questioning her at the hearing: Well, what about States that decide not to do it?

Because it is expensive, there would be some States, without Federal oversight, that would just decide they would rather not provide services, not fund services for students with disabilities.

I asked her the question: Do you think a parent of a child with a disability should just have to move to another State that is more compassionate?

No. We have a Federal, national commitment that a child born with a disability, whatever ZIP Code in this country they are born in, should be entitled to receive these basic services.

That promise is being threatened right now by the firings. That promise has always been threatened by the chronic underfunding.

So while I join with my colleagues in committing to continuing to work to improve it, I don't want this moment to be lost without acknowledging the tremendous good that has been done by this most bipartisan law to enrich the lives of tens of millions of children and their families.

With that, I yield the floor on this topic and would ask to continue on now a second matter.

Mr. President, in a moment, I am going to ask unanimous consent for the passage of S. Res. 473, and that is a resolution commemorating the seventh anniversary of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and calling for accountability for his murder.

This resolution is to honor the life and the absolutely gruesome death of the Washington Post journalist and Virginia resident Jamal Khashoggi.

For those who are not aware of Jamal Khashoggi's story, he dedicated his life to uncovering the truth. His work shed light on the repressive nature of the Saudi Arabian Government, and it exposed him to great personal danger. He fled Saudi Arabia in 2017, and his family found a home in Northern Virginia.

The Khashoggi story is now, unfortunately, too well known. On October 2, 2018, Mr. Khashoggi was brutally murdered by the Saudi Government agents at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkiye--murdered within a consulate, a place that is supposed to be a safe haven. His body, by all accounts of the United States and other intelligence, was dismembered by those Saudi agents within the consulate.

Mr. Khashoggi was not killed because he committed a crime. He was killed for speaking the truth as a journalist and shining a spotlight on the repressive nature of the Saudi Arabian Government. He was killed for standing up for the rights of his fellow Saudi Arabians.

Mr. Khashoggi's death is not a mystery. This is not a cold case waiting to be solved. We know exactly who is responsible for this killing.

The U.S. Government's Office of the Director of National Intelligence, as well as other U.S. intelligence Agencies, determined the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman, or MBS as he is often referred to, approved an official governmental operation in Istanbul to capture or kill Jamal Khashoggi.

As a result of that operation approved by MBS, Mr. Khashoggi was ambushed as he went to the consulate to get some paperwork regarding his marriage. He was strangled, killed and his body was dismembered, and then evidence of that crime was attempted to be destroyed.

Seven years later, there has been no accountability for the person most responsible for the horrifying murder, no real justice for Jamal Khashoggi, no justice for his family, no justice for the many others who have raised their voices in Saudi Arabia and who, for something as simple as tweeting, are being threatened with execution.

Instead, the leader who approved the operation to kill Jamal Khashoggi, the man who is proud to oppress his own people, MBS, is being celebrated today at our White House. MBS was welcomed with a black-tie dinner. He is being offered F-35 fighter jets--one of the crowned jewels of our security apparatus over the open objections of our ally Israel and potentially in violation of the law. He is being offered extremely high-tech computer chips and other valuable U.S. technology. He is being offered a major mutual defense agreement.

It is, frankly, outrageous to me that the President of the United States would assert that American servicemembers should put their lives on the line to defend the oppressive regime in Saudi Arabia.

Yesterday, when President Trump was asked by a reporter from ABC

about Jamal Khashoggi, he said ``a lot of people didn't like'' Jamal. He said, about the killing, ``things happen.'' Things like a gruesome strangling in an Embassy and the dismembering of a body of a journalist for the Washington Post with a bone saw--things happen.

And then our President threatened ABC's broadcast license because the reporter had the audacity to ask him a question he didn't like.

I have said it many times, and I am going say it again: Standing with this regime with no accountability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi is not ``America First.'' It is not consistent with our values as a world- leading democracy.

I was very vocal in my frustration about this matter not only during President Trump's first term but also during President Biden's term. When President Biden visited Saudi Arabia in 2022 and fist-bumped with MBS, I was vocal in my dissatisfaction.

I was vocal in my disappointment over this effort when the Biden administration's State Department sided with MBS in his efforts to gain sovereign immunity in the United States to avoid accountability for this murder. I was frustrated when Biden administration Middle East policy officials left the White House in January of 2025 and in short order, started signing lucrative contracts with the Saudi Government.

