Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 350, S. 2322.

I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4591 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following resolutions en bloc: Calendar No. 375, S. Res. 341; Calendar No. 376, S. Res. 390; Calendar No. 377, S. Res. 499; Calendar No. 379, S. Res. 538; Calendar No. 380, S. Res. 615; and Calendar No. 381, S. Res. 632.

I know of no further debate on the resolutions en bloc.

I ask unanimous consent that the preambles be agreed to and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, all en bloc.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 654, submitted earlier today.

I know of no further debate on the resolution.

I ask unanimous consent that 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, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following Senate resolutions, which were submitted earlier today: S. Res. 655, S. Res. 656, S. Res. 657, and S. Res. 658.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 659, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent 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, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 660, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, that the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I have 514 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the allowing committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn to then convene for a pro forma session only, with no business being conducted, on the following dates and times: Friday, May 27, at 9:30 a.m.; Tuesday, May 31, at 11 a.m.; and Friday, June 3, at 4:30 p.m. I further ask that when the Senate adjourns on Friday, June 3, it next convene at 3 p.m. on Monday, June 6; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; that upon the conclusion of morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Wagner nomination; further, that the cloture motions filed during today's session ripen at 5:30 p.m.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the provisions of S. Res. 660.

Mr. President, yesterday, I was in Southern Maryland at the Thomas Johnson Bridge. This bridge was built in the 1970s. It connects St. Mary's County with Calvert County. There are critical facilities that are located in this region. I say that because

this is an evacuation route. We have Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant. We have Pax River. We have the Cove Point LNG facilities.

When it was built, a few thousand cars traversed the bridge on a daily basis. Now over 30,000 cars trasverse this bridge. It is not safe. It is a two-lane bridge, and it needs to be replaced. Major accidents occur on a regular basis, causing incredible congestion, as well as risking people's health.

I was there at the invitation of Senator Van Hollen. He could not make it physically to be there, but he helped arrange for a congressional earmark to help advance the replacement of this bridge.

I say that because we need to deal with traffic safety in this country, and replacing unsafe bridges is just one part of that program.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's 2021 fatality report was just recently released, and the numbers are shocking. Nearly 43,000 people lost their lives on our highways in 2021. This is the highest number since 2005. We are moving in the wrong direction on traffic safety. It is the largest increase in fatalities since we have been keeping the records since 1975.

Pedestrians and bicyclists, nearly 7,500 lost their lives in 2021. And if you look at the deaths between 2010 and 2019, 53,435 people, pedestrians, were killed as a result of traffic accidents. The impact is disproportionate in communities of color.

In its report, Dangerous by Design, Smart Growth America found that ``older adults, people of color, and people walking in low-income communities are disproportionately represented in fatal crashes involving people walking--even after controlling for differences in population size and walking rates. The fatality rate in the lowest income neighborhoods was nearly twice that of the middle income census tracts . . . and almost three times that of higher-income neighborhoods.''

If you have had a friend or a family member killed or injured by a roadway collision, then the issue of safety is a personal one. The reality of the situation, however, is that this is an issue that affects all of us. All safety incidents cause delays and congestion on our roads, and these delays are disruptive. They make us late to pick up our kids from daycare. We miss important meetings. Our levels of anxiety rise as we sit in traffic frustrated as our cars burn fuel in stop-and-go traffic, sending excess pollution into the air we breathe. All of this hurts our wallets, our health, and our sense of well-being.

With new data sources and analytical tools, the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology, ``the CATT Lab,'' at the University of Maryland has been able to quantitate some of the other impacts. Using numbers the CATT Lab analysts consider as conservative for the value of time placed on commercial vehicles and the traveling public, they found that there were nearly $8 billion in user-delay costs due to safety incidents on National Highway System roadways in 2019. Safety-related incidents accounted for over 18 percent of all congestion and over 300 million vehicle hours of delay. And this is just on our National Highway System, not our local roads.

