Floor Statements

Madam President, I want to rise to also congratulate my colleague on a truly remarkable achievement that reflects her character and dedication to the people of this country.

I have to tell a very short story. She and I were together at a presentation once in Maine, sitting next to one another, and I got my report of how many times I had voted that session. It was 99.2. And I very proudly turned to Senator Collins and said:

Look: 99.2.

Her response was:

You'll never catch me.

And what she has achieved by this record is really remarkable. Our State is not one where the weather is always favorable and it is always easy to get here. And to have maneuvered through bad storms, snowstorms, nor'easters, and to be here for every single vote since the first day she set foot in this Chamber is a truly remarkable achievement. And I want to add my voice to those that have congratulated her and recognized her tonight for this.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator Collins.

(Applause, Senators rising.)

Mr. President, I speak today to recognize the powerful and inspiring remarks delivered by Judge Stacey D. Neumann of the U.S. District Court of Maine at a recent naturalization ceremony in Portland. Her words capture the profound significance of becoming an American citizen and the role immigrants continue to play in shaping our country.

I ask unanimous consent that her remarks be printed in the Congressional Record.

Mr. President, today I wish to take a few minutes to remember and celebrate the life of John Henry Cashwell III, one of my oldest friends and a great friend to Maine.

John passed away on November 24, 2025, leaving behind a legacy of love for his family, for our country, for the communities where he lived and served, and also for our great forests.

All who knew John will remember him for his thick New England accent, his unyielding candor, his brilliant and at times irreverent sense of humor, and a warmth of heart that made him an instant friend to all, especially the disadvantaged and those in need of a little extra encouragement and confidence.

John loved his daughters Morgan and Mollie, and he raised them as the proverbial ``acorns that didn't fall far from the tree.'' Each is a strong, virtuous, and independent-minded woman who is not afraid to do hard things and to put their shoulders to worthy causes. I know this firsthand because Morgan served as my legislative director and helped me through some tough moments, most especially the ``Christmas Miracle'' that saved our lobster industry from death by regulation several years ago.

He loved his grandchildren and made sure they knew it. As a father and grandfather, he instilled in his family laughter, belonging, and the belief that they could do anything they put their mind to.

John was a devoted husband to his wife of 42 years, Julie Norton. John demonstrated his determination and unique power of persuasion by asking his future father-in-law for Julie's hand while taking him on a helicopter ride. Looking out the window at 1,500 feet, Julie's father felt that a positive response to John's request was prudent. John and Julie made their first home in Calais, ME, in a house they built in a blueberry field and where their daughters were born. John and Julie were devoted to each other and their daughters and filled their home life with adventure, friends, and a respect and awe for the wonders of nature.

John was a patriot to his country. He served as an Army helicopter pilot during two tours of Vietnam delivering provisions and ammunition wherever they were needed, evacuating wounded soldiers, and eventually commanding the air as a gunship pilot with the call sign ``Stingray 56.'' John's service was fearless and heroic. He courageously logged 1,800 combat hours in his second tour of duty, earning him two silver stars, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Army Soldier's Medal, a Bronze Star, the National Defense Service Medal, 44 Air Medals, a Purple Heart, and the Army Good Conduct Medal. John was and will always be remembered with gratitude by the many who owe their lives and posterity to him.

John was a civil servant who cared for the people and places in which he lived. He served on the city council and eventually mayor of Calais, where he worked tirelessly to improve the quality of the community and quality of life of its citizens. John befriended those he served and made them lifelong friends. After moving to Bangor, John became a member of the city council and soon chaired that council, where he helped make performing arts, entertainment, and the Bangor waterfront more vibrant and available to all.

To those who knew him professionally, John was always the champion of the forest. John received his forestry degree in 1979 and used it for the ensuing 46 years to steward the forests of Maine. Using his piloting skills, John fought fire, fertilized trees, protected forest health, restocked rivers with salmon, and ensured our forests were managed sustainably for future generations. John served as director of the Maine Forest Service, where he led the drafting and passage of the Maine Forest Practices Act and modernized the State's fire control air fleet. He later led the Seven Island Lands Company and BBC Land, LLC. One of John's forest legacies was helping the Pingree family and New England Forestry Foundation create the largest conservation easement in the country. John's leadership in forestry earned him the prestigious Albert D. Nutting Award from the Maine Forest Products Council, recognizing his many contributions to sustainable forest management and environmental stewardship,

John leaves behind a legacy that will bless the citizens of Maine for generations. He always said that ``he was what he was.'' To those who knew him best, he was a ``hero's hero.'' We honor that heroism today as we pay tribute to John for a life lived well in the service of his family, our Nation, and the friends, communities, and forests he loved.

Mr. President, I am somewhat perplexed by the comments of my colleague because six times in the last week and a half, measures have been put forth on this floor that would have paid TSA, would have paid the Coast Guard, would have paid FEMA, would pay CISA, and his party blocked every one of them. There was a vote just today that would have led to the funding of TSA, and I don't know how the gentleman voted, but I suspect he voted no. So this idea that somehow this side of the aisle is defunding and not voting for these other Agencies--it is just not true. There have been six--at least in the last week and a half--motions to move forward with the funding of the non-ICE Agencies, and each time, a representative of the party across the aisle has risen to object.

So let's be clear who is blocking funding for the TSA. It is not over here. We are ready to fund it tonight. We had a vote a few hours ago that would have funded it. So let's be clear about who is blocking funding for the TSA. It is right over here.

