Floor Statements

Madam President, I support the nomination of Charlotte Burrows to be a Member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, EEOC. Charlotte Burrows has been a member of the EEOC since 2015. She was first confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 93-2. When she was renominated in 2019, the Senate confirmed her by voice vote. I look forward to her being confirmed a third time.

Charlotte Burrows is dedicated to ensuring that the EEOC plays a critical role in addressing systemic discrimination and advancing equal opportunity. Her priorities include advancing pay equity, preventing unlawful retaliation and harassment, addressing the use of artificial intelligence and other tech tools in employment decisions, and protecting vulnerable workers, including people with disabilities, older workers, temporary workers, and low-wage workers.

During her tenure as Chair, Ms. Burrows has helped rebuild the EEOC and its capacity to enforce Federal antidiscrimination laws--restoring staffing levels to meet the public demand for agency services. Under Ms. Burrows' leadership, the EEOC has secured more than $500 million in monetary relief for some 38,000 victims of employment discrimination, and the EEOC has filed over 140 employment discrimination lawsuits in fiscal year 2023, a 50-percent increase over fiscal year 2022.

Chair Burrows is committed to ensuring that workers are aware of their rights and employers are aware of their responsibilities. To help accomplish this goal, in fiscal year 2022, EEOC conducted over 3,300 outreach and training events and provided more than 225,000 people nationwide with information about their rights and responsibilities in the workplace. In order to reach more vulnerable workers, the EEOC conducted 1,000 outreach events for vulnerable workers that reached nearly 80,000 individuals. Often, these events were in partnership with local organizations that know these vulnerable and underserved communities the best.

During her time as Chair, she has overseen the implementation of the Pregnant Worker's Fairness Act, including advancing a bipartisan proposed rule to implement this important and much-needed law. She has also advanced a much-needed proposal to update harassment guidance and issued technical assistance on practices to prevent harassment in the Federal workplace. She has updated EEOC resources related to individuals with visual disabilities and employment protections for Americans with disabilities.

Further, she launched the Artificial Intelligence and Algorithmic Fairness Initiative in 2021 to ensure that these systems are used in ways that reflect values of fairness and equality. The main goal of the Chair's initiative is to assist applicants, workers, employers, and vendors to understand how Federal equal employment opportunity laws apply to these new technologies. Under her leadership, the EEOC is working to address potentially harmful uses of this technology in the workforce.

Chair Burrows' dedication to improving the lives of working families and making sure they receive the wages and benefits they deserve make her the right person to lead this agency. I thank her for her service, and I strongly support her nomination to continue as Chair of the EEOC.

Mr. President, the American people understand--whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents--that our healthcare system is broken; it is dysfunctional; it is failing.

We spend almost twice as much per person on healthcare--an unsustainable $13,000 for every man, woman, and child--than any other country on Earth, and yet the results of all of that spending are abysmal. While the insurance companies and the drug companies make hundreds of billions of dollars in profit, we have 85 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured and over 60,000 people who die every single year because they can't get to a doctor when they need to.

In this country, despite our huge expenditures, we don't have enough doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, or mental health specialists; and our life expectancy is far lower than in most other countries, especially for working class and lower income Americans. In my view-- and I think it is the view of

most Americans--healthcare is a human right, not a privilege, and we need major reforms to our current system so that every man, woman, and child in this country gets the quality healthcare they need regardless of their financial status.

The responsibility for reforming our broken healthcare system rests with the administration, and it rests with many Agencies of government, including the HHS; the CMS; the FDA; and the National Institutes of Health, the NIH, which plays a very important role in the development of new prescription drugs.

While the 10 largest drug companies made over $112 billion in profits last year and while they pay their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages, 1 out of 4 Americans cannot afford to pay for the medicine they need, and thousands of families face financial ruin as they pay outrageously high prices for the prescription drugs that keep them alive.

Let's think about that for just 1 second. Millions of people in this country, every year, get sick. They go to the doctor, and the doctor writes out a prescription. Yet, because of the exorbitant price of prescription drugs in America, one out of four of those people cannot afford to fill that prescription. So what happens to those people? Well, they get sicker. Maybe they end up in an emergency room. Maybe they end up in a hospital. Maybe they die.

How crazy is it that, in the richest country in the history of the world, 25 percent of our people cannot afford to fill the prescriptions that their doctors prescribe?

But it is not just the high cost of prescription drugs that impacts individuals. In the largest hospital in my State, the State of Vermont--and I don't think it is terribly different elsewhere--the high cost of prescription drugs accounts for 20 percent of the overall budget of that hospital, and that drives insurance policies up. What we pay in the hospital impacts greatly the prices we pay for insurance.

In other words, the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs in America is a crisis situation that must be addressed. It impacts everybody.

Adding insult to injury, not only has the Federal Government not effectively regulated the price of prescription drugs, but the taxpayers of this country have, over the years, provided hundreds of billions of dollars in research and development into new prescription drugs that have provided enormous financial benefits to some of the most profitable drug companies in America.

For example, in America today, the median cost of new cancer drugs has gone up by more than 300 percent over the past decade even though 85 percent of the initial foundational cancer research is funded by U.S. taxpayers.

In June, the HELP Committee, which I chair, released a report that found that the average price of new treatments that NIH scientists helped to develop over the past 20 years is over $111,000.

In other words, we are spending a fortune in developing new drugs, but our people cannot afford the treatments that they pay for.

In virtually every case, American taxpayers are paying far more than people in other countries for the exact same medicine that the NIH helped to develop. Now, that may make sense to somebody, but it does not make sense to me.

Here are just a few examples from the report:

Astellas and Pfizer charge Americans with prostate cancer over $165,000 for Xtandi while the exact same drug can be purchased in Japan for just $20,000. Guess who developed that drug: American taxpayers.

Johnson & Johnson charges Americans with HIV $56,000 for Symtuza while the exact same treatment can be purchased in the UK for just $10,000. Guess who developed that treatment: American taxpayers.

Millennium Pharmaceuticals charges Americans with cancer $54,000 for Velcade while the exact same drug can be purchased in France for just $11,000. Guess who did the research and paid for that drug: the NIH and American taxpayers.

In other words, here is the insane situation: The American taxpayers fund the research for these drugs, but they can't afford the product that they helped create. Does anybody really think that makes sense? If American taxpayers help develop a drug, we should be paying the lowest price in the world for that product, not the highest. That has got to change. No prescription drug, no matter how effective and lifesaving it may be, is worth anything to the patient who cannot afford it.

In my view, at this crisis moment for American healthcare, we need an NIH Director who is prepared to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and use every tool at their disposal to substantially lower the extraordinarily high cost of medicine in this country.

The 1,800 well-paid lobbyists from the pharmaceutical industry here in DC--it is almost 4 lobbyists for every Member of Congress--may not like it, but that is precisely what the American people want, and it is what they need. The status quo is not working. We need fundamental changes in the way that the NIH addresses the crisis of high prescription drug costs.

Dr. Monica Bertagnolli is an intelligent and caring person, but she has not convinced me that she is prepared to take on the greed and power of the drug companies and the healthcare industry in general nor is she prepared, in my view, to fight for the transformative changes the NIH needs at this critical moment. That is why I will be voting no on her confirmation.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. President, the situation in Gaza today is a disaster. Congress must take action. The administration must take action. The world must take action.

Today, 3 weeks after Hamas's barbaric attack against civilians in Israel, which began this war, many hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza are on the brink. Over the past 3 weeks, it is estimated that some 8,000 people in Gaza have been killed in bombings, including more than 3,000 children, and far more have been wounded.

More than a million people in Gaza have been displaced from their homes, and some 670,000 are sheltering in U.N. installations, where they are down to 1 liter of water per person per day. They lack sufficient food, water, medical supplies, or fuel. The hospitals and medical facilities there are in nightmarish conditions, with hundreds of

babies in incubators and patients on life support at risk of death should the generators that sustain them run out of fuel. Corridors are lined with injured and displaced people, and overwhelmed doctors must turn patients away or operate without anesthesia or antibiotics.

The humanitarian crisis is dire and getting worse by the minute. There must be a humanitarian pause now so that sufficient supplies-- food, water, medicine, fuel--can reach the people of Gaza. If not, thousands more will die needlessly. We cannot allow that to happen. A stop to the bombing is critical to save innocent lives and secure the safe return of hostages.