Imagine if we could get back those 300 million hours of time to be with our families, to be more productive at work, to be more creative, and to live happier lives. Imagine if we could get back the $8 billion. This is something that is obviously of concern to everyone. The worst thing that we could do at this critical moment is to be complacent, to shrug our shoulders and say this is just the price we pay to have cars and the so-called freedom that our cars provide.

For those who have lost a loved one to a collision, this is an unacceptable price, and it should be unacceptable to all of us because we can do better and we must do better.

I applaud the Biden administration and the Department of Transportation for putting forth a National Roadway Safety Strategy earlier this year that adopts a long-term goal of zero roadway fatalities. The plan takes a comprehensive look at safety and all the pieces needed to help us tackle this challenge, from safer drivers to safer vehicles to more effective after-crash care. All these components are necessary. Today, however, I just want to focus on our roads.

Yes, we need individual drivers to do their part: to slow down, stay focused, to be alert. Yes, we need new technologies for safer vehicles. This is true, but it is not enough. What we need now more urgently than ever is better infrastructure and safer roadways. Therefore, fixing this problem is not about halting construction; it is about building.

We need the infrastructure but the kind of infrastructure that will provide safety. We need better sidewalks, better bike paths, and better intersections. In many places, we need to remove the vast expanses of pavement that have for so long facilitated speeding and restore the network of neighborhood streets that facilitate connections and support communities and children.

This is the infrastructure that will be better for businesses too. Many communities have found that small businesses aren't helped by roads that make it easier for cars to speed right by. They are helped by safe places for customers and employees to walk around and spend time. We need the infrastructure, but we need the right kind of infrastructure.

This year, we have a historic opportunity to change course and invest in infrastructure we need for stronger communities and safer roadways through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, but we have to be deliberate and determined in seizing this opportunity.

I was proud to be part of the Environment and Public Works Committee. I chair the Infrastructure Subcommittee. We worked together, Democrats and Republicans, to produce a bipartisan surface transportation bill, a bipartisan WRDA bill--Water Resources Development Act. They were incorporated into the bipartisan infrastructure package. I am proud of that work.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides several new policy tools and funding to help us address safety on our roads. I would like to highlight three important programs in the infrastructure law that will play a vital role in helping us to change course.

First, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $15.6 billion for the Highway Safety Improvement Program, which is one of our longstanding formula programs whose purpose in statute is to ``achieve a significant reduction in traffic fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads.'' These are formula funds that go to our States.

With the enactment of the infrastructure law, the Highway Safety Improvement Program will now incorporate a consideration of a safe systems approach, which aims to protect vulnerable road users from the start, from the designing of our roads.

A consortium the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research Policy convened has highlighted the importance of a safe system approach based on a wealth of evidence-based research. Their report said that a safe systems approach ``begins with a commitment to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries among all road users, and uses thoughtful road and vehicle design to minimize crashes that occur when people make mistakes and to reduce crash forces so that people are less likely to be injured when crashes occur. By designing safety into the road system, deaths and serious injuries are engineered out.'' That is what the report pointed out.

Here again, the message is clear--we cannot simply wait for all drivers to be error-free. We need to design and build better roadways.

Under the new and improved Highway Safety Improvement Program that the bipartisan infrastructure bill will deliver, every State is required to complete a vulnerable road user safety assessment to study where and when fatalities and serious injuries are occurring, including a demographic breakdown to ensure equity considerations are incorporated. States must identify projects and strategies to reduce the risks to pedestrians and cyclists. States in which vulnerable users represent 15 percent or more of all roadway fatalities must spend 15 percent of their Federal Highway Safety Improvement Program dollars on vulnerable user safety.

Based on 2016 to 2018 fatality rates, 28 States would have to spend at least

$200 million on improvements like sidewalks, bike lanes, crosswalks, and others. This is a major step forward to facing up to the problem and taking action to address it.

The second issue in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Practice I want to talk about is a major expansion of the Transportation Alternatives Program. I am particularly proud about this program. I authored this program originally with Senator Cochran but later with Senator Wicker. The two of us have worked together to connect communities together through pedestrian and bicycle paths so that pedestrians don't have to be on highways in order to get around their community.

