Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize and thank Jim Macrae for his extraordinary career of public service and for his contributions to expanding access to primary care for all Americans. As he retires from the Health Resources and Services Administration after decades of dedicated leadership, he leaves behind a legacy that has made our healthcare system stronger.

Throughout his career, Jim has been a tireless champion for community health centers and the millions of patients who rely on them for high- quality, affordable primary care. As Associate Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration's Bureau of Primary Health Care, he oversaw a huge expansion of community health centers, leading and strengthening one of our Nation's most successful healthcare programs and ensuring that community health centers can continue providing high-quality care in underserved communities across this country.

Primary care is the backbone of our healthcare system. Community health centers make up a major portion of that backbone. While we have made great progress towards ensuring all people have access to the primary care they need, there is much more to be done.

Community health centers provide affordable, quality primary medical, dental, and mental health care as well as access to low-cost prescription drugs to over 32 million people. In Vermont, nearly one out of every three people receive their primary healthcare through a community healthcenter across over 90 sites--something that I and my fellow Vermonters are very proud of. I thank Jim for his support of Vermont's work to build a vibrant network of community health centers across our State.

Over my years in the Senate and as chair and ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, I have worked hard to expand community health centers. Jim has been an effective partner in these efforts throughout the years. As Jim begins this well-earned retirement, I extend my deepest gratitude for his dedication to improving our healthcare system and the health of millions of Americans. We owe him our thanks and respect.

Mr. President, I would like to recognize the accomplishments and service of Becky Pringle as she concludes her final term as the president of the Nation's largest labor union, the National Education Association, NEA. Throughout her tenure, Becky's passion and purpose has united 3 million educators and their allies across the country to use their collective power to fight for the respect and dignity our educators deserve and to protect the promise of public education for all students.

Becky has worked with the national union for more than 30 years. She first joined the NEA in 1981 as an eighth grade science teacher from Philadelphia and began her leadership journey as a local union president. She then served on the board of directors for NEA and the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

During her tenure as NEA president, she helped focus the Nation's attention on how the pandemic impacted our students, schools, teachers, education support professionals, and school leaders. Becky's determination also strengthened the labor movement and expanded worker power, fighting to grow NEA membership at a time when workers and public sector unions are under attack. She has been recognized for her leadership by the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, National Action Network, American Association of University Women, and President Barack Obama's Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans.

Becky understands that public education is the backbone of American democracy, where all people come together to learn and grow. Thank you, President Pringle, for your tireless dedication to our Nation's teachers, students, and school leaders across the country.

Mr. President, a couple of years ago, as you may recall, there was a movie--a film--that came out called ``Don't Look Up,'' starring Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio. The film was about a large comet heading to Earth that would destroy the entire planet, and the astronomers who discovered the comet kept trying to gain the attention of people and explain to them what was happening and the need for immediate and bold action to save the planet.

In that movie, they failed, and the planet was destroyed. That was a movie.

Now, let me tell you about something that is not a movie, not fiction but reality. I fear that we are living through the same scenario that existed in the movie. People, especially their elected representatives, are not paying attention, and the results could be catastrophic.

This time, we are not talking about a fictional comet. What we are talking about is artificial intelligence which will almost certainly be the most transformational technology in the history of humanity. It will profoundly impact the life of every man, woman, and child in our country. The scale, scope, and speed of this transformation will be unprecedented.

Nearly every day, there is a news story about how AI is already transforming the world--from our economy to its impact on our kids, to our privacy rights, to our political institutions, to the existential threat that it poses to the entire world.

Let us take a deep breath. When we think about AI, the first question that we have to ask ourselves is a pretty simple one: Who is pushing this revolutionary transformation of society? Who is going to benefit from it? And who is going to get hurt by it?

And the answers to those questions are not complicated. At a time in American history when we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had before, the AI revolution is being pushed by the very wealthiest people in our country, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, and Larry Ellison.

And why are these multibillionaires investing many hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars into AI and robotics? Is it because they want to improve human life? Is it because they want to address the economic struggles facing the 60 percent of our people who are living paycheck to paycheck--Americans who are struggling to pay for groceries, healthcare, housing, and education? Is it because they want to make sure that all Americans have access to healthcare as a human right and that we successfully address the crises we face in housing, education, and so many other areas?

Is that why these multibillionaires are pushing this revolution? Maybe, but I doubt it. I think the answer is quite obvious, and everybody in America knows it. These multibillionaires are investing in AI and robotics because they want to become even wealthier and even more powerful than they are today. That is what is motivating these investments.

I think it is enormously important that we take a hard look at what an uncontrolled AI push by the wealthiest people in our country will mean to ordinary Americans.

Over the past year, I have spoken with workers and union leaders, computer scientists, psychologists, religious leaders, environmentalists, and privacy experts about AI and robotics. And while each of these people may be focusing on a different aspect of the overall situation, they all agree that the unregulated race to develop more and more powerful AI represents a profound threat to humanity.

This is exactly what the average American today is telling us. Recently, a poll came out from the publication Heatmap which expresses an enormous change in sentiment with regard to data centers. Whereas, a year ago, Americans were evenly split on whether they supported building a data center near where they live, there is now a 50-point gap, with 71 percent of Americans opposed to building a data center near where they live.

And it is not just data centers. When pollsters ask how people feel about AI, there is enormous and growing apprehension. A recent Quinnipiac poll found 55 percent of Americans think AI will do more harm than good, and only 5 percent think AI development is being led by people and organizations that represent their interests.

Let me give you some of the reasons--just some--as to why the overwhelming majority of Americans are deeply concerned about the rapid development of AI and robotics. The American people feel, with 70 percent numbers in a recent poll, that AI will lead to fewer jobs, and they are quite right about their concerns.

Elon Musk, who has invested hundreds and billions in AI and robotics, recently said that ``AI and robots will replace all jobs.''

Bill Gates, who has also made huge investments in these technologies, predicted that humans ``won't be needed for most things.''

Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, said most white-collar work ``will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.''

And it is not just white-collar jobs that we are talking about. Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Jeff Bezos is seeking to raise $100 billion to purchase factories all over America. His goal? Replace the millions of workers who are employed in these plants with robots.

Recently, I took a trip in a self-driving Waymo car in San Francisco. There was nobody behind the wheel. Waymo is already operating self- driving cars in 10 major cities and, along with other driverless car companies, intends to expand rapidly.

What does that mean? Well, say goodbye to taxicab drivers, Uber drivers, truckdrivers, and busdrivers all across the country--those jobs, gone.

As the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, I released a well-researched report finding that AI automation and robotics could replace nearly 100 million American jobs over the next decade, including 40 percent of truckdrivers, 64 percent of accountants, and 89 percent of fast-food workers, among many other occupations.

These are not just theoretical concerns. We are already starting to see the impact of AI and robotics on workers. Amazon and Oracle have laid off 30,000 workers each. Microsoft has laid off 20,000 workers. Meta has laid off 18,000--et cetera, et cetera.

Researchers have found that new companies using AI have about 25 percent fewer employees than comparable companies. In other words, the AI revolution is already making it harder for people to find decent- paying jobs, and we are only in the beginning stage of this revolution.