Let us never forget the lives of all children--all people--are sacred, whether they are Palestinian children, Israeli children, or American children, and we must do everything we can to protect them. But if we are going to make any real progress in addressing this never- ending conflict between Israel and Hamas--there have been five wars in the last 15 years--we need to understand somewhat as to how we got to where we are today. If peace is to come to that troubled region and if the Palestinian people are ever going to be able to enjoy lives of security and dignity, there must be a vision of where we go in the future.

So, let us be clear, the living conditions in Gaza before October 7 were horrific and inhumane, and that is before Hamas ignited the latest war. Before this conflict, in Gaza, nearly 80 percent of people there lived in poverty, and two-thirds were reliant on humanitarian assistance. Almost half the population and over 70 percent of young people were unemployed in Gaza. What kind of life could they look forward to? Electricity there was intermittent, with 11- to 12-hour blackouts every day. Water and sanitation systems were inadequate, and there were constant shortages of all basic necessities.

Gaza was mostly cut off from the world, with Israel and Egypt severely limiting the number of people and types of goods that could go in or out. In fact, many observers described Gaza as ``an open-air prison''--and all of that is before October 7.

If we are serious about bringing freedom and dignity to the Palestinian people, that is a situation that can never be allowed to be returned to. The Palestinian people are entitled to much more than that.

In Gaza, Hamas, an authoritarian terrorist organization, ruled by force, stockpiling arms and war materiel, taxing the desperately poor population, and stealing resources to build tunnels and rockets. Make no mistake about it, Hamas is a terrorist organization bent on the destruction of Israel, and long before this horrific attack, they had killed countless innocent people, including Americans. They advance a fundamentalist ideology which treats women as inferior, second-class citizens and which threatens to kill people who are gay.

Hamas is an authoritarian nightmare, repressing dissent and stealing from Gazans not just many materials of life but the dream of a better future. And that was the situation before October 7.

And what was going on in Israel before Hamas's terrorist attack? What was going on there? That country had the most rightwing government in its history, a Cabinet that included outright racist Ministers who consistently dehumanized the Palestinian population. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, was under indictment for a litany of corruption charges, and many believe that Israel's intelligence--or lack of intelligence--on October 7 had everything to do with his government's preoccupation with his political problems.

Before the war, this rightwing Israeli Government had systematically undermined the prospects of peace. Netanyahu and his extreme partners in the Cabinet had worked to marginalize Palestinian voices committed to peace, pursued settlement policies designed to foreclose the possibility of a two-state solution, stymied economic development in Palestinian areas, and passed laws that entrenched systemic inequality between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel.

This last year saw record Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank, where more than 700,000 Israelis now live in areas the United Nations and United States agree are occupied territories. Despite that, the Israeli Government authorized thousands of new homes for settlers and opened up new areas to construction, while bulldozing thousands of Palestinian homes and schools and further restricting Palestinian movement.

Legal experts agree, these policies constituted nothing less than illegal annexation. All of these policies and more greatly increased tension in the West Bank. Before October 7, 179 Palestinians had been killed in 2023--179 Palestinians in the West Bank--which made it the deadliest year in two decades. Since October 7, 121 more Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, including some by settlers.

These tensions were part of why so much of the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, was deployed in the West Bank rather than the border with Gaza.

And then came October 7 and Hamas's atrocities that began this latest and horrific war. The Hamas attack was unspeakable. Over 1,300 innocent men, women, and children in Israel were killed; over 200 Israelis and Americans taken hostage, including young children and grandparents. Young people were gunned down in cold blood at a music festival, babies and older people brutally murdered in their homes.

And let's remember that Hamas did not primarily target the military-- no. They intentionally targeted civilians. Their goal was to kill civilians. Their attack was designed to provoke a response, and in that they succeeded.

Many Israelis are now understandably furious, and they want to strike back forcefully. I think we can all understand that. But rage and revenge do not make useful policy. And here in the United States, after the attack on 9/11 in this country, we acted with rage and revenge, and I think many people now understand that that was a horrific mistake.

Killing innocent Palestinian women and children in Gaza will not bring back to life the innocent Israeli women and children who have been killed by Hamas. Like any other country, Israel has the right to defend itself and destroy Hamas terrorism, but it does not have the right to kill thousands of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza.

Israel does not have the right to endanger the lives of millions of Palestinians--half of whom are children--by shutting off water, food, fuel, and electricity. That type of action against a helpless and impoverished population is morally unacceptable and in violation of international law.

Israel does not have the right to bomb an entire neighborhood to target one Hamas leader or installation, but that is what the Israeli Government is doing. One need only look at the satellite imagery and photography of Gaza to see that this is not a carefully calibrated campaign. These are not surgical strikes.

Yesterday, Israel struck the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp and killed a Hamas commander, but they also killed some 50 other people and injured hundreds more, although the exact toll is not yet known. That was actually the fourth airstrike on that community. An October 9 airstrike killed 60, an October 19 airstrike killed 18, and an October 22 airstrike killed 30, according to outside researchers.

UNRWA reported yesterday that their head of security--that is the United Nations Relief Agency--their head of security was killed, along with his wife and eight children. In total, 67 United Nations Relief Agency workers have been killed, and 44 United Nations facilities have been damaged since October 7.

The current Israeli strategy must end. Israel must begin the process of restoring water and electrical services to areas where they are still operable. The international community must also rush generators and solar capacity to Gazan medical facilities to address acute needs and reduce Israeli fears of diversion to Hamas.

Israel will not stop going after Hamas, but it must do it in a very, very different way, and additional pauses will be needed.

Let me conclude by saying that Israel must also begin the process of laying out a political strategy. It cannot bomb its way to a solution. Such a strategy must include as minimum first steps a clear promise that Palestinians displaced in the fighting will

have the absolute right to safely return to their homes; a commitment to broader peace talks to advance a two-state solution in the wake of this war; an abandonment of Israeli efforts to carve up and annex the West Bank; and a commitment to work with the Palestinian Authority to build genuine governing capacity.

The United States must make it clear that these are the conditions of our solidarity. Just as we want justice for the Israelis murdered by Hamas, we also want justice for the Palestinian people, and that is not going to happen with Hamas. Palestinians need a state of their own, contiguous, with the freedom of movement and access that can sustain a vibrant economy.

This will be a long and difficult road. It will take concerted U.S. and international support and a doubling down of our political commitment to a two-state solution. But the first step right now must be to stop the bombing and bring in as much humanitarian aid as possible.

I think Secretary Blinken said it well when he said:

Providing immediate aid and protection for Palestinian

civilians in the conflict is a necessary foundation for

finding partners in Gaza who have a different vision for the

future than Hamas--and who are willing to help make it real.

This is a dreadful situation. It is part of a very, very long-term conflict between Israel and its neighbors. But the immediate crisis is to save lives, to stop the bombing, to bring forth a humanitarian pause, and then to go forward to bring peace and stability to the region.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I wanted to take a few minutes to share my thoughts regarding the horrific situation in Israel and Gaza.

On October 7, Hamas terrorists waged a barbarous attack against Israel, killing over 1,400 innocent men, women, and children. Young people at a music festival were machine-gunned down in cold blood, babies and older people were brutally murdered, and over 200 Israeli and Americans are being held as hostages.

Some people describe the October 7 attack on Israel as equivalent to the 9/11 terrorist attack against the United States. That is wrong. Israel is a small country with under 10 million people. On a per capita basis, the 1,400 Israelis killed by Hamas would be the equivalent of over 40,000 Americans killed if Israel had the same size population as we do--40,000. On 9/11, as everybody recalls, we lost 3,000 people.

Let us be clear. Israel suffered a major attack and has, as do all other countries under similar circumstances, the absolute right to defend itself. But having the right to defend your country against a terrorist attack and a terrorist organization like Hamas does not mean having the right to violate international law and wage indiscriminate warfare against innocent men, women, and children in Gaza.

The people of Israel have gone through a horrific and traumatic shock. It is understandable that they are furious and want to strike back forcefully. Revenge, however, is not a useful policy. Killing innocent Palestinian women and children in Gaza will not bring back to life the innocent Israeli women and children who have been killed. It will only make a terrible situation even worse and more intractable.

Let us be clear. The Palestinian people today are experiencing nothing less than a humanitarian disaster. Thousands are already dead, including many children--perhaps thousands of children--and far more have been wounded. Hundreds of thousands have been forced out of their homes. These people--deeply impoverished before this war began--now lack food, water, fuel, shelter, medicine, and other basic necessities.