The second piece is, Why are we talking about ICE? If ICE, as the Senator suggested, were talking about criminal aliens, we wouldn't be here having this debate. The problem is that that is not what is happening.

In my State of Maine--in Portland--we had an ICE surge back in January and February that was similar to what happened in Minneapolis. It wasn't as large, and it wasn't as violent, but it was, nonetheless, a similar kind of surge, wherein a lot of agents came in, and a lot of arrests were made.

We have had a hard time in getting the actual data, but here is what we do know: Over 200 people were arrested or detained, many of whom were sent far away to Louisiana or to Texas or somewhere else.

But the website--I just looked it up. The DHS actually has a website called the Worst of the Worst, wherein they give you the picture and the name and the crime of the people whom they have arrested to demonstrate that, in fact, this is what they are doing.

Here is the problem: What we know is they arrested or detained over 200 people, and the DHS' Worst of the Worst website lists 21. That is 10 percent. Who are the other 90 percent?

I can tell you, from knowing my constituents, a lot of them are people who were asylum seekers, who were paying taxes, who were working people, who were refugees. One guy was approved to be a prison guard in our local county jail.

So, if it were the worst of the worst--the Senator kept using terms like ``criminal illegal aliens,'' and he gave these horrible cases. If that is what ICE was doing, we wouldn't have had a problem. The problem is the untargeted mass searching and picking up of people because of their accents or their color. That is what we are talking about here, and that is what we should be focused on. Indeed, there are discussions going on right now to try to find some resolution.

By the way, nobody is talking about defunding ICE. Nobody I have heard of is talking about defunding DHS or defunding the police. We are talking about guardrails being applied to ICE that are similar to the guardrails and the codes of conduct that apply to every police force in America.

I would suspect the city of Miami has a code of conduct that talks about how you respond to use of force and when warrants are required. They may also have something about identification. Those are the kinds of things that we are talking about. We are talking about guardrails. We are not talking about defunding anybody.

So let's be honest with the American people about what this debate is about.

I believe deeply--listen, I understand about the TSA and the Coast Guard, which is very important to my State. They should be getting paid, and that is why, starting several weeks ago, this side of the aisle has been bringing forward unanimous consent agreements that would fund those Agencies--only for them to be objected to. If we could have one of those unanimous consent agreements tonight or tomorrow, we could get those Agencies funded right away and then focus on what the issue is that divides us. And there are discussions going on with your colleagues and with the White House to try to resolve some of those issues.

I am an Independent, although I caucus with these guys, but let's not talk about the Democrats shutting down the TSA. The Democrats are moving to fund the TSA and are being blocked by the other side. Let's be clear about what is going on here. If we could solve this and if we could fund those other Agencies, which we should--I agree--then we could talk about guardrails for ICE and putting them under the same kind of reasonable constraints as every other law enforcement agencies in the country.

In my whole life, I have never seen a law enforcement agency that wears masks. Why do they wear masks? Because it is intimidating. It puts people in fear--citizens in fear. It also gives a license to the person with the mask on to act not in the public interest. It emboldens somebody to use the force that they have.

I understand about doxing, and we can have a law--we can pass a statute--making the doxing of these agents illegal and a crime--a serious crime. I understand that. I have got a draft of that here--of that law--and I think that should be part of that discussion.

But I think we really should be talking about what it is that we are trying to resolve here with regard to the guardrails on ICE. The original communication from the minority leader and the minority leader in the House said nothing about defunding. They talked about what the restrictions are that we need to talk about. Warrants--this is Constitution 101. You don't break down somebody's door without a warrant unless there are certain exigent circumstances. The Presiding Officer is a constitutional scholar; he understands the Fourth Amendment. But those are the kinds of things that we need to be talking about, not ``Should we be paying TSA officers?'' Of course, we should.

So let's vote on it. Let's do it. Let's put it on the floor and get that done tonight or tomorrow, and then we can focus on the issue that is before us. I just believe that this body ought to be coming together and talking about the real issues and trying to resolve them and not having the collateral damage of these other Agencies.

For myself, given what happened in Maine and what happened in Minnesota, I cannot vote for a budget that leaves ICE rampant and without the guardrails that apply to every other police force in the United States. I can't, in good conscience, do that. That is why I am voting to move forward with the funding of the other Agencies but then will focus on ICE to try to get some reasonable guardrails, and we are negotiating and working toward those.

In the meantime, let's pay the TSA people. Let's pay the Coast Guard. Let's pay CISA. Let's pay FEMA. I get that. But let's be clear about who is blocking that.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let the record show that a real debate broke out for a few minutes on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Mr. President, I would like to begin talking a little bit about history, generally, rather than the topic that has been the subject of the prior remarks, and then get into the question that has been raised today.

There are several cliches about history, and one of the problems with cliches is you hear them so often they lose their meaning, and you just sort of sluff them off. But these two, I think, do have some meaning, and they have become cliches because they are true.

One is, if you ignore history, you are doomed to repeat it. I have been hearing that all my life. If you don't know your history and if you ignore history, you are doomed to repeat it.

The second is attributed to Mark Twain who said:

History doesn't always repeat itself, but it [usually]

rhymes.

And that means that things that have happened in the past may not be exactly what happens in the future, but the history predicts the future.

I recently finished a biography of Cicero, the great Roman statesman, and he said something about history that really stuck with me, which is: If you don't know the history of your civilization, you live your whole life as a child.