And I continue to be appalled as the families of senior Trump administration officials--Kushner family, Witkoff family, and President Donald J. Trump's own children--signed major deals with the Saudi regime in cryptocurrency or real estate development.

Just a few days ago, on November 15, the New York Times reported that the Trump organization was in talks to bring Trump-branded property to one of Saudi Arabia's largest government-owned real estate development.

I have huge questions, as I think many Americans do, about whether the intertwining of cryptocurrency or real estate deals is behind the President's casual reference to ``things happen'' to whitewash and excuse the assassination and dismembering of a Washington Post journalist who lived in my State.

When the Saudi-backed LIV golf tour made overtures about maybe acquiring the PGA in 2023, there was bipartisan outrage about that. But I have heard little outrage from any of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle regarding MBS's visit.

Is the PGA more important, more worth raising concerns about than the transfer of F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia?

Shouldn't we ask: What is the Trump administration's priority? Is it democracy? Is it human rights? Is it national security? Or is it real estate or cryptocurrency deals that benefit family members of those in the administration?

Why is the administration willing to move so far to accommodate this regime, this individual, that our own intelligence Agencies have said is responsible for the murder of a Washington Post journalist who lives in my Commonwealth?

What is the United States getting from offering MBS all of this? Or is the United States getting anything? Is it instead individuals are getting their pockets filled at the expense of our Democratic human rights values?

Standing with Saudi Arabia against the interest of the American people, against our national security, against our human rights proclamations, against the security of our ally Israel, and against the freedom of the press right here at home is unconscionable.

Mr. President, I would like to ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 473; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Maryland for his passionate advocacy for IDEA. IDEA is a critical program of the U.S. Department of Education.

Let me tell you what is happening to the U.S. Department of Education under President Trump.

We have a regime--that is what I call the Trump administration. It is a regime hell-bent on dismantling the Federal Government. From withholding billions in Federal funding to conducting mass firings of Federal workers and shuttering critical Agencies with hardly any notice at all, to implementing countless, harmful Executive actions, the Trump regime has sown chaos, corruption, and cruelty from day one. It is no wonder that there are now over 300 lawsuits to stop Trump's illegal actions.

It is clear Trump doesn't give a rip about our government or the millions of Americans who rely on the services it provides. That includes the U.S. Department of Education, which does critical work to ensure our country's more than 50 million--50 million--public school students can get a quality education.

Instead of trying to strengthen the Department of Education's support for our Nation's public schools, Trump and his allies are trying to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education completely. This has always been part of

his plan. He began his second term by summarily firing nearly half of the Department's workforce. He did this in one fell swoop. These committed people at the Department of Education were told: You don't have to come to work tomorrow. So this followed the plan laid out, basically, for President Trump and Project 2025. Then, just this week, his Secretary of Education laid out plans to slash and dismantle the Department even further.

Education is foundational. It certainly was for me. As an immigrant, I came to this country not knowing any English. I didn't read or write English. It is the education system that this country afforded me that provided me the opportunities that resulted in my standing here, giving these remarks.

So, while we can all agree that there are ways we can improve our education system, we should also be able to agree that there is a role for the Federal Government in helping to ensure that all students--50 million--receive a quality education. For decades, the Department of Education has played that role of working to protect students against discrimination and ensure equal opportunities in our schools.

Of course, one of the ways it does this is by supporting students with disabilities. Signed into law in 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, protects the rights of more than 7 million students with disabilities across the country--7 million. The IDEA helps to ensure these students receive free and appropriate public education that meets their needs. It also provides funding--yes, we need to fund the IDEA to the extent that is required--to help support these students and ensure the oversight of services for students with disabilities.

Before the IDEA was enacted, we did not have these kinds of Federal protections for students with disabilities. As a result, there was no way to ensure that students with disabilities were not denied access to education or were not neglected in our schools. As noted by my colleague from Maryland, many of these students didn't even get to go to school. They didn't have IDEA.

So, later this month, we will celebrate the 50th year of IDEA--the landmark law that has provided millions of young people with access to a free and appropriate public education.

Despite the success of the IDEA and programs like it, this regime is accelerating plans to dismantle the Department of Education and roll back the progress it has enabled by moving important programs to other Departments with no education expertise.

Recently, for example, Trump tried to take advantage of the shutdown to illegally fire hundreds more workers from the Education Department, including the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services and the Office for Civil Rights.