Unbelievably, more than 400,000 Palestinians driven from their homes are now sheltering in densely crowded, U.N.-run schools--400,000 people in U.N.-run schools. Dozens of medical facilities have been damaged and made inoperable, and 35 United Nations aid workers have been killed. The aid trickling into Gaza is just a fraction--a small amount--of what is needed. In a few days, hospitals will run out of fuel, and ventilators and incubators will shut off.

This is a desperate, desperate humanitarian crisis.

I echo Secretary Blinken's call for the immediate release of all hostages and for a humanitarian pause by all parties. A pause is essential for the protection of civilians, as required by the laws of war, as well as for the provision of robust supplies of food, water, and medical aid to address the growing humanitarian catastrophe. I know that Senator Merkley and others are working hard to gain support here in the Senate for that position, and I agree with it.

Israel suffered a terrible attack, but the response must be carefully thought through and be carried out in line with international law.

When the United States was attacked on 9/11, we allowed anger and rage to drive our response. This resulted in making grave mistakes in terms of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which cost us thousands of members of the U.S. military and, in fact, the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in those countries.

Israel has a right to defend itself and go after Hamas, but innocent Palestinians also have a right to life, security, and peace.

Please remember that the last election held in Gaza was in 2006, when a majority of people in Gaza today were not yet born or could not vote. Even then, back in 2006, a minority voted for Hamas. Hamas is an authoritarian organization that does not necessarily represent a broad swath of the Palestinian people, and we must not conflate all Palestinians with this terrorist organization.

Further and of much concern to me and, I think, many others, Israel is apparently contemplating an invasion and occupation of Gaza. I have very serious concerns about what this could mean in terms of the long- term security of Israel, the well-being of the Palestinian residents of Gaza--half of whom are children--and the hope that peace, security, and justice will at some point come to that region.

In Congress, we will soon be voting and debating a package which includes billions of dollars to Israel above and beyond the $3.8 billion in military aid the United States sends there every year. The American people have a right to know if that money will be used to defend Israel or whether it will be used for an invasion and occupation.

Israel's proposed invasion will likely bring difficult, street-by- street fighting against entrenched Hamas fighters in a dense urban environment still populated by many civilians. Hamas will continue to use human shields and its extensive tunnel network and will likely resort to insurgent tactics.

As two experts on the subject recently wrote, ``The battle will not end when Israel has reoccupied the territory. There is no Palestinian entity that Israel trusts to govern Gaza in Hamas's stead. As a result, a military victory could mean Israel has to administer the territory for the foreseeable future. Israeli officials, in other words, will have to govern an immiserated people who see them as their enemy and who may wage a guerrilla war.''

I have serious concerns about what this invasion and potential occupation of Gaza will mean, both in terms of the long-term security of Israel and the well-being of the Palestinian residents of Gaza.

In Congress, as we consider a package including billions of dollars for Israel that could fund this invasion and occupation, we clearly need much more information about Israel's long-term plans and goals, as well as the U.S. Government's assessment of those prospects.

These are some--some--of the questions that need to be answered:

How many innocent men, women, and children will be killed or wounded if Israel engages in an invasion and an occupation?

How many Israeli soldiers will be killed or wounded in an operation of that kind?

How will many hundreds of thousands of civilians receive the food, water, fuel, and medical care they need in the midst of what could be extremely heavy urban warfare in a very densely populated area?

How long will it take to establish military control of Gaza, and what level of insurgent activity is anticipated from that point? In other words,

controlling Gaza is not the end of that process.

How will the success of the operation be measured?

Are there alternative approaches to a ground invasion that would be effective in ensuring Israel's long-term security?

What will this operation mean for the hostages still being held in Gaza?

What political force will administer Gaza after an Israeli operation?

Will the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been driven from their homes--they have been pushed out of their homes now, no place to go--will they be guaranteed safe return to their homes?

Importantly, what impact will the invasion and occupation of Gaza have on the international community's support for Israel? How will the whole world feel about a powerful nation occupying a very impoverished part of the world?

How will the international community address the ongoing needs in Gaza and the rest of Palestine when the shooting and bombs stop?

What political process will follow this conflict, and what is the desired end-state in Gaza?

These are some of the questions that have to be asked. As Congress considers the administration's emergency funding request, we need answers to these questions.

This is, tragically, the fifth conflict between Israel and Hamas in 15 years--fifth war in 15 years. Clearly, a terrorist organization like Hamas cannot be the answer to the very serious problems facing the people of Gaza.

Just a few months ago, thousands of people defied Hamas's authoritarian rule to protest on the streets of Gaza. They stood up, with great courage, against Hamas's authoritarian rule. Their voices are silenced now, but there can be no long-term solution to this ongoing crisis without a serious effort to address Palestinian demands for peace, legitimate political representation, and a vibrant economy.

I would just mention one fact, and that is, before this war, some 75 percent of the young people were unemployed. So you have, aside from everything else, an economic disaster in Gaza.

In my view, the United States must take a leading role in charting out a future that respects the lives of Palestinians and Israelis alike. We can start by answering the questions laid out above, and I very much look forward to receiving from the administration a briefing, in a classified setting, if necessary, in order for Members of Congress to understand what an occupation and invasion will look like.

We are living in a horrifically difficult moment in the Middle East, and I can understand the outrage that many people in Israel feel in terms of the attack that killed 1,400 of their people, but now is the time, in Israel and in the United States, for us to not allow revenge and rage to dictate our policy but to really think this issue through.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

Madam President, I listened carefully to what Senator Scott and others have said about the barbarous acts committed by Hamas against innocent men, women, and children--the mowing down by machine guns of young people who were doing nothing more than attending a dance; the murder of babies. This is a horrific--horrific--act, precipitating a worldwide crisis, and the United States of America--all of us--condemn this act.

In my view, the State of Israel has the absolute right to defend itself against Hamas and terrorism in general--no debate on that. But what I ask my colleagues to also consider is that while we fully appreciate the horrific attack by Hamas against innocent people of Israel, I ask you also to understand that right now there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza who have lost their homes. They have been thrown out of their homes. They have no food. They have no water. They have no fuel. And I remind my colleagues that half of those people are children. Half of the people in Gaza are children. So, yes, we are united in doing everything we can to destroy Hamas and their terrorism, but I implore you, do not take Hamas's inhumanity and brutality and terrorism against children who are 3 or 5 years old.

I ask you to think for a moment. Think about it. I have a State that I represent, the State of Vermont--630,000 people. A million people-- most of them are poor. They had nothing to begin with. Before this whole business, Gaza was one of the most desperately poor places in the world. Youth unemployment was 75 percent, many of their people dependent on the U.N. for basic survival.

So what I am asking people to take a look at is to understand what our country is about, and what our country must not be involved in is making the horrific and miserable situation in Gaza even worse.

Many of the families--and, again, these are people thrown out of their homes. They don't know where they are going. They don't know who will accept them. They don't know if they are ever going back to their homes. And they were poor to begin with. Do we really want to deny those people aid from the U.N. and other agencies to feed the children, to provide water for them? Is that really what we are about?

Of course, it goes without saying that we have to do everything we can to make sure that not one nickel goes to the murderous Hamas organization, but at the same time, we have to stand with the innocent women and children in Palestine who are suffering today and are facing an almost unprecedented modern humanitarian disaster.

So today, in the midst of this crisis, U.S. and U.N. assistance in Gaza is aimed squarely at addressing the basic needs of the Palestinian people, including humanitarian aid and water and health programs. The United States and the United Nations go to great lengths to ensure that aid gets to the people needed and is not diverted, through trusted partners like Catholic Relief Services. The Israeli Government itself recognizes the importance of this U.N. humanitarian aid and has long supported it.

Today, in the midst of this horrific crisis, the United States and the international community are working to secure humanitarian access-- and from media reports I have seen recently, we may be making some progress on that--so that the U.N. can get food and

water and fuel and medicine to the million or more people in Gaza who need essential supplies. That should be our focus. There are people now facing hunger, they are facing incredible desperation, and we cannot-- cannot--turn our backs on them.

If you think this is going to be good for Israel, if you think that the suffering of the Palestinian people long term is good for Israel, I think you are sorely mistaken.

The world is looking at us, and the world understands that what Hamas did was terrible, but they don't want to see our great country turn its back on innocent women and children. That, in my view, is not what this country is about.