Let me be clear. The AI oligarchs do not want to just replace specific jobs. They want to replace workers. That is the goal.

According to OpenAI's charter, its mission is to build ``highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.''

If OpenAI is successful in building ``highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically value work,'' I have a very simple question: What happens to those workers who are replaced? How will they be able to find new jobs if there are no jobs to find?

If AI and robotics eliminate millions of jobs and create massive unemployment, how will people survive if they have no income?

If people are not employed and if they are not paying taxes, what happens to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other essential government services funded by these taxes?

But it is not just employment that I am worried about and that the American people are worried about. AI and robotics threaten our emotional well-being, who we are as human beings, how we relate to each other. In many cases, work is one of the ways that we connect to each other. Whether we are doctors or taxicab drivers, we all want to serve our community, and we want to be productive members of society. That gives our lives purpose.

And what happens when millions of people lose their jobs, their meaning, and their purpose, and their source of connection to each other?

And work is just one aspect of what we are talking about.

What happens when people live through their screens? Their major form of social interaction is not with other people but with screens and artificial intelligence, talking to chatbots, instead of other people.

Further, AI and robotics are threatening the very well-being of our kids. Let us be frank: Even before the widespread deployment of AI, children in our country are struggling. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the evidence is clear. They are struggling.

Today, high school kids have the lowest reading scores in 30 years. The writing skills of our children are in decline, as are their cognitive capabilities. College professors tell us their students cannot do middle school math or read long texts.

That is where we are now. What got us here? Where are we going in the future?

Experts increasingly point to the role of screens and technology. In America today--this is really--I keep questioning my staff about this, but they tell me that this is accurate. In America today, about 40 percent of children have a tablet by age 2. Forty percent of children have a tablet by age 2. The typical 5-year-old spends over 3\1/2\ hours per day on screens. Nearly all schools now provide devices in classrooms.

What is going on here?

Let us be clear: The extraordinary amount of time our young people spend on screens and the impact that that time on screens is having on them, all of this is not an accident.

We have testimony from employees at the major Big Tech companies-- like Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram--that the algorithms they developed were designed to addict kids to screens--addict kids to screens.

A senior researcher at Meta, for example, called Instagram ``a drug.'' In other words, the Big Tech oligarchs are addicting our kids to screens so that they can make more and more money. They are sacrificing the health and well-being of our children for their increased wealth. And now, Big Tech companies are pushing AI and robots to replace teachers in our classrooms.

Apparently, it is not good enough for them to addict our kids to screens, now they want to push AI and robots to replace teachers in classrooms.

Do we, as a nation, really want AI robots teaching our kids? Does anyone have any evidence whatsoever that this new technology will help our kids learn better?

And it is not just the intellectual abilities of our kids that we should worry about; AI is also impacting their mental health. It is no great secret that millions of our children are struggling emotionally, and loneliness and depression are on the rise. There are many kids in America today whose best friends are not other children they know but AI bots.

What does it mean for young people to form friendships with AI and become increasingly isolated from other human beings? Does anyone in America think the past 20 years of social media have been good for children's mental health and cognitive capabilities?

Does anyone really think we should now entrust these same companies with even more power over our children's well-being and development? But it is not only our kids' health; it is not only the economy. AI is threatening the very concept of privacy rights.

You know, we hear on the floor of the Senate, time and time again: We are a free country; we are a free people. Well, let me give you the bad news. We are not quite as free as people think we are. For decades, companies have been collecting our personal information, what we search for online, where we visit, who we talk to, what we buy.

Now AI-powered surveillance companies like Palantir make it possible for someone to quickly analyze all that information, find patterns, and create profiles of us.

And by the way, it is not just the economy; it is not just our mental health; it is not just what is happening to our kids. AI is threatening our democracy. We are back to the film ``Don't Look Up.'' Well, maybe we should look at what is going on on the internet right now--right now--this minute.

The rise of deepfakes, convincing fake images, videos and audio, make it possible for bad actors to distort what elected officials and candidates are saying. And I suspect this is personal for many Members of the Senate who have had experience with this issue.

And let me tell you, if you don't think this will ever happen to you, you are very mistaken.

In a recent Republican congressional primary in Kentucky, a super PAC opposing Thomas Massie released an ad with deepfakes depicting him in a romantic relationship with female Members of Congress. It was a lie, but there were voters in Kentucky who believed that.

Bottom line, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to differentiate truth from fiction. How can people make informed political decisions if that occurs?

As we speak, all over this country, people are rising up against data centers in their own communities. They don't want to pay higher electric rates. They are worried about the impact of water. They are worried about the impact of noise and heat.

And we are seeing people, whether they are Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, Progressives saying no to these data centers.

I hope very much we don't do what people did in that movie ``Don't Look Up.'' I hope while this massive revolution is taking place, which is going to transform our lives, I hope that we look up. I hope that people in Congress have the guts to say that the future of humanity should not be determined by a handful of the wealthiest people on Earth. Maybe in a democratic society,

the people should determine where we want to go.

And I know that AI is spending tens of millions of dollars on campaign contributions, and if you speak up against them, hey, they are going to put millions of dollars of 30-second ads against you.

But maybe just now in this moment in American history we have the guts to tell AI where they should go, stand up for our kids, stand up for democracy, stand up for privacy, stand up for workers, and utilize AI and robotics to benefit all of us, not just to make a handful of billionaires even richer.

Mr. President, in the United States today, 42 million Americans are drowning in $1.7 trillion in student debt--42 million Americans, $1.7 trillion in student debt. Further, a recordbreaking 9 million Americans are now in default on their student loans.

Instead of providing financial relief to these Americans, the Trump administration is about to make a bad situation even worse.

As we all know, President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill--to my mind the worst piece of legislation passed in modern history--made the largest cut to education in the history of the United States in order to pay for the largest tax breaks for billionaires in American history. Not only did we throw 15 million people off the healthcare they had; we devastated Federal funding for education.

If Congress allows these education cuts to take effect, beginning on July 1, just 6 days from now, 7 million Americans will be thrown off of their low-cost student loan repayment plan, known as the SAVE plan and into a much more expensive plan.

What does that mean in real terms? It means that the average college graduate will be forced to pay $4,000 more each year on their student loan payments, about $244 a month.

At a time when tens of millions of Americans--working-class Americans--are struggling to pay for the outrageous cost of housing, groceries, prescription drugs, healthcare, and other basic necessities, the last thing in the

world we should be doing is driving up the cost of student loans by $4,000 for the average student loan borrower in America.

It has been estimated that if these cuts go into effect, one out of every four student loan borrowers will be in default by the end of this summer.

So what does it mean to be in default? It means that workers could have their wages garnished to pay back their student loans. They can't pay their student loans because they are not earning enough money, and then they get their wages garnished and it will be an even worse situation.

It means that seniors who took out student loans for themselves--and I know many people don't appreciate it. They are thinking about student loans, and they are thinking about young people. Well, guess what. There are grandparents who are still paying off their student loans. And it means that these people or their family members could have their Social Security checks garnished.