I thought that was a really important insight because what that is really saying is all you have is your life. Whether you are 50 years old or 40 years old or 25 years old, that is your sum knowledge if you don't know the history that goes back 5 years, 10 years, 100 years, or 1,000 years.

If you don't know your history, you live your whole life as a child. And what we are seeing in this process at our national parks is a kind of lie to try to erase history, to try to keep us from understanding the historical events that shaped this country. It is a lie. It is not true.

If our parks and our historical sites are supposed to enrich our lives and tell us about the background and the history of our country, if you leave out the important parts, it is a damn lie, and that is what is happening today.

We have a fantastic history. We have a great history. We have an extraordinary history in his country of triumphs, of achievements. But we also have dark periods of our history, and, indeed, I would argue that one of our great triumphs is overcoming those dark periods in our history.

To try to whitewash and eliminate and cover up the history of slavery is to ignore the first third of our country's history altogether and the cause of the greatest cataclysm this country has ever faced. And to eliminate, for example, a display on slavery at Harpers Ferry is just flat ridiculous. Harpers Ferry is there because of slavery and because that was where John Brown's raid was, and that was the issue at that moment.

It is like saying you can't have a model rocket at Cape Kennedy. I mean, it is just ridiculous to try to make that

kind of change. And the problem is, if we don't know our history--as I go back to my early cliches--we may be doomed to repeat it or some dark version thereof.

The President and the Secretary have talked about not wanting people to be uncomfortable and feel bad about their history. People should feel uncomfortable about slavery. They should understand that that was part of the first third of the history of this country, and they should understand the evils.

One of the most moving experiences I have ever had was when I went on a civil rights pilgrimage, several years ago, to Alabama, and we went to Montgomery. In Montgomery, there is a monument to lynching, and hanging from the ceiling of this building are these--they look like large coffins, frankly, and they have the names on them from virtually every State, all the way up into the 1950s, where people were lynched by mobs.

It was a shock, but it was something that educated me, that made me understand the depth of this issue and how important it was to the early part of the history of this country.

I had an experience that directly informed what I am talking about today. Several years ago, I was on a trip with a group of Members of this body to Europe. I think it was for the NATO conference. And on the way back, we stopped at the Frankfurt airport, and there was a fellow there who worked at the airport who was sort of guiding us through to get to our gate to come home.

I got to chatting with him, and he told me something amazing. He said, when he was in high school in Germany, he was required to go to a concentration camp. He was required to see what his country had done to the Jews and others in that incredibly dark period of German history.

The Germans are requiring their people to face their dark history, and we are trying to cover up our dark history. I just find the contrast extraordinary.

You learn from your history. You learn from the dark periods. And here is a perfect example--the greatest sentence ever written in English:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are

created equal.

That was written on a desk by a slaveholder, and the desk was built by a slave at Monticello. That is an irony. That is perplexing. That is difficult. It is uncomfortable, but it is part of the reality. It is part of the reality of the history of our country, and it is something we have to conjure with.

When I was a boy growing up, I used to go to a Rotary Club meeting with my father, and the prize for people who came the farthest for the Rotary Club meeting was a copy of George Washington's will, which is a very interesting document because, in his will, he freed his slaves. Again, that is a part of our history, and we need to understand that the people who came before us went through difficult periods, and they had to face difficult issues.

Whitewashing history, throughout history, is part of the authoritarian playbook to try to manipulate history, to have all glory go to the leader, all glory go to the government, and have people not be uncomfortable about what went on in the past so they won't be uncomfortable in what is being done to them by an authoritarian government.

The glory of our country is the journey to ``a more perfect Union.'' I have always thought, ever since I first read the Constitution in law school, it was very telling that the Framers used the term ``more perfect Union.'' They didn't say ``a perfect union'' or ``toward a union.'' They saw America as a journey. They saw America as moving through time, by moving through and progressing over time.

When the Constitution was first written, the only people who could vote were White male property owners. Since that time, through tremendous struggle and sometimes violence--ask John Lewis or the early suffragettes that were in prison--that circle of who could vote, of who could participate has gradually grown. And that, to me, is the heart of the American journey, and that is the heart of what we must understand and recognize in order to know our history and not live our entire lives as a child.

What is going on now, I believe, is an affront to the American people. And what it is really saying is that the American people can't handle the truth. Like Jack Nicholson said in the movie, ``You can't handle the truth.''

The American people can handle the truth. They can understand what happened. They can understand why it was evil and the struggles that took place in order to overcome the dark portions of our history.

It is underestimating our people. They need to understand. We all need to understand from whence we came.

And I will conclude by saying again: The glory of our country is the journey, including the hard parts, toward ``a more perfect Union.''

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I just want to raise a few concerns before we pass these four House bills. We have developed a new process in this Congress where, instead of passing a large public lands package, we are moving packages of smaller bills simultaneously.

But for this new process to work, not only does the Senate need to pass House bills, but the House should be passing Senate bills. This Congress, the Senate has passed so far five House bills under the jurisdiction of our Energy and Natural Resources Committee by unanimous consent. All of them have been signed into law.

During the same period, four bills from our committee--from our Energy and Natural Resources Committee--have passed the Senate by unanimous consent but are being held at the desk in the House and have neither been referred to committee nor taken up for a vote.

And these are bipartisan bills. One is sponsored by Senator Cornyn, one by Senator Lankford, one by myself, and one by Senator Hickenlooper.