This is a tough issue. There have been four wars there in the last 15 years. It ain't going to be solved tomorrow. But while we do our best to support Israel and destroy Hamas, please, let us not turn our backs on the suffering people in Gaza.

This is not what we should be doing, not what Congress should be doing, and therefore I object.

The thing is that hundreds of thousands of women and children are living in desperation today. And nobody in the world can guarantee that a bottle of water may not go to somebody connected to Hamas. If you are insistent upon that, what you are really saying is, no money for Gaza.

So, with that, I object.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at the appropriate place the commitment letters for the Animal Drug User Fee Amendments of 2023 and the Animal Generic Drug User Fee Amendments of 2023.

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

Mr. President, let me begin by thanking Senator Marshall of Kansas for his very hard work on the bill that we have introduced today after being on the floor with me this afternoon to briefly discuss it. And I also want to thank his staff and my staff for putting in an enormous amount of time on this bill over the last several months.

Most Americans understand that our healthcare system is broken. We are spending nearly $13,000 a year per capita on healthcare. That is an astronomical sum of money, almost twice as much as most other countries. And yet despite all of that spending, some 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. And there are estimates out there, believe it or not, that some 60,000 Americans die each year because they do not receive the healthcare they need when they need it. And our life expectancy as a nation is actually in decline, despite all of that spending.

Frankly, as broken as our general healthcare system is, our primary healthcare system is in even worse shape. As everyone knows, I don't think there is any debate on this, we face a major shortage of doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, and dentists. And those shortages will only grow as a result of the COVID burnout that many providers experience and the aging of our healthcare workforce.

According to the most recent estimates that I have seen, over the next decade, our country faces a shortage of over 120,000 doctors, including a huge number of primary care physicians. The nursing shortage may be worse. Over the next 2 years alone, it is estimated that we will need more than 200,000 nurses. And despite the very serious mental health crisis we face, we are facing a massive shortage of mental health providers--psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, et cetera.

Now, that is not the point that Bernie Sanders is making or Senator Marshall has made. This is a point of view of virtually every major medical organization in the country.

And on this matter, let me quote from a recent Washington Post op-ed by Elizabeth Rosenthal, a contributing editor at Kaiser Family Foundation Health News. This is what she writes--and I hope our colleagues hear this:

American physicians have been abandoning traditional

primary care practice--internal and family medicine--in large

numbers. Those who remain are working fewer hours. And fewer

medical students are choosing a field that once attracted

some of the best and brightest because of its diagnostic

challenges and the emotional gratification of deep

relationships with patients. The percentage of US doctors in

adult primary care has been declining for years and is now

about 25%--a tipping point beyond which many Americans won't

able to find a family doctor at all.

She writes:

Already, more than 100 million Americans don't have usual

access to a primary care doctor--a number that has nearly

doubled since 2014.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the full article.

Mr. President, now, what this article points out is certainly not news to the people in America. In Vermont and all over this country, our people often have to wait months in order to get an appointment with a doctor; and in some cases, they have to travel very long distances to get the healthcare they need.

And let us be clear: There is no debate upon this. Some people think we don't have to act on it now; let's do it next year, next year, following year. Wrong. The crisis is only going to get worse, and every day we delay it, it becomes even worse.

Now, why is this happening? Well, there are a lot of reasons why. One of the reasons is that it turns out that the United States--despite all of our spending on healthcare--spends about half of what other nations do on primary healthcare. We spend approximately 7 percent; most of the country spends at least twice as much.

And the absurdity of that situation is that everybody knows that ``an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.'' And if there is anything that Senator Marshall and I are talking about, that is exactly what we are talking about. You spend money--we are spending money to save money. Keeping people healthy saves money. In other words, common sense tells us that if we can prevent disease, do a better job keeping our young people healthy, if people can access the medical care when they need it not when they are just very, very sick-- if we can do those things, we can keep them out of the hospital. And hospital costs are just extremely, extremely high.

Common sense also tells us that it is literally insane that millions of Americans with nonemergency healthcare needs get their primary care in a hospital emergency room, which, in some cases, is 10 times more than the care provided them in a community health center.

Let me just give one other example of the irrationalities of our current system. In my own small State of Vermont, last year, our major hospitals spent $125 million in 1 year on traveling nurses because we don't have enough local nurses to support the needs of the hospital and many other facilities in Vermont. Meanwhile, young people want to become nurses. They are applying to nursing school, but the nursing schools don't have the faculty to educate them.

I recently talked to a Senator who told me that, in her State, some 1,100 young people were applying for a space in nursing school; the school could only provide 80 openings.

So we have a nursing crisis. We are not addressing it. Hospitals are spending three, four times as much money on traveling nurses as they are on homegrown nurses because we are not educating our young people at nursing school. This may make sense to somebody; it does not make great sense to me.

The legislation that Senator Marshall and I have introduced today does not solve, by any means, all of the healthcare crises we face. But if this legislation is passed, it will not only save us substantial sums of money, not only provide a medical home for millions more Americans, not only significantly increase the number of doctors and nurses that we desperately need, but it will go a long way toward transforming primary healthcare in America--something that is so long overdue.

With that, I want to turn the floor over to Senator Marshall.

And I would say this, that Senator Marshall has a unique perspective on this. Not only is he a Senator from a rural State, he is also a practicing physician and has interesting insight into the crises in healthcare that many of us don't.

Mr. President, this is an issue I have worked on since I have been in Congress. And one of the results of that--working with others--is that, in my State of Vermont, I think--I think--we are leading the Nation in terms of the number of people per capita who participate in the community health center program.

Senator Marshall, my understanding is that in Vermont, one out of three Vermonters get their primary healthcare or dental care at a community health center. And one of the things that I love about community health centers is that they really are community health centers. In Vermont, they are not just for low-income people, as important as that is. They are for everybody in the community. We used to have a Supreme Court Justice of the United States of America who vacationed in Vermont. Guess where he went? To a community health center.

My understanding is, the Governor of the State of Vermont gets his primary healthcare at a community health center, and that is what I love about them.

And as you well know and as you mentioned, what they do is not only provide primary healthcare, many of them provide dental care, which is a huge issue. Many of them provide mental health counseling, which, as you indicated, we have a major crisis in. And they also provide lower cost prescription drugs.

What they say is that, regardless of your income, if you have Medicare, come on in; if you have Medicaid, come on in; if you have private insurance, fine; if you have no health insurance, we will work on a sliding scale.

By expanding these community health centers all over America, we are going to provide millions of people the opportunity to get the healthcare they need. That is what exists in Vermont right now, and we want to see that expanded all over the country.

Thank you very much for raising the issue of dental crisis in America. I can tell you that in Vermont, we have a crisis. We made progress, but we have a serious problem. The cost of dental care is very, very high. In the southern part of my State, Bennington County, if you are a poor child, you are probably on Medicaid. You probably can't find a dentist.

What we have done in this bill is put $3 billion one time--just one time--into capital improvements for community health centers. That is long overdue because if you want to expand community health centers, they need money for their own expansion and infrastructure.

Building a dental operatory--and that is the dental chairs and the good equipment that dentists need--is a very expensive proposition. So by putting $3 billion into capital improvements, much of which I suspect will be going to those dental operatories, we are going to be able to provide communities all over this country with the ability to access dental care in a way they are not doing it today.

Senator Marshall raised this issue from almost the first time we sat down and seriously discussed it. If we are going to talk about prevention, we have to talk about obesity, among other things, because we are looking at a major--you tell me if I am wrong, Doctor-- we are looking at a major diabetic epidemic in this country that will not only cost massive amounts of suffering, but it is also going to be a very expensive healthcare bill. Certainly, one of many of the contributing factors is obesity. What Senator Marshall has talked about from the very beginning is we have to do a better job in nutrition education. Community health centers are very well-situated to be able to do that.

At Senator Marshall's insistence--and I was delighted to work with him--we have language in here that will make it easier for community health centers to work on nutrition programs in a variety of ways with their clients.

Let me thank Senator Marshall and his staff so much for their hard work and say, as he just said, we think there are other ideas that can improve it. We are open to new ideas. We hope to be marking up and intend to be marking up this bill next Thursday. We look forward to talking to all of the members on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee for doing what is really important.

Senator Marshall started his remarks off by saying, I think, exactly the right thing. We can come here and all give great speeches. We can all talk about how next year, we are going to get to something or, 5 years from now, we will get to something.