Transportation Alternatives is such a critical program because it supports priorities local communities identify for projects to make roads safer and more accessible. This is one of the few programs where our local governments make the determinations.

Transportation Alternatives have funded projects that have improved the quality of life in all kinds of communities across the country in every congressional district, and in big cities and in rural areas. The infrastructure law increases funding for the Transportation Alternatives to 10 percent of the Surface Transportation Block Grant Program, which amounts to $7.2 billion over 5 years. The infrastructure law also specifies that projects under the Safe Routes to School Program are an eligible use for funds under the Transportation Alternatives Program.

Safe Routes Partnership is an organization that has worked with us on the Transportation Alternatives Program. It has helped governments implement Safe Routes to School initiatives to make it safer, more convenient, and fun for children to walk and bicycle to school.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, crashes involving people walking or biking near schools decreased by 25 to 42 percent after Safe Routes to School efforts provided engineering improvements, like better crosswalks and signs. And by providing the opportunity to walk and bike to school, we can improve safety and promote health and physical activity. Through initiatives like Safe Routes to School, the Transportation Alternatives Program is poised to make a major contribution to delivering on local demands to become more walkable, more bike friendly, and safer for all road users.

Now, the third program I wanted to highlight from the infrastructure law is Reconnecting Communities, which will deliver $1 billion to address an outstanding equity challenge related to our transportation infrastructure. We held a hearing about the need for this program last year in the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee.

The building of our national highway system from the 1950s was, in many ways, a great national achievement, a major public investment in our infrastructure that transformed our country and that we continue to rely on today; but for far too many communities, especially communities of color, ethnic communities, and urban centers, the construction of our highways had traumatic and destructive impacts. Rather than connecting their communities and expanding their opportunities, highway construction brought demolition, displacement, isolation, and exclusion. I consider it a major achievement that we finally will have a Federal program focused on addressing this harmful legacy.

My own city of Baltimore struggles with these lasting impacts today that include unsafe and unhealthy conditions for families trying to navigate their city. I specifically refer to the Franklin-Mulberry corridor in downtown Baltimore, where you have a highway that was constructed and never completed that divided existing communities. And that division still exists today, making it more difficult for people to live in that community.

The Reconnecting Communities Program in the bipartisan infrastructure bill will establish a program to improve safety as it also addresses longstanding inequity in our infrastructure, and it is a program that is about building the right kind of infrastructure, not just removing barriers. After we remove the old infrastructure that no longer serves our needs, we need to replace it with the kinds of infrastructure we need more of, such as better sidewalks, neighborhood street grids, signs and crosswalks, and parks that the neighborhood can appreciate and grow.

So we see how the infrastructure law provides new opportunities and multiple programs that can complement and reinforce each other to build better infrastructure and safer infrastructure. I have just highlighted three ways in which the bipartisan infrastructure law can do this, delivering better and safer roads for Americans and bringing down the unacceptably high numbers of traffic fatalities and injuries: the new Highway Safety Improvement Program, Transportation Alternatives, and Reconnecting Communities. This list is not exhaustive. The infrastructure law does even more.

Just last week, Department of Transportation officials announced the availability of $5 billion over 5 years for a new program focused on safety established by the infrastructure law. The law also provides a mandate to update the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices to give local governments more flexibility to implement safety measures.

I could go on and on. The bottom line is that we have a lot of work to do, and setting this new policy is just the beginning. We need leaders at all levels of government to take on this challenge.

I talked about Transportation Alternatives, which will now receive a full 10 percent of the surface transportation block grant funds, but 10 percent is just that, 10 percent. We cannot have 10 percent of our funds working for safer roads and 90 percent of our funds working to make them less safe. We need safety prioritized and integrated in all of our infrastructure investments.

I talked about Reconnecting Communities, a new $1 billion program to remove barriers that have harmed and isolated neighborhoods from opportunity, but we cannot have $1 billion working to remove these barriers and billions and billions more dollars spent erecting new barriers. We need to build the right kind of infrastructure that we need for our future, not continue on the same path we have been on in the past--the path that has led to 43,000 deaths in 2021 alone.