So the picture is, we are passing the House bills, but they are not reciprocating and passing the bills that we have sent them from this Chamber. It is not sustainable for us to continue to do our side of the bargain and not have a response from the House when they refuse to even take up the bill.

So the Senate has given the House the courtesy of taking up their bills, passing them in a previous group, as I mentioned, and now this group of House bills that we are going to be passing this afternoon. All I am asking is that the House extend to this body the same courtesy that we have extended to them.

So this is about mutual respect and comity, and in the spirit of comity, I look forward to working with Chairman Lee and Chairman Westerman, and we can resolve these concerns in the new year.

Mr. President, noting my reservations, I do not object.

Mr. President, first, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be permitted to speak prior to the scheduled rollcall vote: myself for up to 15 minutes, Senator Wyden for up to 10 minutes, Senator Ernst for up to 10 minutes, Senator Cassidy for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 203, S.J. Res. 82.

Mr. President, this is a nonpartisan CRA, which doesn't happen around here all that often. This is basically just public participation in good government.

When the Administrative Procedure Act was passed in 1947, the Department of Health and Human Services didn't exist. And for about a dozen years, it didn't have much in the way of responsibility. And so it was exempt from the provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act that apply to public comment and public input on significant decisions in Agencies that apply throughout the Federal Government.

In the early seventies, Elliot Richardson, who was President Nixon's Secretary of Health and Human Services, issued a waiver of the exemption. I realize it is a little contorted, but, basically, what he found was that the role of the Health and Human Services Department was vastly expanded after Medicare, Medicaid, and the other responsibilities that had been placed in that Department. So he said, in effect: We will be subject to the Administrative Procedure Act, and we will notice the major activities that we are going to do to the public, and we will allow public comment.

It is not a veto. It is just a simple transparency of ``here is what our activities are going to entail,'' and it allows the public to comment. And that has been the law for 54 years, through six Republican Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and the first administration of Donald Trump.

In March of this year, Secretary Kennedy chose to repeal this waiver--this rule that was adopted 54 years ago--and closed the processes of the Department of Health and Human Services to the public and, essentially, obscured activities that they were making so the public only learned about them after they had happened. There was no opportunity. There was no notice, and there was no opportunity for the public to comment.

So we are not really talking about politics here. We are not talking about Democrats and Republicans. We are just talking about a fundamental rule of how our government works in an effort to be in touch with the public, to allow them to know what is going on in these important decisions and to have a role.

Now, it is ironic because Secretary Kennedy, in his confirmation hearing, used a term that, frankly, I had never heard before, but he used it repeatedly: ``radical transparency.''

He said: We are going to have ``radical transparency.''

And we went back and looked. He used the term ``transparency'' something like a hundred times in his response to questions either in his hearing or in his written responses. This was a basic premise of what he presented to the Congress in his path to confirmation.

This is the opposite of ``radical transparency.'' It is radical obfuscation. It is deliberate action. He had to take an action to rescind this, what had been the rule for the Department of Health and Human Services, as I say, for 54 years, under Presidents of both parties and different administrations.

And what we are really talking about is simply allowing the public to know what these proposed actions will be and the ability to comment. What is wrong with that? What is objectionable about that? It doesn't slow things down appreciably. It is not a huge impediment to Executive action.

And we are not talking about emergency action. We are talking about fundamental policy decisions being made by the Department.

Now, here is what we are talking about. Basically, it is called the Richardson waiver, and it was the waiver of the exemption of the Department that was in the original Administrative Procedure Act. By rescinding it, which is what they did, we are--the CRA that we are talking about today would rescind the rescission. It would basically overturn the decision of the Secretary to close the processes of the Department to the public.

So it basically says the public can't weigh in. And, again, we are not talking about a veto or some extraordinary opportunity for things to be obstructed, just notice and comment. That is sort of the basic process of our administrative work that we do here in Washington--so no ability of people to weigh in on major healthcare policy changes.

He reorganized the entire Department without any notice, without any studies or analysis or public notice of what they were doing and why.

Clearly, the Executive can make changes in the staffing arrangements and that kind of thing. They can work on how to organize their Departments. But there should be some--when it is a

wholesale reorganization, there should be some notice of ``here is what we are going to do, here is the basis, here is the study we have done, here is why we need these jobs; and we don't need these jobs.'' None of that happened after the rescission of this rule. And there was no public comment. There was no public input on, really, a fundamental reorganization of one of the most important and the second largest Department that we have in the U.S. Government--HHS reduction in force and mass firings, tremendous changes in the organization and the ability of this Department, created by the Congress to meet the needs of the people that the Congress had in mind when they funded these programs and created this Agency.

They canceled thousands of grants and billions of dollars of research funds. Again, without any notice, without any opportunity to comment, they were just gone, including, believe it or not, research into Alzheimer's, research into some of the most serious diseases that we have in this country that are ravaging our people, cutting off research.

Again, if that is what they are going to do, they should do it, but they should let the people know that they are doing it and why, and allow people to say: No, no, we think this is important. We think this area is particularly important--just to have the input.

To do it arbitrarily and behind closed doors with no notice and no opportunity for people to have input is a disservice to the American people. And that is what this has done.

Thousands of grants, billions of dollars--and I am talking about like $11 billion in medical research. Imagine what might be in that research that has now been canceled. And people were in clinical trials that were canceled. That is, I believe, one of the most important functions of the Federal Government. It is research and supporting research. And here we are, canceling this with no notice, no opportunity for people to comment.

Another point: appointing members of important advisory committees with no public input. In the past, there was public input. There was a notice posted that we are going to appoint these advisory committees. Come forward. Make nominations. Give us names.