Everybody in America--in Vermont, Kansas, and all over this country-- understands we have a primary healthcare crisis. This is the greatest country on Earth. We spend more money on healthcare than any other country. It is not asking too much that when you get sick, you are able to find a doctor, that you are able to find a dentist. It is not asking too much that when you are in a hospital, there are enough nurses there, that our young people who want to become nurses are able to get that education so they go out and get really good jobs. That is not too much. That is all we are doing in this legislation. We are looking at the real world as it exists.

Senator Marshall is a physician and understands that world quite well. We are looking at that world saying: You know what, let's not wait 5 years from now. We have a crisis today. Let's deal with it. I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1030 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, our healthcare system is broken. Eighty- five million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, and we don't even have enough doctors, nurses, or mental health providers. Unbelievably, our life expectancy is actually declining. Our childcare system is dysfunctional. Millions of parents are unable to find affordable sites for their kids.

We have a major housing crisis, 600,000 Americans are homeless, and-- oh, yes--the planet is on fire, and the world we are leaving future generations will be increasingly unhealthy. But somehow we never have enough money to address those crises.

Mr. President, if we have learned anything from the COVID pandemic, where we have lost over 1 million Americans, and climate change, which is causing massive destruction throughout the world, it is that national security is not just about nuclear weapons, submarines, and fighter planes; it is about making sure that all Americans have decent healthcare, education, housing, and other necessities of life.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 30 more seconds.

Year after year, with very little debate, we pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the military-industrial complex. This year, it is about $900 billion. While defense contractors make huge profits, while the Pentagon remains unaudited, with massive waste and fraud, we now spend more than the next 10 nations combined.

Enough is enough. It is time to change our national priorities, and cutting military spending by 10 percent is a good way to begin.

Reserving the right to object

Let me begin by thanking Chairman Wyden for his leadership on the need to fundamentally reform our Nation's organ transplant program. I share his concerns. A 2020 bipartisan Finance Committee investigation that Chairman Wyden co-led with respect to the current system found ``lapses in patient safety, misuse of taxpayer dollars, and tens of thousands of organs going unrecovered or not transplanted . . . resulting in fraud, waste, and abuse of our Nation's Medicare program and American taxpayer dollars.''

That is unacceptable and that has got to change. The legislation Senator Wyden would like to pass in the Senate today by unanimous consent, while not perfect, includes important reforms to the current system that I support. Once it is signed into law, there may need to be some technical changes to it that I look forward to working with Chairman Wyden and my other colleagues on.

All of us believe that the administration should have the flexibility it needs to fix the current system. We also believe that corporations should not be able to make an outrageous profit from the organ network.

As my good friend from Oregon knows, this bill is within the jurisdiction of the HELP Committee, a committee that I chair.

Before I withdraw my objections to the organ transplant bill, I want to raise an issue of enormous importance to the American people, and that is the need to address the very serious primary care crisis in America and the massive shortage of doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, and dentists in America.

As my colleague from Oregon knows very well, tens of millions of Americans are unable to access the primary medical care, dental care, and mental health care that they desperately need.

As everyone in America understands, we don't have enough doctors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, dentists, and home healthcare workers in our country.

As the Senator from Oregon knows very well, on September 30, mandatory funding for Community Health Centers, the National Health Service Corps, and Teaching Health Centers will expire unless Congress acts, and Congress must act.

The HELP Committee is working on bipartisan legislation, not only to reauthorize these critical programs, but to significantly expand them. We need a major expansion of Community Health Centers in America to make sure that tens of millions of underserved Americans not only receive the primary care they need, but are also able to receive the high-quality mental health care and dental care they need as well.

We need a major expansion of the National Health Service Corps Program, the program that provides scholarships and debt forgiveness for doctors, nurses, dentists, and mental health providers who are prepared to work in our Nation's most underserved areas.

We need a major expansion of the Teaching Health Center Program, the Nurse Corps, and the Nurse Faculty Loan Program, among many other things.

Of particular concern is an issue I heard about from every single major medical organization in our country, and that is that over the next decade, our Nation faces a shortage of more than 120,000 doctors, including a major shortage of primary care doctors. I don't know how we can grow the number of doctors in America without expanding the Medicare Graduate Medical Education--GME--Program, a program that is within the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee.

Let's be clear. The problem is not so much about the number of doctors graduating from medical school. No, the problem--the bottleneck--is that some 6,800 applicants for a residency position don't match into a program due to a shortage of spots. As my colleague from Oregon knows, if a doctor graduates from medical school but cannot get a residency slot, that person cannot practice medicine in the United States.

In my view, it is critically important that we expand the GME Program. There is bipartisan legislation that does this: S. 1302. The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2023, led by Senators Menendez, Boozman, Schumer, and Collins, would raise the number of GME positions by 14,000 over the next 7 years. Consistent with legislation that passed the House last Congress, I believe that a significant percentage of these additional slots should be dedicated to primary care and mental health care.

As you know, the Medicare GME Program is within the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee, and the other programs I mentioned are within the jurisdiction of the HELP Committee.

I ask my good friend and colleague from Oregon, will you commit today that as chairman of the Finance Committee, you will do everything within your ability to pass bipartisan legislation in the Senate that includes a major expansion of the Medicare Graduate Medical Education Program?

Sure.

My remarks will be brief.

I just want to thank the chairman, Senator Wyden, of the Finance Committee, for his commitment and for his leadership on these issues. I look forward to working with him to expand access to primary care in America and address the major shortage of healthcare workers in America.

Mr. President, with that commitment, I will not object.

Mr. President, I wish to commemorate the life of Gus Newport, a long-time champion for human rights and advocate for racial and economic justice, who passed away on June 17, 2023.

Gus will be remembered as a true progressive activist, having worked as the mayor of Berkeley, CA, as a member on the leadership committee of the National Council of Elders, the vice president from the U.S. to the World Peace Council serving on the United Nations Committee against Apartheid and the Committee on the Question of

Palestine, as a member of the Unity Reform Commission, and the board president for the Middle East Children's Alliance, among others.

I first met Gus when I was mayor of Burlington, VT, and I am proud to have called him my friend for the past 40 years. In addition to his work, Gus' family was important to him. As he said many times, his mom was his first role model, and the aspiration for his work came from his grandmother. At an early age, Gus immersed himself in local, national, and global politics.

Throughout his life, Gus worked alongside civil rights leaders and political activists including Malcolm X, Angela Davis, and Danny Glover. His accomplishments span from groundbreaking political initiatives and the implementation of critical community economic development programs, to global solidarity.

As mayor, Gus led the city of Berkeley to divest from apartheid South Africa, making them the first city in the U.S. to do so. Additionally, he created a domestic partner benefits program for LGBTQ+ families and childcare initiatives to aid working women. Gus also worked on affordable housing programs, rent control, policing reforms, environmental protections, and community development.

In whatever task he took on, Gus worked with his whole heart and a deep sense of solidarity for humanity. As Gus said, ``We need to come back to what Martin [Luther King Jr.] called Building the Beloved Community-helping communities address education, incarceration, mental and physical health in an integrated and systematic way. If we want a better future for the next generation, we need to build a movement that is strategic and constant!''

I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Gus Newport for his tireless work on behalf of our communities and citizens.

May the memory of Gus Newport be a blessing.

Madam President, the Senate is now debating an $886 billion Defense authorization bill, and unless there are major changes to that bill, I intend to vote against it. Let me take a few minutes to explain why.

I think everybody in our country knows that we face enormous crises.

As a result of climate change, our planet is experiencing unprecedented and rising temperatures. Along with the rest of the world, we need to make major investments to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy. If we do not do that--not only America but China and countries all over the world--the planet we are leaving our kids and future generations will become increasingly unhealthy and precarious. In fact, there are some who wonder whether the planet will continue to exist in years to come unless we move aggressively on this existential threat.

But it is not only climate change. Our healthcare system is broken, and it is dysfunctional--not a secret. Most Americans know that. While the insurance companies and the drug companies make hundreds of billions of dollars in profits, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. Unbelievably, our life expectancy, which is already lower than most major countries, is declining. Today, we have a massive shortage of doctors, nurses, mental health practitioners, and dentists--something that the committee I chair, the HELP Committee, is trying to address. But it is a reality today that our healthcare system is broken and dysfunctional.

Our educational system is teetering.

While we have one of the highest rates of childhood poverty of almost any major country, millions of parents in Vermont, Nevada, and all over this country are unable to find affordable and quality childcare. It is a major, major crisis which is only going to become worse as a result of the cliff that the childcare folks are going to be experiencing in a few months.