To accept the status quo would be the most dangerous and radical course of action. Again, I applaud the Department of Transportation for announcing a new national roadway safety strategy in January that thinks through safety across all of the Department's programs and authorities.

We need this leadership from the Federal level, and the Biden administration is providing it. As we implement the infrastructure law and begin to make generational investments to improve our Nation's infrastructure, we will need all levels of government working together. The challenge of our dangerous roads requires all of us to pay attention, but the benefits of investing to make our transportation network safer cannot be understated. If we use the infrastructure law to its greatest potential with respect to safety, we will have a stronger, more productive economy and a healthier, more just America.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Madam President, I take this time to review with my colleagues S. 4008, the Small Business COVID Relief Act of 2022-- legislation that Senator Schumer has set up for action tomorrow.

I want to start by saying that this bill--and the underlining bill that it deals with, the Restaurant Revitalization Fund--was a bipartisan product in which Democrats and Republicans worked together to help an industry that was in desperate need, the restaurant industry. It provided relief for their revenue losses, and we were proud that we were able to get that passed.

The challenge was that after it was enacted, we provided $28 billion for the restaurants under the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. In reality, that was not enough money to cover the demand, and we found that where close to 100,000 restaurants were able to qualify and receive funds under that program, 170,000 were shut down through no fault of their own.

So we went to work, Democrats and Republicans, in an effort to rectify that inequity and help an industry that was in desperate need.

We filed legislation in August of last year. And I am proud that it was bipartisan, joined by many of my Democratic colleagues and Republican colleagues. I want to single out Senator Roger Wicker, who has been the real champion on making sure that we worked in a bipartisan manner. We were joined on the Republican side by Senator Murkowski, Senator Ernst, Senator Cassidy, Senator Hyde-Smith, Senator Collins, and Senator Blunt. And others have joined us during the process.

But I want to take you back a little bit before we filed that bill in August of last year. There was legislation filed that would replenish the funds at $60 billion because we thought $60 billion was going to be needed in order to complete the funding. I think Senator Sinema led the effort in filing that legislation.

The difference between the bill that was filed for $60 billion and the bill that we are going to be considering tomorrow is the bill tomorrow is $48 billion less. We were able to reduce the amount of dollars that were needed in order to carry this out. Some restaurants have closed. We have tightened up the rules.

And we can not only do that for $12 billion less than it was initially thought was going to be possible when we had bipartisan support last summer, but we are now able to expand it to other related industries--all of which have had bipartisan legislation in this body-- to provide relief. These are industries that were shut down as a result of COVID-19. They had tremendous revenue losses and incurred tremendous debt in order to stay in business.

So we provided in this bill--for the same $48 billion, we include help for our gyms. We include help for Minor League Baseball, professional leagues. We provide money for music venues. We provide money for border businesses. We provide money for the bus industry. We were able to do all that, and we are still less money than the original bill that was filed last summer.

We did a couple more things in order to make sure this was done in a very fiscally conservative way. We were able to find some offsets. There were no offsets in those other bills. We found about $5 billion of offsets that we put in this bill.

We did something else that was not in the original act. We required the SBA to bring in all the applications before they allocate any money. Now, we had them already in the restaurants. These are ones that qualified before. But in the other areas they will receive all the applications, and before they issue any checks, they have to make sure they have adequate resources. If they don't, there is a pro rata reduction so there is no further need for us to be concerned about replenishing the funds.

All those are improvements that were made on the original bipartisan legislation that was filed that is more considerate of the needs, less costly, and more efficient.

Now, we have other protections that are built into this legislation. A restaurant cannot double dip. They have to subtract the moneys that they received under the Paycheck Protection Program, either first or second round of funds, from what they would otherwise be qualified to receive. They have to have a revenue loss that they can document. So there are protections in the bill.

But I want to go to what is the major issue why we really need to make sure we get this done. Because of the way that this was administered, partly as a result of a court action, you had two restaurants side by side, identical in their needs, filing their applications on the same day. One was funded; one was not. The restaurant that was not funded, if it is still in business today, it is very likely that that restaurant owner is taking out loans in order to stay in business and is still trying to be competitive to that restaurant that is next door.