Education Secretary McMahon--herself one of Trump's billionaire buddies--has made the preposterous claim that the shutdown proved the Education Department is unnecessary. This is the kind of unsubstantiated--I can hardly believe that she would consider this proof of any kind, but this is the kind of stuff that the Trump administration always claims. The regime makes these kinds of unsubstantiated claims on a regular basis to justify its ill-conceived and often illegal acts.

In reality, I had constituents reaching out to my office during the shutdown to share concerns about how furloughs of the Department of Education were impacting Hawaii's public schools and the students they serve, including the students with disabilities.

I heard from the mother of a 4-year-old boy who attends a title I school in Hawaii. She was concerned about how the mass firings of special education staff threatened the services her child received.

Every public school child who receives special education must have, as mentioned, an individualized education program, or IEP--a plan to help meet the unique needs of each student. But without the necessary trained staff to support oversight of these programs, there is no one to help guide teachers or schools in developing these plans and ensuring that they are implemented or followed.

As mentioned, just yesterday, Secretary McMahon released a detailed plan for reorganizing the Department of Education by moving dozens of programs and services to other Agencies that do not have the necessary staffing, funding, or expertise to oversee these programs. We can expect that she will try to move IDEA too.

I heard from a middle school teacher on Hawaii island who emphasized just how unrealistic Trump's plan is to move oversight of IDEA to another Agency outside of the Education Department. He rightly pointed out that other Agencies have ``no expertise in the complex education law that is I-D-E-A.''

Education specialists, officers, and analysts within the Office of Special Education programs are trained to best support IDEA. It is not as though you can just move this program to Homeland Security or Human Services and expect them to be able to provide the kind of support that IDEA requires. Moving this program would mean a loss of expertise that will not be rebuilt quickly, leaving our most vulnerable students to pay the price.

As another example of moving programs out of the Department of Education as part of the dismantling of the Department--I could not resist this example--President Trump proposes to move the student loan portfolio to the Small Business Administration, which has neither the capacity nor the expertise needed to handle this massive program. The SBA is one of the smallest Federal Government Agencies. How is it supposed to handle a Department of Education program with over 40 million borrowers and over $1.5 trillion in loans? It can't.

Clearly, neither Trump nor Secretary McMahon see a Federal role in education because they are just moving programs without figuring out how these programs are even going to be continued. In fact, that is not their intention. Their intention is to get rid of the U.S. Department of Education, and they can't do that because only Congress can do that. So what do they come up with? These alternative ways to dismantle the Department.

Shouldn't supporting our public schools and our children's education be a national priority? I mean, obviously President Trump and Secretary McMahon don't think it is a national priority. Certainly, it is a national priority in other countries. Why? Because these other countries know, as I said earlier, that education is foundational and that an educated populous is an engaged populous.

By gutting staff and funding that students rely on and attempting to eliminate the Department altogether--a plan that will inevitably hurt our students, no question--this regime's actions make it abundantly clear that they don't want an engaged populous. One can't help but wonder why.

This regime is not committed to public education. They are not committed to public education. They don't see a Federal role for public education, and that is the long and short of it.

We can and must do better to support the education of 50-plus million children in our country.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to speak for 9 minutes and Senator Schumer for 2 minutes.

Mr. President, today's vote will determine how much methane polluters are allowed to belch into the air. It will determine how many asthma attacks Americans suffer. It will determine how many Americans will die because we relaxed the standards on how much methane oil and gas companies are allowed to leak into the air that we breathe.

On July 31 of this year, the EPA decided to delay the enforcement of the Agency's own standards of methane pollution from oil and gas companies. For those who aren't aware, methane is a superpollutant. When it comes to making our air dirtier and contributing to climate change, it is 80 times worse than carbon dioxide.

EPA itself estimates that their new rule or, more accurately, their new license to pollute will pump 3.8 million tons of methane into our air--about the same amount as if we put 66 million more cars on the road.

It is really staggering when you think of it. By the EPA's new rule-- the rule that we are right now, through my resolution, trying to repeal--EPA has decided to allow the same amount of pollution as 66 million cars. That is one hell of a rule. That is one hell of a gift to polluters. That is also really bad news for people who breathe; that is, all of us.

The decision by the EPA to put forward this polluter-friendly rule is perfectly emblematic of the administration's approach to our environment and the Environmental Protection Agency's hostility to rules protecting the environment. We are going to have to rebrand the EPA, if it keeps this up, to be the ``Environmental Polluting Agency.''