Imagine going to college, paying off a student debt for 30 or 40 years, and you can't continue to do it; and they are going to take your Social Security payment. In my view, that is unconscionable. We cannot allow that to happen.

And that is why I am very proud to cosponsor S.J. Res. 196, which we will be voting on this evening. And I want to thank Senator Merkley for his outstanding work on this issue. This resolution would ensure that millions of Americans are not forced to pay thousands of dollars more each year on their student loans.

Two weeks ago, I held a roundtable with four student loan borrowers from across the country who shared their stories about the struggles they are having with their student loan debt.

I spoke with a gentleman named Jordan, from my own State of Vermont, who is a veteran and a father of two young boys. He was told that his student loan payment will increase to $1,300 per month after July 1. And other Members who talked with me had very similar stories.

Geraldine, who is 71 years of age, has student loan debt from when she went to college in the 1980s, and decades later, she is still struggling with student loan debt. Geraldine is retired and on a fixed income, and she was told her payments will be over $500 a month after July 1.

And on and on it goes.

If Congress does not pass this resolution today, working-class people all across this country will be priced out of necessary graduate training in programs like nursing, medicine, dentistry, and social work because of new restrictive arbitrary loan limits. What this means is that working-class students will either be unable to get the education they need or they will be forced to take out loans from predatory lenders that charge interest rates as high as 26 percent.

Now, at a time when we desperately need nurses and other healthcare professionals, how insane is it to force students to pay interest rates as high as 26 percent in order to do the important work we desperately need?

At a time when we have a shortage of nurses, doctors, and dentists in this country, it has been estimated that 21 percent of nursing students, more than half of medical students, and three-quarters of dental students will be priced out of a degree altogether.

In my own State of Vermont, 40 percent of students pursuing graduate education will exceed the new loan limits and will be forced to resort to private loans to make up the difference. In the richest country in the history of the world, no one should be saddled with a lifetime of debt for the crime of getting an education.

No American should enter retirement with the burden of student loan debt or be pushed into default because they can't afford their payments.

So let us prevent student loan payments from going up by an average of $4,000 for 7 million Americans. Let us prevent working-class students from being priced out of pursuing degrees in nursing, medicine, and dentistry.

I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this resolution.

Mr. President, I want to say a few words about what I consider to be one of the most important issues not only facing our country but facing the world, and that is the advent of artificial intelligence, which most experts agree will almost certainly be the most transformational technology in the history of humanity. It will profoundly impact the lives of every man, woman, and child in our country.

Before I go further, I find it rather odd that, whereas everybody agrees that artificial intelligence is going to have a huge impact on our society, as of today, there has not been one significant piece of legislation passed in Congress to address the impacts of AI.

Why is that? Why is it that when all of the experts say AI is going to impact the economy, it is going to impact privacy, it is an existential threat to humanity, not one piece of legislation.

And the answer is, we have a corrupt campaign finance system, and the AI industry, like a number of other industries, is prepared to spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars against any Member of Congress that says: Do you know what? Maybe we should protect our kids. Maybe we should protect our workers of AI.

So, as of today, despite all over the country people expressing very real and deep concerns about AI, not one significant piece of legislation has been passed.

Leading experts in the AI industry tell us that AI will radically change our economy and, quite possibly, result in the disappearance of tens of millions of jobs over the next decade.

Psychologists tell us that the mental health challenges facing our young people are unprecedented and are resulting in increased isolation as kids experience AI. If left unchecked, our children's ``best friends'' may not be other kids but AI bots.

Civil libertarians worry that AI will be able to analyze every email that we send, every text, every phone call, every website visit, every purchase that we make, every visit to a doctor's office or a hospital; and that, as a result of all of that, absorbing all of that information, our privacy rights may very well become eviscerated.

Political scientists worry that AI could threaten the integrity of our elections and political institutions, where, as a result of so- called deepfakes, voters will find it increasingly difficult to tell the difference between truth and fiction.

We are already seeing it. We are already seeing words being put into individuals' mouths that they never said, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell truth from fiction.

Military experts worry that AI will transform the nature of warfare, making it easier for government leaders to go to war, kill whole lots of people, with less political consequence because they are replacing human soldiers and military personnel with robots and drones.

Further, Nobel Prize winners like Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, who is considered to be one of the godfathers of the creation of AI, as well as many other experts, worry that, as AI becomes smarter than humans, it could eventually function independently of human control, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

As everybody knows, the AI industry is dominated by a handful of huge corporations owned by some of the very wealthiest people on Earth. As we speak, multibillionaires--including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, and others--have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the development and implementation of AI. Further, through their super PACS, as I mentioned a moment ago, they are spending huge amounts of money to defeat candidates who dare to suggest that AI should be seriously regulated.

Make no mistake about it. The question is not whether AI will change the world. It will. The question is, Who will own and control and determine the future? Who will benefit from AI, and who will be hurt by AI? Will AI be used to improve the quality of life for working families? Will it help us eliminate poverty and extend our life expectancy? Will it give us more time to spend with friends and family? Or will the future of humanity be determined by a handful of the wealthiest people on Earth, who are only concerned about more wealth and more power for themselves? That is the question before us.

Let us be clear. AI was not created out of thin air. It was not a brilliant idea that just popped into Mark Zuckerberg's head or Elon Musk's imagination. The foundation of AI is our collective intelligence.

Let me repeat that: The foundation of AI is based on our collective human intelligence--our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images, and ideas spanning generations. It is our tweets, our Facebook posts, our TikTok videos, our Reddit comments. It is everything that human beings produce and that is absorbed into the digital world.

And that is not just the opinion of Bernie Sanders. According to Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, AI models were trained on our ``collective experience, knowledge,'' and ``learnings of humanity.''

The reality is that Big Tech oligarchs have fed all of this knowledge, based on tens of millions of hours of labor, into their AI models without permission--without permission--without acknowledgment, and without compensation. In other words, the creative work of many millions of people--writers, artists, musicians, journalists, teachers, scientists, and ordinary citizens--has been stolen by the wealthiest people on Earth.

The time has come for us to take back what was stolen from us. As a society, we can no longer sit back and allow a handful of Big Tech oligarchs

to determine the future of this revolutionary technology with no democratic input--with no input from the people of our country.

Since the foundation of AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the American people must be able to control the future of this technology, not just the wealthiest people on Earth. Further, the wealth that is generated by AI must be used to benefit ordinary Americans, not just Mr. Musk or Mr. Bezos, Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Ellison, and the other Big Tech billionaires; not just the venture capitalists in Silicon Valley or the vulture funds on Wall Street, who see AI as the next great wealth-extracting machine.

And that is why I have introduced two very important pieces of legislation dealing with AI.

The first bill I introduced with Representative Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez and would impose a moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers.

This moratorium would remain in effect until: One, strong national safeguards are in place to ensure that AI is safe and effective. That means the government reviews and approves AI products before they are released.

Two, the economic gains of AI and robotics must benefit workers, not just the wealthy owners of Big Tech.

And, three, AI data centers must not increase electricity costs or utility prices, harm communities, or destroy the environment.

When Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and I first introduced that legislation, 3 months ago, the response from many in the establishment was: This is radical. This is crazy. What are you doing?

Well, guess what. According to a recent poll from Data for Progress, 63 percent of the American people now support a national moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers for at least 1 year, including 67 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of Independents, and 58 percent of Republicans.

If you want bipartisanship, take a look at the support we are getting for a moratorium on the construction of new data centers.

And according to Gallup, 71 percent of the American people oppose the construction of new AI data centers in their local communities.

To date, as it happens, more than 50 cities, towns, and local communities have enacted a moratorium on new data centers. The legislatures in two States, Maine and New York, have also passed moratoriums. And at least 75 data center projects, worth $130 billion, were successfully blocked or delayed across the country during the first quarter of this year alone.

In other words, a moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers is not such a radical idea. It is, in fact, what is supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people.

A moratorium will give us time--time to understand the risks, time to protect working families, time to defend our democracy, and time to ensure that this technology works for everybody, not just the billionaire owners.

One important step we can take to make AI work for all of us is through the creation of a sovereign wealth fund, and that is why, just last week, I introduced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act.

This legislation would give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies in America. It would allow the American people, through their government, to own 50 percent of the stock of the major AI companies in our country.

And, if passed, this legislation would do three very important things. First, it would give the American people a direct role in determining the future of this technology. No longer would the future of AI and the transformation of human life that it will bring be dictated by fewer than a dozen Big Tech oligarchs.

Under this bill, an independent commission would have the power, through its voting shares--and that is 50 percent of the voting shares on every major AI company. So the public would have the ability to block decisions that hurt ordinary people and to push for policies that help them.

This independent commission would consist of seven members nominated by the Congress, selected by the President, and confirmed by the Senate.

Second, it would require large companies that operate both AI and non-AI businesses to break up those businesses, ensuring the public receives an ownership stake in the AI business.

Third, this bill would guarantee that the economic benefits generated by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us, not simply to make the very richest people in the world even richer.

The sovereign wealth fund that would be created under this legislation would be worth an estimated $7 trillion. What would we do with it? What would we do with the $7 trillion?

Well, we would require this fund to pay an annual dividend of 5 percent directly to the American people. Eventually, if these AI companies continue to grow as rapidly as some analysts expect, the wealth that this bill generates could be used to not only provide direct payment to every man, woman, and child in the country, but it could be used to ensure that every person has a decent and dignified standard of living, including the right to healthcare, education, housing, and a healthy and habitable environment.

And let me be very clear, if the value of these companies goes down, as some have suggested, the companies would bear the losses, not the Federal Government. Under no circumstances would these companies receive a bailout from U.S. taxpayers.

The idea of a sovereign wealth fund is not an original idea. In fact, over 100 sovereign wealth funds exist all over the world.

Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, was funded from the country's abundance in oil and is now worth more than $2 trillion. Instead of a few oil executives pocketing all the benefits of this national resource, Norway made the decision that the wealth created from it should be used to improve life for all of its people.

This concept also exists right here in the United States. Fifty years ago, Alaska--the State of Alaska--created a sovereign wealth fund from the State's oil revenues, and for decades it has paid dividends directly to Alaskans. In 2022, that check was over $3,000 per person, and it has gone up and down since.

The principle behind this legislation is simple: When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share in that wealth. In this case, artificial intelligence is being built on a public resource far more valuable than oil: the accumulated knowledge, creativity, and labor of humanity throughout human history.

The bottom line: The future of AI and the fate of humanity must not be decided behind closed doors by a handful of Big Tech CEOs who are the wealthiest people on Earth. It must not be dictated by billionaires seeking to maximize their power and profit.

It must be decided by workers, parents, teachers, artists, scientists, communities, and the American people. It is our future. We must decide it.

Now, I understand that the opposition to this concept is going to be very, very strong from the AI industry, but I think the time is long overdue for Members of the Senate, Members of the Congress to begin standing with the American people and not just with the billionaires and their super PACs.

This is an enormously consequential issue. Let's stand with the American people. Let's do it.

Mr. President, could we have some order in the Chamber, please.

I call up my amendment No. 5451 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, the American campaign finance system is not only broken, it is corrupt.

It allows billionaires to undermine our democracy and buy elections through their super PACs, and the American people want that to change.

Why are we the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all? Why do we have an economy in which the top 1 percent gets richer and richer while 60 percent of our people live paycheck to paycheck? Why do we have a tax system in which billionaires are often paying an effective tax rate lower than truckdrivers or nurses?

And I think we all know the answer. When Members of Congress stand up for working families and take on oligarchs, they will face millions and millions of dollars of ugly 30-second ads from billionaire-funded super PACs, from the AI industry, from crypto, from AIPAC, from the military industrial complex, and from other special interests.

Let's get billionaire-funded super PACs out of our elections.

Let's support democracy and pass this amendment.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act and all budget resolution disciplines that apply, I move to waive all points of order for purposes of the pending measure.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Vote on Motion

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, artificial intelligence will almost certainly be the most transformational technology in the history of the world. It will profoundly impact the lives of every man, woman, and child in our country and, in fact, throughout the world. It will bring and it is already bringing unimaginable changes to our economy, to our democracy and political system, to our emotional well-being, to the health of our children, to our environment, and to how we educate and raise our kids.

Further, there is a very real fear that as AI becomes smarter than humans, it could eventually function independent of human control with potentially catastrophic consequences. That is not me; that is what Nobel Prize scientists and experts are saying.

The question, then, is not whether AI will change the world. It will. The question is: Who will own and control the future? Who will benefit from AI, and who will be hurt by it? Will AI be used to make life better for working families? Will it enrich our quality of life? Will it help us eliminate poverty, extend life expectancies, and help us solve the climate crisis? Or will the future of humanity be determined by a handful of some of the wealthiest people on the planet who have promoted and developed AI, with no democratic input, in order for them to become even richer and more powerful than they are today? That is the choice before us.

Let us be clear. AI was not created out of thin air. It was not a brilliant idea that just popped into Mark Zuckerberg's head or Elon Musk's imagination. The foundation of AI is our collective human intelligence. Let me repeat that. The foundation of AI is based on our collective human intelligence: our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images, and ideas spanning generations. It is our tweets, our Facebook posts, our TikTok videos, our Reddit comments. It is everything that human beings produce and that is absorbed into the digital world. That is not just my opinion. According to Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, AI models were trained on our ``collective experience, knowledge'' and ``learnings of humanity.'' That is Mr. Altman, the head of OpenAI.

The reality is that Big Tech oligarchs have fed this knowledge into their AI models without permission, without acknowledgement, and without compensation. In other words, the creative work of many millions of people--writers, artists, musicians, journalists, teachers, scientists, and ordinary people--has been stolen--has been stolen--by the wealthiest people in the world.

The time has come for us to reclaim what was stolen from us. Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity--not just Elon Musk, not just Jeff Bezos, not just Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Ellison and the other multibillionaires who have invested hundreds of billions into the development and implementation of AI, not the venture capitalists in Silicon Valley or the vulture funds on Wall Street who see AI as the next great wealth-extracting machine.