But it is not just childcare. When we talk about education, we should appreciate that the number of our young people who graduate from college today is falling further and further behind other countries. In other words, we need to have the best educated country on Earth in order to compete internationally. Yet other countries are seeing a greater percentage of their young people graduating college. One of the reasons is the high cost of college. Many young people do not want to go $50,000 or $100,000 in debt to get a college or graduate school degree. Today, we have 45 million Americans who are struggling under the weight of student debt--something that President Biden, I, and others have been trying to deal with.

But it is not only climate. It is not only healthcare. It is not only education. Today, all over this country, we are seeing a massive crisis in terms of low-income and affordable housing. While gentrification is causing rents to soar in many parts of our country, some 600,000 Americans are homeless. A few blocks away from right here in the Nation's Capital, there are people sleeping out in the streets. And we have some 18 million people who are spending more than half of their limited incomes on housing.

So that is what the country faces. We have a planetary crisis in terms of climate change. Our healthcare system is broken and dysfunctional. Our educational system is teetering. Our housing stock is totally inadequate. These are just some of the crises facing our country.

What is very clear, I think, to the American people and many people here in the Senate and those in the House is that we are not addressing those crises. We don't have any pretense--we are not addressing those crises. When is the last time the Presiding Officer has heard a serious debate here about how we address climate change, how we build up affordable housing, how we reform the healthcare system? It is not taking place. We are not addressing this. So that is one political reality that exists here in the Nation's Capital.

But there is another reality, and that is the reality of the Pentagon and military spending, and that is a whole other story. Every year, with seemingly little regard for the strategic picture facing our country, this body, the House and the Senate, votes to increase the military budget. It just happens. We don't worry about people sleeping on the street. We don't worry about people who don't have any healthcare. We don't worry about people who can't afford prescription drugs. Every year, the military budget--hey, more money.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over. Tens of thousands of American troops have returned home. Yet the Pentagon's budget continues to go up. Every year, despite sometimes very contentious partisan fights on all manner of things--you name it, big fights going on--Congress somehow comes together very quietly, with little debate, to vote for the one thing they agree on, and that is more and more money for the Pentagon.

Right now, despite all of the enormous needs facing working families in this country, over half of the Federal discretionary budget goes to the military. Got it? Over half of the Federal discretionary budget goes to the military.

I support a strong military. People don't have to convince me why we need a strong military. But I will oppose this legislation, this Defense authorization bill, for four major reasons.

First, more military spending right now is unnecessary. The United States remains the world's dominant military power and is in no danger of losing that position. Alone, we account for roughly 40 percent of global military spending. This comes despite the end of the war in Afghanistan and despite the fact that the United States now spends more on the military than the next 10 countries combined, most of which are our allies. We spend more than the next 10 countries combined, most of which are our allies. Last year, we spent more than 3 times what China is spending on the military, and more than 10 times what Russia spent.

While this year's National Defense Authorization Act would merely match the Pentagon's recordbreaking request, in most recent years, Congress has seen fit to give the Department of Defense more money than it even asks for. Imagine that. The 85 million people who are uninsured--we don't help them. People can't afford the high cost of prescription drugs--hardly doing anything on that. People sleeping out on the streets--can't do that. Kids can't afford to go to college-- can't do that. But we have, year after year, given the Pentagon more money than they have even requested, requiring them to submit ``wish lists'' of items to Congress; in other words, tell us what more you need.

The Pentagon is routinely given so much taxpayer money that it literally doesn't know what to do with all the money Congress has thrown at them. According to the Government Accountability Office, the GAO, over an 11-year

period, the Pentagon returned an astonishing $128 billion in excess funds to the Treasury. In other words, we gave them so much money that they couldn't even spend it, and they had to return some of it.

So that is reason No. 1 why I oppose this legislation.

No. 2, the Pentagon cannot keep track of the dollars it already has, leading to massive waste, fraud, and abuse in the sprawling military- industrial complex. The Pentagon accounts for about two-thirds of all Federal contracting activity, obligating more money every year than all civilian Federal Agencies combined. Yet the Department of Defense remains the only major Federal Agency that cannot pass an independent audit more than 30 years after Congress required them to do so.

So we are throwing hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars into the Pentagon. Thirty years ago, Congress said: We want an audit; we want to know what is going on--a reasonable request. It has only been 30 years, and we still have not gotten an independent audit.

Last year, the Department of Defense was unable to account for over half of its assets, which are in excess of $3 trillion, or roughly 78 percent of what the entire Federal Government owns. The Government Accountability Office, the GAO, reports that the Department of Defense still cannot accurately track its finances or capture and post transactions to the current accounts.

Each year, auditors find billions of dollars in the Pentagon's proverbial couch cushions--just money lying around, you know, that pops up here and there. In fiscal 2022, Navy auditors found $4.4 billion in untracked inventory--couldn't find it, but there was $4.4 billion-- while Air Force auditors identified $5.2 billion worth of variances in its general ledger.

These problems are why Senator Grassley and I have again introduced our Audit the Pentagon Act, with a number of cosponsors, which would force the Pentagon to get serious about their shortcomings by reducing by 1 percent the budget of any DOD component that cannot pass an audit. I don't think that is an unreasonable request.

A meaningful effort to address this waste should be undertaken before Congress throws more money at the Pentagon. Yet this absolutely necessary oversight is again missing from this bill. So it doesn't matter. Next year, we will learn that tens and tens of billions of dollars can't be accounted for. So what is the problem?

In June, the GAO found that in the preceding year, 1 single year, DOD's largest acquisition programs had seen cost estimates rise by $37 billion. It goes on and on and on. They come up with an estimate for a weapons system, and then they say: Oh, sorry, it turns out it is going to cost a lot more than we told you. This comes after decades in which we spent more than $2 trillion on ill-considered wars, in my view, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Somehow, despite this incredible record of waste and fraud, the military-industrial complex escapes meaningful scrutiny.

The third point I want to make in opposition is that much of this additional military spending will go to line the pockets of hugely profitable defense contractors. It is corporate welfare by a different name. Almost half of the Pentagon budget goes to private contractors, some of whom are exploiting their monopoly positions and the trust granted them by the United States to line their pockets. Repeated investigations by the DOD inspector general, the GAO, and CBS News have uncovered numerous instances of contractors massively overcharging the Department of Defense, helping boost these companies' profit margins to nearly 40 percent and sometimes as high as over 4,000 percent, while costing U.S. taxpayers hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. TransDigm, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon are among the offenders, dramatically overcharging taxpayers, while reaping enormous profits, seeing their stock prices soar, and handing out massive executive compensation packages.

Just one example, Lockheed Martin received $46 billion in unclassified Federal contracts last year, returned $11 billion to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks, and paid its CEO $25 million. These companies are fully reliant on the U.S. taxpayer, yet their CEOs make over 100 times more than the Secretary of Defense and 500 percent more than the average newly enlisted servicemember.

TransDigm, the company behind the over 4,000-percent markup on spare parts, touted $3.1 billion in profits on $5.4 billion of net sales, almost boasting to investors about just how fully it was fleecing the taxpayers.

Indeed, over the past two decades, major defense contractors have paid billions of dollars in fines or related settlements for fraud or misconduct. Almost every major defense contractor has had to pay fines for fraud or misconduct. Just the other day--people may have seen it in the papers--the consulting firm of Booz Allen Hamilton was fined $377 million for overcharging the Defense Department. Yet these contracts never dry up.

That is why I introduced an amendment to this year's NDAA to require the Secretary of Defense to produce an updated report on defense contractor fraud. That amendment was not included in what we will be voting on.

Here is maybe the major point that I want to make: If the pandemic, the COVID pandemic, has taught us anything--and let us not forget for one minute that that pandemic cost us over 1 million lives--it is that national security relies on much more than just a strong military.

It is funny, as chairman of the HELP Committee, a couple of months ago, we had those people who are responsible for protecting this country against future pandemics before us. And the question that everybody asked them, Democrat and Republican, is: Hey, are we prepared for the next pandemic that is likely to come? Without exception, the leaders of the government Agencies whose job is to protect us for the next pandemic said: No, we are not prepared.

By the way, there are some right now who want to take money away from the Centers for Disease Control in this particular bill.

The point is that when you lose over 1 million people to a pandemic and when the scientists tell us there is a good chance that another one may come, that is a national security issue.