It is very possible that restaurant is having trouble getting help, as all restaurants are having trouble getting help, but cannot compete in salary with that restaurant that got the help and now has to compete and try to get workers, even though they didn't get the same financial assistance. So it is a matter of basic fairness.

I want to go one step further. We in the Congress tried to prioritize those restaurants in underserved communities and traditionally underserved small business owners. We set up a priority line for them to be able to get their help under the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. The court blocked

that line, and we now have small business owners who are literally discriminated against because they were veterans or in underserved communities.

So as a matter of fairness, we really need to get this done. The need is there. We all know how restaurants are operating at less than full capacity today. They are still hurting as a result of COVID-19. This is going back and helping them in regard to their first year of losses-- something we should have done a long time ago but something that is desperately needed to get done. So I just really wanted to explain that to our colleagues, why we need to get this done. We finally have an opportunity.

Now, what are we going to be doing? We are going to be working on the motion to proceed. Now, this is not unprecedented. Let me remind my colleagues that the original bill that funded the restaurant fund was emergency funding. So it patterned itself after the relief we gave to the general small business community under the Paycheck Protection Program, which was also emergency funding.

The original bill, under the Paycheck Protection Program, was also underestimated by hundreds of billions of dollars. And we came back-- Democrats and Republicans--in a bipartisan way and replenished that fund literally overnight--hundreds of billions of dollars--as emergency funding without offsets.

And now we are trying to finish what we started in regards to the restaurants. It should be--no question about it--emergency funding; but we are, again, trying to be as careful as possible, so we have even found some offsets in order to make this easier for our economy.

There are some who say they worry about what impact it is going to have on our economy. I think keeping small businesses open is pretty important for our economy. But we can tell you the Restaurant Association has informed us that a large part of these funds are going to be used to pay off debt that small business restaurants had to take out in order to stay afloat. So we are going to keep restaurants open. And they are going to be able to pay off their debt, and they are going to be able to add to our community. That is what is at stake here, and that is why we are so protective of making sure we try to get this done.

Now, this is a motion to proceed. I have listened to debate on this floor about how we have to have the Senate work. This is a bipartisan bill dealing with small business on a motion to proceed that will allow us to have the debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I don't understand any of my colleagues believing that this is appropriate to filibuster and not give us the 60 votes we need on a motion to proceed. There are a lot of my colleagues who are always talking about reforming the rules in this place. OK. I understand, when we are getting to an emotional issue, it gets difficult for us to work together; but if we can't work together on a small business bill that was developed by bipartisan Members--Democrats and Republicans--that is consistent with what we have been doing in helping small businesses generally, and we now have an opportunity to bring it to the floor for a debate--it will be open to amendment. Those who say: Well, gee, are there other ways we can make this more affordable? Well, come forward.

We have been working on this for a year--close to a year. And, yes, that is why we have gotten good suggestions from Democrats and Republicans in order to try to make this work. But if you don't allow us to debate the bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate, I really don't understand that. If you profess that you want to see this place work and there is not a philosophical problem here of helping small businesses, why can't we move forward?

I don't even know why we need a cloture motion. We should be able to pass a motion to proceed on this bill and have a debate and go to amendments. And Senator Wicker and I have made it clear that we will act as traffic cops; we will try to figure out the best way to consider this bill in order to make it work for all.

Madam President, small businesses have a special way of filling our cities and towns that make them irreplaceable when they are gone. I think we all recognize that. They drive our local economies. They give our neighborhood character. They make us proud of where we come from and where we live. If we allow them to disappear through inaction, they will leave holes in our community that we cannot easily fill.

If we cannot pass one last round of aid, it will mean certain restaurant owners who have pending loans are going to close their doors forever. Those holes will exist in our community, and we will not be able to fill them.

I ask my colleagues--all of us understand the importance of small business. We understand they are the growth engines in our community and innovation engines in our community. We made a commitment to help them through COVID-19, and we have honored a large part of that commitment. This is the last chapter to complete that commitment, and I hope my colleagues will join us in allowing us to have this debate on the floor and support the help for our small businesses that are in desperate need.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today in recognition of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. This annual recognition offers the opportunity to celebrate the unique impact the Asian American and Pacific Islander community has made and continues to make in the United States.