That is why in the coming weeks, I will be introducing the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. This legislation would give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies in our country. How would it do that? Through a one-time, 50-percent tax not on the profits of the largest AI companies in the United States but something that is far more valuable than that: the stock.

If passed, this legislation would do two critical things:

First, it would give the American people a direct role in determining the future of this technology. No longer would the future of AI and the transformation of human life that it will bring be dictated by a handful of Big Tech oligarchs. These people do not have the right to determine the future of humanity. Under this bill, the Federal Government would have the power, through its voting shares and an equal representation on each company's board, to block decisions that hurt the public and to push for policies that help them.

Secondly, this legislation would guarantee that the trillions of dollars potentially created by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us, not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer. Further, if these AI companies continue to grow as dramatically as many analysts expect, then the value of the sovereign wealth fund created under this bill would grow as well, and the benefits to the American people would grow along with it.

Let us be clear. This is not an original idea. In fact, it is an idea that has been endorsed by some of the leading AI companies in America. For example, OpenAI recently proposed creating a ``Public Wealth Fund that provides every citizen--including those not invested in financial markets--with a stake in AI-driven economic growth.'' Anthropic also proposed the creation of ``national sovereign wealth funds with stakes in A.I.'' Elon Musk, the owner of xAI, went further and said that ``Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI.''

Let us not forget, over 100 sovereign wealth funds exist all over the world. Again, this is not a new idea. Norway's sovereign wealth fund-- the largest in the world--was funded from the country's abundance in oil and is now worth more than $2 trillion. Instead of a few oil executives pocketing all the benefits of that natural resource, Norway made the decision that the wealth created from it should be used to improve life for all of their people.

This concept also exists right here in the United States. Fifty years ago, Alaska created a sovereign wealth fund from the State's oil revenues, and for decades, it has paid dividends directly to Alaskans. In 2022, that check was over $3,000 per person. In 2023, it was $1,300 per person. In 2024, it was $1,700. Last year, it was $1,000. This is a direct check coming from a sovereign fund in Alaska to the people of that State. Even President Trump, in an Executive order, has proposed establishing a U.S. sovereign wealth fund.

The billions, if not trillions, of dollars generated by this legislation would provide direct payments to the American people. Further, as the fund generates more and more wealth, the proceeds would be used to ensure that every man, woman, and child in our country has a decent and dignified standard of living, including healthcare, education, and housing.

The principle behind this legislation is simple: When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share in that wealth. In this case, artificial intelligence is being built on a public resource far more valuable than oil: the accumulated knowledge, creativity, and labor of humanity throughout history. That is what AI is all about.

Bottom line: The future of AI and the fate of humanity must not be decided behind closed doors in Silicon Valley by the wealthiest people in the world. It must not be dictated by billionaires seeking to maximize their power and their profit. It must be decided by workers, parents, teachers, artists, scientists, communities, and the American people.

It is our future. We must decide it. Let's get it done.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment 5159 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, I ask for order. Could we have order?

Mr. President, the American people pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. As a result, one out of four Americans cannot afford the prescriptions that their doctors write, and thousands die every year as a result, and many become sicker than they should.

During his State of the Union Address, President Trump asked us to codify a most-favored-nation drug policy to ensure that the American people pay no more for prescription drugs than people in other countries.

Well, the amendment that I am offering now calls on Congress to do exactly that. This amendment is very simple. It would prevent pharmaceutical companies from charging more for prescription drugs in the United States than they do in Canada, the UK, Germany, France, and Japan.

Researchers at Yale University estimate that this bill would cut the cost of prescription drugs in America by half--a 50-percent reduction-- so we are not paying the highest prices in the world.

Let's stand with the American people, not with the pharmaceutical industry.

Please vote yes.

Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the point of order, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Vote on Motion

Mr. President, pursuant to section 36(b)(1) of the Arms Export Control Act, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 32.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 36(b)(1), I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 138.

Mr. President, let me begin by thanking Senator Kelly not only for his remarks and his work as a U.S. Senator but for his service to our country in the military, and I very much appreciate his support for these resolutions.

Mr. President, 60 percent of our people here in the United States live paycheck to paycheck. They are struggling to pay for groceries, for housing, for healthcare, and, increasingly, the ability to fill up their gas tanks in their cars in order to get to work.

We also have a $37 trillion national debt. Bottom line: The American people--whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, conservatives, moderates, or progressives--want to make certain that their tax dollars are spent responsibly.

And in strong and growing numbers, they do not want us to continue spending billions of their taxpayer dollars in support of the illegal, horrific, and expansionist war policies of the Netanyahu Government in Israel.

Since October 7, 2023, the United States has provided over $21 billion--$21 billion--in military aid to Israel. And today, we are saying loudly and clearly: Enough is enough.

We all know that on October 7, 2023, Hamas, a terrorist organization, attacked Israel. They killed more than 1,200 innocent men, women, and children and took hundreds of hostages. I believe that there is no disagreement in this Chamber that like any other country on Earth, Israel had the absolute right to respond to that barbaric Hamas attack.

But Israel did not have the right to violate international law and wage an all-out war of unspeakable destruction against the entire Palestinian people in what experts have correctly concluded is a genocide.

Israel did not have the right out of a population of 2.2 million to kill more than 72,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wound over 170,000. That is more than 10 percent of the population.

If that happened here in America, that would be over 30 million Americans dead or wounded. And in Gaza, a strong majority of the dead and wounded are women, children, and the elderly.

By the way, that number is likely an underestimate as to the tragedy as bodies are literally being pulled out of the rubble every single day.

Israel did not have the right to destroy virtually all of Gaza's infrastructure, including its water and sewer systems and its supply of electricity. They did not have the right to demolish every one of Gaza's 12 universities, along with hundreds of schools, dismantling their entire educational system. A vast majority of the children in Gaza today are not in school.

Israel did not have the right to indiscriminately bomb civilian neighborhoods and damage or destroy over 90 percent of the housing units in Gaza--over 90 percent damaged or destroyed--resulting in the vast majority of the population there now sleeping in tents.

That is where they are today.

Israel did not have the right to bomb over 90 percent of the hospitals in Gaza--hospitals--and kill 1,700 healthcare workers.

And Israel did not have the right to impose a blockade which prevented food, water, and medicine from entering Gaza, resulting in thousands of Palestinians being diagnosed with malnutrition and hundreds actually starving to death.

But, today, we are not just talking about Gaza. In the West Bank, in direct violation of international law that protects Palestinian territory, Israeli soldiers and settlers, since 2023, have killed over a thousand Palestinians, including 233 children. During that period, they have demolished more than 6,000 Palestinian homes and established more than 200 new illegal settlements and outposts in Palestinian territory.

And let us be clear, because I think there is some confusion about this. These actions are not just the results of some extremist, out-of- control settlers who are just doing whatever they want. Those actions are consistent with Israeli Government policy.

Netanyahu's Security Cabinet has approved the most sweeping changes to the West Bank's legal status since 1967, removing nearly all constraints on settlement expansion. Netanyahu himself declared:

There will never be a Palestinian state.