So how did we get here? It begins during the Biden administration when an EPA that was concerned about our air quality standards moved to significantly reduce methane emissions from new and existing oil and gas operations under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA didn't just put out new standards and say ``good luck''; the Agency used $1.55 billion in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to help companies get into compliance with these new methane pollution standards. Having made that investment, this action by the Trump EPA makes even less sense.

Before and during the formulation of EPA's methane standards in the last administration, several prominent oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, Occidental, Pioneer, and Devon, acknowledged the need for Federal standards for methane emissions. That is because leaking methane isn't profitable for companies. It is certainly not good PR.

Methane, in fact, is a commodity that can be sold by these companies. Leaked methane represents billions of dollars in lost profits for the oil and gas industry because methane is the main ingredient in natural gas.

By halting our Nation's methane standards, the Trump EPA will help the worst polluters--those who don't want to bother to control methane leaks and who therefore waste the very same energy resources that the Trump administration claims it wants to produce.

What is more, companies already know how to stop methane leaks, and both the private and public sector have gotten really good at detecting leaks with advanced technologies, like satellite imagery.

I am very proud that California has been a national leader in using satellite imagery to protect the environment. In the face of Federal environmental retreat, California launched its own satellite in March of this year to help detect and to help stop methane leaks. Just this year, California has used that methane-tracking satellite to close 10 large methane leaks. I congratulate Governor Newsom for his innovative leadership on this.

Many companies don't just acknowledge there should be a standard, they are already complying with the new standard and have been for almost an entire year.

To summarize, the Biden EPA promulgates new limits on methane emissions. It provides $1\1/2\ billion for companies to adapt to the new rules. Many major oil companies do adapt, and now the Trump administration wants to repeal these rules and let the oil and gas industry go back to polluting like they did in the not so good old days. It makes no sense. It makes no sense--that is, unless your real agenda is to attack climate science, to give industry free rein to pollute our air, and to pay back an industry that President Trump promised to reward if they gave $1 billion to his Presidential campaign.

EPA concluded 16 years ago that the Agency legally had no choice but to regulate greenhouse gas pollution because this pollution endangers the public health and welfare of the American people. Let me say that again. EPA's own scientists closed the case on this 16 years ago, but this administration is obsessed with reversing the progress we have made and taking the country backwards.

This isn't just about greenhouse pollution, which fuels wildfires, supercharges hurricanes, floods communities, and kills crops that feed us; cancer-causing benzene and volatile chemical compounds that form smog and choke our air are emitted alongside leaked methane pollution.

If we all vote today for this resolution and restore EPA's smart methane standards, then we will be voting to avoid up to 100,000 asthma attacks and to prevent premature deaths of Americans across the country.

In addition to all the health and environmental concerns with the rule we are trying to repeal today, President Trump and Administrator Zeldin's EPA also failed to issue this rule in compliance with the law. EPA, as Senator Whitehouse made clear, neglected to solicit public comments and decided to move directly to a final rule, violating both the Clean Air Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. Clearly,

the Trump EPA does not want to hear from the American people.

This isn't good policymaking; this is extreme ideological obsession, with dire consequences for the health and welfare of the American people.

So this measure today will put every Member of this body on record about how much methane we want released into the air, but it is also, I think, worth noting that my Republican colleagues have used the Congressional Review Act against Democratic States, like my home State of California, when they repealed our State's clean air rules. My Republican colleagues have used the CRA even when the Parliamentarian and the Government Accountability Office said they could not legally do so, and my Republican colleagues have used the CRA against Agency actions that have never been targeted before.

It is worth noting that we on the Democratic side are going to be making a list of a lot of the Agency actions of this administration because there will come a time when we are back in the majority, and when that time comes, we will be advocating forcefully for the interests of communities all across the country, and we will not hesitate to use the CRA in the same way that our Republican colleagues are now using it. But instead of making America pollute again, we will make our air clean again, and we will make our water clean again.

I urge Senators to vote yes and to continue the fight against dangerous and wasteful emissions of methane into our air.

The leader is on his way, and he will be here shortly.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to resume the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 136, H.R. 4016.

Mr. President, it is hard to believe that we are nearly at the end of the year, and that is the end of the year since we started this session of Congress and also President Trump's second term in office.