True security--if we are really looking at what true security is about--it means everything that we can do to improve the lives of ordinary Americans.

True security is that we address the crisis of a declining life expectancy. The gap between the lifespan of the wealthy and the working class is over 10 years. If you are working class in this country, you are going to die 10 years shorter than the wealthy. Is that not an issue of national security? Do we not want to make sure that all of our people, whether they are rich or poor or middle class, have the right to live full and productive and healthy lives? I think so. That is called national security.

National security has to do with the issue of education for our kids. How are we secure if our young people, from childcare to graduate school, are not getting the quality of education?

There are millions of children who today, in America, as we speak, are food insecure. There are days that go by when they are hungry. How do we talk about national security and not talk about the crisis of childhood hunger, not to mention childhood poverty in general?

How do we talk about national security when people are sleeping out on the street?

How do we, in any sense of the word, talk about national security without understanding the weather in Texas, in the southwest, is now hitting recordbreaking levels? People are dying from the heat. Oceans are getting hotter. We are looking at drought. We are looking at extreme weather disturbances. My own State, just several weeks ago, experienced the worst natural disaster, torrential rainfalls that we haven't seen since 1927. That is national security. Whether people get forced out of their homes because of flooding, die from heat stroke-- that is called national security.

This body--the Senate--could decide to have one or two fewer ballistic missile submarines, saving almost $15 billion over the next decade. And we could put that money--and it would go a long way--toward housing the homeless or feeding the 5 million children in this

country who are food insecure. Instead, day after day, here in Washington, many of my colleagues tell the American people that we just don't have the money. We can't do what every other major country on Earth does--guarantee healthcare to all people; we can't provide affordable housing; we can't provide affordable childcare; we can't provide nutrition to kids in America who are hungry. We just can't afford to do any of those things. But come to the military budget and all the lobbyists around here from the defense contractors, my God, we can't stop throwing money at them.

So what I would say is that the time is long overdue for our country to get our national priorities right, and one small step forward would be to say no to this very bloated and wasteful military budget and start reordering our priorities so that we pay attention to the needs of the middle class and working class and low-income people rather than just defense contractors.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, tomorrow morning, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will be marking up three landmark pieces of legislation which will make it easier for workers to form unions, it will guarantee up to 7 paid sick days for every worker in America, and it will make sure that women in our country finally receive equal pay for equal work.

If these bills are signed into law, they would represent the most significant set of labor reforms in the modern history of our country and significantly improve the lives of many millions of American workers.

We are living in a moment where corporate America and the 1 percent have more economic and political power than they have ever had in the history of our country. The time is long overdue for Congress to stand up for the working families of our Nation--60 percent of whom live paycheck to paycheck--and not just wealthy campaign contributors and lobbyists.

Let us be clear. The American people are sick and tired of the unprecedented level of corporate greed they see every single day, and they are tired of the outrageous and illegal union-busting that is taking place throughout this country. They are sick and tired of CEOs making nearly 400 times more than the average worker--unheard of in American history. CEOs of major corporations now make 400 times more than their average employee. The American people are sick and tired of billions in stock buybacks going to the people on top, while millions of Americans today are struggling hard to put food on the table and pay their rent.

The American people want justice, and that is what we are going to begin doing tomorrow in the HELP Committee.

The American people look around them, and they see more income and wealth inequality in America today than ever before. Three people on top have more have wealth than the bottom half of American society--165 million Americans. Three people here, 165 million people, and that gap is growing wider.

While the people on top do phenomenally well, over 18 million families in our country are paying more than half of their limited incomes on housing, which is soaring in many parts of the country, and some 600,000 Americans are homeless.

American workers want to know why--why it is that despite huge advancements in technology and worker productivity, the average worker in America today makes about $50 a week less than he or she made some 50 years ago after adjusting for inflation. In other words, the very rich are getting richer, and the average worker is going nowhere in a hurry.

Now, there are a number of reasons--many, many reasons--why the gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is growing wider and many reasons why wages have remained stagnant. One of the reasons, of course, is that we have a Federal minimum wage today, a starvation wage, of $7.25 an hour--a wage that has lost nearly 30 percent of its purchasing power over the last 14 years.

Raising the minimum wage is something the HELP Committee is going to address in the near future, but probably above and beyond the need to raise the minimum wage, the most important reason that real wages are lower today in America than they were 50 years ago is the fact that corporate America and the billionaire class have been waging a war against the right of working people to exercise their constitutional privilege to form unions, constitutional right to form a union, freedom of assembly. As a result of that aggressive war against union organizing, trade union membership today is at its lowest level in the modern history of America.

In our country today, 71 percent of the American people approve of labor unions. Labor unions today are more popular than they have been in a very long time. Yet, despite that, only 6 percent of private sector workers belong to a union.

Tomorrow, the HELP Committee will be asking why, at a time of recordbreaking corporate profits, why are multibillionaires and CEOs of large corporations doing everything they possibly can to deny the working people of this country the right to join a union. Why? Why in their never-ending greed are they doing all kinds of illegal actions to prevent workers from forming unions and negotiating for decent wages and benefits?

The answer to that question really is not that complicated. Corporate America understands what most people in this country understand, which is that when workers join a union, they earn better wages, they receive better benefits, and they work with better working conditions. In fact, union workers today earn nearly 20 percent more on average than nonunion workers. Corporate America also understands that 64 percent of union workers have a defined benefit pension plan that guarantees an income in retirement, compared to just 11 percent of nonunion workers. Corporate America understands that union workers are half as likely to be victims of health and safety violations compared to nonunion workers.

For all of these reasons--the fact that union workers do better than nonunion workers, have better working conditions, better benefits--all of these reasons and more are why we are seeing a significant uptick in union organizing in America today. In fact, it is higher than we have seen in many decades. Workers understand that when they stand together in solidarity and can negotiate a decent contract, they are going to do a lot better than when they have to go begging to their employer.

So what we are seeing today is more and more union organizing at blue-collar jobs. A couple of months ago, a factory in rural Georgia organized a steelworkers local. We are seeing it at white-collar jobs all over this country. We are seeing it on college campuses.

Furthermore, very interestingly, as healthcare becomes more corporatized in America, we are seeing more and more nurses form unions. We are even seeing doctors form unions. At the University of Vermont Medical Center, among many others, resident doctors voted overwhelmingly to form a union.

With that growth in union organizing, what we are also seeing in this country is a vicious corporate response, and that is that major corporations all across this country are taking unprecedented and illegal actions against employees who are fighting for economic justice. That is why major corporations like Starbucks and Amazon and others have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on union-busting campaigns and anti-union law firms. They hire these fancy consultants at outrageous prices because at the end of the day, they would rather spend millions and millions of dollars trying to prevent workers from forming a union than pay those very same workers decent wages and decent benefits.

Part of the corporate strategy is the reality that over half of all employers in America threaten to close or relocate their businesses if workers vote to form a union. Imagine that. You work for a company for years. You want to form a union, and then your employer says: If you form that union, we are going to China; we are going to Mexico; we are going to leave this State.

That is why, when workers become interested in forming a union, they almost always will be forced to attend closed-door meetings to hear anti-union propaganda. What employers do is bring people into a room, they have all of their executives there, and they tell them how terrible a union would be and the consequences to them if they formed a union.

As Human Rights Watch has said, ``Freedom of association is a right under severe, often buckling pressure when workers in the United States try to exercise it.'' In other words, yes, in America, you have the constitutional right of freedom of assembly. You have the constitutional right to form a union. But if you exercise that right, all kinds of corporate power will be thrown at you to prevent you from succeeding.

Here is something that really is quite incredible: Even when workers overcome all of these incredible obstacles

and when they win their union elections, 63 percent of workers who vote to form a union do not get a union contract a year later. So what corporations do is they do everything they can to stop workers from forming a union. Then, if by some miracle workers vote to form a union, what corporations do is stall and stall and throw all kinds of legal minutia into the process to delay a first contract.

Incredibly, on average, because of corporate obstructionism, it takes 465 days on average to sign a first contract after a union wins an election. Imagine that--well over a year after you win the election can you actually get a contract. One-third of successful organizing campaigns cannot get a contract in the first 3 years after a union victory. That is what corporate obstructionism is about, and that is what corporate greed is about.

All of that is unacceptable. That should not be happening in the United States, and starting tomorrow, the HELP Committee will fight to change that reality by passing the Protecting Workers Right to Organize Act, otherwise known as the PRO Act.