None of that happened. And we all know that there have been some pretty questionable decisions recently by these purged advisory committees.

So, again, this is good government. This isn't an attack on Secretary Kennedy, on President Trump. This is just getting us to the place where the public has some input and knowledge of these major decisions that are being made that affect the health and welfare of the people of the United States.

So I hope that we can have a bipartisan vote on this today because, again, this is just a sort of wonky process flow, but it protects the public's ability to know what is going on in one of the most important Departments in our government and to have a chance to have a little say on those decisions.

So I hope that we can have a significant bipartisan vote today. I think this will make a difference. I think it will help the country. I don't think it will hamstring the Department or the Secretary in any way, and it will, in fact, improve the health and welfare of the people of the United States.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I stand before you today to remember Charles Norman Shay, a Penobscot tribal elder, World War II hero, and loving father, grandfather, father-in-law, and uncle. Charles died last week at the age of 101, at his home not far from the beaches of Normandy, where he saved numerous lives as a 19-year-old medic on D-Day. I had the honor of meeting and getting

to know Charles both at his home on Indian Island in Maine and in Normandy at the 75th anniversary of D-Day; he was a world-class individual who brought honor to his home State, to his Tribe, to his family, and to the people of America. I know he will be missed by his many friends and admirers around the country, but especially on Indian Island. It is my privilege to share a little bit about him so that we may all honor and cherish his memory.

Charles was one of about 175 Native Americans who were among the 34,000 Allied troops who stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944. He said that he had been ``given a job'' and that it was ``up to [him] to complete [his] job.'' Charles ``did not have time to worry about [his] situation of being there and perhaps losing [his] life. There was no time for this.'' On that day, Charles saved soldiers from drowning at Omaha Beach by turning them on their backs, dragging them ashore, and dressing their wounds. He said that ``. . . I don't know where my strength came from, but they say once the adrenaline starts flowing in your body, you can do unbelievable feats.''

After D-Day, Charles and his unit--the First Infantry Division, known as the Big Red One--participated in the, Battle of Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge. In March 1945, he and his squadron were captured by the Germans near Auel, Germany. He was held as a prisoner of war for several weeks at Stalag VI-G, until Americans liberated the camp in April 1945, eventually forcing Germany's surrender the following month.

Unfortunately, as a Native American, Charles found few opportunities for work and faced outright discrimination when he returned home. Despite being a war hero with a Silver Star, Charles was turned away when he tried to vote in the fall of 1945, since Maine did not grant Native Americans the right to vote in Federal elections until 1954 and in State and local elections until 1967. Charles said later, ``Well, there was just no chance for young American Indian boys to gain proper labor and earn a good job.'' So, he re-enlisted in the Army and was stationed in Vienna as a medic with a military police unit. During the Korean war, he again saw combat, earning a Bronze Star. Charles retired with the rank of master sergeant in 1952.

While stationed in Vienna in 1950, Charles married Lilli Bellarth, a native of the city. They lived in the city for many years, and in 2003, they moved back to Indian Island. Charles spent his time promoting the culture and history of the Penobscot Tribe and was instrumental in the reprinting of his grandfather's book. ``The Life and Traditions of the Red Man.'' Charles also successfully lobbied for a Maine law designating June 21 as Native American Veterans Day.

Charles first returned to Omaha Beach in 2007, and from 2018 until his passing, he lived nearby with his caretaker, Marie-Pascale Legrand. For several years, Charles performed a sage-burning ceremony overlooking Omaha Beach to honor the dead. He said he moved to France to be close to his fallen brothers, saying, ``I believe that I can talk with the souls of the men that are still wandering on the beach here. And I just tried to assure them that they are not forgotten.

Today, a monument honoring Charles sits overlooking Omaha Beach, so even though Charles is no longer physically here to speak with the souls of his fallen brothers, I know his spirit remains with them, and his memory will live on for generations to come. I send my deepest condolences to Charles' son and grandson, his family, and the entire Penobscot Nation. Maine and the Nation are better because of people like Charles and it is our honor to carry on his legacy.

Madam President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 1337 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; 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 with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I want to express some thoughts on this motion that was just objected to.

We are in an ongoing, serious, and debilitating conflict in the world of cyber.

It is one of the most serious threats this country faces. In fact, right at this moment, it is probably the most serious threat this country faces from nation-states, from hacktivists, from ransomware, from crooks around the world. It is a serious daily challenge.

We are being attacked--institutions in this country, including the U.S. Government, including the Department of Defense, including the CIA, but also private sector businesses are being attacked 5 billion times a day.

I visited a small bank in Maine that is being attacked in the hundreds of thousands of times in a week, a small local bank. I have talked to utility executives that are being attacked--one major utility--3 million times a day, that the adversaries are trying to get into our systems to compromise them, which would be devastating in a time of conflict.

Imagine for a moment a shot isn't fired, but the financial system collapses; water systems are poisoned; the electrical system is down; the gas pipeline system is compromised; healthcare, hospitals are down. That is a devastating attack. By not moving this bill, we are unilaterally disarming in the midst of this crisis.

What this bill does is very simple. It simply renews an authority that was passed in 2015 to create a mechanism where the private sector and the Federal Government can exchange information about cyber attacks.

The private sector is protected from liability for exchanging, for sharing the information. Then the government can collect that information, warn other sectors of potential attacks that are indicated in these kinds of reports, can help the victims respond, and also can help us to form a more coherent national strategy to deal with these attacks.