On this heritage month, we reflect on the incredible achievements of this minority community and honor the unique combination of traditions and cultures that create the rich tapestry of the Asian American Pacific Islander diaspora and experience. We also use this time to educate ourselves on the nuances of the AAPI identity and better understand the challenges this community faces.

In 1977, then-Representative Frank Horton of New York introduced a resolution to designate the first 10 days in May as AAPI Heritage Week. The month of May was appropriate because of two key anniversaries that occurred in that month. On May 7, 1843, the first Japanese immigrants came to the United States.

On May 10, 1869, the first transcontinental railroad was completed, largely due to the backbreaking work of Chinese laborers, some of whom lost their lives in the construction.

Congress did not enact Representative Horton's initial resolution. The following year, however, with the persistent help of then- Representative Norman Mineta, Congress enacted a new resolution to designate the 7-day period beginning on May 4 as Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Week. In 1992, Congress authorized the entire month of May as AAPI Heritage Month, which we now celebrate.

The presence and influence of the AAPI community in the United States has been growing steadily since the 19th century. The 1870 census classified approximately 63,000 individuals as Asian. By 1960, when the census allowed respondents to select their race, that number grew to 980,000. As of 2019, there are 22.4 million AAPI individuals in America, 475,000 of whom call Maryland home.

It is important to remember that the AAPI community is not a homogenous group. It is an incredibly diverse community, made up of a wide array of cultures spanning many countries and territories, which includes over 50 ethnicities, over 100 languages, and multiple religions. Each subset draws from a unique set of traditions, and we cannot assume they have one shared, uniform experience. We know that the AAPI community makes up about 7 percent of our total population, and this rich and diverse community has an outsized impact on every pillar of our society. We cannot forget the many barriers to success this community has overcome to reach such heights, which makes this community's successes all the more impressive.

To understand the profound influence the AAPI community has, we need not look further than Capitol Hill. This year, we mourned the passing of my good friend and former colleague, Norman Mineta. A passionate defender of justice, talented strategist, and exemplary patriot, Representative Mineta dedicated his life to service as a mayor, Congressman, and Cabinet member. In 1941, the U.S. Government interned his family along with hundreds of thousands of other Japanese Americans. Perhaps both in spite of and because of that experience, Representative Mineta pursued a career as a public servant. During his tenure as a legislator, he cofounded and chaired the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

He led the charge on the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which directed the Federal Government to issue a formal apology to and compensate the survivors of Japanese internment. He inspired generations of Asian Americans to get involved in politics. We miss him, but his legacy will live on for years to come.

As chairman of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, I am in awe of the resilience and determination we have seen from AAPI small business owners over the past 2 years. In Maryland alone, there are 13,375 AAPI-owned businesses, many of which include restaurants and eateries. In fact, if you use cuisine predominance as a barometer of cultural impact, the Asian American influence is unparalleled.

In 2021, the New York Times published a list of the 50 most exciting restaurants in the United States. Seventeen of the top 50 restaurants, or 34 percent, incorporate AAPI food or have an AAPI head chef, more than any other foreign cuisine. Through food, AAPI culture has become inextricably linked to the American identity. In my home city of Baltimore, a group of volunteers known as the China Collective organizes a pop-up market named the Charm City Market. I have watched as the event has grown in both attendance and footprint over the years, celebrating the AAPI community's diverse food and entrepreneurship landscape. Each year, I look forward to the market's ever-growing celebration and empowerment of AAPI small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Asian American Pacific Islanders also played a massive role in our COVID-19 response, oftentimes finding themselves on the front lines as essential workers. Despite facing racial bias and prejudice largely attributed to Donald Trump's deliberately inflammatory use of the term ``China Virus,'' the AAPI community remained a steadfast lifeline for Americans in need. At Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Erika Rono, an emergency room nurse who came to the U.S. from the Philippines in 2014, continues to work every day through the harrowing realities of a hospital overrun by COVID-19 patients. Over the past 2 years, she has toiled day and night, putting her own life at risk, to save

Baltimoreans. We cannot thank her and her colleagues enough for their bravery.