The PRO Act will make it easier for workers to exercise their constitutional right to form a union free from fear, intimidation, or coercion by their corporate bosses.

Look, not every worker in America wants to form a union, and that is part of what freedom in America is about; but if you do want to form a union, you should not be hit with illegal activities to prevent you from doing so. This legislation will make it easier for workers to collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. It will finally hold corporate CEOs accountable for the unprecedented level of illegal union busting that is taking place all over this country.

Under the PRO Act, corporations will finally be held accountable for violating Federal labor law.

Mr. President, incredibly, in America today, corporations are charged with breaking labor law in more than 40 percent of all union elections. And yet--and this is the important point--the penalties for this illegal behavior are virtually nonexistent. In other words, you can break the law with impunity. Pathetically--pathetically--far too many corporations have made the calculated decision that it is much more profitable and beneficial to their bottom line to break the law than to follow the law. Ordinary people follow the law. Average people follow the law--not large corporations. As they have figured out, you can break the law, you can stall this thing out forever, and nothing is going to happen to you.

In fact, the financial penalty for corporations retaliating against pro-union workers in America, today, under current law, is zero--no penalty at all. That will change under the PRO Act. Under this legislation, corporations will be fined up to $50,000 for violations of the National Labor Relations Act and up to $100,000 for each repeated violation. In other words--shock of all shock--large, profitable corporations will have to obey the law. I know that is a very radical concept in America today, but that is what I think should be happening.

Under the PRO Act, we will ban captive audience meetings that are designed to intimidate, coerce, and threaten workers who support forming a union. Under the PRO Act, we will make sure that all workers have a first contract within 1 year after winning a union election to binding arbitration. In other words, it should not take years to work out a first contract. This is nothing more than a stalling tactic on the part of the corporate world.

Under this legislation, we will ban, once and for all, the permanent replacement of workers who go on strike. No longer will companies be able to hire replacement workers or withhold benefits from workers who go on strike to improve their wages and working conditions.

Mr. President, this legislation will override so-called ``right to work'' laws that have eliminated the ability of unions to collect dues from those who benefit from union contracts. This legislation will end the ability of corporations to misclassify workers as independent contractors or label ordinary workers as supervisors to prevent them from organizing.

And yet, Mr. President, that is not all that the HELP Committee will be doing tomorrow. The second bill that we will be marking up is the Healthy Families Act, which will end, once and for all, the international embarrassment of the United States of America being the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid sick days to workers. This legislation would guarantee that every worker in America receives up to 7 paid sick days from their employers.

You know, we hear a lot of talk here in this town about family values. Everybody is deeply concerned, presumably, about family values. So let me be clear: When a wife is diagnosed with cancer and a husband cannot get time off of work in order to take care of her or spend time with her when she is struggling with cancer, that is not a family value. That is, in fact, an attack on everything that a family is supposed to stand for.

When a working mom is forced to send her sick child to school because she cannot afford to stay home with that child, that is not a family value. That is also an attack on everything that a family is supposed to stand for.

I don't think it is a terribly radical suggestion that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, in 2023, people should not get fired because they stay home with sick children.

Let us be clear: The United States of America is the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee 1 single day of paid sick days--not one.

In Germany, workers are entitled to a total of 6 weeks of sick days at 100 percent of their salary. In France, workers are entitled to a total of 90 days of paid sick leave at 50 percent of their salary. In Denmark, workers are entitled to at least 30 days of paid sick leave capped at about $638 per week. In Canada, workers are entitled to 10 paid sick days at 100 percent of their salary and are eligible to receive 26 weeks of paid sick benefits at up to 55 percent of their salary. That is what Germany does, France does, Canada does--countries all over the world do.

In the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, workers are entitled--workers are guaranteed a total of zero paid sick days. That's the reality, and that, my friends, has got to change. Last place is no place for the United States of America. We can't go around telling people we are the greatest country on Earth and be the only major country that doesn't guarantee 1 day of paid sick leave.

It is time for the United States of America to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee at least 7 paid sick days to every worker in America. And in doing that, we will still be way behind most of the industrialized countries.

Just a few months ago, the American people learned about what railworkers in this country were going through and the fact that they, as workers doing difficult, dangerous work, often in inclement weather, were not guaranteed one single day of paid sick leave--and we had a big discussion on that. I offered an amendment on that issue, which failed. But I am happy to tell you that as a result of a strong grassroots trade union movement and, I think, the railroad companies getting a sense of how the American people feel--that is beginning to change.

Today, unlike a few months ago, over 50,000 railworkers are now guaranteed up to 7 days of paid sick leave. And I have the feeling that in the weeks and months to come, more and more railroad workers will get that benefit. We need to build on that momentum by guaranteeing 7 paid sick days, not just to rail workers, but to every worker in America.

Last but not least, the third bill that the HELP Committee will be voting on tomorrow is the Paycheck Fairness Act introduced by Senator Murray. This legislation would end the absurdity--the unfairness--of women in America being paid just 84 cents on the dollar compared to men. As bad as that figure is, 16 percent less for women than for men, it is even worse--much worse--for women of color. In America today, Asian women make just 80 cents for every dollar a man earns; for black women, it is just 67 cents; and for Hispanic women and Native American women, it is just 57 cents.

So, I don't think it is too much to ask in this country that people be paid equal pay for equal work, no matter

who you are. And the truth is, of course, the current situation does not have to be that way.

In Belgium, another industrialized country, the gender wage gap is just 1.2 percent. Women make virtually the same amount as men do. In Spain, Norway, and Denmark, the gender wage gap is 5 percent or less-- women make 95 percent of what men make. Across the European Union, the gap is just 10.6 percent, and in the United States, it is 16 percent.

The Paycheck Fairness Act would close this gap by guaranteeing equal pay for equal work and making it easier for women to come together to file and win lawsuits against unscrupulous employers who commit wage discrimination.

These bills are not only good policies, they are precisely what the American people want. According to the last polls I have seen, 87 percent of the American people support guaranteeing paid sick leave to every worker in our country; 84 percent of the American people support equal pay for equal work; and 59 percent of the American people support the PRO Act.

The bottom line is that most Americans understand we live in a rigged economy. People on top are doing phenomenally well--have never done better. Ordinary workers are struggling to put food on the table, to purchase the healthcare they need, to take care of their families, to send their kids to college, to take some time off for a vacation. That is not what America is supposed to be about.

Tomorrow, the HELP Committee begins the difficult and long journey of beginning to bring justice to the working class of this country and tell the CEOs and the corporate executives and the 1 percent that they cannot have it all, that this economy has got to work for working people and not just for the people on top.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I support the nomination of Glenna Wright-Gallo to be Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the Department of Education. Ms. Wright- Gallo has more than 25 years of public education experience supporting students with disabilities and 16 years of experience as a policy leader in State special education programs. She is currently a guest instructor at the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, NV. Before that, she served as the Assistant Superintendent of Special Education Services for the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction-- OSPI--in Washington State. During her tenure, she successfully secured an additional $155 million for state special education programs, $37 million for improvement of statewide inclusionary practices, $12 million for paraeducator training, and $60,000 to reduce the use of restraint and seclusion.

Prior to her position at OSPI, Ms. Gallo spent 7 years as the State director of special education for the Utah State Board of Education. She has also twice served as the president of the National Association of State Directors of Education.

Earlier this year, the Committee on Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, which I chair, reported her out of committee by a bipartisan vote. Ms. Wright-Gallo is a strong, dedicated advocate for special education services and supports and understands the unique challenges that children and youth with disabilities face. She will make an excellent Assistant Secretary, and I urge my colleagues to support her nomination.

Reserving the right to object.

Senator Hagerty's bill aims to expand the use of title 42 to restrict the entry of people and goods from countries where ``substantial'' drug smuggling exists.

I am very concerned about the increased use of fentanyl in this country. Everybody is. As you just heard, we have seen over 100,000 Americans die from drug overdoses in the last year alone. Unfortunately, this isn't the way to address this problem. Title 42 is a public health authority, and the use of it should be dictated by public health experts.

Instead of proposing real solutions to address drug trafficking based on what will keep people safe, some of my Republican colleagues want to use title 42 as a political stunt to keep out people seeking asylum. I welcome the opportunity to work with my Republican colleagues on serious solutions to address drug trafficking. Unfortunately, this is not one of them.

I object.