I don't understand why the gentleman from Kentucky is objecting to-- and this isn't a spending bill. This has nothing to do with the continuing resolution. This is simply an authority that has been in place, as I say, for 10 years. It expired at the end of the fiscal year, and we want to extend that in order to maintain this kind of interaction, this kind of exchange of information that is critical to our ability to

realistically confront this really--I can't overemphasize how serious this crisis is.

We just learned, for example, that the Chinese were in our telecommunication system. We know that the Russians have made consistent efforts to penetrate our critical infrastructure, along with the Chinese. This is not an abstract threat. This is before us right now. It is happening right now. And if we don't pass this extension, as I said, we are unilaterally disarming.

I understand the chairman of the committee has some other items that he would like to consider. He is the chairman of the committee. I urge him to bring those issues before the committee, bring a bill to the floor, and they can be considered. But don't, in the meantime, hobble our ability to protect our citizens and entities, people and companies and businesses and our own government, from these ongoing attacks.

At this very moment, this government is under attack by cyber criminals, by state actors. They are not doing it for fun. They are doing it maliciously to undermine our country and also to steal from us.

The amount stolen through ransomware attacks, which can occur, by the way, at a local hospital or a town--the amount of money is in the billions every year.

So I hope that as we keep coming to the floor to bring this matter up, we can have the withdrawal of the objection by the chairman of the committee because--the final thing I will say is what I said before: This is no time to be lowering our defenses, to be compromising our ability to defend ourselves from an attack that we know is happening and that we know is going to continue to happen.

We know that this is going to continue. This attack is going to continue on our country, on our institutions, on our businesses, on our citizens, and we have to be on guard. We cannot--we cannot--allow this authority to lapse and compromise our ability to defend ourselves and the people of the United States.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my defense fellow Joshua Creadick be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the calendar year.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I would like to talk today about the rescission bill that will be coming before us in the next couple of days, and I want to really cover two points: what is being done in this bill and how it is being done. I think they are equally important. In fact, I think, perhaps, how it is being done is more significant in the long run.

The rescission bill talks about, essentially, two areas: public broadcasting and USAID. In my view, the rescission--the total rescission--of those two Agencies--and, by the way, it is a total rescission. It is not a selective cutting of certain programs or partially. It is the whole thing, both in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and USAID. The rescissions range from bad policy to downright dangerous, and I want to talk about that for a minute.

Public broadcasting: Public broadcasting has a unique place in the United States in our media environment in that it is the only media form that is not driven by advertising and advertising dollars. It cannot be driven by ratings. It, therefore, is able to provide programming to the American people that they probably, almost certainly, would not have access to otherwise. It wouldn't simply find a home on commercial broadcasting because the ratings wouldn't be there, but that doesn't mean that the programming isn't important.

My kids were raised on ``Sesame Street.'' It made a huge difference in their readiness to go to school, in their understanding of language and numbers, and in the whole basis of our education system. ``Sesame Street'' is a program that wouldn't find a home on commercial broadcasting. This is likely also with ``NOVA''--with nature--and, yes, with the ``PBS NewsHour.''

The news business today has become more entertainment because it is based upon advertising and attracting viewers and, therefore, is more inciteful--and I mean that as C-I-T-E, not S-I-G-H-T. It is more inciting to people's anger and unrest in order to keep them viewing, whereas the ``PBS NewsHour'' is pretty much straight news. It wouldn't get the ratings on MSNBC or on FOX News, but it provides a source of news both in terms of nationally but also in each State. The local National Public Radio's kind of programming--all things considered--is essential to providing information. Now, some people may think it is biased. I don't think anything done by a human is going to be free of any and all bias, but it is pretty much straight news, and it is an asset to our communities, particularly to our rural communities.

By the way, this isn't where we have Federal dollars that are supporting all of these initiatives. In fact, the majority of the support for public broadcasting, both television and radio, comes from the public, from contributions. So, in effect, our Federal dollars are matched to a very high degree by the public making their own contributions. That is an indication of how much the public values these wonderful assets to our information environment here in the country, and to cut off Federal funding is just an essential piece of the funding. A lot of it goes to the local stations. We talk about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and we think of PBS and the national programs, but a lot of this funding ends up going to the local stations all over the country that provide essential sources of information to their public.

By the way, the costs we are talking about are ridiculously low. I did the calculation. The relationship between the cost of the public broadcasting to the Federal budget is--let's see--7 cents to $10,000. That is the ratio: 7 cents out of $10,000. That is what we are talking about here, which is an almost immeasurable part of the Federal budget, but the return on investment is enormous. It is enormous. If this were a gigantic, $100 billion program, then we would be having a different kind of discussion; but this is a relatively small program in the context of the Federal budget, with a very high return on investment to the American people.

Now let's talk about USAID. The majority whip was just talking about that, and he listed a number of projects that, I think, are questionable and that I don't necessarily support. USAID is an essential part of our foreign policy to help to stabilize unstable parts of the world; to extend America's soft power; to build America's brand; and, yes, to do some very essential projects.

For example, in PEPFAR, which is an initiative of the George W. Bush administration involving AIDS, the estimate is that that initiative, since its beginning in 2005, has saved 25 million lives; 25 million lives were saved by that program that will be destroyed by this bill. You can't tell me that having that level of benefit to the people of the world does not redound to the benefit of the United States--the sponsor of the initiative.