And in that time, there is so much that we have done to get this country back on track and to begin to undo the damage that was inflicted on so many Americans by the Biden administration. We could take a look at the economy because under the Biden administration, inflation reached its highest point in over four decades; far-left regulations killed jobs, and it held industry back; and our trade deficit exploded. Now, in Tennessee, that hurt our farmers and our manufacturers.

Today, the U.S. economy is on the path to being stronger than ever before, thanks to the President's pro-growth agenda, trillions of dollars in new investments, the largest tax cut in history. All of that came about through the Big Beautiful Bill.

Inflation is down 67 percent; jobless claims are beginning to come down;

and the most recent data shows that the U.S. economy is growing at an annual rate of 3.8 percent. Now, that is the fastest pace in nearly 2 years.

At the same time, President Trump and his administration have completely reversed the Biden policies and failures at the southern border. For 4 years, President Biden claimed that there was nothing that he could do--nothing at all--to stop more than 10 million illegal aliens from entering our country, including tens of thousands of convicted criminals.

At one point, the daily average of border encounters topped 15,000, and across the country, Americans suffered the tragic consequences, including rampant migrant crime. Today, our border is secure, thanks to President Trump's strong enforcement of the rule of law. Last month, there were just under 8,000 Border Patrol apprehensions at the southwest border--95 percent lower than the monthly average under President Biden. And unlike the Biden administration, President Trump is turning these lawbreakers away instead of welcoming them with taxpayer-funded benefits.

For the sixth straight month, there were zero parole releases into our country. By comparison, in October of 2024 alone, Biden released more than 10,000 illegal aliens into the country.

President Trump and Republicans are also working to undo the damage done by President Biden's two-tiered justice system. Under his watch, the Justice Department and the FBI were rotten to the core, targeting anyone who stood up to the deep State.

They raided Mar-a-Lago, indicted President Trump on baseless charges, and weaponized America's top law enforcement Agency against conservatives, parents, and people of faith. Through Jack Reed Smith's Arctic Frost probe, this abuse of power reached the Halls of Congress, surveilling lawmakers over our political beliefs. The American people want one tier of justice: equal justice for all.

That is why President Trump and Republicans are fighting for full accountability for those who weaponized our government. We must ensure that this abuse of power never ever happens again.

Under the President's leadership, our Federal law enforcement Agencies are focused on their core purpose, enforcing the rule of law and fighting crime. Now, when we talk about fighting crime in Tennessee, we look at Memphis. Last year, the city recorded the highest crime rate in the country, and, for years, Memphians have demanded action to address the crime crisis.

Now President Trump is delivering it with the Memphis Safe Task Force. By coordinating efforts between more than a dozen Federal and State Agencies, including the Memphis Police Department, Tennessee National Guard, FBI, Justice Department, and U.S. Marshals, the task force is delivering incredible results.

In just over a month of operations, authorities have made more than 2,800 arrests, including 164 warrant arrests for aggravated assault, 185 for domestic violence, 83 for narcotics, 34 for robbery, 22 for sexual assault, 25 for homicide. The task force has also located more than 110 missing children. In many ways, the Memphis Safe Task Force is serving as a national model for President Trump's broader mission to reduce violent crime across the country.

Mr. President, that is why I am asking unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 505, which is at the desk; 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 with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, what the Senator fails to mention is that the cities with the high crime problem are blue cities. They are blue cities.

Also, what he should know is that 63 percent of the residents of Memphis support having the Memphis Safe Task Force fighting the crime that is there.

Now, Memphis had the highest rate per capita in the Nation in 2024, with 2,501 instances of violent crime for every 100,000 people. Now, that is a stat that came from the FBI, and it is why the people in Memphis wanted us to move forward and do something about this.

Since the start of the task force, overall, violent crime rates have fallen 46 percent when compared to the same period last year, and homicides are down 50 percent. Carjackings and sexual assault are down 60 percent.

So when my colleague objects to this, he is objecting to what the good people of Memphis in this fabulous, iconic city are seeing--the results they are seeing. They want Memphis to be the safest city in the country, not the most violent.

They have objected to the arrest of nearly 2,900 criminals in the last 50 days, including sex offenders, murderers, and other violent criminals. They have objected to the rescue of 116 missing children-- 116 children who have been recovered. They have objected to over 300 known gang members being apprehended. They have objected to the seizure of 470 illegal firearms.

We are going to continue to work to make certain that Memphis is the safest city in the United States.