And I say that to some people here who still say: Well, we are in favor of a two-state solution.

That is not Mr. Netanyahu's position. He said:

``There will never be a Palestinian state.''

His Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, bragged that new settlement construction in the West Bank would ``bury''--that is his word-- ``bury'' the idea of a Palestinian state.

But it is not just Gaza and the West Bank. We now know that Netanyahu convinced President Trump to start an unprovoked and unconstitutional war on Iran.

For 40 years--for 40 years--Netanyahu had wanted the United States to participate with Israel in a war against Iran, and, finally, after 40 years of effort, he finally found in Trump a President willing to go along.

He couldn't get Democratic Presidents in the past and couldn't get Republicans in the past. In Trump, he finally found a President willing to go along.

This war, in violation of international law, has resulted already in the deaths of thousands of civilians, including hundreds of children in Iran and Lebanon, including 26 Israeli civilians who are now dead and 13 American soldiers who have lost their lives so far in this conflict.

All over the world, certainly including the United States, hundreds of millions of innocent people are suffering the economic consequences of this war, with higher prices and growing scarcity of basic goods.

I believe that in Vermont, now, the price of regular gas is about $4 a gallon, and in parts of the country, it is even higher than that.

But for Netanyahu, Gaza was not enough. Attacking Iran was not enough. Netanyahu is now waging a full-blown war of expansion against Lebanon. That war in Lebanon has not only killed more than 2,000 people but has resulted in Israel occupying 14 percent of Lebanese territory.

Let me repeat that. The war in Lebanon has not only killed more than 2,000 people but has resulted in Israel occupying 14 percent of Lebanese territory.

The Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, has announced that all Lebanese border villages will be demolished--will be demolished--his exact words, following ``the model in Gaza''--demolish border villages.

Bezalel Smotrich, the Finance Minister, has warned that Dahieh, a suburb of South Beirut, will look like Khan Yunis, a city in Gaza that Israel reduced to rubble.

In other words, what they did in Gaza is now what they intend to do in parts of Lebanon. And these are not threats. They are promises.

For all of the reasons that I have given and more--and you are going to hear more from some of my colleagues, in a few moments--support for Israel in this country has plummeted. Today, according to a recent Pew poll, 80 percent of Democrats now have an unfavorable opinion of Israel, and 41 percent of Republicans share that view.

And the numbers in all parties, among young people, are even higher. Young people, whether they are young Democrats, progressives, or conservatives, do not want us to continue to fund the horrific war policies of Netanyahu.

A recent Quinnipiac poll also found that 60 percent--including three- quarters of Democrats, two-thirds of Independents, and 37 percent of Republicans--I say that to my Republican

colleagues: 37 percent of Republicans do not want the U.S. sending more military aid to Israel.

And that is why I am offering, today, two joint resolutions of disapproval, the only formal mechanism Congress has to block an arms sale.

The first resolution would block the sale of $151 million in 1,000- pound bombs. The second would block $295 million in bulldozers, the machines used to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza and make a Palestinian state physically impossible.

The time is long overdue for Members of the U.S. Senate to start listening to the American people and not to AIPAC. The time is now for us to end all U.S. military aid to the extremist Netanyahu government, and a ``yes'' vote is an important way forward.

Mr. President, with that, I yield to my colleague from Maryland, Senator Chris Van Hollen.

Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Oregon Mr. Merkley.

Mr. President, let me thank Senator Van Hollen, Senator Merkley, Senator Markey, Senator Kaine, and, before that, Senator Kelly for their remarks.

The American people increasingly are sick and tired of spending billions of dollars in support of illegal, horrific military actions on the part of the Netanyahu government. We have spent tens of billions of dollars already. Gaza has been destroyed--10 percent of the population dead or wounded. Netanyahu got Trump into a war in Iran. Thousands of civilians are now dead, including many children, and now Netanyahu is at war in Lebanon--thousands of civilians dead, civilian neighborhoods bombed, a million people displaced from their homes, and 14

percent of Lebanese territory occupied by Israel.

What the American people are saying is: Enough is enough.

By the way, this is bipartisan. It is not just Democrats, and it is not just Independents. It is a significant number of Republicans who remember President Trump talking about ``America First'' and talking about the need to invest in this country, not in bombs and bulldozers to destroy people in the Middle East.

With that, I would hope that we would have a very strong vote in support of these resolutions to tell Netanyahu and to tell the world that enough is enough.

I yield the floor.

This is totally sincere. I think you are a good man. I really do.

I am probably not supposed to say that.

Mr. President, we are at the beginning of the most profound technological revolution in world history, a revolution which will bring unimaginable changes to every aspect of our society.

Artificial intelligence and robotics will impact our economy, our political lives, our privacy, our emotional well-being, our environment, and even our survival--the survival of humanity on this planet.

The scale, scope, and speed of this change will be unprecedented. That is not the view of Bernie Sanders. That is the view of some of the most knowledgeable people in the world who have developed AI, who study

Mr. President, at a time when our country faces unprecedented crises, the U.S. Senate has spent an entire week debating a problem that essentially does not exist.

The goal of the SAVE Act, which is on the floor right now, is to make certain that noncitizens do not vote in American elections. I don't know that anyone disagrees with that. The good news is that noncitizens do not vote in American elections. Study after study has shown that the number of undocumented immigrants voting in American elections is virtually nonexistent. We are debating a problem that does not exist.

The conservative Heritage Foundation found that over a recent 24-year period--24 years--there have been a grand total of 77 confirmed instances of undocumented immigrants voting in the United States--24 years with 77 undocumented immigrants voting. Hundreds of millions of people voted in a 24-year period, and there were 77 instances of noncitizens voting. That is according to the conservative Heritage Foundation.

What about individual States that have looked at this issue? What have they found?

Well, the State of Utah found that, of the State's 2.1 million registered voters, in 2025 and in 2026, a grand total--all right, here we go--a grand total of 1 noncitizen registered to vote in that State, and that individual never cast a ballot--2.1 million registered voters in Utah and 1 noncitizen registered to vote.

In 2024, Idaho reviewed its 1 million registered voters and found 36 possible noncitizens registered to vote.

In 2024, Georgia--the State of Georgia--audited its 8.2 million registered voters and found 20 noncitizens registered to vote.

Overall, not only are there a tiny number of people undocumented who are registered to vote, but most of those citizens have never even voted. They just registered to vote for whatever reason and were properly removed from the voter rolls.

Let us be clear: Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting in Federal elections, and no State--not one of our 50 States-- allows noncitizens to vote in State elections; but if this legislation were to be passed, it would create a whole lot more problems than it would solve.

Under this bill, every American would be required to have a passport or a birth certificate in order to register to vote. Now, what is wrong with that? Well, as many as 69 million married women have last names that do not match their birth certificates and would need to provide additional documentation proving their name changes in order to register to vote. Further, an estimated 4 million Americans have had their birth certificates or other necessary documents stolen or destroyed.

If you are watching this out there, just think: Do you have a birth certificate? How are you going to get a birth certificate? How many weeks or months will it take? How much does it cost? You will have to go through all of the bureaucracy to get your birth certificate.