Despite the vital role the AAPI community plays in the U.S., they still endure racism and discrimination. I am broken-hearted to see an unprecedented increase in hate crimes against the AAPI community in recent years. According to a study by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino, there was a 44-percent increase in anti-Asian American hate crimes across 16 of the largest cities in the United States. In 2021, 81 percent of Asian Americans who participated in a report by Pew Research stated that violence against them was increasing.

One in 4 AAPI small business owners has experienced vandalism or threats to their business at least once between 2020 and 2021, and one in five Asian Americans worries daily about potential racial threats and attacks. On top of this fear of retaliation, there is also concern in the community, as with everyone else, about contracting the virus.

We must continue to do all that we can to preserve, protect, and support the AAPI community. Last year, Congress enacted and President Biden signed into law S. 937, the ``COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act,'' which formally condemns anti-Asian violence and creates pathways for the expedited reporting and prosecution of such abhorrent events at the Federal, State, and local levels. There is no place for hate in our society.

Today, as I think about my late, great colleague Norm Mineta and all the Asian Americans who make America what it is today, I re-emphasize my gratitude for the AAPI community and reaffirm my commitment to eliminating systemic barriers to its success.

Mr. President, 1 month ago, Russian authorities arrested Vladimir Kara-Murza, a tireless advocate for a democratic Russia and longtime Putin critic, on the street near his apartment in Moscow. While he was in detention for a fabricated administrative violation, they charged him further with ``spreading deliberately false information'' about the armed forces of Russia, which was criminalized under a Russian law passed after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He is currently in pretrial detention and could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Vladimir is a friend and frequent visitor to the offices of many Members of Congress, myself included. His wife and children live in Virginia, and he splits his time between the United States and Russia, where he was born and raised. Vladimir has a special relationship with the Helsinki Commission and a keen interest in using parliamentary diplomacy to rally other nations against the Putin regime's undemocratic and violent policies, particularly the war in Ukraine.

Vladimir was instrumental in the development and passage of the Magnitsky Act. In fact, a number of colleagues and I recently sent a letter to President Biden urging that the administration impose Magnitsky Act sanctions on every Russian official and associate involved in Vladimir's false arrest and unjust detention.

That Vladimir continues to return to Russia after multiple poisonings, arrests, and other tribulations is a testament to his profound courage and dedication to his fellow citizens. He feels that he cannot, in good conscience, call on Russians to risk their freedom and lives to resist the evils and complacency of Putin's Russia if he is comfortably out of harm's way himself.

Two weeks before his arrest, Vladimir testified at a Helsinki Commission hearing on propaganda and censorship in Russia, where he warned that speaking out against the war in Ukraine is now grounds for prosecution in Russia, yet he refused to be silent.

Though now deprived of his physical freedom and in grave danger, Vladimir's spirit is unbroken; he is unafraid; and he continues to believe that Russia will one day become a democratic, European state. He sees the Ukraine war as the last desperate gasp of Putinism, the beginning of the end.

In our many meetings over the years, Vladimir has always reminded us of the need to remember prisoners of conscience and speak their names. As Vladimir now ranks among these hundreds in Russia, and even more throughout the rest of the world, we will remember him. I call upon my colleagues to do the same; there is hope and power in not being forgotten.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter to President Biden that I referred to a moment ago be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I rise to express the urgent need to pass the Women's Health Protection Act and put an end to the constant attacks that have chipped away at women's constitutional rights in this country. Now more than ever, it is vital to codify reproductive rights and protect other hard-won civil rights as they face renewed threats.

Last week, POLITICO published Supreme Court Associate Justice Alito's

draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, which, while not final, would strike down Roe v. Wade. This would have an immediate and devastating consequence for the health and well-being of tens of millions of women of reproductive age across the Nation. Women in low- income families who could not overcome the financial and logical barriers to travel to States with abortion access will suffer the most, increasing existing health disparities.

While this draft opinion is a reminder of what is at stake, we have seen the erosion of reproductive rights for decades. Despite the clear constitutional rights the Supreme Court established almost 50 years ago in the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, each year, legislatures across the country have passed harmful abortion restrictions in an effort to impede a woman's fundamental right to make the best informed healthcare decisions for herself and her family. This goes against what I believe to be one of the fundamental responsibilities of the Court, which is to expand rights, not restrict them.

Implementing the Bill of Rights, we have seen the Federal courts over a period of time protect Americans against the abuse of power, including the power exercised by our government. Should this opinion go into effect, this would be the first time in memory that the Court would act to take away the constitutional rights of Americans. It would also be the first time in our country's history when women now would have fewer rights than their mothers.

The reasoning used in this draft decision could also be used to undermine other dearly held civil rights in the future. Justice Alito's leaked draft opinion laid out a roadmap to overturn other landmark decisions that expanded rights, including Obergefell v. Hodges, which affirmed marriage equality.

Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett all testified under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Supreme Court precedents should stand--a bedrock principle of jurisprudence known as stare decisis--but they clearly arrived with an agenda to overturn Roe, and now, they are making that a reality.

Senate Republicans and former President Donald Trump bear responsibility for nominating and confirming Justices far outside of the legal mainstream and damaging our confirmation process and the public's faith in the Supreme Court as an impartial arbiter of our Nation's laws.

Senate Republicans deliberately stole the seat that President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill, and they delayed even having a hearing for 1 year, effectively shrinking the size of the Supreme Court. Senate Republicans then turned around and rushed the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, even though early voting had already begun in the 2020 Presidential elections.

Overturning Roe goes against public opinion. A recent poll of the Washington Post-ABC showed that 70 percent of Americans believe that the Court should uphold Roe and that decisions regarding abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor.

Now more than ever, it is essential for the Senate to pass the Women's Health Protection Act, of which I am proud to be a cosponsor. The legislation would protect the right to abortion free from medically unnecessary restrictions and create a statutory right for providers to provide and patients to receive care. This would codify Roe v. Wade and prevent States from continuing to enact restrictions on reproductive freedoms.

Despite the opinion just being a draft and abortion still being a constitutional right, States are already seizing on the momentum of this draft opinion and moving to limit a woman's constitutional right. Since the leak of this draft opinion, legislatures around the country are rushing to criminalize abortion and outlaw contraception.

Just last week, the Louisiana State Legislature advanced a bill that would classify abortion as homicide. This adds to the over half of our States that have already passed laws to restrict and ban abortion access. There are more than one dozen States with anti-abortion laws set to take effect immediately if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade.

The Republican leader, Mr. McConnell, stated:

If the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative

bodies--not only at the state level but at the federal

level--certainly could legislate in that area.

Thanks to five unelected, activist Justices on the Supreme Court, women are facing the prospect of a Federal, nationwide ban on abortion services. We go back to those days where abortions were performed illegally in back alleys. We can't let that happen in this country.

While many States, including my home State of Maryland, have acted to expand abortion care, we cannot rely on a patchwork of State laws to protect a basic constitutional right. The right to choose is fundamental and a decision that a woman should make in consultation with a doctor or other healthcare provider free of political interference from Federal, State, or local government.

I urge President Biden and the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Justice, and other Federal Agencies to use their power and to act swiftly to safeguard the reproductive rights of Americans.

There is no denying that this is a bleak moment. We know the battle for reproductive rights has been an ongoing struggle with previous setbacks. We saw this just a few months ago following the anti-choice, pro-vigilante law that the Texas Legislature passed which threatens providers with jail time and fines for administering what is still federally and constitutionally protected medical care for women.

We cannot wait any longer. We must do everything in our power to ensure access to reproductive services now. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to pass the Women's Health Protection Act, and we will have a chance to do that starting tomorrow.

Throughout my time in Congress, I have been a steadfast supporter of reproductive rights, and this will not change. Regardless of the outcome of tomorrow's vote or the Supreme Court's final decision, I will continue to do everything within my power to ensure that women can have access to the care they need.

I yield the floor.