It is the same thing with malaria. The estimates are that the malaria program, which goes back to, I believe it was, the Obama administration, has prevented 1.5 billion cases of malaria--which is a real plague in many parts of the world--and has saved 11 million lives.

Just those two programs together--those two USAID projects--have saved 36 million lives. We are talking about cutting them off. That is not only bad policy, it is cruel--it is cruel--and it undermines the credibility of this country.

Of course, foreign aid has a lot of benefits aside from the ones that I have just outlined. By the way, if Congress and the administration want to cull the programs and say, ``We don't think this one is necessary. This is not a good expenditure of the people's money,'' that is fine, but that is not what this bill does. This bill throws out the beneficial baby with the questionable bath water. It is a total abdication of America's engagement with the world. Vaccination campaigns, food security, nutrition programs, disaster response, refugee support--these align with our American values. As I say, it is a relatively small part of the budget. It helps to stabilize fragile states, and it cuts the risk of extremism and terrorism and conflict.

James Mattis put it best. Gen. James Mattis--one of the most distinguished military officers of our time--said: If you don't fund the State Department fully, then you are going to have to buy me more bullets. That puts it most succinctly. You are going to have to buy me more bullets because the programs of USAID tend to stabilize the world and mitigate the tendency toward extremism and violence.

Since we have started to gut USAID, which was one of the first acts of this administration back in January and February, China has stepped into our shoes. I am on the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee, and I have seen and heard testimony that China is basically stepping in where we are walking away. We are handing Africa and Latin America to the Chinese--in some cases, to the very programs that we were sponsoring. They are the ones who are now engaging with local governments, with local leadership, and getting the credit for helping with these kinds of problems across the world.

We are giving away the goodwill that is part of the American brand. We are giving away the opportunity to build alliances, to strengthen our influence, especially in competition with regimes like China and Russia. It also creates markets for U.S. goods and the U.S. economy. A significant share of the foreign aid ends up going back to businesses and NGOs here in the United States. So it actually contributes to our economic development. Countries that are receiving this U.S. aid end up being partners and customers of U.S. goods, products, and services.

I mentioned it saves lives, and it aligns with our values. There is nothing wrong with talking about values. That is a part of what we should be doing.

USAID is doing important work all over the world. I met with USAID people in Kabul, Afghanistan. I met with them in Jordan, where they are working on a water desalinization project that will literally save Jordan. Jordan is a country that has no water. They are facing a tremendous crisis, so one

of the projects that they are relying on is a very large water production facility that is supported by USAID. That is the kind of project that, I think, we need to continue.

Again, I would not say that every single project they have sponsored is what I would have agreed upon. That is our job as oversight bodies-- to take a look at the projects that are being sponsored. The administration can also do that, and they can then cull the projects that we don't think are a useful expenditure of the government's money, of the people's money, but not the wholesale destruction of an Agency that is critical, I believe, to the foreign policy of the United States. So that is the picture on these rescissions.

I believe the more important question, though, as I mentioned, is how this is being done. The question is, Who has the power in our government over appropriations? That is the fundamental question: Where is the power over appropriations as to where Federal dollars go?

The answer to that question, of course, is the Congress. Article I, section 8: The Congress has the power of the purse.

The President can submit his budget, and he can submit a budget that zeroes out USAID and that zeroes out the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but then the way the process works is that we have hearings; that we have meetings with the Appropriations Committee; the appropriators meet and decide and discuss and debate and come to the floor with a bill that represents the consensus of those on the Appropriations Committee, and then we consider it here.

This process that we are talking about here, this rescission process, turns the whole thing upside down. It basically says the administration can decide programs that are going to go away, and ``you can take it or leave it, Congress.'' I believe that it shreds the appropriations process. The Appropriations Committee and, indeed, this body becomes a rubberstamp for whatever the administration wants.

The deeper problem is, I believe this is another step in Congress's abdication--abdication--of its constitutional authority, which has dramatically accelerated since January.

The war power, which is article I, section 8, is an express power of the Constitution. We barely could have a debate about that, and the President attacked another sovereign country, which may have been the right thing to do. But there was no consultation, there was no attempt whatsoever to engage Congress, which has the power over declaring war, before that step was taken.

Foreign trade: Again, foreign trade--``trade among nations'' is the term in the Constitution--is expressly delegated by the Constitution to the Congress. The Congress has delegated some of that authority to the President--to a President, to any President--under emergency circumstances, but this President has expanded ``emergency'' to mean just about anything. We learned this week that he is talking about a 50-percent tariff against Brazil because he doesn't like the way the current government is treating the prior President. It has nothing to do with trade. It has nothing to do with the trade deficit. It has nothing to do with tariffs. It has to do with something that the President individually doesn't like. That is not the way the system is supposed to work.

The up-and-down roller coaster that we have been on with regard to tariffs is a perfect example of why one person shouldn't have this authority. This should be something that is done thoughtfully and systematically here in the Congress under article I, section 8, to debate and decide what appropriate tariff levels there are across the world and not this helter-skelter, up and down, changing every other day that has not only already--we have reports today--affected inflation in this country and brought it up, but it has also created enormous uncertainty both in our markets and across the world.

Then, finally, we see the power of the purse--Congress's fundamental responsibility.

By the way, as I have talked to my colleagues--particularly my Republican colleagues--about this issue over the last several months, one of the common refrains is: Don't worry. We don't have to buck the President because the courts will take care of it. The courts will take care of us. They will protect us.

Well, that ain't happening. The ridiculous decision of the Supreme Court yesterday on the Department of Education is an indication that we cannot count on the courts to protect us from the depredations of a proto-authoritarian regime. They basically said: The President can continue to gut the Department of Education because we are going to hear the case later, and maybe we will decide it when it comes.

They did the same thing with birthright citizenship. They punted on the issue and allowed the authoritarian-like activities to continue before they get to the case in their own good time.

So we can't count on the courts. That means we are it. The Congress, the Senate, has to stand up for the Constitution.

What this bill is, is another building block in the edifice of authoritarianism that we are seeing built before our eyes--a building block in the edifice of authoritarianism.

Why is this important? Is this just a dispute between the Congress and the President; politics as usual; Democrats attacking and undermining a Republican President; and it is just going to be all about the midterms and the elections of 2028? No. This is much deeper than that. This is much deeper than that.

The fundamental premise of the Constitution is the separation of power, and the reason it is there is because history tells us that if power is concentrated, it is dangerous.

Madison put it absolutely bluntly in the 47th Federalist:

The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive, and

judiciary, in the same [set] of hands . . . may justly be

pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

He used the word ``tyranny.'' Madison wasn't mincing words.

History tells us that if you concentrate power in one set of hands, it is dangerous. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We know that from a thousand years of human nature. That was exactly what the Framers of the Constitution were trying to prevent by this complicated, difficult structure where there is power in the Congress, power in the States, power in the Executive, power in the courts, two Houses of Congress, vetoes, overrides. All of those checks and balances, which have become a kind of cliche, are there for a fundamental reason, and that is to protect our liberty, to protect us from the danger of power being concentrated in one set of hands.

The Framers thought that they didn't have to worry about this, having set up the Constitution the way they did, because they said: Never will the Congress give up its power.

The phrase they used was ``Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,'' that there would be institutional rivalry and we would never give up. Well, they didn't reckon on parties. They didn't reckon on party primaries. They didn't reckon on the Executive having such sway with the legislative branch that the checks and balances essentially have melted away.

This bill is important because of the merits, as I talked about, about the danger of wiping out USAID and all the good it does in the world and the good it does for our country and also wiping out public broadcasting and all the good that it does--the irreplaceable good that it does--for the people in the United States. But it is also more dangerous than ever because it is one more step, as I mentioned, in the breakdown of the fundamental constitutional structure that says power must be divided because if it is concentrated in one set of hands--and I don't care whether it is Donald Trump or the Archangel Gabriel, it is dangerous to have the power in one set of hands. That is how we lose our liberty.

Again, Madison:

When the legislative and executive powers are united in the

same person or body, there can be no liberty.

We must listen. We must listen to history, to the people who brought us here, the people who brought us this government, the geniuses who formed this structure to protect the liberty of the American people.

It may seem like a small thing--this is one more bill, one more item--but it is one more step, in my view, toward empowering the Executive at the expense not of the Congress but of the

people--but of the people--of the United States.

I don't know what it is going to take, but I hope this debate, this discussion, will lead us to finally say: This is a line too far. We are going to draw a line here, and we will establish a relationship with the President that is cooperative, collaborative, bipartisan, and sharing the power that the Constitution gives to each of us. There is nothing less than the liberty of our people that is at stake.

I therefore urge my colleagues to vote against this bill and begin a discussion in the appropriations process as to these two elements and how they should be structured and funded. That is the way it should be done--not by the dictate of a President, of one who is trying to collapse the authority in our Constitution into his own hands.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, over the course of my career in public service, I have had the distinct pleasure of working with--and sometimes being on the receiving end of interrogation by--hard-working, thoughtful members of the Maine press corps. They work day-in and day- out to keep us government officials honest--and to keep members of the Maine public informed. There are few, however, that have had quite as much lasting impact on all of us as George Danby.

George Danby began his career as a journalism cartoonist 50 years ago today--never mind that he was still a high school student. On July 14, 1975, he began his storied career at the Bangor Daily News when he submitted an illustration to them that they wisely accepted. Over the years, he has drawn thousands of cartoons spotlighting not just leaders in Maine, but also critical story lines and public figures from around the world.

He has drawn nine sitting Presidents and seven Governors. As a former Governor of Maine, I have been stung my fair share by his sharp pen and wit. But humor gets us all and Danby's incredible cartoons have hung in my offices throughout various points of my career. Years ago, I even said that Danby ``has the uncanny knack, essential to the cartoonist's art, of getting to the essence of the matter in a way that's memorable, accurate and usually funny (if being the butt of a joke published in the state's largest newspaper is your idea of funny).''

And he is not just a visual communicator. In addition to his drawing skills, Danby has a thoughtful way with words. He is one of the few people who you can sit down with, disagree, and still find a way to move forward. In fact, he was no stranger to controversy. Yet, each time he drew a cartoon with searing commentary on the latest headlines, he found a way to open Maine readers' eyes and minds--and, in doing so, moving Maine's dialogue forward.

When I asked Danby's colleague of more than 20 years, editorial page editor Susan Young, about Danby and his career, she had this to say: ``Through his long and ongoing career in Bangor and beyond, George has never lost his keen sense of what matters in Maine, and to Mainers. He uses his artist's eye to urge us all to be better leaders, citizens and neighbors. Maine is lucky for his long career in his beloved home state.''

Thank you, George, for your long-lasting service to our State. We are better off because of your work, your vision, and your continued commitment to truth, insight, and humor. And for that, we will be forever grateful.