Even worse, do you have a passport? Well, half of Americans--146 million people--don't have a valid passport. Those who would need a passport to vote under this bill would have to spend $130 to renew a passport or $165 for a new one. By the way, you are going to have to wait up to 6 weeks to get it.

So make no mistake about it, this legislation is nothing more than a modern-day poll tax that would deprive millions of low-income and working-class Americans from being able to vote.

So what is this bill really about? Well, the good news is President Trump has told us what it is about. Trump has said that, if this legislation were signed into law, Republicans would ``never lose a race . . . For 50 years, we won't lose a race.''

Well, my understanding of election reform would be to make sure that the United States makes it possible for more people to participate in the political process and makes sure that we have one of the highest levels of voter participation rather than one of the lower rates of voter turnout in the

world. In other words, we want to strengthen our democracy, not throw millions of people off the voting rolls so, to quote President Trump, Republicans would never lose a race.

Instead of spending a week on a nonexistent problem, maybe it is time we started to focus on some of the enormous crises facing our country, and let me just take a moment to mention a few.

Trump Administration

Mr. President, never before in American history have so few individuals had so much wealth and so much power. During the Gilded Age in this country, with Rockefeller and Carnegie, you had a handful of people who had enormous wealth and enormous power--nothing--nothing-- compared to what exists today. Today, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of this country.

Do you think that might be an issue that we should be talking about? Do you think we might be suggesting that there is something wrong when the top 1 percent in America now owns more wealth than the bottom 93 percent? Do you think we might be talking about making some changes in an economic system in which 60 percent of our people today are living paycheck to paycheck and families are struggling to feed their kids? to pay for healthcare? to pay for rent? to pay for childcare? to pay for the basic necessities of life?

There are 60 percent of our people who are living paycheck to paycheck, and one guy--Elon Musk--owns more wealth than the bottom 53 percent of American households. Do you think maybe that might be an issue that we should be talking about?

But one of the reasons we don't talk about that issue and many other vital issues that impact working families is the reality that Congress today is much more concerned about protecting the needs of its campaign contributors--the billionaires who are putting an unprecedented amount of money into the political process--rather than representing the needs of working families throughout America. It is no great secret. As a result of this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, the billionaires in this country--Democrats but more Republicans--are putting huge amounts of money into the political process, and Congress is quickly becoming a corporately owned entity.

Maybe we might want to talk about how we get rid of Big Money in politics and create a democracy in which every person has one vote, not where billionaires can spend unlimited amounts of money to elect candidates who represent their interests.

I should tell you that one way I believe that we begin to tackle the massive level of income and wealth inequality that exists is by imposing a wealth tax on the 938 billionaires in America who are worth some $8.2 trillion. Legislation that I have proposed--the wealth tax on billionaires--would not impact anybody in America who is not a billionaire, but over a 10-year period, this legislation would raise $4.4 trillion strictly from the people on top--the one-tenth of 1 percent minuscule number of people who are doing unbelievably well.

And what would we use that $4.4 trillion for? Well, let me just briefly tell you.

For a start, in the first year, at a time when working-class families are struggling to put food on the table and pay their rent, this legislation would provide every man, woman, and child in the country in a household making $150,000 or less a $3,000 direct payment, $12,000 for a family of four.

So at a time when the billionaires have never had it so good, when many of them are paying virtually nothing in taxes, we are going to demand that they start paying their fair share so that working-class, low-income families can get some help--$3,000 for every man, woman, and child in families of less than $150,000.

This legislation would end homelessness in America and address the affordable housing crisis by building 7 million units of low-income and affordable homes and apartments. Twenty million households in America should not be forced to spend half of their limited incomes on housing. We should not have 800,000 people sleeping out on the streets. Instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires, we should be building low-income and affordable housing.

This bill would expand Medicare. In Vermont and all over this country, you have got elderly people who can't afford dental care, can't afford hearing aids, can't afford vision care. This legislation would expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing.

In the last poll that I saw on that, only 90 percent of the American people supported it. Maybe, we may want to pass it.

This legislation would provide universal childcare in America and make sure that no one in our country pays more than 7 percent of their limited income on childcare.

At a time when school districts in Vermont and around the country are having a hard time attracting good teachers because the pay scale is much too low, we would make sure that no teacher in America earns less than $60,000 a year.

This legislation would also make sure that seniors and people with disabilities receive the home healthcare they need through Medicaid.

And, by the way, this legislation would prevent 15 million Americans from losing healthcare by repealing Trump's $1.1 trillion cut to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

And we do all of that just by asking the very wealthiest people in this country, the fewer than 1,000 billionaires, to pay 5 percent of their wealth in taxes.

And you know, after that, I know people--editorial writers--all over America are very worried about what happens to poor Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos and Mr. Zuckerberg. The good news is they will still have enough money with their hundreds of billions of dollars left to feed their families. I don't want anybody to think that the Musk family or the Bezos family will go hungry. We leave them with hundreds of billions of dollars.

Mr. President, since 2010, I have sponsored a State of the Union essay contest for Vermont high school students. This contest gives students in my State the opportunity to articulate what issues they would prioritize if they were President of the United States.

This is the contest's 16th year, and I would like to congratulate the 418 students who participated. It is truly heartening to see so many young people engaged in finding solutions for the problems that face our country. To my mind, this is what democracy is all about.

A volunteer panel of Vermont educators reviewed the essays and chose Saralynn Anderson as this year's winner. Saralynn, a junior at Essex High School, proposed legislation to improve mental health care for adolescents. Max Clegg, a junior at Mount Mansfield Union High School, was the second place winner. Max wrote about corporate concentration of economic power. Ada Allen, a sophomore at Craftsbury Academy, was the third place winner, with an essay on the importance of afterschool programs.

I am very proud to enter into the Congressional Record the essays submitted by Saralynn, Max, and Ada:

Winner, Saralynn Anderson, Essex High School, Junior

Mental health affects how people think, act, and feel every

day, yet millions of Americans, especially adolescents, are

unable to access the care they need. In classrooms across the

United States, students struggle silently with anxiety,

depression, and overwhelming pressure, often long before

adults

notice. While mental health care is just as essential as

physical health care, it remains underfunded and inaccessible

for many young people.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 23.1%

of adults in the United States experience some form of mental

illness, yet only 50.6% received treatment. This means nearly

half of those affected are left without care. Barriers such

as high costs, lack of insurance coverage, and shortages of

mental health professionals prevent individuals from getting

help, worsening long-term outcomes and quality of life. These

same barriers affect adolescents even more severely, as young

people are dependent on adults, schools, or insurance plans

to access care.

This problem is even more alarming among adolescents.

Mental Health America reports that nearly three million

adolescents experience frequent thoughts of suicide. Along

with this, over seven million adolescents did not receive a

preventive health visit. Without early intervention, mental

health challenges can negatively affect academic performance,

relationships, and future stability. Data from the National

Institute of Health show that the primary reasons adolescents

do not receive care include a lack of awareness, social

stigma, and financial barriers; problems that can and should

be addressed through policy.

To confront this issue, I propose the BRIDGE Act: Building

Resilience, Intervention, Development, and Guidance for Every

Youth Act. This legislation would provide federal funding to

schools to expand mental health resources. Schools could hire

mental health professionals and offer free counseling, as

well as create safe spaces where students can seek help

without fear. The act would also support a required mental

health education course, equipping students with tools to

recognize symptoms, seek help, and challenge harmful

stereotypes surrounding mental illness. While some may argue

that expanding mental health services in schools would be too

expensive, intervening early can significantly reduce long-

term healthcare expenses, as well as prevent academic

failure, making this investment both practical and

financially responsible.

Improving adolescent mental health must start where

students spend much of their time: in schools. Regular mental

health check-ins, increased counselor availability, and

preventative education can address problems early rather than

waiting for crises to occur. By investing in youth mental

health now, we can improve long-term outcomes, lower future

healthcare costs, and foster a healthier generation.

Mental health care is a right, not a privilege. By

prioritizing access for adolescents today, the United States

can create a future where both adolescents and adults are

supported, resilient, and able to thrive.

Second Place, Max Clegg, Mount Mansfield Union High School, Junior

Currently in the United States, three asset management

companies wield unprecedented and dangerous economic power

that endangers the democratic and fair state that are bedrock

principles to America. Together, Blackrock, Vanguard, and

Statestreet manage over $22 trillion of assets within global

corporations. Such substantial power over our free market

threatens the economy as we know it, and takes away the voice

of the people of America that this country was built on.

What makes this mass concentration of power matter is the

large control over corporate decisions. An article from Dr.

Reeves Knyght reveals that, ``The Big Three,'' are the

largest shareholders within 88% of S&P 500 companies, with

the other two firms being consistently among the other top

shareholders. This gives them an unprecedented 25% total

ownership of the voting shares within corporate America. They

also have large voting control globally. Within the markets

of the U.K., Australia, and Japan, they control over 10%.

This is a major issue. They are quietly being allowed to sway

the decisions of companies that directly affect every single

person's lives.

Another significant concern inherent in this issue is that

the largest owners of Blackrock are Statestreet and Vanguard,

and vice versa. This means that three small boards are

allowed to silently sway the decision of the everyday

companies that we rely on for personal gain. They get to

decide environmental policies, economic choices, and the

labor conditions of the most influential companies in the

world. Lucian Bebchuk and Scott Hirst, analysts from the

Boston University Law Review estimates that within two

decades, these three companies could control over 40% of the

shareholder votes within the S&P 500. This subsequently means

that our lives, our decisions, and how the world operates

around us, will be controlled by a small concentration of

people that we have never heard of, or voted for. That is

unquestionably not the ideals that this country was built on.

These ideals are not an example of freedom.

We must act. To protect fair competition, and pure American

Democracy, we have to make change. I insist that we must

increase transparency within these companies, and reform the

ways that corporations act. Congress must further strengthen

the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which gives authority to

the SEC to regulate proxy solicitations and require

disclosure of voting practices. They also must enact the

Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which bans monopolistic

behavior and must be further enforced against these

anticompetitive concentrations of shareholder voting power.

The economy should not be silently run by opaque governing

boards, that the general public has no ability to see. If

these three companies are allowed to gain further power, they

could be bordering on full monopolized control over every

decision we make. To me, that sounds like the dictatorship

and oligarchies of Russia and North Korea. We must further

increase the power of laws against this ``oligopoly'' to

ensure the democratic and economic safety and freedom that

this country was built upon.

Third Place, Ada Allen, Craftsbury Academy, Sophomore

In a time when America faces political polarization,

economic instability, national security threats, as well as

social and environmental issues, our citizens are feeling

vast pessimism. The nation's future is uncertain, but that

doesn't mean it is negative. If we start investing in today's

youth, we will foster the future of America.

A meaningful education is the most integral step in

students progressing into capable adults. Our youth are

detached from their education, as they feel it is irrelevant

to them. Standardized test scores provide one snapshot of an

educational system failing its youth. According to a 2024

study from the Nation's Report Card on mathematics, 45% of

high school seniors received scores below basic, and 33% were

at the basic level. For reading, 32% of students were below

basic, and 33% were at the basic level. Another disturbing

trend is rising truancy rates, with many students not

attending class. Additionally, in one 2024 National Education

Association survey, it was cited that ``74 percent of members

said students are acting out and misbehaving,'' another

telling sign that students need stronger educational support.

A key missing piece of the American education system is

after-school programs. While some programming is available in

U.S. schools, the quality and overall abundance is lacking,

leaving students adrift. According to a 2024 survey from the

Afterschool Alliance, only 37% of public schools offering any

afterschool programming reported that they can accommodate

all students who want to participate because of a lack of

funding and staff; further, only 28% of schools reported

offering any academic enrichment after-school programs.

Rather than enriching their school day with meaningful

opportunities, students are left isolated.

While these bleak facts may seem insurmountable, schools,

communities, and students can work together to create a

different world--and I believe our shared American future

depends on it. I propose that our government invest in a

transformational change, the American Student Community Corps

(ASCC). Similar to our investment in the Civilian

Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s, this investment in

America's youth and communities would help foster students'

intellectual and social growth, while uplifting and building

communities.

ASCC would be a nationwide afterschool program available to

all students in grades kindergarten through twelfth, serving

as a community-centered educational resource. Students would

participate in various activities tailored to their age

level. Children in grades kindergarten to fifth would focus

on building relationships with their community and peers that

help to connect them to their education. Children in grades

sixth through twelfth would take part in internships of their

chosen focus with support from ASCC, becoming active in their

community through place-based work and learning. ASCC is a

solution for not only students' well-being and intellectual

expansion, but also a community capacity-building

organization. In a time when we are focused on battling the

here and now, choose the future, because there will be a time

when the youth of today lead the America of tomorrow, and

this matters for all of us.

Mr. President, since 2010, I have sponsored a State of the Union essay contest for Vermont high school students. This contest gives students in my State the opportunity to articulate what issues they would prioritize if they were President of the United States.

This is the contest's 16th year, and I would like to congratulate the six volunteer judges who helped choose the contest winners and finalists. The contest relies on its committed team of judges. The judges take time to review each essay and evaluate the diversity in writing that engages students and will benefit them for years to come. The judges' willingness to participate in this project reflects their dedication to both the students and our State, and for that, I graciously thank them.

The judges include:

Andrew Chobanian of Oxbow High School, participant for 4

years

Jason Gorczyk of Milton High School, participant for 13

years

Krystal Melendez of North Country Union High School,

participant for 2 years

Terri Vest of Twinfield Union School & Vermont Virtual

Learning Collaborative, participant for 16 years

Robert Walls-Thumma of North Country Union High School,

participant for 2 years

Caroline Zeilenga of Randolph Technical and Career Center,

participant for 2 years

I am very proud to enter the State of the Union Essay Contest judges into the Congressional Record to recognize their contributions.

Mr. President, I ask to have printed in the Record some of the finalists' essays written by Vermont High School students as part of the 16th annual State of the Union Essay contest conducted by my office.

The material follows: